-OF THE STORM OF DAWNING

Then Thiodolf bade Fox and two others steal forward, and see what of
foemen was before them; so they fell to creeping on towards the open: but
scarcely had they started, before all men could hear the tramp of men
drawing nigh; then Thiodolf himself took with him a score of his House
and went quietly toward the wood-edge till they were barely within the
shadow of the beech-wood; and he looked forth and saw men coming straight
towards their lurking-place. And those he saw were a good many, and they
were mostly of the dastards of the Goths; but with them was a Captain of
an Hundred of the Romans, and some others of his kindred; and Thiodolf
deemed that the Goths had been bidden to gather up some of the
night-watchers and enter the wood and fall on the stay-at-homes. So he
bade his men get them aback, and he himself abode still at the very
wood's edge listening intently with his sword bare in his hand. And he
noted that those men of the foe stayed in the daylight outside the wood,
but a few yards from it, and, by command as it seemed, fell silent and
spake no word; and the morn was very still, and when the sound of their
tramp over the grass had ceased, Thiodolf could hear the tramp of more
men behind them. And then he had another thought, to wit that the Romans
had sent scouts to see if the Goths yet abided on the vantage-ground by
the ford, and that when they had found them gone, they were minded to
fall on them unawares in the refuge of the Thing-stead and were about to
do so by the counsel and leading of the dastard Goths; and that this was
one body of the host led by those dastards, who knew somewhat of the
woods. So he drew aback speedily, and catching hold of Fox by the
shoulder (for he had taken him alone with him) he bade him creep along
through the wood toward the Thing-stead, and bring back speedy word
whether there were any more foemen near the wood thereaway; and he
himself came to his men, and ordered them for onset, drawing them up in a
shallow half moon, with the bowmen at the horns thereof, with the word to
loose at the Romans as soon as they heard the war-horn blow: and all this
was done speedily and with little noise, for they were well nigh so
arrayed already.

Thus then they waited, and there was more than a glimmer of light even
under the beechen leaves, and the eastern sky was yellowing to sunrise.
The other warriors were like hounds in the leash eager to be slipped; b