He was red enough now, but his hand played nervously with his sword hilt, and once when men shouted in the wood, he clutched it.  Clearly I had terrified him, and if he deemed me, as it seemed, a ghost at first sight, the token of the arrow had undeceived him, and little rest would he have now, night or day, while I was yet at large.

So I laughed to myself, and watched him till he went back.

Presently the men straggled in, too.  One party, having made a circle, came close by me, and they were laughing and saying that the thane had seen a ghost.

“Moreover,” said another, “we saw him cross the court slowly enough, and when we got to the gate—­lo! he was gone.”

Then one said that he had heard the like before, and their voices died away as he told the story.

Soon after this the horns were blown to recall all the men, and I knew that Matelgar must needs, even were it a ghost who brought the war arrow, lead his following to the sheriff’s levy.

Aye, and the following that should be mine as well.  The message I had brought should have been to me as a king’s thane, and I myself should have sent one to Matelgar to bid him come to the levy, even as he would now send to the other lesser thanes and the franklins round about, in my place.  The men were running out even now, north and west and east, as I thought of this in my bitterness, and I watched them, knowing well to whom this one and that must go in each quarter.

This was hard to think of.  Yet I had stood in Matelgar’s presence, and had him in my power for a minute, while I might have struck him down, and had not done so.  And all that long night in Sedgemoor I had promised myself just such a moment, and had pictured him falling at my feet, my revenge taken.

But how long ago that seemed.  Truly I was like another man then.  And since that night there had been the wise counsel of the hermit, the prattle of the child, the touch and voice of my loved one, the thought of a true friend, and now the sore need of the country I loved.  And, for the sake of all those things, I do not wonder that, as I saw Matelgar pale and tremble before me, the thought of slaying him never entered my head.

I will not say that I was much conscious of all these things moulding my conduct; but I know that since I took this message on me, and it seemed to me that the prophecy was on its way to fulfilment, I had, as it were, stood by to see another avenger then myself at work in a way that should unfold itself presently—­so sure was I that all would come out as the hermit foretold.  So it was with a sort of confidence, and a boy’s love of adventure, too, that I had run into danger thus, while now that I had come off so well, my confidence was yet stronger.  However, it would not make me foolhardy, for my father was wont to tell me that one may only trust to luck after all care taken to be well off without it.

Men came trooping in from the nearer houses and farms very soon, armed and excited.  Often some passed under me, not ten paces off, and then I shrank down into the hollow.  All spoke of the Danes as gone, but at last one said he thought he could see them, away by Steepholme Island, half an hour agone.  Though it might be fancy, he added, for their ships were very low, and hard to see if no sail were spread.