stan sat up, asking quickly, "Who
spoke to me?" and looking round for one near him, as it seemed.

"None spoke, Father," said I, "or none but Wulfhere to me, whispering."

"What said Wulfhere?"

"That the tide was failing," I answered.

The bishop was silent for a moment, and then he said:

"I heard a voice, plainly, that cried to me, 'Up! for the Lord has
delivered these heathen into your hands'."

"We heard no such voice, Father," I said, "but I think it spoke true."

Now the light was broadening, making all things cold and gray as it
came. And quickly I told Ealhstan what I had heard, and what both I and
Wulfhere thought of the matter.

"Can we let them pass us, and so fall on them as they gain the level
land of Stert?" asked Ealhstan, saying nothing more.

"That can we," I answered. "They will keep to the road, and we can draw
back to the edge of the hill, so taking them in flank as they leave it."

For the hills bend round a little beyond the place where the road falls
into the level below Matelgar's hall.

"So be it," said the bishop. "Go you, Wulfhere, and see how near the
host is, and come back quickly."

When he was gone the bishop bade me wake the men. And at first I was for
going round, but by this thane Wislac had waked, and had been listening
to us: and he said that if I would let him wake the men he could do it
without alarm or undue noise. Only I must raise the standard and bid
them be silent. At that the bishop smiled and nodded, and I raised the
standard, and waited.

Then Wislac stood up and crowed like a cock, and instantly the men began
to turn and sit up, and as their eyes lit on the standard raised in
their midst, became broad awake, each man rousing the next sleeper if
one lay near him. And there was the bishop, finger on lip, and they were
silent.

"Verily I thought on the hard chapel stones," muttered Guthlac, the lay
brother, behind me.

"It is the war chime, not the matin bell, you shall hear this morning,"
said one of his brethren.

"That is better--mea culpa," said Guthlac, clapping his hand on his
mouth to stop his own warlike ejaculation.

Then came Wulfhere back, swiftly. Barely a mile were they from the hill,
he said, and coming on quickly in loose order. Moreover, a horseman had
passed, riding hard to the ships, doubtless to bid them be ready. But
that would take little time, for these vikings are ever ready for
flight, keeping their ships prepared from day to day.