the Valkyrias--Odin's
messengers--come to us, to fight for us in some strife to which she
would lead us. I rose too, saluting.

"Skoal to the shield maiden!" I said.

"Skoal to the heroes!" she answered; and then I knew the voice,
though, under the helm and in the grey light, the face of the
ealdorman's daughter Etheldreda had been strange to me. And Odda
knew also.

"What would you in this guise, my daughter?" he cried.

"I think that I have come as Ranald thought--as a Valkyria to lead
you to battle," she answered, speaking low, that she might not wake
the tired warriors around her. "There is but one thing for us to
do, and that is to die sword in hand, rather than to perish for
want of food and water here."

I know that this had been in my mind, and most likely in Odda's
also; but Alfred might come.

"We wait the king," the ealdorman said.

"No use," she answered. "One may see all the Polden Hills from this
place, and tonight there are no fires on Edington height, where we
have been wont to see them."

Odda groaned. "My Etheldreda, you are the best captain of us all,"
he said.

Then suddenly Heregar rose up on his elbow from beside the
standard, crying strangely:

"Ay, Father Eahlstan--when the tide is low. Somerset and Dorset
side by side. What say you, father--Somerset and Devon? Even so."

The other sleepers stirred, and the lady turned and looked on the
thane, but he slept even yet.

"Heregar dreams of the bishop he loved, and of the great fight they
fought yonder and won thirty rears ago," she said {xv}.

"Worn out is the brave thane," said I. "Strange dreams come to one
when that is so."

Then Heregar woke, and saw the maiden, and rose up at her side.

"Dear lady," he asked, "what is this?"

"Ranald thought me a Valkyria, friend; and I come on a Valkyria's
errand."

"I had a strange dream but now," Heregar said, as if it dwelt in
his mind, so that he hardly heeded what Etheldreda answered him. "I
thought that Bishop Eahlstan stood by me as in the old days, and
minded me of words that I spoke long ago, words that were taught me
by a wise woman, who showed me how to trap the Danes, when the tide
left their ships aground, so that they had no retreat. Then he
said, 'Even again at this time shall victory be when the tide is
low.' And I said that Somerset and Dorset would fail not at this
time. Then said he, 'Somerset and Devon.' Then it seemed that he
blessed me and passed. Surely I think th