ich they had sacked and destroyed,
compelled them to make known the place of the king's retreat. Hinquar,
the captain of the Danes, sent him a summons to come and surrender
both himself and all the treasures of his kingdom. Edmund refused.
Hinquar then laid siege to the palace, and surrounded it; and,
finally, his soldiers, breaking in, put Edmund's attendants to death,
and brought Edmund himself, bound, into Hinquar's presence.

Hinquar decided that the unfortunate captive should die. He was,
accordingly, first taken to a tree and scourged. Then he was shot at
with arrows, until, as the account states, his body was so full of the
arrows that remained in the flesh that there seemed to be no room for
more. During all this time Edmund continued to call upon the name of
Christ, as if finding spiritual refuge and strength in the Redeemer in
this his hour of extremity; and although these ejaculations afforded,
doubtless, great support and comfort to him, they only served to
irritate to a perfect phrensy of exasperation his implacable pagan
foes. They continued to shoot arrows into him until he was dead, and
then they cut off his head and went away, carrying the dissevered head
with them. Their object was to prevent his friends from having the
satisfaction of interring it with the body. They carried it to what
they supposed a sufficient distance, and then threw it off into a wood
by the way-side, where they supposed it could not easily be found.

As soon, however, as the Danes had left the place, the affrighted
friends and followers of Edmund came out, by degrees, from their
retreats and hiding places. They readily found the dead body of their
sovereign, as it lay, of course, where the cruel deed of his murder
had been performed. They sought with mournful and anxious steps, here
and there, all around, for the head, until at length, when they came
into the wood where it was lying, they heard, as the historian who
records these events gravely testifies, a voice issuing from it,
calling them, and directing their steps by the sound. They followed
the voice, and, having recovered the head by means of this miraculous
guidance, they buried it with the body.[1]

It seems surprising to us that reasonable men should so readily
believe such tales as these; but there are, in all ages of the world,
certain habits of belief, in conformity to which the whole community
go together. We all believe whatever is in harmony with, or analogous