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Books: Antonina

W >> Wilkie Collins >> Antonina




Among these, feeblest amid the most feeble, were Numerian and Antonina,
hemmed in by the surrounding crowd, and shut out either from flight from
the city or a return to home.


CHAPTER 24. THE GRAVE AND THE CAMP.

While the second and last embassy from the Senate proceeds towards the
tent of the Gothic king, while the streets of Rome are deserted by all
but the dead, and the living populace crowd together in speechless
expectation behind the barrier of the Pincian Gate, an opportunity is at
length afforded of turning our attention towards a scene from which it
has been long removed. Let us now revisit the farm-house in the
suburbs, and look once more on the quiet garden and on Hermanric's
grave.

The tranquility of the bright warm day is purest around the retired path
leading to the little dwelling. Here the fragrance of wild flowers rises
pleasantly from the waving grass; the lulling, monotonous hum of insect
life pervades the light, steady air; the sunbeams, intercepted here and
there by the clustering trees, fall in irregular patches of brightness
on the shady ground; and, saving the birds which occasionally pass
overhead, singing in their flight, no living creature appears on the
quiet scene, until, gaining the wicket-gate which leads into the farm-
house garden, we look forth upon the prospect within.

There, following the small circular footpath which her own persevering
steps have day by day already traced, appears the form of a solitary
woman, pacing slowly about the mound of grassy earth which marks the
grave of the young Goth.


For some time she proceeds on her circumscribed round with as much
undeviating, mechanical regularity, as if beyond that narrow space rose
a barrier which caged her from ever setting foot on the earth beyond.
At length she pauses in her course when it brings her nearest to the
wicket, advances a few steps towards it, then recedes, and recommences
her monotonous progress, and then again breaking off on her round,
finally succeeds in withdrawing herself from the confines of the grave,
passes through the gate, and following the path to the high-road, slowly
proceeds towards the eastern limits of the Gothic camp. The fixed,
ghastly, unfeminine expression on her features marks her as the same
woman whom we last beheld as the assassin at the farm-house, but beyond
this she is hardly recognisable again. Her formerly powerful and
upright frame is bent and lean; her hair waves in wild, white locks
about her shrivelled face; all the rude majesty of her form has
departed; there is nothing to show that it is still Goisvintha haunting
the scene of her crime but the savage expression debasing her
countenance and betraying the evil heart within, unsubdued as ever in
its yearning for destruction and revenge.

Since the period when we last beheld her, removed in the custody of the
Huns from the dead body of her kinsman, the farm-house had been the
constant scene of her pilgrimage from the camp, the chosen refuge where
she brooded in solitude over her fierce desires. Scorning to punish a
woman whom he regarded as insane for an absence from the tents of the
Goths which was of no moment wither to the army or to himself, Alaric
had impatiently dismissed her from his presence when she was brought
before him. The soldiers who had returned to bury the body of their
chieftain in the garden of the farm-house, found means to inform her
secretly of the charitable act which they had performed at their own
peril, but beyond this no further intercourse was held with her by any
of her former associates.

All her actions favoured their hasty belief that her faculties were
disordered, and others shunned her as she shunned them. Her daily
allowance of food was left for her to seek at a certain place in the
camp, as it might have been left for an animal too savage to be
cherished by the hand of man. At certain periods she returned secretly
from her wanderings to take it. Her shelter for the night was not the
shelter of her people before the walls of Rome; her thoughts were not
their thoughts. Widowed, childless, friendless, the assassin of her
last kinsman, she moved apart in her own secret world of bereavement,
desolation, and crime.

Yet there was no madness, no remorse for her share in accomplishing the
fate of Hermanric, in the dark and solitary existence which she now led.
From the moment when the young warrior had expiated with his death his
disregard of the enmities of his nation and the wrongs of his kindred,
she thought of him only as of one more victim whose dishonour and ruin
she must live to requite on the Romans with Roman blood, and matured her
schemes of revenge with a stern resolution which time, and solitude, and
bodily infirmity were all powerless to disturb.


