nature, to lure it to mercy or awe it to repentance.
Invigorated by delay, and enlarged by disappointment, the evil passion
that consumed her had strengthened its power, and aroused the most
latent of its energies, during the silent vigil that she had just held.
She had detested the girl on the evening before, for her nation; she
now hated her for herself.

'What have you to do with the trappings of a Gothic warrior?' she
cried, in mocking accents, pointing at Hermanric with a long
hunting-knife which she held in her hand. 'Why are you here in a
Gothic encampment? Go, knock at the gates of Rome, implore her guards
on your knees to admit you among the citizens, and when they ask you
why--show them the girl there! Tell them that you love her, that you
would wed her, that it is nothing to you that her people have murdered
your brother and his children! And then, when you yourself have
begotten sons, Gothic bastards infected with Roman blood, be a Roman at
heart yourself, send your children forth to complete what your wife's
people left undone at Aquileia--by murdering me!'

She paused and laughed scornfully. Then her humour suddenly changed,
she advanced a few steps, and continued in a louder and sterner tone:--

'You have broken your faith; you have lied to me; you have forgotten
your wrongs and mine; but you have not yet forgotten my parting words
when I left you last night! I told you that she should be slain, and
now that you have refused to avenge me, I will make good my words by
killing her with my own hand! If you would defend her, you must murder
me. You must shed her blood or mine!'

She stepped forward, her towering form was stretched to its highest
stature, the muscles started into action on her bare arms as she raised
them above her head. For one instant, she fixed her glaring eyes
steadily on the girl's shrinking form--the next, she rushed up and
struck furiously with the knife at her bare neck. As the weapon
descended, Hermanric caught her wrist. She struggled violently to
disengage herself from his grasp, but in vain.

The countenance of the young warrior grew deadly pale, as he held her.
For a few minutes he glanced eagerly round the tent, in an agony of
bewilderment and despair. The conflicting interests of his duty
towards his sister, and his anxiety for Antonina's preservation, filled
his heart to distraction. A moment more he hesitated, and during that
short delay, the despotism of cu