andolin 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.

In the late night he ended, and a hush came down on the camp while the
music floated away, going up from the dark ring of men and the fire-lit
faces, touching perhaps the knees of the Pyrenees and drifting thence
wherever echoes go. And the sparks of the camp-fire went straight
upwards as they had done for hours, a