DON RODRIGUEZ

CHRONICLES OF SHADOW VALLEY

By

LORD DUNSANY

To WILLIAM BEEBE

CHRONOLOGY

After long and patient research I am still unable to give to the readerof these Chronicles the exact date of the times that they tell of. Wereit merely a matter of history there could be no doubts about theperiod; but where magic is concerned, to however slight an extent, there must always be some element of mystery, arising partly out ofignorance and partly from the compulsion of those oaths by which magicprotects its precincts from the tiptoe of curiosity. 

Moreover, magic, even in small quantities, appears to affect time, muchas acids affect some metals, curiously changing its substance, untildates seem to melt into a mercurial form that renders them elusive evento the eye of the most watchful historian. 

It is the magic appearing in Chronicles III and IV that has gravelyaffected the date, so that all I can tell the reader with certainty ofthe period is that it fell in the later years of the Golden Age inSpain. 

CONTENTS

THE FIRST CHRONICLE HOW HE MET AND SAID FAREWELL TO MINE HOST OF THE DRAGON AND KNIGHT

THE SECOND CHRONICLE HOW HE HIRED A MEMORABLE SERVANT

THE THIRD CHRONICLE HOW HE CAME TO THE HOUSE OF WONDER

THE FOURTH CHRONICLE HOW HE CAME TO THE MOUNTAINS OF THE SUN

THE FIFTH CHRONICLE HOW HE RODE IN THE TWILIGHT AND SAW SERAFINA

THE SIXTH CHRONICLE HOW HE SANG TO HIS MANDOLIN AND WHAT CAME OF HIS SINGING

THE SEVENTH CHRONICLE HOW HE CAME TO SHADOW VALLEY

THE EIGHTH CHRONICLE HOW HE TRAVELLED FAR

THE NINTH CHRONICLE HOW HE WON A CASTLE IN SPAIN

THE TENTH CHRONICLE HOW HE CAME BACK TO LOWLIGHT

THE ELEVENTH CHRONICLE HOW HE TURNED TO GARDENING AND HIS SWORD RESTED

THE TWELFTH CHRONICLE THE BUILDING OF CASTLE RODRIGUEZ AND THE ENDING OF THESE CHRONICLES

DON RODRIGUEZ

THE FIRST CHRONICLE

HOW HE MET AND SAID FAREWELL TO MINE HOST OF THE DRAGON AND KNIGHT

Being convinced that his end was nearly come, and having lived long onearth (and all those years in Spain, in the golden time), the Lord ofthe Valleys of Arguento Harez, whose heights see not Valladolid, calledfor his eldest son. And so he addressed him when he was come to hischamber, dim with its strange red hangings and august with thesplendour of Spain: "O eldest son of mine, your younger brother beingdull and clever, on whom those traits that women love have not beenbestowed by God; and know my eldest son that here on earth, and forought I know Hereafter, but certainly here on earth, these women be thearbiters of all things; and how this be so God knoweth only, for theyare vain and variable, yet it is surely so: your younger brother thennot having been given those ways that women prize, and God knows whythey prize them for they are vain ways that I have in my mind and thatwon me the Valleys of Arguento Harez, from whose heights Angelico sworehe saw Valladolid once, and that won me moreover also . . . But that islong ago and is all gone now . . . Ah well, well . . . What was I saying?"And being reminded of his discourse, the old lord continued, saying, "For himself he will win nothing, and therefore I will leave him thesemy valleys, for not unlikely it was for some sin of mine that hisspirit was visited with dullness, as Holy Writ sets forth, the sins ofthe fathers being visited on the children; and thus I make him amends. But to you I leave my long, most flexible, ancient Castilian blade, which infidels dreaded if old songs be true. Merry and lithe it is, andits true temper singeth when it meets another blade as two friends singwhen met after many years. It is most subtle, nimble and exultant; andwhat it will not win for you in the wars, that shall be won for you byyour mandolin, for you have a way with it that goes well with the oldairs of Spain. And choose, my son, rather a moonlight night when yousing under those curved balconies that I knew, ah me, so well; forthere is much advantage in the moon. In the first place maidens see inthe light of the moon, especially in the Spring, more romance than youmight credit, for it adds for them a mystery to the darkness which thenight has not when it is merely black. And if any statue should gleamon the grass near by, or if the magnolia be in blossom, or even thenightingale singing, or if anything be beautiful in the night, in anyof these things also there is advantage; for a maiden will attribute toher lover all manner of things that are not his at all, but are onlyoutpourings from the hand of God. There is this advantage also in themoon, that, if interrupters come, the moonlight is better suited to theplay of a blade than the mere darkness of night; indeed but the merryplay of my sword in the moonlight was often a joy to see, it soflashed, so danced, so sparkled. In the moonlight also one makes nounworthy stroke, but hath scope for those fair passes that Sevastianitaught, which were long ago the wonder of Madrid. "

The old lord paused, and breathed for a little space, as it weregathering breath for his last words to his son. He breatheddeliberately, then spoke again. "I leave you, " he said, "well contentthat you have the two accomplishments, my son, that are most needful ina Christian man, skill with the sword and a way with the mandolin. There be other arts indeed among the heathen, for the world is wide andhath full many customs, but these two alone are needful. " And then withthat grand manner that they had at that time in Spain, although hisstrength was failing, he gave to his eldest son his Castilian sword. Helay back then in the huge, carved, canopied bed; his eyes closed, thered silk curtains rustled, and there was no sound of his breathing. Butthe old lord's spirit, whatever journey it purposed, lingered yet inits ancient habitation, and his voice came again, but feebly now andrambling; he muttered awhile of gardens, such gardens no doubt as thehidalgos guarded in that fertile region of sunshine in the proudestperiod of Spain; he would have known no others. So for awhile hismemory seemed to stray, half blind among those perfumed earthlywonders; perhaps among these memories his spirit halted, and tarriedthose last few moments, mistaking those Spanish gardens, remembered bymoonlight in Spring, for the other end of his journey, the glades ofParadise. However it be, it tarried. These rambling memories ceased andsilence fell again, with scarcely the sound of breathing. Thengathering up his strength for the last time and looking at his son, "The sword to the wars, " he said. "The mandolin to the balconies. " Withthat he fell back dead. 

Now there were no wars at that time so far as was known in Spain, butthat old lord's eldest son, regarding those last words of his father asa commandment, determined then and there in that dim, vast chamber togird his legacy to him and seek for the wars, wherever the wars mightbe, so soon as the obsequies of the sepulture were ended. And of thoseobsequies I tell not here, for they are fully told in the Black Booksof Spain, and the deeds of that old lord's youth are told in the GoldenStories. The Book of Maidens mentions him, and again we read of him inGardens of Spain. I take my leave of him, happy, I trust, in Paradise, for he had himself the accomplishments that he held needful in aChristian, skill with the sword and a way with the mandolin; and ifthere be some harder, better way to salvation than to follow that whichwe believe to be good, then are we all damned. So he was buried, andhis eldest son fared forth with his legacy dangling from his girdle inits long, straight, lovely scabbard, blue velvet, with emeralds on it, fared forth on foot along a road of Spain. And though the road turnedleft and right and sometimes nearly ceased, as though to let the smallwild flowers grow, out of sheer good will such as some roads neverhave; though it ran west and east and sometimes south, yet in the mainit ran northward, though wandered is a better word than ran, and theLord of the Valleys of Arguento Harez who owned no valleys, or anythingbut a sword, kept company with it looking for the wars. Upon his backhe had slung his mandolin. Now the time of the year was Spring, notSpring as we know it in England, for it was but early March, but it wasthe time when Spring coming up out of Africa, or unknown lands to thesouth, first touches Spain, and multitudes of anemones come forth ather feet. 

Thence she comes north to our islands, no less wonderful in our woodsthan in Andalusian valleys, fresh as a new song, fabulous as a rune, but a little pale through travel, so that our flowers do not quiteflare forth with all the myriad blaze of the flowers of Spain. 

And all the way as he went the young man looked at the flame of thosesouthern flowers, flashing on either side of him all the way, as thoughthe rainbow had been broken in Heaven and its fragments fallen onSpain. All the way as he went he gazed at those flowers, the firstanemones of the year; and long after, whenever he sang to old airs ofSpain, he thought of Spain as it appeared that day in all the wonder ofSpring; the memory lent a beauty to his voice and a wistfulness to hiseyes that accorded not ill with the theme of the songs he sang, andwere more than once to melt proud hearts deemed cold. And so gazing hecame to a town that stood on a hill, before he was yet tired, though hehad done nigh twenty of those flowery miles of Spain; and since it wasevening and the light was fading away, he went to an inn and drew hissword in the twilight and knocked with the hilt of it on the oakendoor. The name of it was the Inn of the Dragon and Knight. A light waslit in one of the upper windows, the darkness seemed to deepen at thatmoment, a step was heard coming heavily down a stairway; and havingnamed the inn to you, gentle reader, it is time for me to name theyoung man also, the landless lord of the Valleys of Arguento Harez, asthe step comes slowly down the inner stairway, as the gloaming darkensover the first house in which he has ever sought shelter so far fromhis father's valleys, as he stands upon the threshold of romance. Hewas named Rodriguez Trinidad Fernandez, Concepcion Henrique Maria; butwe shall briefly name him Rodriguez in this story; you and I, reader, will know whom we mean; there is no need therefore to give him his fullnames, unless I do it here and there to remind you. 

The steps came thumping on down the inner stairway, different windowstook the light of the candle, and none other shone in the house; it wasclear that it was moving with the steps all down that echoing stairway. The sound of the steps ceased to reverberate upon the wood, and nowthey slowly moved over stone flags; Rodriguez now heard breathing, onebreath with every step, and at length the sound of bolts and chainsundone and the breathing now very close. The door was opened swiftly; aman with mean eyes, and expression devoted to evil, stood watching himfor an instant; then the door slammed to again, the bolts were heardgoing back again to their places, the steps and the breathing movedaway over the stone floor, and the inner stairway began again to echo. 

"If the wars are here, " said Rodriguez to himself and his sword, "good, and I sleep under the stars. " And he listened in the street for thesound of war and, hearing none, continued his discourse. "But if I havenot come as yet to the wars I sleep beneath a roof. "

For the second time therefore he drew his sword, and began to strikemethodically at the door, noting the grain in the wood and hittingwhere it was softest. Scarcely had he got a good strip of the oak tolook like coming away, when the steps once more descended the woodenstair and came lumbering over the stones; both the steps and thebreathing were quicker, for mine host of the Dragon and Knight washurrying to save his door. 

When he heard the sound of the bolts and chains again Rodriguez ceasedto beat upon the door: once more it opened swiftly, and he saw minehost before him, eyeing him with those bad eyes; of too much girth, youmight have said, to be nimble, yet somehow suggesting to the swiftintuition of youth, as Rodriguez looked at him standing upon hisdoor-step, the spirit and shape of a spider, who despite her ungainlybuild is agile enough in her way. 

Mine host said nothing; and Rodriguez, who seldom concerned himselfwith the past, holding that the future is all we can order the schemeof (and maybe even here he was wrong), made no mention of bolts or doorand merely demanded a bed for himself for the night. 

Mine host rubbed his chin; he had neither beard nor moustache but worehideous whiskers; he rubbed it thoughtfully and looked at Rodriguez. Yes, he said, he could have a bed for the night. No more words he said, but turned and led the way; while Rodriguez, who could sing to themandolin, wasted none of his words on this discourteous object. Theyascended the short oak stairway down which mine host had come, thegreat timbers of which were gnawed by a myriad rats, and they went bypassages with the light of one candle into the interior of the inn, which went back farther from the street than the young man hadsupposed; indeed he perceived when they came to the great corridor atthe end of which was his appointed chamber, that here was no ordinaryinn, as it had appeared from outside, but that it penetrated into thefastness of some great family of former times which had fallen on evildays. The vast size of it, the noble design where the rats had sparedthe carving, what the moths had left of the tapestries, all testifiedto that; and, as for the evil days, they hung about the place, evidenteven by the light of one candle guttering with every draught that blewfrom the haunts of the rats, an inseparable heirloom for all whodisturbed those corridors. 

And so they came to the chamber. 

Mine host entered, bowed without grace in the doorway, and extended hisleft hand, pointing into the room. The draughts that blew from therat-holes in the wainscot, or the mere action of entering, beat downthe flame of the squat, guttering candle so that the chamber remaineddim for a moment, in spite of the candle, as would naturally be thecase. Yet the impression made upon Rodriguez was as of some olddarkness that had been long undisturbed and that yielded reluctantly tothat candle's intrusion, a darkness that properly became the place andwas a part of it and had long been so, in the face of which the candleappeared an ephemeral thing devoid of grace or dignity or tradition. And indeed there was room for darkness in that chamber, for the wallswent up and up into such an altitude that you could scarcely see theceiling, at which mine host's eyes glanced, and Rodriguez followed hislook. 

He accepted his accommodation with a nod; as indeed he would haveaccepted any room in that inn, for the young are swift judges ofcharacter, and one who had accepted such a host was unlikely to findfault with rats or the profusion of giant cobwebs, dark with the dustof years, that added so much to the dimness of that sinister inn. Theyturned now and went back, in the wake of that guttering candle, tillthey came again to the humbler part of the building. Here mine host, pushing open a door of blackened oak, indicated his dining-chamber. There a long table stood, and on it parts of the head and hams of aboar; and at the far end of the table a plump and sturdy man was seatedin shirt-sleeves feasting himself on the boar's meat. He leaped up atonce from his chair as soon as his master entered, for he was theservant at the Dragon and Knight; mine host may have said much to himwith a flash of his eyes, but he said no more with his tongue than theone word, "Dog": he then bowed himself out, leaving Rodriguez to takethe only chair and to be waited upon by its recent possessor. Theboar's meat was cold and gnarled, another piece of meat stood on aplate on a shelf and a loaf of bread near by, but the rats had had mostof the bread: Rodriguez demanded what the meat was. "Unicorn's tongue, "said the servant, and Rodriguez bade him set the dish before him, andhe set to well content, though I fear the unicorn's tongue was onlyhorse: it was a credulous age, as all ages are. At the same time hepointed to a three-legged stool that he perceived in a corner of theroom, then to the table, then to the boar's meat, and lastly at theservant, who perceived that he was permitted to return to his feast, towhich he ran with alacrity. "Your name?" said Rodriguez as soon as bothwere eating. "Morano, " replied the servant, though it must not besupposed that when answering Rodriguez he spoke as curtly as this; Imerely give the reader the gist of his answer, for he added Spanishwords that correspond in our depraved and decadent language of to-dayto such words as "top dog, " "nut" and "boss, " so that his speech had acertain grace about it in that far-away time in Spain. 

I have said that Rodriguez seldom concerned himself with the past, butconsidered chiefly the future: it was of the future that he wasthinking now as he asked Morano this question:

"Why did my worthy and entirely excellent host shut his door in myface?"

"Did he so?" said Morano. 

"He then bolted it and found it necessary to put the chains back, doubtless for some good reason. "

"Yes, " said Morano thoughtfully, and looking at Rodriguez, "and so hemight. He must have liked you. "

Verily Rodriguez was just the young man to send out with a sword and amandolin into the wide world, for he had much shrewd sense. He neverpressed a point, but when something had been said that might mean muchhe preferred to store it, as it were, in his mind and pass on to otherthings, somewhat as one might kill game and pass on and kill more andbring it all home, while a savage would cook the first kill where itfell and eat it on the spot. Pardon me, reader, but at Morano's remarkyou may perhaps have exclaimed, "That is not the way to treat one youlike. " Not so did Rodriguez. His attention passed on to notice Morano'srings which he wore in great profusion upon his little fingers; theywere gold and of exquisite work and had once held precious stones, aslarge gaps testified; in these days they would have been priceless, butin an age when workers only worked at arts that they understood, andthen worked for the joy of it, before the word artistic becameridiculous, exquisite work went without saying; and as the rings wereslender they were of little value. Rodriguez made no comment upon therings; it was enough for him to have noticed them. He merely noted thatthey were not ladies' rings, for no lady's ring would have fitted on toany one of those fingers: the rings therefore of gallants: and notgiven to Morano by their owners, for whoever wore precious stone neededa ring to wear it in, and rings did not wear out like hose, which agallant might give to a servant. Nor, thought he, had Morano stolenthem, for whoever stole them would keep them whole, or part with themwhole and get a better price. Besides Morano had an honest face, or aface at least that seemed honest in such an inn: and while thesethoughts were passing through his mind Morano spoke again: "Good hams, "said Morano. He had already eaten one and was starting upon the next. Perhaps he spoke out of gratitude for the honour and physical advantageof being permitted to sit there and eat those hams, perhapstentatively, to find out whether he might consume the second, perhapsmerely to start a conversation, being attracted by the honest looks ofRodriguez. 

"You are hungry, " said Rodriguez. 

"Praise God I am always hungry, " answered Morano. "If I were not hungryI should starve. "

"Is it so?" said Rodriguez. 

"You see, " said Morano, "the manner of it is this: my master gives meno food, and it is only when I am hungry that I dare to rob him bybreaking in, as you saw me, upon his viands; were I not hungry I shouldnot dare to do so, and so . . . " He made a sad and expressive movementwith both his hands suggestive of autumn leaves blown hence to die. 

"He gives you no food?" said Rodriguez. 

"It is the way of many men with their dog, " said Morano. "They give himno food, " and then he rubbed his hands cheerfully, "and yet the dogdoes not die. "

"And he gives you no wages?" said Rodriguez. 

"Just these rings. "

Now Rodriguez had himself a ring upon his finger (as a gallant should), a slender piece of gold with four tiny angels holding a sapphire, andfor a moment he pictured the sapphire passing into the hands of minehost and the ring of gold and the four small angels being flung toMorano; the thought darkened his gaiety for no longer than one of thosefleecy clouds in Spring shadows the fields of Spain. 

Morano was also looking at the ring; he had followed the young man'sglance. 

"Master, " he said, "do you draw your sword of a night?"

"And you?" said Rodriguez. 

"I have no sword, " said Morano. "I am but as dog's meat that needs noguarding, but you whose meat is rare like the flesh of the unicorn needa sword to guard your meat. The unicorn has his horn always, and eventhen he sometimes sleeps. "

"It is bad, you think, to sleep, " Rodriguez said. 

"For some it is very bad, master. They say they never take the unicornwaking. For me I am but dog's meat: when I have eaten hams I curl upand sleep; but then you see, master, I know I shall wake in themorning. "

"Ah, " said Rodriguez, "the morning's a pleasant time, " and he leanedback comfortably in his chair. Morano took one shrewd look at him, andwas soon asleep upon his three-legged stool. 

The door opened after a while and mine host appeared. "It is late, " hesaid. Rodriguez smiled acquiescently and mine host withdrew, andpresently leaving Morano whom his master's voice had waked, to curl upon the floor in a corner, Rodriguez took the candle that lit the roomand passed once more through the passages of the inn and down the greatcorridor of the fastness of the family that had fallen on evil days, and so came to his chamber. I will not waste a multitude of words overthat chamber; if you have no picture of it in your mind already, myreader, you are reading an unskilled writer, and if in that picture itappear a wholesome room, tidy and well kept up, if it appear a place inwhich a stranger might sleep without some faint foreboding of disaster, then I am wasting your time, and will waste no more of it with bits of"descriptive writing" about that dim, high room, whose blacknesstowered before Rodriguez in the night. He entered and shut the door, asmany had done before him; but for all his youth he took some wiserprecautions than had they, perhaps, who closed that door before. Forfirst he drew his sword; then for some while he stood quite still nearthe door and listened to the rats; then he looked round the chamber andperceived only one door; then he looked at the heavy oak furniture, carved by some artist, gnawed by rats, and all blackened by time; thenswiftly opened the door of the largest cupboard and thrust his sword into see who might be inside, but the carved satyr's heads at the top ofthe cupboard eyed him silently and nothing moved. Then he noted thatthough there was no bolt on the door the furniture might be placedacross to make what in the wars is called a barricado, but the wiserthought came at once that this was too easily done, and that if thedanger that the dim room seemed gloomily to forebode were to come froma door so readily barricadoed, then those must have been simplegallants who parted so easily with the rings that adorned Morano's twolittle fingers. No, it was something more subtle than any attackthrough that door that brought his regular wages to Morano. Rodriguezlooked at the window, which let in the light of a moon that was gettinglow, for the curtains had years ago been eaten up by the moths; but thewindow was barred with iron bars that were not yet rusted away, andlooked out, thus guarded, over a sheer wall that even in the moonlightfell into blackness. Rodriguez then looked round for some hidden door, the sword all the while in his hand, and very soon he knew that roomfairly well, but not its secret, nor why those unknown gallants hadgiven up their rings. 

It is much to know of an unknown danger that it really is unknown. Manyhave met their deaths through looking for danger from one particulardirection, whereas had they perceived that they were ignorant of itsdirection they would have been wise in their ignorance. Rodriguez hadthe great discretion to understand clearly that he did not know thedirection from which danger would come. He accepted this as his onlydiscovery about that portentous room which seemed to beckon to him withevery shadow and to sigh over him with every mournful draught, and towhisper to him unintelligible warnings with every rustle of tatteredsilk that hung about his bed. And as soon as he discovered that thiswas his only knowledge he began at once to make his preparations: hewas a right young man for the wars. He divested himself of his shoesand doublet and the light cloak that hung from his shoulder and castthe clothes on a chair. Over the back of the chair he slung his girdleand the scabbard hanging therefrom and placed his plumed hat so thatnone could see that his Castilian blade was not in its resting-place. And when the sombre chamber had the appearance of one having undressedin it before retiring Rodriguez turned his attention to the bed, whichhe noticed to be of great depth and softness. That something not unlikeblood had been spilt on the floor excited no wonder in Rodriguez; thatvast chamber was evidently, as I have said, in the fortress of somegreat family, against one of whose walls the humble inn had once leanedfor protection; the great family were gone: how they were goneRodriguez did not know, but it excited no wonder in him to see blood onthe boards: besides, two gallants may have disagreed; or one who lovednot dumb animals might have been killing rats. Blood did not disturbhim; but what amazed him, and would have surprised anyone who stood inthat ruinous room, was that there were clean new sheets on the bed. Hadyou seen the state of the furniture and the floor, O my reader, and thevastness of the old cobwebs and the black dust that they held, the deadspiders and huge dead flies, and the living generation of spidersdescending and ascending through the gloom, I say that you also wouldhave been surprised at the sight of those nice clean sheets. Rodrigueznoted the fact and continued his preparations. He took the bolster fromunderneath the pillow and laid it down the middle of the bed and putthe sheets back over it; then he stood back and looked at it, much as asculptor might stand back from his marble, then he returned to it andbent it a little in the middle, and after that he placed his mandolinon the pillow and nearly covered it with the sheet, but not quite, fora little of the curved dark-brown wood remained still to be seen. Itlooked wonderfully now like a sleeper in the bed, but Rodriguez was notsatisfied with his work until he had placed his kerchief and one of hisshoes where a shoulder ought to be; then he stood back once more andeyed it with satisfaction. Next he considered the light. He looked atthe light of the moon and remembered his father's advice, as the youngoften do, but considered that this was not the occasion for it, anddecided to leave the light of his candle instead, so that anyone whomight be familiar with the moonlight in that shadowy chamber shouldfind instead a less sinister light. He therefore dragged a table to thebedside, placed the candle upon it, and opened a treasured book that hebore in his doublet, and laid it on the bed near by, between the candleand his mandolin-headed sleeper; the name of the book was Notes in aCathedral and dealt with the confessions of a young girl, which theauthor claimed to have jotted down, while concealed behind a pillownear the Confessional, every Sunday for the entire period of Lent. Lastly he pulled a sheet a little loose from the bed, until a corner ofit lay on the floor; then he lay down on the boards, still keeping hissword in his hand, and by means of the sheet and some silk that hungfrom the bed, he concealed himself sufficient for his purpose, whichwas to see before he should be seen by any intruder that might enterthat chamber. 

And if Rodriguez appear to have been unduly suspicious, it should beborne in mind not only that those empty rings needed much explanation, but that every house suggests to the stranger something; and thatwhereas one house seems to promise a welcome in front of cosy fires, another good fare, another joyous wine, this inn seemed to promisemurder; or so the young man's intuition said, and the young are wise totrust to their intuitions. 

The reader will know, if he be one of us, who have been to the wars andslept in curious ways, that it is hard to sleep when sober upon afloor; it is not like the earth, or snow, or a feather bed; even rockcan be more accommodating; it is hard, unyielding and level, all nightunmistakable floor. Yet Rodriguez took no risk of falling asleep, so hesaid over to himself in his mind as much as he remembered of histreasured book, Notes in a Cathedral, which he always read to himselfbefore going to rest and now so sadly missed. It told how a lady whohad listened to a lover longer than her soul's safety could warrant, ashe played languorous music in the moonlight and sang soft by her lowbalcony, and how she being truly penitent, had gathered many roses, theemblems of love (as surely, she said at confession, all the worldknows), and when her lover came again by moonlight had cast them allfrom her from the balcony, showing that she had renounced love; and herlover had entirely misunderstood her. It told how she often tried toshow him this again, and all the misunderstandings are sweetly setforth and with true Christian penitence. Sometimes some little matterescaped Rodriguez's memory and then he longed to rise up and look athis dear book, yet he lay still where he was: and all the while helistened to the rats, and the rats went on gnawing and runningregularly, scared by nothing new; Rodriguez trusted as much to theirmyriad ears as to his own two. The great spiders descended out of suchheights that you could not see whence they came, and ascended againinto blackness; it was a chamber of prodigious height. Sometimes theshadow of a descending spider that had come close to the candle assumeda frightening size, but Rodriguez gave little thought to it; it was ofmurder he was thinking, not of shadows; still, in its way it wasominous, and reminded Rodriguez horribly of his host; but what of anomen, again, in a chamber full of omens. The place itself was ominous;spiders could scarce make it more so. The spider itself was big enough, he thought, to be impaled on his Castilian blade; indeed, he would havedone it but that he thought it wiser to stay where he was and watch. And then the spider found the candle too hot and climbed in a hurry allthe way to the ceiling, and his horrible shadow grew less and dwindledaway. 

It was not that the rats were frightened: whatever it was that happenedhappened too quietly for that, but the volume of the sound of theirrunning had suddenly increased: it was not like fear among them, forthe running was no swifter, and it did not fade away; it was as thoughthe sound of rats running, which had not been heard before, wassuddenly heard now. Rodriguez looked at the door, the door was shut. Ayoung Englishman would long ago have been afraid that he was making afuss over nothing and would have gone to sleep in the bed, and not seenwhat Rodriguez saw. He might have thought that hearing more rats all atonce was merely a fancy, and that everything was all right. Rodriguezsaw a rope coming slowly down from the ceiling, he quickly determinedwhether it was a rope or only the shadow of some huge spider's thread, and then he watched it and saw it come down right over his bed and stopwithin a few feet of it. Rodriguez looked up cautiously to see who hadsent him that strange addition to the portents that troubled thechamber, but the ceiling was too high and dim for him to perceiveanything but the rope coming down out of the darkness. Yet he surmisedthat the ceiling must have softly opened, without any sound at all, atthe moment that he heard the greater number of rats. He waited then tosee what the rope would do; and at first it hung as still as the greatfestoons dead spiders had made in the corners; then as he watched it itbegan to sway. He looked up into the dimness then to see who wasswaying the rope; and for a long time, as it seemed to him lyinggripping his Castilian sword on the floor he saw nothing clearly. Andthen he saw mine host coming down the rope, hand over hand quitenimbly, as though he lived by this business. In his right hand he helda poniard of exceptional length, yet he managed to clutch the rope andhold the poniard all the time with the same hand. 

If there had been something hideous about the shadow of the spider thatcame down from that height the shadow of mine host was indeed demoniac. He too was like a spider, with his body at no time slender all bunchedup on the rope, and his shadow was six times his size: you could turnfrom the spider's shadow to the spider and see that it was for the mostpart a fancy of the candle half crazed by the draughts, but to turnfrom mine host's shadow to himself and to see his wicked eyes was tosay that the candle's wildest fears were true. So he climbed down hisrope holding his poniard upward. But when he came within perhaps tenfeet of the bed he pointed it downward and began to sway about. It willbe readily seen that by swaying his rope at a height mine host coulddrop on any part of the bed. Rodriguez as he watched him saw himscrutinise closely and continue to sway on his rope. He feared thatmine host was ill satisfied with the look of the mandolin and that hewould climb away again, well warned of his guest's astuteness, into theheights of the ceiling to devise some fearfuller scheme; but he wasonly looking for the shoulder. And then mine host dropped; poniardfirst, he went down with all his weight behind it and drove it throughthe bolster below where the shoulder should be, just where we slant ourarms across our bodies, when we lie asleep on our sides, leaving theribs exposed: and the soft bed received him. And the moment that minehost let go of his rope Rodriguez leaped to his feet. He saw Rodriguez, indeed their eyes met as he dropped through the air, but what couldmine host do? He was already committed to his stroke, and his poniardwas already deep in the mattress when the good Castilian blade passedthrough his ribs. 

THE SECOND CHRONICLE

HOW HE HIRED A MEMORABLE SERVANT

When Rodriguez woke, the birds were singing gloriously. The sun was upand the air was sparkling over Spain. The gloom had left his highchamber, and much of the menace had gone from it that overnight hadseemed to bode in the corners. It had not become suddenly tidy; it wasstill more suitable for spiders than men, it still mourned and broodedover the great family that it had nursed and that evil days had soobviously overtaken; but it no longer had the air of finger to lips, nolonger seemed to share a secret with you, and that secret Murder. Therats still ran round the wainscot, but the song of the birds and thejolly, dazzling sunshine were so much larger than the sombre room thatthe young man's thoughts escaped from it and ran free to the fields. Itmay have been only his fancy but the world seemed somehow brighter forthe demise of mine host of the Dragon and Knight, whose body still layhunched up on the foot of his bed. Rodriguez jumped up and went to thehigh, barred window and looked out of it at the morning: far below hima little town with red roofs lay; the smoke came up from the chimneystoward him slowly, and spread out flat and did not reach so high. Between him and the roofs swallows were sailing. 

He found water for washing in a cracked pitcher of earthenware and ashe dressed he looked up at the ceiling and admired mine host's device, for there was an open hole that had come noiselessly, without anysounds of bolts or lifting of trap-doors, but seemed to have opened outall round on perfectly oiled groves, to fit that well-to-do body, anddown from the middle of it from some higher beam hung the rope downwhich mine host had made his last journey. 

Before taking leave of his host Rodriguez looked at his poniard, whichwas a good two feet in length, not counting the hilt, and was surprisedto find it an excellent blade. It bore a design on the steelrepresenting a town, which Rodriguez recognised for the towers ofToledo; and had held moreover a jewel at the end of the hilt, but thelittle gold socket was empty. Rodriguez therefore perceived that theponiard was that of a gallant, and surmised that mine host had begunhis trade with a butcher's knife, but having come by the poniard hadfound it to be handier for his business. Rodriguez being now fullydressed, girt his own blade about him, and putting the poniard underhis cloak, for he thought to find a use for it at the wars, set hisplumed hat upon him and jauntily stepped from the chamber. By the lightof day he saw clearly at what point the passages of the inn had daredto make their intrusion on the corridors of the fortress, for he walkedfor four paces between walls of huge grey rocks which had never beenplastered and were clearly a breach in the fortress, though whether thebreach were made by one of the evil days that had come upon the familyin their fastness, and whether men had poured through it with torchesand swords, or whether the gap had been cut in later years for minehost of the Dragon and Knight, and he had gone quietly through itrubbing his hands, nothing remained to show Rodriguez now. 

When he came to the dining-chamber he found Morano astir. Morano lookedup from his overwhelming task of tidying the Inn of the Dragon andKnight and then went on with his pretended work, for he felt a littleashamed of the knowledge he had concerning the ways of that inn, whichwas more than an honest man should know about such a place. 

"Good morning, Morano, " said Rodriguez blithely. 

"Good morning, " answered the servant of the Dragon and Knight. 

"I am looking for the wars. Would you like a new master, Morano?"

"Indeed, " said Morano, "a good master is better to some men's mindsthan a bad one. Yet, you see seņor, my bad master has me bound never toleave him, by oaths that I do not properly understand the meaning of, and that might blast me in any world were I to forswear them. He hathbound me by San Sathanas, with many others. I do not like the sound ofthat San Sathanas. And so you see, seņor, my bad master suits me betterthan perhaps to be whithered in this world by a levin-stroke, and inthe next world who knows?"

"Morano, " said Rodriguez, "there is a dead spider on my bed. "

"A dead spider, master?" said Morano, with as much concern in his voiceas though no spider had ever sullied that chamber before. 

"Yes, " said Rodriguez, "I shall require you to keep my bed tidy on ourway to the wars. "

"Master, " said Morano, "no spider shall come near it, living or dead. "

And so our company of one going northward through Spain looking forromance became a company of two. 

"Master, " said Morano, "as I do not see him whom I serve, and his waysare early ways, I fear some evil has overtaken him, whereby we shall besuspect, for none other dwells here: and he is under special protectionof the Garda Civil; it would be well therefore to start for the warsright early. "

"The guard protect mine host then. " Rodriguez said with as muchsurprise in his tones as he ever permitted himself. 

"Master, " Morano said, "it could not be otherwise. For so many gallantshave entered the door of this inn and supped in this chamber and neverbeen seen again, and so many suspicious things have been found here, such as blood, that it became necessary for him to pay the guard well, and so they protect him. " And Morano hastily slung over his shoulder byleather straps an iron pot and a frying-pan and took his broad felt hatfrom a peg on the wall. 

Rodriguez' eyes looked so curiously at the great cooking utensilsdangling there from the straps that Morano perceived his young masterdid not fully understand these preparations: he therefore instructedhim thus: "Master, there be two things necessary in the wars, strategyand cooking. Now the first of these comes in use when the captainsspeak of their achievements and the historians write of the wars. Strategy is a learned thing, master, and the wars may not be told ofwithout it, but while the war rageth and men be camped upon thefoughten field then is the time for cooking; for many a man that fightsthe wars, if he hath not his food, were well content to let the enemylive, but feed him and at once he becometh proud at heart and cannota-bear the sight of the enemy walking among his tents but must needsslay him outright. Aye, master, the cooking for the wars; and when thewars are over you who are learned shall study strategy. "

And Rodriguez perceived that there was wisdom in the world that was nottaught in the College of San Josephus, near to his father's valleys, where he had learned in his youth the ways of books. 

"Morano, " he said, "let us now leave mine host to entertain la Garda. "

And at the mention of the guard hurry came on Morano, he closed hislips upon his store of wisdom, and together they left the Inn of theDragon and Knight. And when Rodriguez saw shut behind him that darkdoor of oak that he had so persistently entered, and through which hehad come again to the light of the sun by many precautions and someluck, he felt gratitude to Morano. For had it not been for Morano'ssinister hints, and above all his remark that mine host would havedriven him thence because he liked him, the evil look of the sombrechamber alone might not have been enough to persuade him to theprecautions that cut short the dreadful business of that inn. And withhis gratitude was a feeling not unlike remorse, for he felt that he haddeprived this poor man of a part of his regular wages, which would havebeen his own gold ring and the setting that held the sapphire, had allgone well with the business. So he slipped the ring from his finger andgave it to Morano, sapphire and all. 

Morano's expressions of gratitude were in keeping with that floweryperiod in Spain, and might appear ridiculous were I to expose them tothe eyes of an age in which one in Morano's place on such an occasionwould have merely said, "Damned good of you old nut, not half, " and letthe matter drop. 

I merely record therefore that Morano was grateful and so expressedhimself; while Rodriguez, in addition to the pleasant glow in the mindthat comes from a generous action, had another feeling that gives allof us pleasure, or comfort at least (until it grows monotonous), afeeling of increased safety; for while he had the ring upon his fingerand Morano went unpaid the thought could not help occurring, even to agenerous mind, that one of these windy nights Morano might come for hiswages. 

"Master, " said Morano looking at the sapphire now on his own littlefinger near the top joint, the only stone amongst his row of rings, "you must surely have great wealth. "

"Yes, " said Rodriguez slapping the scabbard that held his Castilianblade. And when he saw that Morano's eyes were staring at the littleemeralds that were dotted along the velvet of the scabbard he explainedthat it was the sword that was his wealth:

"For in the wars, " he said, "are all things to be won, and nothing isunobtainable to the sword. For parchment and custom govern all thepossessions of man, as they taught me in the College of San Josephus. Yet the sword is at first the founder and discoverer of allpossessions; and this my father told me before he gave me this sword, which hath already acquired in the old time fair castles with many atower. "

"And those that dwelt in the castles, master, before the sword came?"said Morano. 

"They died and went dismally to Hell, " said Rodriguez, "as the oldsongs say. "

They walked on then in silence. Morano, with his low forehead andgreater girth of body than of brain to the superficial observer, wasnot incapable of thought. However slow his thoughts may have come, Morano was pondering surely. Suddenly the puckers on his littleforehead cleared and he brightly looked at Rodriguez as they went onside by side. 

"Master, " Morano said, "when you choose a castle in the wars, let itabove all things be one of those that is easy to be defended; forcastles are easily got, as the old songs tell, and in the heat ofcombat positions are quickly stormed, and no more ado; but, when warsare over, then is the time for ease and languorous days and theimperilling of the soul, though not beyond the point where our goodfathers may save it. "

"Nay, Morano, " Rodriguez said, "no man, as they taught me well in theCollege of San Josephus, should ever imperil his soul. "

"But, master, " Morano said, "a man imperils his body in the wars yethopes by dexterity and his sword to draw it safely thence: so a man ofcourage and high heart may surely imperil his soul and still hope tobring it at the last to salvation. "

"Not so, " said Rodriguez, and gave his mind to pondering upon the exactteaching he had received on this very point, but could not clearlyremember. 

So they walked in silence, Rodriguez thinking still of this spiritualproblem, Morano turning, though with infinite slowness, to anotherthought upon a lower plane. 

And after a while Rodriguez' eyes turned again to the flowers, and hefelt his meditation, as youth will, and looking abroad he saw thewonder of Spring calling forth the beauty of Spain, and he lifted uphis head and his heart rejoiced with the anemones, as hearts at his agedo: but Morano clung to his thought. 

It was long before Rodriguez' fanciful thoughts came back from amongthe flowers, for among those delicate earliest blooms of Spring hisyouthful visions felt they were with familiars; so they tarried, neglecting the dusty road and poor gross Morano. But when his fanciesleft the flowers at last and looked again at Morano, Rodriguezperceived that his servant was all troubled with thought: so he leftMorano in silence for his thought to come to maturity, for he hadformed a liking already for the judgments of Morano's simple mind. 

They walked in silence for the space of an hour, and at last Moranospoke. It was then noon. "Master, " he said, "at this hour it is thecustom of la Garda to enter the Inn of the Dragon and to dine at theexpense of mine host. "

"A merry custom, " said Rodriguez. 

"Master, " said Morano, "if they find him in less than his usual healththey will get their dinners for themselves in the larder and dine andafterwards sleep. But after that; master, after that, should anythinginauspicious have befallen mine host, they will seek out and ask manyquestions concerning all travellers, too many for our liking. "

"We are many good miles from the Inn of the Dragon and Knight, " saidRodriguez. 

"Master, when they have eaten and slept and asked questions they willfollow on horses, " said Morano. 

"We can hide, " said Rodriguez, and he looked round over the plain, veryfull of flowers, but empty and bare under the blue sky of any place inwhich a man might hide to escape from pursuers on horse back. Heperceived then that he had no plan. 

"Master, " said Morano, "there is no hiding like disguises. "

Once more Rodriguez looked round him over the plain, seeing no houses, no men; and his opinion of Morano's judgment sank when he saiddisguises. But then Morano unfolded to him that plan which up to thatday had never been tried before, so far as records tell, in all thestraits in which fugitive men have been; and which seems from myresearches in verse and prose never to have been attempted since. 

The plan was this, astute as Morano, and simple as his naive mind. Theclothing for which Rodriguez searched the plain vainly was ready tohand. No disguise was effective against la Garda, they had too manysuspicions, their skill was to discover disguises. But in the moment ofla Garda's triumph, when they had found out the disguise, when successhad lulled the suspicions for which they were infamous, then was thetime to trick la Garda. Rodriguez wondered; but the slow mind of Moranowas sure, and now he came to the point, the fruit of his hour'sthinking. Rodriguez should disguise himself as Morano. When la Gardadiscovered that he was not the man he appeared to be, a study to whichthey devoted their lives, their suspicions would rest and there wouldbe an end of it. And Morano should disguise himself as Rodriguez. 

It was a new idea. Had Rodriguez been twice his age he would havediscarded it at once; for age is guided by precedent which, whenpursued, is a dangerous guide indeed. Even as it was he was critical, for the novelty of the thing coming thus from his gross servantsurprised him as much as though Morano had uttered poetry of his ownwhen he sang, as he sometimes did, certain merry lascivious songs ofSpain that any one of the last few centuries knew as well as any of theothers. 

And would not la Garda find out that he was himself, Rodriguez asked, as quickly as they found out he was not Morano. 

