The bull, however, was not again deceived, but followed him like lightning; as he did so, however, the coming huntsmen and dogs rushing through the trees met his ferocious eye. He wavered for a moment between flight and vengeance--exposed, as he turned, his side to the arm of the young Roman--and Theodore, seizing the moment, plunged the keen blade into his chest up to the hilt, casting himself forward upon the beast with such force that they both fell and rolled upon the ground together.
The weapon had found the heart of the fierce animal; and after but one faint effort to rise, his head and hoofs beat the ground in the bitter struggle of the fiery and tenacious life parting from the powerful body, till with a low bellowing groan he expired.
Theodore raised himself from the ground, and drawing his sword from the carcass of the urus, he gazed round upon the scene in which the strife had taken place. Greatly was it altered since he had last looked about him, for it was filled with a multitude; and when Theodore turned his eyes towards the spot where had lately lain the boy he had just saved from death, he saw him raised up from his dead horse, and clasped in the arms of Attila himself.
[CHAPTER XX.]
THE NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES.
Theodore stood bewildered in the midst of the strange scene which now surrounded him, his thoughts all hurried and confused from the fierce strife and imminent peril into which he had been so suddenly hurried. At first, when he had turned to follow the cry of the dogs, he had forgotten--in the eagerness of the noble sport, the primeval pastime of earth's giant sons--that his own attendants were now unaccompanied by the hounds with which he had been accustomed to hunt in the forest near Bleda's dwelling; and, from the moment he had first seen that noble-looking boy, to that in which he rose from the prostrate carcass of the ferocious beast that had so nearly destroyed him, there had been no time for any other thoughts but those connected with the fierce combat in which he was engaged.
Now, however, as he looked round, he divined the whole, well knowing the custom of those barbarian chiefs to pursue the chase as eagerly while marching along with hostile armies as when it served to solace the vacant hours of peace. That he had fallen in with the hunt of Attila he clearly perceived; but who the boy was that he had saved, he could only gather from the fond embrace with which the dark monarch held him in his powerful arms. Fond and tender, no one who saw it could doubt what that embrace really was; and yet scarce any sign of emotion could be discovered on the iron countenance which so often led the slaughter in the fiercest fields of barbarian war.
The boy was talking eagerly and rapidly, and pointing to Theodore as he rose; and the moment after, while the young Roman drew forth his sword from the side of the mighty beast that lay cumbering the earth like a huge gray mound, the king set his son down, and, after resting his broad hand on his head for a moment, strode across the open space and stood by the side of the boy's deliverer.
For an instant his eyes ran over the tremendous limbs of the urus, the broad square head, the tangled mane, from amid the thick coarse hair of which the dark blood was pouring out in streams, and upon the sharp-pointed horns, one of which had burrowed in the earth as he had rolled over in the agonies of death--and then he turned his look upon his boy. The next instant he held out his hand to Theodore, saying, "Thou hast saved my child! Well and truly did yon holy man declare that the safety of myself and of my race depended upon him whom I should first meet as I marched against the Romans; and that the first act of forbearance and mercy which I showed should be followed by benefits that I could never repay. Nor was that all. When you met me on the mountain, young Roman, scarce a week since, that same old man, gazing from the brink of the everlasting, and beholding the future like a valley at his feet, traced out the after life of this my youngest son. He should escape from mighty perils, the prophet said, and be the last who should survive to carry on my race. Has he not now escaped from mighty peril by thine aid? and though it was foredoomed, deep and heartfelt is the gratitude which I owe thee for saving the life of this my boy at the immediate hazard of thine own. Attila thanks thee, and will keep the memory of this deed in his heart. I have called thee my son, oh Theodore, and shalt thou not be unto me a son indeed? Ay, and a well-beloved son too, only next in place to him whom thou hast rescued from untimely death."
"I am still thy debtor, oh Attila," replied Theodore: "once hast thou spared me when I intruded on thy territories; twice hast thou saved my life, knowing me to be a Roman and an enemy; and I have only rescued this fair boy, whom I would have saved as unhesitatingly if he had been the son of the poorest warrior in the Hunnish ranks;" and, as he spoke, he held out his hand towards the youth, who had advanced nearly to his father's side, and who seized it eagerly, and clasped it with a grateful gesture to his heart.