title: In the time of Attila,
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I see God^s own scourge whipping you to your death! Return and repent I It is the Church’s word 1 ’ ’ Strange speech for an ambassador! It shook the superstitious Attila to his vitals. To his fevered eyes—he was ill, himself—the figure of St. Peter loomed over him with the sword of Doom. He summoned up his courage to reply, but Leo the Great loosed upon him a torrent of fiery words. Possessed of extraordinary eloquence, absolutely convinced himself of his divine mis¬ sion, believing in all sincerity that he wielded the powers of Heaven and Hell in his own per¬ son, the Pope scorched and withered the shaken Hun with phrases that blistered mind and soul. 292 IN THE TIME OF ATTILA The Attila of three years before would have cut off the Pope’s head with his own sword, those of the four cardinals as well, and would have ridden on, laughing stridently; the twice defeated Attila, no longer sure of himself, rid¬ ing under the burden of Mirkhond’s dying words, trembled before the Pope. He began to speak, haltingly, of a possible treaty. The Pope would hear none of it. Scarcely would he allow Attila to speak. ‘‘Treaty!” he thundered. “What treaty can there be between God and a foul-souled and im¬ penitent infidel! Think you, Hun, that the Church will listen to a single word from your blasphemous lips? Do you know that the armies of the Church are ready to stamp your diseased carrion-eaters into the mire of these marshes? That I, alone, if God be willing, can bid the earth open its mouth and swallow all your host? Treaty! You will hear the terms I give you. You will hear them humbly, Hun, and ride back thankful that the Church thus gives you time to think of your load of sin and to repent! ’ ’ With such a man there could be no discus- eion. Leo the Great, having cowed Attila to THE DEATH BRIDE 293 subjection, dictated drastic terms. Once the Hun intervened— ‘‘The dowry of Honoria—he began. “Honoria the wanton! Bitter as Dead Sea fruit has been her life on earth, bitterer still shall it be in the hereafter. You shall have her, Hun, in hell; and help her to spend her dowry of eternal fire! ’ ’ A beaten man, a shamed man, a man with the serpent of disgrace gnawing at his heart, Attila turned his armies next day back toward the plains of Scythia. Before his soldiers he kept up a show of fictitious courage, saying that he “could fight men, but not a lion and a wolf together” (Leo the Great and the Wolf of Rome). Yet the army recognized defeat, and retreated all the more willingly that the Pope —wdsely not pressing despairing men too far— permitted it to carry back to its own land the rich spoil gathered from the sacking of the cities of Northern Italy. Across the Julian Alps, again, crept the hu¬ miliated army. For weeks together, Attila did not utter a single word, his only close com¬ panion being Goderedd, who never left his side. The one-time Master of the World was terribly 294 IN THE TIME OF ATTILA changed. He, who, his whole life long, had been abstemious and of simple habits, drank more and more heavily. The command of the army devolved upon Goderedd. Ardaric, the Gepid, who had been present at the papal embassy, and who had heard the scathing denunciations of the Pope, drew off with his army as soon as the Danube was crossed, and, in his own country, began to plot against Attila. The results of that plotting found fruit the direful year following, when Ellak, trying to keep the dismembered Hun em¬ pire from utter ruin, was slain in battle with Ardaric. Gungis died in the same fight, and Goderedd as well. Ardaric, remembering the Goth^s oath, buried all three in the same grave, for the Gepids did not burn their dead. But that grim happening was not yet. For a few months still, the Empire of the Huns ex¬ isted. The name of Attila held all the rising revolts from* daring to show their heads. It was in Dacia (Bulgaria and Eoumania) that Attila pitched his last camp. The reason was a strange one. The Dacians, warriors of the finest type, had always been a thorn in the side of the Eoman Empire, and, two THE DEATH BRIDE 295 centuries before, had won their independence and held it in the teeth of all invasions. They had accepted Attila’s overlordship and had paid tribute, but they never sent a man to his armies. Now, they resented bitterly the pres¬ ence of the defeated conqueror. A detachment of Huns pillaging near Sardica (Sofia) was set upon by the Dacians and wiped out utterly. For a moment, the old fire flashed up in At- tila. At the head of a small body of troops, horsemen all, he struck across the country, burning and slaying as he went, but with heavy loss, for the Dacians were superb in guerrilla warfare and the mountainous districts were ill- fitted for cavalry. In one such village, not far from his main camp, Attila saw a trooper of his host drag¬ ging from a hut a red-haired girl of surpassing beauty. He struck otf the warrior ^s head and bade his followers bring the girl to his tent. Her name was Ildico. Rhekan, the mother of Attila’s three legiti¬ mate sons, was long dead; Honoria had ever been but a mirage. Mirkhond^s prophecies of the evil fate awaiting his two remaining sons caused the Hun conqueror to fear that his line 296 IN THE TIME OF ATTILA would become extinct. He decided to marry Ildico, for his soothsayers prophesied that ‘Tl- dico would give him that which no woman had ever given him before. Attila took this to mean that she would give him sons who