"That, " said Morano, "is not the way of la Garda. For once let la Gardacome by a suspicion, such as that you, master, are but Morano, and theywill cling to it even to the last, and not abandon it until they needsmust, and then throw it away as it were in disgust and ride hence atonce, for they like not tarrying long near one who has seen themmistaken. "

"They will soon then come by another suspicion, " said Rodriguez. 

"Not so, master, " answered Morano, "for those that are as suspicious asla Garda change their suspicions but slowly. A suspicion is an old songto them. "

"Then, " said Rodriguez, "I shall be hard set ever to show that I am notyou if they ever suspect I am. "

"It will be hard, master, " Morano answered; "but we shall do it, for weshall have truth upon our side. "

"How shall we disguise ourselves?" said Rodriguez. 

"Master, " said Morano, "when you came to our town none knew you and allmarked your clothes. As for me my fat body is better known than myclothes, yet am I not too well known by la Garda, for, being an honestman, whenever la Garda came I used to hide. "

"You did well, " said Rodriguez. 

"Certainly I did well, " said Morano, "for had they seen me they might, on account of certain matters, have taken me to prison, and prison isno place for an honest man. "

"Let us disguise ourselves, " said Rodriguez. 

"Master, " answered Morano, "the brain is greater than the stomach, andnow more than at any time we need the counsel of the brain; let ustherefore appease the clamours of the stomach that it be silent. "

And he drew out from amongst his clothing a piece of sacking in whichwas a mass of bacon and some lard, and unslung his huge frying-pan. Rodriguez had entirely forgotten the need of food, but now the memoryof it had rushed upon him like a flood over a barrier, as soon as hesaw the bacon. And when they had collected enough of tiny inflammablethings, for it was a treeless plain, and Morano had made a fire, andthe odour of the bacon became perceptible, this memory was hugelyintensified. 

"Let us eat while they eat, master, " said Morano, "and plan while theysleep, and disguise ourselves while they pursue. "

And this they did: for after they had eaten they dug up earth andgathered leaves with which to fill the gaps in Morano's garments whenthey should hang on Rodriguez, they plucked a geranium with whose dyethey deepened Rodriguez' complexion, and with the sap from the stalk ofa weed Morano toned to a pallor the ruddy brown of his tough cheeks. Then they changed clothes altogether, which made Morano gasp: and afterthat nothing remained but to cut off the delicate black moustachios ofRodriguez and to stick them to the face of Morano with the juice ofanother flower that he knew where to find. Rodriguez sighed when he sawthem go. He had pictured ecstatic glances cast some day at thosemoustachios, glances from under long eyelashes twinkling at eveningfrom balconies; and looking at them where they were now, he felt thatthis was impossible. 

For one moment Morano raised his head with an air, as it were preeninghimself, when the new moustachios had stuck; but as soon as he saw, orfelt, his master's sorrow at their loss he immediately hung his head, showing nothing but shame for the loss he had caused his master, or forthe impropriety of those delicate growths that so ill become his jowl. And now they took the road again, Rodriguez with the great frying-panand cooking-pot; no longer together, but not too far apart for la Gardato take them both at once, and to make the doubly false charge thatshould so confound their errand. And Morano wore that old triumphantsword, and carried the mandolin that was ever young. 

They had not gone far when it was as Morano had said; for, lookingback, as they often did, to the spot where their road touched thesky-line, they saw la Garda spurring, seven of them in theirunmistakable looped hats, very clear against the sky which a moment agoseemed so fair. 

When the seven saw the two they did not spare the dust; and first theycame to Morano. 

"You, " they said, "are Rodriguez Trinidad Fernandez, ConcepcionHenrique Maria, a Lord of the Valleys of Arguento Harez. "

"No, masters, " said Morano. 

Oh but denials were lost upon la Garda. 

Denials inflamed their suspicions as no other evidence could. Many aman had they seen with his throat in the hands of the public garrotter;and all had begun with denials who ended thus. They looked at themandolin, at the gay cloak, at the emeralds in the scabbard, forwherever emeralds go there is evidence to identify them, until thenature of man changes or the price of emeralds. They spoke hastilyamong themselves. 

"Without doubt, " said one of them, "you are whom we said. " And theyarrested Morano. 

Then they spurred on to Rodriguez. "You are, " they said, "as no mandoubts, one Morano, servant at the Inn of the Dragon and Knight, whosegood master is, as we allege, dead. "

"Masters, " answered Rodriguez, "I am but a poor traveller, and noservant at any inn. "

Now la Garda, as I have indicated, will hear all things except denials;and thus to receive two within the space of two moments infuriated themso fiercely that they were incapable of forming any other theory thatday except the one they held. 

There are many men like this; they can form a plausible theory andgrasp its logical points, but take it away from them and destroy itutterly before their eyes, and they will not so easily lash their tiredbrains at once to build another theory in place of the one that isruined. 

"As the saints live, " they said, "you are Morano. " And they arrestedRodriguez too. 

Now when they began to turn back by the way they had come Rodriguezbegan to fear overmuch identification, so he assured la Garda that inthe next village ahead of them were those who would answer allquestions concerning him, as well as being the possessors of the finestvintage of wine in the kingdom of Spain. 

Now it may be that the mention of this wine soothed the anger caused inthe men of la Garda by two denials, or it may be that curiosity guidedthem, at any rate they took the road that led away from last night'ssinister shelter, Rodriguez and five of la Garda. Two of them stayedbehind with Morano, undecided as yet which way to take, though lookingwistfully the way that that wine was said to be; and Rodriguez leftMorano to his own devices, in which he trusted profoundly. 

Now Rodriguez knew not the name of the next village that they wouldcome to nor the names of any of the dwellers in it. 

Yet he had a plan. As he went by the side of one of the horses hequestioned the rider. 

"Can Morano write?" he said. La Garda laughed. 

"Can Morano talk Latin?" he said. La Garda crossed themselves, all fivemen. And after some while of riding, and hard walking for Rodriguez, towhom they allowed a hand on a stirrup leather, there came in sight thetops of the brown roofs of a village over a fold of the plain. "Is thisyour village?" said one of his captors. 

"Surely, " answered Rodriguez. 

"What is its name?" said one. 

"It has many names, " said Rodriguez. 

And then another one of them recognised it from the shape of its roofs. "It is Saint Judas-not-Iscariot, " he said. 

"Aye, so strangers call it, " said Rodriguez. 

And where the road turned round that fold of the plain, lolling alittle to its left in the idle Spanish air, they came upon the villageall in view. I do not know how to describe this village to you, myreader, for the words that mean to you what it was are all the wrongwords to use. "Antique, " "old-world, " "quaint, " seem words with whichto tell of it. Yet it had no antiquity denied to the other villages; ithad been brought to birth like them by the passing of time, and wasnursed like them in the lap of plains or valleys of Spain. Nor was itquainter than any of its neighbours, though it was like itself alone, as they had their characters also; and, though no village in the worldwas like it, it differed only from the next as sister differs fromsister. To those that dwelt in it, it was wholly apart from all theworld of man. 

Most of its tall white houses with green doors were gathered about themarket-place, in which were pigeons and smells and declining sunlight, as Rodriguez and his escort came towards it, and from round a corner atthe back of it the short, repeated song of one who would sell acommodity went up piercingly. 

This was all very long ago. Time has wrecked that village now. Centuries have flowed over it, some stormily, some smoothly, but somany that, of the village Rodriguez saw, there can be now no more thanwreckage. For all I know a village of that name may stand on that sameplain, but the Saint Judas-not-Iscariot that Rodriguez knew is gonelike youth. 

Queerly tiled, sheltered by small dense trees, and standing a littleapart, Rodriguez recognised the house of the Priest. He recognised itby a certain air it had. Thither he pointed and la Garda rode. Again hespoke to them. "Can Morano speak Latin?" he said. 

"God forbid!" said la Garda. 

They dismounted and opened a gate that was gilded all over, in a lowwall of round boulders. They went up a narrow path between thick ilicesand came to the green door. They pulled a bell whose handle was asymbol carved in copper, one of the Priest's mysteries. The bell boomedthrough the house, a tiny musical boom, and the Priest opened the door;and Rodriguez addressed him in Latin. And the Priest answered him. 

At first la Garda had not realised what had happened. And then thePriest beckoned and they all entered his house, for Rodriguez had askedhim for ink. Into a room they came where a silver ink-pot was, and thegrey plume of the goose. Picture no such ink-pot, my reader, as theysell to-day in shops, the silver no thicker than paper, and perhaps apattern all over it guaranteed artistic. It was molten silver wellwrought, and hollowed for ink. And in the hollow there was the magicalfluid, the stuff that rules the world and hinders time; that in whichflows the will of a king, to establish his laws for ever; that whichgives valleys unto new possessors; that whereby towers are held bytheir lawful owners; that which, used grimly by the King's judge, isdeath; that which, when poets play, is mirth for ever and ever. 

No wonder la Garda looked at it in awe, no wonder they crossedthemselves again: and then Rodriguez wrote. In the silence thatfollowed the jaws of la Garda dropped, while the old Priest slightlysmiled, for he somewhat divined the situation already; and, being thepeople's friend, he loved not la Garda more than he was bound by therules of his duty to man. 

Then one of la Garda spoke, bringing back his confidence with abluster. "Morano has sold his soul to Satan, " he said, "in exchange forSatan's aid, and Satan has taught his tongue Latin and guides hisfingers in the affairs of the pen. " And so said all la Garda, rejoicingat finding an explanation where a moment ago there was none, as all menat such times do: little it matters what the explanation be: does a manin Sahara, who finds water suddenly, in quire with precision what itsqualities are?

And then the Priest said a word and made a sign, against which Satanhimself can only prevail with difficulty, and in presence of which hisspells can never endure. And after this Rodriguez wrote again. Thenwere la Garda silent. 

And at length the leader said, and he called on them all to testify, that he had made no charge whatever against this traveller; moreover, they had escorted him on his way out of respect for him, because theroads were dangerous, and must now depart because they had higherduties. So la Garda departed, looking before them with stern, preoccupied faces and urging their horses on, as men who go on anerrand of great urgency. And Rodriguez, having thanked them for theirprotection upon the road, turned back into the house and the two satdown together, and Rodriguez told his rescuer the story of thehospitality of the Inn of the Dragon and Knight. 

Not as confession he told it, but as a pleasant tale, for he looked onthe swift demise of la Garda's friend, in the night, in the spideryroom, as a fair blessing for Spain, a thing most suited to the sweetdays of Spring. The spiritual man rejoiced to hear such a tale, as doall men of peace to hear talk of violent deeds in which they may notshare. And when the tale was ended he reproved Rodriguez exceedingly, explaining to him the nature of the sin of blood, and telling him thatabsolution could be come by now, though hardly, but how on some futureoccasion there might be none to be had. And Rodriguez listened with allthe gravity of expression that youth knows well how to wear while itsthoughts are nimbly dancing far away in fair fields of adventure orlove. 

And darkness came down and lamps were carried in: and the reverendfather asked Rodriguez in what other affairs of violence his sword hadunhappily been. And Rodriguez knew well the history of that sword, having gathered all that concerned it out of spoken legend or song. Andalthough the reverend man frowned minatorily whenever he heard of itspassings through the ribs of the faithful, and nodded as though hishead gave benediction when he heard of the destruction of God's mostvile enemy the infidel, and though he gasped a little through his lipswhen he heard of certain tarryings of that sword, in scented gardens, while Christian knights should sleep and their swords hang on the wall, though sometimes even a little he raised his hands, yet he leanedforward always, listening well, and picturing clearly as though hisgleaming eyes could see them, each doleful tale of violence or sin. Andso night came, and began to wear away, and neither knew how late thehour was. And then as Rodriguez spoke of an evening in a garden, ofwhich some old song told well, a night in early summer under theevening star, and that sword there as always; as he told of hisgrandfather as poets had loved to tell, going among the scents of thehuge flowers, familiar with the dark garden as the moths that driftedby him; as he spoke of a sigh heard faintly, as he spoke of dangernear, whether to body or soul; as the reverend father was about toraise both his hands; there came a thunder of knockings upon the lockedgreen door. 

THE THIRD CHRONICLE

HOW HE CAME TO THE HOUSE OF WONDER

It was the gross Morano. Here he had tracked Rodriguez, for where laGarda goes is always known, and rumour of it remains long behind them, like the scent of a fox. He told no tale of his escape more than a dogdoes who comes home some hours late; a dog comes back to his master, that is all, panting a little perhaps; someone perhaps had caught himand he escaped and came home, a thing too natural to attempt to speakof by any of the signs that a dog knows. 

Part of Morano's method seems to have resembled Rodriguez', for just asRodriguez spoke Latin, so Morano fell back upon his own natural speech, that he as it were unbridled and allowed to run free, the coarseness ofwhich had at first astounded, and then delighted, la Garda. 

"And did they not suspect that you were yourself?" said Rodriguez. 

"No, master, " Morano answered, "for I said that I was the brother ofthe King of Aragon. "

"The King of Aragon!" Rodriguez said, going to the length of showingsurprise. "Yes, indeed, master. " said Morano, "and they recognised me. "

"Recognised you!" exclaimed the Priest. 

"Indeed so, " said Morano, "for they said that they were themselves theKings of Aragon; and so, father, they recognised me for their brother. "

"That you should not have said, " the Priest told Morano. 

"Reverend father, " replied Morano, "as Heaven shines, I believed thatwhat I said was true. " And Morano sighed deeply. "And now, " he said, "Iknow it is true no more. "

Whether he sighed for the loss of his belief in that exaltedrelationship, or whether for the loss of that state of mind in whichsuch beliefs come easily, there was nothing in his sigh to show. Theyquestioned him further, but he said no more: he was here, there was nomore to say: he was here and la Garda was gone. 

And then the reverend man brought for them a great supper, even at thatlate hour, for many an hour had slipped softly by as he heard the sinsof the sword; and wine he set out, too, of a certain golden vintage, long lost--I fear--my reader: but this he gave not to Morano lest heshould be once more, what the reverend father feared to entertain, thatdread hidalgo, the King of Aragon's brother. And after that, the starshaving then gone far on their ways, the old Priest rose and offered abed to Rodriguez; and even as he eyed Morano, wondering where to puthim, and was about to speak, for he had no other bed, Morano went to acorner of the room and curled up and lay down. And by the time his hosthad walked over to him and spoken, asking anxiously if he needednothing more, he was almost already asleep, and muttered in answer, after having been spoken to twice, no more than "Straw, reverendfather, straw. "

An armful of this the good man brought him, and then showed Rodriguezto his room; and they can scarcely have reached it before Morano wasback in Aragon again, walking on golden shoes (which were sometimeswings), proud among lesser princes. 

As precaution for the night Rodriguez took one more glance at hishost's kind face; and then, with sword out of reach and an unlockeddoor, he slept till the songs of birds out of the deeps of the ilicesmade sleep any longer impossible. 

The third morning of Rodriguez' wandering blazed over Spain like brass;flowers and grass and sky were twinkling all together. 

When Rodriguez greeted his host Morano was long astir, having awakenedwith dawn, for the simpler and humbler the creature the nearer it isakin to the earth and the sun. The forces that woke the birds andopened the flowers stirred the gross lump of Morano, ending his sleepas they ended the nightingale's song. 

They breakfasted hurriedly and Rodriguez rose to depart, feeling thathe had taken hospitality that had not been offered. But against hisdeparture was the barrier of all the politeness of Spain. The house washis, said his host, and even the small grove of ilices. 

If I told you half of the things that the reverend man said, you wouldsay: "This writer is affected. I do not like all this flowery mush. " Ithink it safer, my reader, not to tell you any of it. Let us supposethat he merely said, "Quite all right, " and that when Rodriguez thankedhim on one knee he answered, "Not at all;" and that so Rodriguez andMorano left. If here it miss some flash of the fair form of Truth it isthe fault of the age I write for. 

The road again, dust again, birds and the blaze of leaves, these werethe background of my wanderers, until the eye had gone as far as theeye can roam, and there were the tips of some far pale-blue mountainsthat now came into view. 

They were still in each other's clothes; but the village was not behindthem very far when Morano explained, for he knew the ways of la Garda, that having arrested two men upon this road, they would now arrest twomen each on all the other roads, in order to show the impartiality ofthe Law, which constantly needs to be exhibited; and that therefore allmen were safe on the road they were on for a long while to come. 

Now there seemed to Rodriguez to be much good sense in what Morano hadsaid; and so indeed there was for they had good laws in Spain, and theydiffered little, though so long ago, from our own excellent system. Therefore they changed once more, giving back to each other everythingbut, alas, those delicate black moustachios; and these to Rodriguezseemed gone for ever, for the growth of new ones seemed so far ahead tothe long days of youth that his hopes could scarce reach to them. 

When Morano found himself once more in those clothes that had been withhim night and day for so many years he seemed to expand; I mean nometaphor here; he grew visibly fatter. 

"Ah, " said Morano after a huge breath, "last night I dreamed, in yourillustrious clothes, that I was in lofty station. And now, master, I amcomfortable. "

"Which were best, think you, " said Rodriguez, "if you could have butone, a lofty place or comfort?" Even in those days such a question wastrite, but Rodriguez uttered it only thinking to dip in the store ofMorano's simple wisdom, as one may throw a mere worm to catch a worthyfish. But in this he was disappointed; for Morano made no neatcomparison nor even gave an opinion, saying only, "Master, while I havecomfort how shall I judge the case of any who have not?" And no morewould he say. His new found comfort, lost for a day and night, seemedso to have soothed his body that it closed the gates of the mind, astoo much luxury may, even with poets. 

And now Rodriguez thought of his quest again, and the two of thempushed on briskly to find the wars. 

For an hour they walked in silence an empty road. And then they cameupon a row of donkeys; piled high with the bark of the cork-tree, thatmen were bringing slowly from far woods. Some of the men were singingas they went. They passed slow in the sunshine. 

"Oh, master, " said Morano when they were gone, "I like not thatlascivious loitering. "

"Why, Morano?" said Rodriguez. "It was not God that made hurry. "

"Master, " answered Morano, "I know well who made hurry. And may he notovertake my soul at the last. Yet it is bad for our fortunes that thesemen should loiter thus. You want your castle, master; and I, I want notalways to wander roads, with la Garda perhaps behind and no certainplace to curl up and sleep in front. I look for a heap of straw in thecellar of your great castle. "

"Yes, yes, you shall have it, " his master said, "but how do these folkshinder you?" For Morano was scowling at them over his shoulder in a waythat was somehow spoiling the gladness of Spring. 

"The air is full of their singing, " Morano said. "It is as though theirsouls were already flying to Hell, and cawing hoarse with sin all theway as they go. And they loiter, and they linger. . . " Oh, but Morano wasangry. 

"But, " said Rodriguez, "how does their lingering harm you?"

"Where are the wars, master? Where are the wars?" blurted Morano, hisround face turning redder. "The donkeys would be dead, the men would berunning, there would be shouts, cries, and confusion, if the wars wereanywhere near. There would be all things but this. "

The men strolled on singing and so passed slow into distance. Moranowas right, though I know not how he knew. 

And now the men and the donkeys were nearly out of sight, but had notyet at all emerged from the wrath of Morano. "Lascivious knaves, "muttered that disappointed man. And whenever he faintly heard dimsnatches of their far song that a breeze here, and another there, brought over the plain as it ran on the errands of Spring, he cursedtheir sins under his breath. Though it seemed not so much their sinsthat moved his wrath as the leisure they had for committing them. 

"Peace, peace, Morano, " said Rodriguez. 

"It is that, " said Morano, "that is troubling me. "

"What?"

"This same peace. "

"Morano, " said Rodriguez, "I had when young to study the affairs ofmen; and this is put into books, and so they make history. Now Ilearned that there is no thing in which men have taken delight, that isever put away from them; for it seems that time, which altereth everycustom, hath altered none of our likings: and in every chapter theytaught me there were these wars to be found. "

"Master, the times are altered, " said Morano sadly. "It is not now asin old days. "

And this was not the wisdom of Morano, for anger had clouded hisjudgment. And a faint song came yet from the donkey-drivers, waveringover the flowers. 

"Master, " Morano said, "there are men like those vile sin-mongers, whohave taken delight in peace. It may be that peace has been brought uponthe world by one of these lousy likings. "

"The delight of peace, " said Rodriguez, "is in its contrast to war. Ifwar were banished this delight were gone. And man lost none of hisdelights in any chapter I read. "

The word and the meaning of CONTRAST were such as is understood byreflective minds, the product of education. Morano felt rather thanreflected; and the word CONTRAST meant nothing to him. This ended theirconversation. And the songs of the donkey-drivers, light though theywere, being too heavy to be carried farther by the idle air of Spring, Morano ceased cursing their sins. 

And now the mountains rose up taller, seeming to stretch themselves andraise their heads. In a while they seemed to be peering over the plain. They that were as pale ghosts, far off, dim like Fate, in the earlypart of the morning, now appeared darker, more furrowed, more sinister, more careworn; more immediately concerned with the affairs of Earth, and so more menacing to earthly things. 

Still they went on and still the mountains grew. And noon came, whenSpain sleeps. 

And now the plain was altering, as though cool winds from the mountainsbrought other growths to birth, so that they met with bushes stragglingwild; free, careless and mysterious, as they do, where there is none toteach great Nature how to be tidy. 

The wanderers chose a clump of these that were gathered near the way, like gypsies camped awhile midway on a wonderful journey, who at dawnwill rise and go, leaving but a bare trace of their resting and noguess of their destiny; so fairy-like, so free, so phantasmal thosedark shrubs seemed. 

Morano lay down on the very edge of the shade of one, and Rodriguez layfair in the midst of the shade of another, whereby anyone passing thatway would have known which was the older traveller. Morano, accordingto his custom, was asleep almost immediately; but Rodriguez, withwonder and speculation each toying with novelty and pulling itdifferent ways between them, stayed awhile wakeful. Then he too slept, and a bird thought it safe to return to an azalea of its own; which itlately fled from troubled by the arrival of these two. 

And Rodriguez the last to sleep was the first awake, for the shade ofthe shrub left him, and he awoke in the blaze of the sun to see Moranostill sheltered, well in the middle now of the shadow he chose. Thegross sleep of Morano I will not describe to you, reader. I have chosena pleasant tale for you in a happy land, in the fairest time of year, in a golden age: I have youth to show you and an ancient sword, birds, flowers and sunlight, in a plain unharmed by any dream of commerce: whyshould I show you the sleep of that inelegant man whose bulk laycumbering the earth like a low, unseemly mountain?

Rodriguez overtook the shade he had lost and lay there resting untilMorano awoke, driven all at once from sleep by a dream or by merechoking. Then from the intricacies of his clothing, which to him afterthose two days was what home is to some far wanderer, Morano drew outonce more a lump of bacon. Then came the fry-pan and then a fire: itwas the Wanderers' Mess. That mess-room has stood in many lands and hasonly one roof. We are proud of that roof, all we who belong to thatMess. We boast of it when we show it to our friends when it is all setout at night. It has Aldebaran in it, the Bear and Orion, and at theother end the Southern Cross. Yes we are proud of our roof when it isat its best. 

What am I saying? I should be talking of bacon. Yes, but there is a wayof cooking it in our Mess that I want to tell you and cannot. I'vetasted bacon there that isn't the same as what you get at the Ritz. AndI want to tell you how that bacon tastes; and I can't so I talk aboutstars. But perhaps you are one of us, reader, and then you willunderstand. Only why the hell don't we get back there again where theEvening Star swings low on the wall of the Mess?

When they rose from table, when they got up from the earth, and thefrying-pan was slung on Morano's back, adding grease to the meresurface of his coat whose texture could hold no more, they pushed onbriskly for they saw no sign of houses, unless what Rodriguez saw nowdimly above a ravine were indeed a house in the mountains. 

They had walked from eight till noon without any loitering. They musthave done fifteen miles since the mountains were pale blue. And now, every mile they went, on the most awful of the dark ridges the objectRodriguez saw seemed more and more like a house. Yet neither then, noras they drew still nearer, nor when they saw it close, nor looking backon it after years, did it somehow seem quite right. And Moranosometimes crossed himself as he looked at it, and said nothing. 

Rodriguez, as they walked ceaselessly through the afternoon, seeing hisservant show some sign of weariness, which comes not to youth, pointedout the house looking nearer than it really was on the mountain, andtold him that he should find there straw, and they would sup and staythe night. Afterwards, when the strange appearance of the house, varying with different angles, filled him with curious forebodings, Rodriguez would make no admission to his servant, but held to the planhe had announced, and so approached the queer roofs, neglecting thefriendly stars. 

Through the afternoon the two travellers pushed on mostly in silence, for the glances that house seemed to give him from the edge of itsperilous ridge, had driven the mirth from Rodriguez and had evenchecked the garrulity on the lips of the tougher Morano, if garrulitycan be ascribed to him whose words seldom welled up unless some simplephilosophy troubled his deeps. The house seemed indeed to glance athim, for as their road wound on, the house showed different aspects, different walls and edges of walls, and different curious roofs; allthese walls seemed to peer at him. One after another they peered, newones glided imperceptibly into sight as though to say, We see too. 

The mountains were not before them but a little to the right of theirpath, until new ones appeared ahead of them like giants arising fromsleep, and then their path seemed blocked as though by a mighty wallagainst which its feeble wanderings went in vain. In the end it turneda bit to its right and went straight for a dark mountain, where a wildtrack seemed to come down out of the rocks to meet it, and upon thistrack looked down that sinister house. Had you been there, my reader, you would have said, any of us had said, Why not choose some otherhouse? There were no other houses. He who dwelt on the edge of theravine that ran into that dark mountain was wholly without neighbours. 

And evening came, and still they were far from the mountain. 

The sun set on their left. But it was in the eastern sky that thegreater splendour was; for the low rays streaming across lit up somestormy clouds that were brooding behind the mountain and turned theirgloomy forms to an astounding purple. 

And after this their road began to rise toward the ridges. Themountains darkened and the sinister house was about to emerge withtheir shadows, when he who dwelt there lit candles. 

The act astonished the wayfarers. All through half the day they hadseen the house, until it seemed part of the mountains; evil it seemedlike their ridges, that were black and bleak and forbidding, andstrange it seemed with a strangeness that moved no fears they couldname, yet it seemed inactive as night. 

Now lights appeared showing that someone moved. Window after windowshowed to the bare dark mountain its gleaming yellow glare; there inthe night the house forsook the dark rocks that seemed kin to it, byglowing as they could never glow, by doing what the beasts that hauntedthem could not do: this was the lair of man. Here was the light offlame but the rocks remained dark and cold as the wind of night thatwent over them, he who dwelt now with the lights had forsaken therocks, his neighbours. 

And, when all were lit, one light high in a tower shone green. Theselights appearing out of the mountain thus seemed to speak to Rodriguezand to tell him nothing. And Morano wondered, as he seldom troubled todo. 

They pushed on up the steepening path. 

"Like you the looks of it?" said Rodriguez once. 

"Aye, master, " answered Morano, "so there be straw. "

"You see nothing strange there, then?" Rodriguez said. 

"Master, " Morano said, "there be saints for all requirements. "

Any fears he had felt about that house before, now as he neared it weregone; it was time to put away fears and face the event; thus workedMorano's philosophy. And he turned his thoughts to the achievementsupon earth of a certain Saint who met Satan, and showed to thesovereign of Hell a discourtesy alien to the ways of the Church. 

It was dark now, and the yellow lights got larger as they drew nearerthe windows, till they saw large shadows obscurely passing from room toroom. The ascent was steep now and the pathway stopped. No track of anykind approached the house. It stood on a precipice-edge as though oneof the rocks of the mountain: they climbed over rocks to reach it. Thewindows flickered and blinked at them. 

Nothing invited them there in the look of that house, but they were nowin such a forbidding waste that shelter had to be found; they were allamong edges of rock as black as the night and hard as the material ofwhich Cosmos was formed, at first upon Chaos' brink. The sound of theirclimbing ran noisily up the mountain but no sound came from the house:only the shadows moved more swiftly across a room, passed into otherrooms and came hurrying back. Sometimes the shadows stayed and seemedto peer; and when the travellers stood and watched to see what theywere they would disappear and there were no shadows at all, and therooms were filled instead with their wondering speculation. Then theypushed on over rocks that seemed never trodden by man, so sharp werethey and slanting, all piled together: it seemed the last waste, towhich all shapeless rocks had been thrown. 

Morano and these black rocks seemed shaped by a different scheme;indeed the rocks had never been shaped at all, they were just rawpieces of Chaos. Morano climbed over their edges with moans anddiscomfort. Rodriguez heard him behind him and knew by his moans whenhe came to the top of each sharp rock. 

The rocks became savager, huger, even more sharp and more angular. Theywere there in the dark in multitudes. Over these Rodriguez staggered, and Morano clambered and tumbled; and so they came, breathing hard, tothe lonely house. 

In the wall that their hands had reached there was no door, so theyfelt along it till they came to the corner, and beyond the corner wasthe front wall of the house. In it was the front door. But so nearlydid this door open upon the abyss that the bats that fled from theircoming, from where they hung above the door of oak, had little more todo than fall from their crannies, slanting ever so slightly, to findthemselves safe from man in the velvet darkness, that lay betweencliffs so lonely they were almost strangers to Echo. And here theyfloated upon errands far from our knowledge; while the travellerscoming along the rocky ledge between destruction and shelter, knockedon the oaken door. 

The sound of their knocking boomed huge and slow through the house asthough they had struck the door of the very mountain. And no one came. And then Rodriguez saw dimly in the darkness the great handle of abell, carved like a dragon running down the wall: he pulled it and acry of pain arose from the basement of the house. 

Even Morano wondered. It was like a terrible spirit in distress. It waslong before Rodriguez dare touch the handle again. Could it have beenthe bell? He felt the iron handle and the iron chain that went up fromit. How could it have been the bell! The bell had not sounded: he hadnot pulled hard enough: that scream was fortuitous. The night on thatrocky ledge had jangled his nerves. He pulled again and more firmly. The answering scream was more terrible. Rodriguez could doubt nolonger, as he sprang back from the bell-handle, that with the chain hehad pulled he inflicted some unknown agony. 

The scream had awakened slow steps that now came towards thetravellers, down corridors, as it sounded, of stone. And then chainsfell on stone and the door of oak was opened by some one older thanwhat man hopes to come to, with small, peaked lips as those of somewoodland thing. 

"Seņores, " the old one said, "the Professor welcomes you. "

They stood and stared at his age, and Morano blurted uncouthly whatboth of them felt. "You are old, grandfather, " he said. 

"Ah, Seņores, " the old man sighed, "the Professor does not allow me tobe young. I have been here years and years but he never allowed it. Ihave served him well but it is still the same. I say to him, 'Master, Ihave served you long . . . ' but he interrupts me for he will have none ofyouth. Young servants go among the villages, he says. And so, and so. . . "

"You do not think your master can give you youth!" said Rodriguez. 

The old man knew that he had talked too much, voicing that grievanceagain of which even the rocks were weary. "Yes, " he said briefly, andbowed and led the way into the house. In one of the corridors runningout of the hall down which he was leading silently, Rodriguez overtookthat old man and questioned him to his face. 

"Who is this professor?" he said. 

By the light of a torch that spluttered in an iron clamp on the wallRodriguez questioned him with these words, and Morano with hiswondering, wistful eyes. The old man halted and turned half round, andlifted his head and answered. "In the University of Saragossa, " he saidwith pride, "he holds the Chair of Magic. "

Even the names of Oxford or Cambridge, Harvard or Yale or Princeton, move some respect, and even yet in these unlearned days. What wonderthen that the name of Saragossa heard on that lonely mountain awoke inRodriguez some emotion of reverence and even awed Morano. As for theChair of Magic, it was of all the royal endowments of that illustriousUniversity the most honoured and dreaded. 

"At Saragossa!" Rodriguez muttered. 

"At Saragossa, " the old man affirmed. 

Between that ancient citadel of learning and this most savage mountainappeared a gulf scarce to be bridged by thought. 

"The Professor rests in his mountain, " the old man said, "because of aconjunction of the stars unfavourable to study, and his class have goneto their homes for many weeks. " He bowed again and led on along thatcorridor of dismal stone. The others followed, and still as Rodriguezwent that famous name Saragossa echoed within his mind. 

And then they came to a door set deep in the stone, and their guideopened it and they went in; and there was the Professor in a mysticalhat and a robe of dim purple, seated with his back to them at a table, studying the ways of the stars. "Welcome, Don Rodriguez, " said theProfessor before he turned round; and then he rose, and with smallsteps backwards and sideways and many bows, he displayed all thoseformulae of politeness that Saragossa knew in the golden age and whichher professors loved to execute. In later years they became moreelaborate still, and afterwards were lost. 

Rodriguez replied rather by instinct than knowledge; he came of a housewhose bows had never missed graceful ease and which had in somegenerations been a joy to the Court of Spain. Morano followed behindhim; but his servile presence intruded upon that elaborate ceremony, and the Professor held up his hand, and Morano was held in mid strideas though the air had gripped him. There he stood motionless, havingnever felt magic before. And when the Professor had welcomed Rodriguezin a manner worthy of the dignity of the Chair that he held atSaragossa, he made an easy gesture and Morano was free again. 

"Master, " said Morano to the Professor, as soon as he found he couldmove, "master, it looks like magic. " Picture to yourself some yokelshown into the library of a professor of Greek at Oxford, taking downfrom a shelf one of the books of the Odyssey, and saying to theProfessor, "It looks like Greek"!

Rodriguez felt grieved by Morano's boorish ignorance. Neither he norhis host answered him. 

The Professor explained that he followed the mysteries dimly, owing toa certain aspect of Orion, and that therefore his class were gone totheir homes and were hunting; and so he studied alone underunfavourable auspices. And once more he welcomed Rodriguez to his roof, and would command straw to be laid down for the man that Rodriguez hadbrought from the Inn of the Dragon and Knight; for he, the Professor, saw all things, though certain stars would hide everything. 

And when Rodriguez had appropriately uttered his thanks, he added withall humility and delicate choice of phrase a petition that he might beshown some mere rudiment of the studies for which that illustriouschair in Saragossa was famous. The Professor bowed again and, inaccepting the well-rounded compliments that Rodriguez paid to thehonoured post he occupied, he introduced himself by name. He had beenonce, he said, the Count of the Mountain, but when his astral studieshad made him eminent and he had mastered the ways of the planet nearestthe sun he took the title Magister Mercurii, and by this had long beenknown; but had now forsaken this title, great as it was, for a moreglorious nomenclature, and was called in the Arabic language the Slaveof Orion. When Rodriguez heard this he bowed very low. 

And now the Professor asked Rodriguez in which of the activities oflife his interest lay; for the Chair of Magic at Saragossa, he said, was concerned with them all. 

"In war, " said Rodriguez. 

And Morano unostentatiously rubbed his hands; for here was one, hethought, who would soon put his master on the right way, and matterswould come to a head and they would find the wars. But far fromconcerning himself with the wars of that age, the Slave of Orionexplained that as events came nearer they became grosser or morematerial, and that their grossness did not leave them until they weresome while passed away; so that to one whose studies were withaetherial things, near events were opaque and dim. He had a window, heexplained, through which Rodriguez should see clearly the ancient wars, while another window beside it looked on all wars of the future exceptthose which were planned already or were coming soon to earth, andwhich were either invisible or seen dim as through mist. 

Rodriguez said that to be privileged to see so classical an example ofmagic would be to him both a delight and honour. Yet, as is the way ofyouth, he more desired to have a sight of the wars than he cared forall the learning of the Professor. 

And to him who held the Chair of Magic at Saragossa it was a preciousthing that his windows could be made to show these marvels, while theguest to whom he was about to display these two gems of his learningwas thinking of little but what he should see through the windows, andnot at all of what spells, what midnight oil, what incantations, whatwitchcrafts, what lonely hours among bats, had gone to thegratification of his young curiosity. It is usually thus. 

The Professor rose: his cloak floated out from him as he left thechamber, and Rodriguez following where he guided saw, by the torchlightin the corridors, upon the dim purple border signs that, to hisuntutored ignorance of magic, were no more than hints of the affairs ofthe Zodiac. And if these signs were obscure it were better they wereobscurer, for they dealt with powers that man needs not to possess, whohas the whole earth to regulate and control; why then should he seek togovern the course of any star?

And Morano followed behind them, hoping to be allowed to get a sight ofthe wars. 

They came to a room where two round windows were; each of them largerthan the very largest plate, and of very thick glass indeed, and of awonderful blue. The blue was like the blue of the Mediterranean atevening, when lights are in it both of ships and of sunset, and lightsof harbours being lit one by one, and the light of Venus perhaps andabout two other stars, so deeply did it stare and so twinkled, near itsedges, with lights that were strange to that room, and so triumphedwith its clear beauty over the night outside. No, it was more magicalthan the Mediterranean at evening, even though the peaks of theEsterels be purple and their bases melting in gold and the blue sealying below them smiling at early stars: these windows were moremysterious than that; it was a more triumphant blue; it was like theMediterranean seen with the eyes of Shelley, on a happy day in hisyouth, or like the sea round Western islands of fable seen by the fancyof Keats. They were no windows for any need of ours, unless our dreamsbe needs, unless our cries for the moon be urged by the same Necessityas makes us cry for bread. They were clearly concerned only with magicor poetry; though the Professor claimed that poetry was but a branch ofhis subject; and it was so regarded at Saragossa, where it was taughtby the name of theoretical magic, while by the name of practical magicthey taught dooms, brews, hauntings, and spells. 

The Professor stood before the left-hand window and pointed to itsdeep-blue centre. "Through this, " he said, "we see the wars that were. "

Rodriguez looked into the deep-blue centre where the great bulge of theglass came out towards him; it was near to the edges where the glassseemed thinner that the little strange lights were dancing; Moranodared to tiptoe a little nearer. Rodriguez looked and saw no nightoutside. Just below and near to the window was white mist, and the dimlines and smoke of what may have been recent wars; but farther away ona plain of strangely vast dimensions he saw old wars that were. Warafter war he saw. Battles that long ago had passed into history and hadbeen for many ages skilled, glorious and pleasant encounters he saweven now tumbling before him in their savage confusion and dirt. He sawa leader, long glorious in histories he had read, looking roundpuzzled, to see what was happening, and in a very famous fight that hehad planned very well. He saw retreats that History called routs, androuts that he had seen History calling retreats. He saw men winningvictories without knowing they had won. Never had man pried before soshamelessly upon History, or found her such a liar. With his eyes onthe great blue glass Rodriguez forgot the room, forgot time, forgot hishost and poor excited Morano, as he watched those famous fights. 

And now my reader wishes to know what he saw and how it was that he wasable to see it. 

As regards the second, my reader will readily understand that thesecrets of magic are very carefully guarded, and any smatterings of itthat I may ever have come by I possess, for what they are worth, subjects to oaths and penalties at which even bad men shudder. Myreader will be satisfied that even those intimate bonds between readerand writer are of no use to him here. I say him as though I had onlymale readers, but if my reader be a lady I leave the situationconfidently to her intuition. As for the things he saw, of all of theseI am at full liberty to write, and yet, my reader, they would differfrom History's version: never a battle that Rodriguez saw on all theplain that swept away from that circular window, but History wrotedifferently. And now, my reader, the situation is this: who am I?History was a goddess among the Greeks, or is at least a distinguishedpersonage, perhaps with a well-earned knighthood, and certainly withwidespread recognition amongst the Right Kind of People. I have none ofthese things. Whom, then, would you believe?

Yet I would lay my story confidently before you, my reader, trusting inthe justice of my case and in your judicial discernment, but for oneother thing. What will the Goddess Clio say, or the well-deservingknight, if I offend History? She has stated her case, Sir Bartimeus haswritten it, and then so late in the day I come with a different story, a truer but different story. What will they do? Reader, the future isdark, uncertain and long; I dare not trust myself to it if I offendHistory. Clio and Sir Bartimeus will make hay of my reputation; aninnuendo here, a foolish fact there, they know how to do it, and not asoul will suspect the goddess of personal malice or the great historianof pique. Rodriguez gazed then through the deep blue window, forgetfulof all around, on battles that had not all the elegance or neatness ofwhich our histories so tidily tell. And as he gazed upon a merryencounter between two men on the fringe of an ancient fight he felt atouch on his shoulder and then almost a tug, and turning round beheldthe room he was in. How long he had been absent from it in thought hedid not know, but the Professor was still standing with folded armswhere he had left him, probably well satisfied with the wonder that hismost secret art had awakened in his guest. It was Morano who touchedhis shoulder, unable to hold back any longer his impatience to see thewars; his eyes as Rodriguez turned round were gazing at his master withdog-like wistfulness. 

The absurd eagerness of Morano, his uncouth touch on his shoulder, seemed only pathetic to Rodriguez. He looked at the Professor's face, the nose like a hawk's beak, the small eyes deep down beside it, darkof hue and dreadfully bright, the silent lips. He stood there utteringno actual prohibition, concerning which Rodriguez's eyes had sought;so, stepping aside from his window, Rodriguez beckoned Morano, who atonce ran forward delighted to see those ancient wars. 

