Such were the emotions now awakened in the
heart of the Goth. His Christianity, his love, his knowledge of high
aims, and his experience of new ideas, sank and deserted him, as though
he had never known them. He thought on his mutilated hands, and no
other spirit moved within him, but the ancient Gothic spirit of
centuries back; the inspiration of his nation's early Northern songs and
early Northern achievements--the renown of courage and the supremacy of
strength.
Vainly did Antonina, in the midst of the despair that still possessed
her, yearn for a word from his lips or a glance from his eyes; vainly
did her trembling fingers, tearing the bandages from her robe, stanch
the blood on his wounded hands; vainly did her voice call on him to fly
and summon help from his companions in the camp! His mind was far away,
brooding over the legends of the battle-fields of his ancestors,
remembering how, even in the day of victory, they slew themselves if
they were crippled in the fray, how they scorned to exist for other
interests than the interests of strife, how they mutilated traitors as
Goisvintha had mutilated him! Such were the objects that enchained his
inward faculties, while his outward senses were still enthralled by the
horrible fascination that existed for him in the presence of the
assassin by his side.
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