Edward was a most affectionate son, and was very anxious to learn the fate of his royal father, so he determined to force his way to the priory at all hazards, and made a circuit of the town so as to reach the sacred pile from the unassailed quarter. Night was now approaching, and the prince’s party had to fight their way at every step with the victorious horsemen of the barons. Edward’s giant strength and long sweeping sword made him a way over heaps of corpses strewn before him, but others were less fortunate.
Hard by the river, on the eastern side of the town, and beneath the high cliffs which rise almost precipitously to the isolated group of downs, there was a terrible charge, a hand-to-hand melee. Drogo of Walderne and Harengod, his sword red with blood, his lance couched, was confronted here by a knight in sable armour, his sole cognisance—the White Cross.
They rode at each other. Drogo’s lance grazed his opponent’s casque: the unknown knight drove his missile through corselet and breast, and Drogo went down crashing from his steed. The combat went sweeping on past them, the desperate foes fighting as they rode. Edward and his horsemen, less and less in number each minute, still riding for the priory, straining every nerve to reach it; the others assailing them at every turn.
The Earl of Warrenne, William of Valence, Guy of Lusignan, and Earl Bigod of Norwich, were separated from the rest of the band, and, despairing of attaining the prince again, rode across the low alluvial flats for Pevensey.
By God, who is over us, much did they sin,
That let pass o’er sea the Earl of Warrene,
Much hath he robbed us, by moor and by fen,
Our gold and our silver he carried hath henne {[35]};
Sang the citizens of Lewes afterwards of black Earl John.
Let us return in the shadows of the evening, while the prince gains the priory with a few of his followers, by sheer valour, while the rest are drowned in the river, or lost in the marshes—let us return to the place where Drogo de Harengod went down before an unknown foe.
“Dost thou know me?” said the conqueror, bending over the dying man and raising his helm.
“Art thou alive, or a ghost?” says a conscience-stricken voice.
“Nay, I am Hubert of Walderne, the cousin thou hast hated and injured. But our quarrel is settled now; thou art a dying man.”