A slight look of scorn showed faint upon the Professor's face such asyou may see anywhere when a master-craftsman perceives the gaze of theignorant turned towards his particular subject. But he said no word, and soon speech would have been difficult, for the loud clamour ofMorano filled the room: he had seen the wars and his ecstasies wereungoverned. As soon as he saw those fights he looked for the Infidels, for his religious mind most loved to see the Infidel slain. And if myreader discern or suppose some gulf between religion and the recentbusiness of the Inn of the Dragon and Knight, Morano, if driven toadmit any connection between murder and his daily bread, would havesaid, "All the more need then for God's mercy through the intercessionof His most blessed Saints. " But these words had never passed Morano'slips, for shrewd as he was in enquiry into any matter that he desiredto know, his shrewdness was no less in avoiding enquiry where theremight be something that he desired not to know, such as the origin ofhis wages as servant of the Inn of the Dragon and Knight, thosedelicate gold rings with settings empty of jewels. 

Morano soon recognized the Infidel by his dress, and after that noother wars concerned him. He slapped his thigh, he shoutedencouragement, he howled vile words of abuse, partly because hebelieved that this foul abuse was rightly the due of the Infidel, andpartly because he believed it delighted God. 

Rodriguez stood and watched, pleased at the huge joy of the simple man. The Slave of Orion stood watching in silence too, but who knows if hefelt pleasure or any other emotion? Perhaps his mind was simply likeours; perhaps, as has been claimed by learned men of the best-informedperiod, that mind had some control upon the comet, even when farthestout from the paths we know. Morano turned round for a moment toRodriguez:

"Good wars, master, good wars, " he said with a vast zest, and at oncehis head was back again at that calm blue window. In that flash of thehead Rodriguez had seen his eyes, blue, round and bulging; the roundman was like a boy who in some shop window has seen, unexpected, hugeforbidden sweets. Clearly, in the war he watched things were going wellfor the Cross, for such cries came from Morano as "A pretty stroke, ""There now, the dirty Infidel, " "Now see God's power shown, " "Spare himnot, good knight; spare him not, " and many more, till, uttered fasterand faster, they merged into mere clamorous rejoicing. 

But the battles beyond the blue window seemed to move fast, and now achange was passing across Morano's rejoicings. It was not that he sworemore for the cause of the Cross, but brief, impatient, meaninglessoaths slipped from him now; he was becoming irritable; a puzzled look, so far as Rodriguez could see, was settling down on his features. For awhile he was silent except for the little, meaningless oaths. Then heturned round from the glass, his hands stretched out, his face full ofurgent appeal. 

"Masters, " he said, "God's enemy wins!"

In answer to Morano's pitiful look Rodriguez' hand went to hissword-hilt; the Slave of Orion merely smiled with his lips; Moranostood there with his hands still stretched out, his face still allappeal, and something more for there was reproach in his eyes that mencould tarry while the Cross was in danger and the Infidel lived. He didnot know that it was all finished and over hundreds of years ago, apage of history upon which many pages were turned, and which lay asunalterable as the fate of some warm swift creature of early Eocenedays over whose fossil today the strata lie long and silent. 

"But can nothing be done, master?" he said when Rodriguez told himthis. And when Rodriguez failed him here, he turned away from thewindow. To him the Infidel were game, but to see them defeatingChristian knights violated the deeps of his feelings. 

Morano sulky excited little more notice from his host and his masterwho had watched his rejoicings, and they seem to have forgotten thishumble champion of Christendom. The Professor slightly bowed toRodriguez and extended a graceful hand. He pointed to the other window. 

Reader, your friend shows you his collection of stamps, his fossils, his poems, or his luggage labels. One of them interests you, you lookat it awhile, you are ready to go away: then your friend shows youanother. This also must be seen; for your friend's collection is aprecious thing; it is that point upon huge Earth on which his spirithas lit, on which it rests, on which it shelters even (who knows fromwhat storms?). To slight it were to weaken such hold as his spirit has, in its allotted time, upon this sphere. It were like breaking the twigof a plant upon which a butterfly rests, and on some stormy day andlate in the year. 

Rodriguez felt all this dimly, but no less surely; and went to theother window. 

Below the window were those wars that were soon coming to Spain, hoodedin mist and invisible. In the centre of the window swam as profound ablue, dwindling to paler splendour at the edge, the wandering lightswere as lovely, as in the other window just to the left; but in theview from the right-hand window how sombre a difference. A bare yardseparated the two. Through the window to the left was colour, courtesy, splendour; there was Death as least disguising himself, well cloaked, taking mincing steps, bowing, wearing a plume in his hat and a decentmask. In the right-hand window all the colours were fading, war afterwar they grew dimmer; and as the colours paled Death's sole purposeshowed clearer. Through the beautiful left-hand window were killings tobe seen, and less mercy than History supposes, yet some of the fighterswere merciful, and mercy was sometimes a part of Death's courtly pose, which went with the cloak and the plume. But in the other windowthrough that deep, beautiful blue Rodriguez saw Man make a new ally, anally who was only cruel and strong and had no purpose but killing, whohad no pretences or pose, no mask and no manner, but was only the slaveof Death and had no care but for his business. He saw it grow biggerand stronger. Heart it had none, but he saw its cold steel corescheming methodical plans and dreaming always destruction. Before itfaded men and their fields and their houses. Rodriguez saw the machine. 

Many a proud invention of ours that Rodriguez saw raging on thatruinous plain he might have anticipated, but not for all Spain would hehave done so: it was for the sake of Spain that he was silent aboutmuch that he saw through that window. As he looked from war to war hesaw almost the same men fighting, men with always the same attitude tothe moment and with similar dim conception of larger, vaguer things;grandson differed imperceptibly from grandfather; he saw them fightsometimes mercifully, sometimes murderously, but in all the wars beyondthat twinkling window he saw the machine spare nothing. 

Then he looked farther, for the wars that were farthest from him intime were farther away from the window. He looked farther and saw theruins of Peronne. He saw them all alone with their doom at night, alldrenched in white moonlight, sheltering huge darkness in their strickenhollows. Down the white street, past darkness after darkness as he wentby the gaping rooms that the moon left mourning alone, Rodriguez saw acaptain going back to the wars in that far-future time, who turned hishead a moment as he passed, looking Rodriguez in the face, and so wenton through the ruins to find a floor on which to lie down for thenight. When he was gone the street was all alone with disaster, andmoonlight pouring down, and the black gloom in the houses. 

Rodriguez lifted his eyes and glanced from city to city, to Albert, Bapaume, and Arras, his gaze moved over a plain with its harvest ofdesolation lying forlorn and ungathered, lit by the flashing clouds andthe moon and peering rockets. He turned from the window and wept. 

The deep round window glowed with serene blue glory. It seemed afoolish thing to weep by that beautiful glass. Morano tried to comforthim. That calm, deep blue, he felt, and those little lights, surely, could hurt no one. 

What had Rodriguez seen? Morano asked. But that Rodriguez would notanswer, and told no man ever after what he had seen through that window. 

The Professor stood silent still: he had no comfort to offer; indeedhis magical wisdom had found none for the world. 

You wonder perhaps why the Professor did not give long ago to the worldsome of these marvels that are the pride of our age. Reader, let us putaside my tale for a moment to answer this. For all the darkness of hissinister art there may well have been some good in the Slave of Orion;and any good there was, and mere particle even, would surely havespared the world many of those inventions that our age has not sparedit. Blame not the age, it is now too late to stop; it is in the grip ofinventions now, and has to go on; we cannot stop content withmustard-gas; it is the age of Progress, and our motto is Onwards. Andif there was no good in this magical man, then may it not have been hewho in due course, long after he himself was safe from life, caused ourinventions to be so deadly divulged? Some evil spirit has done it, thenwhy not he?

He stood there silent: let us return to our story. 

Perhaps the efforts of poor clumsy Morano to comfort him cheeredRodriguez and sent him back to the window, perhaps he turned from themto find comfort of his own; but, however he came by it, he had a hopethat this was a passing curse that had come on the world, whose welfarehe cared for whether he lived or died, and that looking a littlefarther into the future he would see Mother Earth smiling and herchildren happy again. So he looked through the deep-blue luminouswindow once more, beyond the battles we know. From this he turned backshuddering. 

Again he saw the Professor smile with his lips, though whether at hisown weakness, or whether with cynical mirth at the fate of the world, Rodriguez could not say. 

THE FOURTH CHRONICLE

HOW HE CAME TO THE MOUNTAINS OF THE SUN

The Professor said that in curiosity alone had been found the seeds ofall that is needful for our damnation. Nevertheless, he said, ifRodriguez cared to see more of his mighty art the mysteries ofSaragossa were all at his guest's disposal. 

Rodriguez, sad and horrified though he was, forgot none of hiscourtesy. He thanked the Professor and praised the art of Saragossa, but his faith in man and his hope for the world having been newlydisappointed, he cared little enough for the things we should care tosee or for any of the amusements that are usually dear to youth. 

"I shall be happy to see anything, seņor, " he said to the Slave ofOrion, "that is further from our poor Earth, and to study therein andadmire your famous art. "

The Professor bowed. He drew small curtains over the windows, matchinghis cloak. Morano sought a glimpse through the right-hand window beforethe curtains covered it. Rodriguez held him back. Enough had been seenalready, he thought, through that window for the peace of mind of theworld: but he said no word to Morano. He held him by the arm, and theProfessor covered the windows. When the little mauve curtains weredrawn it seemed to Rodriguez that the windows behind them disappearedand were there no more; but this he only guessed from uncertainindications. 

Then the Professor drew forth his wand and went to his cupboard ofwonder. Thence he brought condiments, oils, and dews of amazement. These he poured into a vessel that was in the midst of the room, a bowlof agate standing alone on a table. He lit it and it all welled up inflame, a low broad flame of the colour of pale emerald. Over this hewaved his wand, which was of exceeding blackness. Morano watched aschildren watch the dancer, who goes from village to village when springis come, with some new dance out of Asia or some new song. [Footnote: Hedoesn't, but why shouldn't he?] Rodriguez sat and waited. The Professorexplained that to leave this Earth alive, or even dead, was prohibitedto our bodies, unless to a very few, whose names were hidden. Yet thespirits of men could by incantation be liberated, and being liberated, could be directed on journeys by such minds as had that power passeddown to them from of old. Such journeys, he said, were by no meansconfined by the hills of Earth. "The Saints, " exclaimed Morano, "guardus utterly!" But Rodriguez smiled a little. His faith was given to theSaints of Heaven. He wondered at their wonders, he admired theirmiracles, he had little faith to spare for other marvels; in fact hedid not believe the Slave of Orion. 

"Do you desire such a journey?" said the Professor. 

"It will delight me, " answered Rodriguez, "to see this example of yourart. "

"And you?" he said to Morano. 

The question seemed to alarm the placid Morano, but "I follow mymaster, " he said. 

At once the Professor stretched out his ebony wand, calling the greenflame higher. Then he put out his hands over the flame, without thewand, moving them slowly with constantly tremulous fingers. And all atonce they heard him begin to speak. His deep voice flowed musicallywhile he scarcely seemed to be speaking but seemed only to be concernedwith moving his hands. It came soft, as though blown faint fromfabulous valleys, illimitably far from the land of Spain. It seemedfull not so much of magic as mere sleep, either sleep in an unknowncountry of alien men, or sleep in a land dreamed sleeping a long whilesince. As the travellers heard it they thought of things far away, ofmythical journeys and their own earliest years. 

They did not know what he said or what language he used. At firstRodriguez thought Moorish, then he deemed it some secret language comedown from magicians of old, while Morano merely wondered; and then theywere lulled by the rhythm of those strange words, and so enquired nomore. Rodriguez pictured some sad wandering angel, upon somemountain-peak of African lands, resting a moment and talking to thesolitudes, telling the lonely valley the mysteries of his home. Whilelulled though Morano was he gave up his alertness uneasily. All thewhile the green flame flooded upwards: all the while the tremulousfingers made curious shadows. The shadow seemed to run to Rodriguez andbeckon him thence: even Morano felt them calling. Rodriguez closed hiseyes. The voice and the Moorish spells made now a more haunting melody:they were now like a golden organ on undiscoverable mountains. Fearcame on Morano at the thought: who had power to speak like this? Hegrasped Rodriguez by the wrist. "Master!" he said, but at that momenton one of those golden spells the spirit of Rodriguez drifted away fromhis body, and out of the greenish light of the curious room; unhamperedby weight, or fatigue, or pain, or sleep; and it rose above the rocksand over the mountain, an unencumbered spirit: and the spirit of Moranofollowed. 

The mountain dwindled at once; the Earth swept out all round them andgrew larger, and larger still, and then began to dwindle. They saw thenthat they were launched upon some astounding journey. Does my readerwonder they saw when they had no eyes? They saw as they had never seenbefore, with sight beyond what they had ever thought to be possible. Our eyes gather in light, and with the little rays of light that theybring us we gather a few images of things as we suppose them to be. Pardon me, reader, if I call them things as we suppose them to be; callthem by all means Things As They Really Are, if you wish. These imagesthen, this tiny little brainful that we gather from the immensities, are all brought in by our eyesight upside-down, and the brain correctsthem again; and so, and so we know something. An oculist will tell youhow it all works. He may admit it is all a little clumsy, or for thedignity of his profession he may say it is not at all. But be this asit may, our eyes are but barriers between us and the immensities. Allour five senses that grope a little here and touch a little there, andseize, and compare notes, and get a little knowledge sometimes, theyare only barriers between us and what there is to know. Rodriguez andMorano were outside these barriers. They saw without the imperfectionsof eyesight; they heard on that journey what would have deafened ears;they went through our atmosphere unburned by speed, and were unchilledin the bleak of the outer spaces. Thus freed of the imperfections ofthe body they sped, no less upon a terrible journey, whose direction asyet Rodriguez only began to fear. 

They had seen the stars pale rapidly and then the flash of dawn. TheSun rushed up and at once began to grow larger. Earth, with her curvedsides still diminishing violently, was soon a small round garden inblue and filmy space, in which mountains were planted. And still theSun was growing wider and wider. And now Rodriguez, though he knewnothing of Sun or planets, perceived the obvious truth of theirterrible journey: they were heading straight for the Sun. But thespirit of Morano was merely astounded; yet, being free of the body hesuffered none of those inconveniences that perturbation may bring tous: spirits do not gasp, or palpitate, or weaken, or sicken. 

The dwindling Earth seemed now no more than the size of some unmappedisland seen from a mountain-top, an island a hundred yards or soacross, looking like a big table. 

Speed is comparative: compared to sound, their pace was beyondcomparison; nor could any modern projectile attain any velocitycomparable to it; even the speed of explosion was slow to it. And yetfor spirits they were moving slowly, who being independent of allmaterial things, travel with such velocities as that, for instance, ofthought. But they were controlled by one still dwelling on Earth, whoused material things, and the material that the Professor was using tohurl them upon their journey was light, the adaptation of which to thispurpose he had learned at Saragossa. At the pace of light they weretravelling towards the Sun. 

They crossed the path of Venus, far from where Venus then was, so thatshe scarcely seemed larger to them; Earth was but little bigger thanthe Evening Star, looking dim in that monstrous daylight. 

Crossing the path of Mercury, Mercury appeared huger than our Moon, anobject weirdly unnatural; and they saw ahead of them the terrific glarein which Mercury basks, from a Sun whose withering orb had more thandoubled its width since they came from the hills of Earth. And afterthis the Sun grew terribly larger, filling the centre of the sky, andspreading and spreading and spreading. It was now that they saw whatwould have dazzled eyes, would have burned up flesh and would haveshrivelled every protection that our scientists' ingenuity could havedevised even today. To speak of time there is meaningless. There isnothing in the empty space between the Sun and Mercury with which timeis at all concerned. Far less is there meaning in time wherever thespirits of men are under stress. A few minutes' bombardment in atrench, a few hours in a battle, a few weeks' travelling in a tracklesscountry; these minutes, these hours, these weeks can never be few. 

Rodriguez and Morano had been travelling about six or seven minutes, but it seems idle to say so. 

And then the Sun began to fill the whole sky in front of them. And inanother minute, if minutes had any meaning, they were heading for aboundless region of flame that, left and right, was everywhere, and nowtowered above them, and went below them into a flaming abyss. 

And now Morano spoke to Rodriguez. He thought towards him, andRodriguez was aware of his thinking: it is thus that spiritscommunicate. 

"Master, " he said, "when it was all spring in Spain, years ago when Iwas thin and young, twenty years gone at least; and the butterflieswere come, and song was everywhere; there came a maid bare-footed overa stream, walking through flowers, and all to pluck the anemones. " Howfair she seemed even now, how bright that far spring day. Morano toldRodriguez not with his blundering lips: they were closed and restingdeeply millions of miles away: he told him as spirits tell. And in thatclear communication Rodriguez saw all that shone in Morano's memory, the grace of the young girl's ankles, the thrill of Spring, theanemones larger and brighter than anemones ever were, the hawks stillin clear sky; earth happy and heaven blue, and the dreams of youthbetween. You would not have said, had you seen Morano's coarse fatbody, asleep in a chair in the Professor's room, that his spirittreasured such delicate, nymph-like, pastoral memories as now shoneclear to Rodriguez. No words the blunt man had ever been able to utterhad ever hinted that he sometimes thought like a dream of pictures byWatteau. And now in that awful space before the power of the terribleSun, spirit communed with spirit, and Rodriguez saw the beauty of thatfar day, framed all about the beauty of one young girl, just as it hadbeen for years in Morano's memory. How shall I tell with words whatspirit sang wordless to spirit? We poets may compete with each other inwords; but when spirits give up the purest gold of their store, thathas shone far down the road of their earthly journey, cheering tiredhearts and guiding mortal feet, our words shall barely interpret. 

Love, coming long ago over flowers in Spain, found Morano; words didnot tell the story, words cannot tell it; as a lake reflects a cloud inthe blue of heaven, so Rodriguez understood and felt and knew thismemory out of the days of Morano's youth. "And so, master, " saidMorano, "I sinned, and would indeed repent, and yet even now at thislast dread hour I cannot abjure that day; and this is indeed Hell, asthe good father said. "

Rodriguez tried to comfort Morano with such knowledge as he had ofastronomy, if knowledge it could be called. Indeed, if he had knownanything he would have perplexed Morano more, and his little pieces ofignorance were well adapted for comfort. But Morano had given up hope, having long been taught to expect this very fire: his spirit was nowiser than it had been on Earth, it was merely freed of theimperfections of the five senses and so had observation and expressionbeyond those of any artist the world has known. This was the naturalresult of being freed of the body; but he was not suddenly wiser; andso, as he moved towards this boundless flame, he expected every momentto see Satan charge out to meet him: and having no hope for the futurehe turned to the past and fondled the memory of that one spring day. His was a backsliding, unrepentant spirit. 

As that monstrous sea of flame grew ruthlessly larger Rodriguez felt nofear, for spirits have no fear of material things: but Morano feared. He feared as spirits fear spiritual things; he thought he neared thehome of vast spirits of evil and that the arena of conflict waseternity. He feared with a fear too great to be borne by bodies. Perhaps the fat body that slept on a chair on earth was troubled indreams by some echo of that fear that gripped the spirit so sorely. Andit may be from such far fears that all our nightmares come. 

When they had travelled nearly ten minutes from Earth and were about topass into the midst of the flame, that magician who controlled theirjourney halted them suddenly in Space, among the upper mountain-peaksof the Sun. There they hovered as the clouds hover that leave theircompanions and drift among crags of the Alps: below them those awfulmountains heaved and thundered. All Atlas, and Teneriffe, and lonelyKenia might have lain amongst them unnoticed. As often as theearthquake rocked their bases it loosened from near their summits wildavalanches of gold that swept down their flaming slopes withunthinkable tumult. As they watched, new mountains rode past them, crowned with their frightful flames; for, whether man knew it or not, the Sun was rotating, but the force of its gravity that swung theplanets had no grip upon spirits, who were held by the power of thattremendous spell that the Professor had learned one midnight atSaragossa from one of that dread line who have their secrets from asource that we do not know in a distant age. 

There is always something tremendous in the form of great mountains;but these swept by, not only huger than anything Earth knows, buttroubled by horrible commotions, as though overtaken in flight by someceaseless calamity. 

Rodriguez and Morano, as they looked at them, forgetting the gardens ofEarth, forgetting Spring and Summer and the sweet beneficence ofsunshine, felt that the purpose of Creation was evil! So shocking athought may well astound us here, where green hills slope to lawns orpeer at a peaceful sea; but there among the flames of those dreadfulpeaks the Sun seemed not the giver of joy and colour and life, but onlya catastrophe huger than everlasting war, a centre of hideous violenceand ruin and anger and terror. There came by mountains of copperburning everlasting, hurling up to unthinkable heights their mass ofemerald flame. And mountains of iron raged by and mountains of salt, quaking and thundering and clothed with their colours, the iron alwaysscarlet and the salt blue. And sometimes there came by pinnacles athousand miles high that from base to summit were fire, mountains ofpure flame that had no other substance. And these explosive mountains, born of thunder and earthquake, hurling down avalanches the size of ourcontinents, and drawing upward out of the deeps of the Sun new materialfor splendour and horror, this roaring waste, this extravagantdestruction, were necessary for every tint that our butterflies wear ontheir wings. Without those flaming ranges of mountains of iron theywould have no red to show; even the poppy could have no red for herpetals: without the flames that were blasting the mountains of saltthere could be no answering blue in any wing, or one blue flower forall the bees of Earth: without the nightmare light of those frightfulcanyons of copper that awed the two spirits watching their ceaselessruin, the very leaves of the woods we love would be without their greenwith which to welcome Spring; for from the flames of the various metalsand wonders that for ever blaze in the Sun, our sunshine gets all itscolours that it conveys to us almost unseen, and thence the wise littleinsects and patient flowers softly draw the gay tints that they gloryin; there is nowhere else to get them. 

And yet to Rodriguez and Morano all that they saw seemed wholly andhideously evil. 

How long they may have watched there they tried to guess afterwards, but as they looked on those terrific scenes they had no way to separatedays from minutes: nothing about them seemed to escape destruction, andtime itself seemed no calmer than were those shuddering mountains. 

Then the thundering ranges passed; and afterwards there came a gleamingmountain, one huge and lonely peak, seemingly all of gold. Had ourwhole world been set beside it and shaped as it was shaped, that goldenmountain would yet have towered above it: it would have taken our moonas well to reach that flashing peak. It rode on toward them in itsgolden majesty, higher than all the flames, save now and then when somewild gas seemed to flee from the dread earthquakes of the Sun, and wasovertaken in the height by fire, even above that mountain. 

As that mass of gold that was higher than all the world drew near toRodriguez and Morano they felt its unearthly menace; and though itcould not overcome their spirits they knew there was a hideous terrorabout it. It was in its awful scale that its terror lurked for anycreature of our planet. Though they could not quake or tremble theyfelt that terror. The mountain dwarfed Earth. 

Man knows his littleness, his own mountains remind him; many countriesare small, and some nations: but the dreams of Man make up for ourfaults and failings, for the brevity of our lives, for the narrownessof our scope; they leap over boundaries and are away and away. But thisgreat mountain belittled the world and all: who gazed on it knew allhis dreams to be puny. Before this mountain Man seemed a trivial thing, and Earth, and all the dreams Man had of himself and his home. 

The golden mass drew opposite those two watchers and seemed tochallenge with its towering head the pettiness of the tiny world theyknew. And then the whole gleaming mountain gave one shudder and fellinto the awful plains of the Sun. Straight down before Rodriguez andMorano it slipped roaring, till the golden peak was gone, and themolten plain closed over it; and only ripples remained, the size ofEurope, as when a tumbling river strikes the rocks of its bed and onits surface heaving circles widen and disappear. And then, as thoughthis horror left nothing more to be shown, they felt the Professorbeckon to them from Earth. 

Over the plains of the Sun a storm was sweeping in gusts of howlingflame as they felt the Professor's spell drawing them home. For themagnitude of that storm there are no words in use among us; itsvelocity, if expressed in figures, would have no meaning; its heat wasimmeasurable. Suffice it to say that if such a tempest could have sweptover Earth for a second, both the poles would have boiled. Thetravellers left it galloping over that plain, rippled from underneathby the restless earthquake and whipped into flaming foam by the forceof the storm. The Sun already was receding from them, already growingsmaller. Soon the storm seemed but a cloud of light sweeping over theempty plain, like a murderous mourner rushing swiftly away from thegrave of that mighty mountain. 

And now the Professor's spell gripped them in earnest: rapidly the Sungrew smaller. As swiftly as he had sent them upon that journey he wasnow drawing them home. They overtook thunders that they had heardalready, and passed them, and came again to the silent spaces which thethunders of the Sun are unable to cross, so that even Mercury isundisturbed by them. 

I have said that spirits neither fade nor weary. But a great sadnesswas on them; they felt as men feel who come whole away from periods ofperil. They had seen cataclysms too vast for our imagination, and amournfulness and a satiety were upon them. They could have gazed at oneflower for days and needed no other experience, as a wounded man may behappy staring at the flame of a candle. 

Crossing the paths of Mercury and Venus, they saw that these planetshad not appreciably moved, and Rodriguez, who knew that planets wanderin the night, guessed thereby that they had not been absent from Earthfor many hours. 

They rejoiced to see the Sun diminishing steadily. Only for a moment asthey started their journey had they seen that solar storm rushing overthe plains of the Sun; but now it appeared to hang halted in its midanger, as though blasting one region eternally. 

Moving on with the pace of light, they saw Earth, soon after crossingthe path of Venus, beginning to grow larger than a star. Never had homeappeared more welcome to wanderers, who see their house far off, returning home. 

And as Earth grew larger, and they began to see forms that seemed likeseas and mountains, they looked for their own country, but could notfind it: for, travelling straight from the Sun, they approached thatpart of the world that was then turned towards it, and were headingstraight for China, while Spain lay still in darkness. 

But when they came near Earth and its mountains were clear, then theProfessor drew them across the world, into the darkness and over Spain;so that those two spirits ended their marvellous journey much as thesnipe ends his, a drop out of heaven and a swoop low over marshes. Sothey came home, while Earth seemed calling to them with all her voices;with memories, sights and scents, and little sounds; calling anxiously, as though they had been too long away and must be home soon. They hearda cock crow on the edge of the night; they heard more little soundsthan words can say; only the organ can hint at them. It was Earthcalling. For, talk as we may of our dreams that transcend this sphere, or our hopes that build beyond it, Mother Earth has yet a mighty holdupon us; and her myriad sounds were blending in one cry now, knowingthat it was late and that these two children of hers were nearly lost. For our spirits that sometimes cross the path of the angels, and onrare evenings hear a word of their talk, and have brief equality withthe Powers of Light, have the duty also of moving fingers and toes, which freeze if our proud spirits forget their task for too long. 

And just as Earth was despairing they reached the Professor's mountainand entered the room in which their bodies were. 

Blue and cold and ugly looked the body of Morano, but for all itspallor there was beauty in the young face of Rodriguez. 

The Professor stood before them as he had stood when their spiritsleft, with the table between him and the bodies, and the bowl on thetable which held the green flame, now low and flickering desperately, which the Professor watched as it leaped and failed, with an air ofanxiety that seemed to pinch his thin features. 

With an impatience strange to him he waved a swift hand towards each ofthe two bodies where they sat stiff, illumined by the last of the greenlight; and at those rapid gestures the travellers returned to theirhabitations. 

They seemed to be just awakening out of deep sleep. Again they saw theProfessor standing before them. But they saw him only with blinkingeyes, they saw him only as eyes can see, guessing at his mind from thelines of his face, at his thoughts from the movements of his hands, guessing as men guess, blindly: only a moment before they had known himutterly. Now they were dazed and forgetting: slow blood began to creepagain to their toes and to come again to its place under fingernails:it came with intense pain: they forgot their spirits. Then all the woesof Earth crowded their minds at once, so that they wished to weep, asinfants weep. 

The Professor gave this mood time to change, as change it presentlydid. For the warm blood came back and lit their cheeks, and a tinglingsucceeded the pain in their fingers and toes, and a mild warmthsucceeded the tingling: their thoughts came back to the things of everyday, to mundane things and the affairs of the body. Therein theyrejoiced, and Morano no less than Rodriguez; though it was a coarse andcommon body that Morano's spirit inhabited. And when the Professor sawthat the first sorrow of Earth, which all spirits feel when they landhere, had passed away, and that they were feeling again the joy ofmundane things, only then did he speak. 

"Seņor, " he said, "beyond the path of Mars run many worlds that I wouldhave you know. The greatest of these is Jupiter, towards whom all thatfollow my most sacred art show reverent affection. The smallest arethose that sometimes strike our world, flaming all green upon Novembernights, and are even as small as apples. " He spoke of our world with acertain air and a pride, as though, through virtue of his transcendentart, the world were only his. "The world that we name Argola, " he said, "is far smaller than Spain and, being invisible from Earth, is onlyknown to the few who have spoken to spirits whose wanderings havesurpassed the path of Mars. Nearly half of Argola you shall findcovered with forests, which though very dense are no deeper than moss, and the elephants in them are not larger than beetles. You shall seemany wonders of smallness in this world of Argola, which I desire inespecial to show you, since it is the orb with which we who study theArt are most familiar, of all the worlds that the vulgar have notknown. It is indeed the prize of our traffic in those things that fartranscend the laws that have forbidden them. "

And as he said this the green flame in the bowl before him died, and hemoved towards his cupboard of wonder. Rodriguez hastily thanked theProfessor for his great courtesy in laying bare before him secrets thatthe centuries hid, and then he referred to his own great unworthiness, to the lateness of the hour, to the fatigue of the Professor, and tothe importance to Learning of adequate rest to refresh his illustriousmind. And all that he said the Professor parried with bows, and drewenchantments from his cupboard of wonder to replenish the bowl on thetable. And Rodriguez saw that he was in the clutch of a collector, onewho having devoted all his days to a hobby will exhibit his treasuresto the uttermost, and that the stars that magic knows were no less tothe Professor than all the whatnots that a man collects and insists onshowing to whomsoever enters his house. He feared some terriblejourney, perhaps some bare escape; for though no material thing canquite encompass a spirit, he knew not what wanderers he might not meetin lonely spaces beyond the path of Mars. So when his last politeremonstrance failed, being turned aside with a pleasant phrase and asmile from the grim lips, and looking at Morano he saw that he sharedhis fears, then he determined to show whatever resistance were neededto keep himself and Morano in this old world that we know, or thatyouth at least believes that it knows. 

He watched the Professor return with his packets of wonder; dust from afallen star, phials of tears of lost lovers, poison and gold out ofelf-land, and all manner of things. But the moment that he put theminto the bowl Rodriguez' hand flew to his sword-hilt. He heaved up hiselbow, but no sword came forth, for it lay magnetised to its scabbardby the grip of a current of magic. When Rodriguez saw this he knew notwhat to do. 

The Professor went on pouring into the bowl. He added an odourdistilled out of dream-roses, three drops from the gall-bladder of afabulous beast, and a little dust that had been man. More too he added, so that my reader might wonder were I to tell him all; yet it is not soeasy to free our spirits from the gross grip of our bodies. Wonder notthen, my reader, if the Professor exerted strange powers. And all thewhile Morano was picking at a nail that fastened on the handle to hisfrying-pan. 

And just as the last few mysteries were shaken into the bowl, --andthere were two among them of which even Asia is ignorant, --just as thedews were blended with the powers in a grey-green sinister harmony, Morano untwisted his nail and got the handle loose. 

The Professor kindled the mixture in the bowl; again green flame arose, again that voice of his began to call to their spirits, and its beautyand the power of its spell were as of some fallen angel. The spirit ofRodriguez was nearly passing helplessly forth again on some frightfuljourney, when Morano losed his scabbard and sword from its girdle andtied the handle of his frying-pan across it a little below the hiltwith a piece of string. Across the table the Professor intoned hisspell, across a narrow table, but it seemed to come from the far sideof the twilight, a twilight red and golden in long layers, of anevening wonderfully long ago. It seemed to take its music out of thelights that it flowed through and to call Rodriguez from immediatelyfar away, with a call which it were sacrilege to refuse, and anguisheven, and hard toil such as there was no strength to do. And thenMorano held up the sword in its scabbard with the handle of thefrying-pan tied across. Rodriguez, disturbed by a stammer in the spell, looked up and saw the Professor staring at the sword where Morano heldit up before his face in the green light of the flame from the bowl. Hedid not seem like a fallen angel now. His spell had stopped. He seemedlike a professor who had forgotten the theme of his lecture, while theclass waits. For Morano was holding up the sign of the cross. 

"You have betrayed me!" shouted the Slave of Orion: the green flamedied, and he strode out of the room, his purple cloak floating behindhim. 

"Master, " Morano said, "it was always good against magic. "

The sword was loose in the scabbard as Rodriguez took it back; therewas no longer a current of magic gripping the steel. 

A little uneasily Rodriguez thanked Morano: he was not sure if Moranohad behaved as a guest's servant should. But when he thought of theProfessor's terrible spells, which had driven them to the awful cragsof the sun, and might send them who knows where to hob-nob with whoknows what, his second thoughts perceived that Morano was right to cutshort those arts that the Slave of Orion loved, even by so extreme astep: and he praised Morano as his ready shrewdness deserved. 

"We were very nearly too late back from that outing, master, " remarkedMorano. 

"How know you that?" said Rodriguez. 

"This old body knew, " said Morano. "Those heart-thumpings, thiswarmness, and all the things that make a fat body comfortable, theywere stopping, master, they were spoiling, they were getting cold andstrange: I go no more errands for that seņor. "

A certain diffidence about criticising his host even now; and a verypractical vein that ran through his nature, now showing itself inanxiety for a bed at so late an hour; led Rodriguez to change thesubject. He wanted that aged butler, yet dare not ring the bell; for hefeared lest with all the bells there might be in use that frightfulpractice that he had met by the outer door, a chain connected with somehideous hook that gave anguish to something in the basement wheneverone touched the handle, so that the menials of that grim Professor wereshrilly summoned by screams. And therefore Rodriguez sought counsel ofMorano, who straightway volunteered to find the butler's quarters, by acertain sense that he had of the fitness of things: and forth he went, but would not leave the room without the scabbard and the handle of thefrying-pan lashed to it, which he bore high before him in both hishands as though he were leading some austere procession. And even so hereturned with that aged man the butler, who led them down dim corridorsof stone; but, though he showed the way, Morano would go in front, still holding up that scabbard and handle before him, while Rodriguezheld the bare sword. And so they came to a room lit by the flare of onecandle, which their guide told them the Professor had prepared for hisguest. In the vastness of it was a great bed. Shadows and a whir as ofwings passed out of the door as they entered. "Bats, " said the ancientguide. But Morano believed he had routed powers of evil with the handleof his frying-pan and his master's scabbard. Who could say what theywere in such a house, where bats and evil spirits sheltered perenniallyfrom the brooms of the just? Then that ancient man with the lips ofsome woodland thing departed, and Rodriguez went to the great bed. On apile of straw that had been cast into the room Morano lay down acrossthe door, setting the scabbard upright in a rat-hole near his head, while Rodriguez lay down with the bare sword in his hand. There wasonly one door in the room, and this Morano guarded. Windows there were, but they were shuttered with raw oak of enormous thickness. He hadalready enquired with his sword behind the velvet curtains. He feltsecure in the bulk of Morano across the only door, at least fromcreatures of this world: and Morano feared no longer either spirit orspell, believing that he had vanquished the Professor with his symbol, and all such allies as he may have had here or elsewhere. But not thuseasily do we overcome the powers of evil. 

A step was heard such as man walks with at the close of his lateryears, coming along the corridor of stone; and they knew it for theProfessor's butler returning. The latch of the door trembled andlifted, and the great oak door bumped slowly against Morano, who arosegrumbling, and the old man appeared. 

"The Professor, " he said, while Morano watched him grudgingly, "returnswith all his household to Saragossa at once, to resume those studiesfor which his name resounds, a certain conjunction of the stars havingcome favourably. "

Even Morano doubted that so suddenly the courses of the stars, which hedeemed to be gradual, should have altered from antagonism towards theProfessor's art into a favourable aspect. Rodriguez sleepilyacknowledged the news and settled himself to sleep, still sword inhand, when the servitor repeated with as much emphasis as his agedvoice could utter, "With all his household, seņor. "

"Yes, " muttered Rodriguez. "Farewell. "

And repeating again, "He takes his household with him, " the old manshuffled back from the room and hesitatingly closed the door. Beforethe sound of his slow footsteps had failed to reach the room Morano wasasleep under his cross. Rodriguez still watched for a while the shadowsleaping and shuddering away from the candle, riding over the ceiling, striding hugely along the walls, towards him and from him, as draughtsswayed the ruddy flame; then, gripping his sword still firmer in hishand, as though that could avail against magic, he fell into the sleepof tired men. 

No sound disturbed Rodriguez or Morano till both awoke in late morningupon the rocks of the mountain. The sun had climbed over the crags andnow shone on their faces. Rodriguez was still lying with his swordgripped in his hand, but the cross had fallen by Morano and now lay onthe rocks beside him with the handle of the frying-pan still tied inits place by string. A young, wild, woodland squirrel gambolled near, though there were no woods for it anywhere within sight: it leaped andplayed as though rejoicing in youth, with such merriment as thoughyouth had but come to it newly or been lost and restored again. 

All over the mountain they looked but there was no house, nor any signof dwelling of man or spirit. 

THE FIFTH CHRONICLE

HOW HE RODE IN THE TWILIGHT AND SAW SERAFINA

Rodriguez, who loved philosophy, turned his mind at once to the journeythat lay before him, deciding which was the north; for he knew that itwas by the north that he must leave Spain, which he still desired toleave since there were no wars in that country. 

Morano knew not clearly what philosophy was, yet he wasted no thoughtsupon the night that was gone; and, fitting up his frying-panimmediately, he brought out what was left of his bacon and began tolook for material to make a fire. The bacon lay waiting in thefrying-pan for some while before this material was gathered, fornothing grew on the mountain but a heath; and of that there were fewbushes, scattered here and there. 

Rodriguez, far from ruminating upon the events of the previous night, realised as he watched these preparations that he was enormouslyhungry. And when Morano had kindled a fire and the smell of cookingarose, he who had held the chair of magic at Saragossa was banishedfrom both their minds, although upon this very spot they had spent sostrange a night; but where bacon is, and there be hungry men, thethings of yesterday are often forgotten. 

"Morano, " said Rodriguez, "we must walk far to-day. "

"Indeed, master, " said Morano, "we must push on to these wars; for youhave no castle, master, no lands, no fortune . . . "

"Come, " said Rodriguez. 

Morano slung his frying-pan behind him: they had eaten up the last ofhis bacon: he stood up, and they were ready for the journey. The smokefrom their meagre fire went thinly into the air, the small grey cloudsof it went slowly up: nothing beside remained to bid them farewell, orfor them to thank for their strange night's hospitality. They climbedtill they reached the rugged crest of the mountain; thence they saw awide plain and the morning: the day was waiting for them. 

The northern slope of the mountain was wholly different from that blackcongregation of angry rocks through which they had climbed by night tothe House of Wonder. 

The slope that now lay before them was smooth and grassy, flowingbefore them far, a gentle slope that was soon to lend speed toRodriguez' feet, adding nimbleness even to youth. Soon, too, it was tolift onward the dull weight of Morano as he followed his master towardsunknown wars, youth going before him like a spirit and the good slopehelping behind. But before they gave themselves to that waiting journeythey stood a moment and looked at the shining plain that lay beforethem like an open page, on which was the whole chronicle of that day'swayfaring. There was the road they should travel by, there were thestreams it crossed and narrow woods they might rest in, and dim on thefarthest edge was the place they must spend that night. It was all, asit were written, upon the plain they watched, but in a writing notintended for them, and, clear although it be, never to be interpretedby one of our race. Thus they saw clear, from a height, the road theywould go by, but not one of all the events to which it would lead them. 

"Master, " said Morano, "shall we have more adventures to-day?"

"I trust so, " said Rodriguez. "We have far to go, and it will be dulljourneying without them. "

Morano turned his eyes from his master's face and looked back to theplain. "There, master, " he said, "where our road runs through a wood, will our adventure be there, think you? Or there, perhaps, " and hewaved his hand widely farther. 

"No, " said Rodriguez, "we pass that in bright daylight. "

"Is that not good for adventure?" said Morano. 

"The romances teach, " said Rodriguez, "that twilight or night arebetter. The shade of deep woods is favourable, but there are no suchwoods on this plain. When we come to evening we shall doubtless meetsome adventure, far over there. " And he pointed to the grey rim of theplain where it started climbing towards hills. 

"These are good days, " said Morano. He forgot how short a time ago hehad said regretfully that these days were not as the old days. But ourrace, speaking generally, is rarely satisfied with the present, andMorano's cheerfulness had not come from his having risen suddenlysuperior to this everyday trouble of ours; it came from his havingshifted his gaze to the future. Two things are highly tolerable to us, and even alluring, the past and the future. It was only with thepresent that Morano was ever dissatisfied. 

When Morano said that the days were good Rodriguez set out to findthem, or at least that one that for some while now lay waiting for themon the plain. He strode down the slope at once and, endowing naturewith his own impatience, he felt that he heard the morning call to himwistfully. Morano followed. 

