Meanwhile, newly alive to the saintly character of him whom they now clearly perceived to be a martyr, orders were given to rail off the spot where he had fallen, and for every trace of his blood to be jealously preserved. But unhappily for the Church, the common people, who had from the moment of his death regarded their Archbishop as a martyred saint, had already soaked up the greater part of that precious blood in strips hastily torn from their clothes, and had been given his stained and splashed outer garments. These were losses that could never be made good, but they did not greatly matter to those who could so dilute the little remaining blood that it sufficed to supply the uncounted thousands of pilgrims who made pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas for the space of three hundred and fifty years, and took away with them little phials containing, as they fondly believed, so intimate a relic of England's most powerful saint. In spite of the dark legends that tell how vengeance overtook the assassins, it does not seem to be the fact that they were adequately punished for their fearful crime, and certainly no Royal displeasure lighted upon them. "The wicked," we are told, "flee when no man pursueth," and the knights, fearful of the revenge that might be taken upon them by the people of Canterbury, rode off, unhindered, with their small escort of men-at-arms, to Saltwood. Within that stronghold they felt safe. That they would have been equally safe at Canterbury we may suppose, for Robert de Broc, shut up within the strong walls of the Archbishop's Palace, felt strong enough to threaten the monks with what he would do if they dared so honour the dead Prelate as to bury him among the tombs of the Archbishops. He would, he declared, tear out the body, hang it from a gibbet, hew it in pieces, and throw the fragments by the highway, to be devoured by swine or birds of prey. It is quite evident that Robert de Broc was a good hater and a very thorough partisan of the King. The monks did well to be afraid of him, and meekly forbearing from giving offence, laid their martyr in the crypt. The four lay only one night at Saltwood. The next day they rode to the old manor-house of South Malling, near Lewes, itself a property belonging to the Archbishops, and throwing down their arms and accoutrements upon a dining-table in the hall, gathered comfortably round the cheerful hearth, when--says the legend--the table, unwilling to bear that sacrilegious burden, started back and threw the repugnant load on the ground. The arms were replaced by the startled servants, who came rushing in with torches; but again they were flung away, this time with even greater force. It was one of the knights who, with blanched face, declared the supernatural nature of this happening.