Then some one came, stepping lightly, but with clank of mail, towards us; and I glanced round, thinking that some message was brought from the ramparts.  Odda turned idly at the same time, and he started up.

“Ah!” he said, under his breath, “what is this?”

A tall maiden, mail clad and bearing a broad-bladed spear, stood beside us; and I thought her one of 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 that he would tell us that victory is before us.”