"Ho!" said Odo. "Give me thine hand. Let me feel thee. Yea, these
be sinews! It is well. I marvelled how my Odorik should have
fallen by the soft Roman hand of yonder stripling; but thou art a
worthy foe. What made the priestling thrust himself between me and
my prey?"

"His generous love," returned Verronax, as Lucius flung himself on
his neck, crying--

"O my Verronax, why hast thou come? The bitterness of death was
past! The gates were opening."

Meanwhile AEmilius had reached Euric, and had made him understand
the substitution. Old Odo knew no Latin, and it was the King, an
able orator in both tongues, who expounded all in Gothic, showing
how Lucius AEmilius had offered his life in the stead of his friend,
and how Verronax had hurried to prevent the sacrifice, reiterating,
almost in a tone of command, the alternative of the wehrgeld.

The lites all burst into acclamations at the nobility of the two
young men, and some muttered that they had not thought these Romans
had so much spirit.

Euric made no decision. He did full justice to the courage and
friendship of the youths, and likewise to the fact that Odorik had
provoked the quarrel, and had been slain in fair fight; but the
choice lay with the father, and perhaps in his heart the politic
Visigoth could not regret that Arvernia should lose a champion sure
to stand up for Roman or national claims.