The king stayed in a clear place that I remembered well.  Great trees stood round, and it was pleasant to sit there and look out over the water on a summers noonday.

“Where is Ottar?” he said, when I stood by him.

“Close behind me.  I heard him even now,” I answered.  “Let us go back, my king.  There is nought here.”

“Aye, we will go back now,” he said.  “But Ottar is before me.”

“Listen,” I said, “the scald is behind us.  I lost him in the dark.”

“Nay, but I heard him in front of me even as you came,” the king said.

And when we stood still we could hear the scald where I thought; but also we heard footsteps and breaking branches before us.

We could see anything that was not in shadow pretty plainly; and now Olaf whispered to me: 

“Someone is forward, and coming nearer.  Get your sword loose.”

At that there came a cry like the moor hen’s from the thicket before us, and in a moment, with a great shout and crashing, there broke out on us many men, and I was down and held fast before I could draw on them.  I saw Olaf draw the long dagger that hung ready to his right hand, and smite backwards over his shoulder in the face of a man who was pinioning him from behind, and the man shrieked and reeled backward into the bushes, hands to face.  And then Olaf cried, “We are beset,” and was borne down.

Then the men tied us roughly with belts, and stood round us.

I looked every moment to see the rush of Ottar into the midst, sword in hand; and saw that it would go hard with him, for all the men were armed, and some wore mail that rattled as they moved.  But he came not; and I wondered if he too were taken, or if he had turned craven and had fled, a thought that I put from me as sorely wronging the brave scald; and then wondered how long it would take him to reach the nearest outpost of our men and come to rescue us.

But now one was hammering flint on steel and making a fire in haste that he might see who they had caught.  And when it blazed up I saw that the men were Danes.  No doubt they were strangers to the place, men who had wandered here from the Leavenheath woods after the battle; for no Dane who came from close at hand would have dared to shelter in this place.  There were fourteen of them in all.

“Ho,” said one who seemed to take the lead, “we have trapped some gay birds.  Now, who might you be?”

He spoke to Olaf, who answered nothing.  So the man turned to me with the same question.  But I followed the king’s plan and made no answer.  Whereat the man kicked me, saying: 

“Answer, you Norway rat!”

I ground my teeth with rage, and said nothing.

“Fetch the English churl, and ask him if he knows who these are,” said the Dane.  “Then shall we see if this is a question of drowning or ransom.”

Two of tho men went back into the woods, and presently returned, dragging with them my thrall Brand, whose teeth chattered with terror, more of the place than of the Danes as it seemed, for he kept his eyes on the mere.