horses, and before noon caught him up. He had heard
then what had happened to set his steed beyond control, and his
face was grave also. Even he could not help fearing that the
earthquake, coming at that moment as it did, might be sent as a
token which he must hear though the dreams of his mother went for
naught.

"And yet," he said to Father Selred and myself as we rode beside
him, "I am doing what I deem best for throne and realm, and I have
no thought of guile or harm to any man. Nor can I see that I have
to fear any from Offa, or that at his court can be danger to me."

"Journey and reason therefor are alike good so far as man can see
or plan," said Selred the priest. "I would that every journey was
undertaken as fully innocently. I cannot think that any tokens have
been sent to warn you from it. Yet if there had been aught amiss in
your plans, it is true that there have been tokens enough to scare
any man from evil."

"Maybe it all means naught but danger on the journey. Well, we knew
there was always that in any ride. For the rest, we are in the
hands of Him who orders all and can see beyond our ken. We will go
on till the tokens, if tokens they be, are plain in their meaning."

Father Selred approved, gravely. Then he muttered somewhat to
himself, and laughed. It was Latin, but the king told me afterward
what it meant. Some old Roman poet had made a song in which he said
that a man who was just and straightforward in his purposes need
not fear if the world fell, shattered in ruins, around him.

It was a good saying, and surely that was the way of Ethelbert of
East Anglia. Maybe the one thing which did trouble him was his
thought of the terror of his mother, and of her anxiety for him.

But it was a long while before the rest of us shook off the fear of
what all this might betoken. Perhaps of all I had the most reason
to think that ill was before the king, for Erling, though he said
no more to me, was plainly full of bodings. And I have heard that
other men dreamed dreams of terror and told them to one another.
Only Ethelbert was always cheerful, singing as he rode and laughing
with us, so that we ought to have been ashamed to be dull.

Save for what was in my mind, I cannot say that the miles went
slowly. The days were bright and warm, and ever did I take more
pleasure in the old home land. And always when Ethelbert had his
counsellors round him I rode with Hilda and her father, and I think
that I wishe