A few hours later the chieftains were all summoned to a council in the king's tent, and when, after a short session, they came forth, the general order was given to break up the encampment, and move towards the southwest for the winter, for all the resources of the country around were exhausted.
The work was a laborious one. From the dawn of day, horses, heavily laden, left the camp, loaded with the accumulated spoil of the year. Anlaf himself was very busy, and it was with some real alarm that Alfgar asked him what would happen did the English suddenly appear.
"No fear of them, boy. We have received certain intelligence that their army is disbanded for want of provisions. They will not meet till the spring unless we rout them up."
Alfgar knew well whence the "certain intelligence" came.
Destroying and plundering, the mighty host moved on its way, crossing into Hampshire, and doing, as the chronicle says, "their old wont." Of them it might be said in the words of the prophet:
"Like Eden the land at morn they find;
But they leave it a desolate waste behind."
Whenever they found a tract of country as yet unexhausted, there they settled until they had exhausted it. The wretched inhabitants, who had fled at their approach, perished with hunger, unless they had strength to crawl to the far distance, where as yet bread might be found.
It was the custom of the invaders to burn all their resting places when they left them, and to slay all captives, save such as could be held to ransom, or a few whom they detained in slavery, till they died a worse death from want and ill usage.
Thus they moved from spot to spot, until towards the middle of November they reached the coast opposite the Isle of Wight, in which unfortunate island they decided, after due consideration, to winter.
Opposite the host, across the Solent, rose the lovely and gentle hills of the "garden of England;" but between them lay the Danish fleet, in all its grandeur, calmly floating on the water. Each of the lofty ships bore the ensign of its commander; some carried at the prow the figures of lions, some of bulls, dolphins, dragons, or armed warriors, gaudily painted or even gilded; while others bore from their mast the ensign of voracious birds--the eagle, the raven--which appeared to stretch their wings as the flag expanded in the wind.