resent position, which will be shown
you by a guide. Make ready at once--you have not an instant to delay.'

As the words passed the old man's lips, Hermanric turned and looked on
Goisvintha. During the presence of the Goths in the tent, she had sat
listening to their rough jeers in suppressed wrath and speechless
disdain; now she rose and advanced a few steps. But there suddenly
appeared an unwonted hesitation in her gait; her face was pale; she
breathed fast and heavily. 'Where will you shelter her now?' she
cried, addressing Hermanric, and threatening the girl with her
outstretched hands. 'Abandon her to your companions, or leave her to
me; she is lost either way! I shall triumph--triumph!'--

At this moment her voice sank to an unintelligible murmur; she tottered
where she stood. It was evident that the long strife of passions
during her past night of watching, and the fierce and varying emotions
of the morning, suddenly brought to a crisis, as they had been, by her
exultation when she heard the old warrior's fatal message, had at
length overtasked the energies even of her powerful frame. Yet one
moment more she endeavoured to advance, to speak, to snatch the hunting
knife from Hermanric's hand; the next she fell insensible at his feet.

Goaded almost to madness by the successive trials that he had
undergone; Goisvintha's furious determination to thwart him, still
present to his mind; the scornful words of his companions yet ringing
in his ears; his inexorable duties demanding his attention without
reserve or delay; Hermanric succumbed at last under the difficulties of
his position, and despairingly abandoned all further hope of effecting
the girl's preservation. Pointing to some food that lay in a corner of
the tent, and to the country behind, he said to her, in broken and
gloomy accents, 'Furnish yourself with those provisions, and fly, while
Goisvintha is yet unable to pursue you. I can protect you no longer!'

Until this moment, Antonina had kept her face hidden, and had remained
still crouching on the ground; motionless, save when a shudder ran
through her frame as she listened to the loud, coarse jesting of the
Goths; and speechless, except that when Goisvintha sank senseless to
the earth, she uttered an exclamation of terror. But now, when she
heard the sentence of her banishment proclaimed by the very lips which
but the evening before had assured her of shelter and protection, she
rose up insta