"I heard a voice, plainly, that cried to me, 'Up! for the Lord has delivered these heathen into your hands'."
"We heard no such voice, Father," I said, "but I think it spoke true."
Now the light was broadening, making all things cold and gray as it came. And quickly I told Ealhstan what I had heard, and what both I and Wulfhere thought of the matter.
"Can we let them pass us, and so fall on them as they gain the level land of Stert?" asked Ealhstan, saying nothing more.
"That can we," I answered. "They will keep to the road, and we can draw back to the edge of the hill, so taking them in flank as they leave it."
For the hills bend round a little beyond the place where the road falls into the level below Matelgar's hall.
"So be it," said the bishop. "Go you, Wulfhere, and see how near the host is, and come back quickly."
When he was gone the bishop bade me wake the men. And at first I was for going round, but by this thane Wislac had waked, and had been listening to us: and he said that if I would let him wake the men he could do it without alarm or undue noise. Only I must raise the standard and bid them be silent. At that the bishop smiled and nodded, and I raised the standard, and waited.
Then Wislac stood up and crowed like a cock, and instantly the men began to turn and sit up, and as their eyes lit on the standard raised in their midst, became broad awake, each man rousing the next sleeper if one lay near him. And there was the bishop, finger on lip, and they were silent.
"Verily I thought on the hard chapel stones," muttered Guthlac, the lay brother, behind me.