That evening little more could be said. That “he was there,” as one raised from the dead, and that “He Who brought him back was there,” with them all, always, to the end, was for the hearts of all “gladness so complete,” that no more could be poured in.
The welcome, the peace of home, the love, old and new, and at last the falling asleep, watched by his mother’s eyes, as when he was a child, wrought wonders in one night. In the evening scarcely any eyes but those of the love that had never ceased expecting him could have recognized him, with the feeble gait, the hollow eyes, the worn, pale cheek. In the morning the soul had visibly taken her place on the throne again, and he was himself. Still the careful nurses rigidly insisted on rest, until by the next day he had gathered strength to tell his story.
“I was in the tower in Aquileia with the Lady Digna,” he began. “The yells of the victorious Huns were all around us, closer and closer up the steps. When she sprang from the tower into the river, something like madness seized me, as doubtless it had seized her, and I sprang after her, with some wild hope of saving her. I sank and then rose, and seemed to grasp her robe, and swam, keeping desperate hold of it, and then clutched something with one hand, which may have been a post for fastening boats to on the other side of the river. Then something struck my head, whether a javelin from the Huns or the strong current dashing me against the point of rock I know not. I could only cry, ‘Christe Domine, miserere nobis!’ Then I became unconscious, and when I awoke in the night, hours afterwards, I was stretched on the opposite bank of the river, alone.”
“Then thy ‘Miserere’ may have been the last sound on her dying ear?” said Damaris.
“I know not,” he replied. “At all events, the mercy for which I cried, the Christ on Whom I called, was there, and not uncaring or asleep.”
After a pause he went on—
“I was alone. It was night, but the river and all the land around were lit up by the flames of the burning city. And the silence of night was broken by exulting yells of vengeance, by cries of agony and vain entreaty, and, worse almost than all, by the hideous laughter of bacchanalian orgies.
“Something must have wounded me, for my head and hands were bleeding, and I was faint with loss of blood. But I contrived to creep under the shelter of an empty cattle-shed in the desolate fields; and there I lay, I know not how long—lay there,” he continued, turning to Ethne, “until I was saved through thee.
“A poor woman of the Huns was gathering sticks for a fire, and seeing me lying there, seeming, I suppose, at the point of death, she had compassion on me. She went and brought me food and drink; and then in broken Latin, such as the barbarian tribes who settle on our frontiers learn to speak, she said, ‘A Roman woman saved my son. I will save thee.’ Her son was a brother of the dying boy beside whom I saw thee first at Orleans. The brother was among the wounded Huns left in the city when the siege was raised, one of those enemies whom Bishop Anianus desired the Christian women to succour, and thee among them. By degrees, as she tended me, the whole story came out; and, from her description, it could have been no one but thyself who hadst also ministered to the brother of the boy who died with his hand in thine. She was a woman of some consideration among the Huns. I should hardly have been spared but for her pleading. They had at that time no use for captive slaves, to carry about and feed, and no spark of mercy for Roman soldiers; although I think those of us who shared in the defence of Aquileia, when once the first deadly rage of vengeance was assuaged in blood, were held even by them in a kind of rough honour. Again and again I heard men among them say, ‘If all Roman cities had been like Aquileia we should never have been here; but we and Rome might have been not foes but friends.’
“Also,” Marius continued, turning to his mother, “I told her of thee, and,” with a lowered voice to Ethne, “of thee and our betrothal, and that touched her heart. As my strength returned, I was able to be of some service to her, and she insisted on bringing me to the notice of her king, Attila himself. It was perilous, for he has frightful streaks of savage fierceness and haughtiness, not blending, but violently jarring, with occasional vibrations of affection and kindliness, and flashes of grim humour and wit, all crude and unmixed, so that you can never tell which you will find uppermost. Moreover, as you all know now, he has a wonderful keen eye and a genuine honour for truth, the truth of which he has had so little experience amongst us. And I suppose he felt in some way that I was true. So it happened that I was much about his court and in his presence, and saw strange and unexpected things in Attila and in his Huns. For you were right, mother,” he went on, “there are no ‘half beasts’ in the creation of God, though, alas! there are half devils, fallen as the original devils of old. And you were right,” he added, looking at Ethne; “if all the Christians Attila had met had been saints, indeed had been ordinarily good or true, who can say what Attila might have become?