Eight hundred sail! What scores of thousands of the trained legionaries must they carry and what chance had an unordered host in an encounter on open even ground? It was decided by the leaders not to give battle at the shore, where the nature of the beach gave easy landing to the Romans, but rather to meet them on the high places, which had been fortified in a rude way by the felling of many trees in front of them. Here we awaited the attack. Of that first desperate struggle against the veteran foe I can tell but vaguely, for I was in its midst, fighting as for my life and unseeing as to the general battle. Fiercely we charged and drove among the enemy with our chariots, but could not shatter them. These were the trained slayers of the world, and when one rank wavered or was broken, another rose behind it and ever the whole pressed forward, killing as it came and irresistible against a force with no planned manner of cohesion. We were driven backward, though fighting stubbornly, and, finally, the enemy overwhelmed and seized the camp, and the Britons, leaving a host of dead, were driven into the forests. There was a kind of re-formation and then began the running fight of days, as Cæsar neared the capital. There were bloody stands and skirmishes and we cut off many of the Romans in the woods, but nothing could stay their firm advance. My Goneril was in London, where I had thought her most secure in this time of great jeopardy, though stubbornly she had insisted on following me into the field. Gerguint had joined his brother Kentish princes, and together they had attacked the Roman camp left with the ships and had been beaten, and there had Gerguint been sorely wounded and, barely escaping, had been carried to the harbourage of his castle. The main body of the Britons was now within and about London, and Cadwallon was to make his last stand against the approaching army of Cæsar, which threatened the passage of a ford above the city. At this ford all must be decided. There had been treachery. Mandubratius, crafty and wavering chief of the Trohantes, to save himself, had cast his lot with Cæsar. Androgeus, a chief in command in London itself, had turned against Cadwallon and was tampering with the conqueror; and all these things gave fear. Yet we would make such stand as should be remembered long, and so all Cadwallon’s forces were drawn up beside the ford to dispute its passage. The Romans came, their legions rolling to the shore and entering the waters boldly while our own massed armament stood awaiting them with eager weapons, a multitude looking upon us from the slope behind, even our women among them, as was the Briton’s way. Then came the clash and struggle.