“Set to work quickly,” said Streone.

So they flung the end of the line over the bough, sailorwise, and made a running bowline in the part that came down.  There is torture in that way, and some of the men grumbled thereat, being less hard hearted.  So they began to argue about the matter, and Streone watched my face, for this was pleasure to him, as it seemed, though he did not look straight at me.  I wished they would hasten, that was all.

Now the horseman and his follower came up, and lo!  Egil was the rider, and with him was Thrand.

“Ho!” cried Egil, “hold hard.  That is my man.”

Streone turned on him with a snarl.

“Your man!” he said.  “I took him.  Hold your peace.”

“There you lie,” quoth Thrand.  “I took him myself for Egil, my master—­as your own men know.  I told them.”

“He did so,” the Danes said, for they loved Egil, and Streone was a stranger of no great reputation, though high in rank.

“Set him loose,” said Egil.  “I will have no man interfere with my captives.”

Then Streone hid his anger, and took Egil aside while the Danes and Thrand set me free.  Presently Egil broke out into a great laugh.

“Want you to hang him for slaying men of yours!” he cried.  “Why, he might hang you for the same.  How many of his men did you slay this morning?”

“That was in fight—­he killed the others in time of peace.”

“Better not say much of that fight,” said Egil.  “There was a peace breaking there.”

Streone turned pale at that, for he saw that the Danes did not hold his ways in honour though they had profited by them.

“Well, then, take him.  Little gain will he be to you, for he is landless and ruined,” he sneered, chuckling.

“Well,” said Egil, “he is a close friend of Earl Wulfnoth’s, and maybe it is just as well that you hung him not.  Cnut would hardly have thanked you for setting that man against him, and maybe bringing Olaf the Norseman down on him also.”

Streone had thought not of those things.  He turned ashy pale at the picture Egil had drawn of loss of Cnut’s favour.  He looked once or twice towards me as if he were trying to frame some excuse, but none would come.

“I knew it not,” he said, falsely enough.  “I am glad you came.”

Egil only laughed, and with that Streone rode away quickly, and never looked back as he went.

Thereafter Egil took me down to the ships, and he sent Thrand for sword Foe’s Bane when the night had fallen.  Most kindly did the Dane treat me, but I cared for little.  I could not move for stiffness and bruising after I had slept for twelve hours on end, but that was nought compared with the sorrow for what had befallen us.

Two days after this the Danish host followed in the track of Eadmund and his flying levies:  but Egil stayed in command of the ships, and I with him.  I had not seen Cnut, but Egil had spoken of me to him.