“Then he took his armor, and brought it home in triumph. But after a while he fell sick of a fever; and the blessed St. Trophimus appeared to him, and told him that it was a punishment for his blasphemy in the battle. So he repented, and vowed to serve the saint all his life. On which he was healed instantly, and fell to religion, and went back to Montmajeur; and there he was a hermit in the cave under the rock, and tended the graves hewn in the living stone, where his old comrades, the Paladins who were slain, sleep side by side round the church of the Holy Cross. But the armor he left here; and he laid a curse upon it, that whosoever of his descendants should lose that armor in fight, should die childless, without a son to wield a sword. And therefore it is that none of his ancestors, valiant as they have been, have dared to put this harness on their backs.” And so ended a story, which Torfrida believed utterly, and Hereward likewise. “And now, Hereward mine, dare you wear that magic armor, and face old Torfrid’s curse?” “What dare I not?” “Think. If you lose it, in you your race must end.” “Let it end. I accept the curse.” And he put the armor on. But he trembled as he did it. Atheism and superstition go too often hand in hand; and godless as he was, sceptical of Providence itself, and much more of the help of saint or angel, still the curse of the old warrior, like the malice of a witch or a demon, was to him a thing possible, probable, and formidable. She looked at him in pride and exultation. “It is yours,--the invulnerable harness! Wear it in the forefront of the battle! And if weapon wound you through it, may I, as punishment for my lie, suffer the same upon my tender body,--a wound for every wound of yours, my knight!” [Footnote: “Volo enim in meo tale quid nunc perpeti corpore semel, quicquid eas ferrei vel e metallo excederet.”] And after that they sat side by side, and talked of love with all honor and honesty, never heeding the old hag, who crooned to herself in her barbarian tongue,-- “Quick thaw, long frost, Quick joy, long pain, Soon found, soon lost, You will take your gift again.” CHAPTER XI. HOW THE HOLLANDERS TOOK HEREWARD FOR A MAGICIAN.