“Fools!” shouted the Lord of Brunn, “these Normans will show ye no mercy! There is no grace for ye but in your own swords!” And then the Saxons took heart again, and rallying round Hereward, they soon charged the foe, and fought them hand to hand. In their turn the Normans began to yield, and to cry for quarter; but this band in the centre was supported by another and another; and soon Duke William, and that ungodly bishop, his brother, came back into the interior of the Camp, with many knights and men-at-arms that had not yet tasted the sharpness of the Saxon steel, and that were all fresh for the combat. Louder and louder waxed the war-cry on either side, and terrible and strange became the scene within the wide Camp; for the cattle, scared by the loud noise, and by the clash and the glittering of arms, were running wildly about the Camp in the midst of the combatants; and the fierce bulls of the fens, lashing themselves into furor, and turning up the soil with their horns, came careering down, and breaking through the serried lines of the invaders; and many a Norman was made to feel that his mail jacket was but a poor defence against the sharp horns of the bull that pastured on the patrimony of Saint Etheldreda. Also rose there to heaven a dreadful rugitus, or roaring, mixed with the loud bewailing and the shrieks of timid herdsmen, and of women and children; and the wives and children of the Saxons ran about the Camp, seeking for a place of safety, and finding none. The Saxon warriors were now falling fast, but the Normans fell also; and victory was still doubtful, when loud shouts were heard, and another forest of lances was seen coming down on the Camp from the south; and upon this, one entire body of the Saxon host threw down their arms, and surrendered themselves as prisoners. Hereward, who was leaning upon his battle-axe, and wiping the sweat from his brow, said to his sword-bearer, “This is a sad sight!” “A sad sight and a shameful,” quoth Elfric; “but there are Saxons still that are not craven; Here our lines be all unbroken.” “And so will we yet fight on,” quoth Hereward. But the Lord of Brunn had scarcely said the words when a number of Saxon lords, old dwellers in the Camp of Refuge, and men that had fought at Hastings, and in many a battle since, gathered round Lord Hereward, and threw their swords and battle-axes and dinted shields upon the ground, and told him that the fight was lost, and that (_de communi concilio magnatum_), with the common advice and consent of the magnates, they had all determined to surrender upon quarter, and take the King’s peace.