it is, that sooner than relinquish Him,
Bertric, like Saint Edmund nearly two centuries earlier, yielded his
life to the rage of the enemies of His Lord {vi}.

The struggle was sharp but short, for Sidroc, to the surprise, and we
must add the disgust, of his compatriots, seized a bow and sent an
arrow straight to the heart. One nervous shudder passed through the
limbs, and all was still; they had killed the body, and had no more
that they could do.

Alfgar gazed with reverence, as well as love, upon the calm features
from which the expression of pain had wholly passed; the light of the
fire, mingling strangely with that of the rising full moon, illumined
them in this their first day of nothingness, for the spirit which had
lived and dwelt in the tabernacle of clay had fled.

Yet there was a wondrous beauty still lingering over them; they seemed
etherialised--as if an angel's smile had last stirred their lines,
when the spirit went forth, and left its imprint of wonder, joy, and
awe thereon; and Alfgar instinctively turned from them to the blue
depths of heaven above, where a few stars were visible, although
dimmed by the moonlight; and he seemed to trace his beloved Bertric's
passage to the realms of bliss. A light wind made music in the upper
branches of the oaks, and it seemed to him like the rush of angels'
wings.

It had often been a sharp struggle to him, nursed in heroic times,
learned in battle songs, and of the very blood of the vikings, to
avoid the feeling that Christianity was not the religion of the brave;
now the difficulty was over, and who shall say that the first joy of
the martyr's soul was not the knowledge that his sufferings had
already borne such fruit to God!

And not only was Alfgar reconciled to the reproach of the Cross, he
was also content to be an Englishman, if not in blood, at least in
affection and sympathy as in action.

An hour passed away; the body remained affixed to the tree; the night
grew darker, and the hour approached when, under ordinary
circumstances, people retired to rest, and the band commenced its
preparations for carrying out the attack upon Aescendune.

One hope Alfgar had, and that not a faint one: he knew that the two
theows had escaped unnoticed, and that they would give warning in time
for either defence or escape; their strength at Aescendune was but
slight for the former, all the able-bodied men were absent at the seat
of war.

In the excitement of the las