arnt all particulars.

Edric was alone with the king in a chamber overlooking the Thames.
Hermann was on duty without, with some of the guard, when he heard
voices within in hot contention.

"You will grant me no favour, not even the life of this traitor, who,
I tell you, is conspiring against you, and desires to place Edwy, the
Etheling, Edmund's brother, on the throne in your place."

"Your proof lies, I suppose, in the hatred you have always borne him,"
was the king's reply.

Hermann could not help hearing, they spoke so loudly, but the next
words enchained his attention.

"I tell thee the name 'Alfgar' is first and foremost amongst the
signatures of the men who have conspired to cast thee from the
throne."

"Then I conclude you placed it there; tush, man, I know thee of old!"

"Why should you suspect this? was not he Edmund's faithful friend,
worshipping him as a god, and would he not do all he could for his
brother?"

"I thought you held him guilty of Edmund's murder."

"That was only because I wished to remove two enemies from your path
instead of one you will not remove one from mine; lo! I forsook Edmund
my king for thy sake, and for thy sake I slew him, and thus thou
rewardest me."

Then Canute waxed furious, and he shouted, "Guard! guard!"

Hermann rushed in; and amongst others Eric, the Earl of Northumbria.

"What, wretch! murderer! apostate blasphemer of the saints! didst thou
murder Edmund, my brother Edmund, who was dear to me as Jonathan to
David, seeing we were bound to each other by an oath! Thou didst
stretch thy hand against the Lord's anointed, and thou shalt die the
death.

"Cut him down! cut him down, Eric! cut him down, Hermann."

Eric stepped forward in an instant, and with his huge battle-axe cleft
the unhappy traitor, who had fallen to his knees to obtain mercy, from
the head to the shoulders.

"Throw the carcase out of window," cried the furious king; "let the
fishes have the carrion. Never shall he find a grave, the vile
regicide; and that he should think I would reward his guilt! Nay, I
have served him as David did the Amalekite."

Eric and Hermann, between them, raised the corpse, and flung it, all
bleeding and disfigured, into the Thames, the tide just running out
beneath the walls.

I ought to write, "So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord!" But the
awful doom of his unrepentant soul saddens me, much as he has hated me
and mine.

Lent, 1018.--

A strange discov