fixed on the Pagan, whom she instinctively
doubted and dreaded, whose purpose in keeping captive the father and
daughter she could not divine; her next was directed on Antonina.

The girl's position was a guarded one; still holding her father's hand,
she was partly protected by his body; and stood unconsciously beneath
the arm of Ulpius, as it was raised while he grasped Numerian's
shoulder. Marking this, and remembering that Antonina had twice
escaped her already, Goisvintha hesitated for a moment, and then, with
cautious step and lowering brow, began to retire again towards the
doorway of the building. 'Not yet--not yet the time!' she muttered, as
she resumed her former lurking-place; 'they stand where the light is
over them--the girl is watched and shielded--the two men are still on
either side of her! Not yet the moment of the blow; the stroke of the
knife must be sure and safe! Sure, for this time she must die by my
hand! Safe, for I have other vengeance to wreak besides the vengeance
on her! I, who have been patient and cunning since the night when I
escaped from Aquileia, will be patient and cunning still! If she
passes the door, I slay her as she goes out; if she remains in the
temple--'

At the last word, Goisvintha paused and gazed upward; the setting sun
threw its fiery glow over her haggard face; her eye brightened fiercely
in the full light as she looked. 'The darkness is at hand!' she
continued; 'the night will be thick and black in the dim halls of the
temple; I shall see her when she shall not see me!--the darkness is
coming; the vengeance is sure!'

She closed her lips, and with fatal perseverance continued to watch and
wait, as she had resolutely watched and waited already. The Roman and
the Goth; the opposite in sex, nation, and fate; the madman who dreamed
of the sanguinary superstitions of Paganism before the temple altar,
and the assassin who brooded over the chances of bloodshed beneath the
temple portico, were now united in a mysterious identity of
expectation, uncommunicated and unsuspected by either--the hour when
the sun vanished from the heaven was the hour of the sacrifice for both!

* * * * *

There is now a momentary pause in the progress of events. Occurrences
to be hereafter related render it necessary to take advantage of this
interval to inform the reader of the real nature and use of the vault
in the temple wall, the external appearance of which