The gloaming faded:  mist and the tents grew greyer:  camp-fires blinked out of the dimness and grew redder and redder, and candles began to be lit beside the tents till all were glowing pale golden:  Rodriguez and Morano stood there wondering awhile as they looked on the beautiful aura that surrounds the horrors of war.

They came by starlight to that tented field, by twinkling starlight to the place of Rodriguez’ dream.

“For which side will you fight, master?” said Morano in his ear.

“For the right,” said Rodriguez and strode on towards the nearest tents, never doubting that he would be guided, though not trying to comprehend how this could be.

They met with an officer going among his tents.  “Where do you go?” he shouted.

“Senor,” Rodriguez said, “I come with my mandolin to sing songs to you.”

And at this the officer called out and others came from their tents; and Rodriguez repeated his offer to them not without confidence, for he knew that he had a way with the mandolin.  And they said that they fought a battle on the morrow and could not listen to song:  they heaped scorn on singing for they said they must needs prepare for the fight:  and all of them looked with scorn on the mandolin.  So Rodriguez bowed low to them with doffed hat and left them; and Morano bowed also, seeing his master bow; and the men of that camp returned to their preparations.  A short walk brought Rodriguez and his servant to the other camp, over a flat field convenient for battle.  He went up to a large tent well lit, the door being open towards him; and, having explained his errand to a sentry that stood outside, he entered and saw three persons of quality that were sitting at a table.  To them he bowed low in the tent door, saying:  “Senors, I am come to sing songs to you, playing the while upon my mandolin.”

And they welcomed him gladly, saying:  “We fight tomorrow and will gladly cheer our hearts with the sound of song and strengthen our men thereby.”

And so Rodriguez sang among the tents, standing by a great fire to which they led him; and men came from the tents and into the circle of light, and in the darkness outside it were more than Rodriguez saw.  And he sang to the circle of men and the vague glimmer of faces.  Songs of their homes he sang them, not in their language, but songs that were made by old poets about the homes of their infancy, in valleys under far mountains remote from the Pyrenees.  And in the song the yearnings of dead poets lived again, all streaming homeward like swallows when the last of the storms is gone:  and those yearnings echoed in the hearts that beat in the night around the campfire, and they saw their own homes.  And then he began to touch his mandolin; and he played them the tunes that draw men from their homes and that march them away to war.  The tunes flowed up from the firelight:  the mandolin knew.  And the men heard the mandolin saying what they would say.