highroad, was one of Alaric's waggons; and on the heaps of baggage piled
against its clumsy wheels had been chosen resting-place of the future
conqueror of Rome. The top of the vehicle seemed absolutely teeming
with a living burden. Perched in every available nook and corner were
women and children of all ages, and weapons and live stock of all
varieties. Now, a child--lively, mischievous, inquisitive--peered forth
over the head of a battering-ram. Now, a lean, hungry sheep advanced his
inquiring nostrils sadly to the open air, and displayed by the movement
the head of a withered old woman pillowed on his woolly flanks. Here,
appeared a young girl struggling, half entombed in shields. There,
gasped an emaciated camp-follower, nearly suffocated in heaps of furs.
The whole scene, with its background of great woods, drenched in a
vapour of misty rain, with its striking contrasts at one point and its
solemn harmonies at another, presented a vast combination of objects
that either startled or awed--a gloomy conjunction of the menacing and
the sublime.


Bidding Goisvintha wait near the waggon, one of her conductors
approached and motioned aside a young man standing near the king. As
the warrior rose to obey the demand, he displayed, with all the physical
advantages of his race, and ease and elasticity of movement unusual
among the men of his nation. At the instant when he joined the soldier
who had accosted him, his face was partially concealed by an immense
helmet, crowned with a boar's head, the mouth of which, forced open at
death, gaped wide, as if still raging for prey. But the man had
scarcely stated his errand, when he started violently, removed the grim
appendage of war, and hastened bare-headed to the side of the waggon
where Goisvintha awaited his approach.