"I cannot but think, dear Neva," she said, "I cannot but hope, that we have been combating imaginary adversaries. Why should Attila think of me? why should any idle beauty that you talk of make him persecute one who never injured him, or wrong a man who, like Theodore, has served him well, and whom he himself professes to love."
"You know him not, Ildica, you know him not," replied Neva; "his passions are fierce, and devouring as the flame; and we poor women, but the slaves of his pleasures, are no more in his eyes than merchandise, things to be used while they please, and to be cast away when the gloss of novelty is gone. Besides, those passions, though they once had a check, have now none. He is changed, Ildica, he is changed! Within the last two years a change has come over him which renders him no longer the same man. In former days you might rely upon his justice, if not upon his humanity; you might trust in his friendship as much as you were compelled to fear his enmity. He was sincere, though never frank; and those who knew Attila well could calculate his rising up, and his going down, and his course throughout the day, as surely as they could calculate the rising and setting of the sun himself. But he is changed, Ildica, he is changed! He has grown suspicious of his dearest friends, deceitful towards those who love him best, intemperate in all things; and while by day he revels in blood, at night he revels in wine, till drunkenness closes the day which was begun with slaughter. The only thing that ever withholds him from gratifying his desires is shame; and if we can but keep thee from his thoughts till thy lover returns, the fear of sinking lower in the esteem of his chieftains will keep him from doing thee a wrong, from violating his word."
"But why should I fear," said Ildica, "more than all the many women who, I learn, are in the camp."
"Because thou art more beautiful than them all," answered Neva, looking up in her face with a smile.
"Yes, but he let Eudochia go," replied Ildica; "he suffered her to depart without one apparent wish to stay her; and she was much more beautiful than I am--younger, lovelier in every way."
"Oh no," cried Neva, "not half so lovely! But, besides, if I must tell thee all, I heard my cousin Ellac, the great king's son, contriving with Onegisus to inflame Attila's love for thee. He has hated Theodore ever since he set foot among our tribes, and he knew that he could take no more terrible revenge upon him, that he could bring down no more certain destruction upon his head, than by raising up against him Attila as a rival in his love. I heard them lay their plot, and I know that they executed it in part. For that purpose was Theodore sent forth; for that purpose wert thou kept here; and had it not been for thy illness and for Ardaric's protection, who loves thy promised husband, thou hadst received, ere this time, terrible proofs that our fears for thee are anything but vain."
"I do remember," answered Ildica, "that on that sad night before Theodore's departure, one of the barbarian leaders, a noble-looking man, whom he called Ardaric, and in whom he afterward bade me trust implicitly, came to us, and warned him of some approaching danger--"
"It was I who warned Ardaric," interrupted Neva, "because I knew that he was sincere and true, and loved thy Theodore well. All that he knew he heard from me, or from that unhappy Moor, that deformed and mutilated negro, whom thou hast seen twice follow me into thy tent. He also watched and saw much; and, with a shrewdness all his own, perceived that Attila was not unwilling to follow where his baser son would lead him."
Ildica clasped her hands and gazed down upon the ground. "Oh, Neva!" she said at length, "you must aid and protect me; for--though I know, and feel sure, that if the hour of difficulty were to come I should find courage, on the instant, to behave as befits my race and nation--though I feel sure and confident that there is no act which I should fear to do, that justice and my honour required of me--yet, Neva, yet I would fain shrink from the trial. In the contemplation of it I am but a woman; and my very soul sinks, faint and dispirited, at the very thought of what I may be called upon to suffer and to do."
"I will aid you, I will assist you, dear Ildica," replied Bleda's daughter; "and there are many more in the camp who can assist you better, and who are willing to do so too; but I hear some one in the outer tent. It is the voice of Zercon, I think, speaking with your slaves In him, too, you may trust; for he is one who will be faithful unto death. He has known me from a child, and loves me well; and, since my father's death, there is scarce a bitter cruelty in all the long dark catalogue of inflictions which man's savage, demon-like heart has invented, that Attila has not practised upon him. He hates Attila, therefore, and he loves all who are persecuted by his persecutor."