The Brethren

Now it was Wulf's turn to take fire.

"By our Lady in Heaven, and our lady here!"--and he Iooked at Rosamund, who was watching the pair of them with her quiet thoughtful eyes--"go when you will, Godwin, and I go with you, and as our birth was one birth, so, if it is decreed, let our death be one death." And suddenly his hand that had been playing with the sword-hilt gripped it fast, and tore the long, lean blade from its scabbard and cast it high into the air, flashing in the sunlight, to catch it as it fell again, while in a voice that caused the wild fowl to rise in thunder from the Saltings beneath, Wulf shouted the old war-cry that had r