So we went towards that place where the dog had taken us, and searched long, until I, being weak, must get from off the pony and rest.  I would ride back to the place where the king had been slain and sit there awhile; but first, knowing that Vig remembered things well, I sent him from me, bidding him search also, hoping that he would not forget his last quest in this place.  Yet what we most feared was that the forest beasts had made our search vain.

There were many men from the village with us now, for they had followed the two monks, and they spread about over the wood far and wide, searching, while I sat at the foot of the oak tree to which the king had been bound, leaning my arms and head against the trunk that had been stained with his blood, and thinking and praying, as well I might in that sacred place.

I moved my hand, and felt something sticking from the hard bark and looked to see what it was.  It was an arrowhead, such a rough iron spike as men will use when they must make fresh arrows after battle, in all haste, and have to use what they can first find.  The shaft was snapped close to the iron and the rawhide lashing that held it, and I could not take it out as I would, for the young oak was sturdy and tough; and so I left it, thinking that I would return some day to cut it out.

That I did in after years, but the arrowhead was hidden, for the tree had grown fast, closing on it, as I think, and I could not find its place.  So it will be there for one to find hereafter, maybe long hence, for such a tree has many a hundred years to last yet, if saved from mishap of wind or lightning or axe.  Then I think will men still know what that iron is, for Eadmund the King cannot be forgotten.

Presently it seemed to me that the voices I heard in the wood, as the searchers called to each other, drew closer together, crying: 

“Where are you?”

“Here—­here!”

And then was a sort of outcry, and a silence, and I hoped that maybe they had found what they sought.  So I rose up and went slowly and limpingly to the place where they seemed to be.

I met them in a green glade.  And foremost came the two monks, bearing between them a cloak, wherein was surely that we looked for, and after them came my dog and Raud, and then the rest.  And when they saw me they cried softly to me: 

“Master, we have found the head of our king.”

So they laid open the cloak before me, and I knelt and looked.  And there was indeed the head of Eadmund, seeming whole and fresh as when I had last seen him; and his looks were very peaceful, for on his face was still that smile with which he had greeted death at Raud’s hands.

Then, seeing that, the rough Dane was fain to turn away and lean arms and face against a tree trunk, weeping as weeps a child that will not be comforted.

After a little I asked how they had found the head.  And one of the villagers, speaking low and holding his cap in his hands as though in the church, answered me.