His head drooped upon his heaving breast, and he sighed heavily
as, without speaking, he grasped Goisvintha by the hand. The object she
had pleaded for was nearly attained;--he was fast sinking beneath the
tempter's well-spread toils!
'Are you silent still?' she gloomily resumed. 'Do you wonder at this
longing for vengeance, at this craving for Roman blood? I tell you that
my desire has arisen within me, at promptings from the voices of an
unknown world. They urge me to seek requital on the nation who have
widowed and bereaved me--yonder, in their vaunted city, from their
pampered citizens, among their cherished homes--in the spot where their
shameful counsels take root, and whence their ruthless treacheries
derive their bloody source! In the book that our teachers worship, I
have heard it read, that "the voice of blood crieth from the ground!"
This is the voice--Hermanric, this is the voice that I have heard! I
have dreamed that I walked on a shore of corpses, by a sea of blood--I
have seen, arising from that sea, my husband's and my children's bodies,
gashed throughout with Roman wounds! They have called to me through the
vapour of carnage that was around them;--'Are we yet unavenged? Is the
sword of Hermanric yet sheathed?' Night after night have I seen this
vision and heard those voice, and hoped for no respite until the day
that saw the army encamped beneath the walls of Rome, and raising the
scaling ladders for the assault! And now, after all my endurance, how
has that day arrived? Accursed be the lust of treasure! It is more to
the warriors, and to you, than the justice of revenge!'
'Listen! listen!' cried Hermanric entreatingly.
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