Now I found that my bonds were gone, and next that my weapons were
left me, and that but for cramp and stiffness I had not any tokens
of what had befallen. And at first it seemed to me that Ingvar thus
showed his scorn of me, though soon I thought that he had forgotten
me, and that it was Raud who had freed me.

I heeded not the dog, looking only in one place. But the body of
the king was gone, and his arms and mail were gone. The hoofmarks
of Ingvar's horses were everywhere; but at last I made out that
they had gone on through the wood.

Presently the dog growled, looking towards the village, and I heard
voices coming nearer, and with them I heard the tread of a horse.
But soon the dog ceased, and began to wag his tail as if to welcome
friends, and when the comers entered the clearing, I saw that they
were Egfrid's men, and that it was my horse that they were leading.
My axe was yet at the saddle bow.

"Why, master," said the foremost, "surely we looked to find you
slain. This is well--but what has befallen?"

For I must have looked wildly and strangely on them.

"Well would it be if I were slain," I said. "Why did you seek me?"

"We found the horse coming homewards, and one knew that you had
gone into the wood after the king. Yet we would seek you before we
fled."

I saw that all were armed, and I thanked them. But--

"What ails you, master?" said the leader of the group.

"They have slain Eadmund the king," I answered, "and they have
taken his body away."

Thereat they groaned, wondering and cast down, and one said:

"They will not have carried him far. Let us search."

We did so, and after a long time we found the king's body in a
thicket where it had been cast. But his head we could not find,
though now I bade my dog search also. He led us westward through
the wood, until we came to a rising ground, and there we could go
no further. For thence we saw the Danish horsemen by scores
pressing towards us, searching for cattle and sheep as the army
passed southward. And the farms were blazing in the track that they
had crossed everywhere.

Then said the men:

"We must fly. We who live must save ourselves, and must come back
and end this search when we may."

"Let us bear back the king's body," I said, "and find some hiding
place for it at Hoxne."

So we did, hurriedly, and hid it in a pit near the village,
covering it with boards and gravel as well as we could for haste.
Then I asked the men where t