There was in this simple,
speechless, tearless melancholy--this exquisite consideration of
triumphant strength for suffering weakness--something almost sublime;
opposed as it was to the emotions of malignity and despair that appeared
in Goisvintha's features. The ferocity that gleamed from her dilated,
glaring eyes, the sinister markings that appeared round her pale and
parted lips, the swelling of the large veins, drawn to their extremest
point of tension on her lofty forehead, so distorted her countenance,
that the brother and sister, as they stood together, seemed in
expression to have changed sexes for the moment. From the warrior came
pity for the sufferer; from the mother, indignation for the offence.
Arousing himself from his melancholy contemplation of the child, and as
yet answering not a word to Goisvintha, Hermanric mounted the waggon,
and placing the last of his sister's offspring in the arms of a decrepid
old woman, who sat brooding over some bundles of herbs spread out upon
her lap, addressed her thus:--
'These wounds are from the Romans.
Pages:
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44