“How shall we attack?” said Ethelnoth.

“Why, run through the camp in silence first and cut the tent lines, and then raise a war shout and come back on them.  Then we may slay a few, and the rest will be scared badly enough.”

Thereat we both laughed under our breath, for it seemed like a schoolboy’s prank.  Well, after the long toil in the fen, we were like boys just freed from school, though our game was the greatest of all—­that of war—­the game of Hodur’s playground, as we Norse say.

Then I said: 

“After we come through for the second time, we must take to this cover, and so get together at some place by the hill foot.  There is a shed by a big tree that can be found easily.”

So we passed the wood, and our comrades chuckled.  It was good sport to see the shadows of the careless Danes on the tent walls, and to know that they dreamed of nothing less than that Saxons were on them.  Four rows of tents there were, and there were twenty-two of us; so we told off men to each row, and then made for them at a moment when no man was about—­hacking at the ropes, and laughing to see the tents fall.  It was strange to watch the shadows start up and stand motionless, as the first patter of feet came and the first blows fell, and then bustle, helpless and confused, with savage shouts and curses, as the heavy canvas and skins fell in upon them.

Now we were through the camp, and the outcries were loud behind us.  Two or three tents did not fall, and from them the men swarmed, half armed and startled, not knowing if this was not some sorry jest at first; and then rang our war cry from the dark, and we were back upon them.  We were but two-and-twenty to a hundred, but they knew not what was on hand, while we did; and so we cut through them without meeting with any hurt.  Two tents were on fire and blazing high, and blackened men cut and tore their way out of them howling; and I think that more than one Dane was cut down by his comrades in the panic that fell on all.

Yet even as we passed into the cover and went our way back towards the fen, some bolder spirits began to rally, and a horn was blown.  But we were gone, leaving six slain and many more wounded among them, while not one of us was scratched.

They did not follow us, and we heard the clamour we had caused going on for some time after we had gained the fen.  Presently, too, when we reached Othery, we saw a fire signal lit to call for help, and we were well content.  Doubtless those Danes waked under arms all that night through.

After that these attacks were seldom so easy, for the Danes kept good watch enough; but they were ever the same in most ways.  Suddenly in the night would come the war cry and the wild rush of desperate men on some Danish outpost, and before they knew what to do we were away and into the fen again.  We grew to know every path well before long, and sometimes we would fall on small parties of our foes when they were on the march or raiding the cattle, and cut through them, and get back to our fastness.