In a few minutes they again began their journey through the plain, riding up to their horses' chests in the long rich grass, which, though it proved no obstacle to the small, quick horses of the Huns, impeded and irritated at every step the fiery charger which had carried the young Roman. In the meanwhile the summer sun got high, and poured its burning rays upon Theodore's unsheltered head; a white, filmy, and oppressive mist rose up from the moist plain, not thick enough to impede the sight, but tinging every object with a peculiar hue. For a long time nothing diversified the scene, nothing interrupted the monotony of their progress; out at length an immense bird sprang up almost from under their horses' feet, and spreading its wings, without rising from the ground, ran on with extraordinary speed before them.
"An ostrich! an ostrich!" cried Cremera, forgetting the distance between the spot where he then stood and his own porphyry mountains--"an ostrich! a young ostrich!"
But the Hun who was by his side paused for a moment without speaking, poised the javelin he carried in his hand, and launched it with a strong arm in the air. Falling with unerring aim, it struck the great bustard between the wings; and, riding on, the Hun took it up and slung it over his shoulders, saying, "This will secure our evening meal."
Still they rode on, and more and more terrible grew the lassitude of the Roman youth; the heat was overpowering; the way seemed interminable, and that distant line of wood towards which their steps were bent, though appearing certainly to grow larger, yet was approached so slowly that Theodore, as he gazed upon it, felt his heart grow faint with the despair of ever arriving at the calm shelter which he vainly hoped there to find. With his lip parched, with his eye glazed, with his cheek pale yet burning, and with his hands scarcely able to hold the reins, still he rode on, looking forward with an anxious, straining gaze upon those woods, thinking they never would be reached. Wider and wider they stretched out before him. The plain on which he had seen them stand alone, like a group of bushes, when he had gazed on them from the distant heights, now seemed bounded by them entirely on that side. As he came nearer he could distinguish the vast rolling masses of forest, the dark, deep brakes where glades or savannas intervened; and at length, while with his dim and dizzy sight he scanned eagerly the scene before him, he thought he could perceive some low, wooden cottages, crouching, as if for shelter, beneath the wide-extended arms of the tall trees upon the edge. That sight again gave him a momentary impulse; he urged his horse on; he saw the cottages more distinctly; but, as with that last effort he attempted to reach them, strength, and hope, and thought all gave way at once, and, with just the consciousness of utter exhaustion, he fell fainting from his horse.
A lapse of time succeeded, over which Theodore's memory had no power. He had talked, he had suffered, he had raved, he had struggled during the interval; he had named names which those around him did not know; he had spoken a thousand things which they could not comprehend, while for fourteen days he had lain tossed between life and death, and tended by the hands of strangers. But of all that he had no recollection when at length reasoning consciousness had returned.
It was the evening of a sweet summer's day, when, opening his eyes, he looked around and wondered where he was. There was a small chamber, lined with smooth and fragrant pine wood, from the cracks and crevices of which the fresh resin was yet oozing. On the walls hung, in fantastic garlands, many a barbarian instrument of war, spears and swords, the quiver of arrows and the unstrung bow, the buckler, the club, and the far-slaying sling. There, too, beneath, on stands and tables of wood, might be seen a number of strange idols, wild, unseemly shapes, such as a child might carve for sport out of a block of wood. Settles and tables were there also, of the same plain material, but on some of them appeared objects of a more valuable kind and a richer workmanship. There lay, even in abundance, gems and gold, bearing evident marks of cultivated taste and skilful art; but there were two things more sweet than any other could have been to Theodore's senses at that moment, which called all attention from every other object.
The first was the calm, sweet breath of the summer evening, borne light and fragrant through the open window; the other was the sweet, melodious voice of a woman singing.
He turned his eyes to where the singer sat beside the bed on which he was stretched, and saw a girl of some seventeen years of age, with bright brown hair, worn not as Roman women wore it, but parted on the fair forehead, and thrust in clustering ringlets behind her ears. The face was very sweet and beautiful, and everything would have been soft--perhaps too soft for great interest--had it not been for the deep, devoted blue eyes. They were somewhat darker in hue than the sky by day; but yet, as they gazed forth from the long dark lashes, they looked like that same azure heaven at the moment when its colour is most deep, yet most pure, just ere the curtain of the night falls over its expanse. She saw the youth turn his eyes upon her; but, thinking only that sleep had fled again from his still fevered brain, she recommenced the song she had been singing, while her small white hands continued to ply the light labour of the distaff. Theodore, however, could now hear and understand; and he listened with delight that cannot be told, while, in the Alan tongue, the language of his own dear mother, she sang, with a sweet, soft, rounded voice--
THE SONG OF SLEEP.
"Come, gentle sleep, to the couch of the stranger,