midnight
Lances made its columns ; brocade and painted arras its walls ; and the space covered by its numerous compartments would have contained the halls and outworks of an ordinary castle . The pomp of that camp realised the wildest dreams of Gothic , coupled with Oriental splendour ; something worthy of a Tasso to have imagined , or a Beckford to create . Nor was the exceeding costliness of the more courtly tents lessened in effect by those of the soldiery in the outskirts , many of which were built from boughs , still retaining their leaves -- savage and picturesque huts ; -- as if , realising old legends , wild men of the woods had taken up the cross , and followed the Christian warriors against the swarthy followers of Termagaunt and Mahound . There , then , extended that mighty camp in profound repose , as the midnight threw deeper and longer shadows over the sward from the tented avenues and canvas streets . It was at that hour that Isabel , in the most private recess of her pavilion , was employed in prayer for the safety of the king , and the issue of the Sacred War . Kneeling before the altar of that warlike oratory , her spirit became rapt and absorbed from earth in the intensity of her devotions ; and in the whole camp -LRB- save the sentries -RRB- , the eyes of that pious queen were , perhaps , the only ones unclosed . All was profoundly still ; her guards , her attendants , were gone to rest ; and the tread of the sentinel , without that immense pavilion , was not heard through the silken walls .