Pointing to some food that lay in a corner of the tent,
and to the country behind, he said to her, in broken and gloomy accents,
'Furnish yourself with those provisions, and fly, while Goisvintha is
yet unable to pursue you. I can protect you no longer!'
Until this moment, Antonina had kept her face hidden, and had remained
still crouching on the ground; motionless, save when a shudder ran
through her frame as she listened to the loud, coarse jesting of the
Goths; and speechless, except that when Goisvintha sank senseless to the
earth, she uttered an exclamation of terror. But now, when she heard
the sentence of her banishment proclaimed by the very lips which but the
evening before had assured her of shelter and protection, she rose up
instantly, cast on the young Goth a glance of such speechless misery and
despair, that he involuntarily quailed before it; and then, without a
tear or a sigh, without a look of reproach, or a word of entreaty,
petrified and bowed down beneath a perfect trance of terror and grief,
she left the tent.
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