mind the memory of past deeds, when it appeareth you forget the very hour of dinner."
"It is time lost," muttered Cedric apart and impatiently, "to speak to him of aught else but that which concerns his appetite. The soul of Hardicanute hath taken possession of him, and he hath no pleasure save to fill, to swill, and to call for more.—Alas!" said he, Iooking at Athelstane with compassion, "that so dull a spirit should be lodged in so goodly a form! Alas! that such an enterprize as the regeneration of England should turn on a hinge so imperfect! Wedded to Rowena, indeed, her nobler and more generous soul may yet awake the better nature which is torpid within him. Yet how should this be, while Rowena, Athelstane, and I myself, remain the prisoners of this brutal marauder, and have been made so perhaps from a sense of the dangers which our liberty might bring to the usurped power of his nation?"
While the Saxon was plunged in these painful reflections, the door of their prison opened, and gave entrance to a sewer, holding his white rod