aw the Angel of Essalona by his side and felt his hand
restraining the blade; and at the same instant the figure before him,
the figure of the King Orgulous, grew dim and hazy, and wavered, and
broke like smur blown along a wooded hillside, and vanished from his
gaze.

"A little truer stroke," said the Angel, "and thou hadst slain thyself,
for of a truth the man thou wast slaying was none other than thyself;
as it is, thou art hurt more than need was"--for the shoulder of the
Archbishop was bare, and the blood streamed from it.

Bewildered at these words, Desiderius gazed about to see if the high
hall and the Avars were but the imagery of a dream. But there in front
of him stood the dwarfish tribe, with naked brands and battle-axes.
These, when they looked on his face, raised a hoarse cry of terror, for
they too had beheld Talisso, how at a blow of the magic sword he had
fallen and perished even from the vision of men, and now they saw that
he who had slain the King was himself the King. Howling and
clamouring, they broke from the hall and fled into the street; and
there the men-at-arms did right willingly and doughtily the work which
thus came to their hands. Of that fierce and uncouth robber horde,
which rode to Sarras two hundred strong, scarce two score saw Danube
water again.

When Desiderius knew for a surety that the natural man within him was
verily that King wicked and orgulous, and understood that the sins of
that evil King were the sins he himself would have committed but for
the saving grace of God, a great awe fell upon him, and he was abashed
with a grievous dread lest the King Orgulous were not really dead and
done with, but were sleeping still, like the Kings of old legend, in
some dusky cavern of his nature, ready to awake and break forth with
sword and fire. Gladly would he have withdrawn to the solitude of the
little convent on the beetling crag, far from the temptations of power
and the splendour and tumult of life; but the same answer was given to
him now as had been given to him of old: "One of thy vows was entire
obedience, and the grace of God is sufficient for thee."

The Journey of Rheinfrid

On the green skirts of the Forest of Arden there was a spot which the
windings of the Avon stream had almost made into an island, and here in
the olden time the half-savage herdsmen of King Ethelred kept vast
droves of the royal swine. The sunny loops of the river cut clearings
on the ea