She would pace for hours and hours together, in the still night and in
the broad noonday, round and round the warrior's grave, nursing her
vengeful thoughts within her, until a ferocious anticipation of triumph
quickened her steps and brightened her watchful eyes. Then she would
enter the farm-house, and, drawing the knife from its place of
concealment in her garments, would pass its point slowly backwards and
forwards over the hearth on which she had mutilated Hermanric with her
own hand, and from which he had advanced, without a tremor, to meet the
sword-points of the Huns. Sometimes, when darkness had gathered over the
earth, she would stand--a boding and menacing apparition--upon the grave
itself, and chaunt, moaning to the moaning wind, fragments of obscure
Northern legends, whose hideous burden was ever of anguish and crime, of
torture in prison vaults, and death by the annihilating sword--mingling
with them the gloomy story of the massacre at Aquileia, and her fierce
vows of vengeance against the households of Rome. The forager, on his
late return past the farm-house to the camp, heard the harsh, droning
accents of her voice, and quickened his onward step. The venturesome
peasant from the country beyond, approaching under cover of the night to
look from afar on the Gothic camp, beheld her form, shadowy and
threatening, as he neared the garden, and fled affrighted from the
place. Neither stranger nor friend intruded on her dread solitude. The
foul presence of cruelty and crime violated undisturbed the scenes once
sacred to the interests of tenderness and love, once hallowed by the
sojourn of youth and beauty!

But now the farm-house garden is left solitary, the haunting spirit of
evil has departed from the grave, the footsteps of Goisvintha have
traced to their close the same paths from the suburbs over which the
young Goth once eagerly hastened on his night journey of love; and
already the walls of Rome rise--dark, near, and hateful--before her
eyes. Along these now useless bulwarks of the fallen city she wanders,
as she has often wandered before, watching anxiously for the first
opening of the long-closed gates. Let us follow her on her way.

Her attention was now fixed only on the broad ramparts, while she passed
slowly along the Gothic tents towards the encampment at the Pincian
Gate. Arrived there, she was aroused for the first time from her apathy
by an unwonted stir and confusion prevailing around her. She looked
towards the tent of Alaric, and beheld before it the wasted and
crouching forms of the followers of the embassy awaiting their sentence
from the captain of the Northern hosts. In a few moments she gathered
enough from the words of the Goths congregated about this part of the
camp to assure her that it was the Pincian Gate which had given egress
to the Roman suppliants, and which would therefore, in all probability,
be the entrance again thrown open to admit their return to the city.
Remembering this, she began to calculate the numbers of the conquered
enemy grouped together before the king's tent, and then mentally added
to them those who might be present at the interview proceeding within--
mechanically withdrawing herself, while thus occupied, nearer and nearer
to the waste ground before the city walls.

Gradually she turned her face towards Rome: she was realising a daring
purpose, a fatal resolution, long cherished during the days and nights
of her solitary wanderings. 'The ranks of the embassy,' she muttered,
in a deep, thoughtful tone, 'are thickly filled. Where there are many
there must be confusion and haste; they march together, and know not
their own numbers; they mark not one more or one less among them.'

She stopped. Strange and dark changes of colour and expression passed
over her ghastly features. She drew from her bosom the bloody helmet-
crest of her husband, which had never quitted her since the day of his
death; her face grew livid under an awful expression of rage, ferocity,
and despair, as she gazed on it. Suddenly she looked up at the city--
fierce and defiant, as if the great walls before her were mortal enemies
against whom she stood at bay in the death-struggle.

'The widowed and the childless shall drink of thy blood!' she cried,
stretching out her skinny hand towards Rome, 'though the armies of her
nation barter their wrongs with thy people for bags of silver and gold!
I have pondered on it in my solitude, and dreamed of it in my dreams! I
have sworn that I would enter Rome, and avenge my slaughtered kindred,
alone among thousands! Now, now, I will hold to my oath! Thou blood-
stained city of the coward and the traitor, the enemy of the
defenceless, and the murderer of the weak! thou who didst send forth to
Aquileia the slayers of my husband and the assassins of my children, I
wait no longer before thy walls! This day will I mingle, daring all
things, with thy returning citizens and penetrate, amid Romans, the
gates of Rome! Through the day will I lurk, cunning and watchful, in
thy solitary haunts, to steal forth on thee at nights, a secret minister
of death! I will watch for thy young and thy weak once in unguarded
places; I will prey, alone in the thick darkness, upon thy unprotected
lives; I will destroy thy children, as their fathers destroyed at
Aquileia the children of the Goths! Thy rabble will discover me and
arise against me; they will tear me in pieces and trample my mangled
body on the pavement of the streets; but it will be after I have seen
the blood that I have sworn to shed flowing under my knife! My
vengeance will be complete, and torments and death will be to me as
guests that I welcome, and as deliverers whom I await!'

