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by Lord Dunsany
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Title: Don Rodriguez

Author: Lord Dunsany

Release Date: July, 2003  [Etext #4282]
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by Lord Dunsany
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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
reader of these Chronicles the exact date of the times that they
tell of. Were it merely a matter of history there could be no
doubts about the period; but where magic is concerned, to however
slight an extent, there must always be some element of mystery,
arising partly out of ignorance and partly from the compulsion of
those oaths by which magic protects its precincts from the tiptoe
of curiosity.

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

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





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 on earth (and all those years in Spain, in the golden time),
the Lord of the Valleys of Arguento Harez, whose heights see not
Valladolid, called for his eldest son. And so he addressed him
when he was come to his chamber, dim with its strange red hangings
and august with the splendour of Spain: "O eldest son of mine,
your younger brother being dull and clever, on whom those traits
that women love have not been bestowed by God; and know my eldest
son that here on earth, and for ought I know Hereafter, but
certainly here on earth, these women be the arbiters of all
things; and how this be so God knoweth only, for they are vain and
variable, yet it is surely so: your younger brother then not
having been given those ways that women prize, and God knows why
they prize them for they are vain ways that I have in my mind and
that won me the Valleys of Arguento Harez, from whose heights
Angelico swore he saw Valladolid once, and that won me moreover
also ... but that is long 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 these my valleys, for not unlikely
it was for some sin of mine that his spirit was visited with
dullness, as Holy Writ sets forth, the sins of the 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, and
its true temper singeth when it meets another blade as two friends
sing when met after many years. It is most subtle, nimble and
exultant; and what it will not win for you in the wars, that shall
be won for you by your mandolin, for you have a way with it that
goes well with the old airs of Spain. And choose, my son, rather a
moonlight night when you sing under those curved balconies that I
knew, ah me, so well; for there is much advantage in the moon. In
the first place maidens see in the light of the moon, especially
in the Spring, more romance than you might credit, for it adds for
them a mystery to the darkness which the night has not when it is
merely black. And if any statue should gleam on the grass near by,
or if the magnolia be in blossom, or even the nightingale singing,
or if anything be beautiful in the night, in any of these things
also there is advantage; for a maiden will attribute to her lover
all manner of things that are not his at all, but are only
outpourings from the hand of God. There is this advantage also in
the moon, that, if interrupters come, the moonlight is better
suited to the play of a blade than the mere darkness of night;
indeed but the merry play of my sword in the moonlight was often a
joy to see, it so flashed, so danced, so sparkled. In the
moonlight also one makes no unworthy stroke, but hath scope for
those fair passes that Sevastiani taught, which were long ago the
wonder of Madrid."

The old lord paused, and breathed for a little space, as it were
gathering breath for his last words to his son. He breathed
deliberately, then spoke again. "I leave you," he said, "well
content that you have the two accomplishments, my son, that are
most needful in a 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 and hath full many customs, but these two
alone are needful." And then with that grand manner that they had
at that time in Spain, although his strength was failing, he gave
to his eldest son his Castilian sword. He lay back then in the
huge, carved, canopied bed; his eyes closed, the red silk curtains
rustled, and there was no sound of his breathing. But the old
lord's spirit, whatever journey it purposed, lingered yet in its
ancient habitation, and his voice came again, but feebly now and
rambling; he muttered awhile of gardens, such gardens no doubt as
the hidalgos guarded in that fertile region of sunshine in the
proudest period of Spain; he would have known no others. So for
awhile his memory seemed to stray, half blind among those perfumed
earthly wonders; perhaps among these memories his spirit halted,
and tarried those last few moments, mistaking those Spanish
gardens, remembered by moonlight in Spring, for the other end of
his journey, the glades of Paradise. However it be, it tarried.
These rambling memories ceased and silence fell again, with
scarcely the sound of breathing. Then gathering up his strength
for the last time and looking at his son, "The sword to the wars,"
he said. "The mandolin to the balconies." With that he fell back
dead.

Now there were no wars at that time so far as was known in Spain,
but that old lord's eldest son, regarding those last words of his
father as a commandment, determined then and there in that dim,
vast chamber to gird his legacy to him and seek for the wars,
wherever the wars might be, so soon as the obsequies of the
sepulture were ended. And of those obsequies I tell not here, for
they are fully told in the Black Books of Spain, and the deeds of
that old lord's youth are told in the Golden Stories. The Book of
Maidens mentions him, and again we read of him in Gardens of
Spain. I take my leave of him, happy, I trust, in Paradise, for he
had himself the accomplishments that he held needful in a
Christian, skill with the sword and a way with the mandolin; and
if there be some harder, better way to salvation than to follow
that which we believe to be good, then are we all damned. So he
was buried, and his eldest son fared forth with his legacy
dangling from his girdle in its long, straight, lovely scabbard,
blue velvet, with emeralds on it, fared forth on foot along a road
of Spain. And though the road turned left and right and sometimes
nearly ceased, as though to let the small wild flowers grow, out
of sheer good will such as some roads never have; though it ran
west and east and sometimes south, yet in the main it ran
northward, though wandered is a better word than ran, and the Lord
of the Valleys of Arguento Harez who owned no valleys, or anything
but a sword, kept company with it looking for the wars. Upon his
back he had slung his mandolin. Now the time of the year was
Spring, not Spring as we know it in England, for it was but early
March, but it was the time when Spring coming up out of Africa, or
unknown lands to the south, first touches Spain, and multitudes of
anemones come forth at her feet.

