The spot where he stood was in the rear of the main camp, and but a short distance from the unbroken forest.  Upon either hand there was an intermingled mass of stores, carts, and waggons crowded together, sacks and huge heaps of forage, on and about which scores of slaves, drivers and others, were sleeping in every possible attitude, many of them evidently still under the influence of the ale they had drunk the night before.  What struck him at once was the absence of any guard here in the rear.  The enemy might steal out from the forest behind and help himself to what he chose, or murder the sleeping men, or, passing through the stores, fall on the camp itself.  To Felix this neglect appeared inexplicable; it indicated a mental state which he could not comprehend, a state only to be described by negatives.  There was no completeness, no system, no organization; it was a kind of haphazardness, altogether opposite to his own clear and well-ordered ideas.

The ground sloped gently downwards from the edge of the forest, and the place where he was had probably been ploughed, but was now trodden flat and hard.  Next in front of the stores he observed a long, low hut built of poles, and roofed with fir branches; the walls were formed of ferns, straw, bundles of hay, anything that had come to hand.  On a standard beside it, a pale blue banner, with the device of a double hammer worked in gold upon it, fluttered in the wind.  Twenty or thirty, perhaps more, spears leant against one end of this rude shed, their bright points projecting yards above the roof.  To the right of the booth as many horses were picketed, and not far from them some soldiers were cooking at an open fire of logs.  As Felix came slowly towards the booth, winding in and out among the carts and heaps of sacks, he saw that similar erections extended down the slope for a long distance.

There were hundreds of them, some large, some small, not placed in any order, but pitched where chance or fancy led, the first-comers taking the sites that pleased them, and the rest crowding round.  Beside each hut stood the banner of the owner, and Felix knew from this that they were occupied by the barons, knights, and captains of the army.  The retainers of each baron bivouacked as they might in the open air; some of them had hunter’s hides, and others used bundles of straw to sleep on.  Their fire was as close to their lord’s hut as convenient, and thus there were always plenty within call.

The servants, or slaves, also slept in the open air, but in the rear of their owner’s booth, and apart from the free retainers.  Felix noticed, that although the huts were pitched anyhow and anywhere, those on the lowest ground seemed built along a line, and, looking closer, he found that a small stream ran there.  He learnt afterwards that there was usually an emulation among the commanders to set up their standards as near the water as possible, on account of convenience, those in the rear having often