'Has life its old magic for you yet?' continued Goisvintha, in tones of pitiless reproach. 'Have you forgotten, with the spirit of your people, the end for which your ancestors lived? Is not your sword at your feet? Is not the knife in my hand? Do not the waters of the Tiber, rolling yonder to the sea, offer to you the grave of oblivion that all may seek? Die then! In your last hour be a Goth; even to the Romans you are worthless now! Already your comrades have discovered your desertion; will you wait till you are hung for a rebel? Will you live to implore the mercy of your enemies, or, dishonoured and defenceless, will you endeavour to escape? You are of the blood of my family, but again I say it to you--die!' His pale lips trembled; he looked round for the first time at Antonina, but his utterance struggled ineffectually, even yet, against unyielding despair. He was still silent. Goisvintha turned from him disdainfully, and approaching the fire sat down before it, bending her haggard features over the brilliant flames. For a few minutes she remained absorbed in her evil thoughts, but no articulate word escaped her; and when at length she again abruptly broke the silence, it was not to address the Goth or to fix her eyes on him as before. Still cowering over the fire, apparently as regardless of the presence of the two beings whose happiness she had just crushed for ever as if they had never existed, she began to recite, in solemn, measured, chanting tones, a legend of the darkest and earliest age of Gothic history, keeping time to herself with the knife that she still held in her hand. The malignity in her expression, as she pursued her employment, betrayed the heartless motive that animated it, almost as palpably as the words of the composition she was repeating: thus she now spoke:-- 'The tempest-god's pinions o'ershadow the sky, The waves leap to welcome the storm that is nigh, Through the hall of old Odin re-echo the shocks That the fierce ocean hurls at his rampart of rocks, As, alone on the crags that soar up from the sands, With his virgin SIONA the young AGNAR stands; Tears sprinkle their dew on the sad maiden's cheeks, And the voice of the chieftain sinks low while he speaks: "Crippled in the fight for ever, Number'd with the worse than slain; Weak, deform'd, disabled!--never Can I join the hosts again! With the battle that is won AGNAR'S earthly course is run! "When thy shatter'd frame must yield, If thou seek'st a future field; When thy arm, that sway'd the strife, Fails to shield thy worthless life; When thy hands no more afford Full employment to the sword; Then, preserve--respect thy name; Meet thy death--to live is shame! Such is Odin's mighty will; Such commands I now fulfil!"'