"Ha!" cried the barbarian, with a triumphant smile, "what is the city that could stand an hour, if Attila bade it fall?"
"Azimantium!" replied Menenius.
The Hun threw back his broad shoulders, and glared upon the Thracian chief with a glance more of surprise than anger--then gazed at him from head to foot, visited each particular feature with his eye, and marked every vigorous and well-turned limb with a look of scrutinizing inquiry. "Thou art Menenius!" he exclaimed abruptly, after he had satisfied himself, "Thou art Menenius! 'Tis well! 'Tis well!--I deemed thou hadst been Maximin."
"And had I been so," asked Menenius, "would that have made a difference in thy language?"
"Son of a free and noble race," replied the Hun, "ask me no further. That which may well become thee to speak, would ill befit the suppliant messenger of a conquered king; and that which I would say to the vanquished and the crouching, could not be applied to the brave and the independent. Happy had it been for thy country had she possessed many like to thee, for then she would have fallen with honour: and happy, too, had it been for Attila, my lord, for then his triumphs would have been more glorious."
Menenius was silent. The tone of the Hun was changed. The rudeness of his manner was gone; and though he spoke with the dignity of one whose nation was rich in conquests, there was no longer in his language the assumption of haughty superiority which he had at first displayed.
"And thou," said Menenius, at last--"Who am I to fancy thee?"
"I am Onegesius, the servant of Attila the King," replied the Hun; "and mark me, chieftain of a brave people. Hold but little communion with the slaves of Theodosius as they pass through the dominions of the Huns. The lion may be stung by the viper, if he lie down where he is coiled. Now, farewell;" and thus speaking the Hun turned, and with a proud, firm step, each fall of which seemed planted as for a combat, he took his path away from the Grecian tents.
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The ambassadors pursued their way, and, after some days, encamped late at night upon the banks of the dark and rushing Tebiscus.