What would St. Etheldreda say? How dare they provoke her wrath? Would she submit to lose her lands? She might do,—what might she not do? Her bones would refuse ever to work a miracle again. They had been but too slack in miracle-working for many years. She might strike the isle with barrenness, the minster with lightning. She might send a flood up the fens. She might—
William the Norman, to do them justice, those valiant monks feared not; for he was man, and could but kill the body. But St. Etheldreda, a virgin goddess, with all the host of heaven to back her,—might she not, by intercession with powers still higher than her own, destroy both body and soul in hell?
“We are betrayed. They are going to send for the Abbot from Angerhale,” said Torfrida at last, reeling from the door, “All is lost.”
“Shall we burst open the door and kill them all?” asked Ranald, simply.
“No, King,—no. They are God’s men; and we have blood enough on our souls.”
“We can keep the gates, lest any go out to the King.”
“Impossible. They know the isle better than we, and have a thousand arts.”
So all they could do was to wait in fear and trembling for Hereward’s return, and send Martin Lightfoot off to warn him, wherever he might be.
The monks remained perfectly quiet. The organ droned, the chants wailed, as usual; nothing interrupted the stated order of the services; and in the hall, each day, they met the knights as cheerfully as ever. Greed and superstition had made cowards of them,—and now traitors.
It was whispered that Abbot Thurstan had returned to the minster; but no man saw him; and so three or four days went on.