For an hour these refugees escaping from peace went down the slope; andin that hour they did five swift miles, miles that seemed to run bythem as they walked, and so they came lightly to the level plain. Andin the next hour they did four miles more. Words were few, eitherbecause Morano brooded mainly upon one thought, the theme of which washis lack of bacon, or because he kept his breath to follow his masterwho, with youth and the morning, was coming out of the hills at a pacenot tuned to Morano's forty years or so. And at the end of these ninemiles Morano perceived a house, a little way from the road, on theleft, upon rising ground. A mile or so ahead they saw the narrow woodthat they had viewed in the morning from the mountain running acrossthe plain. They saw now by the lie of the ground that it probablyfollowed a stream, a pleasant place in which to take the rest demandedby Spain at noon. It was just an hour to noon; so Rodriguez, keepingthe road, told Morano to join him where it entered the wood when he hadacquired his bacon. And then as they parted a thought occurred toRodriguez, which was that bacon cost money. It was purely anafterthought, an accidental fancy, such as inspirations are, for he hadnever had to buy bacon. So he gave Morano a fifth part of his money, alarge gold coin the size of one of our five-shilling pieces, engravedof course upon one side with the glories and honours of that goldenperiod of Spain, and upon the other with the head of the lord the King. It was only by chance he had brought any at all; he was not what ournewspapers will call, if they ever care to notice him, a level-headedbusiness man. At the sight of the gold piece Morano bowed, for he feltthis gift of gold to be an occasion; but he trusted more for thepurchase of the bacon to some few small silver coins of his own that hekept among lumps of lard and pieces of string. 

And so they parted for a while, Rodriguez looking for some greatshadowy oak with moss under it near a stream, Morano in quest of bacon. 

When Rodriguez entered the wood he found his oak, but it was not suchan oak as he cared to rest beneath during the heat of the day, norwould you have done so, my reader, even though you have been to thewars and seen many a pretty mess; for four of la Garda were by it andwere arranging to hang a man from the best of the branches. 

"La Garda again, " said Rodriguez nearly aloud. 

His eye drooped, his look was listless, he gazed at other things; whilea glance that you had not noticed, flashed slantingly at la Garda, satisfied Rodriguez that all four were strangers: then he walkedstraight towards them merrily. The man they proposed to hang was astranger too. He appeared at first to be as stout as Morano, and he wasnearly half a foot taller, but his stoutness turned out to be sheermuscle. The broad man was clothed in old brown leather and had blueeyes. 

Now there was something about the poise of Rodriguez' young head whichgave him an air not unlike that which the King himself sometimes worewhen he went courting. It suited his noble sword and his merry plume. When la Garda saw him they were all politeness at once, and invited himto see the hanging, for which Rodriguez thanked them with amplestcourtesy. 

"It is not a bull-fight, " said the chief of la Garda almostapologetically. But Rodriguez waved aside his deprecations and declaredhimself charmed at the prospect of a hanging. 

Bear with me, reader, while I champion a bad cause and seek to palliatewhat is inexcusable. As we travel about the world on our way throughlife we meet and pass here and there, in peace or in war, other men, fellow-travellers: and sometimes there is no more than time for aglance, eye to eye. And in that glance you see the sort of man: andchiefly there are two sorts. The one sort always brooding, alwaysplanning; mean, silent men, collecting properties and money; keepingthe law on their side, keeping everything on their side; except womenand heaven, and the late, leisurely judgment of simple people: and theothers merry folk, whose eyes twinkle, whose money flies, who willsooner laugh than plan, who seem to inherit rightfully the happinessthat the others plot for, and fail to come by with all their schemes. In the man who was to provide the entertainment Rodriguez recognisedthe second kind. 

Now even though the law had caught a saint that had strayed too faroutside the boundary of Heaven, and desired to hang him, Rodriguez knewthat it was his duty to help the law while help was needed, and toapplaud after the thing was done. The law to Rodriguez was the mostsacred thing man had made, if indeed it were not divine; but since theprivilege that two days ago had afforded him of studying it moreclosely, it appeared to him the blindest, silliest thing with which hehad had to do since the kittens were drowned that his cat Tabitharinahad had at Arguento Harez. 

It was in this deplorable state of mind that Rodriguez' glance fell onthe merry eyes and the solemn predicament of the man in the leathercoat, standing pinioned under a long branch of the oak-tree: and hedetermined from that moment to disappoint la Garda and, I fear also, myreader, perhaps to disappoint you, of the hanging that they at leasthad promised themselves. 

"Think you, " said Rodriguez, "that for so stout a knave this branch ofyours suffices?"

Now it was an excellent branch. But it was not so much Rodriguez' wordsas the anxious way in which he looked at the branch that aroused theanxieties of la Garda: and soon they were looking about to find abetter tree; and when four men start doing this in a wood time quicklypasses. Meanwhile Morano drew near, and Rodriguez went to meet him. 

"Master, " said Morano, all out of breath, "they had no bacon. But I gotthese two bottles of wine. It is strong wine, which is a rare deluderof the senses, which will need to be deluded if we are to go hungry. "

Rodriguez was about to cut short Morano's chatter when he thought of ause for the wine, and was silent a moment. And as he pondered Moranolooked up and saw la Garda and at the same time perceived thesituation, for he had as quick an eye for a bad business as any man. 

"No one with the horses, " was his comment; for they were tethered alittle apart. But Rodriguez' mind had already explored a surer methodthan the one that Morano seemed to be contemplating. This method hetold Morano. And now, from little tugs that they were giving to thedoubled rope that hung over the branch of the oak-tree, it was clearenough that the men of the law were returning to their confidence inthat very sufficient branch. 

They looked up with questions ripe to drop from their lips when theysaw Rodriguez returning with Morano. But before one of them spokeMorano flung to them from far off a little piece of his wisdom: forcast a truth into an occasion and it will always trouble the waters, usually stirring up contradiction, but always bringing something to thesurface. 

"Seņores, " he said, "no man can enjoy a hanging with a dry throat. "

Thus he turned their attention a while from the business in hand, changing their thoughts from the stout neck of the prisoner to theirown throats, wondering were they dry; and you do not wonder long aboutthis in the south without finding that what you feared is true. Andthen he let them see the two great bottles, all full of wine, for theinvention of the false bottom that gives to our champagne-bottles theplace they rightly hold among famous deceptions had not as yet beendiscovered. 

"It is true, " said la Garda. And Rodriguez made Morano put one of thebottles away in a piece of a sack that he carried: and when la Gardasaw one of the two bottles disappear it somehow decided them to havethe other, though how this came to be so there is no saying; and thusthe hanging was postponed again. 

Now the drink was a yellow wine, sweet and heavy and stronger than ourport; only our whisky could out-triumph it, but there in the warm southit answered its purpose. Rodriguez beckoned Morano up and offered thebottle to one of la Garda; but scarcely had he put it to his lips whenRodriguez bade him stop, saying that he had had his share. And he didthe same with the next man. 

Now there be few things indeed which la Garda resent more than meagrehospitality in the matter of drink, and with all their wits striving tocope with this vicious defect in Rodriguez, as they rightly or wronglyregarded it, how should they have any to spare for obvious precautions?As the third man drank, Rodriguez turned to speak to Morano; and therepresentative of the law took such advantage of an opportunity that hefeared to be fleeting, that when Rodriguez turned round again thebottle was just half empty. Rodriguez had timed it very nicely. 

Next Rodriguez put the bottle to his lips and held it there a littletime, while the fourth man of the law, who was guarding the prisoner, watched Rodriguez wistfully, and afterwards Morano, who took the bottlenext. Yet neither Rodriguez nor Morano drank. 

"You can finish the bottle, " said Rodriguez to this anxious watcher, who came forward eagerly though full of doubts, which changed to warmfeelings of exuberant gratitude when he found how much remained. Thushe obtained not much less than two tumblerfuls of wine that, as I havesaid, was stronger than port; and noon was nearing and it was spring inSpain. And then he returned to guard his prisoner under the oak-treeand lay down there on the moss, remembering that it was his duty tokeep awake. And afterwards with one hand he took hold of a rope thatbound the prisoner's ankles, so that he might still guard his prisonereven though he should fall asleep. 

Now two of the men had had little more than the full of a sherry glasseach. To these Morano made signs that there was another bottle, and, coming round behind his master, he covertly uncorked it and gave themtheir heart's desire; and a little was left over for the man who drankthird on the first occasion. And presently the spirits of all four ofla Garda grew haughty and forgot their humble bodies, and would fainhave gone forth to dwell with the sons of light, while their bodies layon the moss and the sun grew warmer and warmer, shining dappled inamongst the small green leaves. All seemed still but for the wingedinsects flashing through shafts of the sunlight out of the gloom of thetrees and disappearing again like infinitesimal meteors. But ourconcern is with the thoughts of man, of which deeds are but theshadows: wherever these are active it is wrong to say all is still; forwhether they cast their shadows, which are actions, or whether theyremain a force not visibly stirring matter, they are the source of thetales we write and the lives we lead; it is they that gave History hermaterial and they that bade her work it up into books. 

And thoughts were very active about that oak-tree. For while thethoughts of la Garda arose like dawn, and disappeared into mists, theirprisoner was silently living through the sunny days of his life, whichare at no time quite lost to us, and which flash vivid and bright andnear when memory touches them, herself awakened by the nearness ofdeath. He lived again days far from the day that had brought him wherehe stood. He drew from those days (that is to say) that delight, thatessence of hours, that something which we call life. The sun, the wind, the rough sand, the splash of the sea, on the star-fish, and all thethings that it feels during its span, are stored in something like itsmemory, and are what we call its life: it is the same with all of us. Life is feeling. The prisoner from the store of his memory was takingall he had. His head was lifted, he was gazing northwards, far furtherthan his eyes could see, to shining spaces in great woods; and therehis threatened being walked in youth, with steps such as spirits take, over immortal flowers, which were dim and faint but unfading becausethey lived on in memory. In memory he walked with some who were now farfrom his footsteps. And, seen through the gloaming of that perilousday, how bright did those far days appear! Did they not seem sunnierthan they really were? No, reader; for all the radiance that glitteredso late in his mind was drawn from those very days; it was their ownbrightness that was shining now: we are not done with the days thatwere as soon as their sunsets have faded, but a light remains from themand grows fairer and fairer, like an afterglow lingering amongtremendous peaks above immeasurable slopes of snow. 

The prisoner had scarcely noticed Rodriguez or his servant, any morethan he noticed his captors; for there come an intensity to those whowalk near death that makes them a little alien from other men, lifeflaring up in them at the last into so grand a flame that the lives ofthe others seem a little cold and dim where they dwell remote from thatsunset that we call mortality. So he looked silently at the days thatwere as they came dancing back again to him from where they had longlain lost in chasms of time, to which they had slipped over dark edgesof years. Smiling they came, but all wistfully anxious, as though theirerrand were paramount and their span short: he saw them cluster abouthim, running now, bringing their tiny gifts, and scarcely heard theheavy sigh of his guard as Rodriguez gagged him and Morano tied him up. 

Had Rodriguez now released the prisoner they could have been three tothree, in the event of things going wrong with the sleep of la Garda;but, since in the same time they could gag and bind another, the oddswould be the same at two to two, and Rodriguez preferred this to theslight uncertainties that would be connected with the entry of anotherpartner. They accordingly gagged the next man and bound his wrists andankles. And that Spanish wine held good with the other two and boundthem far down among the deeps of dreams: and so it should, for it wasof a vine that grew in the vales of Spain and had ripened in one of theyears of the golden age. 

They bound one as easily as they had bound the other two; and the lastRodriguez watched while Morano cut the ropes off the prisoner, for hehad run out of bits of twine and all other improvisations. With theseropes he ran back to his master, and they tied up the last prisoner butdid not gag him. 

"Shall we gag him, master, like the rest?" said Morano. 

"No, " said Rodriguez. "He has nothing to say. "

And though this remark turned out to be strictly untrue, it well enoughanswered its purpose. 

And then they saw standing before them the man they had freed. And hebowed to Rodriguez like one that had never bowed before. I do not meanthat he bowed with awkwardness, like imitative men unused topoliteness, but he bowed as the oak bows to the woodman; he stoodstraight, looking Rodriguez in the eyes, then he bowed as though he hadlet his spirit break, which allowed him to bow to never a man before. Thus, if my pen has been able dimly to tell of it, thus bowed the manin the old leathern jacket. And Rodriguez bowed to him in answer withthe elegance that they that had dwelt at Arguento Harez had slowlydrawn from the ages. 

"Seņor, your name, " said the stranger. 

"Lord of Arguento Harez, " said Rodriguez. 

"Seņor, " he said, "being a busy man, I have seldom time to pray. Andthe blessed Saints, being more busy than I, I think seldom hear myprayers: yet your name shall go up to them. I will often tell it themquietly in the forest, and not on their holy days when bells areringing and loud prayers fill Heaven. It may be . . . "

"Seņor, " Rodriguez said, "I profoundly thank you. "

Even in these days, when bullets are often thicker than prayers, we arenot quite thankless for the prayers of others: in those days they werewhat "closing quotations" are on the Stock Exchange, ink in FleetStreet, machinery in the Midlands; common but valued; and Rodriguez'thanks were sincere. 

And now that the curses of the ungagged one of la Garda were growingmonotonous, Rodriguez turned to Morano. 

"Ungag the rest, " he said, "and let them talk to each other. "

"Master, " Morano muttered, feeling that there was enough noise alreadyfor a small wood, but he went and did as he was ordered. And Rodriguezwas justified of his humane decision, for the pent thoughts of allthree found expression together and, all four now talking at once, mitigated any bitterness there may have been in those solitary curses. And now Rodriguez could talk undisturbed. 

"Whither?" said the stranger. 

"To the wars, " said Rodriguez, "if wars there be. "

"Aye, " said the stranger, "there be always wars somewhere. By whichroad go you?"

"North, " said Rodriguez, and he pointed. The stranger turned his eyesto the way Rodriguez pointed. 

"That brings you to the forest, " he said, "unless you go far around, asmany do. "

"What forest?" said Rodriguez. 

"The great forest named Shadow Valley, " said the stranger. 

"How far?" said Rodriguez. 

"Forty miles, " said the stranger. 

Rodriguez looked at la Garda and then at their horses, and thought. Hemust be far from la Garda by nightfall. 

"It is not easy to pass through Shadow Valley, " said the stranger. 

"Is it not?" said Rodriguez. 

"Have you a gold great piece?" the stranger said. 

Rodriguez held out one of his remaining four: the stranger took it. Andthen he began to rub it on a stone, and continued to rub whileRodriguez watched in silence, until the image of the lord the King wasgone and the face of the coin was scratchy and shiny and flat. And thenhe produced from a pocket or pouch in his jacket a graving tool with around wooden handle, which he took in the palm of his hand, and theedge of the steel came out between his forefinger and thumb: and withthis he cut at the coin. And Morano rejoined them from his mercifulmission and stood and wondered at the cutting. And while he cut theytalked. 

They did not ask him how he came to be chosen for hanging, because inevery country there are about a hundred individualists, varying toperhaps half a hundred in poor ages. They go their hundred ways, ortheir half-dozen ways; and there is a hundred and first way, or aseventh way, which is the way that is cut for the rest: and if some ofthe rest catch one of the hundred, or one of the six, they naturallyhang him, if they have a rope, and if hanging is the custom of thecountry, for different countries use different methods. And you saw bythis man's eyes that he was one of the hundred. Rodriguez thereforeonly sought to know how he came to be caught. 

"La Garda found you, seņor?" he said. 

"As you see, " said the stranger. "I came too far from my home. "

"You were travelling?" said Rodriguez. 

"Shopping, " he said. 

At this word Morano's interest awakened wide. "Seņor, " he said, "whatis the right price for a bottle of this wine that la Garda drink?"

"I know not, " said the man in the brown jacket; "they give me thesethings. "

"Where is your home, seņor?" Rodriguez asked. 

"It is Shadow Valley, " he said. 

One never saw Rodriguez fail to understand anything: if he could notclear a situation up he did not struggle with it. Morano rubbed hischin: he had heard of Shadow Valley only dimly, for all the travellershe had known out of the north had gone round it. Rodriguez and Moranobent their heads and watched a design that was growing out of the gold. And as the design grew under the hand of the strange worker he began totalk of the horses. He spoke as though his plans had been clearlyestablished by edict, and as though no others could be. 

"When I have gone with two horses, " he said, "ride hard with the othertwo till you reach the village named Lowlight, and take them to theforge of Fernandez the smith, where one will shoe them who is notFernandez. "

And he waved his hand northwards. There was only one road. Then all hisattention fell back again to his work on the gold coin; and when thoseblue eyes were turned away there seemed nothing left to question. Andnow Rodriguez saw the design was a crown, a plain gold circlet with oakleaves rising up from it. And this woodland emblem stood up out of thegold, for the worker had hollowed the coin away all around it, and wassloping it up to the edge. Little was said by the watchers in thewonder of seeing the work, for no craft is very far from the linebeyond which is magic, and the man in the leather coat was clearly acraftsman: and he said nothing for he worked at a craft. And when thearboreal crown was finished, and its edges were straight and sharp, anhour had passed since he began near noon. Then he drilled a hole nearthe rim and, drawing a thin green ribbon from his pocket, he passed itthrough the hole and, rising, he suddenly hung it round Rodriguez' neck. 

"Wear it thus, " he said, "while you go through Shadow Valley. "

As he said this he stepped back among the trees, and Rodriguez followedto thank him. Not finding him behind the tree where he thought to findhim, he walked round several others, and Morano joined his search; butthe stranger had vanished. When they returned again to the littleclearing they heard sounds of movement in the wood, and a little wayoff where the four horses had grazed there were now only two, whichwere standing there with their heads up. 

"We must ride, Morano, " said Rodriguez. 

"Ride, master?" said Morano dolefully. 

"If we walk away, " said Rodriguez, "they will walk after us. "

"They" meant la Garda. It was unnecessary for him to tell Morano what Ithus tell the reader, for in the wood it was hard to hear anyone else, while to think of anyone else was out of the question. 

"What shall I do to them, master?" said Morano. 

They were now standing close to their captives and this simple questioncalmed the four men's curses, all of a sudden, like shutting the dooron a storm. 

"Leave them, " Rodriguez said. And la Garda's spirits rose and theycursed again. 

"Ah. To die in the wood, " said Morano. "No, " said Rodriguez; and hewalked towards the horses. And something in that "No" sounding almostcontemptuous, Morano's feelings were hurt, and he blurted out to hismaster "But how can they get away to get their food?? It is good knotsthat I tie, master. "

"Morano, " Rodriguez said, "I remember ten ways in the books of romancewhereby bound men untie themselves; and doubtless one or two more Ihave read and forgot; and there may be other ways in the books that Ihave not read, besides any way that there be of which no books tell. And in addition to these ways, one of them may draw a comrade's swordwith his teeth and thus . . . "

"Shall I pull out their teeth?" said Morano. 

"Ride, " said Rodriguez, for they were now come to the horses. Andsorrowfully Morano looked at the horse that was to be his, as a manmight look at a small, uncomfortable boat that is to carry him far upona stormy day. And then Rodriguez helped him into the saddle. 

"Can you stay there?" Rodriguez said. "We have far to go. "

"Master, " Morano answered, "these hands can hold till evening. "

And then Rodriguez mounted, leaving Morano gripping the high front ofthe saddle with his large brown hands. But as soon as the horsesstarted he got a grip with his heels as well, and later on with hisknees. Rodriguez led the way on to the straggling road and was soongalloping northwards, while Morano's heels kept his horse up close tohis master's. Morano rode as though trained in the same school thatsome while later taught Macaulay's equestrian, who rode with "looserein and bloody spur. " Yet the miles went swiftly by as they gallopedon soft white dust, which lifted and settled, some of it, back on thelazy road, while some of it was breathed by Morano. The gold coin onthe green silk ribbon flapped up and down as Rodriguez rode, till hestuffed it inside his clothing and remembered no more about it. Oncethey saw before them the man they had snatched from the noose: he wasgoing hard and leading a loose horse. And then where the road bentround a low hill he galloped out of sight and they saw him no more. Hehad the loose horse to change on to as soon as the other was tired:they had no prospect of overtaking him. And so he passed out of theirminds as their host had done who went away with his household toSaragossa. 

At first Rodriguez' mandolin, that was always slung on his back, bumpedup and down uncomfortably; but he eased it by altering the strap: smallthings like this bring contentment. And then he settled down to ride. But no contentment came near Morano nor did he look for it. On thefirst day of his wanderings he had worn his master's clothes, which hasbeen an experience standing somewhat where toothache does, which issomewhere about half-way between discomfort and agony. On the secondday he had climbed at the end of a weary journey over those sharp rockswhose shape was adapted so ill to his body. On the third day he wasriding. He did not look for comfort. But he met discomfort with an easyresignation that almost defeated the intention of Satan who sends it, unless--as is very likely--it be from Heaven. And in spite of alldiscomforts he gaily followed Rodriguez. In a thousand days at the Innof the Dragon and Knight no two were so different to Morano that onestood out from the other, or any from the rest. It was all as thoughone day were repeated again and again; and at some point in thismonotonous repetition, like a milestone shaped as the rest on aperfectly featureless road, life would end and the meaninglessrepetition stop: and looking back on it there would only be one day tosee, or, if he could not look back, it would be all gone for nothing. And then, into that one day that he was living on in the gloaming ofthat grim inn, Rodriguez had appeared, and Morano had known him for oneof those wandering lights that sometimes make sudden day among thestars. He knew--no, he felt--that by following him, yesterday today andtomorrow would be three separate possessions in memory. Morano gladlygave up that one dull day he was living for the new strange daysthrough which Rodriguez was sure to lead him. Gladly he left it: ifthis be not true how then has a man with a dream led thousands tofollow his fancy, from the Crusades to whatever gay madness be thefashion when this is read? As they galloped the scent of the flowersrushed into Rodriguez' nostrils, while Morano mainly breathed the dustfrom the hooves of his master's horse. But the quest was favoured themore by the scent of the flowers inspiring its leader's fancies. SoMorano gained even from this. 

In the first hour they shortened by fifteen miles the length of theirrambling quest. In the next hour they did five miles; and in the thirdhour ten. After this they rode slowly. The sun was setting. Moranoregarded the sunset with delight, for it seemed to promise jovially theend of his sufferings, which except for brief periods when they went onfoot, to rest--as Rodriguez said--the horses, had been continuous andeven increasing since they started. Rodriguez, perhaps a little wearytoo, drew from the sunset a more sombre feeling, as sensitive minds do:he responded to its farewell, he felt its beauty, and as little windsturned cool and the shine of blades of grass faded, making all theplain dimmer, he heard, or believed he heard, further off than he couldsee, sounds on the plain beyond ridges, in hollows, behind clumps ofbushes; as though small creatures all unknown to his learning playedinstruments cut from reeds upon unmapped streams. In this hour, amongthese fancies, Rodriguez saw clear on a hill the white walls of thevillage of Lowlight. And now they began to notice that a great roundmoon was shining. The sunset grew dimmer and the moonlight stole insoftly, as a cat might walk through great doors on her silent feet intoa throne-room just as the king had gone: and they entered the villageslowly in the perfect moment of twilight. 

The round horizon was brimming with a pale but magical colour, wellingup to the tips of trees and the battlements of white towers. Earthseemed a mysterious cup overfull of this pigment of wonder. Cloudswandering low, straying far from their azure fields, were dipped in it. The towers of Lowlight turned slowly rose in that light, and glowedtogether with the infinite gloaming, so that for this brief hour thethings of man were wed with the things of eternity. It was into thiswide, pale flame of aetherial rose that the moon came stealing like amagician on tip-toe, to enchant the tips of the trees, low clouds andthe towers of Lowlight. A blue light from beyond our world touched thepink that is Earth's at evening: and what was strange and a matter forhushed voices, marvellous but yet of our earth, became at that touchunearthly. All in a moment it was, and Rodriguez gasped to see it. EvenMorano's eyes grew round with the coming of wonder, or with some dimfeeling that an unnoticed moment had made all things strange and new. 

For some moments the spell of moonlight on sunlight hovered: the airwas brimming and quivering with it: magic touched earth. For somemoments, some thirty beats of a heron's wing, had the angels sung tomen, had their songs gone earthward into that rosy glow, gliding pastlayers of faintly tinted cloud, like moths at dusk towards abriar-rose; in those few moments men would have known their language. Rodriguez reined in his horse in the heavy silence and waited. For whathe waited he knew not: some unearthly answer perhaps to his questioningthoughts that had wandered far from earth, though no words came to himwith which to ask their question and he did not know what question theywould ask. He was all vibrating with the human longing: I know not whatit is, but perhaps philosophers know. He sat there waiting while a latebird sailed homeward, sat while Morano wondered. And nothing spake fromanywhere. 

And now a dog began to notice the moon: now a child cried suddenly thathad been dragged back from the street, where it had wandered atbedtime: an old dog rose from where it had lain in the sun and feeblyyet confidently scratched at a door: a cat peered round a corner: a manspoke: Rodriguez knew there would be no answer now. 

Rodriguez hit his horse, the tired animal went forward, and he andMorano rode slowly up the street. 

Dona Serafina of the Valley of Dawnlight had left the heat of the roomthat looked on the fields, and into which the sun had all day beenstreaming, and had gone at sunset to sit in the balcony that lookedalong the street. Often she would do this at sunset; but she ratherdreamed as she sat there than watched the street, for all that it hadto show she knew without glancing. Evening after evening as soon aswinter was over the neighbour would come from next door and stretchhimself and yawn and sit on a chair by his doorway, and the neighbourfrom opposite would saunter across the way to him, and they would talkwith eagerness of the sale of cattle, and sometimes, but more coldly, of the affairs of kings. She knew, but cared not to know, just when thetwo old men would begin their talk. She knew who owned every dog thatstretched itself in the dust until chilly winds blew in the dusk andthey rose up dissatisfied. She knew the affairs of that street like anold, old lesson taught drearily, and her thoughts went far away tovales of an imagination where they met with many another maiden fancy, and they all danced there together through the long twilight in Spring. And then her mother would come and warn her that the evening grew cold, and Serafina would turn from the mystery of evening into the house andthe candle-light. This was so evening after evening all through springand summer for two long years of her youth. And then, this evening, just as the two old neighbours began to discuss whether or not thesubjugation of the entire world by Spain would be for its benefit, justas one of the dogs in the road was rising slowly to shake itself, neighbours and dogs all raised their heads to look, and there wasRodriguez riding down the street and Morano coming behind him. WhenSerafina saw this she brought her eyes back from dreams, for shedreamed not so deeply but that the cloak and plume of Rodriguez foundsome place upon the boundaries of her day-dream. When she saw the wayhe sat his horse and how he carried his head she let her eyes flash fora little moment along the street from her balcony. And if some criticalreader ask how she did it I answer, "My good sir, I can't tell you, because I don't know, " or "My dear lady, what a question to ask!" Andwhere she learned to do it I cannot think, but nothing was easier. Andthen she smiled to think that she had done the very thing that hermother had warned her there was danger in doing. 

"Serafina, " her mother said in that moment at the large window, "theevening grows cold. It might be dangerous to stay there longer. " AndSerafina entered the house, as she had done at the coming of dusk onmany an evening. 

Rodriguez missed as much of that flash of her eyes, shot from below thedarkness of her hair, as youth in its first glory and freedom misses. For at the point on the road called life at which Rodriguez was then, one is high on a crag above the promontories of watchmen, lower onlythan the peaks of the prophets, from which to see such things. Yet itdid not need youth to notice Serafina. Beggars had blessed her for thepoise of her head. 

She turned that head a little as she went between the windows, tillRodriguez gazing up to her saw the fair shape of her neck: and almostin that moment the last of the daylight died. The windows shut; andRodriguez rode on with Morano to find the forge that was kept byFernandez the smith. And presently they came to the village forge, acottage with huge, high roof whose beams were safe from sparks; and itsfire was glowing redly into the moonlight through the wide door madefor horses, although there seemed no work to be done, and a man with aswart moustache was piling more logs on. Over the door was burned onoak in ungainly great letters--

"FERNANDEZ"

"For whom do you seek, seņor?" he said to Rodriguez, who had haltedbefore him with his horse's nose inside the doorway sniffing. 

"I look, " he said, "for him who is not Fernandez. "

"I am he, " said the man by the fire. 

Rodriguez questioned no further but dismounted, and bade Morano leadthe horses in. And then he saw in the dark at the back of the forge theother two horses that he had seen in the wood. And they were shod as hehad never seen horses shod before. For the front pair of shoes werejoined by a chain riveted stoutly to each, and the hind pair also; andboth horses were shod alike. The method was equally new to Morano. Andnow the man with the swart moustache picked up another bunch ofhorseshoes hanging in pairs on chains. And Rodriguez was not far outwhen he guessed that whenever la Garda overtook their horses they wouldfind that Fernandez was far away making holiday, while he who shod themnow would be gone upon other business. And all this work seemed toRodriguez not to be his affair. 

"Farewell, " he said to the smith that was not Fernandez; and with a patfor his horse he left it, having obtained a promise of oats. And soRodriguez and Morano went on foot again, Morano elated in spite offatigue and pain, rejoicing to feel the earth once more, flat under thesoles of his feet; Rodriguez a little humbled. 

THE SIXTH CHRONICLE

HOW HE SANG TO HIS MANDOLIN AND WHAT CAME OF HIS SINGING

They walked back slowly in silence up the street down which they hadridden. Earth darkened, the moon grew brighter: and Rodriguez gazing atthe pale golden disk began to wonder who dwelt in the lunar valleys;and what message, if folk were there, they had for our peoples; and inwhat language such message could ever be, and how it could fare acrossthat limpid remoteness that wafted light on to the coasts of Earth andlapped in silence on the lunar shores. And as he wondered he thought ofhis mandolin. 

"Morano, " he said, "buy bacon. "

Morano's eyes brightened: they were forty-five miles from the hills onwhich he had last tasted bacon. He selected his house with a glance, and then he was gone. And Rodriguez reflected too late that he hadforgotten to tell Morano where he should find him, and this with nightcoming on in a strange village. Scarcely, Rodriguez reflected, he knewwhere he was going himself. Yet if old tunes lurking in its hollows, echoing though imperceptibly from long-faded evenings, gave themandolin any knowledge of human affairs that other inanimate thingscannot possess, the mandolin knew. 

Let us in fancy call up the shade of Morano from that far generation. Let us ask him where Rodriguez is going. Those blue eyes, dim with thedistance over which our fancy has called them, look in our eyes withwonder. 

"I do not know, " he says, "where Don Rodriguez is going. My master didnot tell me. "

Did he notice nothing as they rode by that balcony?

"Nothing, " Morano answers, "except my master riding. "

We may let Morano's shade drift hence again, for we shall discovernothing: nor is this an age to which to call back spirits. 

Rodriguez strolled slowly on the deep dust of that street as thoughwondering all the while where he should go; and soon he and hismandolin were below that very balcony whereon he had seen the whiteneck of Serafina gleam with the last of the daylight. And now thespells of the moon charmed Earth with their full power. 

The balcony was empty. How should it have been otherwise? And yetRodriguez grieved. For between the vision that had drawn his footstepsand that bare balcony below shuttered windows was the differencebetween a haven, sought over leagues of sea, and sheer, unchartedcliff. It brought a wistfulness into the music he played, and amelancholy that was all new to Rodriguez, yet often and often beforehad that mandolin sent up through evening against unheeding Space thatcry that man cannot utter; for the spirit of man needs a mandolin as acomrade to face the verdict of the chilly stars as he needs a bulldogfor more mundane things. 

Soon out of the depth of that stout old mandolin, in which so manyhuman sorrows had spun tunes out of themselves, as the spiders spinmisty grey webs, till it was all haunted with music, soon the old crywent up to the stars again, a thread of supplication spun of the matterwhich else were distilled in tears, beseeching it knew not what. And, but that Fate is deaf, all that man asks in music had been granted then. 

What sorrows had Rodriguez known in his life that he made so sad amelody? I know not. It was the mandolin. When the mandolin was made itknew at once all the sorrows of man, and all the old unnamed longingsthat none defines. It knew them as the dog knows the alliance that itsforefathers made with man. A mandolin weeps the tears that its mastercannot shed, or utters the prayers that are deeper than its master'slips can draw, as a dog will fight for his master with teeth that arelonger than man's. And if the moonlight streamed on untroubled, andthough Fate was deaf, yet beauty of those fresh strains going starwardfrom under his fingers touched at least the heart of Rodriguez andgilded his dreams and gave to his thoughts a mournful autumnal glory, until he sang all newly as he never had sung before, with limpid voicealong the edge of tears, a love-song old as the woods of his father'svalleys at whose edge he had heard it once drift through the evening. And as he played and sang with his young soul in the music he fancied(and why not, if they care aught for our souls in Heaven?) he fanciedthe angles putting their hands each one on a star and leaning out ofHeaven through the constellations to listen. 

"A vile song, seņor, and a vile tune with it, " said a voice quite close. 

However much the words hurt his pride in his mandolin Rodriguezrecognised in the voice the hidalgo's accent and knew that it was anequal that now approached him in the moonlight round a corner of thehouse with the balcony; and he knew that the request he courteouslymade would be as courteously granted. 

"Seņor, " he said, "I pray you to permit me to lean my mandolin againstthe wall securely before we speak of my song. "

"Most surely, seņor, " the stranger replied, "for there is no fault withthe mandolin. "

"Seņor, " Rodriguez said, "I thank you profoundly. " And he bowed to thegallant, whom he now perceived to be young, a youth tall and lithe likehimself, one whom we might have chosen for these chronicles had we notfound Rodriguez. 

Then Rodriguez stepped back a short way and placed his kerchief on theground; and upon this he put his mandolin and leaned it against thewall. When the mandolin was safe from dust or accident he approachedthe stranger and drew his sword. 

"Seņor, " he said, "we will now discuss music. "

"Right gladly, seņor, " said the young man, who now drew his sword also. There were no clouds; the moon was full; the evening promised well. 

Scarcely had the flash of thin rapiers crossing each other by moonlightbegun to gleam in the street when Morano appeared beside them and stoodthere watching. He had bought his bacon and gone straight to the housewith the balcony. For though he knew no Latin he had not missed thesilent greeting that had welcomed his master to that village, or failedto interpret the gist of the words that Rodriguez' dumb glance wouldhave said. He stood there watching while each combatant stood hisground. 

And Rodriguez remembered all those passes and feints that he had hadfrom his father, and which Sevastiani, a master of arms in Madrid, hadtaught in his father's youth: and some were famous and some were littleknown. And all these passes, as he tried them one by one, his unknownantagonist parried. And for a moment Rodriguez feared that Morano wouldsee those passes in which he trusted foiled by that unknown sword, andthen he reflected that Morano knew nothing of the craft of the rapier, and with more content at that thought he parried thrusts that werestrange to him. But something told Morano that in this fight thestranger was master and that along that pale-blue, moonlit, unknownsword lurked a sure death for Rodriguez. He moved from his place ofvantage and was soon lost in large shadows; while the rapiers playedand blade rippled on blade with a sound as though Death were gentlysharpening his scythe in the dark. And now Rodriguez was giving ground, now his antagonist pressed him; thrusts that he believed invincible hadfailed; now he parried wearily and had at once to parry again; theunknown pressed on, was upon him, was scattering his weakening parries;drew back his rapier for a deadlier pass, learned in a secret school, in a hut on mountains he knew, and practised surely; and fell in a heapupon Rodriguez' feet, struck full on the back of the head by Morano'sfrying-pan. 

"Most vile knave, " shouted Rodriguez as he saw Morano before him withhis frying-pan in his hand, and with something of the stupid expressionthat you see on the face of a dog that has done some foolish thingwhich it thinks will delight its master. 

"Master! I am your servant, " said Morano. 

"Vile, miserable knave, " replied Rodriguez. 

"Master, " Morano said plaintively, "shall I see to your comforts, yourfood, and not to your life?"

"Silence, " thundered Rodriguez as he stooped anxiously to hisantagonist, who was not unconscious but only very giddy and who nowrose to his feet with the help of Rodriguez. 

"Alas, seņor, " said Rodriguez, "the foul knave is my servant. He shallbe flogged. He shall be flayed. His vile flesh shall be cut off him. Does the hurt pain you, seņor? Sit and rest while I beat the knave, andthen we will continue our meeting. "

And he ran to his kerchief on which rested his mandolin and laid itupon the dust for the stranger. 

"No, no, " said he. "My head clears again. It is nothing. "

"But rest, seņor, rest, " said Rodriguez. "It is always well to restbefore an encounter. Rest while I punish the knave. "

And he led him to where the kerchief lay on the ground. "Let me see thehurt, seņor, " he continued. And the stranger removed his plumed hat asRodriguez compelled him to sit down. He straightened out the hat as hesat, and the hurt was shown to be of no great consequence. 

"The blessed Saints be praised, " Rodriguez said. "It need not stop ourencounter. But rest awhile, seņor. "

"Indeed, it is nothing, " he answered. 

"But the indignity is immeasurable, " sighed Rodriguez. "Would you care, seņor, when you are well rested to give the chastisement yourself?"

"As far as that goes, " said the stranger, "I can chastise him now. "

"If you are fully recovered, seņor, " Rodriguez said, "my own sword isat your disposal to beat him sore with the flat of it, or how you will. Thus no dishonour shall touch your sword from the skin of so vile aknave. "

The stranger smiled: the idea appealed to him. 

"You make a noble amend, seņor, " he said as he bowed over Rodriguez'proffered sword. 

Morano had not moved far, but stood near, wondering. "What should aservant do if not work for his master?" he wondered. And how work forhim when dead? And dead, as it seemed to Morano, through his own faultif he allowed any man to kill him when he perceived him about to do so. He stood there puzzled. And suddenly he saw the stranger coming angrilytowards him in the clear moonlight with a sword. Morano was frightened. 

As the hidalgo came up to him he stretched out his left hand to seizeMorano by the shoulder. Up went the frying-pan, the stranger parried, but against a stroke that no school taught or knew, and for the secondtime he went down in the dust with a reeling head. Rodriguez turnedtoward Morano and said to him . . . No, realism is all very well, and Iknow that my duty as author is to tell all that happened, and I couldwin mighty praise as a bold, unconventional writer; at the same time, some young lady will be reading all this next year in some far country, or in twenty years in England, and I would sooner she should not readwhat Rodriguez said. I do not, I trust, disappoint her. But the gist ofit was that he should leave that place now and depart from his servicefor ever. And hearing those words Morano turned mournfully away and wasat once lost in the darkness. While Rodriguez ran once more to help hisfallen antagonist. "Seņor, seņor, " he said with an emotion that somewearing centuries and a cold climate have taught us not to show, andbeyond those words he could find no more to say. 

"Giddy, only giddy, " said the stranger. 

A tear fell on his forehead as Rodriguez helped him to his feet. 

"Seņor, " Rodriguez said fervently, "we will finish our encounter comewhat may. The knave is gone and . . . "

"But I am somewhat giddy, " said the other. 

"I will take off one of my shoes, " said Rodriguez, "leaving the otheron. It will equalise our unsteadiness, and you shall not bedisappointed in our encounter. Come, " he added kindly. 

"I cannot see so clearly as before, " the young hidalgo murmured. 

"I will bandage my right eye also, " said Rodriguez, "and if this cannotequalise it . . . "

"It is a most fair offer, " said the young man. 

"I could not bear that you should be disappointed of your encounter, "Rodriguez said, "by this spirit of Hell that has got itself clothed infat and dares to usurp the dignity of man. "

"It is a right fair offer, " the young man said again. 

"Rest yourself, seņor, " said Rodriguez, "while I take off my shoe, " andhe indicated his kerchief which was still on the ground. 

The stranger sat down a little wearily, and Rodriguez sitting upon thedust took off his left shoe. And now he began to think a littlewistfully of the face that had shone from that balcony, where all wasdark now in black shadow unlit by the moon. The emptiness of thebalcony and its darkness oppressed him; for he could scarcely hope tosurvive an encounter with that swordsman, whose skill he now recognisedas being of a different class from his own, a class of which he knewnothing. All his own feints and passes were known, while those of hisantagonist had been strange and new, and he might well have evenothers. The stranger's giddiness did not alter the situation, forRodriguez knew that his handicap was fair and even generous. Hebelieved he was near his grave, and could see no spark of light tobanish that dark belief; yet more chances than we can see often guardus on such occasions. The absence of Serafina saddened him like asorrowful sunset. 

Rodriguez rose and limped with his one shoe off to the stranger, whowas sitting upon his kerchief. 

"I will bandage my right eye now, seņor, " he said. 

The young man rose and shook the dust from the kerchief and gave it toRodriguez with a renewed expression of his gratitude at the fairness ofthe strange handicap. When Rodriguez had bandaged his eye the strangerreturned his sword to him, which he had held in his hand since hiseffort to beat Morano, and drawing his own stepped back a few pacesfrom him. Rodriguez took one hopeless look at the balcony, saw it asempty and as black as ever, then he faced his antagonist, waiting. 

"Bandage one eye, indeed!" muttered Morano as he stepped up behind thestranger and knocked him down for the third time with a blow over thehead from his frying-pan. 

The young hidalgo dropped silently. 

