The History of the Siege of Lisbon

THE KING SLEPT BADLY, his restless sleep constantly interrupted, yet heavy and gloomy as if he should never forget it, and it was a sleep without dreams or nightmares, no old man of venerable aspect announcing some pleasant miracle, I am here, no woman crying out, Don't ill-treat me, I'm your mother, nothing except a dense, mysterious blackness that seemed to enshroud and quell his heart. He awoke feeling thirsty and asked for water which he drank in great gulps, and then looked out of the tent to study the night sky, impatient with the slow movement of the stars. There was a full moon, one of those moons that transform the world into a ghosdy apparition, when all things, living and inanimate, whisper mysterious revelations, each expressing its own, and all of them discordant, therefore we never come to understand them and we suffer the anguish of almost but never quite knowing.

The estuary shone between the hills, the river carried the gleaming waters as if ablaze, and the bonfires burning on the terraces of the castle and the huge torches distinguishing the various ships of the crusaders were like dying flames in that luminous darkness. The king looked to one side, then to the other, he tried to visualise those Moors and Franks watching the bonfires of the Portuguese encampment, to imagine their thoughts, fear and scorn, to fathom their next move and military strategy. He lay down once more on the bearskin with which he usually covered his pallet, and tried to sleep. The voices of men on patrol could be heard, now and then, the sound of weapons, the lantern inside the tent cast dancing shadows, then the king sank into silence and infinite darkness, he was asleep.