The fare of Attila was plain and rude, but the tables of his guest were spread with all that the fearful luxury of Rome itself could have culled from earth and sea. Ere long the cupbearer filled the golden goblet, and the monarch, rising from his couch, drank to Berec, the bravest of the Huns. Again, after a pause, he rose, but the cup was given him by his daughter, and Attila drank to Menenius, the bravest of the Greeks. Quick and sparkling flowed the mead, and then an old gray man poured to the wild chords of a barbaric lyre, a song of triumph and of battles, while at every close he proclaimed, Attila's bridal day. At length a bright troop of young and happy maidens led in, surrounded by their linked arms, three brighter than themselves, from whom the Monarch of the North was about to choose a new partner for his mighty throne. Their faces were veiled; but through the long white robes that clothed them shone out that radiant light of grace and beauty which nothing can conceal. Slowly, as if reluctant, they were brought into the monarch's presence. Why quivered the lip of Menenius? Why strained his eye upon that first veiled figure? The veil is gone!--To him! to him she stretched forth her hands!--The table and the banquet are dashed to atoms at his feet; and Honoria is in Menenius' arms. A thousand swords sprang from their sheaths--a thousand javelins quivered round the hall. "Traitor! Madman! Sacrilegious slave!" was shouted in a thousand fierce voices, and a thousand barbarous tongues. But unquailing in the midst stood the Azimantine chief--his left arm round the beating heart of his young bride--his right, armed with that sword which had bowed many a hero to the dust, raised appealing to the Scythian king. "Monarch of the Huns," he cried, "this is the captive I have come to seek. As you are a man--as you are a warrior--as you are a king!--by your oath--by your honour--by your justice! yield her to me, her promised husband, and put us safely off your land. Then if of all these brave and mighty men," he added with a frown, "who draw the sword against a single Greek, there be but ten who will meet me brow to brow on the battle plain, I will write it in their blood that I am neither slave nor traitor, but a bold man, who dares to claim and to defend his own!" Fierce wrath, stern revenge, majestic admiration, had swept over the countenance of Attila, like the broken masses of a rent thunder-cloud hurled over the sky by the succeeding blast.