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HOW WILFRID MET ECGBERT THE ATHELING.
It was indeed Thorleif whom I saw as the deadly faintness of utter weariness and want of food came over me, and I sank.

The Danes had hardly lost sight of me from the ships, for they had drifted backward and forward on the tide as I drifted, and I was never more than a mile from them.

Until the tide turned to the eastward there had been no wind of any use to them, and that which came with sunset was barely enough to give them steerage way.

So they had watched me for want of somewhat else to do, being worn out with the long fight; and when I was far off, some keen-sighted seaman would spy my head as it rose on a wave, and cry that the Saxon was yet swimming.
Now, if there is one thing that the northern folk of our kin think much of in the way of sports, it is swimming, and it seems that I won high praise from all.