elp the Romans
against his rival, unless they swore perpetual enmity against him.

They did so, and he marched to the assistance of the wretched Empire. He
was to be met by Roman reinforcements at the Haemus. They never came;
and the Amal, disgusted and disheartened, found himself entangled in the
defiles of the Haemus, starving and worn out; with the One-eyed
entrenched on an inaccessible rock, where he dared not attack him.

Then followed an extraordinary scene. The One-eyed came down again and
again from his rock, and rode round the Amal's camp, shouting to him
words so true, that one must believe them to have been really spoken.

'Perjured boy, madman, betrayer of your race--do you not see that the
Roman plan is as always to destroy Goths by Goths? Whichever of us
falls, they, not we, will be the stronger. They never met you as they
promised, at the cities, nor here. They have sent you out here to perish
in the desert.'

Then the East Goths raised a cry. 'The One-eyed is right. The Amal
cares not that these men are Goths like ourselves.'

Then the One-eyed appeals to the Goths themselves, as he curses the Amal.

'Why are you killing your kinsmen? Why have you made so many widows?
Where is all their wealth gone, they who set out to fight for you? Each
of them had two or three horses: but now they are walking on foot behind
you like slaves,--free-men as well-born as yourself:--and you promised to
measure them out gold by the bushel.'

Was it not true? If young Dietrich had in him (and he shewed that he had
in after years) a Teuton's heart, may not that strange interview have
opened his eyes to his own folly, and taught him that the Teuton must be
his own master, and not the mercenary of the Romans?

The men cried out that it was true. He must make peace with the
One-eyed, or they would do it themselves; and peace was made. They both
sent ambassadors to Zeno; the Amal complaining of treachery; the One-eyed
demanding indemnity for all his losses. The Emperor was furious. He
tried to buy off the Amal by marrying him to a princess of the blood
royal, and making him a Caesar. Dietrich would not consent; he felt that
it was a snare. Zeno proclaimed the One-eyed an enemy to the Empire; and
ended by reinstating him in his old honours, and taking them from the
Amal. The Amal became furious, burnt villages, slaughtered the peasants,
even (the Greeks say) cut off the hands of his captives. He had broken