in a boat--packing them as securely as their haste and
trepidation allowed. The boats glided down the river till they came to
a lonely spot, where an anchorite or sort of hermit lived in solitude.
The men and the treasures were to be intrusted to his charge. He
concealed the men in the thickets and other hiding-places in the
woods, and buried the treasures.

In the mean time, as soon as the boats and the party of monks which
accompanied them had left the abbey, the Abbot Theodore and the old
monks that remained with him urged on the work of concealing that part
of the treasures which had not been taken away. All of the plate which
could not be easily transported, and a certain very rich and costly
table employed for the service of the altar, and many sacred and
expensive garments used by the higher priests in their ceremonies, had
been left behind, as they could not be easily removed. These the abbot
and the monks concealed in the most secure places that they could
find, and then, clothing themselves in their priestly robes, they
assembled in the chapel, and resumed their exercises of devotion. To
be found in so sacred a place and engaged in so holy an avocation
would have been a great protection from any Christian soldiery; but
the monks entirely misconceived the nature of the impulses by which
human nature is governed, in supposing that it would have any
restraining influence upon the pagan Danes. The first thing the
ferocious marauders did, on breaking into the sacred precincts of
the chapel, was to cut down the venerable abbot at the altar, in his
sacerdotal robes, and then to push forward the work of slaying every
other inmate of the abbey, feeble and helpless as they were. Only one
was saved.

This one was a boy, about ten years old. His name was Turgar. He was
a handsome boy, and one of the Danish chieftains was struck with his
countenance and air, in the midst of the slaughter, and took pity on
him. The chieftain's name was Count Sidroc. Sidroc drew Turgar out
of the immediate scene of danger, and gave him a Danish garment,
directing him, at the same time, to throw aside his own, and then to
follow him wherever he went, and keep close to his side, as if he were
a Dane. The boy, relieved from his terrors by this hope of protection,
obeyed implicitly. He followed Sidroc every where, and his life
was saved. The Danes, after killing all the others, ransacked and
plundered the monastery, broke open the tombs in th