“Norton is on the southern end of the Quantocks, and Watchet is at the northern end, as you know, King Ina.  Between the two on the hills is the great camp which any force can hold, but nought but a great one can storm.  If you will give me two hundred men, I will have that camp by morning, and that will save Watchet, and maybe hold back Gerent in such wise that he will not care to pass it without retaking it.  He will not know how few of us will be there, and you will be able to choose your own ground for the fighting while he bethinks him.  There is but one road into Wessex across the Quantocks, and we shall seem to menace that while we cover the way to Watchet.”

“So the camp is held?” asked Ina.  “Gerent is before me there.”

“Held by the men we beat off from Watchet, King.  One we took tells us that they had no business to fall on our town, but turned aside to do it.  Gerent has little hold on some of his chiefs.  Now they are there with a fear of us and our axes on them, and if we may fall on them unawares we can take the camp without trouble, as I think.”

“Oswald,” said Ina, after a little thought, “how many horsemen can you raise now?”

The town was full of horses by this time, and I thought that it would not be hard to raise a hundred, and that in half an hour.  Maybe if we did go with Thorgils we should meet many more men on the way to the levy also.

“Then you shall go with Thorgils,” the king said.  “It is a risk, certainly, but it is worth it.  We had held that camp, had we had but a day’s earlier warning, and that loss may be made good thus.  That outlaw of yours will know many a safe place of retreat for you if need is.  Good luck be with you.”

He shook hands with us both, and we did not delay.  His only bidding was that we should hold the camp until we had word from him, if we took it, and he was to learn thereof by signal.

So it came to pass that in an hour and a half Thorgils and I and Erpwald, who would by no means let me go without him, and three of his Sussex friends, rode across the causeway to the Polden hills in the dusk, with a matter of six score men behind us, well armed and mounted all—­for these borderers have need to keep horse and arms of the best, and those ever ready.

From the ealdorman’s door Elfrida watched us go very bravely, and the glimmer of her white dress was the lodestar that kept the eyes of her lover turned backward while it might be seen.  It vanished suddenly, and he heaved a deep sigh, and I knew that she had been fain to watch no longer lest her tears should be seen.

As we went along the Polden ridge we met flying men, and men who came to the levy, and by twos and threes we added to our little force, until we had a full hundred more than when we started.

Thorgils took us to a tidal ford that crosses the Parrett River far below any bridge, which he thought would not yet be watched by the Welsh.  There is a steep hill fort that covers this ford, but on it were no fires as of an outpost yet.  Then we were a matter of eight miles from the great camp on the highest ridge of the Quantocks which we had to take, and we had ridden five-and-twenty miles.  I was glad that we had to wait an hour or more for the fall of the tide before we could cross, for we rode fast thus far.