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make my peace with Heaven and my parting with man. At the hour of six to-morrow morning, I swear that I will surrender myself into thine hands to be dealt with as it may please the father of this young man."
"So let it be, Meinhard," said AEmilius, in a stifled voice.
"I know AEmilius, and I know Verronax," returned the Goth.
They grasped hands, and then Meinhard drew off his followers, leaving two, at the request of Marcus, to act as sentinels at the gate.
The Senator sat with his hands clasped over his face in unutterable grief, Columba threw herself into the arms of her betrothed, Marina tore her hair, and shrieked out--
"I will not hold my peace! It is cruel! It is wicked! It is barbarous!"
"Silence, Marina," said Verronax. "It is just! I am no ignorant child. I knew the penalty when I incurred it! My Columba, remember, though it was a hasty blow, it was in defence of our Master's Name."
The thought might comfort her by and by; as yet it could not.
The Senator rose and took his hand.
"Thou dost forgive me, my son?" he said.
"I should find it hard to forgive one who lessened my respect for the AEmilian constancy," returned Verronax.
Then he led Marcus aside to make arrangements with him respecting his small mountain estate and the remnant of his tribe, since Marina was his nearest relative, and her little son would, if he were cut off, be the sole heir to the ancestral glories of Vercingetorix.
"And I cannot stir to save such a youth as that!" cried the Senator in a tone of agony as he wrung the hand of Sidonius. "I have bound mine own hands, when I would sell all I have to save him. O my friend and father, well mightest thou blame my rashness, and doubt the justice that could be stern where the heart was not touched."
"But I am not bound by thine oath, my friend," said Sidonius. "True it is that the Master would not be served by the temporal sword, yet such zeal as that of this youth merits that we should strive to deliver him. Utmost justice would here be utmost wrong. May I send one of your slaves as a messenger to my son to see what he can raise? Though I fear me gold and silver is more scarce than it was in our younger days."
This was done, and young Lucius also took a summons from the Bishop to the deacons of the Church in the town, authorising the use of the sacred vessels to raise the ransom, but almost all of these had been already parted with in the time of a terrible famine which had ravaged Arvernia a few years previously, and had denuded all the wealthy and charitable families of their plate and jewels. Indeed Verronax shrank from the treasure of the Church being thus applied. Columba might indeed weep for him exultingly as a martyr, but, as he well knew, martyrs do not begin as murderers, and passion, pugnacity, and national hatred had been uppermost with him. It was the hap of war, and he was ready to take it patiently, and prepare himself for death as a brave Christian man, but not a hero or a martyr; and there was little hope either that a ransom so considerable as the rank of the parties would require could be raised without the aid of the AEmilii, or that, even if it were, the fierce old father would accept it. The more civilised Goths, whose families had ranged Italy, Spain, and Aquitaine for two or three generations, made murder the matter of bargain that had shocked AEmilius; but this was an old man from the mountain cradle of the race, unsophisticated, and but lately converted.
In the dawn of the summer morning Bishop Sidonius celebrated the Holy Eucharist for the mournful family in the oratory, a vaulted chamber underground, which had served the same purpose in the days of persecution, and had the ashes of two tortured martyrs of the AEmilian household, mistress and slave, enshrined together beneath the altar, which had since been richly inlaid with coloured marble.
Afterwards a morning meal was served for Verronax and for the elder AEmilius, who intended to accompany him on his sad journey to Bordigala, where the King and the father of Odorik were known to be at the time. Sidonius, who knew himself to have some interest with Euric, would fain have gone with them, but his broken health rendered a rapid journey impossible, and he hoped to serve the friends better by remaining to console the two women, and to endeavour to collect the wehrgeld in case it should be accepted.
The farewells, owing to the Roman dignity of AEmilius and the proud self-respect of the Arvernian,