"I hear it well," answered Ardaric. "It is the groaning of the many wounded, I suppose, though I never listened to such a sound before."
"Nor ever, probably," said Theodore, "saw such a field?"
"The world never has seen such till this day!" replied the King of the Gepidæ. "The number of the dead is fearful. I alone have lost seventy thousand men: so say the leaders of the tribes. Did you not think the enemy seemed to have suffered as much as we had at the close of the day?"
"Fully!" answered Theodore. "But is it possible that the sound we hear can proceed from the wounded and dying? It is horrible to think upon!"
"It may be the spirits of the unburied dead mourning over their fate," replied Ardaric. "But what are yon moving objects? They must be either the Romans come to seek for their friends, or the wounded crawling about among the slain. Hark, that cawing! and see, they fly up for a moment into the air! It is the ravens already at their repast. The carrion-eaters in all lands, the vulture, the worm, and the crow, have cause to be grateful to Attila. On yonder field, I should guess, must lie, either dead or wounded, some half million of men. What a banquet! See, they settle again! and now some wise crow, perched upon a Roman corslet, shall peck, unreproved, the throat of one of those who used to call themselves the masters of the world."
"Cannot we go forth and aid the wounded?" demanded Theodore. "It is dreadful to think of leaving them to die."
"Why so?" demanded Ardaric. "They will be at rest all the sooner. Those who had any strength left have crept into the camp long ago; those who had none are as well where they are, for neither can they serve us nor we them. It is only a pity that those ravens are not vultures, such as we have in the East: they speedily make the dead and dying, one. But, doubtless, there are wolves here too, out of the great forest behind us. They will soon clear away the carrion. I should not wonder if that moaning, which I took for the groans of the wounded, were the well-pleased murmur of the wolves over their unexpected feast."
"Nevertheless," said Theodore, "I should much like to take a small body of men with me, and pick out those we can aid among the wounded."
"What! and have the Romans or the Visigoths upon you, declaring that you were pillaging the dead!" replied Ardaric; "and then I should be obliged to go out to defend you. More Goths, more Huns would come up, and a night-battle would finish what a day-battle has so well begun. No, no, my young friend; by my counsel and good-will, not a man shall stir forth from this camp either to-night, or to-morrow, or the day after, so long as yon army lies before us. Our loss is nearly equal now. We are in an enemy's country, where we cannot hope to increase our numbers by a man: they are at home, and probably, ere to-morrow, may receive re-enforcements. Could we have crushed them in the battle of yesterday, the whole country would have been ours at once; but, as we failed to do that, we must no longer leave them the advantages they possess. Here, in our camp, we must await them, where our defences are as much as half a million more warriors. They cannot starve us, for we have food enough for months, what with our horses and our cattle; and if they attack us boldly, they must be utterly defeated. No, no, Theodore, my friend, no one must leave the camp. Attila, I know, will seek to go forth and destroy them in the open plain; but all voices will be with me if he asks counsel of any one; and, having asked it, he will take it if we all agree. Now let us to our tents, my friend. After all, these tents are convenient things, though when we first entered the Roman territory as enemies we had none, and despised them as idle luxuries, unworthy of a warrior. Now, not a leader among us but has many."
"So would it be, Ardaric, with every other Roman luxury," replied Theodore. "What you contemn now, you will learn to tolerate, and at length to like."