At this all the vikings shouted; and drawing their swords waved them in the air. Yet the spirits of the Danes were cast down, and they were as men bewildered; and Guthrun himself, when he was alone, sat with clouded brow, and pondered, and his thoughts were strange thoughts—
For Guthrun had heard the story of the White Christ; and now he wondered, seeing that Odin's Raven was captured, and Odin had not smitten the men who had carried it away, whether, after all, the Saxon God was not stronger than the gods of the Northland.
Guthrun had not forgotten the slaying of Edmund the King, and the thoughts which that brought to him often troubled him. Presently Guthrun was to do as Wulnoth had done, and acknowledge that the Lord was of all lords the chief.
And that night the Saxon gleeman was missing from the camp of the Danes; and when none could find him, the rumor went abroad that he had been no gleeman, but a spy amongst them; and that did but trouble them the more.
And not long afterwards Alfred the King was back with Wulnoth and Osric, and to them he said—
"Now has the time come, my friends, and the foe are dismayed by reason of the loss of their ships! Hasten, both, and send others on; and through the land let the summons go that all who love me, and would strike for freedom, shall hasten hither without delay. Hasten, for all now depends upon our being ready to smite our enemy ere they have time to decide what they will do."
Now, this is how King Alfred spied out the Danish camp, and how he sent Wulnoth and Osric to summon his forces to his aid.