“Look for thyself.”

No.  Etienne was not amongst the dead.  How, then, had he escaped?

“Search the premises—­search the woods—­stop the paths across the morass—­men and dogs, all of you.  Better all the rest had escaped:  he shall never, never live to be lord of Aescendune.”

And Wilfred vanished to give orders out of doors.

An hour had passed away; the dead had been removed, the English to be decently buried—­for there was an old church built by Elfwyn of Aescendune, during the Danish wars {xi}, and around it lay the graves of those who had died in troublous times; there English priests were still found to serve at the altar; Norman tyranny did not spare the English Church any more than the English nobility.

But the Norman dead were simply carried to a quagmire of bottomless depth which absorbed the bodies, and furnished a convenient though dreadful grave.

And in this division of the slain, young Eadwin, pierced with four wounds, was found; and the arrows, yet remaining, showed at once that he had not fallen in fair strife.

The search for Etienne, still unsuccessful, was being eagerly pursued, when Wilfred returned, bent on questioning Pierre, and beheld the dead body of Eadwin.

He was deeply moved, for he had loved the poor lad, his foster brother, well, and could not easily restrain his emotion, but so soon as he was master of himself, the desire for vengeance superseded softer emotions, and he ordered the wounded Pierre to be brought before him.

He had no difficulty in learning the truth.  Pierre, now upon his mettle, somewhat sorrowfully said that as the young thrall would not answer his lord when bidden, Etienne had endeavoured to compel him.

“Thou hadst, then, no part in it?”

“I gave the coup de grace.”

“Then thou hast sealed thine own fate:  it is folly to extend mercy to those who never show it.”

“I have not asked it of thee—­of the associate of murderers and outlaws.”

The sun rose clear and bright after that eventful night—­the storm was over—­its rising beams fell upon a company of archers drawn up in the English encampment—­upon a young warrior doomed to die, who stood bravely before them.  The gray-haired priest who had prepared him for death—­the only favour shown him—­bade him a last farewell; the bows twanged, and the same arrows which had transfixed the flesh of Eadwin pierced the heart of Pierre de Morlaix.

CHAPTER XII.  THE ENIGMA SOLVED.

We owe our readers some apology for having so long trifled with their patience concerning the fate of Wilfred, and we trust they are somewhat anxious to hear how he escaped the flames on that fatal night when the monastery was burnt.

When good Father Alphege heard that the boy had returned under captivity, for whose safety he was so anxious, he sent at once another messenger to the good Bishop Geoffrey, imploring his aid for the orphan.