Then looked I round for the other, but at first could not see him, for he was dead also, pinned to the ground by another of the horsemen, from behind.  And all our men were on their feet, and the ring of Danes were shouting, and cheering their two mad men, yet keeping close order.

This seems long in telling; but it was all done in a flash, as it were, for the first I knew of the coming of these men was by the wheeling of the horse and the leaping of the berserk above it.

Then my men came and rid the standard of its burden, not easily, while Ealhstan stood with his arm on my shoulder, looking white and scared:  for that had been the greatest danger he had seen that day, as he told me, which, indeed, it must have been, for else he had never changed countenance.

“Gratias Domino,” he said, “verily into these heathen evil spirits enter, driving them to death.  Now have you fought the evil one, both spiritually and bodily, my son, and have won the victory!”

Even as he spoke, the men, being sure of no more of such comings, began to crowd round me, shouting and cheering as though I had done some great deed.  Which, if it were such, it seems to me that great deeds are forced on men at times; for what else I could have done I know not, unless, as Wislac says, I had run away, even as he was minded to do.  But I had no time for that, nor do I believe his saying concerning himself.

When the Danes were nigh their ships Ealhstan bade us tend our wounded.  And the first man tended was myself, for Wulfhere came to me, looking me over, and at last binding a wound on my left shoulder, of which I knew not, saying that my good mail had surely saved me.  He himself had a gash across his face, and Wislac one on the leg, but none of us was much hurt.

Then Wislac sought Aldhelm, whom he found sitting up, dazed, from a blow across the helm that had stunned him, but he was soon able to walk, though dizzy and sick.  But Guthlac was slain outright, and two others of the brethren.

Well, so might I go on, for of all our two hundred men there were left but ninety fit to go on with the fight, the rest being slain or sore wounded by the Danish axes.  Ealhstan was unhurt; for, save that once when he had broken the ring to reach us when we were hemmed in, his men had kept before him.

Now what befell after that will not bear telling; for it was not long before Eanulf and all the Somerset and the rest of the Dorset levy came down and fell on the Danes as they fought their last fight as brave men should, with a quarter mile of deep mud between them and their ships.

Into that fight none of us bishop’s men went, for we had done our part.  But we lay and saw the Danes charge again and again against odds, their line growing thinner each time, until our men swept the last of them from the bank into the ooze, and there was an end.

Yet a few managed, I know not how, to reach the ships, and there they were safe; but thence they constantly shot their arrows into our men, harmless enough, but yet showing their mettle.