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 they would go.

“By boat down the river,” they said, “and so join the thane and his party wherever they might be.  They have gone to Beccles, for they hear that a ship lies there whose master will gladly take them to London.”

That was good hearing, for so would all be safe.  The men pressed me to come with them, but I would not do so, meaning to hasten on to the bishop’s place and make him fly to Beccles and take ship also, starting this very night.  So I bid them go, and on that their leader, a stout freeman named Leof, whom I knew well as one of Egfrid’s best men, said that he would come with me.  Nor would he hear of aught else.

“What would Egfrid my master say if I left his brother to go alone?” he asked me simply; and so I suffered him, and we two went towards South Elmham together.

Soon Leof saw a horse in a field and caught it, mounting bareback, and after that we went on well enough.

Darkness fell, and all the low clouds were reddened with the light of fires behind us, and ever as we looked back would be a fresh fire and light in the sky, for the Danes were at their work.  We pushed on steadily, but the lanes were rough, and the miles seemed very long in the darkness; but at last we crossed the Elmham stream and rode to the stockaded house that was the bishop’s, and which stands pleasant and well placed on a little hill beyond the low ground, and with no woodland very near it.

We shouted, and at last men fully armed came and let us in.  And as I looked back once before the gates closed after me, I thought that the fires were nearer.  The Danes were not staying their hands for darkness, for so the terror they spread would be the greater.  So also was the bishop’s peril therefore.

“Where is Bishop Humbert?” I asked.

“Master, he is in the church, nor will he leave it,” said the old steward.  “He says he must pray for king and land day and night now till this terror is overpast.”

“I will go to him—­he must fly,” I said.

“Aye, pray him to do so, Wulfric; he will listen to you,” said the old man earnestly.

“Have all things ready,” I said.  “See—­there is little time.”

“What of the king, master?” asked he, looking at the fires with a white face as he once more opened the gate.

“The king has gone where he would wish to be,” I answered very gravely; and he understood me, turning away that I might not see his weeping.