As the days went by, and the girl was still stone to him, he began to chafe and to look for stauncher measures. The gay gentlemen who served him suggested various expedients; one, a more passionate appeal; another, sly bribery of servants; a third, who was young in years, hinted at humble despair that might evoke pity. Gorlois laughed at them all, and swore he would win the girl, hook or by crook, in a month or less, or lose all the honour his sword had won. He was tired of mere courtesies that ran contrary to his more stormy spirit. He had a liking for insolent daring, for a snatch at love as at an enemy's banner in the full swing of a gallop on some bloody field. Mere mild homage was all very well for a season. Gorlois loved mastery, and believed there was no wine like success. About this time a horde of heathen ships came from the east, sailed past Vectis, and began to pour their wild men into the country 'twixt Winchester and the sea. Hamlets and manors were burnt, peasant folk driven to the woods, the crops fired, the cattle slain. The noise of it came into Winchester with a rabble of frightened fugitives who had fled to the city for refuge. Ambrosius the king was in Caerleon, and Uther errant, so that the chance fell to Gorlois of driving the heathen into the sea. No man could have been more heartily glad of this innovation. Igraine should see him swoop like a hawk in his strength; she should hear how he led men, and how his sword drank blood. In making war on the heathen he would boast himself before her eyes, and show her the merit of manhood, and the glory of a strong arm. Winchester bustled like a camp. Troops poured in from Sarum, and the sound of war went merrily through the streets. Folk boasted how Gorlois would harry the heathen. He rode out one night with picked men at his back, and held straight for the coast, while Eldol of Gloucester, a veteran knight, marched southward before dawn with five thousand footmen. It was Gorlois's plan to cut the heathen off from their ships, and crush them between his knights and the spearmen led by Eldol. It was such a venture as Gorlois loved,--keen, shrill, and full of hazards. Riding straight over hill and dale they saw the glimmer of waves as the sun rose, and knew they had touched the sea. Gorlois's scouts had located the main mass of the Jutes camped in a valley about a nunnery they had taken, and the British knights coming up through the woods saw smoke in the valley and men moving like ants about the reeking ruin of the holy house. Looking north they saw a beacon burning on a hill,--Eldol's signal that he had closed the woods, north, east, and west, with his footmen, and that he waited only for Gorlois to sweep up and drive the heathen on to the hidden spears.