CHAPTER VIII.
Very gravely, but no more in a melting mood, Adalgoth told his young wife of the resolve of the King, and of the last alternative between death and a shameful slavery.
He expected an outbreak of wild grief, such as it had been so difficult even for him to repress. But, to his astonishment, Gotho remained unshaken.
"I have foreseen this long ago, my Adalgoth! It is no misfortune; to lose what we love, and still live, that alone is a misfortune. I have attained to the highest earthly bliss, I am thy wife. Whether I shall have been so for ten years or for twenty, or for scarcely half a year, alters nothing. At least we shall die together on the same day, possibly at the same hour. For King Teja will not forbid thee--when thou hast done thy part in the last battle, and, perhaps wounded, canst fight no longer--he will not forbid thee to come and take me in thine arms--how often hast thou carried me on the Iffinger!--and leap with me into the abyss. Oh, Adalgoth!" she cried, passionately embracing him, "how happy we have been! We will show that we were worthy of such bliss, by dying bravely, without cowardly lament. The scion of the Balthe," and she smiled, "shall not say that the shepherd's daughter could not keep pace with his nobility. There arises in my soul a vision of the grandeur of our mountains! My grandfather, Iffa, admonished me, when I left him, to call to mind the fresh and free air of our mountains, and the strict and noble severity of the proud heights, should ever life in the narrow, small, gilded chambers here below seem too paltry for our souls. We have not been menaced with that, but now, when it is necessary to raise our minds from timid, tender sorrow--which almost crept over me--and to gain strength for a noble resolve, the remembrance of my native mountains has made me strong. 'Shame on thee,' I said to myself, 'shame on thee, daughter of the mountains! What would the Iffinger, and the Wolfshead, and all the stony giants say, if they saw the shepherdess despair? Be worthy of thy mountains and of thy hero husband.'"
Adalgoth pressed his young wife to his bosom, with mingled pride and joy.
Behind the tent of the Duke lay the low hut, made of dried branches, where dwelt Wachis and Liuta. Liuta, who had heard from Gotho what fate menaced them, had been obliged to use all her powers of persuasion upon her husband (who sat shaking his head and hammering and patching his shield, which had been sadly defaced, by Longobardian arrows in the last watch he had held at the mouth of the pass, and who now began to whistle to hide his suppressed sobs) before she could raise him to a like enthusiasm of renunciation.
"I do not think," said the honest man, "that the Lord of heaven can see it done. I am one of those who never like to say, 'All is over!' The proud ones, those who hold their heads high, like King Teja and Duke Adalgoth, certainly run constantly against the beams of fate. But we small people, who can stoop and bend, easily find a mouse-hole or a chink in the wall by which to escape. It is too vile! miserable! cruel! rascally!"--and each word was accompanied by a sounding stroke with his hammer. "I will not believe it! I cannot believe that hundreds of good women, pretty girls, lisping children, and stammering old men, must jump into the hellish fire of this accursed mountain! As if it were but a merry bonfire! As if they would come out at the other side safe and sound! I might just as well have let thee burn in the house at Fæsulæ. And not only thou must burn, but also our expected child, whom I have already named Witichis."
"Or Rauthgundis," said Liuta, blushing, as she bent over her husband's shoulder and stopped his hammering. "Let this name admonish thee, Wachis! Think of our beloved mistress. Was she not a thousand times better than Liuta, the poor maid-servant? And would she have hesitated or refused to die on the same day with all her people?"
"Thou art right, wife!" exclaimed Wachis, with a last furious stroke of his hammer. "Thou knowest I am a peasant, and peasants do not at all like to die. But if the heavens fall, they strike down peasants as well as others; and before it happens--ha-ha!--I will deal many a famous stroke! That would please Sir Witichis and Mistress Rauthgundis right well also. In honour of them--yes, thou art right, Liuta--we will live bravely--and, if it cannot be otherwise, bravely die!"