It was very dark when we marched from Pevensea. We followed the
earl's men, and save for remembering the muddy torchlit causeway to
firm ground from the castle, and after that dim hill and dale
passed in turn, and a long causeway and bridge that spanned the
mouth of a narrow valley that opened into the great Pevensea level,
I knew not much of what country we went through. After passing that
causeway we came into forest land, going along a track for awhile,
and then turning inland across rolling hills till we began to go
down again. And as the first streaks of dawn began to show above
the woods, the word was passed for silence, and then that we should
lie down and rest in the fern on the edge of a steep slope below
which shone the faint gleam of water.
Then came Wulfnoth and spoke to Olaf, and said that he and his men
would go beyond the village so as to take the outlaws from the
rear. He would send a man to us who would show us all that was
needed.
After that we lay and waited, and as the sun rose and the light
grew stronger, I thought that I had never seen a more beautiful
place.
We were above a little cliff of red rock that went down to the
valley of the Ashbourne brook. And all the valley from side to side
was full of the morning mists so that it seemed one lake, while the
woods were bright with the change of the leaf, from green to red
and gold--oak and beech and chestnut and hazel each with its own
colour, and all beautiful. The blue downs rose far away to our left
across the ridges of the forest land, and inland the Andred's-weald
stretched, rising hill above hill as far as one might see, timber
covered. There were trees between us and the village that we
sought; but above its place rose a dun cloud of smoke from some
houses fired that night by those who held it, and that was the one
thing that spoiled the beauty of all that I saw.
Now Olaf and I spoke of all this, whispering together, for we were
close to the village, and already we had heard voices from thence
as men woke. For Olaf was ever touched by the sight of a fair land
lying before him. And while he spoke, a man seemed to rise out of a
cleft of the rocks below us, and climbed up to us, and bowed before
us, saying that he was to guide us.
He was a great man, clad in leather from head to foot, and carrying
a sledgehammer over his shoulder. That and a billhook stuck in his
belt were his only weapons.
"I am Spray the smith," he said, in a low voice. "The earl is
ready, and the thane also. The knaves are all drunken with our ale,
and we may fall on them at once."
"Have they no watch kept?" asked Olaf wondering.
"None, master."
"Are there Danes with them?"
"Aye; half are Danes. But I met one of them last night and spoke to
him peacefully, being stronger than he, and I said that vikings had
come to Pevensea, and that the earl was minding them. So they fear
no one."
Then came a herdsman's call from the woods beyond the village, and
the smith said:
"That is the thane. Fall on, master, and fear nought."
Whereat I laughed, and the men sprang up. The smith led us for a
hundred paces through the beech trees and then across the brook,
and the steep slope up to the village was before us. There was a
little, ancient earthwork of no account round the place, but if
there had been a stockade on it, it was gone.
Then came a roar of yells and shouts from the far side, and we knew
that the work had begun, and ran up the hillside. Then fled a man
in chain mail out of the place, leaping over the earthworks
straight at us, unknowing.
Spray the smith swung his hammer, not heeding at all the sword in
the man's hands. Sword and helm alike shivered under the blow, and
the man rolled over and over down the hillside.
"That is the first Dane I ever slew," said Spray to me as we topped
the ridge.
Then we were in the village and among a crowd of wild-looking,
half-armed forest men, who fled and yelled, and smote and cried for
quarter in a strange and ghastly medley. There was no order, and
seemingly no leader among them, and an end was soon made. Before I
had struck down two men they scattered and fled for hiding, and we
followed them. Wulfnoth would have no mercy shown to these wretches
who would harry the peaceful villagers--their own kin. They would
but band together again.
Now I did a foolish thing which might have cost me my life. For two
outlaws ran into one of the old stone buildings of which I had
heard, and I followed them. As I crossed the threshold I stayed for
a moment, for the place seemed very dark inside, and I could not
see them. But I was plain enough to them, of course, and before I
could see that a blow was coming one smote me heavily on the helm
and I fell forward, while they leapt out over my body into the open
again. Then I seemed to slip, and fell into nothingness as my
senses left me.
Presently I came round, nor could I tell how long I had been alone,
I heard far off shouts that were dull and muffled as if coming
through walls, and then as my brain cleared, I saw that I was in
what seemed to be a dungeon like those that Earl Wulfnoth had under
Pevensea. All round me were walls, and the light came in from a
round hole above me.
