“And after that?” said Witred.

“If I were in their place, naught should stay me here,” said the Mercian who had bided with me plainly.

“No,” said Sighard savagely; “I have a mind to bid them burn this hall over Offa’s head, and meet their end in the turmoil.”

“Thereby giving occasion to men to say that we wrought treason and were punished rightly, both ourselves and the king,” said Selred coolly.  “That be far from us, Sighard.”

The old thane growled, and seeing that he was beyond reason, the priest set his mouth close to his ear and spoke to him.  Whereon he calmed at once, and a new look of fear came into his face.

“Hilda,” he groaned; “I had forgotten her.”

Now the thanes came quietly through the door into the chamber, and one by one passed to that room where Ethelbert had been betrayed.  Presently they were all gathered there, and when they saw, there grew a sort of panic among them.

“Let us hence while there is time,” said one, voicing the fears of the rest; “we are all dead men else.  This is what the earthquake betokened.”

“It is the part of Anglian thanes to die with their king,” said Sighard angrily.

“An there were a king left us to die with—­”

Then Witred broke in with words of common sense which ended the talk.  He had every reason to wish us gone, to save the terror of a wild vengeance let loose in this palace; and that we should go was best in every way.

“Thanes, thanes,” he said, “listen to me.  Tomorrow morning early men deemed that this would be found out.  In the dawning the grooms lead the horses to water yonder at the river, and they are the first men afoot.  Gymbert is gone, and on this thane here falls the task of ordering the stables.  He shall bid your grooms keep together, and after watering lead your horses, as for airing, eastward to the forest paths.  Go hence by this passage, and I will take you to some place which we will arrange, and there they shall meet you.  Then make your way swiftly beyond the reach of Quendritha; yet it is in my mind that even Offa can no longer be blind to the evil she works.  Her power will be little.”

The thanes looked at one another, and then one or two said that it was not the way of Anglian thanes to fly thus; but they had little voice in the matter.  The rest had no thought but to fly, and I do not blame them.  Save some such savage work as that which Sighard would set on foot, there was naught else to be planned.

But I minded the voice and pleading look of that mother who spoke with me in the garden at Thetford, and I had a mind to stay and see this thing to an end, for it was all that I might do.  Maybe I could find the body of her son and see it brought back to her.

“I bide here,” I said; and Selred stepped to my side without a word.

“I also,” said Sighard; “I have words to say yet before I die.”