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Torches were soon brought. Harold seized one, and bent over Wulf's body. "Is he dead?" "His heart beats, but feebly, my lord," Osgod replied. "Where is he hurt?" "There is a great patch of blood here on his right side just over the hip. I see no other sign of a wound." "We will carry him into my chamber," the king said. "But no; I forgot, the queen is there.
"Nay," Rosamund answered, glancing at Wulf's face; "we rejoice exceedingly that God has been so good to us." "I too rejoice," said Saladin; "and I too thank Allah Who in bygone days sent me that vision which has given me back the holy city of Jerusalem without bloodshed. Now all is accomplished as it was fated. Lead them away."
Shall we rot here in this dull land, as by our uncle's wish we have done these many years, yes, ever since we were home from the Scottish war, and count the kine and plough the fields like peasants, while our peers are charging on the pagan, and the banners wave, and the blood runs red upon the holy sands of Palestine?" Now it was Wulf's turn to take fire.
"It is a disappointment to me, Wulf," he said as he picked up the battle-axe that had been struck from his hand and sent flying across the hall by a sweeping blow of Wulf's weapon. "I have really worked very hard, and I did think that I ought to have caught you up, seeing that I am two years the elder. But you have gained more than I have.
I should have bethought me that the feelings of Englishmen, gentle or simple, are the same towards the king, and I crave your pardon for treating your loyal service as a thing to be paid for with money." The boy's eyes filled with tears; he dropped on one knee, and seizing Wulf's hand placed it to his lips, and then without a word sped away, halting a hundred yards off till Osgod should join him.
"She did not know it. She only said she knew to force Rosamund away," answered Godwin in the same strained voice. "And then?" "And then oh! having Wulf's express commands, then I went, like one in a dream. I remember little of it. At the door we kissed and parted weeping, and while the guard bowed before her, she blessed me beneath her breath.
"You know not what a war with these savages is," an old housecarl who had fought them again and again said to a listening group of Wulf's men. "You might as well fight with the evil spirits of the air as with them. Fight! there is no fighting in it, save when they have with them Danes from the North, or Norwegians.
Wulf's contingent marched with the rest of the troops from the east as far as Reading, and there struck off by the nearest road to Steyning. He and Beorn accompanied Harold to London, and after staying there for a short time, and taking part in the fetes with which the conquest of the Welsh was celebrated, Wulf returned to Steyning and took up the life he had previously led there.
Earl Harold, you know, thinks a good deal of education, and has founded a college at Waltham. He persuaded Wulf's father to send him there, and, indeed, will take none as his pages unless they can read.
He had practised diligently at military exercises, and although he found when, on the first day after Wulf's arrival in London, he challenged him to a trial in arms, he was still very greatly his inferior in skill and strength, he bade fair to become a gallant fighter.
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