When I saw that I knew that I had indeed fallen into this place,
and my sword, too, lay on the floor where it had flown from my hand
as I did so. It was lucky that I had not fallen on it.
Now the shouts died away, and I thought that our men were chasing
the last of the outlaws into the woods. When the silence fell, I
waxed lonely, and began to wonder if I had been forgotten. But Olaf
would miss me presently, and would surely return to the village
before long. So I would be patient, and at least try to find a way
out of this trap into which I had come so strangely.
But there was no way out unless a ladder or rope were lowered to
me. The roof of the place was rounded and arched above me, and the
hole was in its centre so that I could not reach it. Maybe the
place was ten feet across and ten feet high under the hole, and it
minded me of the snake pit into which Gunnar the hero was thrown,
as Ottar the scald sang. Only here were no snakes, and the air was
thick and musty, but dry enough. I could see the beams of the house
roof above the hole.
Then I thought that if I could prise some stones from the old walls
I might pile them up until I reached the edge of the hole with my
hands, when it would be easy to draw myself up, though maybe not
without taking off my armour. But when I tried the joints of the
masonry with the point of my seax, I did but blunt the weapon, for
the mortar was harder than the stone, which was the red sandstone
of the cliff where we had rested.
So I forbore and sat down, leaning my aching head against the cool
wall, to wait for Olaf's return. There would be time to shout when
I heard voices again, and it was not good to make much noise in
that place after the blow of a club that had set my ears ringing
already.
Then I fell to thinking of Sexberga, and those thoughts were
pleasant enough. And idly I began to sharpen my seax again on a
great square stone that was handy in the wall as I sat, but it was
very soft, and crumbled away under the steel without doing it much
good.
Now, when one is waiting and thinking, one will play with an idle
pastime for the sake of keeping one's hands amused as it were, and
so I went on working the long slit in the stone, which the blade
was making, deeper and deeper. The sand trickled from it in a
stream, and then all of a sudden I became aware that I had pierced
through the stone into a hole behind, and I bent over to see how
this could be.
The stone was not more than an inch or two thick, and there was
certainly a hollow which it closed, and when I saw that I broke and
worked away more of it until I could get my hand in. Then I found
that I could feel nothing, for the place was deep. So I made the
hole bigger yet, and put my arm in. Then I found the back and one
side of a stone-cased chest in the wall, as it were, of which the
stone I had bored was the door, though this was to all appearance
like several other of the larger blocks that the place was built
of.
When I reached downwards my hand could just touch what felt like
rotten canvas, and at that I began to work again at the hole. The
stone was too strong to break, though it seemed thin, and I was so
intent on this, that the voices I had longed to hear made me start.
"He was hereabouts, master, when I last saw him," said one whom I
thought was Spray the smith.
"I will hang you up if he is lost," said Wulfnoth's voice.
Then I sprang up and shouted, and the vault rang painfully in my
ears. It was Olaf who called back to me.
"Ho, Redwald where are you?"
"Under the house, in a pit," I answered, standing under the
opening.
Then someone came tramping above me, and the next moment Spray's
leather-hosed leg came through the hole, and he nearly joined me.
Thereat others laughed, and he climbed up quickly enough, for it
was an ill feeling to be hanging over an unknown depth.
"Lower me down a rope," I said, as I saw his face peering into the
place with some others.
There seemed to be a ladder handy, for the next minute its end came
down, and at once I picked up my sword and climbed out. Olaf stood
in the doorway now with Relf.
"It is easy to see how my cousin got into that place," he said to
Relf, pointing to my helm, which was sorely dinted.
The big thane looked and laughed.
"That is what felled him. But I knew not of this pit," he said,
looking past me into the house where Spray and the men stood round
the hole.
Then the smith said:
"Nor did I, master. But this has been found by the forest men--here
are their tools."
And when we looked, all the floor of the house was broken up, and
the stone paving was piled in corners, and a pick or two lay on
them with a spade and crowbar.
"They have been digging for treasure," said Relf, "and that has
kept them from my house. There are always tales of gold hidden in
these old places. I have seen that they have done the like
elsewhere in the village."
"Aye," said Spray, "they have heard some of our tales, and they
have dug where we would not, for it spoils a house, and the wife's
temper also, to meddle with the good stone floor."
Now it seemed to me that here was a likelihood that there was truth
in the old tales, and that I had lit on the lost hiding place of
which some memory yet remained even from the days when OElla's men
took the town from the iron workers five hundred years and more
ago, when the might of Rome had passed.
