Page:Tales from Chaucer.djvu/193

 wrote the letter was discovered, with all the venom of this most cursed deed; and the effect of it was, that Alla, in the transport of fury, slew his own mother. Thus ended the ill-spent life of the traitress to her allegiance, old Donegild. But no tongue can describe the sorrow of Alla, who night and day bewailed the loss of his Constance and their child; while they for many a moon, through heat and cold, moist and dry, through many a windy storm and tempest, had been preserved, till her bark stranded, at last, under the walls of a heathen castle, the name of which I do not recall.

The people of the district came down, wondering at the appearance of the ship and at Constance; but during the night a steward of the castle came alone into the ship, with the intent of robbing the gentle voyager, and carrying her off. This wretched woman cried for help, and the child wept piteously, but her guardian, who was ever at hand, again brought her off unharmed, for in her struggle of despair the villain stumbled overboard and was drowned. The vessel afterwards was borne off