During the dreadful carnage, Harold maintained the van, fighting with heroic courage, although suffering severely from an arrow-wound which had destroyed one of his eyes. William's strenuous efforts were nobly seconded by his officers, and especially by his half-brother, Odo, the warlike bishop of Bayeux. Foiled in every attempt to penetrate the Saxon lines, and hopeless of beating them out of their defences, William drew the Saxons by a feigned retreat of his cavalry, and on passing the broken ground, turned upon them, and cut them to pieces. Twice was the ruse repeated, and although the Saxons maintained their position with undaunted front, their ranks were terribly thinned and shaken. The charges were repeated, again and again, and the Normans rolled back in blood. The day waned, but the desperate attacks were foiled. At length a number of palisades were displaced, and the Norman horse bit into the Saxon masses, hewing a bloody pathway, and paying heavily for every foot they won. Twenty knights vowed to take Harold's banner, and William of Normandy, rendered desperate by his peril, was anxiously seeking the Saxon hero. The conflict inside the palisades was tremendous. Harold's brothers, Gurth and Leofwin, perished in the van: the King was slain; there was a bloody rally round the royal banner; ten of the Norman knights were hewn down, but the banner was captured, and the Norman flag elevated in its place. Still the Saxons would not fly; the "Golden Dragon" was taken, and they were reduced to a mere mob of struggling warriors. The grey of evening merged into the dusk of night before the retreat commenced. In retreat they were almost as dangerous as in battle, and repeatedly turned and drew Norman blood. The Normans were driven back, William advanced to their succour, and while their leader, Eustace of Boulogne, was whispering in the Duke's ear, he was struck on the back by a heavy Saxon axe, and fell, insensible, from his horse, the blood gushing from his mouth and nostrils. The Normans, relaxing the pursuit, rode their horses over the slain Saxons, in savage elation, before returning solemn thanks to God for the victory. Gurtha, the mother of Harold, came to beg the hero's body, to give it burial; but William is reported to have refused, ordering the corse to be buried on the strand, remarking, with unknightly anger--"He guarded the coast while he was alive, let him thus continue to guard it after death." The dead King was, however, interred in Waltham Abbey, which he had founded and endowed; or, if Tovi, Canute's standard-bearer, was the original founder of the abbey, yet Harold was largely its benefactor. On the field of Senlac King William built the famous Battle Abbey, that priests might perpetually pray for the souls of the slain, but, as Palgrave remarks:--