slain king.

Then as the foe fled back the gates swung to, and I heard the bars
clatter into their sockets, and Kynan came to me.

"Holy saints!" he said; "look yonder!"

I went a pace or two up the earthwork and looked over toward the
foe. Some twenty yards from the gate lay as it were a blackened
heap, round which reeled and staggered men with hands to blinded
faces, and from which those who were unhurt fled in wildest terror
down the hill, casting even their weapons from them. Save only
those who could not fly, not one Mercian was staying.

"Yonder lies Gymbert," Kynan said in a still voice. "The bolt
struck him. It is the judgment of Heaven on him for that which he
wrought in darkness."

CHAPTER XIX. HOW WILFRID CAME HOME TO WESSEX.

For a moment I looked and then turned away, with but one thought in
my mind, and that was the knowledge that it was a good thing that
the punishment of this man had been taken from our hands. I do not
think that I took in all the terror of it at the time, for on that
field there was death in so many forms--death brought needlessly by
his contriving again, and in all injustice--and this end of his was
to me but right and fitting. Some terrible fate the man deserved,
and he had met it. Now I had my own friends to think of.

"See to Jefan!" I said to Kynan, without a word of Gymbert. "He
fell at the gate, in the first onset."

"My fault," groaned the brother, "my fault. I should have waited
his word before sallying out. I heard you call me back, too, and
heeded not."

He called some men, and they opened the gate and passed out
hastily, while I knelt at the side of Erling. The old priest was
trying to stay the bleeding from a great wound in his side; but he
shook his head at me, and I knew that it was hopeless.

Erling knew it also.

"Get to the others, father," he said; "I am past your heeding."

"They will fetch me if I am needed, my son," the old man answered.
"There are few of us who cannot tend a common wound. I am but
wanted at the last."

"Ay, for the one thing," said Erling, with a great light springing
into his weary eyes. "For me also, father.

"Tell him, master."

The old man looked at me, and I nodded. He was a British priest,
and one had been told that they and our priests hated each other
and quarrelled over deep matters; but what was that in this moment?
Neither Briton nor Englishman, priest of St. David's nor of
Canterbury would heed that here and