'Our miseries are but
dawning as yet! In the next street lies the corpse of a woman, and--
horrible omen!--a coil of serpents is wreathed about her neck! We have
no burial-place to receive her, and the thousands who may die like her,
ere assistance arrives. The city sepulchres outside the walls are in
the hands of the Goths. The people stand round the body in a trance of
horror, for they have now discovered a fatal truth we would fain have
concealed from them;' here the Prefect paused, looked round affrightedly
on his listeners, and then added in low trembling tones--
'The citizens are lying dead from famine in the streets of Rome!'
CHAPTER 15. THE CITY AND THE GODS.
We return once more to the Gothic encampment in the suburbs eastward of
the Pincian Gate, and to Hermanric and the warriors under his command,
who are still posted at that particular position on the great circle of
the blockade.
The movements of the young chieftain from place to place expressed, in
their variety and rapidity, the restlessness that was agitating his
mind.
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