all. He took vengeance on the Arab, however: and the Roman youth, after Bleda's departure, fell into a trap baited with his freedman's blood. I betrayed him not, but I aided to save him, and he knows it."

"I do," answered Theodore; "had it not been for thee, and for one whom I will not name, I had ended my life long ere now. But say, how am I to return to the dwelling of Attila when the tribes of Bleda lie across my way?"

"Did not those who told thee to come hither tell thee more?" demanded the negro.

"They told me nothing," answered Theodore, "but that it was the will of Attila I should pass by Margus as I returned. Of Bleda they said nothing."

"Bleda, oh Roman," replied the negro, "the powerful, the revengeful, the unforgiving, is like a dry stramonium bush in the desert, whose bitterness is parched up and gone, whose very thorns are withered and powerless. His name, his mighty name, is like the whisper of the wind among the rocks, speaking of tempests that we feel no more, of blasts from which we are sheltered! Bleda is dead, oh Roman; his arm is in the dust."

"Dead!" said Theodore, a presentiment of the dark truth coming over him, even before it was spoken; "dead! How did he die?"

"Those who told thee to come hither," said the negro, "were right to tell thee no more. Over the name of Bleda, and over his fate, there hangs a cloud: the Huns speak of it not, and are wisely silent; but of this I am sure, that there are not twenty men throughout all the land who do not feel that they are more at ease since there has been one great and unquiet spirit less in the world."

"But his children!" exclaimed Theodore, now fully convinced by the dark hints of the negro that the death of Bleda had been of an unusual and a bloody kind. "His family? his children? what has become of them?"

"They are safe," replied the negro, "they are safe and well; and one fair maiden, good, and gentle, and kindly as thou art, would fain have saved even me, lowly as I am, from a fate that she knew I deserved not. But her intercession was of no avail; and to say the truth, for I am wellnigh wearied out with this sad life, I grieved more that she should plead in vain than that I should be the object for which she vainly pleaded."

"My nephew shall try to make life more supportable to thee," replied the bishop. "Thou shalt go back with him, and he shall clear thee before the king. For well thou knowest, that when Attila has resolved the destruction of any one, no land can prove a shelter, no distance a barrier, no time an impediment, till he be avenged or appeased."

"I know it well," replied the negro; "and I know also, and willingly will say it, that fierce and stern as that great king is sometimes called, no one is more easily appeased for personal offences, no one more attentive to justice where truth can be made plain. Even with his brother Bleda, did he not forbear to the very last, though he well knew that his designs were pointed against Attila, not against the son of Paulinus?"

"How so?" demanded the bishop; "thy words are dark, my brother; I know not, and cannot even divine the cause of Bleda's hatred to my nephew. He injured him not."

"I could make my dark words clear," answered the negro in Greek. "But I love not to talk of things that do not concern me when there are many ears around."

The bishop paused for a moment, and giving the attendants of Theodore and the Huns who had brought the negro thither into the hands of one of his own officers, he bade him entertain them well, and return to conduct the unhappy Zercon thence in a few minutes. The attendants of the bishop easily divined his wishes, and the hall being instantly cleared, the negro was left alone with Eugenius and Theodore.

"Now," said the bishop, "now explain this mystery, why a man in command of reason should hate and seek the death of another who had never injured or offended him, and that, too, at first sight."

"Speak, Zercon," added Theodore, "and let us know the whole, for I have heard from Ardaric and others a part of the story, yet much remains unexplained. Was it not some prophecy that--"

"Listen, and you shall hear," said Zercon. "When Attila first heard that this noble bishop had carried off some treasures--"

"I carried off no treasures!" exclaimed the prelate, "and so I proved unto the king."

"But he heard that you had," answered the negro, "and that cause--with many another offence committed by the Romans, together with some idle time on his part, and no other object of conquest before his eyes--made him resolve to pour the tide of war upon the Eastern empire. When Attila, then, first determined upon war, he gathered his myriads together on the first plain beyond the mountains; and while messengers came to and fro, in order to avert hostilities which were already resolved, the king went up to the mountains to ask a holy man, who dwells there, the issue of his enterprise. So has he done in all the wars of the last five years, and the words of the hermit have ever proved true; for he promised Attila victory, and to those who know him it needs not be a prophet to foresee that. Now, also, he assured him of success, but upon one condition. He told him that if he would ride down towards the Danube with but few followers, he would meet a Roman on the Hunnish bank of the river, whom he should spare, and protect, and love. If wrong befell that Roman, or any of his family, the old man told him, either from the hand of Attila himself or any of his people, and if, for seven years, he, Attila, did not secure and protect him against all his enemies, not only his course of victory would cease, but death itself would cut him off in his return to his own hearth. 'His fate,' said the hermit to the king when he told this tale, 'his fate is bound up with yours! See that no evil happen to him, for worse will instantly fall upon yourself. You shall do him no wrong--you shall show him all favour. Go now and seek him!' Such were the old man's words."

The Bishop of Margus smiled as the negro proceeded, but Zercon went on with his tale: "Attila rode on from that spot; but, ere he had reached the banks of the great river he was met by some people posting inland to say that a Roman had ventured across the stream but slenderly attended, notwithstanding the daily feuds that already gave notice of the coming war, and to ask what they should do with him. At those tidings, Attila and Bleda both saw the first part of the old man's prophecy fulfilled, and from that moment they doubted not one word of the rest. Attila went on without his brother, and found this youth. Ye yourselves know all the rest."

"Still we see not why Bleda should seek his life," replied the bishop, "unless, indeed, he sought to take his brother's also; and then he might have taken it at once."

"He sought not to take his brother's life," replied Zercon: "he dared not, or he would; but he believed the prophecy, and thought that if this young Roman, on whom his brother's life and fortunes depended, were away, a hundred accidents in the course of war might lay the head of Attila in the dust. Ever through life did he covet whatever Attila possessed, and therefore was it that he sought at first to take a life on which that of his brother depended. Afterward revenge was added to the same ambition; but his plans had gone still farther. His daring had increased with impunity; and day by day he was nerving his heart to contend with Attila himself, vainly hoping that many of the great king's chiefs--perhaps even some of the monarch's children--would join him. But his life and his plots ended together."

"Wert thou with Bleda?" demanded Theodore, to whose ear the prophecy of the old man,