Dull came the shades of evening, and pale through the rolling clouds glimmered the rising stars; when,—all prepared, all arrayed,—Harold sat with Haco and Gurth, in his tent; and before them stood a man, half French by origin, who had just returned from the Norman camp.
“So thou didst mingle with the men undiscovered?” said the King.
“No, not undiscovered, my lord. I fell in with a knight, whose name I have since heard as that of Mallet de Graville, who wilily seemed to believe in what I stated, and who gave me meat and drink, with debonnair courtesy. Then said he abruptly,—‘Spy from Harold, thou hast come to see the strength of the Norman. Thou shalt have thy will—follow me.’ Therewith he led me, all startled I own, through the lines; and, O King, I should deem them indeed countless as the sands, and resistless as the waves, but that, strange as it may seem to thee, I saw more monks than warriors.”
“How! thou jestest!” said Gurth, surprised.
“No; for thousands by thousands, they were praying and kneeling; and their heads were all shaven with the tonsure of priests.”
“Priests are they not,” cried Harold, with his calm smile, “but doughty warriors and dauntless knights.” Then he continued his questions to the spy; and his smile vanished at the accounts, not only of the numbers of the force, but their vast provision of missiles, and the almost incredible proportion of their cavalry.
As soon as the spy had been dismissed, the King turned to his kinsmen.
“What think you?” he said; “shall we judge ourselves of the foe? The night will be dark anon—our steeds are fleet—and not shod with iron like the Normans;—the sward noiseless—What think you?”
“A merry conceit,” cried the blithe Leofwine. “I should like much to see the boar in his den, ere he taste of my spear-point.”
“And I,” said Gurth, “do feel so restless a fever in my veins that I would fain cool it by the night air. Let us go: I know all the ways of the country; for hither have I come often with hawk and hound. But let us wait yet till the night is more hushed and deep.”