As for myself, I sat down at supper, which they had but half finished, with the archbishop and his little train; and glad enough I was of it, and I and Erling ate as famished men who do not know when their next meal may be.

The archbishop watched us, smiling at first, and then grew thoughtful.  After I had fairly done, he said: 

“My son, I thought you had come to me with news of the finding of the body of your poor king.  That is a matter which lies heavily on my mind.  It must be done.”

“I think I can tell you within a few yards, father, where it must needs be, for today I and my comrade have searched where it was taken.  We have found, at least, the cart Gymbert used, and it cannot be far thence.  We think that the cart was left close to the hiding place.”

Then one of the priests said eagerly: 

“Father, the moon lies bright on all the meadows, and we might well seek in the place the thane has found.  This is a thing done at night in most seemly wise, as I think.”

“Ay,” answered the archbishop thoughtfully.  “Yet it were hard to ask the thane to turn out once more.”

“This is a quest which lies close to my heart, lord,” I said, rising.  “I will go gladly if you will let me guide your folk.”

“Yet you are weary, and need rest.”

“I have slept for long hours in the open today,” I said.  “I am fed and rested.  Let us go.”

For indeed, now that Hilda was in safety, the longing to end the quest came on me, and I should have slept little that night for thinking of it.  Moreover, I should have no fear of Gymbert and his men spying me, and thereby making fresh trouble.

So in the end the archbishop said that we might go, and with that four of his priests and the reeve with half a dozen men made ready, and in a very short time we rode out of the gates again in the moonlight, on our way back toward Sutton.  The river was between us and the Welsh we had met, and they were not to be feared.  The monks were riding their sumpter mules, and the reeve and we were mounted on horses from his own stable or lent by his friends, and his men trotted after us, some bearing picks and spades.

Under the little hill whereon the palace stands we rode presently, and I suppose that we were taken for a train of belated chapmen, or that the guards saw we were headed by monks, and would not trouble us.  Maybe, however, the disorder of the palace had put an end for the time to much care in watching, but at any rate we passed without challenge.

And so we came to the riverside track which should lead us to the end of our journey, and, as I hoped with all my heart, to the end of our quest.  Already I could see the trees under which the cart stood.

Out of the southwest came one of those showers which had been about all day, and which had not yet quite cleared off from the hills round us.  It drew across the face of the moon, which had been sending our long shadows before us as if they were in as great haste as we, and for a few minutes we stayed in the dark to let it pass.  And as it passed there came what men sometimes hold as a marvel.