g streaming snowy hair and beard, his face stern with
grief and passion, and both his knotted hands crossed upon the
handle of a mighty battle-axe.

The King had evidently been explaining to him the terms of the
Bishop's letter, for the first words that met the ear of AEmilius
were--

"Nay, I say nay, King Euric. Were I to receive treble the weight of
gold, how should that enable me to face my son in the halls of Odin,
with his blood unavenged?"

There was a murmur, and the King exclaimed--

"Now, now, Odo, we know no more of Odin."

"Odin knows us no more," retorted the old man, "since we have washed
ourselves in the Name of another than the mighty Thor, and taken up
the weakly worship of the conquered. So my son would have it! He
talked of a new Valhal of the Christian; but let him meet me where
he will, he shall not reproach me that he only of all his brethren
died unavenged. Where is the slayer? Set him before me that I may
strike him dead with one blow!"

Lucius crossed himself, looked upwards, and was stepping forwards,
when Verronax with a shout of 'Hold!' leapt into the midst, full
before the avenger's uplifted weapon, crying--

"Slay me, old man! It was I who killed thy son, I, Fearnagh the
Arvernian!"

"Ho!" said Odo. "Give me thine hand. Let me feel thee. Yea, these
be sinews! It is well. I marvelled how my Odorik should have
fallen by the soft Roman hand of yonder stripling; but thou art a
worthy foe. What made the priestling thrust himself between me and
my prey?"

"His generous love," returned Verronax, as Lucius flung himself on
his neck, crying--

"O my Verronax, why hast thou come? The bitterness of death was
past! The gates were opening."

Meanwhile AEmilius had reached Euric, and had made him understand
the substitution. Old Odo knew no Latin, and it was the King, an
able orator in both tongues, who expounded all in Gothic, showing
how Lucius AEmilius had offered his life in the stead of his friend,
and how Verronax had hurried to prevent the sacrifice, reiterating,
almost in a tone of command, the alternative of the wehrgeld.

The lites all burst into acclamations at the nobility of the two
young men, and some muttered that they had not thought these Romans
had so much spirit.

Euric made no decision. He did full justice to the courage and
friendship of the youths, and likewise to the fact that Odorik had
provoked the quarrel, and had been slain in fair fight; but t