I had heard the "Heysaa", the war song of the Danes.
But before I could cover in the dark more than two miles I stopped, for I was too late.

There shot up a tongue of flame from Watchet town, and then another and another, and the ringing of the church bell came to me for a little, and then that stopped, and up on Minehead height burnt out a war beacon that soon paled to nothing in the glare of the burning houses in the town.

I could fancy I heard yells and shrieks from thence, but maybe that was fancy, though I know they were there for me to hear truly enough.
But I could do nothing.

The town was too evidently in the hands of the enemy, and I could only climb up the hill again, and watch where the ships went, perhaps, as I had seen them come.
As I clomb the hill the heavy smell of the smoke caught me up and bided with me, making me wild with fury against the plunderers, and against Matelgar, in that now I might not call out my own men and ride to the sheriff's levy with them, and fight for Wessex as was my right.
And these Danes, or Northmen, whichever they might be--but we called them all Danes without much distinction--were the very men with whom I had thought to join when I won down to Cornwall.
One thing I could do, I could fire the beacon on the Quantocks.

That was a good thought; and I hurried to the point where I knew it was ever piled, ready, since the day of Charnmouth fight two years agone.
I found it, and, hammering with the flint I had found in case of such a necessity as last night's, I kindled the dry fern at its foot to windward, and up it blazed.