At last the noble life wore itself out. For two years Severinus had
foretold that his end was near; and foretold, too, that the people
for whom he had spent himself should go forth in safety, as Israel
out of Egypt, and find a refuge in some other Roman province,
leaving behind them so utter a solitude, that the barbarians, in
their search for the hidden treasures of the civilization which they
had exterminated, should dig up the very graves of the dead. Only,
when the Lord willed that people to deliver them, they must carry
away his bones with them, as the children of Israel carried the
bones of Joseph.
Then Severinus sent for Feva, the Rugian king, and Gisa, his cruel
wife; and when he had warned them how they must render an account to
God for the people committed to their charge, he stretched his hand
out to the bosom of the king. "Gisa," he asked, "dost thou love
most the soul within that breast, or gold and silver?" She answered
that she loved her husband above all. "Cease then," he said, "to
oppress the innocent: lest their affliction be the ruin of your
power."
Severinus' presage was strangely fulfilled. Feva had handed over
the city of Vienna to his brother Frederic,--"poor and impious,"
says Eugippius. Severinus, who knew him well, sent for him, and
warned him that he himself was going to the Lord; and that if, after
his death, Frederic dared touch aught of the substance of the poor
and the captive, the wrath of God would fall on him.
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