Roused by these opposite pictures of the past, his
imagination peopled the future with images of Antonina again endangered,
afflicted, and forsaken; with visions of the impatient army, spurred at
length into ferocious action, making universal havoc among the people of
Rome, and forcing him back for ever into their avenging ranks. No
decision for resistance or resignation to flight presented itself to his
judgment. Doubt, despair, and apprehension held unimpeded sway over his
impressible but inactive faculties. The night itself, as he looked
forth on it, was not more dark; the wild thunder, as he listened to it,
not more gloomy; the name of Goisvintha, as he thought on it, not more
ominous of evil, than the sinister visions that now startled his
imagination and oppressed his weary mind.
There was something indescribably simple, touching, and eloquent in the
very positions of Hermanric and Antonina as they now sat together--the
only members of their respective nations who were united in affection
and peace--in the lonely farm-house.
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