Thus moving to the sound of the orchestra, they entered the banqueting-hall, which looked like a whole edifice by itself. The table was set in the form of a horseshoe, for three hundred persons, and was bending under silver and gold. Prince Yanush, as having in himself a portion of kingly majesty and being the blood relative of so many kings, took the highest place, at the side of the princess; and all when passing him, bowed low and took their places according to rank. But evidently, as it seemed to those present, the hetman remembered that this was the last feast before an awful war in which the destiny of great states would be decided, for his face was not calm. He simulated a smile and joyousness, but he looked as if a fever were burning him. At times a visible cloud settled on his menacing forehead, and those sitting near him could see that that forehead was thickly covered with drops of sweat; at times his glance ran quickly over the assembled faces, and halted questioningly on the features of various colonels; then again those lion brows frowned on a sudden, as if pain had pierced them, or as if this or that face had roused in him wrath. And, a wonderful thing! the dignitaries sitting near the prince, such as the envoys, Bishop Parchevski, Father Byalozor, Pan Komorovski, Pan Myerzeyevski, Pan Hlebovich, the voevoda of Venden, and others, were equally distraught and disturbed. The two sides of the immense horseshoe sounded with a lively conversation, and the bustle usual at feasts; but the centre of it was gloomy and silent, whispered rare words, or exchanged wandering and as it were alarmed glances. But there was nothing wonderful in that, for lower down sat colonels and knights whom the approaching war threatened at most with death. It is easier to fall in a war than to bear the responsibility for it. The mind of the soldier is not troubled, for when he has redeemed his sins with his blood, he flies from the battlefield to heaven; he alone bends his head heavily who in his soul must satisfy God and his own conscience, and who on the eve of the decisive day knows not what chalice the country will give him to drink on the morrow. This was the explanation which men gave themselves at the lower parts of the table. "Always before each war he talks thus with his own soul," said the old Colonel Stankyevich to Zagloba; "but the gloomier he is the worse for the enemy, for on the day of battle he will be joyful to a certainty." "The lion too growls before battle," said Zagloba, "so as to rouse in himself fierce hatred for the enemy. As to great warriors, each has his custom. Hannibal used to play dice; Scipio Africanus declaimed verses; Pan Konyetspolski the father always conversed about fair heads; and I like to sleep an hour or so before battle, though I am not averse to a glass with good friends." "See, gentlemen, Bishop Parchevski is as pale as a sheet of paper!" said Stanislav Skshetuski.