priests were massacred, the gates thrown open, and the city taken and spoiled. Luna never recovered its old prosperity after the raid of the Northmen, and in Dante's time had fallen into utter decay. But Hasting's career in Italy ended with the sack of Luna; and, giving up all hope of attacking Rome, he re-embarked with the spoil of the town, the most beautiful of the women, and all youths who could be used as soldiers or rowers. His fleet was wrecked on the south coasts of France on its return westward, and all the spoil lost; but the devil had work yet for Hasting and his men, who got ashore in sufficient numbers to recompense themselves for their losses by the plunder of Provence.

In these parts he remained until 863. In that year he received an embassy from Charles the Bald, headed by the Abbot of St. Denis, and agreed to receive baptism for a large sum of money, and the cession to him in fee of the district of Chartres, which he was to hold as the king's vassal. He seems now to have lived quietly till the year 876, when he joined the army which Charles the Simple was sending against Rollo. Hasting undertook a mission to the camp of his brother pirate on the banks of the Eure, bearing the king's offer of fiefs, and a permanent settlement to the Danish leader and his army. His mission was unsuccessful, and finding himself suspected of foul dealing, and in consequent danger, on his return to the French army, he left his adopted home, and returned to his old life. How he had spent the intervening years we have partly heard already.

Guthrum, his old companion in arms, died in 890,

and a feeling of restlessness and rebellion against the steady, constant pressure of the orderly kingdom of their liege lord was creeping through the coasts of East Anglia which were most remote from Alfred's border. Eohric was either unable, or unwilling, to restrain the seafaring portion of his people; and so the encouragement was given to Hasting and "the army" which brought them eighteen months later to the hills above Boulogne, and cost England and Alfred three years of war.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE THIRD WAVE.

"Associate yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gather yourselves together, and it shall come to nought: for God is with us."

IN the autumn of 893 the great army broke up from its Boulogne camp. Hasting had now matured all his plans, and collected a fleet large enough to transport the whole of his troops across the narrow sea. The ships, Ethelwerd says, were built at Boulogne ; at any rate they were procured by some means in such abundance, that when the army embarked, "they came over in one passage, horses and all." The first detachment, filling 250 ships, were sent on by Hasting to seize the nearest point. They steered straight across the Channel, and landed without opposition at the mouth of the little river Rother, about seven miles west of Dungeness. The Chronicles call the river Limen (or Lymne); but the position of Appledore, the undoubted site of the first Danish camp of this year, on the banks of the Rother, seems to decide the question as to the identity of the stream up which "they towed their ships for four miles, to the borders of the Andreds Weald." This was a forest, 120 miles long, and thirty miles in

breadth, stretching from Romney Marsh to the eastern part of Hampshire. Here the Danes stormed a small fort garrisoned by a few churlish men, and, without encountering further resistance, fixed upon Appledore as the site for a permanent camp, which they forthwith set to work to establish.

Hasting himself was not long after them. He sailed with his own immediate followers, in eighty ships, passed up the Channel, round the North Foreland, and into the East Swale, the branch of the Medway which separates the Isle of Sheppey from the mainland. Some ten miles up the Swale a little creek runs south, on which the market-town of Milton, celebrated for its native oysters, now stands. This is, no doubt, the Middleton of the Saxon Chronicle, where Hasting now "wrought himself a strong fortress." Remains of fortifications in the neighbouring marshes are still pointed out as the work of the Danes. Between the two camps, which would be some twenty-six miles apart as the crow flies, lay the Andreds Weald, offering immediate shelter in the event of a reverse to either wing of the army, and direct communication with the camp of their comrades. Through the recesses of the great wood they could penetrate westward into the heart of Wessex, and approach within a few miles of Winchester or Reading without quitting cover. Both camps were established on the banks of rivers, navigable to the Danish galleys, so that, if the worst came, there were always means of retreat for any who might escape. This position was a very formidable one, and admirably chosen for the ends

Hasting had in view. The strength of the camps themselves is proved by the fact, that Alfred never attempted to storm either of them.

The King was now in his forty-fifth year, and had learnt much in the wars of his youth and early manhood. As we might expect, the tactics and method of defence adopted by him in his mature years offer a marked contrast to the impetuous gallantry of his early campaigns. His first act seems to have been, to send his son Edward, with some light troops, to the neighbourhood of the two camps, more for the purpose of watching than fighting; his next, to strengthen the garrisons of his forts. Then, putting himself at the head of that portion of his subjects whose turn it was for military service, he marched into Kent, and took up a strong position, from whence he could best watch both the camps. The name of the place where Alfred laid out his camp is not given in any chronicler. Possibly it was actually in the Andreds Weald, and had no name, for it is described (by Florence of Worcester) as "a place naturally very strong, because it was surrounded on all sides by water, high rocks, and overhanging woods." And now at once the value of the King's army reforms became clear. The Danes felt the presence of a foe stronger and better disciplined than themselves, whose vigilance was unceasing. The watching army never dwindled, and the invaders. dared not leave their entrenchments except in small bands. These, however, were active and mischievous. They stole out for plunder "along the weald in bands and troops, by whichever border was for the time with