Rodriguez uttered one scream of anger and rushed at Morano with hissword. Morano had already started to run; and, knowing well that he wasrunning for his life, he kept for awhile the start that he had of therapier. Rodriguez knew that no plump man of over forty could lastagainst his lithe speed long. He saw Morano clearly before him, thenlost sight of him for a moment and ran confidently on pursuing. He ranon and on. And at last he recognised that Morano had slipped into thedarkness, which lies always so near to the moonlight, and was not infront of him at all. So he returned to his fallen antagonist and foundhim breathing heavily where he fell, scarcely conscious. The thirdstroke of the frying-pan had done its work surely. Rodriguez' fury dieddown, only because it is difficult to feel two emotions at once: itdied down as pity took its place, though every now and then it wouldsuddenly flare and fall again. He returned his sword and lifted theyoung hidalgo and carried him to the door of the house under which theyhad fought. 

With one fist he beat on the door without putting the hurt man down, and continued to hit it until steps were heard, and bolts began togrumble, as though disturbed too early from their rusty sleep in stonesockets. 

The door of the house with the balcony was opened by a servant who, when he saw who it was that Rodriguez carried, fled into the house inalarm, as one who runs with bad news. He carried one candle and, whenhe had disappeared with the steaming flame, Rodriguez found himself ina long hall lit by the moonlight only, which was looking in through thesmall contorted panes of the upper part of a high window. Alone withechoes and shadows Rodriguez carried the hurt man through the hall, whowas muttering now as he came back to consciousness. And, as he went, there came to Rodriguez thoughts between wonder and hope, for he hadhad no thought at all when he beat on the door except to get shelterand help for the hurt man. At the end of the hall they came to an opendoor that led into a chamber partly shining with moonlight. 

"In there, " said the man that he carried. 

Rodriguez carried him in and laid him on a long couch at the end of theroom. Large pictures of men in the blackness, out of the moon's rays, frowned at Rodriguez mysteriously. He could not see their faces in thedarkness, but he somehow knew they frowned. Two portraits that wereclear in the moonlight eyed him with absolute apathy. So cold a welcomefrom that house's past generations boded no good to him from those thatdwelt there today. Rodriguez knew that in carrying the hurt man therehe helped at a Christian deed; and yet there was no putting the meritsof the case against the omens that crowded the chamber, lurking alongthe edge of moonlight and darkness, disappearing and reappearing tillthe gloom was heavy with portent. The omens knew. In a weak voice andfew words the hurt man thanked him, but the apathetic faces seemed tosay What of that? And the frowning faces that he could not see stillfilled the darkness with anger. 

And then from the end of the chamber, dressed in white, and all shiningwith moonlight, came Serafina. 

Rodriguez in awed silence watched her come. He saw her pass through themoonlight and grow dimmer, and glide to the moonlight again thatstreamed through another window. A great dim golden circle appeared atthe far end of the chamber whence she had come, as the servant returnedwith his candle and held it high to give light for Dona Serafina. Butthat one flame seemed to make the darkness only blacker; and for anycheerfulness it brought to the gloom it had better never havechallenged those masses of darkness at all in that high chamber amongthe brooding portraits it seemed trivial, ephemeral, modern, ill ableto cope with the power of ancient things, dead days and forgottenvoices, which make their home in the darkness because the days thathave usurped them have stolen the light of the sun. 

And there the man stood holding his candle high, and the rays of themoon became more magical still beside that little mundane, flickeringthing. And Serafina was moving through the moonlight as though its rayswere her sisters, which she met noiselessly and brightly upon someisland, as it seemed to Rodriguez, beyond the costs of Earth, soquietly and so brightly did her slender figure move and so aloof fromhim appeared her eyes. And there came on Rodriguez that feeling thatsome deride and that others explain away, the feeling of which romanceis mainly made and which is the aim and goal of all the earth. And hislove for Serafina seemed to him not only to be an event in his life butto have some part in veiled and shadowy destinies and to have theblessing of most distant days: grey beards seemed to look out of gravesin forgotten places to wag approval: hands seemed to beckon to him outof far-future times, where faces were smiling quietly: and, dreaming onfurther still, this vast approval that gave benediction to his heart'syouthful fancy seemed to widen and widen like the gold of a summer'sevening or, the humming of bees in summer in endless rows of limes, until it became a part of the story of man. Spring days of his earliestmemory seemed to have their part in it, as well as wonderful eveningsof days that were yet to be, till his love for Serafina was one withthe fate of earth; and, wandering far on their courses, he knew thatthe stars blessed it. But Serafina went up to the man on the couch withno look for Rodriguez. 

With no look for Rodriguez she bent over the stricken hidalgo. Heraised himself a little on one elbow. "It is nothing, " he said, "Serafina. "

Still she bent over him. He laid his head down again, but now with openand undimmed eyes. She put her hand to his forehead, she spoke in a lowvoice to him; she lavished upon him sympathy for which Rodriguez wouldhave offered his head to swords; and all, thought Rodriguez for threeblows from a knave's frying-pan: and his anger against Morano flared upagain fiercely. Then there came another thought to him out of theshadows, where Serafina was standing all white, a figure of solace. Whowas this man who so mysteriously blended with the other unknown thingsthat haunted the gloom of that chamber? Why had he fought him at night?What was he to Serafina? Thoughts crowded up to him from the interiorof the darkness, sombre and foreboding as the shadows that nursed them. He stood there never daring to speak to Serafina; looking forpermission to speak, such as a glance might give. And no glance came. 

And now, as though soothed by her beauty, the hurt man closed his eyes. Serafina stood beside him anxious and silent, gleaming in that dimplace. The servant at the far end of the chamber still held his onecandle high, as though some light of earth were needed against thefantastic moon, which if unopposed would give everything over to magic. Rodriguez stood there, scarcely breathing. All was silent. And thenthrough the door by which Serafina had come, past that lonely, golden, moon-defying candle, all down the long room across moonlight andblackness, came the lady of the house, Serafina's mother. She came, asSerafina came, straight toward the man on the couch, giving no look toRodriguez, walking something as Serafina walked, with the same poise, the same dignity, though the years had carried away from her the graceSerafina had: so that, though you saw that they were mother anddaughter, the elder lady called to mind the lovely things of earth, large gardens at evening, statues dim in the dusk, summer andwhatsoever binds us to earthly things; but Serafina turned Rodriguez'thoughts to the twilight in which he first saw her, and he pictured hernative place as far from here, in mellow fields near the moon, whereinshe had walked on twilight outlasting any we know, with all delicatethings of our fancy, too fair for the rugged earth. 

As the lady approached the couch upon which the young man was lying, and still no look was turned towards Rodriguez, his young dreams fledas butterflies sailing high in the heat of June that are suddenlyplunged in night by a total eclipse of the sun. He had never spoken toSerafina, or seen before her mother, and they did not know his name; heknew that he, Rodriguez, had no claim to a welcome. But his dreams hadflocked so much about Serafina's face, basking so much in her beauty, that they now fell back dying; and when a man's dreams die whatremains, if he lingers awhile behind them?

Rodriguez suddenly felt that his left shoe was off and his right eyestill bandaged, things that he had not noticed while his only thoughtwas for the man he carried to shelter, but torturing his consciousnessnow that he thought of himself. He opened his lips to explain; butbefore words came to him, looking at the face of Serafina's mother, standing now by the couch, he felt that, not knowing how, he hadsomehow wronged the Penates of this house, or whatever was hid in thedimness of that long chamber, by carrying in this young man there torest from his hurt. 

Rodriguez' depression arose from these causes, but having arisen, itgrew of its own might: he had had nothing to eat since morning, and inthe favouring atmosphere of hunger his depression grew gigantic. Heopened his lips once more to say farewell, was oppressed by all mannerof thoughts that held him dumb, and turned away in silence and left thehouse. Outside he recovered his mandolin and his shoe. He was tiredwith the weariness of defeated dreams that slept in his spiritexhausted, rather than with any fatigue his young muscles had from thejourney. He needed sleep; he looked at the shuttered houses; then atthe soft dust of the road in which dogs lay during the daylight. Butthe dust was near to his mood, so he lay down where he had fought theunknown hidalgo. A light wind wandered the street like a visitor cometo the village out of a friendly valley, but Rodriguez' four days onthe roads had made him familiar with all wandering things, and thebreeze on his forehead troubled him not at all: before it had weariedof wandering in the night Rodriguez had fallen asleep. Just by the edgeof sleep, upon which side he knew not, he heard the window of thebalcony creak, and looked up wide awake all in a moment. But nothingstirred in the darkness of the balcony and the window was fast shut. Sowhatever sound came from the window came not from its opening butshutting: for a while he wondered; and then his tired thoughts rested, and that was sleep. 

A light rain woke Rodriguez, drizzling upon his face; the first lightrain that had fallen in a romantic tale. Storms there had been, lashingoaks to terrific shapes seen at night by flashes of lightning, throughwhich villains rode abroad or heroes sought shelter at midnight;hurricanes there had been, flapping huge cloaks, fierce hail andcopious snow; but until now no drizzle. It was morning; dawn was old;and pale and grey and unhappy. 

The balcony above him, still empty, scarcely even held romance now. Rain dripped from it sadly. Its cheerless bareness seemed worse thanthe most sinister shadows of night. 

And then Rodriguez saw a rose lying on the ground beside him. And forall the dreams, fancies, and hopes that leaped up in Rodriguez' mind, rising and falling and fading, one thing alone he knew and all the restwas mystery: the rose had lain there before the rain had fallen. Beneath the rose was white dust, while all around it the dust wasturning grey with rain. 

Rodriguez tried to guess how long the rain had fallen. The rose mayhave lain beside him all night long. But the shadows of mystery recededno farther than this one fact that the rose was there before the rainbegan. No sign of any kind came from the house. 

Rodriguez put the rose safe under his coat, wrapped in the kerchiefthat had guarded the mandolin, to carry it far from Lowlight, throughplaces familiar with roses and places strange to them; but it remainedfor him a thing of mystery until a day far from then. 

Sadly he left the house in the sad rain, marching away alone to lookfor his wars. 

THE SEVENTH CHRONICLE

HOW HE CAME TO SHADOW VALLEY

Rodriguez still believed it to be the duty of any Christian man to killMorano. Yet, more than comfort, more than dryness, he missed Morano'scheerful chatter, and his philosophy into which all occasions so easilyslipped. Upon his first day's journey all was new; the very anemoneskept him company; but now he made the discovery that lonely roads arelong. 

When he had suggested food or rest Morano had fallen in with hiswishes; when he had suggested winning a castle in vague wars Morano hadagreed with him. Now he had dismissed Morano and had driven him away atthe rapier's point. There was no one now either to cook his food or tobelieve in the schemes his ambition made. There was no one now to speakof the wars as the natural end of the journey. Alone in the rain thewars seemed far away and castles hard to come by. The unromantic rainin which no dreams thrive fell on and on. 

The village of Lowlight was some way behind him, as he went withmournful thoughts through the drizzling rain, when he caught the smellof bacon. He looked for a house but the plain was bare except for smallbushes. He looked up wind, which was blowing from the west, whence camethe unmistakable smell of bacon: and there was a small fire smokinggreyly against a bush; and the fat figure crouching beside it, althoughthe face was averted, was clearly none but Morano. And when Rodriguezsaw that he was tenderly holding the infamous frying-pan, the veryweapon that had done the accursed deed, then he almost felt righteousanger; but that frying-pan held other memories too, and Rodriguez feltless fury than what he thought he felt. As for killing Morano, Rodriguez believed, or thought he believed, that he was too far fromthe road for it to be possible to overtake him to mete out his justpunishment. As for the bacon, Rodriguez scorned it and marched on downthe road. Now one side of the frying-pan was very hot, for it wastilted a little and the lard had run sideways. By tilting it back againslowly Morano could make the fat run back bit by bit over the heatedmetal, and whenever it did so it sizzled. He now picked up thefrying-pan and one log that was burning well and walked parallel withRodriguez. He was up-wind of him, and whenever the bacon-fat sizzledRodriguez caught the smell of it. A small matter to inspire thoughts;but Rodriguez had eaten nothing since the morning before, and ideassurged through his head; and though they began with moral indignationthey adapted themselves more and more to hunger, until there came theidea that since his money had bought the bacon the food was rightfullyhis, and he had every right to eat it wherever he found it. So much canslaves sometimes control the master, and the body rule the brain. 

So Rodriguez suddenly turned and strode up to Morano. "My bacon, " hesaid. 

"Master, " Morano said, for it was beginning to cool, "let me makeanother small fire. "

"Knave, call me not master, " said Rodriguez. 

Morano, who knew when speech was good, was silent now, and blew on thesmouldering end of the log he carried and gathered a handful of twigsand shook the rain off them; and soon had a small fire again, warmingthe bacon. He had nothing to say which bacon could not say better. Andwhen Rodriguez had finished up the bacon he carefully reconsidered thecase of Morano, and there were points in it which he had not thought ofbefore. He reflected that for the execution of knaves a suitable personwas provided. He should perhaps give Morano up to la Garda. His nextthought was where to find la Garda. And easily enough another thoughtfollowed that one, which was that although on foot and still some waybehind four of la Garda were trying to find him. Rodriguez' mind, whichwas looking at life from the point of view of a judge, changed somewhatat this thought. He reflected next that, for the prevention of crime, to make Morano see the true nature of his enormity so that he shouldnever commit it again might after all be as good as killing him. Sowhat we call his better nature, his calmer judgment, decided him now totalk to Morano and not to kill him: but Morano, looking back upon thismerciful change, always attributed it to fried bacon. 

"Morano, " said Rodriguez' better nature, "to offend the laws ofChivalry is to have against you the swords of all true men. "

"Master, " Morano said, "that were dreadful odds. "

"And rightly, " said Rodriguez. 

"Master, " said Morano, "I will keep those laws henceforth. I may cookbacon for you when you are hungry, I may brush the dust from yourcloak, I may see to your comforts. This Chivalry forbids none of that. But when I see anyone trying to kill you, master; why, kill you hemust, and welcome. "

"Not always, " said Rodriguez somewhat curtly, for it struck him thatMorano spoke somehow too lightly of sacred things. 

"Not always?" asked Morano. 

"No, " said Rodriguez. 

"Master, I implore you tell me, " said Morano, "when they may kill youand when they may not, so that I may never offend again. "

Rodriguez cast a swift glance at him but found his face so full ofpuzzled anxiety that he condescended to do what Morano had asked, andbegan to explain to him the rudiments of the laws of Chivalry. 

"In the wars, " he said, "you may defend me whoever assails me, or ifrobbers or any common persons attack me, but if I arrange a meetingwith a gentleman, and any knave basely interferes, then is he damnedhereafter as well as accursed now; for, the laws of Chivalry beingfounded on true religion, the penalty for their breach is by no meansconfined to this world. "

"Master, " replied Morano thoughtfully, "if I be not damned already Iwill avoid those fires of Hell; and none shall kill you that you havenot chosen to kill you, and those that you choose shall kill youwhenever you have a mind. "

Rodriguez opened his lips to correct Morano but reflected that, thoughin his crude and base-born way, he had correctly interpreted the law sofar as his mind was able. 

So he briefly said "Yes, " and rose and returned to the road, givingMorano no order to follow him; and this was the last concession he madeto the needs of Chivalry on account of the sin of Morano. Moranogathered up the frying-pan and followed Rodriguez, and when they cameto the road he walked behind him in silence. 

For three or four miles they walked thus, Morano knowing that hefollowed on sufferance and calling no attention to himself with hisgarrulous tongue. But at the end of an hour the rain lifted; and withthe coming out of the sun Morano talked again. 

"Master, " he said, "the next man that you choose to kill you, let himbe one too base-born to know the tricks of the rapier, too ignorant todo aught but wish you well, some poor fat fool over forty who shall betoo heavy to elude your rapier's point and too elderly for it to matterwhen you kill him at your Chivalry, the best of life being gone alreadyat forty-five. "

"There is timber here, " said Rodriguez. "We will have some more baconwhile you dry my cloak over a fire. "

Thus he acknowledged Morano again for his servant but neveracknowledged that in Morano's words he had understood any poor sketchof Morano's self, or that the words went to his heart. 

"Timber, Master?" said Morano, though it did not need Rodriguez topoint out the great oaks that now began to stand beside their journey, but he saw that the other matter was well and thus he left well alone. 

Rodriguez waved an arm towards the great trees. "Yes, indeed, " saidMorano, and began to polish up the frying-pan as he walked. 

Rodriguez, who missed little, caught a glimpse of tears in Morano'seyes, for all that his head was turned downward over the frying-pan;yet he said nothing, for he knew that forgiveness was all that Moranoneeded, and that he had now given him: and it was much to give, reflected Rodriguez, for so great a crime, and dismissed the matterfrom his mind. 

And now their road dipped downhill, and they passed a huge oak and thenanother. More and more often now they met these solitary giants, tilltheir view began to be obscured by them. The road dwindled till it wasno better than a track, the earth beside it was wild and rocky;Rodriguez wondered to what manner of land he was coming. Butcontinually the branches of some tree obscured his view and the onlyindication he had of it was from the road he trod, which seemed to tellhim that men came here seldom. Beyond every huge tree that they passedas they went downhill Rodriguez hoped to get a better view, but alwaysthere stood another to close the vista. It was some while before herealised that he had entered a forest. They were come to Shadow Valley. 

The grandeur of this place, penetrated by shafts of sunlight, colouredby flashes of floating butterflies, filled by the chaunt of birdsrising over the long hum of insects, lifted the fallen spirits ofRodriguez as he walked on through the morning. 

He still would not have exchanged his rose for the whole forest; but inthe mighty solemnity of the forest his mourning for the lady that hefeared he had lost no longer seemed the only solemn thing: indeed, thesombre forest seemed well attuned to his mood; and what complaint havewe against Fate wherever this is so. His mood was one of tragic loss, the defeat of an enterprise that his hopes had undertaken, to seizevictory on the apex of the world, to walk all his days only justoutside the edge of Paradise, for no less than that his hopes and hisfirst love promised each other; and then he walked despairing in smallrain. In this mood Fate had led him to solemn old oaks standing hugeamong shadows; and the grandeur of their grey grip on the earth thathad been theirs for centuries was akin to the grandeur of the highhopes he had had, and his despair was somehow soothed by the shadows. And then the impudent birds seemed to say "Hope again. "

They walked for miles into the forest and lit a fire before noon, forRodriguez had left Lowlight very early. And by it Morano cooked baconagain and dried his master's cloak. They ate the bacon and sat by thefire till all their clothes were dry, and when the flames from thegreat logs fell and only embers glowed they sat there still, with handsspread to the warmth of the embers; for to those who wander a fire isfood and rest and comfort. Only as the embers turned grey did theythrow earth over their fire and continue their journey. Their road grewsmaller and the forest denser. 

They had walked some miles from the place where they lit their fire, when a somewhat unmistakable sound made Rodriguez look ahead of him. Anarrow had struck a birch tree on the right side, ten or twelve paces infront of him; and as he looked up another struck it from the oppositeside just level with the first; the two were sticking in it ten feet orso from the ground. Rodriguez drew his sword. But when a third arrowwent over his head from behind and struck the birch tree, whut! justbetween the other two, he perceived, as duller minds could have done, that it was a hint, and he returned his sword and stood still. Moranoquestioned his master with his eyes, which were asking what was to bedone next. But Rodriguez shrugged his shoulders: there was no fightingwith an invisible foe that could shoot like that. That much Moranoknew, but he did not know that there might not be some law of Chivalrythat would demand that Rodriguez should wave his sword in the air orthrust at the birch tree until someone shot him. When there seemed tobe no such rule Morano was well content. And presently men came quietlyon to the road from different parts of the wood. They were dressed inbrown leather and wore leaf-green hats, and round each one's neck hunga disk of engraved copper. They came up to the travellers carryingbows, and the leader said to Rodriguez:

"Seņor, all travellers here bring tribute to the King of ShadowValley, " at the mention of whom all touched hats and bowed their heads. "What do you bring us?"

Rodriguez thought of no answer; but after a moment he said, for thesake of loyalty: "I know one king only. "

"There is only one king in Shadow Valley, " said the bowman. 

"He brings a tribute of emeralds, " said another, looking at Rodriguez'scabbard. And then they searched him and others search Morano. Therewere eight or nine of them, all in their leaf-green hats, with ribbonsround their necks of the same colour to hold the copper disks. Theytook a gold coin from Morano and grey greasy pieces of silver. One ofthem took his frying-pan; but he looked so pitifully at them as he saidsimply, "I starve, " that the frying-pan was restored to him. 

They unbuckled Rodriguez' belt and took from him sword and scabbard andthree gold pieces from his purse. Next they found the gold piece thatwas hanging round his neck, still stuffed inside his clothes where hehad put it when he was riding. Having examined it they put it backinside his clothes, while the leader rebuckled his sword-belt about hiswaist and returned him his three gold-pieces. 

Others returned his money to Morano. "Master, " said the leader, bowingto Rodriguez, his green hat in hand, "under our King, the forest isyours. "

Morano was pleased to hear this respect paid to his master, butRodriguez was so surprised that he who was never curt without reasonfound no more to say than "Why?"

"Because we are your servants, " said the other. 

"Who are you?" asked Rodriguez. 

"We are the green bowmen, master, " he said, "who hold this forestagainst all men for our King. "

"And who is he?" said Rodriguez. 

And the bowman answered: "The King of Shadow Valley, " at which theothers all touched hats and bowed heads again. And Rodriguez seeingthat the mystery would grow no clearer for any information to be hadfrom them said: "Conduct me to your king. "

"That, master, we cannot do, " said the chief of the bowmen. "There bemany trees in this forest, and behind any one of them he holds hiscourt. When he needs us there is his clear horn. But when men need himwho knows which shadow is his of all that lie in the forest?" Whetheror not there was anything interesting in the mystery, to Rodriguez itwas merely annoying; and finding it grew no clearer he turned hisattention to shelter for the night, to which all travellers give athought at least once, between noon and sunset. 

"Is there any house on this road, seņor, " he said, "in which we couldrest the night?"

"Ten miles from here, " said he, "and not far from the road you take isthe best house we have in the forest. It is yours, master, for as longas you honour it. "

"Come then, " said Rodriguez, "and I thank you, seņor. "

So they all started together, Rodriguez with the leader going in frontand Morano following with all the bowmen. And soon the bowmen weresinging songs of the forest, hunting songs, songs of the winter; andsongs of the long summer evenings, songs of love. Cheered by thismerriment, the miles slipped by. 

And Rodriguez gathered from the songs they sang something of what theywere and of how they lived in the forest, living amongst the woodlandcreatures till these men's ways were almost as their ways; killing whatthey needed for food but protecting the woodland things against allothers; straying out amongst the villages in summer evenings, andalways welcome; and owning no allegiance but to the King of the ShadowValley. 

And the leader told Rodriguez that his name was Miguel Threegeese, given him on account of an exploit in his youth when he lay one nightwith his bow by one of the great pools in the forest, where the geesecome in winter. He said the forest was a hundred miles long, lyingmostly along a great valley, which they were crossing. And once theyhad owned allegiance to kings of Spain, but now to none but the King ofthe Shadow Valley, for the King of Spain's men had once tried to cutsome of the forest down, and the forest was sacred. 

Behind him the men sang on of woodland things, and of cottage gardensin the villages: with singing and laughter they came to their journey'send. A cottage as though built by peasants with boundless materialstood in the forest. It was a thatched cottage built in the peasant'sway but of enormous size. The leader entered first and whispered tothose within, who rose and bowed to Rodriguez as he entered, twentymore bowmen who had been sitting at a table. One does not speak of thebanqueting-hall of a cottage, but such it appeared, for it occupiedmore than half of the cottage and was as large as the banqueting-hallof any castle. It was made of great beams of oak, and high at eitherend just under the thatch were windows with their little square panesof bulging bluish glass, which at that time was rare in Spain. A tableof oak ran down the length of it, cut from a single tree, polished anddark from the hands of many men that had sat at it. Boar spears hung onthe wall, great antlers and boar's tusks and, carved in the oak of thewall and again on a high, dark chair that stood at the end of the longtable empty, a crown with oak leaves that Rodriguez recognised. It wasthe same as the one that was cut on his gold coin, which he had givenno further thought to, riding to Lowlight, and which the face ofSerafina had driven from his mind altogether. "But, " he said, and thenwas silent, thinking to learn more by watching than by talking. And hiscompanions of the road came in and all sat down on the benches besidethe ample table, and a brew was brought, a kind of pale mead, that theycalled forest water. And all drank; and, sitting at the table, watchingthem more closely than he could as he walked in the forest, Rodriguezsaw by the sunlight that streamed in low through one window that on thecopper disks they wore round their necks on green ribbon the design wasagain the same. It was much smaller than his on the gold coin but thesame strange leafy crown. "Wear it as you go through Shadow Valley, " henow seemed to remember the man saying to him who put it round his neck. But why? Clearly because it was the badge of this band of men. And thisother man was one of them. 

His eyes strayed back to the great design on the wall. "The crown ofthe forest, " said Miguel as he saw his eyes wondering at it, "as youdoubtless know, seņor. "

Why should he know? Of course because he bore the design himself. "Whowears it?" said Rodriguez. 

"The King of Shadow Valley. "

Morano was without curiosity; he did not question good drink; he sat atthe table with a cup of horn in his hand, as happy as though he hadcome to his master's castle, though that had not yet been won. 

The sun sank under the oaks, filling the hall with a ruddy glow, turning the boar spears scarlet and reddening the red faces of themerry men of the bow. 

A dozen of the men went out; to relieve the guard in the forest, Miguelexplained. And Rodriguez learned that he had come through a line ofsentries without ever seeing one. Presently a dozen others came in fromtheir posts and unslung their bows and laid them on pegs on the walland sat down at the table. Whereat there were whispered words and theyall rose and bowed to Rodriguez. And Rodriguez had caught the words "Aprince of the forest. " What did it mean?

Soon the long hall grew dim, and his love for the light drew Rodriguezout to watch the sunset. And there was the sun under indescribableclouds, turning huge and yellow among the trunks of the trees andcasting glory munificently down glades. It set, and the western skybecame blood-red and lilac: from the other end of the sky the moonpeeped out of night. A hush came and a chill, and a glory of colour, and a dying away of light; and in the hush the mystery of the greatoaks became magical. A blackbird blew a tune less of this earth than offairy-land. 

Rodriguez wished that he could have had a less ambition than to win acastle in the wars, for in those glades and among those oaks he feltthat happiness might be found under roofs of thatch. But having come byhis ambition he would not desert it. 

Now rushlights were lit in the great cottage and the window of the longroom glowed yellow. A fountain fell in the stillness that he had notheard before. An early nightingale tuned a tentative note. "The forestis fair, is it not?" said Miguel. 

Rodriguez had no words to say. To turn into words the beauty that wasnow shining in his thoughts, reflected from the evening there, was noeasier than for wood to reflect all that is seen in the mirror. 

"You love the forest, " he said at last. 

"Master, " said Miguel, "it is the only land in which we should live ourdays. There are cities and roads but man is not meant for them. I knownot, master, what God intends about us; but in cities we are againstthe intention at every step, while here, why, we drift along with it. "

"I, too, would live here always, " said Rodriguez. 

"The house is yours, " said Miguel. And Rodriguez answered: "I gotomorrow to the wars. "

They turned round then and walked slowly back to the cottage, andentered the candlelight and the loud talk of many men out of the hushof the twilight. But they passed from the room at once by a door on theleft, and came thus to a large bedroom, the only other room in thecottage. 

"Your room, master, " said Miguel Threegeese. 

It was not so big as the hall where the bowmen sat, but it was a goodlyroom. The bed was made of carved wood, for there were craftsmen in theforest, and a hunt went all the way round it with dogs and deer. Fourgreat posts held a canopy over it: they were four young birch-treesseemingly still wearing their bright bark, but this had been painted ontheir bare timber by some woodland artist. The chairs had not thebeauty of the great ages of furniture, but they had a dignity that theage of commerce has not dreamed of. Each one was carved out of a singleblock of wood: there was no join in them anywhere. One of them lasts tothis day. 

The skins of deer covered the long walls. There were great basins andjugs of earthenware. All was forest-made. The very shadows whisperingamong themselves in corners spoke of the forest. The room was rude; butbeing without ornament, except for the work of simple craftsmen, it hadnothing there to offend the sense of right of anyone entering its door, by any jarring conflict with the purposes and traditions of the land inwhich it stood. All the woodland spirits might have entered there, andslept--if spirits sleep--in the great bed, and left at dawn unoffended. In fact that age had not yet learned vulgarity. 

When Miguel Threegeese left Morano entered. 

"Master, " he said, "they are making a banquet for you. "

"Good, " said Rodriguez. "We will eat it. " And he waited to hear whatMorano had come to say, for he could see that it was more than this. 

"Master, " said Morano, "I have been talking with the bowman. And theywill give you whatever you ask. They are good people, master, and theywill give you all things, whatever you asked of them. "

Rodriguez would not show to his servant that it all still puzzled him. 

"They are very amiable men, " he said. 

"Master, " said Morano, coming to the point, "that Garda, they will havewalked after us. They must be now in Lowlight. They have all to-nightto get new shoes on their horses. And to-morrow, master, to-morrow, ifwe be still on foot. . . "

Rodriguez was thinking. Morano seemed to him to be talking sense. 

"You would like another ride?" he said to Morano. 

"Master, " he answered, "riding is horrible. But the public garrotter, he is a bad thing too. " And he meditatively stroked the bristles underhis chin. 

"They would give us horses?" said Rodriguez. 

"Anything, master, I am sure of it. They are good people. "

"They'll have news of the road by which they left Lowlight, " saidRodriguez reflectively. "They say la Garda dare not enter the forest, "Morano continued, "but thirty miles from here the forest ends. Theycould ride round while we go through. "

"They would give us horses?" said Rodriguez again. 

"Surely, " said Morano. 

And then Rodriguez asked where they cooked the banquet, since he sawthat there were only two rooms in the great cottage and his inquiringeye saw no preparations for cooking about the fireplace of either. AndMorano pointed through a window at the back of the room to anothercottage among the trees, fifty paces away. A red glow streamed from itswindows, growing strong in the darkening forest. 

"That is their kitchen, master, " he said. "The whole house is kitchen. "His eyes looked eagerly at it, for, though he loved bacon, he welcomedthe many signs of a dinner of boundless variety. 

As he and his master returned to the long hall great plates of polishedwood were being laid on the table. They gave Rodriguez a place on theright of the great chair that had the crown of the forest carved on theback. 

"Whose chair is that?" said Rodriguez. 

"The King of Shadow Valley, " they said. 

"He is not here then, " said Rodriguez. 

"Who knows?" said a bowman. 

"It is his chair, " said another; "his place is ready. None knows theways of the King of Shadow Valley. "

"He comes sometimes at this hour, " said a third, "as the boar comes toHeather Pool at sunset. But not always. None knows his ways. "

"If they caught the King, " said another, "the forest would perish. Noneloves it as he, none knows its ways as he, no other could so defend it. "

"Alas, " said Miguel, "some day when he be not here they will enter theforest. " All knew whom he meant by they. "And the goodly trees willgo. " He spoke as a man foretelling the end of the world; and, as men towhom no less was announced, the others listened to him. They all lovedShadow Valley. 

In this man's time, so they told Rodriguez, none entered the forest tohurt it, no tree was cut except by his command, and venturous menclaiming rights from others than him seldom laid axe long to treebefore he stood near, stepping noiselessly from among shadows of treesas though he were one of their spirits coming for vengeance on man. 

All this they told Rodriguez, but nothing definite they told of theirking, where he was yesterday, where he might be now; and any questionshe asked of such things seemed to offend a law of the forest. 

And then the dishes were carried in, to Morano's great delight: withwide blue eyes he watched the produce of that mighty estate coming inthrough the doorway cooked. Boars' heads, woodcock, herons, plates fullof fishes, all manner of small eggs, a roe-deer and some rabbits, werecarried in by procession. And the men set to with their ivory-handledknives, each handle being the whole tusk of a boar. And with theireating came merriment and tales of past huntings and talk of the forestand stories of the King of Shadow Valley. 

And always they spoke of him not only with respect but also with thediscretion, Rodriguez thought, of men that spoke of one who might bebehind them at that moment, and one who tolerated no trifling with hisauthority. Then they sang songs again, such as Rodriguez had heard onthe road, and their merry lives passed clearly before his mind again, for we live in our songs as no men live in histories. And againRodriguez lamented his hard ambition and his long, vague journey, turning away twice from happiness; once in the village of Lowlightwhere happiness deserted him, and here in the goodly forest where hejilted happiness. How well could he and Morano live as two of thisband, he thought; leaving all cares in cities: for there dwelt cares incities even then. Then he put the thought away. And as the evening woreaway with merry talk and with song, Rodriguez turned to Miguel and toldhim how it was with la Garda and broached the matter of horses. Andwhile the others sang Miguel spoke sadly to him. "Master, " he said, "laGarda shall never take you in Shadow Valley, yet if you must leave usto make your fortune in the wars, though your fortune waits you here, there be many horses in the forest, and you and your servant shall havethe best. "

"Tomorrow morning, seņor?" said Rodriguez. 

"Even so, " said Miguel. 

"And how shall I send them to you again?" said Rodriguez. 

"Master, they are yours, " said Miguel. 

But this Rodriguez would not have, for as yet he only guessed whatclaim at all he had upon Shadow Valley, his speculations being far moreconcerned with the identity of the hidalgo that he had fought the nightbefore, how he concerned Serafina, who had owned the rose that hecarried: in fact his mind was busy with such studies as were proper tohis age. And at last they decided between them on the house of alowland smith, who was the furthest man that the bowmen knew who wassecretly true to their king. At his house Rodriguez and Morano shouldleave the horses. He dwelt sixty miles from the northern edge of theforest, and would surely give Rodriguez fresh horses if he possessedthem, for he was a true man to the bowman. His name was Gonzalez and hedwelt in a queer green house. 

They turned then to listen a moment to a hunting song that all thebowmen were singing about the death of a boar. Its sheer merrimentconstrained them. Then Miguel spoke again. "You should not leave theforest, " he said sadly. 

Rodriguez sighed: it was decided. Then Miguel told him of his road, which ran north-eastward and would one day bring him out of Spain. Hetold him how towns on the way, and the river Ebro, and with awe andreverence he spoke of the mighty Pyrenees. And then Rodriguez rose, forthe start was to be at dawn, and walked quietly through the singing outof the hall to the room where the great bed was. And soon he slept, andhis dreams joined in the endless hunt through Shadow Valley that wascarved all round the timbers of his bed. 

All too soon he heard voices, voices far off at first, to which he drewnearer and nearer; thus he woke grudgingly out of the deeps of sleep. It was Miguel and Morano calling him. 

When at length he reached the hall all the merriment of the evening wasgone from it but the sober beauty of the forest flooded in through bothwindows with early sunlight and bird-song; so that it had not the sadappearance of places in which we have rejoiced, when we revisit themnext day or next generation and find them all deserted by dance andsong. 

Rodriguez ate his breakfast while the bowmen waited with their bows allstrung by the door. When he was ready they all set off in the earlylight through the forest. 

Rodriguez did not criticise his ambition; it sailed too high above hislogic for that; but he regretted it, as he went through the beauty ofthe forest among these happy men. But we must all have an ambition, andRodriguez stuck to the one he had. He had another, but it was anambition with weak wings that could not come to hope. It depended uponthe first. If he could win a castle in the wars he felt that he mighteven yet hope towards Lowlight. 

Little was said, and Rodriguez was all alone with his thoughts. In twohours they met a bowman holding two horses. They had gone eight miles. 

"Farewell to the forest, " said Miguel to Rodriguez. There was almost aquery in his voice. Would Rodriguez really leave them? it seemed to say. 

"Farewell, " he answered. 

Morano too had looked sideways towards his master, seeming almost towonder what his answer would be: when it came he accepted it and walkedto the horses. Rodriguez mounted: willing hands helped up Morano. "Farewell, " said Miguel once more. And all the bowmen shouted"Farewell. "

"Make my farewell, " said Rodriguez, "to the King of Shadow Valley. "

A twig cracked in the forest. 

"Hark, " said Miguel. "Maybe that was a boar. "

"I cannot wait to hunt, " said Rodriguez, "for I have far to go. "

"Maybe, " said Miguel, "it was the King's farewell to you. "

Rodriguez looked into the forest and saw nothing. 

"Farewell, " he said again. The horses were fresh and he let his go. Morano lumbered behind him. In two miles they came to the edge of theforest and up a rocky hill, and so to the plains again, and one moreadventure lay behind them. Rodriguez turned round once on the highground and took a long look back on the green undulations of peace. Theforest slept there as though empty of men. 

Then they rode. In the first hour, easily cantering, they did tenmiles. Then they settled down to what those of our age and country andoccupation know as a hound-jog, which is seven miles an hour. And aftertwo hours they let the horses rest. It was the hour of the frying-pan. Morano, having dismounted, stretched himself dolefully; then he broughtout all manner of meats. Rodriguez looked wonderingly at them. 

"For the wars, master, " said Morano. To whatever wars they went, thegreen bowmen seemed to have supplied an ample commissariat. 

They ate. And Rodriguez thought of the wars, for the thought ofSerafina made him sad, and his rejection of the life of the forestsaddened him too; so he sought to draw from the future the comfort thathe could not get from the past. 

They mounted again and rode again for three hours, till they saw veryfar off on a hill a village that Miguel had told them was fifty milesfrom the forest. 

"We rest the night there, " said Rodriguez pointing, though it was yetseven or eight miles away. 

"All the Saints be praised, " said Morano. 

They dismounted then and went on foot, for the horses were weary. Atevening they rode slowly into the village. At an inn whose hospitablelooks were as cheerfully unlike the Inn of the Dragon and Knight aspossible, they demanded lodging for all four. They went first to thestable, and when the horses had been handed over to the care of a groomthey returned to the inn, and mine host and Rodriguez had to helpMorano up the three steps to the door, for he had walked nine milesthat day and ridden fifty and he was too weary to climb the steps. 

And later Rodriguez sat down alone to his supper at a table well andvariously laden, for the doors of mine hosts' larder were opened widein his honour; but Rodriguez ate sparingly, as do weary men. 

And soon he sought his bed. And on the old echoing stairs as he andmine host ascended they met Morano leaning against the wall. What shallI say of Morano? Reader, your sympathy is all ready to go out to thepoor, weary man. He does not entirely deserve it, and shall not cheatyou of it. Reader, Morano was drunk. I tell you this sorry truth ratherthan that the knave should have falsely come by your pity. And yet heis dead now over three hundred years, having had his good time to thefull. Does he deserve your pity on that account? Or your envy? And towhom or what would you give it? Well, anyhow, he deserved no pity forbeing drunk. And yet he was thirsty, and too tired to eat, and sore inneed of refreshment, and had had no more cause to learn to shun goodwine than he had had to shun the smiles of princesses; and there thegood wine had been, sparkling beside him merrily. 

And now, why now, fatigued as he had been an hour or so ago (but timehad lost its tiresome, restless meaning), now he stood firm while allthings and all men staggered. 

"Morano, " said Rodriguez as he passed that foolish figure, "we go sixtymiles to-morrow. "

"Sixty, master?" said Morano. "A hundred: two hundred. "

"It is best to rest now, " said his master. 

"Two hundred, master, two hundred, " Morano replied. 

And then Rodriguez left him, and heard him muttering his challenge todistance still, "Two hundred, two hundred, " till the old stairwayechoed with it. 

And so he came to his chamber, of which he remembered little, for sleeplurked there and he was soon with dreams, faring further with them thanmy pen can follow. 

THE EIGHTH CHRONICLE

HOW HE TRAVELLED FAR

One blackbird on a twig near Rodriguez' window sang, then there werefifty singing, and morning arose over Spain all golden and wonderful. 

Rodriguez descended and found mine host rubbing his hands by his goodtable, with a look on his face that seemed to welcome the day and tofind good auguries concerning it. But Morano looked as one that, havingfallen from some far better place, is ill-content with earth and themundane way. 

He had scorned breakfast; but Rodriguez breakfasted. And soon the twowere bidding mine host farewell. They found their horses saddled, theymounted at once, and rode off slowly in the early day. The horses weretired and, slowly trotting and walking, and sometimes dismounting anddragging the horses on, it was nearly two hours before they had doneten miles and come to the house of the smith in a rocky village: thestreet was cobbled and the houses were all of stone. 

The early sparkle had gone from the dew, but it was still morning, andmany a man but now sat down to his breakfast, as they arrived and beaton the door. 

Gonzalez the smith opened it, a round and ruddy man past fifty, acitizen following a reputable trade, but once, ah once, a bowman. 

"Seņor, " said Rodriguez, "our horses are weary. We have been told youwill change them for us. "

"Who told you that?" said Gonzalez. 

"The green bowmen in Shadow Valley, " the young man answered. 

As a meteor at night lights up with its greenish glare flowers andblades of grass, twisting long shadows behind them, lights up lawns andbushes and the deep places of woods, scattering quiet night for amoment, so the unexpected answer of Rodriguez lit memories in the mindof the smith all down the long years; and a twinkle and a sparkle ofthose memories dancing in woods long forsaken flashed from his eyes. 

