Every rein was drawn simultaneously, every horse halted where he stood, almost belly-deep in the sands, snorting and panting, blown and dead-beat by that fruitless gallop; and now the soil, every where beneath them and about them, was melting away into briny ooze, with slimy worms and small eels and lampreys wriggling obscenely, where a little while before, the heaviest war-horse might have pawed long and deep without finding water; and the waves were gaining on them, with more than the speed of charging cavalry, and the nearest shore was five miles distant. Within a furlong, on a solitary black stone, which might overtop the entering flood for an hour's space or better, lay Eadwulf, the serf. Utterly beaten, unable to move hand or foot, unable even to raise his head, or look the coming death in the face, where he had fallen, there he lay. Two minutes, and the farthest of those horsemen might have taken him, might have speared him, where he lay, unresisting, unbeseeching. But none thought of him--none thought of any thing but the sea--the sea. They paused for an instant to breathe their horses, before turning to ride that desperate race--but in that instant they saw such a sight as chilled their very blood. The other party, which had now retreated before the tide to within a mile of them to the eastward, had now determined, as it seemed, at all risks, to force their way back through the channel of the Beetham water, and entered it one by one, in single file, the unarmed guide leading, and the mail-clad rider bringing up the rear. Each after each, lower they sank and lower, their horses struggling and rolling in the surge. Now their croupes, now their withers disappeared from the eyes of the beholders; now the necks only of the horses and the bodies of the riders were visible above the wash. A moment of suspense, almost intolerable, for every one of those mute gazers felt that he was looking on the counterpart and perfect picture of what must in a few minutes, more or less, be his own fate also! A moment, and the guide's horse struggled upward, his withers reappeared, his croupe--he had cleared the channel, he was safe. A light page followed him, with the like success; two half-armed troopers followed; already, presaging safety, a shout of exultation trembled on the lips of the spectators, when the mail-clad rider on his heavy horse reached the mid-passage--reached the spot where his horse should have gradually emerged--then in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, before one could breathe a sigh or syllable, a last "God save him"--he sank, sheer and sudden, as if the bottom had yawned under him, and without an effort, a cry, a struggle, was sucked under.