Behind the palace enclosure began the camp, with its smoke-grimed tents. A vast number of horse-dealers and horse-thieves swarmed in the streets, and there were as many horses as men there. Without the camp there grazed herds of swine, sheep, goats, and cattle—living provision for this enormous horde of men, who could only devour and destroy, but could not produce anything.
Now, on the morning of Attila’s wedding day, there were moving about in this camp thousands of little men with crooked legs and broad shoulders, clothed in rat-skins and with rags tied round their calves. They looked out of their tents with curiosity, when strangers who had been invited to the marriage feast came riding up from the plain.
In the first street of tents, Attila’s son and successor, Ellak, met the principal guests; he bade them welcome through an interpreter, and led them into the guest-house.
“Is that a prince, and are those men?” said Orestes to Edeko.
“That is a horse-dealer, and the rest are rats,” answered Edeko. “They are monsters and demons, vampires, created from dreams of intoxication. They have no faces; their eyes are holes; their voice is a rattle; their nose is that of a death’s-head; and their ears are pot-handles.”
“You speak truly, and it is from these half-naked savages, who have no armour and no shield, that the Roman legions have fled. They are goblins, who have been able to ‘materialise’ themselves.”
“They will not conquer the world.”
“At any rate not in this year.”
Then they followed Prince Ellak, who had heard and understood every word, although he pretended not to know their language.