At the recapitulation of these the remembrance of Antonina was aroused; and then a bloodthirsty superstition darkened her thoughts, and threw a vague and dreamy character over her speech.
When she spoke now, it was to murmur to herself that the victim who had twice escaped her might yet be alive; that the supernatural influences which had often guided the old Goths, on the day of retribution, might still guide her; might still direct the stroke of her destroying weapon--the last stroke ere she was discovered and slain--straight to the girl's heart.
Thoughts such as these--wandering and obscure--arose in close, quick succession within her; but whether she gave them expression in word and action, or whether she suppressed them in silence, she never wavered or halted in her rapid progress.

Her energies were braced to all emergencies, and her strong will suffered them not for an instant to relax.
She gained a retired street in the deserted suburbs, and looking round to see that she was unobserved, entered on of the houses abandoned by its inhabitants on the approach of the besiegers.

Passing quickly through the outer halls, she stopped at length in one of the sleeping apartments; and here she found, among other possessions left behind in the flight, the store of wearing apparel belonging to the owner of the room.
From this she selected a Roman robe, upper mantle, and sandals--the most common in colour and texture that she could find--and folding them up into the smallest compass, hid them under her own garments.

Then, avoiding all those whom she met on her way, she returned in the direction of the king's tent; but when she approached it, branched off stealthily towards Rome, until she reached a ruined building half-way between the city and the camp.

In this concealment she clothed herself in her disguise, drawing the mantle closely round her head and face; and from this point--calm, vigilant, determined, her hand on the knife beneath her robe, her lips muttering the names of her murdered husband and children--she watched the high-road to the Pincian Gate.
There for a short time let us leave her, and enter the tent of Alaric, while the Senate yet plead before the Arbiter of the Empire for mercy and peace.
At the moment of which we write, the embassy had already exhausted its powers of intercession, apparently without moving the leader of the Goths from his first pitiless resolution of fixing the ransom of Rome at the price of every possession of value which the city contained.
There was a momentary silence now in the great tent.