wounds and slaughter such as no man had ever seen before, he drove the
heathen step by step before him, backwards and upwards, till he stood with
all his noblest knights upon the summit of the hill.

And then men saw him, "red as the rising sun from spur to plume," lift up
his sword, and, kneeling, kiss the cross of it; and after, rising to his
feet, set might and main with all his fellowship upon the foe, till, as a
troop of lions roaring for their prey, they drove them like a scattered
herd along the plains, and cut them down till they could cut no more for
weariness.

That day King Arthur by himself alone slew with his word Excalibur four
hundred and seventy heathens. Colgrin also, and his brother Baldulph, were
slain.

Then the king bade Cador, Duke of Cornwall, follow Cheldric, the chief
leader, and the remnant of his hosts, unto the uttermost. He, therefore,
when he had first seized their fleet, and filled it with chosen men, to
beat them back when they should fly to it at last, chased them and slew
them without mercy so long as he could overtake them. And though they
crept with trembling hearts for shelter to the coverts of the woods and
dens of mountains, yet even so they found no safety, for Cador slew them,
even one by one. Last of all he caught and slew Cheldric himself, and
slaughtering a great multitude took hostages for the surrender of the
rest.

Meanwhile, King Arthur turned from Badon Hill, and freed his nephew Hoel
from the Scots and Picts, who besieged him in Alclud. And when he had
defeated them in three sore battles, he drove them before him to a lake,
which was one of the most wondrous lakes in all the world, for it was fed
by sixty rivers, and had sixty islands, and sixty rocks, and on every
island sixty eagles' nests. But King Arthur with a great fleet sailed
round the rivers and besieged them in the lake for fifteen days, so that
many thousands died of hunger.

Anon the King of Ireland came with an army to relieve them; but Arthur,
turning on him fiercely, routed him, and compelled him to retreat in
terror to his land. Then he pursued his purpose, which was no less to
destroy the race of Picts and Scots, who, beyond memory, had been a
ceaseless torment to the Britons by their barbarous malice.

So bitterly, therefore, did he treat them, giving quarter to none, that at
length the bishops of that miserable country with the clergy met together,
and, bearing all the holy relics, came barefoot