lows beneath
my icy beard with pure love, with stubborn pride, and with defiant
sorrow? What but the impulse that lies indestructible in our blood,
the deep impulsion and attraction to my people, the glowing and
all-powerful love of the race that is called Goth; that speaks the
noble, sweet, and homely tongue of my parents! This love of race
remains like a sacrificial fire in the heart, when all other flames are
extinguished; this is the highest sentiment of the human heart; the
strongest power in the human soul, true to the death and invincible!"

The old man had spoken with enthusiasm--his hair floated on the
wind--he stood like an old priest of the Huns amongst the young men,
who clenched their hands upon their weapons.

At last Teja spoke: "Thou art in the right; these flames still glow
when all else is spent. They burn in thee--in us--perhaps in a hundred
other hearts amongst our brothers; but can this save a whole people?
No! And can these fires seize the mass, the thousands, the hundred
thousands?"

"They can, my son, they can! Thanks to the gods, that they can!--Hear
me. It is now five-and-forty years ago that we Goths, many hundred
thousands, were shut up with our wives and children in the ravines of
the Haemus. We were in the greatest need.

"The King's brother had been beaten and killed in a treacherous attack
by the Greeks, and all the provisions that he was to bring to us were
lost. We lay in the rocky ravines and suffered such hunger, that we
cooked grass and leather. Behind us rose the inaccessible precipices;
before, and to the left of us, the sea; to the right, in a narrow pass,
lay the enemy, threefold our number. Many thousands of us were
destroyed by famine or the hardships of the winter; twenty times had we
vainly tried to break through the pass.

"We almost despaired. Then there came a messenger from the Emperor to
the King, and offered us life, freedom, wine, bread, meat--under one
condition: that, separated from each other, four by four, we should be
scattered over the whole Roman Empire; none of us should ever again woo
a Gothic woman; none should ever again teach his child our tongue or
customs; the name and being of Goth should cease to exist, we should
become Romans.

"The King sprang up, called us together, and reported this condition
to us in a flaming speech, and asked at the end, whether we would
rather give up the language, customs and life of our people, or die
with him? His wor