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.