The man, who was a Roman fugitive, made no reply; and, after a brief pause, withdrew from the tent.
"What means she, maiden?" demanded Mizetus, turning to Neva; "what means she when she says that her beauty has caused the death of him she loved?"
"Dost thou not comprehend?" cried the girl, gazing at him through her tears; "dost thou not know that Attila himself seeks her love? Canst thou not guess that he took the life of him who was his happier rival?"
"Is it even so?" cried Mizetus; "alas, unhappy maiden! for what art thou reserved?" and, after gazing at her for a moment or two in melancholy thought, he left the tent, and turned his steps towards the royal pavilion of Attila himself.
Where was that pavilion now? No longer on the shores of the wild Benacus, no longer looking over the fertile plains of Italy, but on the slope of the Carpathian mountains, amid the rude but magnificent scenery of the hill country. There were congregated the myriads of the North; there was pitched the camp of a thousand nations, covering every rise, and sweeping down into every valley. But as Mizetus wandered on among them, all were in movement; the Huns, and the Gepidæ, and the Goths, the Heruli and the Alani, were pouring forth slowly on foot, and mounting with a low rushing murmur towards the tent of Attila. As they went one spoke unto the other, and the voice of complaint made itself heard.
"Why call for us now?" cried one.
"We might even now have been revelling in Rome!" said another.
"Has Attila lost his daring?" asked a third.
"Is he to be led by the smooth words of a graybeard in long robes?" demanded a fourth.
And thus they went murmuring on, till, gathering together upon the hill-side, they covered a vast extent, above which again--with a space of many cubits between it and them, kept clear by the officers of the king--towered the pavilion of their mighty chief. During some time the noise of coming feet was heard; but at length all the men of that vast host seemed congregated there: the curtains of the tent were drawn, and Attila stood before them. He gave one slow glance around, and the loudest murmurer in the host cast down his eyes before that dark countenance, as if he feared that the monarch might see the rebellion in his heart, and smite him on the spot. All was hushed as if in death; and then the voice of Attila was heard, spreading round and round, till scarce a man in all that multitude could fail to catch his words.