Again she paused--the wild triumph of the fanatic on the burning pile
was flashing in her face--suddenly her eyes fell once more upon the
stained helmet-crest; then her expression changed again to despair, and
her voice grew low and moaning, when she thus resumed:--


'I am weary of my life; when the vengeance is done I shall be delivered
from this prison of the earth--in the world of shadows I shall see my
husband, and my little ones will gather round my knees again. The living
have no part in me; I yearn towards the spirits who wander in the halls
of the dead.'

For a few minutes more she continued to fix her tearless eyes on the
helmet-crest. But soon the influence of the evil spirit revived in all
its strength; she raised her head suddenly, remained for an instant
absorbed in deep thought, then began to retrace her steps rapidly in the
direction by which she had come.

Sometimes she whispered softly, 'I must be doing ere the time fail me:
my face must be hidden and my garments changed. Yonder, among the
houses, I must search, and search quickly!' Sometimes she reiterated
her denunciations of vengeance, her ejaculations of triumph in her
frantic project. At the recapitulation of these the remembrance of
Antonina was aroused; and then a bloodthirsty superstition darkened her
thoughts, and threw a vague and dreamy character over her speech.

When she spoke now, it was to murmur to herself that the victim who had
twice escaped her might yet be alive; that the supernatural influences
which had often guided the old Goths, on the day of retribution, might
still guide her; might still direct the stroke of her destroying
weapon--the last stroke ere she was discovered and slain--straight to
the girl's heart.

Thoughts such as these--wandering and obscure--arose in close, quick
succession within her; but whether she gave them expression in word and
action, or whether she suppressed them in silence, she never wavered or
halted in her rapid progress. Her energies were braced to all
emergencies, and her strong will suffered them not for an instant to
relax.

She gained a retired street in the deserted suburbs, and looking round
to see that she was unobserved, entered on of the houses abandoned by
its inhabitants on the approach of the besiegers. Passing quickly
through the outer halls, she stopped at length in one of the sleeping
apartments; and here she found, among other possessions left behind in
the flight, the store of wearing apparel belonging to the owner of the
room.

From this she selected a Roman robe, upper mantle, and sandals--the most
common in colour and texture that she could find--and folding them up
into the smallest compass, hid them under her own garments. Then,
avoiding all those whom she met on her way, she returned in the
direction of the king's tent; but when she approached it, branched off
stealthily towards Rome, until she reached a ruined building half-way
between the city and the camp. In this concealment she clothed herself
in her disguise, drawing the mantle closely round her head and face; and
from this point--calm, vigilant, determined, her hand on the knife
beneath her robe, her lips muttering the names of her murdered husband
and children--she watched the high-road to the Pincian Gate.

There for a short time let us leave her, and enter the tent of Alaric,
while the Senate yet plead before the Arbiter of the Empire for mercy
and peace.

At the moment of which we write, the embassy had already exhausted its
powers of intercession, apparently without moving the leader of the
Goths from his first pitiless resolution of fixing the ransom of Rome at
the price of every possession of value which the city contained. There
was a momentary silence now in the great tent. At one extremity of it,
congregated in a close and irregular group, stood the wearied and
broken-spirited members of the Senate, supported by such of their
attendants as had been permitted to follow them; at the other appeared
the stately forms of Alaric and the warriors who surrounded him as his
council of war. The vacant space in the middle of the tent was strewn
with martial weapons, separating the representatives of the two nations
one from the other; and thus accidentally, yet palpably, typifying the
fierce hostility which had sundered in years past, and was still to
sunder for years to come, the people of the North and the people of the
South.

The Gothic king stood a little in advance of his warriors, leaning on
his huge, heavy sword. His steady eye wandered from man to man among
the broken-spirited senators, contemplating, with cold and cruel
penetration, all that suffering and despair had altered for the worse in
their outward appearance. Their soiled robes, their wan cheeks, their
trembling limbs were each marked in turn by the cool, sarcastic
examination of the conqueror's gaze. Debased and humiliated as they
were, there were some among the ambassadors who felt the insult thus
silently and deliberately inflicted on them the more keenly for their
very helplessness. They moved uneasily in their places, and whispered
among each other in low and bitter accents.