"There is somewhat that I have found in this place," I said. "Come
and see what it is."
Wondering, Olaf and Wulfnoth climbed down the ladder after me, and
Relf did but stay to find a torch before he followed us. Then I
showed them the stone and the hollow behind it, and the earl called
for the crowbar that was left by the outlaws, and with a stroke or
two easily broke out the rest of the stone, and the glare of the
torch shone into the place that it had so long sealed.
It was a chamber in the wall, and maybe a yard square each way. The
stone had not filled all its width or depth of mouth, but was, as
it were, a sealed door to be broken and replaced by another. Then
we could see that the canvas I had thought that I had felt was
indeed the loose folds of the tied mouths of bags that were neatly
arranged at the bottom of this stone-built chest. And the canvas
that I had reached and pulled at had easily parted, and through the
rent showed the dull gleam of gold coin as the torchlight flared
upon it.
The light shone too on letters scratched on the soft stone of the
back of the chamber. I could read them, but Wulfnoth pointed to
them, saying:
"Here may be a curse written on him who touches. I will have our
priest read that which is there if he can."
Then I laughed, and said that it was no curse, but the name of some
Roman who made the place, for all that was there was:
CLAVD. MARTINVS. ARTIF. FEC.
"Which means that a workman named Martin was proud of his work, and
left his name there," I said when I had read it.
"And was slain, doubtless, lest he should betray the secret," said
Wulfnoth.
And he put his hand out to take one of the bags from the place,
feeling round the rotten canvas to get a fair grip of the mass of
coin.
Then he drew back his hand with a cry that came strangely from his
stern lips, for it sounded like alarm, and he stepped back.
"As I live," he said, "somewhat cold moved beneath my fingers in
there."
Even as he spoke something crawled slowly on to the bag that was
broken and sat on the red gold that was hidden no longer. There it
stayed, staring at the torchlight--a great wizened toad, whose eyes
were like the gold which it seemed to guard. And we stared at it,
for not one of us dared touch it, nor could we say aught.
It is ill to waste breath in wondering how the creature got into
this long-closed place or how it lived. But when I have told of
this, many a time have I heard stories of toads that have been
found in stranger places--even in solid-seeming rock. But however
it came there--and one may think of many ways--it scared us. It
seemed a thing not natural.
"It is the evil spirit that guards the treasure," whispered Relf to
Olaf, edging toward the ladder.
"Fetch Anselm the priest, and let him exorcise this," said the
earl. "It is some witchcraft of the heathen Romans."
"Were I in Finmark I would say that this was a 'sending' {7},"
Olaf said, "but we are in Christian England, and this is but a
toad."
Now I said nothing, but I wished the beast away, for I would see
the treasure I had found. Then the earl bethought himself.
"Maybe it is but a toad," he said. "I will cast it out."
And with that he went to do so, but liked it not, and drew back
again.
"Toad or worse," I said then, "I mind not their cold skin, and will
see what it is."
So I took hold of the beast, and it swelled itself out as I did so,
and croaked a little. That was the worst it did; but I will say
this, that the sound almost made me drop it. But I cast it behind
me into the shadow, and then put both hands into the chamber and
took out one of the bags.
It was full of gold coin, as was that which had been torn open, and
as were all the rest--ten of them--when we looked. And the coins
were older than we could tell, being stamped with strange figures
that bore some likeness to horses whose limbs fell apart, and a
strange face on the other side. Many had letters on them, and these
were mostly--CVNO.
"They are coins of the Welsh folk whom we conquered," said
Wulfnoth. "I have seen the like before. They made them at Selsea,
and we find many there on the shore after storms."
Now I think that we had found the hiding place of the tribute money
that should be sent to Rome when some ship came thence or from
beyond the Channel to fetch it, or maybe it was some iron master's
hoarded payment for the good Sussex iron that they smelted in these
valleys in the Roman days. More likely it was the first, for men
would know that it had never been sent away. None can tell how the
places of these hoards are lost, but times of war have strange
chances. Then folk do but hand down the knowledge that, somewhere,
the treasure is yet hidden {8}.
"Good booty had OElla and Cissa our forbears, but they have left
some for us," said Earl Wulfnoth.
"Here is gold enough to buy a good fleet for Ethelred," said Olaf
thoughtfully.
