I kept the promise that I made to the good and brave Marion at the hour of his death. His assassination was attributed to some unknown murderer, but not to Eustace. I took the man's sword with me to Victoria; no suspicion was drawn to the actual felon, who was never more seen either at Mayence, or in the camp. Marion's remains, wept over by the whole army, received the pompous military honors due to a general and a Chief of Gaul.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TRAITOR UNMASKED.
The direst day of my life since that on which I accompanied the remains of Victorin, his son and my beloved wife Ellen to the funeral pyre that was to consume them, was the day on which the following events took place. They happened, my son, two hundred and sixty years after our ancestress Genevieve saw the young man of Nazareth die upon the cross, and five years after the assassination of Marion, the successor of Victorin in the government of Gaul.
Victoria no longer lived in Mayence, but in Treves, a large and magnificent Gallic city situated on this side of the Rhine. I continued to live with my foster-sister. Sampso, who served you as a mother since the death of my never-to-be-forgotten Ellen, Sampso became my second wife. On the evening of our marriage she admitted to me a fact of which I never had any doubt—that having always felt a secret inclination for me, she had decided never to marry, and to share her life with Ellen, you, my child, and myself.
My wife's death; the affection and profound esteem that Sampso inspired in me; her virtues; the kindnesses that she heaped upon you; the love with which you reciprocated her tenderness towards you—you loved her as a mother, whose place she worthily filled; the requirements of your education; finally also the urgent requests of Victoria, who valuing the qualities of Sampso, warmly urged the union;—all these circumstances combined to induce me to propose marriage to your aunt. She accepted. But for the distressing recollections of the death of Victorin and Ellen, of whom not a day passed but we spoke with tears in our eyes; but for the incurable grief of Victoria, whose mind ever turned upon her son and grandson;—but for these circumstances I would, after so many misfortunes, have re-embraced happiness when I embraced Sampso as my wife.
Accordingly, I shared Victoria's house in the city of Treves. The sun had just risen; I was engaged with some writing for the Mother of the Camps, seeing that I continued my offices near her. Her confidential servant, called Mora, stepped into the room. The girl claimed to have been born in Mauritania, whence her name of Mora. Like the inhabitants of that region, her complexion was bronzed, almost black, like a Negro's. Nevertheless, despite the somber hue of her face, she was handsome and young. Since the four years (remember the date, my son), since the four years that Mora served my foster-sister, she gained her mistress's affection by her zeal, her reserve and her devotion that seemed proof against all temptation to change her quarters. Occasionally, seeking some diversion from her sorrows, Victoria would ask Mora to sing, because the girl's voice was of remarkable sweetness and sadness. One of the officers of the army who had been as far as the Danube, said to us one day as he heard Mora sing, that he had heard those peculiar songs in the mountains of Bohemia. Mora seemed startled, and said that she learned the songs she was singing as a little child in the country of Mauritania.
"Schanvoch," said Mora to me, "my mistress wishes to speak to you."
"I shall follow you, Mora."
"But before you go, one word, I beg you."
"Speak—what is it?"