roached the table, Egbert, taking Edmund by the hand, led him
forward and knelt before the royal table.

"Whom have we here?" the king said. "This youth is by his attire one of
noble race, but I know not his face."

"We have come, sir king," Egbert said, "as fugitives and suppliants to
you. This is Edmund, the son of Ealdorman Eldred, a valiant cyning of
East Anglia, who, after fighting bravely against the Danes near
Thetford, joined Earl Algar, and died by his side on the fatal field of
Kesteven. He had himself purposed to come hither to you and to ask you
to accept him as your thane, and on the morn of the battle he charged
me if he fell to bring hither his son to you; and we pray you to
accept, in token of our homage to you, these vessels."

And here he placed two handsome goblets of silver gilt upon the table.

"I pray you rise," the king said. "I have assuredly heard of the brave
Eldred, and will gladly receive his son as my thane. I had not heard of
Eldred's death, though two days since the rumour of a heavy defeat of
the East Angles at Kesteven, and the sacrilegious destruction of the
holy houses of Bardenay, Croyland, and Medeshamsted reached our ears.
Were you present at the battle?"

"I was, sir king," Egbert said, "and fought beside Earl Algar and my
kinsman the Ealdorman Eldred until both were slain by the Danes, and I
with difficulty cut my way through them and escaped to carry out my
kinsman's orders regarding his son."

"You are a stout champion yourself," the king said, regarding with
admiration Egbert's huge proportions; "but tell us the story of this
battle, of which at present but vague rumours have reached us." Egbert
related the incidents of the battle of Kesteven. "It was bravely
fought," the king said when he had concluded; "right well and bravely,
and better fortune should have attended such valour. Truly the brave
Algar has shown that we Saxons have not lost the bravery which
distinguished our ancestors, and that, man for man, we are equal to
these heathen Danes."

"But methinks," Prince Alfred said, "that the brave Algar and his
valiant companions did wrong to throw away their lives when all was
lost. So long as there is the remotest chance of victory it is the duty
of a leader to set an example of valour to his followers, but when all
is lost he should think of his country. What though the brave thanes
slew each a score of Danes before they died, their death has left their
countrymen w