he water
falls low, my father will call me from the hill, and I will pray for you
and for him."

So these two were gone. And at that I seemed to see our men lie in
Bridgwater, and there was Turkil's father, the franklin, sleeping with
the rest. But up and down among them went Eanulf the Ealdorman, watching
ever.

Then fled I, as it were, to that hill where lay the Danes, and on the
road thither I saw Osric and twenty men, looking up at the fires that
burnt where the enemy lay.

And then I looked on those fires, and there were no men round them.

One shook me by the shoulder, and my dream went.

It was Dudda, and his eyes were bright in the firelight.

And over Brent the first streaks of dawn were broadening, and the mists
were gone.

"Master, master," he said, "come with me to the roadway. Something is
afoot."

Then I woke Wulfhere, asking him to wait for me, guarding the standard,
and followed my man swiftly to the place where the road cuts the hill.
And there was a knot of the men, standing and listening.

I listened also, and far off towards Cannington I could hear the sound
of the tread of many feet, for the morning was still and quiet; and the
men said that this was growing nearer.

Then knew I that the Danes were falling back to the ships without
risking battle, and my dream came back to me, with its vision of
unguarded watch fires, and it seemed to me that surely, unless we could
stay them, they would depart with the tide as it fell.

"How is the tide?" asked I of the men round me.

"Failing now," said one who knew, "but not fast."

Then I remembered things I had hardly noted in years gone by. How the
tide hung around Stert Point, as though Severn and Parret warred for a
while, before the mighty Severn ebb sucked Parret dry, and how the ebb
at last came swift and sudden.

"When the tide is low," said they whom I had seen in my dream.

And in a moment I recalled the first fight, and the words of Gundred,
and I knew that we had the Danes in a trap.

They were marching now in time to gain their ships and be off as the
last man stepped on board, with the full draft of the ebb to set them
out to sea beyond Lundy Isle, into open water. Nor had they left their
post till the last moment, lest our levy should be on their heels, or
else some more distant marauding party had not come in till late.

I went back to Wulfhere and told him this, and in it all he agreed.

And, as we whispered together, Ealh