“Ah, Edric!”

“Yes; but Edric is with Canute, I hear.”

“I wish he were with Satan, in his own place,” said Edmund, fiercely, forgetting all Christian charity at the hated name.

“It is devoutly to be wished; but he is quiet, we may enter now.”

The king, exhausted by his own violent emotions, lay back upon the bed, which occupied the centre of the room, surmounted by a wooden canopy, richly carved, from which curtains depended on either side.

His face, which time and evil passions had deeply wrinkled, was of a deadly paleness; his eyes were encircled by a livid tint, and stared as if they would start from their orbits; his breathing was rapid and interrupted, but at the moment when Edmund entered he was silent.  Standing on his left hand, wiping the perspiration from his brow, was Emma, the queen, her face yet comely, and bearing trace of that beauty which had once earned her the title of the “Pearl of Normandy.”  Her evident solicitude and loving care was the one picture of the room upon which the eye could rest with most contentment.

Alfred, her eldest son—­for Edmund was the offspring of an early amour of the king—­was on the other side of the bed, a well-made youth, combining in his features the haughty bearing of his Norman maternal ancestors with the English traits of his father; but now his expression was one of distress and anxiety, which was yet more deeply shared by his younger brother, Edward, who even at this period manifested that strong sense of religious obligation and that early devotion which in later years caused him to be numbered amongst canonised saints.

He knelt at the bedside, and his hand grasped the cold damp hand of his sire, as if he would strengthen him by his sympathy.

“O father,” he cried; “neglect not longer to make your peace with a long-suffering God; even in this eleventh hour He will not reject the penitent.”

He was interrupted by the entrance of Edmund, his half-brother, whom he feared, because he could not understand so different a nature.

“Our father has long pined for you,” he said, in a timid voice; “I fear you are too late, and that he will hardly know you.”

“I have ridden from Aescendune day and night since the news of his danger was brought me.

“Father,” he said, as he bent over the bed, “do you not know me?”

The dying man raised himself up and looked him full in the face, and a look of recognition came slowly.

“Edmund!” he said, “I am so glad, you will protect me; take your battle-axe, you are strong.  Sigeferth and Morcar, whom Edric slew at Oxford, have been here, and they said they would come back and drag me with them to some judgment seat; now take thine axe, Edmund, my son, and slay them when they enter; they want killing again.”

A look of indescribable pain passed over the features of Edmund.

The door opened, and Edward left the room after a conference with the physician, who sat in a corner of the room compounding drugs at a small table; a few minutes passed in silence, when he returned and held the door open for the bishop of London, who entered, bearing the viaticum, as the last communion of the sick was then called, and attended by an acolyte, who bore a lighted taper before him and carried a bell.