He hesitated, and
looked round doubtfully towards the lines of the camp.
There was a long silence, which was again interrupted by the stranger.
'Guard me, chain me, mock at me if you will,' he cried, with raised
voice and flashing eyes, 'but lead me to Alaric's tent! I swear to you
by the thunder pealing over our heads, that the words I would speak to
him will be more precious in his eyes than the brightest jewel he could
ravish from the coffers of Rome.'
Though visibly troubled and impressed, Hermanric still hesitated.
'Do you yet delay?' exclaimed the man, with contemptuous impatience.
'Stand back! I will pass on by myself into the very heart of your camp!
I entered on my project alone--I will work its fulfilment without help!
Stand back!'
And he moved past Hermanric in the direction of the suburbs, with the
same look of fierce energy on his withered features which had marked
them so strikingly at the outset of his extraordinary interview with the
young chieftain.
The daring devotion to his purpose, the reckless toiling after a
dangerous and doubtful success, manifested in the words and actions of
one so feeble and unaided as the stranger, aroused in the Goth that
sentiment of irrepressible admiration which the union of moral and
physical courage inevitably awakens.
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