In that seemingly doomed city all was terror and dismay. A speedy capture, a frightful massacre, or a no less frightful enslavement to the savage Huns, was the dread of the trembling inhabitants. They had no saint to rescue them by his prayers. All their hope lay in the arms of their feeble garrison and the encouraging words of their bishop, in whose heart alone courage seemed to keep alive. Anianus was the name of this valiant and wise churchman, whose counsels of hope alone sustained the despairing citizens, whose diligence and earnestness animated the garrison in its defence. The siege was fierce, the defence obstinate, the army of relief was known to be on its way, if they could but hold out till it came. Anianus, counting the days and hours with intense anxiety, kept a sentinel on the lookout for the first signs of the advancing host of Romans and Goths. Yet hours and days went by, and no sign of flashing steel or floating banner could be seen, until the stout heart of the bishop himself was almost ready to give way to the despair which possessed so many of the citizens. The Huns advanced point by point. They were already in the suburbs. The walls were shaking beneath the blows of their battering-rams. The city could not much longer be held. At length came a day which threatened to end with Orleans in the hands of the ruthless foe. And still the prayed-for relief came not. Hope seemed at an end. While such of the people as could not bear arms lay prostrate in prayer, Anianus, hopeful to the last, sent his messenger to the ramparts to look for the banners of the Roman army. Far and wide, from his lofty outlook, the keen-eyed sentinel surveyed the surrounding country. In vain he looked. No moving object was visible, only the line of the forest and the far-off bordering horizon. He returned with this discouraging tidings. "Go again," said the bishop. "They should have been here before now. Any minute may bring them. Go again." The sentinel returned, and again swept the horizon with his eyes, noting every visible object, seeing nothing to give him hope. With heavy tread he returned to the bishop, and reported his failure. "They must be near!" cried Anianus, with nervous impatience. "Go; look once more. Let nothing escape your eyes." Back went the messenger, again mounted the rampart, again swept the plain with his eyes. Nothing,--ah! what was that, on the horizon, at the very extremity of the landscape, that small, faint cloud, which he had not seen before? He watched it; it seemed to grow larger and nearer. In haste he returned to the bishop with the hopeful news. "I have seen a distant mist, like a far-off cloud of dust," he said. "It is moving. It comes nearer." "It is the aid of God!" burst from the lips of the bishop, his heart suddenly elate with joy. And from the expectant multitude, through whose ranks ran like wildfire the inspiring tidings, burst the same glad cry, "It is the aid of God!"