ntly, cast on the young Goth a glance of such speechless
misery and despair, that he involuntarily quailed before it; and then,
without a tear or a sigh, without a look of reproach, or a word of
entreaty, petrified and bowed down beneath a perfect trance of terror
and grief, she left the tent.

Hurrying his actions with the reckless energy of a man determined on
banishing his thoughts by his employments, Hermanric placed himself at
the head of his troop, and marched quickly onwards in an eastward
direction past the Pincian Gate. Two of his attendants who happened to
enter the tent after his departure, observing Goisvintha still extended
on the earth, proceeded to transport her to part of the camp occupied
by the women who were attached to the army; and then, the little
sheltering canopy which made the abode of the Goth, and which had
witnessed so large a share of human misery and so fierce a war of human
contention in so few hours, was left as silent and lonely as the
deserted country in which Antonina was now fated to seek a refuge and a
home.

CHAPTER 12.

THE PASSAGE OF THE WALL.

'A fair night this, Balbus! All moonlight and no mist! I was posted
last evening at the Ostian Gate, and was half choked by the fog.'

'If you were posted last night at the Ostian Gate, you were better
placed than you are now. The ramparts here are as lonely as a ruin in
the provinces. Nothing behind us but the back of the Pincian Mount;
nothing before us but the empty suburbs; nothing at each side of us but
brick and stone; nothing at our posts but ourselves. May I be
crucified like St. Peter, if I believe that there is another place on
the whole round of the walls possessed of such solitary dulness as
this!'

'You are a man to find something to complain of, if you were lodged in
one of the palaces yonder. The place is solitary enough, it is true;
but whether it is dull or not depends on ourselves, its most honourable
occupants. I, for one, am determined to promote its joviality by the
very praiseworthy exertion of obliging you, my discontented friend,
with an inexhaustible series of those stories for which, I may say,
without arrogance, I am celebrated throughout the length and breadth of
all the barracks of Rome.'

'You may tell as many stories as you please, but do not imagine that I
will make one of your audience.'

'You are welcome to attend to me or not, as you choose. Though you do
not listen, I shall still r