Invigorated by delay, and enlarged by disappointment, the evil passion
that consumed her had strengthened its power, and aroused the most
latent of its energies, during the silent vigil that she had just held.
She had detested the girl on the evening before, for her nation; she now
hated her for herself.
'What have you to do with the trappings of a Gothic warrior?' she cried,
in mocking accents, pointing at Hermanric with a long hunting-knife
which she held in her hand. 'Why are you here in a Gothic encampment?
Go, knock at the gates of Rome, implore her guards on your knees to
admit you among the citizens, and when they ask you why--show them the
girl there! Tell them that you love her, that you would wed her, that
it is nothing to you that her people have murdered your brother and his
children! And then, when you yourself have begotten sons, Gothic
bastards infected with Roman blood, be a Roman at heart yourself, send
your children forth to complete what your wife's people left undone at
Aquileia--by murdering me!'
She paused and laughed scornfully.
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