Elfric came to me when all was quiet thus, and leant on the rail beside me for some time without speaking.  We were making a long slant over to the English coast, and my heart was full of heavy thoughts, for I could not help wondering if this mischance had come about by my fault; and I was angry and sore that all the plans that I had made so confidently had come to naught.  Presently the abbot said: 

“The queen takes this matter very easily.”

“The trouble is to come,” I answered; “she thinks that she is yet on her journey.”

“It is no fault of ours that she is not,” said he.  “Maybe it is best thus.  I suppose that she will understand how things are when we reach the shore.  What will be done with us?”

“Let us ask Egil,” I said.  “I think we might have fallen into worse hands than his.  It is in my mind that he likes not his errand.”

So we went aft to the chief, who stood beside Bertric.  And when I came to him he said, pointing westward: 

“Here comes Earl Wulfnoth, as I think.”

Then I saw three large ships beating up to us, and the sail of one bore, painted on it, the device of a fighting warrior, Earl Wulfnoth’s own ensign.

Now, on this I had a hope that we might be rescued by him, and my face must have shown as much, while Elfric glanced at me with the same thought written plainly in his eyes.

“I will not risk meeting the earl, though I do not think that he will interfere with us,” Egil said; “but we are to windward of him, and can do as we like.

“Now, I have been wondering what I shall do with you, Redwald.”

“Let me be taken with the queen and the athelings,” I said.  “What will you do with them?”

“They must go to Cnut,” he answered; “but I am thinking that that will be bad for you.”

“Why?”

“Maybe it is not my business, but I think that I owe you a good turn for letting me off at Leavenheath.  If I take you to Cnut, Streone will have somewhat to say about you—­and he is a great man with our king just now.”

“Well, what if he has.  He knows me well enough, and cares nought about me,” I answered.

“Cares enough about you to have told Cnut to hang you as soon as he gets you,” Egil said.  “I suppose you have offended him in some way.”

Then Elfric said: 

“That is so.  Redwald escaped from his hands at Stamford.  We heard many tales about it at Peterborough.  They say that Eadmund the Martyr came bodily and saved him out of a house beset by the earl’s men.”

“If there is one dead man that we Danes have to fear, it is that king,” Egil said.  “Is this tale true?”

And he stared at me as at one who had dealings with the other world.

I knew that my story must have come into this shape through some tales that the goldsmith had set about.

“Hardly,” said I; “but it is a long story.  Maybe Eadmund the Saint had more to do with it than I know; but I saw him not.”