They beheld Alfgar in his night dress, all bloody, holding a dagger in his hand, and with his face blanched to a death-like paleness, uttering cry upon cry.

“Help!  Edmund, the king, is slain!”

They (the men) rushed to the chamber, and, passing through Alfgar’s little room, beheld, by the light of many torches, Edmund bathed in his own blood, which still dripped with monotonous but terrible sound on the floor.

Edric entered, and with woe, real or affected (no one could tell), painted in his face, approached the body; and Elfwyn and Herstan beheld, or thought they beheld, a prodigy:  they thought they saw the eyes open, and regard Edric, and that they saw the blood well up in the wound.  But doubtless this was fancy.

“One thing we all must do,” said Edric; “we must all help to find the murderer.  The first step to that effect will be to note all present appearances.  First, where is the weapon?”

“Here,” said Alfgar, extending it.

“Why, Alfgar, it is your own dagger,” said Elfwyn; “one which he gave you himself.”

Alfgar uttered a plaintive and pitiful cry.

Edric possessed himself of the blood-stained weapon.

“Alfgar,” said he, “you must have slept soundly.  Tell us what you heard and saw.”

He briefly related the particulars with which the reader is acquainted.

“But how could they enter?  Was your door unfastened?”

“No; it was bolted on the inside, even as I left it last night.”

“Bolted on the inside! then they must have entered through the window,” said Edric, noting the words.

“Impossible,” said both the thanes; “they are barred, both of them—­heavily barred.”

“We can no longer assist our departed lord save by our prayers,” said Edric.  “God be thanked, he died friends with me.  I shall value the remembrance of that kiss cf peace in St. Frideswide’s so long as I live.  And now I, once his foe, but his friend and avenger now, devote myself to hunt the murderer.  So help me God!”

“So help me God!”

“So help me God!” said all present, one after the other.

“We are then of one heart and soul, and no tie of kindred, no friendship, shall bar our common action.  And now we must rouse the reeve and burgesses; the gates of the city must be closed, that none escape.  I will send members of the guard to do this, and when they have assembled we will all take counsel together.”

“O Alfgar,” whispered Elfwyn, “how came your dagger there?”

“I know not.  I feel as one distracted,” said the faithful and loving Alfgar, who had lost by this fell stroke a most faithful friend, with the warmest heart which had ever beaten beneath a monarch’s breast.

Oh, how the thought of the conversation last night came back to him now—­the warning of Canute, the loving words of affection which had been spoken to him by those lips now cold in death!