High noon approached, and in the conqueror’s tent a gorgeous feast was spread. The red wine flowed profusely, and song and minstrelsy arose with their heart-soothing tones, to which the feeble groans of dying wretches bore a dread burden from the plain whereon they still lay struggling in their great agonies, too sorely maimed to live, too strong as yet to die. But, ever and anon, their wail waxed feebler and less frequent; for many a plunderer was on foot, licensed to ply his odious calling in the full light of day--reaping his first if not his richest booty from the dead bodies of their slaughtered foemen. Ill fared the wretches who lay there, untended by the hand of love or mercy, “scorched by the death-thirst, and writhing in vain;” but worse fared they who showed a sign of life to the relentless robbers of the dead, for then the dagger--falsely called that of mercy--was the dispenser of immediate immortality. The conqueror sat at his triumphant board, and barons drank his health: “First English monarch, of the pure blood of Normandy!”--“King by the right of the sword’s edge!”--“Great, glorious, and sublime!” Yet was not his heart softened, nor was his bitter hate toward the unhappy prince who had so often ridden by his side in war, and feasted at the same board with him in peace, relinquished or abated. Even while the feast was at the highest, while every heart was jocund and sublime, a trembling messenger approached, craving on bended knee permission to address the conqueror and king--for so he was already schooled by brief but hard experience to style the devastator of his country. “Speak out, Dog Saxon!” cried the ferocious prince; “but since thou must speak, see that thy speech be brief, an’ thou wouldst keep thy tongue uncropped thereafter!” “Great duke and mighty,” replied the trembling envoy, “I bear you greeting from Elgitha, herewhile the noble wife of Godwin, the queenly mother of our late monarch--now, as she bade me style her, the humblest of your suppliants and slaves. Of your great nobleness and mercy, mighty king, she sues you, that you will grant her the poor leave to search amid the heaps of those our Saxon dead, that her three sons may at least lie in consecrated earth--so may God send you peace and glory here, and everlasting happiness hereafter!” “Hear to the Saxon slave!” William exclaimed, turning as if in wonder toward his nobles; “hear to the Saxon slave, that dares to speak of consecrated earth, and of interment for the accursed body of that most perjured, excommunicated liar! Hence! tell the mother of the dead dog, whom you have dared to style your king, that for the interdicted and accursed dead the sands of the seashore are but too good a sepulchre!” “She bade me proffer humbly to your acceptance the weight of Harold’s body in pure gold,” faintly gasped forth the terrified and cringing messenger, “so you would grant her that permission.”