One party, having made a circle, came close by me, and they were laughing and saying that the thane had seen a ghost.
"Moreover," said another, "we saw him cross the court slowly enough, and when we got to the gate--lo! he was gone." Then one said that he had heard the like before, and their voices died away as he told the story.
Soon after this the horns were blown to recall all the men, and I knew that Matelgar must needs, even were it a ghost who brought the war arrow, lead his following to the sheriff's levy.
Aye, and the following that should be mine as well.

The message I had brought should have been to me as a king's thane, and I myself should have sent one to Matelgar to bid him come to the levy, even as he would now send to the other lesser thanes and the franklins round about, in my place.

The men were running out even now, north and west and east, as I thought of this in my bitterness, and I watched them, knowing well to whom this one and that must go in each quarter.
This was hard to think of.

Yet I had stood in Matelgar's presence, and had him in my power for a minute, while I might have struck him down, and had not done so.

And all that long night in Sedgemoor I had promised myself just such a moment, and had pictured him falling at my feet, my revenge taken.
But how long ago that seemed.