"We leave you behind us, sweet things of the earth
Hopes, joys, and endearments, sport, pleasure, and mirth;
Like a tempest-driven ship, sailing by some bright shore,
Time hurries us onward, we see you no more!"
And when she had done, she looked round her with a smile so terrible at such a moment, that every woman's eye there present, whether they understood the words or not, overflowed with tears.
"Poor maiden!" cried Mizetus, "her heart is fearfully oppressed, her spirit sadly bowed down. Heavy has been the burden that the Lord has given her to bear, but great is the glory he reserves for her. Neither shall the mind break, nor the spirit be crushed under its load; but with time, and with care, and with consolation, this wandering mood shall pass away. Let us now, however, leave her, for the presence of many may irritate rather than sooth. Thou, maiden," he continued, turning to Neva, "thou that seemest to take a deeper interest than the rest, abide with her, and watch over her tenderly. Watch over her! watch over her carefully! for she has yet her appointed task to do."
Thus saying he left the tent, and the women followed, leaving Neva with Ildica alone. The next morning early Mizetus took his way towards the tent of Ildica ere the army began its march; but, as he advanced, a spectacle arrested his progress for a moment, which the Huns themselves in passing gazed on fearfully, but paused not to examine. Down from the tent of Attila to the bank of the rivulet extended a double row--an avenue, in short, of enormous crosses; and nailed upon them, as had been the case in the neighbourhood of Verona, appeared the corpses of at least a thousand of the monarch's own immediate subjects.
Among them were many of those chiefs and officers who had been previously believed to stand high in favour; and, as the various masses of the Huns passed by those sad memorials, the chiefs who had been among those to complain that he had not marched on Rome, and had yet escaped the terrible execution of that night, trembled when they beheld the ghastly spectacle, and thanked the gods that had preserved them.
Mizetus, on the contrary, gazed fearlessly on the proofs of Attila's stern severity, scanned the agonized countenances of the dead, marked the contorted limbs, and murmured as he passed, "More, more blood poured into the cup of vengeance! More to be accounted for! Nor is the day far distant!"
As the enthusiast passed on, Ardaric rode by slowly towards the tent of Attila, gazing with a frowning brow, and a sad but indignant air, upon the bodies of the dead. With a sudden spring forward, Mizetus laid his hand upon his bridle-rein; but Ardaric shook it from his grasp, exclaiming, "Why stoppest thou me in such a spot as this? Get thee hence, madman!"
"Not so mad as he who did this deed!" replied the enthusiast.
"Perhaps not," answered Ardaric; "but the deed is none of mine;" and raising his rein, he rode swiftly on. Mizetus proceeded on his way, and found her he sought sitting nearly as he had left her the day before. He found that she had undergone very little change. She took her food, and suffered her garments to be changed mechanically; but she spoke not, or very seldom, and then with wild and unconnected words, referring to things apparently remote. The enthusiast remained with her long, nor ceased, during all the time of his stay, to pour forth, in language wild but figurative, and with words ready and prompt, the same unconnected and mystical exhortations to which he had given utterance the day before.
He was interrupted by the marching of the army to another station in its advance upon Greece; but, ere he left the tent of Ildica, he saw, well pleased, that he had more than once gained her attention, though but for a moment; and on the following day that attention was more fixedly obtained. The third day she listened to him, though she answered not; and the fourth day she wept for the first time. Thenceforward, though she spoke but seldom, and though, when she did speak, there appeared in her words a difference from the ordinary train of thought, a slight deviation from that clear intellectual path which her mind had ever followed, yet in some degree she resumed her ordinary occupations, suffered herself to be moved on in her litter, calmly, if not cheerfully, and from time to time spoke a few words to Neva, with an effort to show her gratitude and regard.