'
Here he paused to laugh in complacent approval of his project,
quickening his steps and hugging himself joyfully in the barbarous
exhilaration of his triumph.
His secret meditations had thus occupied him for some time longer, when
the sound of a footstep was audible outside the door. He recognised it
instantly, and called softly to the person without to approach. At the
signal of his voice a man entered--less athletic in build, but in
deformity the very counterpart of himself. The following discourse was
then immediately held between the two Huns, the new-comer beginning it
thus:--
'Have you tracked him to the door?'
'To the very threshold.'
'Then his downfall is assured! I have seen Alaric.'
'We shall trample him under our feet!--this boy, who has been set over
us that are his elders, because he is a Goth and we are Huns! But what
of Alaric? How did you gain his ear?'
'The Goths round his tent scoffed at me as a savage, and swore that I
was begotten between a demon and a witch. But I remembered the time
when these boasters fled from their settlements; when our tribes mounted
their black steeds and hunted them like beasts! Aha, their very lips
were pale with fear in those days.
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