At length one of their number raised his downcast eyes and broke the
silence. The old Roman spirit, which long years of voluntary frivolity
and degradation had not yet entirely depraved, flushed his pale, wasted
face as he spoke thus:--

'We have entreated, we have offered, we have promised--men can do no
more! Deserted by our Emperor and crushed by pestilence and famine,
nothing is now left to us but to perish in unavailing resistance beneath
the walls of Rome! It was in the power of Alaric to win everlasting
renown by moderation to the unfortunate of an illustrious nation; but he
has preferred to attempt the spoiling of a glorious city and the
subjugation of a suffering people! Yet let him remember, though
destruction may sate his vengeance, and pillage enrich his hoards, the
day of retribution will yet come. There are still soldiers in the
empire, and heroes who will lead them confidently to battle, though the
bodies of their countrymen lie slaughtered around them in the streets of
pillaged Rome!'

A momentary expression of wrath and indignation appeared on Alaric's
features as he listened to this bold speech; but it was almost
immediately replaced by a scornful smile of derision.

'What! ye have still soldiers before whom the barbarian must tremble for
his conquests!' he cried. 'Where are they? Are they on their march, or
in ambush, or hiding behind strong walls, or have they lost their way on
the road to the Gothic camp? Ha! here is one of them!' he exclaimed,
advancing towards an enfeebled and disarmed guard of the Senate, who
quailed beneath his fierce glance. 'Fight, man!' he loudly continued;
'fight while there is yet time, for imperial Rome! Thy sword is gone--
take mine, and be a hero again!'

With a rough laugh, echoed by the warriors behind him, he flung his
ponderous weapon as he spoke towards the wretched object of his sarcasm.
The hilt struck heavily against the man's breast; he staggered and fell
helpless to the ground. The laugh was redoubled among the Goths; but
now their leader did not join in it. His eye glowed in triumphant scorn
as he pointed to the prostrate Roman, exclaiming--

'So does the South fall beneath the sword of the North! So shall the
empire bow before the rule of the Goth! Say, as ye look on these Romans
before us, are we not avenged of our wrongs? They die not fighting on
our swords; they live to entreat our pity, as children that are in
terror of the whip!'


He paused. His massive and noble countenance gradually assumed a
thoughtful expression. The ambassadors moved forward a few steps--
perhaps to make a final entreaty, perhaps to depart in despair; but he
signed with his hand in command to them to be silent and remain where
they stood. The marauder's thirst for present plunder, and the
conqueror's lofty ambition of future glory, now stirred in strong
conflict within him. He walked to the opening of the tent, and
thrusting aside its curtain of skins, looked out upon Rome in silence.
The dazzling majesty of the temples and palaces of the mighty city, as
they towered before him, gleaming in the rays of the unclouded sunlight,
fixed him long in contemplation. Gradually, dreams of a future dominion
amid those unrivalled structures, which now waited but his word to be
pillaged and destroyed, filled his aspiring soul, and saved the city
from his wrath. He turned again toward the shrinking ambassadors--in a
voice and look superior to them as a being of a higher sphere--and spoke
thus:--

'When the Gothic conqueror reigns in Italy, the palaces of her rulers
shall be found standing for the places of his sojourn. I will ordain a
lower ransom; I will spare Rome.'

A murmur arose among the warriors behind him. The rapine and
destruction which they had eagerly anticipated was denied them for the
first time by their chief. As their muttered remonstrances caught his
ear, Alaric instantly and sternly fixed his eyes upon them; and,
repeating in accents of deliberate command, 'I will ordain a lower
ransom; I will spare Rome,' steadily scanned the countenances of his
ferocious followers.

Not a word of dissent fell from their lips; not a gesture of impatience
appeared in their ranks; they preserved perfect silence as the king
again advanced towards the ambassadors and continued--

'I fix the ransom of the city at five thousand pounds of gold; at thirty
thousand pounds of silver.'

