uped together before the king's tent, and then
mentally added to them those who might be present at the interview
proceeding within--mechanically withdrawing herself, while thus
occupied, nearer and nearer to the waste ground before the city walls.

Gradually she turned her face towards Rome: she was realising a daring
purpose, a fatal resolution, long cherished during the days and nights
of her solitary wanderings. 'The ranks of the embassy,' she muttered,
in a deep, thoughtful tone, 'are thickly filled. Where there are many
there must be confusion and haste; they march together, and know not
their own numbers; they mark not one more or one less among them.'

She stopped. Strange and dark changes of colour and expression passed
over her ghastly features. She drew from her bosom the bloody
helmet-crest of her husband, which had never quitted her since the day
of his death; her face grew livid under an awful expression of rage,
ferocity, and despair, as she gazed on it. Suddenly she looked up at
the city--fierce and defiant, as if the great walls before her were
mortal enemies against whom she stood at bay in the death-struggle.

'The widowed and the childless shall drink of thy blood!' she cried,
stretching out her skinny hand towards Rome, 'though the armies of her
nation barter their wrongs with thy people for bags of silver and gold!
I have pondered on it in my solitude, and dreamed of it in my dreams!
I have sworn that I would enter Rome, and avenge my slaughtered
kindred, alone among thousands! Now, now, I will hold to my oath!
Thou blood-stained city of the coward and the traitor, the enemy of the
defenceless, and the murderer of the weak! thou who didst send forth to
Aquileia the slayers of my husband and the assassins of my children, I
wait no longer before thy walls! This day will I mingle, daring all
things, with thy returning citizens and penetrate, amid Romans, the
gates of Rome! Through the day will I lurk, cunning and watchful, in
thy solitary haunts, to steal forth on thee at nights, a secret
minister of death! I will watch for thy young and thy weak once in
unguarded places; I will prey, alone in the thick darkness, upon thy
unprotected lives; I will destroy thy children, as their fathers
destroyed at Aquileia the children of the Goths! Thy rabble will
discover me and arise against me; they will tear me in pieces and
trample my mangled body on the pavement of the streets; but it will be
after