sought a bushy hollow and laid me down and slept, while the smoke of
Watchet hung round me, and now and then a brighter glare flashed over
the low clouds, as the roof of some building fell in and fed the flames
afresh.

I woke in the light of the gray dawn, and the smell of burning was gone,
and the sea I looked out on was clear again, for a fresh breeze from the
eastward was sweeping the smoke, as I could see, away to the other
hills, westward. But the town was gone--only a smoke was left for all
there was for me to look down on, instead of the red-tiled and
gray-thatched roofs that I had so often seen before from that place or
near it.

Next I saw the ships of the vikings. They lay out in the channel at
anchor, for the tide was failing. I suppose they had gone into the
little haven as soon as there was water enough, and that those lights I
saw were signs made from one to the other when that was so. There were
specks near them--moving--their boats, no doubt, from the shore,
bringing off plunder. The long ships themselves looked like barley corns
from so high above, or so I thought them to look, if they were larger to
sight than that, for that was their shape.

Now I had not thought that they would have bided when the beacons were
lit; but would have gone out westward with this tide. And therefore I
wondered what their next move would be, but expected to see them up
anchor and go soon.

Waiting so, I waxed hungry, for nought had I tasted, save a few birds'
eggs that I had found in Holford Coombe, since that time yesterday.
Birds' eggs, thought I, were better than nought, so I wandered among the