"Gold enough for you and me to win England for ourselves withal,"
said the earl in a low voice. "You take the Danelagh, and I the
rest, and we will keep Ethelred for a puppet overlord."
"If Cnut wins there will be time enough to think of that," answered
Olaf coldly. "Eadmund is my friend."
"Not Ethelred?" said Wulfnoth eagerly.
"I fight for him," answered Olaf.
"Well, well. I did but speak my own wish," said the earl. "You and
I will not be agreed on this matter."
Then he turned to Relf, and began to give him some directions about
a horse whereon to load the treasure. And Olaf and I went back up
the ladder, leaving them, for the vault grew close and hot, and
this was their business. The earl would take it back to Pevensea,
where it would be safe. Word would go round quickly enough
concerning the find, and of what value it was. Nor would that grow
less in the telling, though none of us had ever seen so much gold
together before.
I suppose that I had been in the place for two hours or more, and
the morning sky had changed strangely since the fight began. The
sun was hidden with a great mass of heavy clouds that were driving
up fast from the southwest, although the woods around us were still
and motionless in the hot, heavy air. The smoke that still rose
from the burnt houses went up straight as a pine tree.
Olaf looked up at the sky, and seemed anxious.
"There is a gale brewing," he said. "I am glad Rani is with the
ships."
Then he walked away to a spur of the hill that looked down the
valley towards the sea. We could see all the tidal water, and
almost to Pevensea, and there came a long murmur of the sea on the
pebble beach, even to where we stood, so hushed were all things.
Surely there was a heavy sea setting in to make so loud a noise as
that. And all the hills and marshes seemed close at hand, so clear
was the air.
Then came to us Olaf's ship master, and he was uneasy also.
"Tide is at its highest tonight," he said, "and if the wind gets up
from the southwest, as seems likely, it will be higher yet than
usual. See how the clouds whirl over us."
Then the king went back to the building and called to Wulfnoth, who
came up the ladder asking what was amiss, for he heard that Olaf's
voice was urgent.
"Here is a gale coming," the king said, "and we must be back with
the ships."
Wulfnoth came out into the open and looked round.
"Aye; and tide will be high at the causeway. These spring tides run
wildly at this time of year," he said. "We must be going."
Then was no more delay, but the horns blew the recall, and the men
came in. We had lost none, but I do not think that many outlaws
were left.
They brought a farm horse, with baskets slung across its back in
the Sussex manner, and into them the gold was put. I looked down
into the vault as the men left it, and saw that Relf was there, and
that they had tried every great stone in the walls in search of
another chamber, but that there had not been one. And when he came
up I was about to draw up the ladder after him, and looked down for
the last time.
There at the ladder's foot sat the elvish toad, and it seemed to me
that it looked pitifully up at the light. How many years might it
have been without sunlight or touch of dew or cool green leaves
that it had loved? And I was fain to climb down and take it up in
my hand and set it free on the grass outside the house, where a
dock spread its broad leaves. It crawled under them in haste, and I
saw it no more. Then I found that Spray the smith was watching me,
and he said a strange thing.
"That is a good deed, master," he said. "I think that you shall
never be in prison."
"May I never be so," I answered, wondering.
"I am a forest-bred man," he said, "and I love all beasts," and
then he turned away, and went to the men who were waiting for the
earl's word.
And when all was ready Relf came to me and said that he would go to
his own place with his men, and that he would ask me to take word
to his wife and daughter that all was safe at home. The outlaws had
been too busy in the town to seek further for plunder, or had not
cared to do so at once. So he went, as we started, and I was
pleased with the chance of having speech with Sexberga.
Now there was a moaning overhead as we went through the woods along
the ridge above the valley, and hot breaths of air began to play in
our faces. The clouds raced above us more swiftly, and black masses
of scud drifted yet faster below them from across the hard black
backs of the downs to the westward. There was something strange in
the feeling of the weather that seemed to betoken more than a storm
of wind and rain, and we were silent and oppressed as we marched.
Now we came to the crest of the hill where the track goes down to
the level of the river and marshes and to the causeway, which we
crossed in the early morning. I could see now how narrow the outlet
of the river was between the hills where it joined the main tidal
waters, and the causeway was low, and both it and the bridge were
very ancient. They call it Boreham Bridge, and it is a place that I
shall not forget.