Here he suddenly ceased, as if pondering further on the terms he should
exact. The hearts of the Senate, lightened for a moment by Alaric's
unexpected announcement that he would moderate his demands, sank within
them again as they thought on the tribute required of them, and
remembered their exhausted treasury. But it was no time now to
remonstrate or to delay; and they answered with one accord, ignorant
though they were of the means of performing their promise, 'The ransom
shall be paid.'

The king looked at them when they spoke, as if in astonishment that men
whom he had deprived of all freedom of choice ventured still to assert
it by intimating their acceptance of terms which they dared not decline.
The mocking spirit revived within him while he thus gazed on the
helpless and humiliated embassy; and he laughed once more as he resumed,
partly addressing himself to the silent array of the warriors behind
him--

'The gold and silver are but the first dues of the tribute; my army
shall be rewarded with more than the wealth of the enemy. You men of
Rome have laughed at our rough bearskins and our heavy armour, you shall
clothe us with your robes of festivity! I will add to the gold and
silver of your ransom, four thousand garments of silk, and three
thousand pieces of scarlet cloth. My barbarians shall be barbarians no
longer! I will make patricians, epicures, Romans of them!'

The members of the ill-fated embassy looked up as he paused, in mute
appeal to the mercy of the triumphant conqueror; but they were not yet
to be released from the crushing infliction of his rapacity and scorn.

'Hold!' he cried, 'I will have more--more still! You are a nation of
feasters;--we will rival you in your banquets when we have stripped you
of your banqueting robes! To the gold, the silver, the silk, and the
cloth, I will add yet more--three thousand pounds weight of pepper, your
precious merchandise, bought from far countries with your lavish
wealth!--see that you bring it hither, with the rest of the ransom, to
the last grain! The flesh of our beasts shall be seasoned for us like
the flesh of yours!'

He turned abruptly from the senators as he pronounced the last words,
and began to speak in jesting tones and in the Gothic language to the
council of warriors around him. Some of the ambassadors bowed their
heads in silent resignation; others, with the utter thoughtlessness of
men bewildered by all that they had seen and heard during the interview
that was now close, unhappily revived the recollection of the broken
treaties of former days, by mechanically inquiring, in the terms of past
formularies, what security the besiegers would require for the payment
of their demands.


'Security!' cried Alaric fiercely, instantly relapsing as they spoke
into his sterner mood. 'Behold yonder the future security of the Goths
for the faith of Rome!' and flinging aside the curtain of the tent, he
pointed proudly to the long lines of his camp, stretching round all that
was visible of the walls of the fallen city.

The ambassadors remembered the massacre of the hostages of Aquileia, and
the evasion of the payment of tribute-money promised in former days, and
were silent as they looked through the opening of the tent.

'Remember the conditions of the ransom,' pursued Alaric in warning
tones, 'remember my security that the ransom shall be quickly paid! So
shall you live for a brief space in security, and feast and be merry
again while your territories yet remain to you. Go! I have spoken--it
is enough!'

He withdrew abruptly from the senators, and the curtain of the tent fell
behind them as they passed out. The ordeal of the judgment was over;
the final sentence had been pronounced; the time had already arrived to
go forth and obey it.

The news that terms of peace had been at last settled filled the Romans
who were waiting before the tent with emotions of delight, equally
unalloyed by reflections on the past or forebodings for the future.
Barred from their reckless project of flying to the open country by the
Goths surrounding them in the camp, shut out from retreating to Rome by
the gates through which they had rashly forced their way, exposed in
their helplessness to the brutal jeers of the enemy while they waited in
a long agony of suspense for the close of the perilous interview between
Alaric and the Senate, they had undergone every extremity of suffering,
and had yielded unanimously to despair when the intelligence of the
concluded treaty sounded like a promise of salvation in their ears.

None of the apprehensions aroused in the minds of their superiors by the
vastness of the exacted tribute now mingled with the unreflecting
ecstasy of their joy at the prospect of the removal of the blockade.
They arose to return to the city from which they had fled in dismay,
with cries of impatience and delight. They fawned like dogs upon the
ambassadors, and even upon the ferocious Goths. On their departure from
Rome they had mechanically preserved some regularity in their progress,
but now they hurried onward without distinction of place or discipline
of march--senators, guards, plebeians, all were huddled together in the
disorderly equality of a mob.