All its horrible application to himself thrilled through his heart.

His head drooped, and a low groan burst from his lips.

But even this evidence of the suffering she was inflicting failed to melt the iron malignity of Goisvintha's determination.
'Do you remember the death of Agnar ?' she cried.

'When you were a child, I sung it to you ere you slept, and you vowed as you heard it, that when you were a man, if you suffered his wounds you would die his death! He was crippled in a victory, yet he slew himself on the day of his triumph; you are crippled in your treachery, and have forgotten your boy's honour, and will live in the darkness of your shame! Have you lost remembrance of that ancient song?
You heard it from me in the morning of your years; listen, and you shall hear it to the end; it is the dirge for your approaching death!' She continued-- "SIONA, mourn not!--where I go The warriors feel nor pain nor woe; They raise aloft the gleaming steel, Their wounds, though warm, untended heal; Their arrows bellow through the air In showers, as they battle there; In mighty cups their wine is pour'd, Bright virgins throng their midnight board! "Yet think not that I die unmov'd; I mourn the doom that sets me free, As I think, betroth'd--belov'd, On all the joys I lose in thee! To form my boys to meet the fray, Where'er the Gothic banner streams; To guard thy night, to glad thy day, Made all the bliss of AGNAR'S dreams-- Dreams that must now be all forgot, Earth's joys have passed from AGNAR'S lot! "See, athwart the face of light Float the clouds of sullen Night! Odin's warriors watch for me By the earth-encircling sea! The water's dirges howl my knell; 'Tis time I die--Farewell-Farewell!" 'He rose with a smile to prepare for the spring, He flew from the rock like a bird on the wing; The sea met her prey with a leap and a roar, And the maid stood alone by the wave-riven shore! The winds mutter'd deep, with a woe-boding sound, As she wept o'er the footsteps he'd left on the ground; And the wild vultures shriek'd, for the chieftain who spread Their battle-field banquets was laid with the dead!' As, with a slow and measured emphasis, Goisvintha pronounced the last lines of the poem she again approached Hermanric.

But the eyes of the Goth sought her no longer.