orm of ill-aimed arrows we rode through the
unguarded gate and were on them.

"Ahoy!--Out, out!--Holy Cross!"

The war shouts of Norseman and South Saxon and Wessex men were in
startling medley together here, and that terrified the Welsh yet
more. It must have seemed to them that the Norsemen had called
unheard of allies to their help. There was no order or rallying
power among them.

We three were first through the gateway, and then we were riding
across the camp with levelled spears, over men and through the
fires, and a panic fell on the foe, so that without waiting to see
what our numbers were, in headlong terror they fled from the charge
over the ramparts and into the forests in the valleys on either
side beyond whence we came. I had no fear of their rallying thence
to any effect, for it would take them all their time to find their
leaders in the combes and the thick undergrowth that clothed their
sides. Once out of the camp, too, they could not see into it to
tell how few we were.

I suppose that there were some five hundred Welsh in the place. I
do not think that we harmed many of them in the hurry and the dark,
but we scared them terribly. Here and there one rolled under the
horses' hoofs, and we paid no heed to such as fell thus, and they
rose again and fled the faster. All but one, that is, so far as I
was concerned. I charged a man, and my spear missed him as he leapt
aside, and he struck at my horse as I passed him, and the next
moment I was rolling on the ground with the good steed, and the man
behind me had to leap over us as we lay. That was one of the Sussex
thanes, and he was no mean horseman or unready, luckily. Then he
chased my enemy out of the camp, and came back to see if I were
hurt. But I was not, and I bade him go on with the rest. We were
almost across the camp at this time.

"Take my horse rather," he said. "See, there is a bit of a stand
being made yonder."

There were yet some valiant and cooler-headed Welshmen whom the
panic had not carried away, and they were getting together to our
right. The camp was full three hundred paces across, and as we
spread over it our line had gaps here and there, so that some at
least had seen what our numbers were. They had passed into the camp
again over the earthworks, or had been passed by in the place by
us, and they were gathering round one who wore the crested helm and
gilded arms of a chief, and he was raving at the cowards who had
left him.