Some of the refugee Netherlander were gathered together in an open space between the tents listening to the words of a Calvinist minister; little groups of others, scattered here and there, sang psalms softly to themselves.
The German mercenaries were engaged in mending their clothes, in cooking their supper, or in playing dice.
The keen smell of coarse hot soup, the strong scent of the picketed horses mingled on the fresh air; the light of the lanterns at the tent entrances and the small fires feebly rising after the shower shone on pots and pans, pieces of polished or rusty armour, bundles of kindling sticks covered with autumn leaves, and baskets of apples and pears, golden-red.
Here and there the windows of the little farmhouses and cottages where the officers were quartered glowed with a bright light.
William, riding with his little band of officers from one battalion to another, dreamt of a victory, of turning back Alva's troops, of breaking his prestige, of a whole country throwing off with groans of relief the loathed Spanish chains and welcoming her deliverers.
He had no grounds for such dreams but the sense of life and strength in his own body, in the fine horse beneath him, in the exaltation he received in gazing at the noble cloudy spaces of the sky, and the great moon that had shone on so many battles, and in the dark outlines of the hills and horizons of the hidden country.
Nor was he disheartened by the sight of the surgeon with his mule and cases going from tent to tent, nor by that of a cartful of dead men whose limbs fell limp as rags and whose bodies were defaced with gunshot; near these victims of a little skirmish was a tent of men, ill of a malarious fever, the sharp delirious voices of some came out on to the night.
The Prince continued on horseback till the dawn, when he returned to his tent to arm, and the army moved into battle array.
The sun rose strong and clear though with the mellow radiance of the Low Countries and the autumn; all that had been obscured by the dead light of the moon was now distinct: the scars and rags of the soldiers, the brilliant scarves of the officers, the disorder and dirt of the camp, the broken sails of the tall thatched windmill, the dried autumn grass on the little hill, the low waters of the Geta sparkling a sluggish gold.
Still all seemed hopeful, cheerful, full of presages of good fortune.