"It is I, man-hunter. Where are thy boasts and threats now? Why dost not ask the serf, now, for life, for mercy?"
"Because thou couldst not give it, if thou wouldst; and wouldst not, if thou couldst. Go thy way, go thy way! We shall meet one day, in that place whither our deeds will carry us. Go thy way, unless thou wouldst stay, and look how a Norman dies. I fear neither death, nor thee. Go thy way, and the fiend go with thee."
And, with the word, he went his way, coldly, sternly, pitilessly, and in silence; for he felt, in truth, that the seneschal had spoken truly, that he could not save him if he would, unless he would save his own sworn destroyer. Sullenly, slowly, he rowed onward, reached the land; and still, as he looked back, with his horse's neck and his armed trunk eminent above the level waters, glittering in his bright mail, sat the fearless rider. Wearied and utterly exhausted, both in mind and body, the serf gazed, half-remorsefully, at the man whom he had so mercilessly abandoned to his fate, and who bore it so sternly, awaiting the last inevitable moment with more than a stoic's fortitude and pride. For a moment he hesitated whether he should pursue his journey; but an irresistible fascination compelled him to sit down and await the end, and he did so.
And there those two sat, face to face, at a mile's distance, for a long half hour, in plain view, each almost fancying that he could peruse the features, almost fancying that he could read the thoughts of his enemy—each in agony of soul, and he, perhaps, in the greater anguish who had escaped, as it would seem, all peril, and for whom death seemed to wait, distant and unseen, at the end of a far perspective.
At the termination of half an hour, there was a motion, a strife—the water had reached the nostrils of the charger. He tossed his head a few times, angrily; then, after rearing once or twice, with his rider yet erect in his saddle, subsided into deep water, and all was over.
Eadwulf crept away up the bank, found a thick dingle in the wood, and, coiling himself up in its densest spot, slept, dreamless and unrepentant, until the morrow's sun was high in heaven.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE SUPPLIANT.
Brother, be now true to me,
And I shall be as true to thee;
As wise God me speed.