ion did the Duke give the Saxon.

"Approach, Harold," said he, in the full tones of that voice, so
singularly effective in command; "approach, and without fear, as without
regret. Before the members of this noble assembly--all witnesses of thy
faith, and all guarantees of mine--I summon thee to confirm by oath the
promises thou mad'st me yesterday; namely, to aid me to obtain the
kingdom of England on the death of King Edward, my cousin; to marry my
daughter Adeliza; and to send thy sister hither, that I may wed her, as
we agreed, to one of my worthiest and prowest counts. Advance thou, Odo,
my brother, and repeat to the noble Earl the Norman form by which he will
take the oath."

Then Odo stood forth by that mysterious receptacle covered with the cloth
of gold, and said briefly, "Thou wilt swear, as far as is in thy power,
to fulfil thy agreement with William, Duke of the Normans, if thou live,
and God aid thee; and in witness of that oath thou wilt lay thy hand upon
the reliquaire," pointing to a small box that lay on the cloth of gold.

All this was so sudden--all flashed so rapidly upon the Earl, whose
natural intellect, however great, was, as we have often seen, more
deliberate than prompt--so thoroughly was the bold heart, which no siege
could have sapped, taken by surprise and guile--so paramount through all
the whirl and tumult of his mind, rose the thought of England irrevocably
lost, if he who alone could save her was in the Norman dungeons--so
darkly did all Haco's fears, and his own just suspicions, quell and
master him, that mechanically, dizzily, dreamily, he laid his hand on the
reliquaire, and repeated, with automaton lips:

"If I live, and if God aid me to it!"

Then all the assembly repeated solemnly:

"God aid him!"

And suddenly, at a sign from William, Odo and Raoul de Tancarville raised
the gold cloth, and the Duke's voice bade Harold look below.

As when man descends from the gilded sepulchre to the loathsome charnel,
so at the lifting of that cloth, all the dread ghastliness of Death was
revealed. There, from abbey and from church, from cyst and from shrine,
had been collected all the relics of human nothingness in which
superstition adored the mementos of saints divine; there lay, pell mell
and huddled, skeleton and mummy--the dry dark skin, the white gleaming
bones of the dead, mockingly cased in gold, and decked with rubies;
there, grim fingers protruded through the hideous chaos, a