The next to die was one Eric, a knight of noble birth. Though he had been hurled from so great a height, and though in the fall his body had crashed against a wooden staircase with such violence that a step secured by five nails had been thereby wrenched off, he was still breathing when he reached the ground--had strength even to make the sign of the Cross. Some women of the people would have staunched his wounds, but one of the King's household heaved a great stone and drove them away. Better so--'the little life that was left in him was but a lingering and a cruel death.' The rest suffered in like manner. Some were innocent, some were guilty, seven-and-twenty of them all told. Their names are not recorded--this only we know of them. They faced death without flinching, and died like Christian men. His Saviour's name was the last word which passed the lips of each of them, and each of them made the sign of the Cross before he fell. By a refinement of barbarity they were not permitted to receive the consolations of religion under pretext that they were excommunicated. This was in direct contravention of Charles's own ordinance concerning criminals. Their bodies were denied Christian burial. They were thrown into a marsh beyond the village of St. André, and for years afterwards no man after nightfall would willingly pass that way. 'On Friday, May 6, King Louis resolved to go back to France, and the same day he left Bruges, carrying away Robert with him.' Great was the lamentation of our citizens when they saw him depart, for this noble youth was beloved by all of them, and they knew he would never return. "Good friends," said he, on seeing their grief, "my life is not in your hands. Pray God to have pity on my soul." Louis did not dare to execute his victim at Bruges, nor indeed here offer him any indignity, but no sooner had they quitted the outskirts of the town than he gave orders that his legs should be tied under his saddle, and when they reached Mont Cassel he cut off his head. Burchard too had paid the penalty of his crime. The Karls said that, having quarrelled with Robert, he had been slain by him in a duel, during the time when they were besieged in the tower, but Walter and Walbert affirm that in this they lied, and that in reality he had made his escape, and that he was afterwards captured and executed; and there is also a tradition that he succeeded in escaping altogether from his native land, and after many wanderings at length found refuge in the south of Ireland.