"I have heard," she replied, unwilling to call down the anger of that terrible monarch upon any one else, however sure she might be of encountering it ultimately herself--"I have heard but the usual tale of warfare: I have heard of populous cities taken and made desolate; of blood drowning out the fire on the dear domestic hearth: of thousands and tens of thousands slaughtered, and their bodies lying unburied in the fields, or nailed, if they resisted, to the trees of their own fruitful gardens. I have heard of the whole land swept of its produce, its arts obliterated, its monuments destroyed, its husbandmen slain, even its women and children put to the sword--and that land my country!"
She paused; but Attila made no reply, and sat listening as if he expected her to go on. "Pardon me, oh king," continued Ildica--"pardon me, if I am bold to say thus much; but as it was grief which brought me nearly unto death at first--deep, bitter grief!--I am told that any grief whatsoever, added anew, may complete what the other left undone, and bring me at once unto the grave."
"A mother's death," replied Attila, without any sign of anger at the bold and proud demeanour of the fair Roman girl--"a mother's death, so sudden and unexpected, might well shake the strength and fortitude of a daughter; but, as to other things, I see not why she should let her mind rest upon them."
"Let me not boast, oh king!" replied Ildica, resolved to leave no word unspoken which might guard her against all she feared--"let me not boast, but yet I may say, my fortitude is never shaken. It was the bodily strength gave way, and not the resolution of the heart. Neither was it a mother's loss alone: that was the last of many sorrows. Before it went the parting with my brother and the sister of my heart; and before that again the still bitterer parting with my promised husband, with him I loved, and always have loved, better than anything on earth."
Attila's brow grew dark, and he fixed his eyes bitterly upon the ground. Ildica marked the expression, however much he strove to control it, but she proceeded all the more eagerly; and had he been a tiger ready for the spring, still she would have gone on. "Yes, oh king! that, though the first, was the bitterest stroke of all--for who shall tell how I love him, how deeply, how sincerely, how beyond all other things I love him. Without him, life to me is a dark blank; and when you forbade our union, and sent him from me to a distant land, you struck the blow that undermined my health; you filled high the cup that my mother's death caused afterward to overflow."
She paused again, and Attila looked up and replied, "Thy voice is sweet and musical, lovely girl, but thy words are harsh and somewhat grating to mine ear. Attila seeks not to make thee unhappy; but be not rash, and change the tenderness which he feels for thee and thine into a less gentle temper. I would not force thee to behold sights which may be painful to a woman's eye; but to-morrow early, thou, as well as the rest, must set out upon our onward march."
"Must we then go on," said Ildica; "I had hoped, as thou hast encamped here long, some cause might induce thee to turn thy fiery sword another way, and not let the edge fall heavy upon Rome."
"We must upon our march!" replied Attila, "we must upon our march! The country around us is exhausted of its stores. We have dried up the land of its wine and oil, like the summer's sun shining on a scanty brook. All is consumed; and where the foot of Attila's horse has trod grows no grass afterward. I paused here," he added, with a grim smile, "because my son sent me word that a pitiful city of the Venetian province resisted the army of Attila, one of those stony piles in which you Romans love to dwell, called Aquileia."
"What? Aquileia, the beautiful, the proud," exclaimed Ildica, "the provincial Rome?"
"The same," replied Attila, "It dared to shut its gates against those I sent to possess it; and when I reached them myself, I found that it had made its resistance good. It was different from the usual Roman towns. There were more than women and boys within. The catapult and balista had been plied in vain. The walls held out; and as I rode around, the soldiers on the towers, in their fancied security, laughed loud, and mocked the arms of Attila. But there was a certain stork--wiser, by the gods' own teaching, than the fools within--who saw the horse of Attila pause before the spot where she had built her nest upon the ramparts, and, auguring destruction to the towers on which he looked, she took her young ones on her back, and flew away for ever. Over the fragments of her nest, strewed upon the ruins of that wall, passed the horse of Attila ere nightfall; and now let after ages look for Aquileia, and find some scattered stones spread over a desolate plain. The brothers of those who defended it shall never gather their bones into their family sepulchre; for the flames of that city have confounded all, and nothing but dust is left. Thus perish all who resist the will of Attila," he added, and fixed his eyes full on Ildica.