"Don't go yet, Deva," said Malachi. "He was sleeping very well when I came to look at these pavements, and we should hear him if he moved or wanted anything. And so thou art descended from the great Prince Natanleod, art thou! In those days men were indeed cleverer than they are now. There are none living near here who could work like those who made these walls or wrought these pictures. Thou canst not remember what thy grandmother said about the destruction of her grandmother's home?"
"Yes I can, though," said Deva. "Ah! well I can remember her telling me, for she would take me up here on a summer's evening when the young moon was just going down there behind yon hill. These floors were not covered up so much then, and many stones have fallen down since. She would always choose that evening in the month when the moon was like that, and it was getting dark and dusk—a time when all the land is hushed, and young men and maidens like to meet by a lonely hillside or pleasant dell, while the cockchafers buzz and the beetles boom. Because, she said, it was on an evening like that her grandmother had always told her the story, and it was on an evening like that the dreadful deed was done. They came, they came," said the old woman, stretching out her skinny arm and pointing with most dramatic action to a large gap in the ruins towards the land-locked Brædynge Haven, whose shining waters could be seen framed in this very gap, "up there"——
But Deva did not finish her sentence, for both Wulfstan and Malachi, who had followed the old woman's action and gesture, broke in upon her words with a wild and simultaneous cry that rang through the silence of the ruins, like the shrill scream of an affrighted sea-bird, as it suddenly espies the robber of its nest suspended overhead.
How Deva, Malachi, and Wulfstan, were surprised by ye Wihtwaras
There, entering by the same gap through which their ancestors had come to slaughter the ancestors of Deva, was a band of armed men, who, the moment they saw that their approach was known, added to the din and confusion that already prevailed by shouting their battle-cry together, and rushing upon the few men who, with Athelhune, were left to defend the encampment.
Malachi and Wulfstan had, as they shouted "to arms," darted back into the enclosure, nearly fenced in by this time, fortunately, and had with great promptitude begun to pile up the stones that had been left to close in the only means of exit or entrance for the little fortification, when suddenly Wulfstan darted out again, and returned in another minute helping poor old Deva over the rough stones.
"One moment more, and I should have been too late," cried Wulfstan, joyously, as he led the good old woman up to his father's side.
"It's only putting off the fated day, Wulfy, a little longer," said Ælfhere, drearily. "But this torture is worse than all that has gone before, for I must lie here and see all who are faithful to me and my little son slain before my eyes, and I unable to move hand or foot, or strike a blow for their safety. Oh! Woden, all-Father, help me!"
It was, indeed, a hopeless prospect. There were, besides Malachi, old Deva, Wulfstan, and the wounded eorldoman, only Athelhune and three men, and the attacking force consisted of at least twelve; but the quick eyes of Wulfstan detected among them five or six faces of men he had known as ceorls on his father's farm, and he shouted out loudly to them by name, calling on them to turn on the false traitors who had done such foul wrong, and to fight for their lord, Ælfhere, who was still alive.