They had left the shore, but she turned to the right along a low range of sand-hills.
"Does this lead to any place in particular?" he asked.
"It leads to Rayston Church," she answered. "We are going there."
He looked at her in quick surprise.
"How did you know that?" he asked. "I have heard of a place called Rayston, but there is no church there."
She laughed softly.
"I will show you where it stood, then," she answered. "I will show you, too, what sort of man Ulric was. It was the last of our raids. We had twelve ships, and nearly five hundred men, and everywhere the people fled without fighting, for no one could stand against Ulric and his men. For once I, too, was allowed to land, for we knew that our coming was unexpected, and there was no fear of defeat. Village by village they plundered, and sacked, and burned. Night by night we made great fires, by which the ships followed us along the coast, and I sang to them till the embers burned low."
She stopped short with a little cry, and pointed inland. To their left was a plowed field, and in the top corner were three grass and ivy-covered stone walls of immense thickness.
"See," she cried, "there stood Rayston Church! When we came here an old man met us waving a green bough. He told Ulric that all the folk had fled, and that their dwellings might be spared they had collected all their treasures and belongings and stored them in the church. Ulric believed him, and they hastened to the church, all shouting and singing together for joy of such an easy victory. But when they were within a dozen yards of the building there came suddenly upon them from the slit apertures and the tower a cloud of poisoned arrows, and Ulric lost more men in those few minutes than ever in his life before. I was far away behind, but I saw all. I saw Ulric raise his great two-edged sword and cut down to the ground the old man who had led them there. I saw them drag the trunk of a tree to the church door and batter it in, and not one Briton escaped. Ask that old man, Powers, what they have found in the fields here."
Powers called a laborer digging on a potato-patch close at hand.