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He turned towards Goisvintha as the idea crossed his mind, and observed that she was still occupied in meditation. Assured by the sight, that she had not yet observed the fugitive figure, he again directed his attention with an excess of anxiety which he could hardly account for in the direction where he had first beheld it, but it was no more to be seen.
'You do this but to tempt me to anger, said Goisvintha, altering her manner with sudden and palpable cunning, more ominous of peril to the fugitive than the fury she had hitherto displayed. 'You jest at me, because I have failed in patience, like a child! But you will shed her blood you are honourable and will hold to your promise you will shed her blood!
But now the farm-house garden is left solitary, the haunting spirit of evil has departed from the grave, the footsteps of Goisvintha have traced to their close the same paths from the suburbs over which the young Goth once eagerly hastened on his night journey of love; and already the walls of Rome rise dark, near, and hateful before her eyes.
Can a woman of the Goths be silent when she stands before the city of Rome? 'I came hither to behold Rome pillaged, and Romans slaughtered; what is Rome blockaded to me? replied Goisvintha fiercely. 'The treasures within that city will buy its safety from our King, as soon as the tremblers on the ramparts gain heart enough to penetrate a Gothic camp.
When I return on the morrow I shall see her in the tent. You cannot escape from your promise; you cannot forget it, you must shed her blood! 'The commands of the king, said the old warrior, signing to his party to depart with Goisvintha, who now stood with forced calmness awaiting their guidance: 'will be communicated to the chieftain Hermanric on the morrow.
The beauteous Ingundis, who was no more than thirteen years of age, was received, beloved, and persecuted, in the Arian court of Toledo; and her religious constancy was alternately assaulted with blandishments and violence by Goisvintha, the Gothic queen, who abused the double claim of maternal authority.
But in those few moments the scene in the building changed once more. The madman, while he still wavered between relapsing into the raving fit and continuing under the influence of the tranquil mood in which he had been prematurely disturbed, caught sight of Goisvintha when her approach suddenly shadowed the entrance to the temple.
There is a girl at the farm-house; I saw her at the door when the chief went in! He paused; but Goisvintha made no answer.
Suspicion, the only refined emotion in a criminal heart, half discovered to Goisvintha, at this moment, the intelligence that was yet to be communicated. No word, however, escaped her, while she signed the barbarian to proceed. 'He has gone to a farm-house on the plains beyond the suburbs behind us.
Thus secretly exulting, he now remained inactive. Absorbed in his wandering meditations, he delayed to trace the subterranean passages leading to the iron grating where the corpse of Goisvintha lay washed by the waters, as they struggled onward through the bars, and waiting but his hand to be cast into the river, where all past sacrifices had been engulphed before it.