Girolamo had to gasp for breath before he could speak; but at length he said, “Saxon, I die in peace with all mankind, or with all that profess the Christian faith—save only the Normans. I forgive all men as I hope to be forgiven. _Fiat misericordia tua, Domine_; yea, I forgive all and die in peace with all, save only the detestable ungodly Normans, who have heaped upon me such wrong as cannot be forgiven, and who have belied the promises made at their baptism, and who be Christians but in name. Elfric, remember! they slew my kindred and all the friends of my youth, or they caused them to die in sickly dungeons or in exile and beggary; they surprised and stole from me the young bride of my heart and gave her over to violence and infamy! Elfric, wouldst ever forgive them if they should thus seize and treat thy Mildred?” Elfric shook his head as though he would say he never could; but albeit Elfric was not dying, he ought not to have done this. Girolamo’s head was now falling on his breast, and he several times essayed to speak and could not. At last he said to Elfric, who was kneeling by his side, “Tell the Lord Hereward that I die his constant friend, and call upon him to avenge my death! Elfric, put thine ear closer to my mouth.... So ... and Elfric, go tell the monks at Ely that I am not the Jew that cannot die!” Here the sword-bearer, who was supporting the Salernitan with his right arm, felt a short and slight shivering, and raising his head so as to look in his face, he saw that the eyelids were dropping over the dark eyes,—and, in another brief instant, Girolamo was dead. The Saxons cut down branches of trees, and with the branches and their fen poles, and some of the lances which had been taken from the Normans, they made a rude catafalk or bier, and placing the Salernitan upon it, with many a _De profundis_, and many expressions of wonderment that he should have died, they carried him from the thicket and over the Thetford road and across the plashy meadows. The bier was followed by the surviving Norman prisoners, all expecting to be offered up as an holocaust, and crying _Misericorde_ and _Nôtre Dame_. The pursuit and the fight, the capture and the woe which had followed it, had altogether filled a very short space of time; and Hereward, who had crossed the river with all his forces, and having embarked in the boats all that remained to be embarked, was congratulating Elfric on his speed, when he saw that the body stretched upon the bier was no less a man than Girolamo of Salerno. At first the Lord of Brunn thought or hoped that Girolamo was only wounded; but when his sword-bearer told him that he was dead, he started as one that hears a great and unexpected calamity, and he put his hand to his brow and said, “Then, by all the saints of Ely, we have bought the corn and wine for the monks at too dear a price!”