"That mare will never swim all the way to Well," said one.
"She will not need it," said Hereward.
"Why," cried Torfrida, feeling in the darkness, "she is loose. What is
this in your hand? Your dagger! And wet!"
"Mare Swallow is at the bottom of the reach. We could never have got her
to Well."
"And you have--" cried a dozen voices.
"Do you think that I would let a cursed Frenchman--ay, even William's
self--say that he had bestridden Hereward's mare?"
None answered: but Torfrida, as she laid her head upon her husband's
bosom, felt the great tears running down from his cheek on to her own.
None spoke a word. The men were awe-stricken. There was something
despairing and ill-omened in the deed. And yet there was a savage grandeur
in it, which bound their savage hearts still closer to their chief.
And so mare Swallow's bones lie somewhere in the peat unto this day.
They got to Well; they sent out spies to find the men who had been
"wasting Cissham with fire and sword"; and at last brought them in. Ill
news, as usual, had travelled fast. They had heard of the fall of Ely, and
hidden themselves "in a certain very small island which is called
Stimtench," where, thinking that the friends in search of them were
Frenchmen in pursuit, they hid themselves among the high reeds.
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