n, tossing his
money carelessly in his great, horny hands.

'Did you see him go?' gasped the woman.

'I tracked him to the house,' returned the barbarian. 'For many nights
I watched and suspected him--to-night I saw him depart. It is but a
short time since I returned from following him. The darkness did not
delude me; the place is on the high-road from the suburbs--the first
by-path to the westward leads to its garden gate. I know it! I have
discovered his secret! I am more cunning than he!'

'For what did he seek the farm-house at night?' demanded Goisvintha
after an interval, during which she appeared to be silently fixing the
man's last speech in her memory; 'are you cunning enough to tell me
that?'

'For what do men venture their safety and their lives, their money and
their renown?' laughed the barbarian. 'They venture them for women!
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. Remembering that she was
descended from a race of women who slew their wounded husbands,
brothers, and sons with their own hands when they sought them after
battle dishonoured by a defeat; remembering that the fire of the old
ferocity of such ancestors as these still burnt at her heart;
remembering all that she had hoped from Hermanric, and had plotted
against Antonina; estimating in all its importance the shock of the
intelligence she now received, we are alike unwilling and unable to
describe her emotions at this moment. For some time the stillness in
the room was interrupted by no sounds but the rolling of the thunder
without, the quick, convulsive respiration of Goisvintha, and the
clinking of the money which the Hun still continued to toss
mechanically from hand to hand.

'I shall reap good harvest of gold and silver after to-night's work,'
pursued the barbarian, suddenly breaking the silence. 'You have given
me money to speak--when the chief returns and hears that I have
discovered him, he will give me money to be silent. I shall drink
to-morrow with the best men in the army, Hun though I am!'

He returned to his seat as he ceased, and began beating in monotonous
measure, with one of his pieces of money on the blade of his sword,
some chorus of a favourite drinking song; while Goisvintha, standing
pale and breathless near the door of the chamber, looked down on him
with fixed, vacant eyes. At length a deep sigh broke from her; her
han