“Cut off his head, Breton!” shouted Ivo. Raoul de Dol rushed forward, sword in hand. At that cry Hereward lifted up his dying head. One stroke more ere it was all done forever.
And with a shout of “Torfrida!” which made the Bruneswald ring, he hurled the shield full in the Breton’s face, and fell forward dead.
The knights drew their lances from that terrible corpse slowly and with caution, as men who have felled a bear, yet dare not step within reach of the seemingly lifeless paw.
“The dog died hard,” said Ivo. “Lucky for us that Sir Ascelin had news of his knights being gone to Crowland. If he had had them to back him, we had not done this deed to-day.”
“I will make sure,” said Ascelin, as he struck off the once fair and golden head.
“Ho, Breton,” cried Ivo, “the villain is dead. Get up, man, and see for yourself. What ails him?”
But when they lifted up Raoul de Dol his brains were running down his face; and all men stood astonished at that last mighty stroke.
“That blow,” said Ascelin, “will be sung hereafter by minstrel and maiden as the last blow of the last Englishman. Knights, we have slain a better knight than ourselves. If there had been three more such men in this realm, they would have driven us and King William back again into the sea.”
So said Ascelin; those words of his, too, were sung by many a jongleur, Norman as well as English, in the times that were to come.
“Likely enough,” said Ivo; “but that is the more reason why we should set that head of his up over the hall-door, as a warning to these English churls that their last man is dead, and their last stake thrown and lost.”