"The green bowmen, seņor, " said Gonzalez. "Ah, Shadow Valley!"

"We left it yesterday, " said Rodriguez. 

When Gonzalez heard this he poured forth questions. "The forest, seņor;how is it now with the forest? Do the boars still drink at HeatherPool? Do the geese go still to Greatmarsh? They should have come earlythis year. How is it with Larios, Raphael, Migada? Who shoots woodcocknow?"

The questions flowed on past answering, past remembering: he had notspoken of the forest for years. And Rodriguez answered as suchquestions are always answered, saying that all was well, and givingGonzalez some little detail of some trifling affair of the forest, which he treasured as small shells are treasured in inland places whentravellers bring them from the sea; but all that he heard of the forestseemed to the smith like something gathered on a far shore of time. Yes, he had been a bowman once. 

But he had no horses. One horse that drew a cart, but no horses forriding at all. And Rodriguez thought of the immense miles lying betweenhim and the foreign land, keeping him back from his ambition; they allpressed on his mind at once. The smith was sorry, but he could not makehorses. 

"Show him your coin, master, " said Morano. 

"Ah, a small token, " said Rodriguez, drawing it forth still on itsgreen ribbon under his clothing. "The bowman's badge, is it not?"

Gonzalez looked at it, then looked at Rodriguez. 

"Master, " he said, "you shall have your horses. Give me time: you shallhave them. Enter, master. " And he bowed and widely opened the door. "Ifyou will breakfast in my house while I go to the neighbours you shallhave some horses, master. "

So they entered the house, and the smith with many bows gave thetravellers over to the care of his wife, who saw from her husband'smanner that these were persons of importance and as such she treatedthem both, and as such entertained them to their second breakfast. Andthis meant they ate heartily, as travellers can, who can go without abreakfast or eat two; and those who dwell in cities can do neither. 

And while the plump dame did them honour they spoke no word of theforest, for they knew not what place her husband's early years had inher imagination. 

They had barely finished their meal when the sound of hooves on cobbleswas heard and Gonzalez beat on the door. They all went to the door andfound him there with two horses. The horses were saddled and bridled. They fixed the stirrups to please them, then the travellers mounted atonce. Rodriguez made his grateful farewell to the wife of the smith:then, turning to Gonzalez, he pointed to the two tired horses which hadwaited all the while with their reins thrown over a hook on the wall. 

"Let the owner of these have them till his own come back, " he said, andadded: "How far may I take these?"

"They are good horses, " said the smith. 

"Yes, " said Rodriguez. 

"They could do fifty miles to-day, " Gonzalez continued, "and to-morrow, why, forty, or a little more. "

"And where will that bring me?" said Rodriguez, pointing to thestraight road which was going his way, north-eastward. 

"That, " said Gonzalez, "that should bring you some ten or twenty milesshort of Saspe. "

"And where shall I leave the horses?" Rodriguez asked. 

"Master, " Gonzalez said, "in any village where there be a smith, if yousay 'these are the horses of the smith Gonzalez, who will come for themone day from here, ' they will take them in for you, master. "

"But, " and Gonzalez walked a little away from his wife, and the horseswalked and he went beside them, "north of here none knows the bowmen. You will get no fresh horses, master. What will you do?"

"Walk, " said Rodriguez. 

Then they said farewell, and there was a look on the face of the smithalmost such as the sons of men might have worn in Genesis when angelsvisited them briefly. 

They settled down into a steady trot and trotted thus for three hours. Noon came, and still there was no rest for Morano, but only dust andthe monotonous sight of the road, on which his eyes were fixed: nearlyan hour more passed, and at last he saw his master halt and turn roundin his saddle. 

"Dinner, " Rodriguez said. 

All Morano's weariness vanished: it was the hour of the frying-pan oncemore. 

They had done more than twenty-one miles from the house of Gonzalez. Nimbly enough, in his joy at feeling the ground again, Morano ran andgathered sticks from the bushes. And soon he had a fire, and a thincolumn of grey smoke going up from it that to him was always home. 

When the frying-pan warmed and lard sizzled, when the smell of baconmingled with the smoke, then Morano was where all wise men and allunwise try to be, and where some of one or the other some times comefor awhile, by unthought paths and are gone again; for that smoky, mixed odour was happiness. 

Not for long men and horses rested, for soon Rodriguez' ambition wasdrawing him down the road again, of which he knew that there remainedto be travelled over two hundred miles in Spain, and how much beyondthat he knew not, nor greatly cared, for beyond the frontier of Spainhe believed there lay the dim, desired country of romance where roadswere long no more and no rain fell. They mounted again and pushed onfor this country. Not a village they saw but that Morano hoped thathere his affliction would end and that he would dismount and rest; andalways Rodriguez rode on and Morano followed, and with a barking ofdogs they were gone and the village rested behind them. For many anhour their slow trot carried them on; and Morano, clutching the saddlewith worn arms, already was close to despair, when Rodriguez halted ina little village at evening before an inn. They had done their fiftymiles from the house of Gonzalez, and even a little more. 

Morano rolled from his horse and beat on the small green door. Minehost came out and eyed them, preening the point of his beard; andRodriguez sat his horse and looked at him. They had not the welcomehere that Gonzalez gave them; but there was a room to spare forRodriguez, and Morano was promised what he asked for, straw; and therewas shelter to be had for the horses. It was all the travellers needed. 

Children peered at the strangers, gossips peeped out of doors to gathermaterial concerning them, dogs noted their coming, the eyes of thelittle village watched them curiously, but Rodriguez and Morano passedinto the house unheeding; and past those two tired men the mellowevening glided by like a dream. Tired though Rodriguez was he noticed acertain politeness in mine host while he waited at supper, which hadnot been noticeable when he had first received him, and rightly putthis down to some talk of Morano's; but he did not guess that Moranohad opened wide blue eyes and, babbling to his host, had guilelesslytold him that his master a week ago had killed an uncivil inn-keeper. 

Scarcely were late birds home before Rodriguez sought his bed, and notall of them were sleeping before he slept. 

Another morning shone, and appeared to Spain, and all at once Rodriguezwas wide awake. It was the eighth day of his wanderings. 

When he had breakfasted and paid his due in silver he and Moranodeparted, leaving mine host upon his doorstep bowing with an almostperplexed look on his shrewd face as he took the points of moustachiosand beard lightly in turn between finger and thumb: for we of our dayenter vague details about ourselves in the book downstairs when we stayat inns, but it was mine host's custom to gather all that with hissharp eyes. Whatever he gathered, Rodriguez and Morano were gone. 

But soon their pace dwindled, the trot slackening and falling to awalk; soon Rodriguez learned what it is to travel with tired horses. ToMorano riding was merely riding, and the discomforts of that were sogreat that he noticed no difference. But to Rodriguez, his continualhitting and kicking his horse's sides, his dislike of doing it, theuselessness of it when done, his ambition before and the tired beastunderneath, the body always some yards behind the beckoning spirit, were as great vexation as a traveller knows. It came to dismounting andwalking miles on foot; even then the horses hung back. They halted anhour over dinner while the horses grazed and rested, and they returnedto their road refreshed by the magic that was in the frying-pan, butthe horses were no fresher. 

When our bodies are slothful and lie heavy, never responding to thespirit's bright promptings, then we know dullness: and the burden of itis the graver for hearing our spirits call faintly, as the chains of abuccaneer in some deep prison, who hears a snatch of his comrades'singing as they ride free by the coast, would grow more unbearable thanever before. But the weight of his tired horse seemed to hang heavieron the fanciful hopes that Rodriguez' dreams had made. Farther thanever seemed the Pyrenees, huger than ever their barrier, dimmer anddimmer grew the lands of romance. 

If the hopes of Rodriguez were low, if his fancies were faint, whatmaterial have I left with which to make a story with glitter enough tohold my readers' eyes to the page: for know that mere dreams and idlefancies, and all amorous, lyrical, unsubstantial things, are all thatwe writers have of which to make a tale, as they are all that the DimOnes have to make the story of man. 

Sometimes riding, sometimes going on foot, with the thought of thelong, long miles always crowding upon Rodriguez, overwhelming hishopes; till even the castle he was to win in the wars grew too pale forhis fancy to see, tired and without illusions, they came at last bystarlight to the glow of a smith's forge. He must have done forty-fivemiles and he knew they were near Caspe. 

The smith was working late, and looked up when Rodriguez halted. Yes, he knew Gonzalez, a master in the trade: there was a welcome for hishorses. 

But for the two human travellers there were excuses, even apologies, but no spare beds. It was the same in the next three or four housesthat stood together by the road. And the fever of Rodriguez' ambitiondrove him on, though Morano would have lain down and slept where theystood, though he himself was weary. The smith had received his horses;after that he cared not whether they gave him shelter or not, thealternative being the road, and that bringing nearer his wars and thecastle he was to win. And that fancy that led his master Morano allowedalways to lead him too, though a few more miles and he would havefallen asleep as he walked and dropped by the roadside and slept on. Luckily they had gone barely two miles from the forge where the horsesrested, when they saw a high, dark house by the road and knocked on thedoor and found shelter. It was an old woman who let them in, a farmer'swife, and she had room for them and one mattress, but no bed. They weretoo tired to eat and did not ask for food, but at once followed her upthe booming stairs of her house, which were all dark but for hercandle, and so came among huge minuetting shadows to the long loft atthe top. There was a mattress there which the old woman laid out forRodriguez, and a heap of hay for Morano. Just for a moment, asRodriguez climbed the last step of the stair and entered the loft wherethe huge shadows twirled between the one candle's light and theunbeaten darkness in corners, just for a moment romance seemed tobeckon to him; for a moment, in spite of his fatigue and dejection, inspite of the possibility of his quest being crazy, for a moment he feltthat great shadows and echoing boards, the very cobwebs even that hungfrom the black rafters, were all romantic things; he felt that his wasa glorious adventure and that all these things that filled the loft inthe night were such as should fitly attend on youth and glory. In amoment that feeling was gone he knew not why it had come. And though heremembered it till grey old age, when he came to know the causes ofmany things, he never knew what romance might have to do with shadowsor echoes at night in an empty room, and only knew of such fancies thatthey came from beyond his understanding, whether from wisdom or folly. 

Morano was first asleep, as enormous snores testified, almost beforethe echoes had died away of the footsteps of the old woman descendingthe stairs; but soon Rodriguez followed him into the region of dreams, where fantastic ambitions can live with less of a struggle than in thebroad light of day: he dreamed he walked at night down a street ofcastles strangely colossal in an awful starlight, with doors too vastfor any human need, whose battlements were far in the heights of night;and chose, it being in time of war, the one that should be his; but thegargoyles on it were angry and spoiled the dream. 

Dream followed dream with furious rapidity, as the dreams of tired mendo, racing each other, jostling and mingling and dancing, anill-assorted company: myriads went by, a wild, grey, cloudy multitude;and with the last walked dawn. 

Rodriguez rose more relieved to quit so tumultuous a rest thanrefreshed by having had it. 

He descended, leaving Morano to sleep on, and not till the old dame hadmade a breakfast ready did he return to interrupt his snores. 

Even as he awoke upon his heap of hay Morano remained as true to hismaster's fantastic quest as the camel is true to the pilgrimage toMecca. He awoke grumbling, as the camel grumbles at dawn when the packsare put on him where he lies, but never did he doubt that they went tovictorious wars where his master would win a castle splendid withtowers. 

Breakfast cheered both the travellers. And then the old lady toldRodriguez that Caspe was but a three hours' walk, and that cheered themeven more, for Caspe is on the Ebro, which seemed to mark for Rodrigueza stage in his journey, being carried easily in his imagination, likethe Pyrenees. What road he would take when he reached Caspe he had notplanned. And soon Rodriguez expressed his gratitude, full of fervour, with many a flowery phrase which lived long in the old dame's mind; andthe visit of those two travellers became one of the strange events ofthat house and was chief of the memories that faintly haunted therafters of the loft for years. 

They did not reach Caspe in three hours, but went lazily, being weary;for however long a man defies fatigue the hour comes when it claimshim. The knowledge that Caspe lay near with sure lodging for the night, soothed Rodriguez' impatience. And as they loitered they talked, andthey decided that la Garda must now be too far behind to pursue anylonger. They came in four hours to the bank of the Ebro and there sawCaspe near them; but they dined once more on the grass, sitting besidethe river, rather than enter the town at once, for there had grown inboth travellers a liking for the wanderers' green table of earth. 

It was a time to make plans. The country of romance was far away andthey were without horses. 

"Will you buy horses, master?" said Morano. 

"We might not get them over the Pyrenees, " said Rodriguez, though hehad a better reason, which was that three gold pieces did not buy twosaddled horses. There were no more friends to hire from. Morano grewthoughtful. He sat with his feet dangling over the bank of the Ebro. 

"Master, " he said after a while, "this river goes our way. Let us comeby boat, master, and drift down to France at our ease. "

To get a river over a range of mountains is harder than to get horses. Some such difficulty Rodriguez implied to him; but Morano, having comeslowly by an idea, parted not so easily with it. 

"It goes our way, master, " he repeated, and pointed a finger at theEbro. 

At this moment a certain song that boatmen sing on that river, when thecurrent is with them and they have nothing to do but be idle and theirlazy thoughts run to lascivious things, came to the ears of Rodriguezand Morano; and a man with a bright blue sash steered down the Ebro. Hehad been fishing and was returning home. 

"Master, " Morano said, "that knave shall row us there. "

Rodriguez seeing that the idea was fixed in Morano's mind determinedthat events would move it sooner than argument, and so made no reply. 

"Shall I tell him, master?" asked Morano. 

"Yes, " said Rodriguez, "if he can row us over the Pyrenees. "

This was the permission that Morano sought, and a hideous yell brokefrom his throat hailing the boatman. The boatman looked up lazily, ayoung man with strong brown arms, turning black moustaches towardsMorano. Again Morano hailed him and ran along the bank, while the boatdrifted down and the boatman steered in towards Morano. Somehow Moranopersuaded him to come in to see what he wanted; and in a creek he ranhis boat aground, and there he and Morano argued and bargained. ButRodriguez remained where he was, wondering why it took so long to turnhis servant's mind from that curious fancy. At last Morano returned. 

"Well?" said Rodriguez. 

"Master, " said Morano, "he will row us to the Pyrenees. "

"The Pyrenees!" said Rodriguez. "The Ebro runs into the sea. " For theyhad taught him this at the college of San Josephus. 

"He will row us there, " said Morano, "for a gold piece a day, rowingfive hours each day. "

Now between them they had but four gold pieces; but that did not makethe Ebro run northward. It seemed that the Ebro, after going their way, as Morano had said, for twenty or thirty miles, was joined by the riverSegre, and that where the Ebro left them, turning eastwards, the courseof the Segre took them on their way: but it would be rowing against thecurrent. 

"How far is it?" said Rodriguez. 

"A hundred miles, he says, " answered Morano. "He knows it well. "

Rodriguez calculated swiftly. First he added thirty miles; for he knewthat his countrymen took a cheerful view of distance, seldom allowingany distance to oppress them under its true name at the out set of ajourney; then he guessed that the boatman might row five miles an hourfor the first thirty miles with the stream of the Ebro, and he hopedthat he might row three against the Segre until they came near themountains, where the current might grow too strong. 

"Morano, " he said, "we shall have to row too. "

"Row, master?" said Morano. 

"We can pay him for four days, " said Rodriguez. "If we all row we maygo far on our way. "

"It is better than riding, " replied Morano with entire resignation. 

And so they walked to the creek and Rodriguez greeted the boatman, whose name was Perez; and they entered the boat and he rowed them downto Caspe. And, in the house of Perez, Rodriguez slept that night in alarge dim room, untidy with diverse wares: they slept on heaps ofthings that pertained to the river and fishing. Yet it was late beforeRodriguez slept, for in sight of his mind came glimpses at last of theend of his journey; and, when he slept at last, he saw the Pyrenees. Through the long night their mighty heads rejected him, staringimmeasurably beyond him in silence, and then in happier dreams theybeckoned him for a moment. Till at last a bird that had entered thecity of Caspe sang clear and it was dawn. With that first lightRodriguez arose and awoke Morano. Together they left that long haven oflumber and found Perez already stirring. They ate hastily and all wentdown to the boat, the unknown that waits at the end of all strangejourneys quickening their steps as they went through the early light. 

Perez rowed first and the others took their turns and so they went allthe morning down the broad flood of the Ebro, and came in the afternoonto its meeting place with the Segre. And there they landed andstretched their limbs on shore and lit a fire and feasted, before theyfaced the current that would be henceforth against them. Then theyrowed on. 

When they landed by starlight and unrolled a sheet of canvas that Perezhad put in the boat, and found what a bad time starlight is forpitching a tent, Rodriguez and Morano had rowed for four hours each andPerez had rowed for five. They carried no timber in the boat but usedthe oars for tent-poles and cut tent-pegs with a small hatchet thatPerez had brought. 

They stumbled on rocks, tore the canvas on bushes, lost the same thingover and over again; in fact they were learning the craft of wandering. Yet at last their tent was up and a good fire comforting them outside, and Morano had cooked the food and they had supped and talked, andafter that they slept. And over them sleeping the starlight faded away, and in the greyness that none of them dreamed was dawn five clear noteswere heard so shrill in the night that Rodriguez half waking wonderedwhat bird of the darkness called, and learned from the answering chorusthat it was day. 

He woke Morano who rose in that chilly hour and, striking sparks amonglast night's embers, soon had a fire: they hastily made a meal andwrapped up their tent and soon they were going onward against the tideof the Segre. And that day Morano rowed more skilfully; and Rodriguezunwrapped his mandolin and played, reclining in the boat while herested from rowing. And the mandolin told them all, what the words ofnone could say, that they fared to adventure in the land of Romance, tothe overthrow of dullness and the sameness of all drear schemes and theconquest of discontent in the spirit of man; and perhaps it sang of atime that has not yet come, or the mandolin lied. 

That evening three wiser men made their camp before starlight. Theywere now far up the Segre. 

For thirteen hours next day they toiled at the oars or lay languid. Andwhile Rodriguez rested he played on his mandolin. The Segre slipped bythem. 

They seemed like no men on their way to war, but seemed to loiter asthe bright river loitered, which slid seaward in careless ease and waswholly freed from time. 

On this day they heard men speak of the Pyrenees, two men and a womanwalking by the river; their voices came to the boat across the water, and they spoke of the Pyrenees. And on the next day they heard menspeak of war. War that some farmers had fled from on the other side ofthe mountain. When Rodriguez heard these chance words his dreams camenearer till they almost touched the edges of reality. 

It was the last day of Perez' rowing. He rowed well although theyneared the cradle of the Segre and he struggled against them in hisyouth. Grey peaks began to peer that had nursed that river. Grey facesof stone began to look over green hills. They were the Pyrenees. 

When Rodriguez saw at last the Pyrenees he drew a breath and was unableto speak. Soon they were gone again below the hills: they had butpeered for a moment to see who troubled the Segre. 

And the sun set and still they did not camp, but Perez rowed on intothe starlight. That day he rowed six hours. 

They pitched their tent as well as they could in the darkness; and, breathing a clear new air all crisp from the Pyrenees, they sleptoutside the threshold of adventure. 

Rodriguez awoke cold. Once more he heard the first blackbird who singsclear at the edge of night all alone in the greyness, the nightingale'sonly rival; a rival like some unknown in the midst of a crowd who for amoment leads some well-loved song, in notes more liquid than amaster-singer's; and all the crowd joins in and his voice is lost, andno one learns his name. At once a host of birds answered him out of dimbushes, whose shapes had barely as yet emerged from night. And in thischorus Perez awoke, and even Morano. 

They all three breakfasted together, and then the wanderers saidgood-bye to Perez. And soon he was gone with his bright blue sash, drifting homewards with the Segre, well paid yet singing a little sadlyas he drifted; for he had been one of a quest, and now he left it atthe edge of adventure, near solemn mountains and, beyond them, romantic, near-unknown lands. So Perez left and Rodriguez and Moranoturned again to the road, all the more lightly because they had notdone a full day's march for so long, and now a great one unrolled itsleagues before them. 

The heads of the mountains showed themselves again. They tramped as inthe early days of their quest. And as they went the mountains, unveiling themselves slowly, dropping film after film of distance thathid their mighty forms, gradually revealed to the wanderers themagnificence of their beauty. Till at evening Rodriguez and Moranostood on a low hill, looking at that tremendous range, which lifted farabove the fields of Earth, as though its mountains were no earthlythings but sat with Fate and watched us and did not care. 

Rodriguez and Morano stood and gazed in silence. They had come twentymiles since morning, they were tired and hungry, but the mountains heldthem: they stood there looking neither for rest nor food. Beyond them, sheltering under the low hills, they saw a little village. Smokestraggled up from it high into the evening: beyond the village woodssloped away upwards. But far above smoke or woods the bare peaksbrooded. Rodriguez gazed on their austere solemnity, wondering whatsecret they guarded there for so long, guessing what message they heldand hid from man; until he learned that the mystery they guarded amongthem was of things that he knew not and could never know. 

Tinkle-ting said the bells of a church, invisible among the houses ofthat far village. Tinkle-ting said the crescent of hills that shelteredit. And after a while, speaking out of their grim and enormous silenceswith all the gravity of their hundred ages, Tinkle-ting said themountains. With this trivial message Echo returned from among the homesof the mighty, where she had run with the small bell's tiny cry totrouble their crowned aloofness. 

Rodriguez and Morano pressed on, and the mountains cloaked themselvesas they went, in air of many colours; till the stars came out and thelights of the village gleamed. In darkness, with surprise in the tonesof the barking dogs, the two wanderers came to the village where so fewever came, for it lay at the end of Spain, cut off by those mightyrocks, and they knew not much of what lands lay beyond. 

They beat on a door below a hanging board, on which was written "TheInn of the World's End": a wandering scholar had written it and hadbeen well paid for his work, for in those days writing was rare. Thedoor was opened for them by the host of the inn, and they entered aroom in which men who had supped were sitting at a table. They were allof them men from the Spanish side of the mountains, farmers come intothe village on the affairs of Mother Earth; next day they would be backat their farms again; and of the land the other side of the mountainsthat was so near now they knew nothing, so that it still remained forthe wanderers a thing of mystery wherein romance could dwell: andbecause they knew nothing of that land the men at the inn treasured allthe more the rumours that sometimes came from it, and of these theytalked, and mine host listened eagerly, to whom all tales were broughtsoon or late; and most he loved to hear tales from beyond the mountains. 

Rodriguez and Morano sat still and listened, and the talk was all ofwar. It was faint and vague like fable, but rumour clearly said War, and the other side of the mountains. It may be that no man has a crazyambition without at moments suspecting it; but prove it by thetouchstone of fact and he becomes at once as a woman whose invalid son, after years of seclusion indoors, wins unexpectedly some athleticprize. When Rodriguez heard all this talk of wars quite near he thoughtof his castle as already won; his thoughts went further even, floatingthrough Lowlight in the glowing evening, and drifting up and down pastSerafina's house below the balcony where she sat for ever. 

Some said the Duke would never attack the Prince because the Duke'saunt was a princess from the Troubadour's country. Another said thatthere would surely be war. Others said that there was war already, andtoo late for man to stop it. All said it would soon be over. 

And one man said that it was the last war that would come, becausegunpowder made fighting impossible. It could smite a man down, he said, at two hundred paces, and a man be slain not knowing whom he fought. Some loved fighting and some loved peace, he said, but gunpowder suitednone. 

"I like not the sound of that gunpowder, master, " said Morano toRodriguez. 

"Nobody likes it, " said the man at the table. "It is the end of war. "And some sighed and some were glad. But Rodriguez determined to push onbefore the last war was over. 

Next morning Rodriguez paid the last of his silver pieces and set offwith Morano before any but mine host were astir. There was nothing butthe mountains in front of them. 

They climbed all the morning and they came to the fir woods. There theylit a good fire and Morano brought out his frying-pan. Over the mealthey took stock of their provisions and found that, for all the storeMorano had brought from the forest, they had now only food for threedays; and they were quite without money. Money in those uplifted wastesseemed trivial, but the dwindling food told Rodriguez that he mustpress on; for man came among those rocky monsters supplied with all hisneeds, or perished unnoticed before their stony faces. All theafternoon they passed through the fir woods, and as shadows began togrow long they passed the last tree. The village and all the fieldsabout it and the road by which they had come were all spread out belowthem like little trivial things dimly remembered from very long ago byone whose memory weakens. Distance had dwarfed them, and the coldregard of those mighty peaks ignored them. And then a shadow fell onthe village, then tiny lights shone out. It was night down there. Stillthe two wanderers climbed on in the daylight. With their faces to therocks they scarce saw night climb up behind them. But when Rodriguezlooked up at the sky to see how much light was left, and met the calmgaze of the evening star, he saw that Night and the peaks were mettogether, and understood all at once how puny an intruder is man. 

"Morano, " said Rodriguez, "we must rest here for the night. "

Morano looked round him with an air of discontent, not with hismaster's words but with the rocks' angular hardness. There was scarce aplant of any kind near them now. They were near the snow, which hadflushed like a wild rose at sunset but was now all grey. Grey cliffsseemed to be gazing sheer at eternity; and here was man, the creatureof a moment, who had strayed in the cold all homeless among hisbetters. There was no welcome for them there: whatever feeling greatmountains evoke, THAT feeling was clear in Rodriguez and Morano. Theywere all amongst those that have other aims, other ends, and knownaught of man. A bitter chill from the snow and from starry space drovethis thought home. 

They walked on looking for a better place, as men will, but found none. And at last they lay down on the cold earth under a rock that seemed togive shelter from the wind, and there sought sleep; but cold cameinstead, and sleep kept far from the tremendous presences of the peaksof the Pyrenees that gazed on things far from here. 

An ageing moon arose, and Rodriguez touched Morano and rose up; and thetwo went slowly on, tired though they were. Picture the two tinyfigures, bent, shivering and weary, walking with clumsy sticks cut inthe wood, amongst the scorn of those tremendous peaks, which the moonshowed all too clearly. 

They got little warmth from walking, they were too weary to run; andafter a while they halted and burned their sticks, and got a littlewarmth for some moments from their fire, which burned feebly andstrangely in those inhuman solitudes. 

Then they went on again and their track grew steeper. They rested againfor fatigue, and rose and climbed again because of the cold; and allthe while the peaks stared over them to spaces far beyond the thoughtof man. 

Long before Spain knew anything of dawn a monster high in heaven smiledat the sun, a peak out-towering all its aged children. It greeted thesun as though this lonely thing, that scorned the race of man sinceever it came, had met a mighty equal out in Space. The vast peakglowed, and the rest of its grey race took up the greeting leisurelyone by one. Still it was night in all Spanish houses. 

Rodriguez and Morano were warmed by that cold peak's glow, though nowarmth came from it at all; but the sight of it cheered them and theirpulses rallied, and so they grew warmer in that bitter hour. 

And then dawn came, and showed them that they were near the top of thepass. They had come to the snow that gleams there everlastingly. 

There was no material for a fire but they ate cold meats, and wentwearily on. They passed through that awful assemblage of peaks. By noonthey were walking upon level ground. 

In the afternoon Rodriguez, tired with the journey and with the heat ofthe sun, decided that it was possible to sleep, and, wrapping his cloakaround him, he lay down, doing what Morano would have done, byinstinct. Morano was asleep at once and Rodriguez soon after. Theyawoke with the cold at sunset. 

Refreshed amazingly they ate some food and started their walk again tokeep themselves warm for the night. They were still on level ground andset out with a good stride in their relief at being done with climbing. Later they slowed down and wandered just to keep warm. And some time inthe starlight they felt their path dip, and knew that they were goingdownward now to the land of Rodriguez' dreams. 

When the peaks glowed again, first meeting day in her earliestdancing-grounds of filmy air, they stood now behind the wanderers. Below them still in darkness lay the land of their dream, but hithertoit had always faded at dawn. Now hills put up their heads one by onethrough films of mist; woods showed, then hedges, and afterwardsfields, greyly at first and then, in the cold hard light of morning, becoming more and more real. The sight of the land so long sought, atmoments believed by Morano not to exist on earth, perhaps to have fadedaway when fables died, swept their fatigue from the wanderers, and theystepped out helped by the slope of the Pyrenees and cheered by therising sun. They came at last to things that welcome man, little shrubsflowering, and--at noon--to the edge of a fir wood. They entered thewood and lit a merry fire, and heard birds singing, at which they bothrejoiced, for the great peaks had said nothing. 

They ate the food that Morano cooked, and drew warmth and cheer fromthe fire, and then they slept a little: and, rising from sleep, theypushed on through the wood, downward and downward toward the land oftheir dreams, to see if it was true. 

They passed the wood and came to curious paths, and little hills, andheath, and rocky places, and wandering vales that twisted all awry. They passed through them all with the slope of the mountain behindthem. When level rays from the sunset mellowed the fields of France thewanderers were walking still, but the peaks were far behind them, austerely gazing on the remotest things, forgetting the footsteps ofman. And walking on past soft fields in the evening, all tilted alittle about the mountain's feet, they had scarcely welcomed the sightof the evening star, when they saw before them the mild glow of awindow and knew they were come again to the earth that is mother toman. In their cold savagery the inhuman mountains decked themselves outlike gods with colours they took from the sunset; then darkened, allthose peaks, in brooding conclave and disappeared in the night. And thehushed night heard the tiny rap of Morano's hands on the door of thehouse that had the glowing window. 

THE NINTH CHRONICLE

HOW HE WON A CASTLE IN SPAIN

The woman that came to the door had on her face a look that pleasedMorano. 

"Are you soldiers?" she said. And her scared look portended war. 

"My master is a traveller looking for the wars, " said Morano. "Are thewars near?"

"Oh, no, not near, " said the woman; "not near. "

And something in the anxious way she said "not near" pleased Moranoalso. 

"We shall find those wars, master, " he said. 

And then they both questioned her. It seemed the wars were but twentymiles away. "But they will move northward, " she said. "Surely they willmove farther off?"

Before the next night was passed Rodriguez' dream might come true!

And then the man came to the door anxious at hearing strange voices;and Morano questioned him too, but he understood never a word. He was aFrench farmer that had married a Spanish girl, out of the wonderfulland beyond the mountains: but whether he understood her or not henever understood Spanish. But both Rodriguez and the farmer's wife knewthe two languages, and he had no difficulty in asking for lodging forthe night; and she looked wistfully at him going to the wars, for inthose days wars were small and not every man went. The night went bywith dreams that were all on the verge of waking, which passed likeghosts along the edge of night almost touched by the light of day. Itwas Rodriguez whom these dreams visited. The farmer and his wifewondered awhile and then slept; Morano slept with all his wontedlethargy; but Rodriguez with his long quest now on the eve offulfilment slept a tumultuous sleep. Sometimes his dreams raced overthe Pyrenees, running south as far as Lowlight; and sometimes theyrushed forward and clung like bats to the towers of the great castlethat he should win in the war. And always he lay so near the edge ofsleep that he never distinguished quite between thought and dream. 

Dawn came and he put by all the dreams but the one that guided himalways, and went and woke Morano. They ate hurriedly and left thehouse, and again the farmer's wife looked curiously at Rodriguez, asthough there were something strange in a man that went to wars: forthose days were not as these days. They followed the direction that hadbeen given them, and never had the two men walked so fast. By the endof four hours they had done sixteen miles. They halted then, and Moranodrew out his frying-pan with a haughty flourish, and cooked in thegrand manner, every movement he made was a triumphant gesture; for theyhad passed refugees! War was now obviously close: they had but to takethe way that the refugees were not taking. The dream was true: Moranosaw himself walking slowly in splendid dress along the tapestriedcorridors of his master's castle. He would have slept after eating andwould have dreamed more of this, but Rodriguez commanded him to put thethings together: so what remained of the food disappeared again in asack, the frying-pan was slung over his shoulders, and Morano stoodready again for the road. 

They passed more refugees: their haste was unmistakable, and told morethan their lips could have told had they tarried to speak: the warswere near now, and the wanderers went leisurely. 

As they strolled through the twilight they came over the brow of ahill, a little fold of the earth disturbed eras ago by the awfulrushing up of the Pyrenees; and they saw the evening darkening over thefields below them and a white mist rising only just clear of the grass, and two level rows of tents greyish-white like the mist, with a fewmore tents scattered near them. The tents had come up that evening withthe mist, for there were men still hammering pegs. They were lightingfires now as evening settled in. Two hundred paces or so separated eachrow. It was two armies facing each other. 

The gloaming faded: mist and the tents grew greyer: camp-fires blinkedout of the dimness and grew redder and redder, and candles began to belit beside the tents till all were glowing pale golden: Rodriguez andMorano stood there wondering awhile as they looked on the beautifulaura that surrounds the horrors of war. 

They came by starlight to that tented field, by twinkling starlight tothe place of Rodriguez' dream. 

"For which side will you fight, master?" said Morano in his ear. 

"For the right, " said Rodriguez and strode on towards the nearesttents, never doubting that he would be guided, though not trying tocomprehend how this could be. 

They met with an officer going among his tents. "Where do you go?" heshouted. 

"Seņor, " Rodriguez said, "I come with my mandolin 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 heknew that he had a way with the mandolin. And they said that theyfought a battle on the morrow and could not listen to song: they heapedscorn on singing for they said they must needs prepare for the fight:and all of them looked with scorn on the mandolin. So Rodriguez bowedlow to them with doffed hat and left them; and Morano bowed also, seeing his master bow; and the men of that camp returned to theirpreparations. A short walk brought Rodriguez and his servant to theother camp, over a flat field convenient for battle. He went up to alarge tent well lit, the door being open towards him; and, havingexplained his errand to a sentry that stood outside, he entered and sawthree persons of quality that were sitting at a table. To them he bowedlow in the tent door, saying: "Seņors, I am come to sing songs to you, playing the while upon my mandolin. "

And they welcomed him gladly, saying: "We fight tomorrow and willgladly cheer our hearts with the sound of song and strengthen our menthereby. "

And so Rodriguez sang among the tents, standing by a great fire towhich they led him; and men came from the tents and into the circle oflight, and in the darkness outside it were more than Rodriguez saw. Andhe sang to the circle of men and the vague glimmer of faces. Songs oftheir homes he sang them, not in their language, but songs that weremade by old poets about the homes of their infancy, in valleys underfar mountains remote from the Pyrenees. And in the song the yearningsof dead poets lived again, all streaming homeward like swallows whenthe last of the storms is gone: and those yearnings echoed in thehearts that beat in the night around the campfire, and they saw theirown homes. And then he began to touch his mandolin; and he played themthe tunes that draw men from their homes and that march them away towar. The tunes flowed up from the firelight: the mandolin knew. And themen heard the mandolin saying what they would say. 

In the late night he ended, and a hush came down on the camp while themusic floated away, going up from the dark ring of men and the fire-litfaces, touching perhaps the knees of the Pyrenees and drifting thencewherever echoes go. And the sparks of the camp-fire went straightupwards as they had done for hours, and the men that sat around it sawthem go: for long they had not seen the sparks stream upwards, fortheir thoughts were far away with the mandolin. And all at once theycheered. And Rodriguez bowed to the one whose tent he had entered, andsought permission to fight for them in the morning. 

With good grace this was accorded him, and while he bowed and wellexpressed his thanks he felt Morano touching his elbow. And as soon ashe had gone aside with Morano that fat man's words bubbled over andwere said. 

"Master, fight not for these men, " he exclaimed, "for they listen tosong till midnight while the others prepare for battle. The others willwin the fight, master, and where will your castle be?"

"Morano, " said Rodriguez, "there seems to be truth in that. Yet must wefight for the right. For how would it be if those that have denied songshould win and thrive? The arm of every good man must be against them. They have denied song, Morano! We must fight against them, you and I, while we can lay sword to head. "

"Yes, indeed, master, " said Morano. "But how shall you come by yourcastle?"

"As for that, " said Rodriguez, "it must some day be won, yet not bydenying song. These have given a welcome to song, and the others havedriven it forth. And what would life be if those that deny song are tobe permitted to thrive unmolested by all good men?"

"I know not, master, " said Morano, "but I would have that castle. "

"Enough, " said Rodriguez. "We must fight for the right. "

And so Rodriguez remained true to those that had heard him sing. Andthey gave him a casque and breast-plate, proof, they said, against anysword, and offered a sword that they said would surely cleave anybreast-plate. For they fought not in battle with the nimble rapier. ButRodriguez did not forsake that famous exultant sword whose deeds heknew from many an ancient song; which he had brought so far to give itits old rich drink of blood. He believed it the bright key of thecastle he was to win. 

And they gave Rodriguez a good bed on the ground in the tent of thethree leaders, the tent to which he first came; for they honoured himfor the gift of song that he had, and because he was a stranger, andbecause he had asked permission to fight for them in their battle. AndRodriguez took one look by the light of a lantern at the rose he hadcarried from Lowlight, then slept a sleep through whose dreams loomedup the towers of castles. 

Dawn came and he slept on still; but by seven all the camp was loudlyastir, for they had promised the enemy to begin the battle at eight. Rodriguez breakfasted lightly; for, now that the day of his dreams wascome at last and all his hopes depended on the day, an anxiety for manythings oppressed him. It was as though his castle, rosy and fair indreams, chilled with its huge cold rocks all the air near it: it was asthough Rodriguez touched it at last with his hands and felt a danknessof which he had never dreamed. 

Then it came to the hour of eight and his anxieties passed. 

The army was now drawn up before its tents in line, but the enemy wasnot yet ready and so they had to wait. 

When the signal at length was given and the cannoniers fired theirpieces, and the musketoons were shot off, many men fell. Now Rodriguez, with Morano, was placed on the right, and either through a slightdifference in numbers or because of an unevenness in the array ofbattle they a little overlapped the enemy's left. When a few men fellwounded there by the discharge of the musketoons this overlapping waseven more pronounced. 

Now the leaders of that fair army scorned all unknightly devices, andwould never have descended to any vile ruse de guerre. The reproach cantherefore never be made against them that they ever intended tooutflank their enemy. Yet, when both armies advanced after thedischarge of the musketoons and the merry noise of the cannon, thisoccurred as the result of chance, which no leader can be heldaccountable for; so that those that speak of treachery in this battle, and deliberate outflanking, lie. 

Now Rodriguez as he advanced with his sword, when the musketoons wereempty, had already chosen his adversary. For he had carefully watchedthose opposite to him, before any smoke should obscure them, and hadselected the one who from the splendour of his dress might be expectedto possess the finest castle. Certainly this adversary outshone thoseamongst whom he stood, and gave fair promise of owning goodlypossessions, for he wore a fine green cloak over a dress of lilac, andhis helm and cuirass had a look of crafty workmanship. Towards himRodriguez marched. 

Then began fighting foot to foot, and there was a pretty laying on ofswords. And had there been a poet there that day then the story oftheir fight had come down to you, my reader, all that way from thePyrenees, down all those hundreds of years, and this tale of mine hadbeen useless, the lame repetition in prose of songs that your nurseshad sung to you. But they fought unseen by those that see for the Muses. 

Rodriguez advanced upon his chosen adversary and, having briefly bowed, they engaged at once. And Rodriguez belaboured his helm till dintsappeared, and beat it with swift strokes yet till the dints werecracks, and beat the cracks till hair began to appear: and all thewhile his adversary's strokes grew weaker and wilder, until he totteredto earth and Rodriguez had won. Swift then as cats, while Morano keptoff others, Rodriguez leaped to his throat, and, holding up thestiletto that he had long ago taken as his legacy from the host of theDragon and Knight, he demanded the fallen man's castle as ransom forhis life. 

"My castle, seņor?" said his prisoner weakly. 

"Yes, " said Rodriguez impatiently. 

"Yes, seņor, " said his adversary and closed his eyes for awhile. 

"Does he surrender his castle, master?" asked Morano. 

"Yes, indeed, " said Rodriguez. They looked at each other: all at lastwas well. 

The battle was rolling away from them and was now well within theenemy's tents. 

History says of that day that the good men won. And, sitting, a Museupon her mythical mountain, her decision must needs be one from whichwe may not appeal: and yet I wonder if she is ever bribed. Certainlythe shrewd sense of Morano erred for once; for those for whom he hadpredicted victory, because they prepared so ostentatiously upon thefield, were defeated; while the others, having made their preparationslong before, were able to cheer themselves with song before the battleand to win it when it came. 

And so Rodriguez was left undisturbed in possession of his prisoner andwith the promise of his castle as a ransom. The battle was swiftlyover, as must needs be where little armies meet so close. The enemy'scamp was occupied, his army routed, and within an hour of beginning thebattle the last of the fighting ceased. 

The army returned to its tents to rejoice and to make a banquet, bringing with them captives and horses and other spoils of war. AndRodriguez had honour among them because he had fought on the right andso was one of those that had broken the enemy's left, from whichdirection victory had come. And they would have feasted him and donehim honour, both for his work with the sword and for his songs to themandolin; and they would have marched away soon to their own countryand would have taken him with them and advanced him to honour there. But Rodriguez would not stay with them for he had his castle at last, and must needs march off at once with his captive and Morano to see thefulfilment of his dream. And therefore he thanked the leaders of thathost with many a courtesy and many a well-bent bow, and explained tothem how it was about his castle, and felicitated them on the victoryof their good cause, and so wished them farewell. And they saidfarewell sorrowfully: but when they saw he would go, they gave himhorses for himself and Morano, and another for his captive; and theyheaped them with sacks of provender and blankets and all things thatcould give him comfort upon a journey: all this they brought him out oftheir spoils of war, and they would give him no less that the most thatthe horses could carry. And then Rodriguez turned to his captive again, who now stood on his feet. 

