. Behind each
of the threatened points they raised banks of earth ten feet high, and
cut away the bank perpendicularly behind the shattered wall, so that
the assailants as they poured in at the gaps would have to leap ten
feet down.

Each night the masses of wall which fell inside were cleared away, and
when the breach was complete, and it was evident that the assault would
take place the next morning, the hides which had been prepared were
laid with the hairy side down, on the ground below. Through them they
drove firmly into the ground numbers of pikes with the heads sticking
up one or two feet, and pointed stakes hardened in the fire. Then
satisfied that all had been done the Saxons lay down to rest.

In the morning the Danes advanced to the assault. This time they were
but little annoyed in their advance by the archers. These were posted
on the walls at each side of the gaps to shoot down at the backs of the
Danes after they had entered. On the inner semicircular mounds the
Saxon force gathered four deep.

With loud shouts the Danes rushed forward, climbed the outer mounds,
and reached the breaches. Here the leaders paused on seeing the gulf
below them, but pressed by those behind they could not hesitate long,
but leapt down from the breach on to the slippery hides below.

Not one who did so lived. It was impossible to keep their feet as they
alighted, and as they fell they were impaled by the pikes and stakes.
Pressed by those behind, however, fresh men leapt down, falling in
their turn, until at length the hides and stakes were covered, and
those leaping down found a foothold on the bodies of the fallen. Then
they crowded on and strove to climb the inner bank and attack the
Saxons. Now the archers on the walls opened fire upon them, and,
pierced through and through with the arrows which struck them on the
back, the Danes fell in great numbers. Edmund commanded at one of the
breaches, Egbert at another, and Oswald, an old and experienced
warrior, at the third.

At each point the scene was similar. The Danes struggled up the mounds
only to fail to break through the hedge of spears which crowned them,
fast numbers dying in the attempt, while as many more fell pierced with
arrows. For an hour the Danes continued their desperate efforts, and
not until fifteen hundred had been slain did they draw off to their
camp, finding it impossible to break through the Saxon defences.

Loud rose the shouts of the triumphant