have kept it. At last they capitulated. As Alboin rode in at St.
John's gate, his horse slipped up; and could not rise, though the
grooms beat him with their lance-butts. A ghostly fear came on the
Lombards. 'Remember, lord king, thy cruel oath, and cancel it; for
there are Christian folk in the city.' Alboin cancelled his oath,
and the horse rose at once. So Alboin spared the people of Pavia,
and entered the palace of old Dietrich the Ostrogoth, as king of
Italy, as far as the gates of Rome and Ravenna.

And what was his end? Such an end as he deserved; earned and worked
out for himself. A great warrior, he had destroyed many nations, and
won a fair land. A just and wise governor, he had settled North
Italy on some rough feudal system, without bloodshed or cruelty. A
passionate savage, he died as savages deserve to die. You recollect
Rosamund his Gepid bride? In some mad drinking-bout (perhaps
cherishing still his old hatred of her family) he sent her her
father's skull full of wine, and bade her drink before all. She
drank, and had her revenge.

The story has become world-famous from its horror: but I suppose I
must tell it you in its place.--How she went to Helmichis the shield-
bearer, and he bade her get Peredeo the Kemper-man to do the deed:
and how Peredeo intrigued with one of her bower-maidens, and how
Rosamund did a deed of darkness, and deceived Peredeo; and then said
to him, I am thy mistress; thou must slay thy master, or thy master
thee. And how he, like Gyges in old Herodotus's tale, preferred to
survive; and how Rosamund bound the king's sword to his bedstead as
he slept his mid-day sleep, and Peredeo did the deed; and how Alboin
leapt up, and fought with his footstool, but in vain. And how, after
he was dead, Rosamund became Helmichis' leman, as she had been