"You will not let me go?" said Richard.

"Not while I live," said Sir Eric. "Alberic is gone to warn the
Count of Harcourt, to call the Normans together, and here we are
ready to defend this chamber to our last breath, but we are few, the
French are many, and succour may be far off."

"Then you meant to have taken me out of their reach this morning,
Osmond?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"And if I had not flown into a passion and told who I was, I might
have been safe! O Sir Eric! Sir Eric! you will not let me be
carried off to a French prison!"

"Here, my child," said Dame Astrida, holding out her arms, "Sir Eric
will do all he can for you, but we are in God's hands!"

Richard came and leant against her. "I wish I had not been in a
passion!" said he, sadly, after a silence; then looking at her in
wonder--"But how came you up all this way?"

"It is a long way for my old limbs," said Fru Astrida, smiling, "but
my son helped me, and he deems it the only safe place in the Castle."

"The safest," said Sir Eric, "and that is not saying much for it."

"Hark!" said Osmond, "what a tramping the Franks are making. They
are beginning to wonder where the Duke is."