"Shall I say welcome?" she asked--"shall I say welcome, when I fear that much grief awaits you? shall I say welcome to a place where you must hear many things that will grieve you!"
At these words the dull, heavy weight fell again upon Ildica's heart, and the struggle recommenced, the painful struggle, of strong and high-minded resolution against woman's natural fears and apprehensions. "Speak," she replied, "speak, dear Neva. Tell me what new cause of sorrow and of terror has arisen. Tell me what step has been taken in the warfare that fate seems resolved to wage against my happiness on earth."
"Alas!" replied Neva, "alas! that my lip should tell it; but it is only right to warn thee of what you might hear too soon from other lips, and might hear unprepared. Attila speaks of thee often: Attila speaks of thee with love: Attila speaks of thee as of one destined to be his; and thou knowest, Ildica, that his will is like the will of fate."
"Not so, Neva; not so," replied Ildica. "There is a will above his!" But while she thus expressed her trust, the tears rolled from her eyes in despite of every effort, and she wept bitterly. "There is a will above his," she said, "holier, more merciful, and mightier far! In it will I trust, Neva, in it will I trust! But what do I do weeping?" she added--"what do I do weeping, when I have to think, to resolve, and act? what do I do weeping, when lo he comes, and I have need of vigour, not of tears; of determination, not of terror? Hear you not his step, hear you not his step? He is coming! he is coming! Hear you not his step?" and, as she spoke, she grasped the arm of the fair girl tight in her hand, and gazed towards the door with a look of wild and painful anticipation, which, had it not been too well justified by her circumstances, might well have passed for the vivid but wandering glance of insanity.
"It is not his foot you hear," replied Neva, fondly linking herself to Ildica, and striving to assuage the fears which she had herself occasioned. "That is not his step--I know it well, Ildica! I have known it, and trembled at it from my infancy. As the beasts of the field have an intimation of the earthquake, and fly trembling from the walls over which the impending ruin is suspended--as the light summer insect, to whom the falling drop of a spring shower is a deadly ocean, finds some warning to seek shelter beneath the foliage against the coming destruction--as the birds cease their song, and the cattle seek the fold before the approaching storm--so unto me has been given an augury of danger and of terror, in the world-shaking step of that awful king. I have heard it in the sunshine of summer, and the sunshine has been clouded: I have heard it in the dead of the night, and night has assumed the horror of the grave. But hark! Whoever it is that speaks with the attendants without--that voice is not Attila's, nor was the step."
As she spoke the curtain was withdrawn, and there appeared, not the form of the Scythian king, but that of Ardaric, chief of the Gepidæ. His countenance, as we have already said, was naturally frank and open; and, unlike that of Attila, it displayed, as in a highly polished mirror, every emotion of his heart, except when, by some great effort, he drew an unwonted veil over the picture of his thoughts, which there found their ordinary expression. His face was now clouded; and advancing towards Neva, he spoke a few words to her in the Hunnish dialect; and then turning towards Ildica, addressed her, though with considerable difficulty, in the Latin tongue.
Agitated, terrified, and confused, it was with difficulty Ildica gathered his meaning. She found, however, that what he said consisted of warnings of approaching danger, like those which Neva had already given, and of caution and advice as to how she should avoid or mitigate them. Though for the time Ildica's mind could scarcely grasp those counsels, yet they returned beneficially to her in the hour of need. She heard him tell her that delay to her was more valuable than beaten gold, and remind her that in her case any sort of duplicity was justifiable to foil a tyrant who knew no scruples, and joined deceit with power. But all that Ildica could reply, under her overpowering sense of the fearful struggle she saw approaching, was, "Can I not fly? Oh, can I not fly?"
"For fifty miles around on every side," replied Ardaric, "the troops of the Huns are spread over the country; and for more than fifty miles beyond those, scattered parties from a thousand different nations, but all attached to Attila by vows, by love, or by fear, roam through the country, and keep, as it were, an outer watch on his camp. The eagle may escape from the net woven to catch a sparrow; the lion may rend into a thousand pieces the toils which were set to catch the stag or the elk; but thou canst no more escape from the midst of the host of Attila than a small fly can disentangle itself from the meshes of the spider."
Ildica wept bitterly, nor was it with the kind of tears which bring relief. They were not tears for the past--the dark, irretrievable past, for the beloved and the dead, for the hours wasted or the pleasures passed away--they were not tears, in short, for any of those things which may be mourned with mourning sweet and profitable--but they were the deep, bitter, fruitless tears of apprehension, wrung forth by the agony of a fearful but unavoidable fate. She wept bitterly, she wept wildly; she noted not Ardaric, she heeded not the voice of Neva. Hopes and consolations they offered her in vain. Advice and direction seemed to fall unheeded on her ear: she appeared not to notice their presence or be conscious of their sympathy. Indeed, so totally was she absorbed in the overpowering sorrows of her own heart, and the fearful contemplation of the destiny before her, that she knew not when they left her, or awakened from the vision of her wo till another voice demanded, in a tone that made her start wildly from her seat, "Why weepest thou, maiden? why weepest thou so bitterly?" and Attila stood before her.
She gazed upon him with a wandering and anxious look while one might count ten, but then the triumph of the powerful mind began again. The moment of terror and apprehension was over--the moment of resolution and of action was come. Womanly weakness had had its hour, and was passed. The Roman heart was reawakened by the voice that called her to the trial. The sight of Attila, like the fierce sun shining on the dewy grass after a storm, dried up the tears in her eyes; and after that brief pause she replied, "I weep, oh king! because as a woman I am weak; because I am apprehensive of the future; because I am uncertain of the present; because I grieve for the past. Little cause is there to ask any one living why he weeps. Thou wouldst do more wisely wert thou to ask any one in this world why he smiles."