But they were all off plundering.
“We will stand by you and the ladies, and see you safe down to the ships,” said Winter, and so they went off.
Hereward would gladly have gone with them, as Alftruda piteously entreated him. But he heard his name called on every side in angry tones.
“Who wants Hereward?”
“Earl Osbiorn,—here he is.”
“Those scoundrel monks have hidden all the altar furniture. If you wish to save them from being tortured to death, you had best find it.”
Hereward ran with him into the Cathedral. It was a hideous sight; torn books and vestments; broken tabernacle work; foul savages swarming in and out of every dark aisle and cloister, like wolves in search of prey; five or six ruffians aloft upon the rood screen; one tearing the golden crown from the head of the crucifix, another the golden footstool from its feet. [Footnote: The crucifix was probably of the Greek pattern, in which the figure stood upon a flat slab, projecting from the cross.]
As Hereward came up, crucifix and man fell together, crashing upon the pavement, amid shouts of brutal laughter.
He hurried past them, shuddering, into the choir. The altar was bare, the golden pallium which covered it, gone.
“It may be in the crypt below. I suppose the monks keep their relics there,” said Osbiorn.