The watch-fire lights, that were our guide, twinkled above us through the trees that were on the hillside; and we made at once for them, sending on the fenman to spy out the post before we were near it.

It was very dark, and it rained now and then.
When he came back to where we had halted, he said that there were about twenty tents, pitched in four lines, with a fire between each line; and that the men were mostly under cover, drinking before setting watch, if they set any at all.
So we drew nearer, skirting round into cover of some trees that came up to the tents, for the hilltop was bare for some way.

The lighted tents looked very cheerful, and sounds of song and laughter came from them, and now and then a man crossed from one to another, or fed the fires with fresh wood, that hissed and sputtered as he cast it on.
"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.