disappeared; that he was to give hostages for the faithful fulfillment
of these stipulations, without, however, receiving on his part
any hostages from Alfred. There was one other stipulation, more
extraordinary than all the rest, viz., that Guthrum should become a
convert to Christianity, and publicly avow his adhesion to the Saxon
faith by being baptized in the presence of the leaders of both armies,
in the most open and solemn manner. In this proposed baptism, Alfred
himself would stand his godfather.

This idea of winning over a pagan soldier to the Christian Church as
the price of his ransom from famine and death in the castle to which
his direst enemy had driven him--this enemy himself, the instrument
thus of so rude a mode of conversion, to be the sponsor of the new
communicant's religious profession--was one in keeping, it is true,
with the spirit of the times, but still it is one which, under the
circumstances of this case, only a mind of great originality and power
would have conceived of or attempted to carry into effect. Guthrum
might well be astonished at this unexpected turn in his affairs. A
few days before, he saw himself on the brink of utter and absolute
destruction. Shut up with his famished soldiers in a gloomy castle,
with the enemy, bitter and implacable, as he supposed, thundering at
the gates, the only alternatives before him seemed to be to die of
starvation and phrensy within the walls which covered him, or by a
cruel military execution in the event of surrender. He surrendered at
last, as it would seem, only because the utmost that human cruelty
can inflict is more tolerable than the horrid agonies of thirst and
hunger.

We can not but hope that Alfred was led, in some degree, by a generous
principle of Christian forgiveness in proposing the terms which he did