word from me quickly.

"Will the king suffer us to keep captives?" he said.

"Aye," one answered, in some Jutland speech that was new to me,
though one could understand it well enough, "there is word that we
are to take any chiefs alive--but that is a new word to us. Who
minds it?"

"I do," said Thrand. "Here is one who will pay for freedom, and he
has yielded to me."

"That is luck for you," they said, and passed on.

There was plunder enough all around, and they were in haste lest
others should come. Thrand's Anglian speech was Danish enough for
them.

"Now you are safe, master," Thrand said; "no need for the sword."

"I am a captive," said I bitterly.

Then my eyes sought the ground as Thrand cast the useless blade
away, and there, crawling on the reddened turf, was a toad that
feared not the still dead, and must seek its food whether men lived
or died, unheeding aught but that. And when I saw it, into my mind
flashed the time when I had stood, weakened and hurt, and looked at
the like in Penhurst village--and the words that Spray the smith
spoke came to me, and they cheered me, as a little thing will
sometimes. And then I thought of her who prayed for me among
Penhurst woods, and I was glad that life was left me yet.

More Danes kept coming now, and presently one who was in some
command came to where I sat with Thrand standing over me.

"Is this a captive?" he asked.

"Aye," said Thrand.

"Who is he?"

"Some thane or other. What shall I do with him?"

"Cnut wants to see all captives. Take him to the fort whence we
came."

He passed on, and Thrand said:

"Master, if you can find Egil all may be well, Let us go."

That was all that I could do. Egil or Godwine might befriend me.
Godwine surely would, but I knew not if his word would go for
anything.

Aye, but that was an awesome walk across the upland, where the
flower of England lay dead. I knew not what had befallen us fully
until I went slowly over Ashingdon hill. All the best blood of
England was spilt there; and I knew, as we passed the wide ring of
heaped corpses where our stand had been longest, that the hopes of
Eadmund had come to nought, and that the shadow of Streone lay
black across his life.

We came to the further slope of the hill, and were going down, and
through the tears of rage and grief that filled my eyes I saw a few
horsemen breasting the slope towards us, and one of them was Edric
Streone the traitor himself; and when