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The mother, while Lord Clancharlie was becoming an owl in Switzerland, made up her mind, being a beauty, to give over sulking, and was forgiven that Goth, her first lover, by one undeniably polished and at the same time a royalist, for it was the king himself.
'But there is Pelagia in the way. 'Put her out of the way, then. 'Impossible. 'It was this morning; a week hence it may not be. I heard a promise made to-night which will do it, if there be the spirit of a Goth left in the poor besotted lad whom we know of. 'Oh, he is all right at heart; never fear him. But what was the promise? 'I will not tell till it is claimed.
"What then, O King, will you leave us?" asked our amazed ambassadors. "YOUR LIVES!" answered the implacable Goth. Hearing this, even the resolute Basilius and the wise Johannes despaired. They asked time to communicate with the Senate, and left the camp of the enemy without further delay. Such was the end of the embassy; such the arrogant ferocity of the barbarian foe!
The solemnity of his voice, the rough energy of his words, the stern determination of his aspect, the darkness of the night that was round them, the rolling thunder that seemed to join itself to their discourse, the impressive mystery of their meeting under the city walls, all began to exert their powerful and different influences over the mind of the Goth, changing insensibly the sentiments at first inspired in him by the man's communications.
But for that tale of just and terrible retribution you must wait till the next lecture. And now, to refresh us with a gleam of wholesome humanity after all these horrors, let us turn to our worthy West Goth cousins for a while. They have stopt cutting each other's throats, settled themselves in North Spain and South France, and good bishop Sidonius gets to like them.
The athletic limbs, the fair complexion, the curling yellow hair of one proclaimed the Goth; he lightly swung his huge sword in his right hand, and looked as if his sole arm would easily put to flight the crowd of effeminate spectators.
The sound of his trumpets, the tramp of his steeds, the voice of his heralds, simultaneously reached the multitude; and, ere they had leisure to decide their course, the king was in the midst of them. "What madness is this, O my people?" cried Boabdil, spurring into the midst of the throng, "whither would ye go?" "Against the Christian! against the Goth!" shouted a thousand voices. "Lead us on!
Very different from the tomb of Dante, and different in the associations it awakes, is the Rotunda or Mausoleum of Theodoric the Goth, outside the Porta Serrata, whose daughter, Amalasuntha, as it is supposed, about the year 530, erected this imposing structure as a certain place "to keep his memory whole and mummy hid" for ever.
Among the high-born women it was regarded as degrading to assume the costume of the nun, but she bore the scorn of her social equals with humility and grace. This quiet and useful life was rudely and abruptly ended by a dreadful catastrophe. Alaric the Goth had seized and sacked Rome. The world stood aghast.
Gainas the Goth, who commanded the legions, slew Rufinus in the presence of Arcadius, who abandoned himself at Constantinople to the influence of the eunuch Eutropius, most celebrated for introducing Chrysostom to the court. The eunuch minister soon after was murdered in a tumult, and Arcadius was then governed by his wife Eudoxia, who secured the banishment of Chrysostom.
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