make fresh arrows after
battle, in all haste, and have to use what they can first find. The
shaft was snapped close to the iron and the rawhide lashing that
held it, and I could not take it out as I would, for the young oak
was sturdy and tough; and so I left it, thinking that I would
return some day to cut it out.

That I did in after years, but the arrowhead was hidden, for the
tree had grown fast, closing on it, as I think, and I could not
find its place. So it will be there for one to find hereafter,
maybe long hence, for such a tree has many a hundred years to last
yet, if saved from mishap of wind or lightning or axe. Then I think
will men still know what that iron is, for Eadmund the King cannot
be forgotten.

Presently it seemed to me that the voices I heard in the wood, as
the searchers called to each other, drew closer together, crying:

"Where are you?"

"Here--here!"

And then was a sort of outcry, and a silence, and I hoped that
maybe they had found what they sought. So I rose up and went slowly
and limpingly to the place where they seemed to be.

I met them in a green glade. And foremost came the two monks,
bearing between them a cloak, wherein was surely that we looked
for, and after them came my dog and Raud, and then the rest. And
when they saw me they cried softly to me:

"Master, we have found the head of our king."

So they laid open the cloak before me, and I knelt and looked. And
there was indeed the head of Eadmund, seeming whole and fresh as
when I had last seen him; and his looks were very peaceful, for on
his face was still that smile with which he had greeted death at
Raud's hands.

Then, seeing that, the rough Dane was fain to turn away and lean
arms and face against a tree trunk, weeping as weeps a child that
will not be comforted.

After a little I asked how they had found the head. And one of the
villagers, speaking low and holding his cap in his hands as though
in the church, answered me.

"When I came to a certain thicket, I heard a crying, as it were,
and I turned aside and looked, and at first was sorely afraid, for
yon great wolf held the head between his paws, whining over it as
in grief. Then I called to the rest, and they came, running, and
were afraid also till the good fathers came, to whom the wolf was
gentle, suffering them to take that which he guarded. And lo! he
follows us even now, as would a dog!"

So the man spoke, not having seen such a dog as mine befo