He did not at first comprehend
where he was, but as his senses returned he perceived all too well that
he was left for dead.
His first impulse was to see whether he had strength to arise. He raised
himself partially, first on one elbow, and then he strove to stand up,
but fell back feebly and helplessly, like an infant who first essays to
escape its mother's arms and to trust its feeble limbs.
Then he looked around him, thus raising his head, and gazed upon the sad
and shocking scene. Close by him, with the head cleft literally in two
by a battle-axe, lay a horseman, and his blood reddened all the ground
around Elfric's feet, and had deeply dyed the youth's lower garments; a
horse, his own, lay dead, the jugular vein cut through, with all the
surrounding muscles and sinews; hard by, a rider had fallen with such
impetus, that his helmet had fixed itself deeply in the ground, and the
body seemed as if it had quivered for the moment in the air; a dart had
transfixed another through belt and stomach, and he lay with the weapon
appearing on either side the body. Near these lay another, whose thigh
had been pierced to the great artery, and who had bled to death, as the
deadly paleness of the face showed; here and there one yet lived, as
faint moan and broken utterance testified; but Elfric could bear no
more, his head sank upon the ground, and he hid his face.
It was bright starlight, and the gleam of the heavenly host seemed to
mock the wounded youth as he thought of the previous night, when, sound
in body, he had wandered beneath the glittering canopy of the heavens;
and thus reminded, all the thoughts of that previous night came back
upon him, especially the remembrance of his sin, of his desertion of his
father, of his vicious life at court, of his neglect for three years and
more of all the obligations of religion, and he groaned aloud in the
anguish of his spirit.
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