And
that thunder was the first sign that the Welsh knew of our coming.
I saw one come to the gateway and look, and then with a wild howl
throw himself into the outer ditch for safety, and the camp roared
with the alarm, and the dim white figures flocked to the rampart,
and through a storm 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.
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