"Seņor, " he said, "pray tell us all of your castle wherewith you ransomyour life. "

"Seņor, " he answered, "I have a castle in Spain. "

"Master, " broke in Morano, his eyes lighting up with delight, "thereare no castles like the Spanish ones. "

They got to horse then, all three; the captive on a horse of far poorerbuild than the other two and well-laden with sacks, for Rodriguez tookno chance of his castle cantering, as it were, away from him on fourhooves through the dust. 

And when they heard that his journey was by way of the Pyrenees fourknights of that army swore they would ride with him as far as thefrontier of Spain, to bear him company and bring him fuel in the lonelycold of the mountains. They all set off and the merry army cheered. Heleft them making ready for their banquet, and never knew the cause forwhich he had fought. 

They came by evening again to the house to which Rodriguez had come twonights before, when he had slept there with his castle yet to win. Theyall halted before it, and the man and the woman came to the doorterrified. "The wars!" they said. 

"The wars, " said one of the riders, "are over, and the just cause haswon. "

"The Saints be praised!" said the woman. "But will there be no morefighting?"

"Never again, " said the horseman, "for men are sick of gunpowder. "

"The Saints be thanked, " she said. 

"Say not that, " said the horseman, "for Satan invented gunpowder. "

And she was silent; but, had none been there, she had secretly thankedSatan. 

They demanded the food and shelter that armed men have the right todemand. 

In the morning they were gone. They became a memory, which lingeredlike a vision, made partly of sunset and partly of the splendour oftheir cloaks, and so went down the years that those two folk had, athing of romance, magnificence and fear. And now the slope of themountain began to lift against them, and they rode slowly towards thoseunearthly peaks that had deserted the level fields before ever man cameto them, and that sat there now familiar with stars and dawn with theair of never having known of man. And as they rode they talked. AndRodriguez talked with the four knights that rode with him, and theytold tales of war and told of the ways of fighting of many men: andMorano rode behind them beside the captive and questioned him all themorning about his castle in Spain. And at first the captive answeredhis questions slowly, as if he were weary, or as though he were longfrom home and remembered its features dimly; but memory soon returnedand he answered clearly, telling of such a castle as Morano had notdreamed; and the eyes of the fat man bulged as he rode beside him, growing rounder and rounder as they rode. 

They came by sunset to that wood of firs in which Rodriguez had rested. In the midst of the wood they halted and tethered their horses totrees; they tied blankets to branches and made an encampment; and inthe midst of it they made a fire, at first, with pine-needles and thedead lower twigs and then with great logs. And there they feastedtogether, all seven, around the fire. And when the feast was over andthe great logs burning well, and red sparks went up slowly towards thesilver stars, Morano turned to the prisoner seated beside him and "Tellthe seņors, " he said, "of my master's castle. "

And in the silence, that was rather lulled than broken by thewhispering wind from the snow that sighed through the wood, the captiveslowly lifted up his head and spoke in his queer accent. 

"Seņors, in Aragon, across the Ebro, are many goodly towers. " And as hespoke they all leaned forward to listen, dark faces bright withfirelight. "On the Ebro's southern bank stands, " he went on, "my home. "

He told of strange rocks rising from the Ebro; of buttresses builtamong them in unremembered times; of the great towers lifting up inmultitudes from the buttresses; and of the mighty wall, windowlessuntil it came to incredible heights, where the windows shone all safefrom any ladder of war. 

At first they felt in his story his pride in his lost home, andwondered, when he told of the height of his towers, how much he addedin pride. And then the force of that story gripped them all and theydoubted never a battlement, but each man's fancy saw between firelightand starlight every tower clear in the air. And at great height uponthose marvellous towers the turrets of arches were; queer carvingsgrinned down from above inaccessible windows; and the towers gatheredin light from the lonely air where nothing stood but they, and flashedit far over Aragon; and the Ebro floated by them always new, alwaysamazed by their beauty. 

He spoke to the six listeners on the lonely mountain, slowly, remembering mournfully; and never a story that Romance has known andtold of castles in Spain has held men more than he held his listeners, while the sparks flew up toward the peaks of the Pyrenees and did notreach to them but failed in the night, giving place to the white stars. 

And when he faltered through sorrow, or memory weakening, Moranoalways, watching with glittering eyes, would touch his arm, sittingbeside him, and ask some question, and the captive would answer thequestion and so talk sadly on. 

He told of the upper terraces, where heliotrope and aloe and oleandertook sunlight far above their native earth: and though but rare windscarried the butterflies there, such as came to those fragrant terraceslingered for ever. 

And after a while he spoke on carelessly, and Morano's questions ended, and none of the men in the firelight said a word; but he spoke onuninterrupted, holding them as by a spell, with his eyes fixed far awayon black crags of the Pyrenees, telling of his great towers: almost itmight have seemed he was speaking of mountains. And when the fire wasonly a deep red glow and white ash showed all round it, and he ceasedspeaking, having told of a castle marvellous even amongst the towers ofSpain: all sitting round the embers felt sad with his sadness, for hissad voice drifted into their very spirits as white mists enter houses, and all were glad when Rodriguez said to him that one of his ten talltowers the captive should keep and should live in it for ever. And thesad man thanked him sadly and showed no joy. 

When the tale of the castle and those great towers was done, the windthat blew from the snow touched all the hearers; they had seemed to beaway by the bank of the Ebro in the heat and light of Spain, and nowthe vast night stripped them and the peaks seemed to close round onthem. They wrapped themselves in blankets and lay down in theirshelters. For a while they heard the wind waving branches and the thumpof a horse's hoof restless at night; then they all slept except onethat guarded the captive, and the captive himself who long lay thinkingand thinking. 

Dawn stole through the wood and waked none of the sleepers; the birdsall shouted at them, still they slept on; and then the captive's guardwakened Morano and he stirred up the sparks of the fire and cooked, andthey breakfasted late. And soon they left the wood and faced the bleakslope, all of them going on foot and leading their horses. 

And the track crawled on till it came to the scorn of the peaks, winding over a shoulder of the Pyrenees, where the peaks gaze cold andcontemptuous away from the things of man. 

In the presence of those that bore them company Rodriguez and Moranofelt none of the deadly majesty of those peaks that regard so awfullyover the solitudes. They passed through them telling cheerfully of warsthe four knights had known: and descended and came by sunset to thelower edge of the snow. They pushed on a little farther and thencamped; and with branches from the last camp that they had heaped ontheir horses they made another great fire and, huddling round it in theblankets that they had brought, found warmth even there so far from thehearths of men. 

And dawn and the cold woke them all on that treeless slope by barelywarm embers. Morano cooked again and they ate in silence. And then thefour knights rose sadly and one bowed and told Rodriguez how they mustnow go back to their own country. And grief seized on Rodriguez at hiswords, seeing that he was to lose four old friends at once and perhapsfor ever, for when men have fought under the same banner in war theybecome old friends on that morning. 

"Seņors, " said Rodriguez, "we may never meet again!"

And the other looked back to the peaks beyond which the far lands lay, and made a gesture with his hands. 

"Seņor, at least, " said Rodriguez, "let us camp once more together. "

And even Morano babbled a supplication. 

"Methinks, seņor, " he answered, "we are already across the frontier, and when we men of the sword cross frontiers misunderstandings arise, so that it is our custom never to pass across them save when we pushthe frontier with us, adding the lands over which we march to those ofour liege lord. "

"Seņors, " said Rodriguez, "the whole mountain is the frontier. Comewith us one day further. " But they would not stay. 

All the good things that could be carried they loaded on to the threehorses whose heads were turned towards Spain; then turned, all four, and said farewell to the three. And long looked each in the face ofRodriguez as he took his hand in fare well, for they had fought underthe same banner and, as wayfaring was in those days, it was not likelythat they would ever meet again. They turned and went with their horsesback towards the land they had fought for. 

Rodriguez and his captive and Morano went sadly down the mountain. Theycame to the fir woods, and rested, and Morano cooked their dinner. Andafter a while they were able to ride their horses. 

They came to the foot of the mountains, and rode on past the Inn of theWorld's End. They camped in the open; and all night long Rodriguez orMorano guarded the captive. 

For two days and part of the third they followed their old course, catching sight again and again of the river Segre; and then they turnedfurther west ward to come to Aragon further up the Ebro. All the waythey avoided houses and camped in the open, for they kept their captiveto themselves: and they slept warm with their ample store of blankets. And all the while the captive seemed morose or ill at ease, speakingseldom and, when he did, in nervous jerks. 

Morano, as they rode, or by the camp fire at evening, still questionedhim now and then about his castle; and sometimes he almost seemed tocontradict himself, but in so vast a castle may have been many stylesof architecture, and it was difficult to trace a contradiction amongall those towers and turrets. His name was DonAlvidar-of-the-Rose-pink-Castle on-Ebro. 

One night while all three sat and gazed at the camp-fire as men will, when the chilly stars are still and the merry flames are leaping, Rodriguez, seeking to cheer his captive's mood, told him some of hisstrange adventures. The captive listened with his sombre air. But whenRodriguez told how they woke on the mountain after their journey to thesun; and the sun was shining on their faces in the open, but themagician and his whole house were gone; then there came another lookinto Alvidar's eyes. And Rodriguez ended his tale and silence fell, broken only by Morano saying across the fire, "It is true, " and thecaptive's thoughtful eyes gazed into the darkness. And then he alsospoke. 

"Seņor, " he said, "near to my rose-pink castle which looks into theEbro dwells a magician also. "

"Is it so?" said Rodriguez. 

"Indeed so, seņor, " said Don Alvidar. "He is my enemy but dwells in aweof me, and so durst never molest me except by minor wonders. "

"How know you that he is a magician?" said Rodriguez. 

"By those wonders, " answered his captive. "He afflicts small dogs andmy poultry. And he wears a thin, high hat: his beard is alsoextraordinary. "

"Long?" said Morano. 

"Green, " answered Don Alvidar. 

"Is he very near the castle?" said Rodriguez and Morano together. 

"Too near, " said Don Alvidar. 

"Is his house wonderful?" Rodriguez asked. 

"It is a common house, " was the answer. "A mean, long house of onestory. The walls are white and it is well thatched. The windows arepainted green; there are two doors in it and by one of them grows arose tree. "

"A rose tree?" exclaimed Rodriguez. 

"It seemed a rose tree, " said Don Alvidar. 

"A captive lady chained to the wall perhaps, changed by magic, "suggested Morano. 

"Perhaps, " said Don Alvidar. 

"A strange house for a magician, " said Rodriguez, for it sounded likeany small farmhouse in Spain. 

"He much affects mortal ways, " replied Don Alvidar. 

Little more was then said, the fire being low: and Rodriguez lay downto sleep while Morano guarded the captive. 

And the day after that they came to Aragon, and in one day more theywere across the Ebro; and then they rode west for a day along itssouthern bank looking all the while as they rode for Rodriguez' castle. And more and more silent and aloof, as they rode, grew DonAlvidar-of-the-Rose-pink-Castle-on-Ebro. 

And just before sunset a cry broke from the captive. "He has taken it!"he said. And he pointed to just such a house as he had described, ajolly Spanish farmhouse with white walls and thatch and green shutters, and a rose tree by one of the doors just as he had told. 

"The magician's house. But the castle is gone, " he said. 

Rodriguez looked at his face and saw real alarm in it. He said nothingbut rode on in haste, a dim hope in his mind that explanations at thewhite cottage might do something for his lost castle. 

And when the hooves were heard a woman came out of the cottage door bythe rose tree leading a small child by the hand. And the captive calledto the woman, "Maria, we are lost. And I gave my great castle withrose-pink towers that stood just here as ransom to this seņor for mylife. But now, alas, I see that that magician who dwelt in the housewhere you are now has taken it whither we know not. "

"Yes, Pedro, " said the woman, "he took it yesterday. " And she turnedblue eyes upon Rodriguez. 

And then Morano would be silent no longer. He had thought vaguely forsome days and intensely for the last few hundreds yards, and now heblurted out the thoughts that boiled in him. 

"Master, " he shouted, "he has sold his cattle and bought this raimentof his, and that helmet that you opened up for him, and never had anycastle on the Ebro with any towers to it, and never knew any magician, but lived in this house himself, and now your castle is gone, master, and as for his life . . . "

"Be silent a moment, Morano, " said Rodriguez, and he turned to thewoman whose eyes were on him still. 

"Was there a castle in this place?" he said. 

"Yes, seņor. I swear it, " she said. "And my husband, though a poor man, always spoke the truth. "

"She lies, " said Morano, and Rodriguez silenced him with a gesture. 

"I will get neighbours who will swear it too, " she said. 

"A lousy neighbourhood, " said Morano. 

Again Rodriguez silenced him. And then the child spoke in a frightenedvoice, holding up a small cross that it had been taught to revere. "Iswear it too, " it said. 

Rodriguez heaved a sigh and turned away. "Master, " Morano cried inpained astonishment, "you will not believe their swearings. "

"The child swore by the cross, " he answered. 

"But, master!" Morano exclaimed. 

But Rodriguez would say no more. And they rode away aimless in silence. 

Galloping hooves were heard and Pedro was there. He had come to give uphis horse. He gave its reins to the scowling Morano but Rodriguez saidnever a word. Then he ran round and kissed Rodriguez' hand, who stillwas silent, for his hopes were lost with the castle; but he nodded hishead and so parted for ever from the man whom his wife called Pedro, who called himself Don Alvidar-of-the-Rose-pink-Castle-on-Ebro. 

THE TENTH CHRONICLE

HOW HE CAME BACK TO LOWLIGHT

"Master, " Morano said. But Rodriguez rode ahead and would not speak. 

They were riding vaguely southward. They had ample provisions on thehorse that Morano led, as well as blankets, which gave them comfort atnight. That night they both got the sleep they needed, now that therewas no captive to guard. All the next day they rode slowly in the Aprilweather by roads that wandered among tended fields; but a little wayoff from the fields there shone low hills in the sunlight, so wild, sofree of man, that Rodriguez remembering them in later years, wonderedif their wild shrubs just hid the frontiers of fairyland. 

For two days they rode by the edge of unguessable regions. Had Panpiped there no one had marvelled, nor though fauns had scurried pastsheltering clumps of azaleas. In the twilight no tiny queens had courtwithin rings of toadstools: yet almost, almost they appeared. 

And on the third day all at once they came to a road they knew. It wasthe road by which they had ridden when Rodriguez still had his dream, the way from Shadow Valley to the Ebro. And so they turned into theroad they knew, as wanderers always will; and, still without aim orplan, they faced towards Shadow Valley. And in the evening of the daythat followed that, as they looked about for a camping-ground, therecame in sight the village on the hill which Rodriguez knew to be fiftymiles from the forest: it was the village in which they had rested thefirst night after leaving Shadow Valley. They did not camp but went onto the village and knocked at the door of the inn. Habit guides us allat times, even kings are the slaves of it (though in their presence ittakes the prouder name of precedent); and here were two wandererswithout any plans at all; they were therefore defenceless in the gripof habit and, seeing an inn they knew, they loitered up to it. Minehost came again to the door. He cheerfully asked Rodriguez how he hadfared on his journey, but Rodriguez would say nothing. He asked forlodging for himself and Morano and stabling for the horses: he ate andslept and paid his due, and in the morning was gone. 

Whatever impulses guided Rodriguez as he rode and Morano followed, heknew not what they were or even that there could be any. He followedthe road without hope and only travelled to change his camping-grounds. And that night he was half-way between the village and Shadow Valley. 

Morano never spoke, for he saw that his master's disappointment wasstill raw; but it pleased him to notice, as he had done all day, thatthey were heading for the great forest. He cooked their evening meal intheir camp by the wayside and they both ate it in silence. For awhileRodriguez sat and gazed at the might-have-beens in the camp-fire: andwhen these began to be hidden by white ash he went to his blankets andslept. And Morano went quietly about the little camp, doing all thatneeded to be done, with never a word. When the horses were seen to andfed, when the knives were cleaned, when everything was ready for thestart next morning, Morano went to his blankets and slept too. And inthe morning again they wandered on. 

That evening they saw the low gold rays of the sun enchanting the topsof a forest. It almost surprised Rodriguez, travelling without an aim, to recognise Shadow Valley. They quickened their slow pace and, beforetwilight faded, they were under the great oaks; but the last of thetwilight could not pierce the dimness of Shadow Valley, and it seemedas if night had entered the forest with them. 

They chose a camping-ground as well as they could in the darkness andMorano tied the horses to trees a little way off from the camp. Then hereturned to Rodriguez and tied a blanket to the windward side of twotrees to make a kind of bedroom for his master, for they had all theblankets they needed. And when this was done he set the emblem andbanner of camps, anywhere all over the world in any time, for hegathered sticks and branches and lit a camp-fire. The first red flameswent up and waved and proclaimed a camp: the light made a littlecircle, shadows ran away to the forest, and the circle of light on theground and on the trees that stood round it became for that one nighthome. 

They heard the horses stamp as they always did in the early part of thenight; and then Morano went to give them their fodder. Rodriguez satand gazed into the fire, his mind as full of thoughts as the fire wasfull of pictures: one by one the pictures in the fire fell in; and allhis thoughts led nowhere. 

He heard Morano running back the thirty or forty yards he had gone fromthe camp-fire "Master, " Morano said, "the three horses are gone. "

"Gone?" said Rodriguez. There was little more to say; it was too darkto track them and he knew that to find three horses in Shadow Valleywas a task that might take years. And after more thought than mightseem to have been needed he said; "We must go on foot. "

"Have we far to go, master?" said Morano, for the first time daring toquestion him since they left the cottage in Spain. 

"I have nowhere to go, " said Rodriguez. His head was downcast as he satby the fire: Morano stood and looked at him unhappily, full of asympathy that he found no words to express. A light wind slippedthrough the branches and everything else was still. It was some whilebefore he lifted his head; and then he saw before him on the other sideof the fire, standing with folded arms, the man in the brown leatherjacket. 

"Nowhere to go!" said he. "Who needs go anywhere from Shadow Valley?"

Rodriguez stared at him. "But I can't stay here!" he said. 

"There is no fairer forest known to man, " said the other. "I know manysongs that prove it. "

Rodriguez made no answer but dropped his eyes, gazing with listlessglance once more at the ground. "Come, seņor, " said the man in theleather jacket. "None are unhappy in Shadow Valley. "

"Who are you?" said Rodriguez. Both he and Morano were gazing curiouslyat the man whom they had saved three weeks ago from the noose. 

"Your friend, " answered the stranger. 

"No friend can help me, " said Rodriguez. 

"Seņor, " said the stranger across the fire, still standing with foldedarms, "I remain under an obligation to no man. If you have an enemy orlove a lady, and if they dwell within a hundred miles, either shall bebefore you within a week. "

Rodriguez shook his head, and silence fell by the camp-fire. And afterawhile Rodriguez, who was accustomed to dismiss a subject when it wasended, saw the stranger's eyes on him yet, still waiting for him to saymore. And those clear blue eyes seemed to do more than wait, seemedalmost to command, till they overcame Rodriguez' will and he obeyed andsaid, although he could feel each word struggling to stay unuttered, "Seņor, I went to the wars to win a castle and a piece of land thereby;and might perchance have wed and ended my wanderings, with those of myservant here; but the wars are over and no castle is won. "

And the stranger saw by his face in the firelight, and knew from thetones of his voice in the still night, the trouble that his words hadnot expressed. 

"I remain under an obligation to no man, " said the stranger. "Be atthis place in four weeks' time, and you shall have a castle as large asany that men win by war, and a goodly park thereby. "

"Your castle, master!" said Morano delighted, whose only thought up tothen was as to who had got his horses. But Rodriguez only stared: andthe stranger said no more but turned on his heel. And then Rodriguezawoke out of his silence and wonder. "But where?" he said. "Whatcastle?"

"That you will see, " said the stranger. 

"But, but how . . . " said Rodriguez. What he meant was, "How can Ibelieve you?" but he did not put it in words. 

"My word was never broken, " said the other. And that is a good boast tomake, for those of us who can make it; if we need boast at all. 

"Whose word?" said Rodriguez, looking him in the eyes. 

The smoke from the fire between them was thickening greyly as thoughsomething had been cast on it. "The word, " he said, "of the King ofShadow Valley. "

Rodriguez gazing through the increasing smoke saw not to the otherside. He rose and walked round the fire, but the strange man was gone. 

Rodriguez came back to his place by the fire and sat long there insilence. Morano was bubbling over to speak, but respected his master'ssilence: for Rodriguez was gazing into the deeps of the fire seeingpictures there that were brighter than any that he had known. They wereso clear now that they seemed almost true. He saw Serafina's face therelooking full at him. He watched it long until other pictures hid it, visions that had no meaning for Rodriguez. And not till then he spoke. And when he spoke his face was almost smiling. 

"Well, Morano, " he said, "have we come by that castle at last?"

"That man does not lie, master, " he answered: and his eyes wereglittering with shrewd conviction. 

"What shall we do then?" said Rodriguez. 

"Let us go to some village, master, " said Morano, "until the time hesaid. "

"What village?" Rodriguez asked. 

"I know not, master, " answered Morano, his face a puzzle of innocenceand wonder; and Rodriguez fell back into thought again. And the dancingflames calmed down to a deep, quiet glow; and soon Rodriguez steppedback a yard or two from the fire to where Morano had prepared his bed;and, watching the fire still, and turning over thoughts that flashedand changed as fast as the embers, he went to wonderful dreams thatwere no more strange or elusive than that valley's wonderful king. 

When he spoke in the morning the camp-fire was newly lit and there wasa smell of bacon; and Morano, out of breath and puzzled, was calling tohim. 

"Master, " he said, "I was mistaken about those horses. "

"Mistaken?" said Rodriguez. 

"They were just as I left them, master, all tied to the tree with myknots. "

Rodriguez left it at that. Morano could make mistakes and the forestwas full of wonders: anything might happen. "We will ride, " he said. 

Morano's breakfast was as good as ever; and, when he had packed upthose few belongings that make a dwelling-place of any chance spot inthe wilderness, they mounted the horses, which were surely there, androde away through sunlight and green leaves. They rode slow, for thebranches were low over the path, and whoever canters in a forest andcloses his eyes against a branch has to consider whether he will openthem to be whipped by the next branch or close them till he bumps hishead into a tree. And it suited Rodriguez to loiter, for he thoughtthus to meet the King of Shadow Valley again or his green bowmen andlearn the answers to innumerable questions about his castle which werewandering through his mind. 

They ate and slept at noon in the forest's glittering greenness. 

They passed afterwards by the old house in the wood, in which thebowmen feasted, for they followed the track that they had taken before. They knocked loud on the door as they passed but the house was empty. They heard the sound of a multitude felling trees, but whenever theyapproached the sound of chopping ceased. Again and again they left thetrack and rode towards the sound of chopping, and every time thechopping died away just as they drew close. They saw many a tree halffelled, but never a green bowman. And at last they left it as one ofthe wonders of the forest and returned to the track lest they lose it, for the track was more important to them than curiosity, and eveninghad come and was filling the forest with dimness, and shadows stealingacross the track were beginning to hide it away. In the distance theyheard the invisible woodmen chopping. 

And then they camped again and lit their fire; and night came down andthe two wanderers slept. 

The nightingale sang until he woke the cuckoo: and the cuckoo filledthe leafy air so full of his two limpid notes that the dreams ofRodriguez heard them and went away, back over their border todreamland. Rodriguez awoke Morano, who lit his fire: and soon they hadstruck their camp and were riding on. 

By noon they saw that if they hurried on they could come to Lowlight bynightfall. But this was not Rodriguez' plan, for he had planned to rideinto Lowlight, as he had done once before, at the hour when Serafinasat in her balcony in the cool of the evening, as Spanish ladies inthose days sometimes did. So they tarried long by their resting-placeat noon and then rode slowly on. And when they camped that night theywere still in the forest. 

"Morano, " said Rodriguez over the camp-fire, "tomorrow brings me toLowlight. "

"Aye, master, " said Morano, "we shall be there tomorrow. "

"That seņor with whom I had a meeting there, " said Rodriguez, "he . . . "

"He loves me not, " said Morano. 

"He would surely kill you, " replied Rodriguez. 

Morano looked sideways at his frying-pan. 

"It would therefore be better, " continued Rodriguez, "that you shouldstay in this camp while I give such greetings of ceremony in Lowlightas courtesy demands. "

"I will stay, master, " said Morano. 

Rodriguez was glad that this was settled, for he felt that to followhis dreams of so many nights to that balconied house in Lowlight withMorano would be no better than visiting a house accompanied by a dogthat had bitten one of the family. 

"I will stay, " repeated Morano. "But, master . . . " The fat man's eyeswere all supplication. 

"Yes?" said Rodriguez. 

"Leave me your mandolin, " implored Morano. 

"My mandolin?" said Rodriguez. 

"Master, " said Morano, "that seņor who likes my fat body so ill hewould kill me, he . . . "

"Well?" said Rodriguez, for Morano was hesitating. 

"He likes your mandolin no better, master. "

Rodriguez resented a slight to his mandolin as much as a slight to hissword, but he smiled as he looked at Morano's anxious face. 

"He would kill you for your mandolin, " Morano went on eagerly, "as hewould kill me for my frying-pan. "

And at the mention of that frying-pan Rodriguez frowned, although ithad given him many a good meal since the night it offended in Lowlight. And he would sooner have gone to the wars without a sword than underthe balcony of his heart's desire without a mandolin. 

So Rodriguez would hear no more of Morano's request; and soon he leftthe fire and went to lie down; but Morano sighed and sat gazing on intothe embers unhappily; while thoughts plodded slow through his mind, leading to nothing. Late that night he threw fresh logs on thecamp-fire, so that when they awoke there was still fire in the embersAnd when they had eaten their breakfast Rodriguez said farewell toMorano, saying that he had business in Lowlight that might keep him afew days. But Morano said not farewell then, for he would follow hismaster as far as the midday halt to cook his next meal. And when nooncame they were beyond the forest. 

Once more Morano cooked bacon. Then while Rodriguez slept Morano tookhis cloak and did all that could be done by brushing and smoothing togive back to it that air that it some time had, before it had flappedupon so many winds and wrapped Rodriguez on such various beds, and metthe vicissitudes that make this story. 

For the plume he could do little. 

And his master awoke, late in the afternoon, and went to his horse andgave Morano his orders. He was to go back with two of the horses totheir last camp in the forest and take with him all their kit exceptone blanket and make himself comfortable there and wait till Rodriguezcame. 

And then Rodriguez rode slowly away, and Morano stood gazing mournfullyand warningly at the mandolin; and the warnings were not lost uponRodriguez, though he would never admit that he saw in Morano's staringeyes any wise hint that he heeded. 

And Morano sighed, and went and untethered his horses; and soon he wasriding lonely back to the forest. And Rodriguez taking the other waysaw at once the towers of Lowlight. 

Does my reader think that he then set spurs to his horse, gallopingtowards that house about whose balcony his dreams flew every night? No, it was far from evening; far yet from the colour and calm in which thelight with never a whisper says farewell to Earth, but with a gesturethat the horizon hides takes silent leave of the fields on which shehas danced with joy; far yet from the hour that shone for Serafina likea great halo round her and round her mother's house. 

We cannot believe that one hour more than another shone upon Serafina, or that the dim end of the evening was only hers: but these are theChronicles of Rodriguez, who of all the things that befell himtreasured most his memory of Serafina in the twilight, and who heldthat this hour was hers as much as her raiment and her balcony: suchtherefore it is in these chronicles. 

And so he loitered, waiting for the slow sun to set: and when at last atint on the walls of Lowlight came with the magic of Earth's most faeryhour he rode in slowly not perhaps wholly unwitting, for all hisanxious thoughts of Serafina, that a little air of romance from theSpring and the evening followed this lonely rider. 

From some way off he saw that balcony that had drawn him back from theother side of the far Pyrenees. Sometimes he knew that it drew him andmostly he knew it not; yet always that curved balcony brought himnearer, ever since he turned from the field of the false Don Alvidar:the balcony held him with invisible threads, such as those with whichEarth draws in the birds at evening. And there was Serafina in herbalcony. 

When Rodriguez saw Serafina sitting there in the twilight, just as hehad often dreamed, he looked no more but lowered his head to thewithered rose that he carried now in his hand, the rose that he hadfound by that very balcony under another moon. And, gazing still at therose, he rode on under the balcony, and passed it, until his hoof-beatswere heard no more in Lowlight and he and his horse were one dim shapebetween the night and the twilight. And still he held on. 

He knew not yet, but only guessed, who had thrown that rose from thebalcony on the night when he slept on the dust: he knew not who it wasthat he fought on the same night, and dared not guess what that unknownhidalgo might be to Serafina. He had no claim to more from that house, which once gave him so cold a welcome, than thus to ride by it insilence. And he knew as he rode that the cloak and the plume that hewore scarce seemed the same as those that had floated by when more thana month ago he had ridden past that balcony; and the withered rose thathe carried added one more note of autumn. And yet he hoped. 

And so he rode into twilight and was hid from the sight of the village, a worn, pathetic figure, trusting vaguely to vague powers of goodfortune that govern all men, but that favour youth. 

And, sure enough, it was not yet wholly moonlight when cantering hoovescame down the road behind him. It was once more that young hidalgo. Andas soon as he drew rein beside Rodriguez both reached out merry handsas though their former meeting had been some errand of joy. And asRodriguez looked him in the eyes, while the two men leaned overclasping hands, in light still clear though faded, he could not doubtSerafina was his sister. 

"Seņor, " said his old enemy, "will you tarry with us, in our house afew days, if your journey is not urgent?"

Rodriguez gasped for joy; for the messenger from Lowlight, thecertainty that here was no rival, the summons to the house of hisdreams' pilgrimage, came all together: his hand still clasped thestranger's. Yet he answered with the due ceremony that that age andland demanded: then they turned and rode together towards Lowlight. Andfirst the young men told each other their names; and the stranger toldhow he dwelt with his mother and sister in the house that Rodriguezknew, and his name was Don Alderon of the Valley of Dawnlight. Hishouse had dwelt in that valley since times out of knowledge; but thenthe Moors had come and his forbears had fled to Lowlight: the Moorswere gone now, for which Saint Michael and all fighting Saints bepraised; but there were certain difficulties about his right to theValley of Dawnlight. So they dwelt in Lowlight still. 

And Rodriguez told of the war that there was beyond the Pyrenees andhow the just cause had won, but little more than that he was able totell, for he knew scarce more of the cause for which he had fought thanHistory knows of it, who chooses her incidents and seems to forget somuch. And as they talked they came to the house with the balcony. Awaning moon cast light over it that was now no longer twilight; but wasthe light of wild things of the woods, and birds of prey, and men inmountains outlawed by the King, and magic, and mystery, and the questsof love. Serafina had left her place: lights gleamed now in thewindows. And when the door was opened the hall seemed to Rodriguez somuch less hugely hollow, so much less full of ominous whispered echoes, that his courage rose high as he went through it with Alderon, and theyentered the room together that they had entered together before. In thelong room beyond many candles he saw Dona Serafina and her motherrising up to greet him. Neither the ceremonies of that age norRodriguez' natural calm would have entirely concealed his emotion hadnot his face been hidden as he bowed. They spoke to him; they asked himof his travels; Rodriguez answered with effort. He saw by their mannerthat Don Alderon must have explained much in his favour. He had thistime, to cheer him, a very different greeting; and yet he felt littlemore at ease than when he had stood there late at night before, withone eye bandaged and wearing only one shoe, suspected of he knew notwhat brawling and violence. 

It was not until Dona Mirana, the mother of Serafina, asked him to playto them on his mandolin that Rodriguez' ease returned. He bowed thenand brought round his mandolin, which had been slung behind him; andknew a triumphant champion was by him now, one old in the ways of loveand wise in the sorrows of man, a slender but potent voice, well-skilled to tell what there were not words to say; a voiceunhindered by language, unlimited even by thought, whose universalmeaning was heard and understood, sometimes perhaps by wanderingspirits of light, beaten far by some evil thought for their heavenlycourses and passing close along the coasts of Earth. 

And Rodriguez played no tune he had ever known, nor any airs that hehad heard men play in lanes in Andalusia; but he told of things that heknew not, of sadnesses that he had scarcely felt and undreamedexaltations. It was the hour of need, and the mandolin knew. 

And when all was told that the mandolin can tell of whatever iswistfulest in the spirit of man, a mood of merriment entered its oldcurved sides and there came from its hollows a measure such as theydance to when laughter goes over the greens in Spain. Never a song sangRodriguez; the mandolin said all. 

And what message did Serafina receive from those notes that werestrange even to Rodriguez? Were they not stranger to her? I have saidthat spirits blown far out of their course and nearing the mundanecoasts hear mortal music sometimes, and hearing understand. And if theycannot understand those snatches of song, all about mortal things andhuman needs, that are wafted rarely to them by chance passions, howmuch more surely a young mortal heart, so near Rodriguez, heard what hewould say and understood the message however strange. 

When Dona Mirana and her daughter rose, exchanging their littlecurtsies for the low bows of Rodriguez, and so retired for the night, the long room seemed to Rodriguez now empty of threatening omens. Thegreat portraits that the moon had lit, and that had frowned at him inthe moonlight when he came here before, frowned at him now no longer. The anger that he had known to lurk in the darkness on pictured facesof dead generations had gone with the gloom that it haunted: they wereall passionless now in the quiet light of the candles. He looked againat the portraits eye to eye, remembering looks they had given him inthe moonlight, and all looked back at him with ages of apathy; and heknew that whatever glimmer of former selves there lurks about portraitsof the dead and gone was thinking only of their own past days in yearsremote from Rodriguez. Whether their anger had flashed for a momentover the ages on that night a month from now, or whether it was onlythe moonlight, he never knew. Their spirits were back now surelyamongst their own days, whence they deigned not to look on the daysthat make these chronicles. 

Not till then did Rodriguez admit, or even know, that he had not eatensince his noonday meal. But now he admitted this to Don Alderon'squestions; and Don Alderon led him to another chamber and there regaledhim with all the hospitality for which that time was famous. And whenRodriguez had eaten, Don Alderon sent for wine, and the butler broughtit in an olden flagon, dark wine of a precious vintage: and soon thetwo young men were drinking together and talking of the wickedness ofthe Moors. And while they talked the night grew late and chilly andstill, and the hour came when moths are fewer and young men think ofbed. Then Don Alderon showed his guest to an upper room, a long roomdim with red hangings, and carvings in walnut and oak, which the onecandle he carried barely lit but only set queer shadows scampering. Andhere he left Rodriguez, who was soon in bed, with the great redhangings round him. And awhile he wondered at the huge silence of thehouse all round him, with never a murmur, never an echo, never a sigh;for he missed the passing of winds, branches waving, the stirring ofsmall beasts, birds of prey calling, and the hundred sounds of thenight; but soon through the silence came sleep. 

He did not need to dream, for here in the home of Serafina he had cometo his dreams' end. 

Another day shone on another scene; for the sunlight that went in anarrow stream of gold and silver between the huge red curtains had sentaway the shadows that had stalked overnight through the room, and hadscattered the eeriness that had lurked on the far side of furniture, and all the dimness was gone that the long red room had harboured. Andfor a while Rodriguez did not know where he was; and for a while, whenhe remembered, he could not believe it true. He dressed with care, almost with fear, and preened his small moustachios, which at last hadgrown again just when he would have despaired. Then he descended, andfound that he had slept late, though the three of that ancient housewere seated yet at the table, and Serafina all dressed in white seemedto Rodriguez to be shining in rivalry with the morning. Ah dreams andfancies of youth!

THE ELEVENTH CHRONICLE

HOW HE TURNED TO GARDENING AND HIS SWORD RESTED

These were the days that Rodriguez always remembered; and, side by sidewith them, there lodged in his memory, and went down with them into hislatter years, the days and nights when he went through the Pyrenees andwalked when he would have slept but had to walk or freeze: and by somequeer rule that guides us he treasured them both in his memory, thesehappy days in this garden and the frozen nights on the peaks. 

For Serafina showed Rodriguez the garden that behind the house rannarrow and long to the wild. There were rocks with heliotrope pouringover them and flowers peeping behind them, and great azaleas all intriumphant bloom, and ropes of flowering creepers coming down fromtrees, and oleanders, and a plant named popularly Joy of the South, andsmall paths went along it edged with shells brought from the far sea. 

There was only one street in the village, and you did not go far amongthe great azaleas before you lost sight of the gables; and you did notgo far before the small paths ended with their shells from the distantsea, and there was the mistress of all gardeners facing you, MotherNature nursing her children, the things of the wild. She too hadazaleas and oleanders, but they stood more solitary in their greatergarden than those that grew in the garden of Dona Mirana; and she toohad little paths, only they were without borders and without end. Yetlooking from the long and narrow garden at the back of that house inLowlight to the wider garden that sweeps round the world, and is fencedby Space from the garden in Venus and by Space from the garden in Mars, you scarce saw any difference or noticed where they met: the solitaryazaleas beyond were gathered together by distance, and from Lowlight tothe horizon seemed all one garden in bloom. And afterwards, all hisyears, whenever Rodriguez heard the name of Spain, spoken by loyal men, it was thus that he thought of it, as he saw it now. 

And here he used to walk with Serafina when she tended flowers in thecool of the morning or went at evening to water favourite blooms. AndRodriguez would bring with him his mandolin, and sometimes he touchedit lightly or even sang, as they rested on some carved seat at thegarden's end, looking out towards shadowy shrubs on the shining hill, but mostly he heard her speak of the things she loved, of what mothsflew to their garden, and which birds sang, and how the flowers grew. Serafina sat no longer in her balcony but, disguising idleness by othernames, they loitered along those paths that the seashells narrowed; yetthere was a grace in their loitering such as we have not in our dancesnow. And evening stealing in from the wild places, from darkeningazaleas upon distant hills, still found them in the garden, foundRodriguez singing in idleness undisguised, or anxiously helping in sometrivial task, tying up some tendril that had gone awry, helping somemagnolia that the wind had wounded. Almost unnoticed by him thesunlight would disappear, and the coloured blaze of the sunset, andthen the gloaming; till the colours of all the flowers queerly changedand they shone with that curious glow which they wear in the dusk. Theyreturned then to the house, the garden behind them with its dim hushedair of a secret, before them the candlelight like a different land. Andafter the evening meal Alderon and Rodriguez would sit late togetherdiscussing the future of the world, Rodriguez holding that it wasintended that the earth should be ruled by Spain, and Alderon fearingit would all go to the Moors. 

Days passed thus. 

And then one evening Rodriguez was in the garden with Serafina; theflowers, dim and pale and more mysterious than ever, poured out theirscent towards the coming night, luring huge hawk-moths from the fardusk that was gathering about the garden, to hover before each bloom onmyriad wingbeats too rapid for human eye: another inch and the fairieshad peeped out from behind azaleas, yet both of these late loiterersfelt fairies were surely there: it seemed to be Nature's own mostsecret hour, upon which man trespasses if he venture forth from hishouse: an owl from his hidden haunt flew nearer the garden and uttereda clear call once to remind Rodriguez of this: and Rodriguez did notheed, but walked in silence. 

He had played his mandolin. It had uttered to the solemn hush of theunderstanding evening all it was able to tell; and after that cry, grown piteous with so many human longings, for it was an old mandolin, Rodriguez felt there was nothing left for his poor words to say. So hewent dumb and mournful. 

Serafina would have heard him had he spoken, for her thoughts vibratedyet with the voice of the mandolin, which had come to her hearing as anambassador from Rodriguez, but he found no words to match with themandolin's high mood. His eyes said, and his sighs told, what themandolin had uttered; but his tongue was silent. 

And then Serafina said, as he walked all heavy with silence past acurving slope of dimly glowing azaleas, "You like flowers, seņor?"

"Seņorita, I adore them, " he replied. 

"Indeed?" said Dona Serafina. 

"Indeed I do, " said Rodriguez. 

"And yet, " asked Dona Serafina, "was it not a somewhat withered oraltogether faded flower that you carried, unless I fancied wrong, whenyou rode past our balcony?"

"It was indeed faded, " said Rodriguez, "for the rose was some weeksold. "

"One who loved flowers, I thought, " said Serafina, "would perhaps caremore for them fresh. "

Half-dumb though Rodriguez was his shrewdness did not desert him. Tohave said that he had the rose from Serafina would have been to claimas though proven what was yet no more than a hope. 

"Seņorita, " he said, "I found the flower on holy ground. "

"I did not know, " she said, "that you had travelled so far. "

"I found it here, " he said, "under your balcony. "

"Perchance I let it fall, " said she. "It was idle of me. "

"I guard it still, " he said, and drew forth that worn brown rose. 

"It was idle of me, " said Serafina. 

