"'T is the White Christ's sign!" he gasped, as his eyes fell upon it; and as he spoke his strength seemed to return, and he flung the stranger from him and rose joyfully, and the stranger fled away into the darkness, crying as he fled, "Lost! Lost! Lost!"
"This sign is a wonderful sign," thought Wulnoth. "I must think more of it, for how can the White Christ be so weak if His sign is so powerful? I must truly think more of this."
Now, for a night and a day did Wulnoth wander, seeking to find the way to the lake and the island whereon was the church where the dead King was buried, but he searched in vain and his heart grew weary.
It was a dreadful country in which he found himself—flat and broken with many a stream, and marshy, so that the feet sank in ooze, and at night white mists rose, like ghosts from the fens, and encircled all things, and chilled him to the bone; yet still he pushed on, seeing only ruins and the handwork of the Danes. And so he journeyed until he came to better land, where he found people.
But none could tell him of the island with its church, or if they could, they would not, for all looked upon him with suspicion, and many cursed him for a Northland haco and bade him begone, lest he find his death-sleep through tarrying.
Sometimes Wulnoth felt angry at this, but he thought of the hard things these people had suffered, and that it was but natural they should view him with distrust, and so he went his way.
Yet not all spoke so; some were kindly and gave him shelter, but none could tell him of the King of the West Saxons beyond saying that they had heard how he and the Atheling had travelled swiftly back into their kingdom of Wessex. So on Wulnoth pushed, asking his way, for since he could not find Edgiva, the next best thing to do was to find Alfred.
And in a dense wood he came, as the stranger had said he would, upon a band of masterless men seated around a fire; and they started up and asked him who he was, and demanded his money, at which Wulnoth laughed.
"Why, friends," he said, "if you never get richer than I shall make you, you will stay poor, for of money have I none, who am but a wanderer—a nameless and a landless man."