Soon will it be That sickness or the sword Shall part thee from power; Or clutch of fire, Or wave of flood, Or gripe of sword, Or javelin's flight, Or ugly age, Or glance of eye Shall oppress and darken thee.
This melancholy dirge concluded the feast, and before another year had passed King Ella was in his grave.
The time of parting came only too soon. The Lady Volisia, with her daughters and the children of Elfric, returned to Stillingfleet. The Atheling himself, with Seomel, proceeded to York to make further preparations for strengthening the frontier posts, and it was arranged that Seomel should go thence, with supplies of weapons and stores, to Bilbrough, Calcaria, and Ulfskelf, before returning home. He was to take a large escort of Stillingas, and, to their great joy, the three elder boys and Porlor were to accompany him.
The Atheling and those who were to go with him to York took leave of the King and Queen. But when the boys came to say farewell to the Princess Alca their hearts were too full for words, and tears were in their eyes. They loved and worshipped her, they would all have died for her, but not a word could they say. She spoke very gently and calmly, repeating what she had said yesterday. "Remember my words. Be true to yourselves, and may the gods watch over you."
After the cavalcade started, the boys looked back again and again, waving their caps, until the graceful form under the colonnade was lost to sight. When would they see her again? Ah, when!
_Aberach_, the British mound by the confluence of Ouse and Foss, was converted into the Roman camp of _Eburacum_ by Agricola in A.D. 79, and from a camp became an imperial city, and the headquarters of the 6th Legion for nearly three centuries. The camp was surrounded by a ditch 9 feet deep and 32 wide, with an _agger_ or rampart fortified by _valli_. The sides were 692 yards long, with four gates, and there was a space of about a hundred yards between the ditch and the river Ouse. But in A.D. 120 the Emperor Hadrian caused the _valli_ to be replaced by substantial walls of alternate layers of bricks and masonry, with towers at the angles. The multangular tower at the north-west is still standing. The prætorium was converted into an imperial palace, and stood on the ground now occupied by gardens on the south-east side of Goodramgate, and by Aldwark and Peterna. A temple of Bellona stood on the site of part of St. Mary's Abbey and the manor. Hyeronimianus of the 6th Legion had dedicated a temple to Serapis on the site of Fryar's Garden, and there was an artificial cave for the worship of Mithras on a site in Micklegate, opposite St. Martin's Church. The sites of other temples and theatres, which must have existed, are now unknown. The dense forest of Galtres came close up to the Prætorian gate, whence a road led to Isurium, and the Decumanian gate was in the centre of the opposite wall.