ill receive. Hostages I will have of the highest of his
men; their horses and weapons, ere they hence depart; and so they
shall as wretches go to their ships; sail over sea to their good land,
and there worthily dwell in their realm, and tell tidings of Arthur
the king, how I them have freed, for my father's soul, and for my
freedom solaced the wretches." Hereby was Arthur the king of honour
deprived, was there no man so bold that durst him advise;--that
repented him sore, soon thereafter!

Childric came from covert to Arthur the king; and he there became his
man, with all his knights. Four-and-twenty hostages Childric there
delivered, all they were chosen, and noble men born; they delivered
their horses, and their burnies, spears and shields, and their long
swords; all they relinquished that they there had. Forth they gan to
march until they came to the sea, where their good ships by the sea
stood. The wind stood at will, the weather most favourable, and they
shoved from the strand ships great and long; the land they all left,
and floated with the waves, that no sight of land they might see. The
water was still, after their will; they let together their sails
glide, board against board, the men there discoursed and said that
they would return eft to this land, and avenge worthily their
relatives, and waste Arthur's land, and kill his folk, and win the
castles, and work their pleasure.

So they voyaged on the sea even so long, that they came between
England and Normandy; they veered their luffs, and came toward land,
so that they came full surely to Dartmouth at Totnes; with much bliss
they approached to the land. So soon as they came on land, the folk
they slew; the churls they drove off, that tilled the earth there; the
knights they hung, that defended the land, all the good wives they
sticked with knives; all the maidens they killed with murder; and all
the learned men (clerics) they laid on embers. All the domestics (or
baser sort) they killed with clubs; they felled the castles, the land
they ravaged; the churches they consumed--grief was among the
folk!--the sucking children they drowned in the water. The cattle that
they took, all they slaughtered; to their inns they carried it, and
boiled it and roasted; all they it took, that they came nigh. All day
they sung of Arthur the king, and said that they had won homes, that
they should hold in their power; and there they would dwell winter and
summer. And if Arthur