So it turned out.

Without further incident, he travelled through the south of France, and arrived at the great seaport.  He speedily discovered the quarters in which the Earl of Evesham’s contingent were encamped, and made towards this without delay.  As he entered a wild shout of joy was heard, and Cnut ran forward with many gestures of delight.

“My dear Cuthbert, my dear Cuthbert!” he exclaimed.  “Can it be true that you have escaped?  We all gave you up; and although I did my best, yet had you not survived it I should never have forgiven myself, believing that I might have somehow done better, and have saved you from the cut-throats who attacked us.”

“Thanks, thanks, my good Cnut,” Cuthbert cried.  “I have been through a time of peril, no doubt; but as you see, I am hale and well—­better, methinks than you are, for you look pale and ill; and I doubt not that the wound which I received was a mere scratch to that which bore you down.  It sounded indeed like the blow of a smith’s hammer upon an anvil.”

“Fortunately, my steel cap saved my head somewhat,” Cnut said, “and the head itself is none of the thinnest; but it tried it sorely, I confess.  However, now that you are back I shall, doubt not, soon be as strong as ever I was.  I think that fretting for your absence has kept me back more than the inflammation from the wound itself—­but there is the Earl at the door of his tent.”

Through the foresters and retainers who had at Cnut’s shout of joy crowded up, Cuthbert made his way, shaking hands right and left with the men, among whom he was greatly loved, for they regarded him as being in a great degree the cause of their having been freed from outlawry, and restored to civil life again.  The earl was really affected.  As Cuthbert rode up he held out both arms, and as his page alighted he embraced him as a father.

“My dear Cuthbert!” he exclaimed.  “What anxiety have we not suffered.  Had you been my own son, I could not have felt more your loss.  We did not doubt for an instant that you had fallen into the hands of some of the retainers of that villain Count; and from all we could learn, and from the absence of any dead body by the side of that of Cnut, I imagined that you must have been carried off.  It was clear that your chance of life, if you fell into the hands of that evil page, or his equally vile master, was small indeed.  The very day that Cnut was brought in, I visited the French camp, and accused him of having been the cause of your disappearance and Cnut’s wounds.  He affected the greatest astonishment at the charge.  He had not, as he said, been out of the camp for two days.  My accusation was unfounded and malicious, and I should answer this as well as the previous outrage, when the vow of the Crusaders to keep peace among themselves was at an end.  Of course I had no means of proving what I said, or I would have gone direct to the king and charged him with the outrage.  As it was I gained nothing by my pains.  He has accompanied this French division to Genoa; but when we meet at Sicily, where the two armies are to rendezvous, I will bring the matter before the king, as the fact that his page was certainly concerned in it must be taken as showing that he was the instigator.”