But then in that scented garden among the dim lights of late eveningthe ghost of that rose introduced their spirits one to the other, sothat the listening flowers heard Rodriguez telling the story of hisheart, and, bending over the shell-bordered path, heard Serafina'sanswer; and all they seemed to do was but to watch the evening, withleaves uplifted in the hope of rain. 

Film after film of dusk dropped down from where twilight had been, likean army of darkness slowly pitching their tents on ground that had beenlost to the children of light. Out of the wild lands all the owls flewnearer: their long, clear cries and the huge hush between them warnedall those lands that this was not man's hour. And neither Rodriguez norSerafina heard them. 

In pale blue sky where none had thought to see it one smiling starappeared. It was Venus watching lovers, as men of the crumbledcenturies had besought her to do, when they named her so long ago, kneeling upon their hills with bended heads, and arms stretched out toher sweet eternal scrutiny. Beneath her wandering rays as they danceddown to bless them Rodriguez and Serafina talked low in the sight ofthe goddess, and their voices swayed through the flowers with whispersand winds, not troubling the little wild creatures that steal out shyin the dusk, and Nature forgave them for being abroad in that hour;although, so near that a single azalea seemed to hide it, so nearseemed to beckon and whisper old Nature's eldest secret. 

When flowers glimmered and Venus smiled and all things else were dim, they turned on one of those little paths hand in hand homeward. 

Dona Mirana glanced once at her daughter's eyes and said nothing. DonAlderon renewed his talk with Rodriguez, giving reasons for hisapprehension of the conquest of the world by the Moors, which he hadthought of since last night; and Rodriguez agreed with all that DonAlderon said, but understood little, being full of dreams that seemedto dance on the further, side of the candlelight to a strange, new, unheard tune that his heart was aware of. He gazed much at Serafina andsaid little. 

He drank no wine that night with Don Alderon: what need had he of wine?On wonderful journeys that my pen cannot follow, for all the swiftnessof the wing from which it came; on darting journeys outspeeding thelithe swallow or that great wanderer the white-fronted goose, his youngthoughts raced by a myriad of golden evenings far down the futureyears. And what of the days he saw? Did he see them truly? Enough thathe saw them in vision. Saw them as some lone shepherd on lifted downssees once go by with music a galleon out of the East, with windy sails, and masts ablaze with pennants, and heroes in strange dress singing newsongs; and the galleon goes nameless by till the singing dies away. What ship was it? Whither bound? Why there? Enough that he has seen it. Thus do we glimpse the glory of rare days as we swing round the sun;and youth is like some high headland from which to see. 

On the next day he spoke with Dona Mirano. There was little to say butto observe the courtesies appropriate to this occasion, for Dona Miranaand her daughter had spoken long together already; and of one thing hecould say little, and indeed was dumb when asked of it, and that wasthe question of his home. And then he said that he had a castle; andwhen Dona Mirana asked him where it was he said vaguely it was to theNorth. He trusted the word of the King of Shadow Valley and so he spokeof his castle as a man speaks the truth. And when she asked him of hiscastle again, whether on rock or river or in leafy lands, he began todescribe how its ten towers stood, being builded of a rock that wasslightly pink, and how they glowed across a hundred fields, especiallyat evening; and suddenly he ceased, perceiving all in a moment he wasspeaking unwittingly in the words of Don Alvidar and describing to DonaMirana that rose-pink castle on Ebro. And Dona Mirana knew then thatthere was some mystery about Rodriguez' home. 

She spoke kindly to Rodriguez, yet she neither gave her consent nor yetwithheld it, and he knew there was no immediate hope in her words. Graceful as were his bows as he withdrew, he left with scarcely anotherword to say. All day his castle hung over him like a cloud, notnebulous and evanescent only, but brooding darkly, boding storms, suchas the orange blossoms dread. 

He walked again in the garden with Serafina, but Dona Mirana was neverfar, and the glamour of the former evening, lit by one star, was drivenfrom the garden by his anxieties about that castle of which he couldnot speak. Serafina asked him of his home. He would not parry herquestion, and yet he could not tell her that all their future hung onthe promise of a man in an old leathern jacket calling himself a king. So the mystery of his habitation deepened, spoiling the glamour of theevening. He spoke, instead, of the forest, hoping she might knowsomething of that strange monarch to whom they dwelt so near; but sheglanced uneasily towards Shadow Valley and told him that none inLowlight went that way. Sorrow grew heavier round Rodriguez' heart atthis: believing in the promise of a man whose eyes he trusted he hadasked Serafina to marry him, and Serafina had said Yes; and now hefound she knew nothing of such a man, which seemed somehow to Rodriguezto weaken his promise, and, worst of all, she feared the place where helived. He welcomed the approach of Dona Mirana, and all three returnedto the house. For the rest of that evening he spoke little; but he hadformed his project. 

When the two ladies retired Rodriguez, who had seemed tongue-tied formany hours, turned to Don Alderon. His mother had told Don Alderonnothing yet; for she was troubled by the mystery of Rodriguez' castle, and would give him time to make it clear if he could; for there wassomething about Rodriguez of which with many pages I have tried toacquaint my reader but which was clear when first she saw him to DonaMirana. In fact she liked him at once, as I hope that perhaps by now myreader may. He turned to Don Alderon, who was surprised to see thevehemence with which his guest suddenly spoke after those hours ofsilence, and Rodriguez told him the story of his love and the story ofboth his castles, that which had vanished from the bank of the Ebro andthat which was promised him by the King of Shadow Valley. And often DonAlderon interrupted. 

"Oh, Rodriguez, " he said, "you are welcome to our ancient, unfortunatehouse": and later he said, "I have met no man that had a prettier waywith the sword. "

But Rodriguez held on to the end, telling all he had to tell; andespecially that he was landless and penniless but for that one promise;and as for the sword, he said, he was but as a child playing before thesword of Don Alderon. And this Don Alderon said was in no wise so, though there were a few cunning passes that he had learned, hoping thatthe day might come for him to do God a service thereby by slaying someof the Moors: and heartily he gave his consent and felicitation. Butthis Rodriguez would not have: "Come with me, " he said, "to the forestto the place where I met this man, and if we find him not there we willgo to the house in which his bowmen feast and there have news of him, and he shall show us the castle of his promise and, if it be such acastle as you approve, then your consent shall be given, but if not . . . "

"Gladly indeed, " said Don Alderon. "We will start tomorrow. "

And Rodriguez took his words literally, though his host had meant nomore than what we should call "one of these days, " but Rodriguez wasbeing consumed with a great impatience. And so they arranged it, andDon Alderon went to bed with a feeling, which is favourable to dreams, that on the next day they went upon an adventure; for neither he noranyone in that village had entered Shadow Valley. 

Once more next morning Rodriguez walked with Serafina, with somethingof the romance of the garden gone, for Dona Mirana walked there too;and romance is like one of those sudden, wonderful colours that flashfor a moment out of a drop of dew; a passing shadow obscures them; andask another to see it, and the colour is not the same: move but a yardand the ray of enchantment is gone. Dona Mirana saw the romance of thatgarden, but she saw it from thirty years away; it was all differentwhat she saw, all changed from a certain day (for love was love in theold days): and to Rodriguez and Serafina it seemed that she could notsee romance at all, and somehow that dimmed it. Almost their eyesseemed to search amongst the azaleas for the romance of that otherevening. 

And then Rodriguez told Serafina that he was riding away with herbrother to see about the affairs of his castle, and that they wouldreturn in a few days. Scarcely a hint he gave that those affairs mightnot prosper, for he trusted the word of the King of Shadow Valley. Hisconfidence had returned: and soon, with swords at side and cloaksfloating brilliant on light winds of April, Rodriguez and Alderon rodeaway together. 

Soon in the distance they saw Shadow Valley. And then Rodriguezbethought him of Morano and of the foul wrong he committed against DonAlderon with his frying-pan, and how he was there in the camp to whichhe was bringing his friend. And so he said: "That vile knave Moranostill lives and insists on serving me. "

"If he be near, " said Don Alderon, "I pray you to disarm him of hisfrying-pan for the sake of my honour, which does not suffer me to bestricken with culinary weapons, but only with the sword, the lance, oreven bolts of cannon or arquebuss . . . " He was thinking of yet moreweapons when Rodriguez put spurs to his horse. "He is near, " he said;"I will ride on and disarm him. "

So Rodriguez came cantering into the forest while Don Alderon ambled amile or so behind him. 

And there he found his old camp and saw Morano, sitting upon the groundby a small fire. Morano sprang up at once with joy in his eyes, hisface wreathed with questions, which he did not put into words for hedid not pry openly into his master's affairs. 

"Morano, " said Rodriguez, "give me your frying-pan. "

"My frying-pan?" said Morano. 

"Yes, " said Rodriguez. And when he held in his hand that blackened, greasy utensil he told Morano, "That seņor you met in Lowlight rideswith me. "

The cheerfulness faded out of Morano's face as light fades at sunset. "Master, " he said, "he will surely slay me now. "

"He will not slay you, " said Rodriguez. 

"Master, " Morano said, "he hopes for my fat carcase as much as men hopefor the unicorn, when they wear their bright green coats and hunt himwith dogs in Spring. " I know not what legend Morano stored in his mind, nor how much of it was true. "And when he finds me without myfrying-pan he will surely slay me. "

"That seņor, " said Rodriguez emphatically, "must not be hit with thefrying-pan. "

"That is a hard rule, master, " said Morano. 

And Rodriguez was indignant, when he heard that, that anyone shouldthus blaspheme against an obvious law of chivalry: while Morano's onlythought was upon the injustice of giving up the sweets of life for thesake of a frying-pan. Thus they were at cross-purposes. And for somewhile they stood silent, while Rodriguez hung the reins of his horseover the broken branch of a tree. And then Don Alderon rode into thewood. 

All then that was most pathetic in Morano's sense of injustice lookedout of his eyes as he turned them upon his master. But Don Alderonscarcely glanced at all at Morano, even when he handed to him the reinsof his horse as he walked on towards Rodriguez. 

And there in that leafy place they rested all through the evening, forthey had not started so early upon their journey as travellers should. Eight days had gone since Rodriguez had left that small camp to ride toLowlight, and to the apex of his life towards which all his days hadascended; and in that time Morano had collected good store of wood and, in little ways unthought of by dwellers in cities, had made the placelike such homes as wanderers find. Don Alderon was charmed with theirroof of towering greenness, and with the choirs of those whichinhabited it and which were now all coming home to sing. And at somemoment in the twilight, neither Rodriguez nor Alderon noticed when, Morano repossessed himself of his frying-pan, unbidden by Rodriguez, but acting on a certain tacit permission that there seemed to be in thetwilight or in the mood of the two young men as they sat by the fire. And soon he was cooking once more, at a fire of his own, with somethingof the air that you see upon a Field Marshal's face who has lost hisbaton and found it again. Have you ever noticed it, reader?

And when the meal was ready Morano served it in silence, movingunobtrusively in the gloom of the wood; for he knew that he wasforgiven, yet not so openly that he wished to insist on his presence oreven to imply his possession of the weapon that fried the bacon. So, like a dryad he moved from tree to tree, and like any fabulous creaturewas gone again. And the two young men supped well, and sat on and on, watching the sparks go up on innumerable journeys from the fire atwhich they sat, to be lost to sight in huge wastes of blackness andstars, lost to sight utterly, lost like the spirit of man to the gazeof our wonder when we try to follow its journey beyond the hearths thatwe know. 

All the next day they rode on through the forest, till they came to theblack circle of the old fire of their next camp. And here Rodriguezhalted on account of the attraction that one of his old camps seems tohave for a wanderer. It drew his feet towards it, this blackenedcircle, this hearth that for one night made one spot in the wildernesshome. Don Alderon did not care whether they tarried or hurried; heloved his journey through this leafy land; the cool night-breezeslipping round the tree-trunks was new to him, and new was thecomradeship of the abundant stars; the quest itself was a joy to him;with his fancy he built Rodriguez' mysterious castle no lessmagnificently than did Don Alvidar. Sometimes they talked of thecastle, each of the young men picturing it as he saw it; but in thewarmth of the camp-fire after Morano slept they talked of more thanthese chronicles can tell. 

In the morning they pressed on as fast as the forest's low boughs wouldallow them. They passed somewhere near the great cottage in which thebowmen feasted; but they held on, as they had decided after discussionto do, for the last place in which Rodriguez had seen the King ofShadow Valley, which was the place of his promise. And before anydimness came even to the forest, or golden shafts down colonnades whichwere before all cathedrals, they found the old camp that they sought, which still had a clear flavour of magic for Morano on account of themoth-like coming and going of his three horses after he had tied themto that tree. And here they looked for the King of Shadow Valley; andthen Rodriguez called him; and then all three of them called him, shouting "King of Shadow Valley" all together. No answer came: thewoods were without echo: nothing stirred but fallen leaves. But beforethose miles of silence could depress them Rodriguez hit upon a simpleplan, which was that he and Alderon should search all round, far fromthe track, while Morano stayed in the camp and shouted frequently, andthey would not go out of hearing of his voice: for Shadow Valley had areputation of being a bad forest for travellers to find their waythere; indeed, few ever attempted to. So they did as he said, he andAlderon searching in different directions, while Morano remained in thecamp, lifting a large and melancholy voice. And though rumour said itwas hard to find the way when twenty yards from the track in ShadowValley, it did not say it was hard to find the green bowmen: andRodriguez, knowing that they guarded the forest as the shadows of treesguard the coolness, was assured he would meet with some of them eventhough he should miss their master. So he and Alderon searched till theforest darkness came and only birds on high branches still had light;and they never saw the King of Shadow Valley or any trace whatever ofany man. And Alderon first returned to the encampment; but Rodriguezsearched on into the night, searching and calling through the darkness, and feeling, as every minute went by and every faint call of Morano, that his castle was fading away, slipping past oak-tree and thorn-bush, to take its place among the unpitying stars. And when he returned atlast from his useless search he found Morano standing by a good fire, and the sight of it a little cheered Rodriguez, and the sight of thefirelight on Morano's face, and the homely comfort of the camp, foreverything is comparative. 

And over their supper Rodriguez and Alderon agreed that they had cometo a part of the forest too remote from the home of the King of ShadowValley, and decided to go the next day to the house of the greenbowmen: and before he slept Rodriguez felt once more that all was wellwith his castle. 

Yet when the next day came they searched again, for Rodriguezremembered how it was to this very place that the King of Shadow Valleyhad bidden him come in four weeks, and though this period was not yetaccomplished, he felt, and Alderon fully agreed, they had waited longenough: so they searched all the morning, and then fulfilled theirdecision of overnight by riding for the great cottage Rodriguez knew. All the way they met no one. And Rodriguez' gaiety came back as theyrode, for he and Don Alderon recognised more and more clearly that thebowmen's great cottage was the place they should have gone at first. 

In early evening they were just at their journey's end; but barely hadthey left the track that they had ridden the day before, barely takenthe smaller path that led after a few hundred yards to the cottage whenthey found themselves stopped by huge chains that hung from tree totree. High into the trees went the chains above their heads where theysat their horses, and a chain ran every six inches down to the veryground: the road was well blocked. 

Rodriguez and Alderon hastily consulted; then, leaving the horses withMorano, they followed the chains through dense forest to find a placewhere they could get the horses through. Finding the chains go on andon and on, and as evening was drawing in, the two friends divided, Alderon going back and Rodriguez on, agreeing to meet again on the pathwhere Morano was. 

It was darkening when they met there, Rodriguez having found nothingbut that iron barrier going on from trunk to trunk, and Alderon havingfound a great gateway of iron; but it was shut. Through the silentshadows stealing abroad at evening the three men crashed their way onfoot, leading their horses, towards this gate; but their way was slowand difficult for no path at all led up to it. It was dark when theyreached it and they saw the high gate in the night, a black barrieramong the trees where no one would wish to come, and in forest thatseemed to these three to be nearly impenetrable. And what astonishedRodriguez most of all was that the chains had not been across the pathwhen he had feasted with the green bowmen. 

They stood there gazing, all three, at the dark locked gate, and thenthey saw two shields that met in the midst of it, and Rodriguez mountedhis horse and stretched up to feel what device there was on the beateniron; and both the shields were blank. 

There they camped as well as men can when darkness has fallen beforethey reach their camping-ground; and Morano lit a great fire before thegate, and the smooth blank shields touching shoulders there up abovethem shone on Rodriguez and Alderon in the firelight. For a while theywondered at that strange gate that stood there dividing the wilderness;and then sleep came. 

As soon as they woke they called loudly, but no one guarded that gate, no step but theirs stirred in the forest. Then, leaving Morano in thecamp with its great gate that led nowhere, the two young men climbed upby branches and chains, and were soon on the other side of the gate andpressing on through the silence of the forest to find the cottage inwhich Rodriguez had slept. And almost at once the green bowmenappeared, ten of them with their bows, in front of Rodriguez andAlderon. "Stop, " said the ten green bowmen. When the bowmen said that, there was nothing else to do. 

"What do you seek?" said the bowmen. 

"The King of Shadow Valley, " answered Rodriguez. 

"He is not here, " they said. 

"Where is he?" asked Rodriguez. 

"He is nowhere, " said one, "when he does not wish to be seen. "

"Then show me the castle that he promised me, " said Rodriguez. 

"We know nothing of any castle, " said one of the bowmen, and they allshook their heads. 

"No castle?" said Rodriguez. 

"No, " they said. 

"Has the King of Shadow Valley no castle?" he asked, beginning now todespair. 

"We know of none, " they said. "He lives in the forest. "

Before Rodriguez quite despaired he asked each one if they knew not ofany castle of which their King was possessed; and each of them saidthat there was no castle in all Shadow Valley. The ten still stood infront of them with their bows: and Rodriguez turned away then indeed indespair, and walked slowly back to the camp, and Alderon walked behindhim. In silence they reached their camp by the great gate that lednowhere, and there Rodriguez sat down on a log beside the dwindlingfire, gazing at the grey ashes and thinking of his dead hopes. He hadnot the heart to speak to Alderon, and the silence was unbroken byMorano who, for all his loquacity, knew when his words were notwelcome. Don Alderon tried to break that melancholy silence, sayingthat these ten bowmen did not know the whole world; but he could notcheer Rodriguez. For, sitting there in dejection on his log, thinkingof all the assurance with which he had often spoken of his castle, there was one more thing to trouble him than Don Alderon knew. And thiswas that when the bowmen had appeared he had hung once more round hisneck that golden badge that was worked for him by the King of ShadowValley; and they must have seen it, and they had paid no heed to itwhatever: its magic was wholly departed. And one thing troubled himthat Rodriguez did not know, a very potent factor in human sorrow: hehad left in the morning so eagerly that he had had no breakfast, andthis he entirely forgot and knew not how much of his dejection camefrom this cause, thinking that the loss of his castle was of itselfenough. 

So with downcast head he sat empty and hopeless, and the little campwas silent. 

In this mournful atmosphere while no one spoke, and no one seemed towatch, stood, when at last Rodriguez raised his head, with folded armsbefore the gate to nowhere, the King of Shadow Valley. His face wassurly, as though the face of a ghost, called from important work amongasteroids needing his care, by the trivial legerdemain of some foolishnovice. Rodriguez, looking into those angry eyes, wholly forgot it washe that had a grievance. The silence continued. And then the King ofShadow Valley spoke. 

"When have I broken my word?" he said. 

Rodriguez did not know. The man was still looking at him, stillstanding there with folded arms before the great gate, confronting him, demanding some kind of answer: and Rodriguez had nothing to say. 

"I came because you promised me the castle, " he said at last. 

"I did not bid you come here, " the man with the folded arms answered. 

"I went where you bade me, " said Rodriguez, "and you were not there. "

"In four weeks, I said, " answered the King angrily. 

And then Alderon spoke. "Have you any castle for my friend?" he said. 

"No, " said the King of Shadow Valley. 

"You promised him one, " said Don Alderon. 

The King of Shadow Valley raised with his left hand a horn that hungbelow his elbow by a green cord round his body. He made no answer toDon Alderon, but put the horn against his lips and blew. They watchedhim all three in silence, till the silence was broken by many menmoving swiftly through covert, and the green bowmen appeared. 

When seven or eight were there he turned and looked at them. "When haveI broken my word?" he said to his men. 

And they all answered him, "Never!"

More broke into sight through the bushes. 

"Ask them" he said. And Rodriguez did not speak. 

"Ask them, " he said again, "when I have broken my word. "

Still Rodriguez and Alderon said nothing. And the bowmen answered them. "He has never broken his word, " every bowman said. 

"You promised me a castle, " said Rodriguez, seeing that man's fierceeyes upon him still. 

"Then do as I bid you, " answered the King of Shadow Valley; and heturned round and touched the lock of the gates with some key that hehad. The gates moved open and the King went through. 

Don Alderon ran forward after him, and caught up with him as he strodeaway, and spoke to him, and the King answered. Rodriguez did not hearwhat they said, and never afterwards knew. These words he heard only, from the King of Shadow Valley as he and Don Alderon parted: ". . . . Andtherefore, seņor, it were better for some holy man to do his blessedwork before we come. " And the King of Shadow Valley passed into thedeeps of the wood. 

As the great gates were slowly swinging to, Don Alderon came backthoughtfully. The gates clanged, clicked, and were shut again. The Kingof Shadow Valley and all his bowmen were gone. 

Don Alderon went to his horse, and Rodriguez and Morano did the same, drawn by the act of the only man of the three that seemed to have madeup his mind. Don Alderon led his horse back toward the path, andRodriguez followed with his. When they came to the path they mounted insilence; and presently Morano followed them, with his blankets rolledup in front of him on his horse and his frying-pan slung behind him. 

"Which way?" said Rodriguez. 

"Home, " said Don Alderon. 

"But I cannot go to your home, " said Rodriguez. 

"Come, " said Don Alderon, as one whose plans were made. Rodriguezwithout a home, without plans, without hope, went with Don Alderon asthistledown goes with the warm wind. They rode through the forest tillit grew all so dim that only a faint tinge of greenness lay on the darkleaves: above were patches of bluish sky like broken pieces of steel. And a star or two were out when they left the forest. And cantering onthey came to Lowlight when the Milky Way appeared. 

And there were Dona Mirana and Serafina in the hall to greet them asthey entered the door. 

"What news?" they asked. 

But Rodriguez hung back; he had no news to give. It was Don Alderonthat went forward, speaking cheerily to Serafina, and afterwards to hismother, with whom he spoke long and anxiously, pointing toward theforest sometimes, almost, as Rodriguez thought, in fear. 

And a little later, when the ladies had retired, Don Alderon toldRodriguez over the wine, with which he had tried to cheer his forlorncompanion, that it was arranged that he should marry Serafina. And whenRodriguez lamented that this was impossible he replied that the King ofShadow Valley wished it. And when Rodriguez heard this his astonishmentequalled his happiness, for he marvelled that Don Alderon should notonly believe that strange man's unsupported promise, but that he shouldeven obey him as though he held him in awe. 

And on the next day Rodriguez spoke with Dona Mirana as they walked inthe glory of the garden. And Dona Mirana gave him her consent as DonAlderon had done: and when Rodriguez spoke humbly of postponement sheglanced uneasily towards Shadow Valley, as though she too feared thestrange man who ruled over the forest which she had never entered. 

And so it was that Rodriguez walked with his lady, with the sweetSerafina in that garden again. And walking there they forgot the needof house or land, forgot Shadow Valley with its hopes and its doubts, and all the anxieties of the thoughts that we take for the morrow: andwhen evening came and the birds sang in azaleas, and the shadows grewsolemn and long, and winds blew cool from the blazing bed of the Sun, into the garden now all strange and still, they forgot our Earth and, beyond the mundane coasts, drifted on dreams of their own into aureateregions of twilight, to wander in lands wherein lovers walk briefly andonly once. 

THE TWELFTH CHRONICLE

THE BUILDING OF CASTLE RODRIGUEZ AND THE ENDING OF THESE CHRONICLES

When the King of Shadow Valley met Rodriguez, for the first time in theforest, and gave him his promise and left him by his camp-fire, he wentback some way towards the bowmen's cottage and blew his horn; and hishundred bowmen were about him almost at once. To these he gave theirorders and they went back, whence they had come, into the forest'sdarkness. But he went to the bowmen's cottage and paced before it, adark and lonely figure of the night; and wherever he paced the groundhe marked it with small sticks. And next morning the hundred bowmencame with axes as soon as the earliest light had entered the forest, and each of them chose out one of the giant trees that stood before thecottage, and attacked it. All day they swung their axes against theforest's elders, of which nearly a hundred were fallen when eveningcame. And the stoutest of these, great trunks that were four feetthrough, were dragged by horses to the bowmen's cottage and laid by thelittle sticks that the King of Shadow Valley had put overnight in theground. The bowmen's cottage and the kitchen that was in the woodbehind it, and a few trees that still stood, were now all enclosed byfour lines of fallen trees which made a large rectangle on the groundwith a small square at each of its corners. And craftsmen came, andsmoothed and hollowed the inner sides of the four rows of trees, working far into the night. So was the first day's work accomplishedand so was built the first layer of the walls of Castle Rodriguez. 

On the next day the bowmen again felled a hundred trees; the top of thefirst layer was cut flat by carpenters; at evening the second layer washoisted up after their under sides had been flattened to fit the layerbelow them; quantities more were cast in to make the floor when theyhad been gradually smoothed and fitted: at the end of the second day aman could not see over the walls of Castle Rodriguez. And on the thirdday more craftsmen arrived, men from distant villages at the forest'sedge, whence the King of Shadow Valley had summoned them; and theycarved the walls as they grew. And a hundred trees fell that day, andthe castle was another layer higher. And all the while a park wasgrowing in the forest, as they felled the great trees; but the greatesttrees of all the bowmen spared, oaks that had stood there for ages andages of men; they left them to grip the earth for a while longer, for afew more human generations. 

On the fourth day the two windows at the back of the bowmen's cottagebegan to darken, and that evening Castle Rodriguez was fifteen feethigh. And still the hundred bowmen hewed at the forest, bringingsunlight bright on to grass that was shadowed by oaks for ages. And atthe end of the fifth day they began to roof the lower rooms and maketheir second floor: and still the castle grew a layer a day, though thesecond storey they built with thinner trees that were only three feetthrough, which were more easily carried to their place by the pulleys. And now they began to heap up rocks in a mass of mortar against thewall on the outside, till a steep slope guarded the whole of the lowerpart of the castle against fire from any attacker if war should comethat way, in any of the centuries that were yet to be: and the deepwindows they guarded with bars of iron. 

The shape of the castle showed itself clearly now, rising on each sideof the bowmen's cottage and behind it, with a tower at each of itscorners. To the left of the old cottage the main doorway opened to thegreat hall, in which a pile of a few huge oaks was being transformedinto a massive stair. Three figures of strange men held up this ceilingwith their heads and uplifted hands, when the castle was finished; butas yet the carvers had only begun their work, so that only here andthere an eye peeped out, or a smile flickered, to give any expressionto the curious faces of these fabulous creatures of the wood, whichwere slowly taking their shape out of three trees whose roots werestill in the earth below the floor. In an upper storey one of thesetrees became a tall cupboard; and the shelves and the sides and theback and the top of it were all one piece of oak. 

All the interior of the castle was of wood, hollowed into alcoves andpolished, or carved into figures leaning out from the walls. So vastwere the timbers that the walls, at a glance, seemed almost one pieceof wood. And the centuries that were coming to Spain darkened the wallsas they came, through autumnal shades until they were all black, asthough they all mourned in secret for lost generations; but they havenot yet crumbled. 

The fireplaces they made with great square red tiles, which they alsoput in the chimneys amongst rude masses of mortar: and these great darkholes remained always mysterious to those that looked for mystery inthe family that whiled away the ages in that castle. And by everyfireplace two queer carved creatures stood upholding the mantlepiece, with mystery in their faces and curious limbs, uniting the hearth withfable and with tales told in the wood. Years after the men that carvedthem were all dust the shadows of these creatures would come out anddance in the room, on wintry nights when all the lamps were gone andflames stole out and flickered above the smouldering logs. 

In the second storey one great saloon ran all the length of the castle. In it was a long table with eight legs that had carvings of rosesrambling along its edges: the table and its legs were all of one piecewith the floor. They would never have hollowed the great trunk in timehad they not used fire. The second storey was barely complete on theday that Rodriguez and Don Alderon and Morano came to the chains thatguarded the park. And the King of Shadow Valley would not permit hisgift to be seen in anything less than its full magnificence, and hadcommanded that no man in the world might enter to see the work of hisbowmen and craftsmen until it should frown at all comers a castleformidable as any in Spain. 

And then they heaped up the mortar and rock to the top of the secondstorey, but above that they let the timbers show, except where theyfilled in plaster between the curving trunks: and the ages blackenedthe timber in amongst the white plaster; but not a storm that blew inall the years that came, nor the moss of so many Springs, ever rottedaway those beams that the forest had given and on which the bowmen hadlaboured so long ago. But the castle weathered the ages and reached ourdays, worn, battered even, by its journey through the long andsometimes troubled years, but splendid with the traffic that it hadwith history in many gorgeous periods. Here Valdar the Excellent cameonce in his youth. And Charles the Magnificent stayed a night in thiscastle when on a pilgrimage to a holy place of the South. 

It was here that Peter the Arrogant in his cups gave Africa, one Springnight, to his sister's son. What grandeurs this castle has seen! Whatchronicles could be writ of it! But not these chronicles, for they drawnear their close, and they have yet to tell how the castle was built. Others shall tell what banners flew from all four of its towers, addinga splendour to the wind, and for what cause they flew. I have yet totell of their building. 

The second storey was roofed, and Castle Rodriguez still rose one layerday by day, with a hauling at pulleys and the work of a hundred men:and all the while the park swept farther into the forest. 

And the trees that grew up through the building were worked by thecraftsmen in every chamber into which they grew: and a great branch ofthe hugest of them made a little crooked stair in an upper storey. Onthe floors they laid down skins of beasts that the bowmen slew in theforest; and on the walls there hung all manner of leather, tooled anddyed as they had the art to do in that far-away period in Spain. 

When the third storey was finished they roofed the castle over, layingupon the huge rafters red tiles that they made of clay. But the towerswere not yet finished. 

At this time the King of Shadow Valley sent a runner into Lowlight toshoot a blunt arrow with a message tied to it into Don Alderon'sgarden, near to the door, at evening. 

And they went on building the towers above the height of the roof Andnear the top of them they made homes for archers, little turrets thatleaned like swallows' nests out from each tower, high places where theycould see and shoot and not be seen from below. And little narrowpassages wound away behind perched battlements of stone, by whicharchers could slip from place to place, and shoot from here or fromthere and never be known. So were built in that distant age the towersof Castle Rodriguez. 

And one day four weeks from the felling of the first oak, the period ofhis promise being accomplished, the King of Shadow Valley blew hishorn. And standing by what had been the bowmen's cottage, now all shutin by sheer walls of Castle Rodriguez, he gathered his bowmen to him. And when they were all about him he gave them their orders. They wereto go by stealth to the village of Lowlight, and were to be by daylightbefore the house of Don Alderon; and, whether wed or unwed, whether shefled or folk defended the house, to bring Dona Serafina of the Valleyof Dawnlight to be the chatelaine of Castle Rodriguez. 

For this purpose he bade them take with them a chariot that he thoughtmagnificent, though the mighty timbers that gave grandeur to CastleRodriguez had a cumbrous look in the heavy vehicle that was to thebowmen's eyes the triumphal car of the forest. So they took their bowsand obeyed, leaving the craftsmen at their work in the castle, whichwas now quite roofed over, towers and all. They went through the forestby little paths that they knew, going swiftly and warily in thebowmen's way: and just before nightfall they were at the forest's edge, though they went no farther from it than its shadows go in the evening. And there they rested under the oak trees for the early part of thenight except those whose art it was to gather news for their king; andthree of those went into Lowlight and mixed with the villagers there. 

When white mists moved over the fields near dawn and wavered ghostlyabout Lowlight, the green bowman moved with them. And just out ofhearing of the village, behind wild shrubs that hid them, the bowmenthat were coming from the forest met the three that had spent the nightin taverns of Lowlight. And the three told the hundred of the greatwedding that there was to be in the Church of the Renunciation thatmorning in Lowlight: and of the preparations that were made, and howholy men had come from far on mules, and had slept the night in thevillage, and the Bishop of Toledo himself would bless the bridegroom'ssword. The bowmen therefore retired a little way and, moving throughthe mists, came forward to points whence they could watch the church, well concealed on the wild plain, which here and there gave up a fieldto man but was mostly the playground of wild creatures whose ways werethe bowmen's ways. And here they waited. 

This was the wedding of Rodriguez and Serafina, of which gossips oftenspoke at their doors in summer evenings, old women mumbling of fairweddings that each had seen; and they had been children when they sawthis wedding; they were those that threw small handfuls of anemones onthe path before the porch. They told the tale of it till they couldtell no more. It is the account of the last two or three of them, old, old women, that came at last to these chronicles, so that their tonguesmay wag as it were a little longer through these pages although theyhave been for so many centuries dead. And this is all that books areable to do. 

First there was bell-ringing and many voices, and then the voiceshushed, and there came the procession of eight divines of Murcia, whosevestments were strange to Lowlight. Then there came a priest from theSouth, near the border of Andalusia, who overnight had sanctified thering. (It was he who had entertained Rodriguez when he first escapedfrom la Garda, and Rodriguez had sent for him now. ) Each note of thebells came clear through the hush as they entered the church. And thenwith suitable attendants the bishop strode by and they saw quite closethe blessed cope of Toledo. And the bridegroom followed him in, wearinghis sword, and Don Alderon went with him. And then the voices roseagain in the street: the bells rang on: they all saw Dona Mirana. Thelittle bunches of bright anemones grew sticky in their hands: the bellsseemed louder: cheering rose in the street and came all down it nearer. Then Dona Serafina walked past them with all her maids: and that iswhat the gossips chiefly remembered, telling how she smiled at them, and praising her dress, through those distant summer evenings. Thenthere was music in the church. And afterwards the forest-people hadcome. And the people screamed, for none knew what they would do. Butthey bowed so low to the bride and bridegroom, and showed their greathunting bows so willingly to all who wished to see, that the peoplelost their alarm and only feared lest the Bishop of Toledo should blastthe merry bowmen with one of his curses. 

And presently the bride and bridegroom entered the chariot, and thepeople cheered; and there were farewells and the casting of flowers;and the bishop blessed three of their bows; and a fat man sat besidethe driver with folded arms, wearing bright on his face a look offoolish contentment; and the bowmen and bride and bridegroom all wentaway to the forest. 

Four huge white horses drew that bridal chariot, the bowmen ran besideit, and soon it was lost to sight of the girls that watched it fromLowlight; but their memories held it close till their eyes could nolonger see to knit and they could only sit by their porches in fineweather and talk of the days that were. 

So came Rodriguez and his bride to the forest; he silent, perplexed, wondering always to what home and what future he brought her; sheknowing less than he and trusting more. And on the untended road thatthe bowmen shared with stags and with rare, very venturous travellers, the wheels of the woodland chariot sank so deep in the sandy earth thatthe escort of bowmen needed seldom to run any more; and he who sat bythe driver climbed down and walked silent for once, perhaps awed by theoccasion, though he was none other than Morano. Serafina was delightedwith the forest, but between Rodriguez and its beautiful grandeur hisanxieties crowded thickly. He leaned over once from the chariot andasked one of the bowmen again about that castle; but the bowman onlybowed and answered with a proverb of Spain, not easily carried so farfrom its own soil to thrive in our language, but signifying that themorrow showeth all things. He was silent then, for he knew that therewas no way to a direct answer through those proverbs, and after a whileperhaps there came to him some of Serafina's trustfulness. By eveningthey came to a wide avenue leading to great gates. 

Rodriguez did not know the avenue, he knew no paths so wide in ShadowValley; but he knew those gates. They were the gates of iron that lednowhere. But now an avenue went from them upon the other side, andopened widely into a park dotted with clumps of trees. And the twogreat iron shields, they too had changed with the changes that hadbewitched the forest, for their surfaces that had glowed sounmistakably blank, side by side in the firelight, not many nightsbefore, blazoned now the armorial bearings of Rodriguez upon the oneand those of the house of Dawnlight upon the other. Through the openedgates they entered the young park that seemed to wonder at its ownancient trees, where wild deer drifted away from them like shadowsthrough the evening: for the bowmen had driven in deer for milesthrough the forest. They passed a pool where water-lilies lay inlanguid beauty for hundreds of summers, but as yet no flower peepedinto the water, for the pond was all hallowed newly. 

A clump of trees stood right ahead of their way; they passed round it;and Castle Rodriguez came all at once into view. Serafina gaspedjoyously. Rodriguez saw its towers, its turrets for archers, itsguarded windows deep in the mass of stone, its solemn row ofbattlements, but he did not believe what he saw. He did not believethat here at last was his castle, that here was his dream fulfilled andhis journey done. He expected to wake suddenly in the cold in somelonely camp, he expected the Ebro to unfold its coils in the North andto come and sweep it away. It was but another strayed hope, he thought, taking the form of dream. But Castle Rodriguez still stood frowningthere, and none of its towers vanished, or changed as things change indreams; but the servants of the King of Shadow Valley opened the greatdoor, and Serafina and Rodriguez entered, and all the hundred bowmendisappeared. 

Here we will leave them, and let these Chronicles end. For whoeverwould tell more of Castle Rodriguez must wield one of those ponderouspens that hangs on the study wall in the house of historians. Greatdays in the story of Spain shone on those iron-barred windows, andthings were said in its banqueting chamber and planned in its innerrooms that sometimes turned that story this way or that, as rocks turna young river. And as a traveller meets a mighty river at one of itsbends, and passes on his path, while the river sweeps on to its estuaryand the sea, so I leave the triumphs and troubles of that story which Itouched for one moment by the door of Castle Rodriguez. 

My concern is but with Rodriguez and Serafina and to tell that theylived here in happiness; and to tell that the humble Morano found hishappiness too. For he became the magnificent steward of CastleRodriguez, the majordomo, and upon august occasions he wore as much redplush as he had ever seen in his dreams, when he saw this very event, sleeping by dying camp-fires. And he slept not upon straw but upon goodheaps of wolf-skins. But pining a little in the second year of hissomewhat lonely splendour, he married one of the maidens of the forest, the child of a bowman that hunted boars with their king. And all thegreen bowmen came and built him a house by the gates of the park, whence he walked solemnly on proper occasions to wait upon his master. Morano, good, faithful man, come forward for but a moment out of theGolden Age and bow across all those centuries to the reader: say onefarewell to him in your Spanish tongue, though the sound of it be nolouder than the sound of shadows moving, and so back to the dimsplendour of the past, for the Seņor or Seņora shall hear your name nomore. 

For years Rodriguez lived a chieftain of the forest, owning theoverlordship of the King of Shadow Valley, whom he and Serafina wouldentertain with all the magnificence of which their castle was capableon such occasions as he appeared before the iron gates. They seldom sawhim. Sometimes they heard his horn as he went by. They heard his bowmenfollow. And all would pass and perhaps they would see none. But uponoccasions he came. He came to the christening of the eldest son ofRodriguez and Serafina, for whom he was godfather. He came again to seethe boy shoot for the first time with a bow. And later he came to givelittle presents, small treasures of the forest, to Rodriguez'daughters; who treated him always, not as sole lord of that forest thattravellers dreaded, but as a friend of their very own that they hadfound for themselves. He had his favourites among them and none quiteknew which they were. 

And one day he came in his old age to give Rodriguez a message. And hespoke long and tenderly of the forest as though all its glades weresacred. 

And soon after that day he died, and was buried with the mourning ofall his men in the deeps of Shadow Valley, where only Rodriguez and thebowmen knew. And Rodriguez became, as the old king had commanded, theruler of Shadow Valley and all its faithful men. With them he huntedand defended the forest, holding all its ways to be sacred, as the oldking had taught. It is told how Rodriguez ruled the forest well. 

And later he made a treaty with the Spanish King acknowledging him soleLord of Spain, including Shadow Valley, saving that certain rightshould pertain to the foresters and should be theirs for ever. Andthese rights are written on parchment and sealed with the seal ofSpain; and none may harm the forest without the bowmen's leave. 

Rodriguez was made Duke of Shadow Valley and a Magnifico of the firstdegree; though little he went with other hidalgos to Court, but livedwith his family in Shadow Valley, travelling seldom beyond thesplendour of the forest farther than Lowlight. 

Thus he saw the glory of autumn turning the woods to fairyland: andwhen the stags were roaring and winter coming on he would take aboar-spear down from the wall and go hunting through the forest, whosetwigs were black and slender and still against the bright menace ofwinter. Spring found him viewing the fields that his men had sown, along the forest's edge, and finding in the chaunt of the myriad birdsa stirring of memories, a beckoning towards past days. In summer hewould see his boys and girls at play, running through shafts ofsunlight that made leaves and grass like pale emeralds. He gave hisdays to the forest and the four seasons. Thus he dwelt amidstsplendours such as History has never seen in any visit of hers to thecourts of men. 

Of him and Serafina it has been written and sung that they livedhappily ever after; and though they are now so many centuries dead, maythey have in the memories of such of my readers as will let them lingerthere, that afterglow of life that remembrance gives, which is all thatthere is on earth for those that walked it once and that walk the pathsof their old haunts no more.