Thereat they groaned, wondering and cast down, and one said:
"They will not have carried him far. Let us search."
We did so, and after a long time we found the king's body in a thicket where it had been cast. But his head we could not find, though now I bade my dog search also. He led us westward through the wood, until we came to a rising ground, and there we could go no further. For thence we saw the Danish horsemen by scores pressing towards us, searching for cattle and sheep as the army passed southward. And the farms were blazing in the track that they had crossed everywhere.
Then said the men:
"We must fly. We who live must save ourselves, and must come back and end this search when we may."
"Let us bear back the king's body," I said, "and find some hiding place for it at Hoxne."
So we did, hurriedly, and hid it in a pit near the village, covering it with boards and gravel as well as we could for haste. Then I asked the men where they would go.
"By boat down the river," they said, "and so join the thane and his party wherever they might be. They have gone to Beccles, for they hear that a ship lies there whose master will gladly take them to London."
That was good hearing, for so would all be safe. The men pressed me to come with them, but I would not do so, meaning to hasten on to the bishop's place and make him fly to Beccles and take ship also, starting this very night. So I bid them go, and on that their leader, a stout freeman named Leof, whom I knew well as one of Egfrid's best men, said that he would come with me. Nor would he hear of aught else.
"What would Egfrid my master say if I left his brother to go alone?" he asked me simply; and so I suffered him, and we two went towards South Elmham together.