would succeed him. The prophecy proved true, but not as he interpreted it—far, very far, from that! For the week before the marriage, Attila seemed almost his old self. He spent each day in the saddle, routing the Dacians everywhere he went. The Flaming Sword flashed its ven¬ geance far and wide. Little he thought and little he cared that these were Ildico’s kinsmen whom he was slaying. Goderedd’s protests and warn¬ ings he laughed away, with his harsh and croaking laugh. The day of the wedding came. Not a single Dacian chief appeared. The portents were unfavorable. The horse which was bearing Ildico stumbled, and almost threw its rider. The soothsayers gave evasive answers. One, more daring than the rest, said curtly: ‘‘There is but little difference between a white girl and a ghost. THE DEATH BRIDE 297 They were his last words. Attila brained him with the Sw.ord. The banquet was wild and rude. The wine ran freely. Ildico, crowned, covered with jewels, sat white and silent. Pale of skin she was, looking all the paler in her gorgeous robes and with her long and glorious hair, with all the hues of sunset in it. Her arms and neck were bare, the skin seeming deathly white amid the swarthy Huns. Never was seen a whiter bride. There was something spectral in her whiteness and her silence. Around the banquet-table wheeled in endless circling a triple ring of horsemen, fully armed, excited with drink, shouting lustily, ‘‘Attila! Attila! To marriage and to battle, Attila!’’ Goderedd watched the king, watched Ildico, and liked it not. If only Mirkhond were there, to read the girl’s inmost thoughts! But Mirkhond was not there. He lay in a lonely grave beside the distant Rhine, mth Genseric’s name the last upon his lips. Ghostly white was Ildico. To all the courtly words of Goderedd she answered nothing. The 298 IN THE TIME OF ATTILA Goth, despite himself, shivered. Who, hut Death, would wed a ghost? Attila was unnerved, bewitched. This pale creature had roused in him a savage passion, utterly alien to his usual coldness where women were concerned. The King was wild, exultant, triumphant. He shouted, laughed, drank, and even jested. Goderedd watched him soberly. So behaved men whom the Goths called ‘Hey,’’ men on whom the shadow of a doom was falling. The feast was nearly ended when the four chosen warriors leapt from their horses to lead Ildico to the bridal tent. She walked before them, slowly, head erect, regardless of the thunderous and drunken shouting and the ribald jests. Never, the Huns all swore, had a lovelier woman been seen. Suddenly, some one in the host cried in the Latin tongue: “Hail and Farewell, Attila!” The words brought back old memories of Eome. Attila leapt to his feet. The Sword flashed out. The battle-fire thrilled anew through his veins. THE DEATH BRIDE 299 ^‘Rome! Enough, of these Dacian mountains! Rome! Warriors, we ride again on Rome! An end to all Christian magic! Death to all Chris¬ tian priests! Tear every Christian limb from limb! Summon my armies! Rome! This night, alone, for revelry! To-morrow we ride on Rome! ’ ’ His body-guard, men who had ridden with him all their lives, hard-bitten veterans who had fought by his side in Gaul, flashed into wild en¬ thusiasm. This was their Attila, their dread-inspiring conqueror! The savage blood within them boiled. In Attila’s voice was the old magnetic ring. The Flaming Sword glowed in his upstretched hand like an emblem of slaughter. ^^The Sword!^^ they yelled. ‘^The Sword!’’ The power, the fire, the dynamic wizardry of supreme grip upon the hearts of men, de¬ scended upon Attila anew like a diabolic flame. The lines of weariness left his face. His eyes glowed as in the old days when no human being could sustain his glance. All felt it. All knew it. Attila, the real Attila, was back. The last two years were at once for- 300 IN THE TIME OF ATTILA gotten. As of old, they felt that they could not fail. The blood-lure seized them. ‘ ‘ Death to all Christians! On to Eome! ’ ^ One of them, shouting, raised his ax and crashed it into the skull of the priest who, an hour before, had married Attila to Ildico. The Hun king roared approval. ‘‘A good stroked’ he shouted. ‘^One night more, Huns all, and then to Eome In a delirium of clamor, shield clashing shield, the war-cries ringing furiously, they es¬ corted the King to his tent. Goderedd followed closely. A dull presenti¬ ment hung over him. Many a time before had he watched outside the tent of Attila, when peril threatened. That night, he would watch again. Not far away, roared the mad riot of the banquet. Inside the tent, the voice of Attila. Goderedd listened well, but never once did he hear the voice of Ildico in reply. Later, stillness. The night long, stillness. Morning. With dawn the eager horsemen came clatter- i THE DEATH BRIDE 301 ing with shouts of triumph to greet the new- wedded king. ^ ‘ Rome! Lead us, Attila! Rome! ’ ’ The curtains of the tent parted. At the opening stood Ildico, her long red hair unbound, white-robed, but with her feet dyed red. A breath of terror seemed to come from the tent. The horses whinnied; the men reined back. There was a dreadful silence. Goderedd brushed by Ildico. The shaft of morning light shot clear to the bridal couch, stained a dark red, and shone on a blackening pool upon the ground. The soothsayers had told true. Ildico had given the mighty Hun ‘^what no woman had ever given him before.’’ Upon the couch lay Attila, the Flaming Sword still deep in his heart,—dead! THE END * I I i 'i ! ■> i i. 