“At this moment I hear the death-wail of the Goths around the body of their king. They think they have rescued the royal corpse from the heap of slain beneath which it lay.
“Still the Huns keep behind their wagons. Attila their king is among them; but around him there is no shout as for a king.
“The field is won; the host of the Huns, the great flood of devastation, is ebbing back to its deserts. God grant it be for ever.
“It seems decided that we make no pursuit, but let the flood ebb away beyond the Rhone. To-morrow I go southward with a detachment to Troyes. Farewell.”
All the day of the great battle tidings kept flowing in to Troyes. None ventured beyond the city, for the battle was said to be raging not more than five miles away. There was indeed no roll of the thunder of guns; but the echo of distant tumult came faintly now and then through the hush of the July afternoon.
Troyes knew that her Bishop was there. Who could say that if the battle were lost, vengeance might not fall on his head? But if Attila won, all was lost.
All day prayer went up ceaselessly in the churches, but mostly in silence, or following the low litanies of the choir, so heavy was the weight of suspense.
A confusion of contradictory rumours reached the city: first it was reported that the Romans had won the height on which all might depend; then that Theodoric the great King of the Visigoths was slain. After that fell the darkness. And through the night people took refuge in the churches, and silent prayer went up; until at last, in the quiet dawn of the July morning, came the news that the battle was over, that Attila and his Huns had fled behind their wagons, and that the Roman army held the field. Soon came the further news that Attila and his host were retreating towards the Rhone, carrying Bishop Lupus with them. The city and the land were saved from the destroyer, but who could answer for the saintly life so freely offered up for the people?
To Ethne and Baithene the city, in a sense they themselves, seemed orphaned afresh; and in their different ways and words, the little group of four, Irish and Hebrew, poured out their hearts together for the prophet still in the den of lions.
There was much to be done for the crippled and wounded who were borne in from time to time from the battle. Baithene went out with the wagons to carry them in; Ethne was again among the deaconesses and consecrated virgins, succouring the wounded.