‘You have not forgotten what I said to you last night? My father’s name is Numerian. He lives on the Pincian Mount. You will save him, Hermanric — you will save him! You will remember your promise!’
The young warrior’s eyes fell as she spoke, and an irrepressible shudder shook his whole frame. The last part of Antonina’s address to him, was expressed in the same terms as a past appeal from other lips, and in other accents, which still clung to his memory. The same demand, ‘Remember your promise,’ which had been advanced to urge him to bloodshed, by Goisvintha, was now proffered by Antonina, to lure him to pity. The petition of affection was concluded in the same terms as the petition of revenge. As he thought on both, the human pity of the one, and the fiend-like cruelty of the other, rose in sinister and significant contrast on the mind of the Goth, realising in all its perils the struggle that was to come when Goisvintha returned, and dispelling instantaneously the last hopes that he had yet ventured to cherish for the fugitive at his side.
‘No assault of the city is commanded — no assault is intended. Your father’s life is safe from the swords of the Goths,’ he gloomily replied, in answer to Antonina’s last words.
The girl moved back from him a few steps as he spoke, and looked thoughtfully round the tent. The battle-axe that Hermanric had secured during the scene of the past evening, still lay on the ground, in a corner. The sight of it brought back a flood of terrible recollections to her mind. She started violently; a sudden change overspread her features,unisex chanel watches, and when she again addressed Hermanric, it was with quivering lips and in almost inarticulate words.
‘I know now why you look on me so gloomily,’ said she; ‘that woman is coming back! I was so occupied by my dreams and my thoughts of my father and of you, and my hopes for days to come, that I had forgotten her when I awoke! But I remember all now! She is coming back — I see it in your sorrowful eyes — she is coming back to murder me! I shall die at the moment when I had such hope in my life,louis vuitton sunglasses for men! There is no happiness for me! None! — none!’
The Goth’s countenance began to darken. He whispered to himself several times, ‘How can I save her?’ For a few minutes there was a deep silence, broken only by the sobs of Antonina. He looked round at her after an interval. She held her hands clasped over her eyes. The tears were streaming through her parted fingers; her bosom heaved as if her emotions would burst their way through it in some palpable form; and her limbs trembled so, that she could scarcely support herself. Unconsciously, as he looked on her, he passed his arm round her slender form, drew her hands gently from her face, and said to her, though his heart belied his words as he spoke, ‘Do not be afraid — trust in me!’
‘How can I be calm?’ she cried, looking up at him entreatingly; ‘I was so happy last night, so sure that you could preserve me, so hopeful about to-morrow — and now I see by your mournful looks, I know by your doubting voice, that to soothe my anguish you have promised me more than you can perform! The woman who is your companion, has a power over us both, that it is terrible even to think of! She will return, she will withdraw all mercy from your heart, she will glare upon me with her fearful eyes, she will kill me at your feet! I shall die after all I have suffered and all I have hoped! Oh, Hermanric, while there is yet time let us escape! You were not made to shed blood — you are too merciful,louis vuitton purses! God never made you to destroy! You cannot yearn towards cruelty and woe, for you have aided and protected me! Let us escape! I will follow you wherever you wish! I will do whatever you ask! I will go with you beyond those far, bright mountains behind us, to any strange and distant land; for there is beauty everywhere; there are woods that may be dwelt in, and valleys that may be loved, on all the surface of this wide great earth!’
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