The heavens were obscured by heavy leaden clouds driven by the wind into large masses, through the breaks of which, a dull and sickly moon glared forth with a fitful and a watery light upon the misty earth. The dim shapes of shadowy mountains, too, were vaguely sketched upon the sky, covered with quick passing shades, while ever and anon the winds howled forth their melancholy song, a wild and sombre anthem to the grim genius of the scene around.
The tents were pitched, the plain meal was over, the mead had passed round, and sleep had relaxed every weary muscle of the travellers' limbs, when suddenly a hurricane rushed over the whole scene, the river rose, the rain came down in torrents, and the temporary encampment was in a moment overthrown. Drenched and terrified, the legates of the Emperor disengaged themselves with difficulty from their falling pavilions, and called loudly for help. Noise and confusion spread around, and the roaring stream rising quickly over the meadow in which they had been sleeping, the howling of the overpowering wind, and the heavy pattering of the rain, added to the disturbance and fear of the scene.
A moment after, a blazing light upon the nearest hill rose like a beacon to direct their steps, and thither the ambassadors were led by the Huns.
Menenius, after he had provided for the safety of his horses and attendants, followed the rest. As he approached the light, he saw, by the figures of several Huns supplying a large fire of dry reeds with fresh fuel, that it had been raised on purpose to guide any travellers overtaken by the storm, to a place of shelter and repose. Attention and kindness awaited him, and he was instantly led into a large wooden house, where Priscus and Maximin were already seated by a cheerful hearth, at which a young widow, the wife of Attila's dead brother Bleda, was busy in the gentle cares of hospitality. Along the extreme side of the apartment was drawn a line of Scythian slaves, armed as became those who waited on the widow of a king; and as Menenius entered, their rank was just closing, after having given exit to a form which made the Thracian chief, start forward, as his eye caught the last flutter of her retiring robes. "Who passed?"--he exclaimed, abruptly, forgetting, in the anxious haste of the moment, all idle ceremony. "Who passed but now?"
"Ella, the daughter of the king, and her maidens," was the reply. The heart of Menenius sunk, and his eye lost its eager fire. In a few brief words he excused his abruptness; but the widow of Bleda was one of those whose kind hearts find excuses better than we can urge them. "The maiden is fair," she said, "and well merits a stranger's glance. In truth, she knew not that there was another guest of such a mien about to be added to our hearth, or she would have staid to pour the camus and the mead. Much would she grieve were she not here to show that part of hospitality." And Bleda's widow sent a maiden to tell her niece that Menenius, the Azimantine chief, sat by the fire untended.
She came--a dark-haired girl, with a splendid brow, and eyes as pure and bright as if a thousand diamonds had been melted to furnish forth their deep and flashing light. A rose as glorious as that upon the brow of morning warmed her cheek, and a quick untaught grace moved in her full and easy limbs, like those of a wild deer. But she was not Honoria; and the eye of Menenius rested on her, as on a fair statue, which, in its cold difference of being, however lovely, however it may call upon admiration, wakens no sympathy within our warmer bosoms.
She, however; gazed on him, as on something new, and strange, and bright; and there was in her glance both the untutored fire of artless nature, and the fearless pride of kingly race, and early acquaintance with power. For a moment she stood, and contemplated the Thracian chief, with her sandalled foot advanced, and her head thrown back, and her lustrous eye full of wild pleasure; but then suddenly a red flush rose in her cheek, and spread over her brow, and, with a trembling hand, she filled a cup of mead, touched it with her lips, gave it to Menenius, and again retired.
Menenius lay down to rest, but his dreams were not of her whom he had seen. Gay visions of the former time rose up and visited his brain. From out the dreary tomb of the past, long-perished moments of joy and hope were called, as by an angel's voice, to bless his slumber--Honoria--Azimantium--happiness.
Pass we over the onward journey. After a long and tedious march, the ambassadors arrived at the royal village of the Huns, which was then surrounded by uncultured woods, though at present the rich vineyards of Tokay spread round the land in which it stood. Houses of wood were the only structures which were boasted by the chief city of the monarch of one half the earth; and to the eye of the Greeks, everything seemed poor and barbarous in the simplicity of the Huns. Yet, even lowly as were their cottage palaces, they had contrived to bestow much art on their construction. Fantastic trelliswork, and rich carved screens, and wreathed columns, cut of polished and variegated woods, were scattered in every direction; and while the first faint efforts of an approach to taste were to be found in the taller buildings and in the more correct proportions of the royal dwellings, the idea of war--the national sport and habitual passion, of the people--was to be seen in the imitative towers and castles with which they had decorated their dwellings of peace.
Attila himself had not yet returned from his last excursion; but a day did not elapse before his coming was announced by warrior after warrior who arrived, their horses covered with gold, and their follower's laden with spoil. All his subjects went forth to gratulate their conquering monarch; and the Greeks, standing on a little eminence, beheld his approach. First came innumerable soldiers, in dark irregular masses, and then appeared chieftain after chieftain, all the various nations that he ruled. Then was seen a long train of maidens, in white robes, walking in two lines, each bearing aloft in her hand one end of a fine white veil, which, stretching across to the other side, canopied a row of younger girls, who scattered flowers upon the path. Behind these, mounted on a strong black horse, clothed in one uniform dark robe, without jewel, or gold, or ornament whatever, came the monarch whose sway stretched over all the northern world.