tion.

Alfred watched them eagerly; the form of the younger--for so he
appeared by his slender frame--seemed familiar to him, and when at
last they turned their faces and walked towards him, the light of a
neighbouring fire showed him the face of his brother Elfric.

"My dream!" he mentally exclaimed.

They were evidently talking about some very important subject, and it
was also evident that the objections of the younger, whatever they might
be, were becoming rapidly overruled, when, as chance, if it were chance,
would have it, they paused in their circuit of the little camp just
beneath the tree where Alfred was posted.

"You see," said the elder, "that our course is clear, so definitely
clear that we have but to do our duty to the king, while we avenge a
thousand little insults we have ourselves received from this insolent
monk--such insults as warriors wash out with blood."

"Yet he is a churchman, and it would be called utter sacrilege."

"Sacrilege! is a churchman's blood redder than that of layman, and is he
not doomed as a traitor by a judgment as righteous as ever English law
pronounced! did he not keep Edwy from his throne during the lifetime of
the usurper Edred!"

"That was the sentence of the Witan, and you served Edred."

"I did not owe the allegiance of an Englishman to either, being of
foreign birth, and so was no traitor; as for the Witan, it is well known
Dunstan influenced their decision at the death of the royal Edmund."

"I never heard the assertion before."

"You have many things still to learn; you are but young as yet. But let
it pass. Does not his conduct to Queen Elgiva merit death!"

"I think it does. But still not without sentence of law."

"That sentence has been in fact pronounced, for in such cases as these,
where the subject is too powerful for the direct action of the law to
reach him, the decision of the king and council must pass for law, and
they have decided that Dunstan must die, and have left the execution of
the sentence--to us."

He did not add that the council in question consisted of the giddy young
nobles who had surrounded Edwy from the first, aided by a few hoary
sinners whose lives of plunder and rapine had given them a personal
hatred of the Church.

Elfric heaved a sigh, and said:

"If so, I suppose I must obey; but I wish I had not been sent on the
expedition."

"It is to test your loyalty."

"Then it shall be proved. I have no personal motives of gr