is side, his head drooped upon his breast, and he moaned
out in low, vacant tones, 'The restoration of the gods--that is the
condition of conquest--the restoration of the gods!'

'I come not hither to be the tool of a frantic and forgotten
priesthood,' cried Alaric disdainfully. 'Wherever I meet with your
accursed idols I will melt them down into armour for my warriors and
shoes for my horses; I will turn your temples into granaries and cut
your images of wood into billets for the watchfires of my hosts!'

'Slay me and be silent!' groaned the man, staggering back against the
side of the tent, and shrinking under the merciless words of the Goth
like a slave under the lash.

'I leave the shedding of such blood as yours to your fellow Romans,'
answered the king; 'they alone are worthy of the deed.'

No syllable of reply now escaped the stranger's lips, and after an
interval of silence Alaric resumed, in tones divested of their former
fiery irritation, and marked by a solemn earnestness that conferred
irresistible dignity and force on every word that he uttered.

'Behold the characters engraven there!' said he, pointing to the
shield; 'they trace the curse denounced by Odin against the great
oppressor, Rome! Once these words made part of the worship of our
fathers; the worship has long since vanished, but the words remain;
they seal the eternal hatred of the people of the North to the people
of the South; they contain the spirit of the great destiny that has
brought me to the walls of Rome. Citizen of a fallen empire, the
measure of your crimes is full! The voice of a new nation calls
through me for the freedom of the earth, which was made for man, and
not for Romans! The rule that your ancestors won by strength their
posterity shall no longer keep by fraud. For two hundred years, hollow
and unlasting truces have alternated with long and bloody wars between
your people and mine. Remembering this, remembering the wrongs of the
Goths in their settlements in Thrace, the murder of the Gothic youths
in the towns of Asia, the massacre of the Gothic hostages in Aquileia,
I come--chosen by the supernatural decrees of Heaven--to assure the
freedom and satisfy the wrath of my nation, by humbling at its feet the
power of tyrannic Rome! It is not for battle and bloodshed that I am
encamped before yonder walls. It is to crush to the earth, by famine
and woe, the pride of your people and the spirit of your rulers; to
tear fr