reat
was his wonder to find me in this place.

"I have thought that I should have to ransom you from Cnut's hand,"
he said, "for we have heard that Thorkel's men took the queen's
ship. Were you not taken likewise?"

So when he heard of all that had brought me here, he praised Egil
highly.

"He is a Norseman, and no Dane, by birth," he said. "One may be
proud that he is so. I would that he were my man."

Then was my turn, and I wondered how Olaf had left London, for the
Thames was full of Danish ships, as I had heard.

"Aye, so it is yet," he told me. "The Danes cannot take the city,
try what they will, though they dug a great ditch round the
Southwark fort, and took ships through it above the bridge, and so
kept us shut up close enough. But walls and forts and citizens are
too much for them. Now the siege is but a blind, while the real
warfare is to be in Wessex. So I came away with the Danes, my men
being tired of unprofitable warfare where we were not wanted, and
gaining, moreover, neither gold nor honour."

"You came away with the Danes?" I cried. "Surely you made no pact
with them?"

"Not I," said he. "But they sailed with an evening tide, which was
my chance. Ten ships among four hundred or so make no odds. We took
off the dragon heads, and when it was quite dark rowed down after
them, and so caught them up at Greenwich. Then we slipped through
the fleet easily, for it was mostly of cargo ships full of men, and
no one paid any heed to us, as might be supposed. So by daylight we
led the fleet, or nearly, and when the next night came we stood
away from it, going across Channel. Then I came here to see if
Wulfnoth or Godwine would cruise with me on some other shore, as I
promised."

Then I asked him what I had better do, for with the sight of his
face came the longing to be free again.

"Come with me," he said. "I am going to win ransom from a town or
two against the time when I shall need gold wherewith to win men to
me in Norway."

I think that I should have done this in the end, though I did not
like to leave England without striking one more blow for Eadmund,
and I cannot deny that I thought that Uldra would blame me if I did
leave our land when she needed every sword that would strike for
her. I had come to think very much of what the steadfast eyes of
the brave maiden would tell me as I watched her face.

But that evening came Wulfnoth and Godwine, and they had made a
plan for themselves which m