Fortunately--for she could utter no cry--the troops halted at this instant to enable their horses to gain breath.

Two among them at once perceived her position and detected her nation.

They mounted the rocks; and, while one possessed himself of the child, the other succeeded in rescuing the mother and bearing her safely to the ground.
The snorting of horses, the clashing of weapons, the confusion of loud, rough voices, which now startled the native silence of the solitary lake, and which would have bewildered and overwhelmed most persons in the woman's exhausted condition, seemed, on the contrary, to reassure her feelings and reanimate her powers.

She disengaged herself from her preserver's support, and taking her child in her arms, advanced towards a man of gigantic stature, whose rich armour sufficiently announced that his position in the army was one of command.
'I am Goisvintha,' said she, in a firm, calm voice--'sister to Hermanric.

I have escaped from the massacre of the hostages of Aquileia with one child.