ns, scrutinizing every thing with
close attention and care, and yet studiously endeavoring to conceal
their interest in what they saw. Notwithstanding all their vigilance,
however, they were discovered, proved to be spies, and taken before
William to receive their sentence.

Instead of condemning them to death, which they undoubtedly supposed
would be their inevitable fate, William ordered them to be set at
liberty. "Go back," said he, "to King Harold, and tell him he might have
saved himself the expense of sending spies into Normandy to learn what I
am preparing for him. He will soon know by other means--much sooner, in
fact, than he imagines. Go and tell him from me that he may put himself,
if he pleases, in the safest place he can find in all his dominions,
and if he does not find my hand upon him before the year is out, he
never need fear me again as long as he lives."

Nor was this expression of confidence in the success of the measures
which he was taking a mere empty boast. William knew the power of
Harold, and he knew his own. The enterprise in which he had embarked was
not a rash adventure. It was a cool, deliberate, well-considered plan.
It appeared doubtful and dangerous in the eyes of mankind, for to mere
superficial observers it seemed simply an aggressive war waged by a duke
of Normandy, the ruler of a comparatively small and insignificant
province, against a king of England, the monarch of one of the greatest
and most powerful realms in the world. William, on the other hand,
regarded it as an effort on the part of the rightful heir to a throne to
dispossess a usurper. He felt confident of having the sympathy and
co-operation of a great part of the community, even in England, the
moment he could show them that he was able to maintain his rights; and
that he could show them that, by a very decisive demonstration, was
evident, visibly, before him, in the vast fleet which was riding at
anchor in the harbor, and in the long lines of tents, filled with
soldiery, which covered the land.

On one occasion, when some of his officers were expressing apprehensions
of Harold's power, and their fears in respect to their being able
successfully to cope with it, William replied, that the more formidable
Harold's power should prove to be, the better he should be pleased, as
the glory would be all the greater for them in having overcome it. "I
have no objection," said he, "that you should entertain exalted ideas of
his