When we were halfway down the steep hill suddenly the first blast
of the gale smote us in the face, and that with a roar and howl and
rush that drowned all other sounds. The branches flew from the
trees along the hillside, and more than one great trunk gave way at
last to that onset. Then all along the coastline grew and widened a
white line of flying spindrift that hid the distant gray walls of
Pevensea on its low island, and shone like snow against the black
dun-edged cloud that came up from out of the sea.
"Hurry, men," shouted Wulfnoth, "or the bridge will be down! Look
at the tide!"
And that was racing up inland, already foaming through the wooden
arches that spanned its course. I had heard that the tide reached
this place a full hour after it began to flow at Pevensea, and even
now it was thus, two hours before it should have been at its
highest there.
Wulfnoth's men led, and then came the earl, riding beside Spray and
the horse which bore the treasure. Olaf was riding just behind
them, and I marched with our crew not ten paces after him. So we
went down the hill, and so we stepped on the causeway, and came to
the first timbers of the bridge. And hardly had I stepped on them
than there came a great shout from the men behind us, while one
seized my arm and pointed seaward across the marshes.
There came rushing across the level--blending channel and land into
one sea as it passed--a vast white roller, great as any wave which
breaks upon the shore, and its length was lost behind the hill
before us, and far away to our left. So swiftly did it come that it
seemed that none of us might gain the hill before it whelmed us and
causeway and bridge alike.
Earl Wulfnoth grasped the bridle of the pack horse, and the man
Spray lashed it, shouting aloud to us to hasten. And Olaf turned in
his saddle and saw me, and reined up until I grasped his stirrup
leather, and ran on beside him. And our men broke and ran, some
following us, and some going back to the hill whence we came. And
all the while the great white billow was thundering nearer, and my
head reeled with its noise and terror till I knew not what I was
doing, and let go my hold of Olaf's stirrup.
Then it broke over bridge and causeway, and through its roar I
heard yells, and the crash of broken timber, before I lost all
knowledge of aught but that I was lost in that mighty wave, and was
being whirled like a straw before it, where it would take me.
I struck out wildly as if to swim--but of what avail was that
against the weight of rushing water? I seemed to be rolled over and
against broken timber and reeds and stones--and once my hand
touched a man, for I felt it grate over the scales of armour--and
my ears were full of roarings and strange sounds, and I thought
that I was surely lost.
Then a strong grip was on me, and the water flew past me, and
hurled things at me, for I no longer went with it. My feet touched
ground, and other hands held me, and then I was ashore, and spent
almost nigh to death. Well for me it was that in the old days by
the Stour river I had loved to swim and dive in the deep pool
behind the island, for I had learned to save my breath. Had I not
done so, the choking of the great wave had surely ended my days.
It was Olaf who had saved me. Almost had we won to the high ground
when I had let go his stirrup leather, and then the shoreward edge
of the wave had caught me. But he had faced its fury as he saw me
borne away, and had snatched me from it as it tossed me near the
bank again. Now he bent over me, trying to catch the sound of my
voice through the roar of the storm and the rush of the flood below
us. But I could not speak to him though I would, and it was not all
drowning that ailed me, for the blow which had felled me in the
fight was even now beginning to do its work. Else had I clung to
him all along, and had been safe as he was. For he won to shore ten
yards beyond its reach as the wave came.
Now I know that Olaf and our men carried me into a place under the
lee of a hill, and bided there till the gale blew over. There was a
sharp pain as of a piercing weapon in my side as they did so, and
after that I knew not much of being carried on to the house of
Relf, the Thane of Penhurst, along a forest road where travelling
was no easier for the fallen trees that lay across it. And after I
was there I knew nothing. The blow I had had took its effect on me,
and I had several ribs broken by some timber that smote me amid the
tossing of the great wave of the flood.
Many are the tales that men all round the coasts will tell of the
great sea flood that came on Michaelmas even. For it ran far into
the land where no tide had run before, and many towns were
destroyed by it, and many people were drowned. It will be long
before the scathe it wrought will be forgotten. Many of the earl's
ships were broken, even where they lay behind the island, and two
of ours were lost--carried across the level where no ship had ever
swum before. And eight of our men had been swept from the causeway
and drowned. Two lie yet under the wreck of bridge and causeway, or
in the Ashbourne valley amid wrack and ruin of field and forest
that the flood left behind it.
But these things I learnt afterwards. Now I was like to die, and
Olaf bided at my side and minded nought else, as men said.