discovered that loyalty was more likely to prosper than treason. He
therefore joined the army of France under Grimwold, and in the battle
which succeeded the Greek forces were entirely routed, and Adalgisus
disappears from the busy scene.

The empire of Charlemagne was next to be assailed by the Huns, not the
same people whose fathers had fought under Attila, though probably
descended from the same stock. Upon the death of that ferocious
conqueror, the tribes whom his talents had kept united, again
sundered. Shortly afterward a warlike nation, calling themselves
Avars, approached the northern parts of Europe, having been driven
from their native country by the Turks. They spread rapidly, acquiring
territory and power, until they were invited by Tassilo to aid him in
his meditated treachery. They lost more than one battle against the
Franks, but neither their own defeat, nor the total overthrow of their
ally, made any change in their purposes. They persisted; fought a hard
battle, and were so utterly routed, that they drew back and remained
quiet for a while, in order to collect their strength before venturing
upon a fresh contest with their tremendous adversary, who, on his
part, was no less desirous of a respite for the same object. Little
rest, however, was allowed him. No sooner had he beaten back these
Huns, than he had to contend with a new enemy, the Weletabes, a
Slavonian tribe inhabiting the northern part of Germany, near
Brandenburg and Pomerania, from the Elbe to the Baltic. In themselves
they might not have excited much alarm, but, if they met with only a
temporary success, their example might have been fatal, by rousing the
Saxons, who still with reluctance submitted to the yoke imposed upon
them. The king, therefore, without loss of time, met and defeated the
Weletabes; when he received them into grace, and ever afterward found
them faithful.

Having freed himself from this peril, Charlemagne next found that he
must turn his arms against the Huns of Hungary, which appears to have
been defended by them after a singular fashion. The whole country was
surrounded by nine circles of double palisading, formed of trunks of
trees twenty feet in height. The interstices of the palisade were
twenty feet wide, filled with stone and lime compacted, the top being
covered with earth, and planted with shrubs. At the distance of twenty
Teutonic, or forty Italian miles, was a second fortified line of the
same kind; and t