Will none come to greet me ?" There was no answer, and Olaf lifted up his clear voice: "Ho, Ethelred's men! here is help against the Danes." Then from under the staging by the riverside where the boats land their cargo, crept two men and came towards us slowly.

And one was that thrall of mine who would have gone to Wormingford for me on the night when we fled.

His silver collar of thraldom was gone, for the Danes had taken it, and his face bore marks of long hardship, but I knew him instantly.

So I called him by name, and he stared at me fixedly for a moment, and then cried aloud and ran to me and fell to kissing my hand and weeping with joy at my return.

Nor could I get a word from him at first.
Then more of the people came from one place or another, timidly at first, but growing bold as they saw these two men without fear of us, and by the time that Olaf's warriors came over the bridge there were not a few folk standing round us and looking on.