“Spare him, spare the brave,” cried in a breath Bruse, D’Aincourt, and De Graville.
William turned round in wrath at the cry of mercy, and spurring over all the corpses, with the sacred banner borne by Tonstain close behind him, so that it shadowed his helmet,—he came to the foot of the standard, and for one moment there was single battle between the Knight-Duke and the Saxon hero. Nor, even then, conquered by the Norman sword, but exhausted by a hundred wounds, that brave chief fell [275], and the falchion vainly pierced him, falling. So, last man at the standard, died Gurth.
The sun had set, the first star was in heaven, the “Fighting Man” was laid low, and on that spot where now, all forlorn and shattered, amidst stagnant water, stands the altar-stone of Battle Abbey, rose the glittering dragon that surmounted the consecrated banner of the Norman victor.
CHAPTER IX.
Close by his banner, amidst the piles of the dead, William the Conqueror pitched his pavilion, and sate at meat. And over all the plain, far and near, torches were moving like meteors on a marsh; for the Duke had permitted the Saxon women to search for the bodies of their lords. And as he sate, and talked, and laughed, there entered the tent two humble monks: their lowly mien, their dejected faces, their homely serge, in mournful contrast to the joy and the splendour of the Victory-Feast.
They came to the Conqueror, and knelt.
“Rise up, sons of the Church,” said William, mildly, “for sons of the Church are we! Deem not that we shall invade the rights of the religion which we have come to avenge. Nay, on this spot we have already sworn to build an abbey that shall be the proudest in the land, and where masses shall be sung evermore for the repose of the brave Normans who fell in this field, and for mine and my consort’s soul.”
“Doubtless,” said Odo, sneering, “the holy men have heard already of this pious intent, and come to pray for cells in the future abbey.”
“Not so,” said Osgood, mournfully, and in barbarous Norman; “we have our own beloved convent at Waltham, endowed by the prince whom thine arms have defeated. We come to ask but to bury in our sacred cloisters the corpse of him so lately King over all England—our benefactor, Harold.”