Hæsten at Bemfleet had been joined by the main Viking fleet, and was wasting Mercia with part of his force, the rest being left to guard the camp. Aethelred and Eadward did not waste time in pursuing him; but turned back to London, gathered up its _burh-ware_, and marched against Bemfleet. ‘Then came the King’s men and defeated the enemy, broke down the work, took all that was therein--money, women, and children--and brought all to London.’ Hundreds of ships must have been taken, and among the prisoners were Hæsten’s wife and his two sons. Hæsten, returning from his raid, found only ruins at Bemfleet. He must be credited at least with admirable pertinacity and courage. He established himself at Shoebury, and rallied there the broken sections of the Viking host. Reinforced by East Anglians, he again made a dash westward, hurrying along the Thames Valley to the Lower Severn, and then turning northward. At Buttington, on the Severn, he was overtaken by the Mercians under Aethelred, supported by reinforcements brought up from Wessex by Ealdormen Aethelhelm, and Aethelnoth, and other troops from Wales. He was defeated and blockaded in his camp, only escaping to Shoebury after heavy loss. His hope appears to have been to join the Northumbrian fleet, but Alfred had relieved Exeter, and the discomfited squadrons had gone. However, Shoebury had become the rendezvous of adventurers from all quarters, and Hæsten, late in the year, broke out once more. Marching night and day, he suddenly appeared in the desolate ruins of Deva, the ‘Chester’ where once Legio Valeria Victrix had made its home, and entrenched himself behind its ramparts. The Mercians were too late to overtake him, and could only waste the neighbourhood so as to straiten him for food. The events of the next year, 894, are rather obscure. Hæsten, forced to evacuate Chester, wasted North Wales, and finally retreated to Northumbria, and so back to East Anglia. Evidently hoping to be safer so, the Danes established a new camp on Mersey Island, on the Essex coast. Meanwhile the Northumbrian fleet was at last coming to Hæsten’s aid. On its way from the west it attacked Chichester, but was handsomely repulsed, with the loss of several ships. The main force, however, reached Mersey safely, and late in the year the whole host proceeded up the Thames and entrenched itself twenty miles up the Lea. One hears nothing of Alfred or the main English army all the year. It is possible that the King was trying to coerce the Northumbrians, and there is a terribly confused and probably misdated entry in Aethelweard’s Chronicle which seems to point to something of the kind.