'You shall return with me to Rome! You
shall walk in the track that I have made in the rifted brick-work!'
Terror, anguish, exhaustion, overpowered her weak efforts. Her lips
moved, partly in prayer and partly in ejaculation; but she spoke in
murmurs only, as she mechanically suffered the Pagan to lead her onward
by the hand.
They paced on under the waning starlight, over the cold, lonely road,
and through the dreary and deserted suburbs,--a fearful and discordant
pair! Coldly, obediently, impassively, as if she were walking in a
dream, the spirit-broken girl moved by the side of her scarce-human
leader. Disjointed exclamation, alternating horribly between infantine
simplicity and fierce wickedness, poured incessantly from the Pagan's
lips, but he never addressed himself further to his terror-stricken
companion. So, wending rapidly onward, they gained the Gothic lines;
and here the madman slackened his pace, and paused, beast-like, to glare
around him, as he approached the habitations of men.
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