222 THE HUNS OF ATTILA. 



to tell. The riderless horses, it was said, of these gipsies of the 

 orient were seen dashing away into the ranks of the enemy, and 

 there with more than human ferocity fighting and tramping 

 among the dense columns, till at last their dying shriek told the 

 tale of both horse and rider. A Him and a Goth on the hill-side, 

 wounded to the death, crawled on to each other, and with their 

 teeth in their expiring agonies tore each other's flesh till life 

 went out in this horrid death strife. Such was the animosity in 

 battle of man and beast among these savage hordes. 



The closing hours of the day thus passed, while still the battle 

 raged and the carnage was unabated. The sun was already 

 sinking below the western sky, and Attila was now almost exult- 

 ing in the victory. The old man Theodoric, his white hair 

 streaming on the wind, was riding heedless of danger before his 

 warriors and urging them on to yet another charge, when in 

 mid-career he was struck by a javelin from a noble Ostrogoth, 

 and falling from his horse, was trampled beneath the feet of his 

 own cavalry. The youthful Torismund from the hill-top beheld 

 the brave chieftain, his father, borne to the ground; and with a 

 wild cry of anguish he rushed down with his followers on the 

 Huns, like an avalanche started from its fastness by some wind 

 gust of the Alps. It was not a charge, nor any species of human 

 warfare, but the savage onslaught of wild beasts. They fought 

 hand to hand, without mercy asked or quarter given. Each blow 

 of the battle-ax felled some victim to the ground. Each plunge 

 of the steed trampled out some luckless life. The hill-side 

 became clogged arid hideous with its burden of the slain; and 

 the stream below flowed sluggish with its swollen current of 

 blood. 



But the boldest champion of that fearful struggle was the 

 leader Attila, who everywhere conspicuous on his powerful black 

 charger, seemed to court every danger and to know no fear. 

 The spirit of battle now possessed him. Over his brow there 

 darkened that hideous scowl, and from his eyes shot forth the 

 living fire of the demon of war. Before his gaze the bravest 

 cowered, and by his resistless arm the foe were leveled like grain 

 before the reaper. He seemed, like Ajax, to carry the battle on 

 his own gigantic shoulders. But all in vain the hero fought. 



