But the story of Rosamond’s life is not yet at an end.  The death of Alboin was followed by another tragic event, which brought her guilty career to a violent termination.  The wily queen had not failed to prepare for the disturbances which might follow the death of the king.  The murder of Alboin was immediately followed by her marriage with Helmichis, whose ambition looked to no less a prize than the throne of Lombardy.  The queen was surrounded by a band of faithful Gepidae, with whose aid she seized the palace and made herself mistress of Verona, the Lombard chiefs flying in alarm.  But the assassination of the king who had so often led them to victory filled the Longobardi with indignation, the chiefs mustered their bands and led them against the stronghold of the guilty couple, and they in their turn, were forced to fly for their lives.  Helmichis and Rosamond, with her daughter, her faithful Gepidae, and the spoils of the palace, took ship down the Adige and the Po, and were transported in a Greek vessel to the port of Ravenna, where they hoped to find shelter and safety.

Longinus, the Greek governor of Ravenna, gave willing refuge to the fugitives, the more so as the great beauty of Rosamond filled him with admiration.  She had not been long there, indeed, before he offered her his hand in marriage.  Rosamond, moved by ambition or a return of his love, accepted his offer.  There was, it is true, an obstacle in the way.  She was already provided with a husband.  But the barbarian queen had learned the art of getting rid of inconvenient husbands.  Having, perhaps, grown to detest the tool of her revenge, now that the purpose of her marriage with him had failed, she set herself to the task of disposing of Helmichis, this time using the cup instead of the sword.

As Helmichis left the bath he received a wine-cup from the hands of his treacherous wife, and lifted it to his lips.  But no sooner had he tasted the liquor, and felt the shock that it gave his system, than he knew that he was poisoned.  Death, a speedy death, was in his veins, but he had life enough left for revenge.  Seizing his dagger, he pressed it to the breast of Rosamond, and by threats of instant death compelled her to drain the remainder of the cup.  In a few minutes both the guilty partners in the death of Alboin had breathed their last.

When Longinus was, at a later moment, summoned into the room, it was to find his late guests both dead upon the floor.  The poison had faithfully done its work.  Thus ended a historic tragedy than which the stage possesses few of more striking dramatic interest and opportunities for histrionic effect.

THE CAREER OF GRIMOALD.

The Avars, led by Cacan, their king, crossed, in the year 611, the mountains of Illyria and Lombardy, killed Gisulph, the grand duke, with all his adherents, in battle, and laid siege to the city of Friuli, behind whose strong walls Romilda, the widow of Gisulph, had taken refuge.  These events formed the basis of the romantic, and perhaps largely legendary, story we have to tell.