Thence she comes north to our islands, no less wonderful in our
woods than in Andalusian valleys, fresh as a new song, fabulous as
a rune, but a little pale through travel, so that our flowers do
not quite flare 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
those southern flowers, flashing on either side of him all the
way, as though the rainbow had been broken in Heaven and its
fragments fallen on Spain. All the way as he went he gazed at
those flowers, the first anemones of the year; and long after,
whenever he sang to old airs of Spain, he thought of Spain as it
appeared that day in all the wonder of Spring; the memory lent a
beauty to his voice and a wistfulness to his eyes that accorded
not ill with the theme of the songs he sang, and were more than
once to melt proud hearts deemed cold. And so gazing he came to a
town that stood on a hill, before he was yet tired, though he had
done nigh twenty of those flowery miles of Spain; and since it was
evening and the light was fading away, he went to an inn and drew
his sword in the twilight and knocked with the hilt of it on the
oaken door. The name of it was the Inn of the Dragon and Knight. A
light was lit in one of the upper windows, the darkness seemed to
deepen at that moment, a step was heard coming heavily down a
stairway; and having named the inn to you, gentle reader, it is
time for me to name the young man also, the landless lord of the
Valleys of Arguento Harez, as the step comes slowly down the inner
stairway, as the gloaming darkens over the first house in which he
has ever sought shelter so far from his father's valleys, as he
stands upon the threshold of romance. He was named Rodriguez
Trinidad Fernandez, Concepcion Henrique Maria; but we 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 full
names, unless I do it here and there to remind you.

The steps came thumping on down the inner stairway, different
windows took the light of the candle, and none other shone in the
house; it was clear that it was moving with the steps all down
that echoing stairway. The sound of the steps ceased to
reverberate upon the wood, and now they slowly moved over stone
flags; Rodriguez now heard breathing, one breath with every step,
and at length the sound of bolts and chains undone and the
breathing now very close. The door was opened swiftly; a man with
mean eyes, and expression devoted to evil, stood watching him for
an instant; then the door slammed to again, the bolts were heard
going back again to their places, the steps and the breathing
moved away 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 the sound of war and, hearing none, continued his discourse.
"But if I have not come as yet to the wars I sleep beneath a
roof."

For the second time therefore he drew his sword, and began to
strike methodically at the door, noting the grain in the wood and
hitting where it was softest. Scarcely had he got a good strip of
the oak to look like coming away, when the steps once more
descended the wooden stair and came lumbering over the stones;
both the steps and the breathing were quicker, for mine host of
the Dragon and Knight was hurrying to save his door.

When he heard the sound of the bolts and chains again Rodriguez
ceased to beat upon the door: once more it opened swiftly, and he
saw mine host before him, eyeing him with those bad eyes; of too
much girth, you might have said, to be nimble, yet somehow
suggesting to the swift intuition of youth, as Rodriguez looked at
him standing upon his door-step, the spirit and shape of a
spider, who despite her ungainly build is agile enough in her way.

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

Mine host rubbed his chin; he had neither beard nor moustache but
wore hideous 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 the mandolin, wasted none of his words on this
discourteous object. They ascended the short oak stairway down
which mine host had come, the great timbers of which were gnawed
by a myriad rats, and they went by passages with the light of one
candle into the interior of the inn, which went back farther from
the street than the young man had supposed; indeed he perceived
when they came to the great corridor at the end of which was his
appointed chamber, that here was no ordinary inn, as it had
appeared from outside, but that it penetrated into the fastness of
some great family of former times which had fallen on evil days.
The vast size of it, the noble design where the rats had spared
the carving, what the moths had left of the tapestries, all
testified to that; and, as for the evil days, they hung about the
place, evident even by the light of one candle guttering with
every draught that blew from the haunts of the rats, an
inseparable heirloom for all who disturbed those corridors.

And so they came to the chamber.

Mine host entered, bowed without grace in the doorway, and
extended his left hand, pointing into the room. The draughts that
blew from the rat-holes in the wainscot, or the mere action of
entering, beat down the flame of the squat, guttering candle so
that the chamber remained dim for a moment, in spite of the
candle, as would naturally be the case. Yet the impression made
upon Rodriguez was as of some old darkness that had been long
undisturbed and that yielded reluctantly to that candle's
intrusion, a darkness that properly became the place and was a
part of it and had long been so, in the face of which the candle
appeared an ephemeral thing devoid of grace or dignity or
tradition. And indeed there was room for darkness in that chamber,
for the walls went up and up into such an altitude that you could
scarcely see the ceiling, at which mine host's eyes glanced, and
Rodriguez followed his look.

He accepted his accommodation with a nod; as indeed he would have
accepted any room in that inn, for the young are swift judges of
character, and one who had accepted such a host was unlikely to
find fault with rats or the profusion of giant cobwebs, dark with
the dust of years, that added so much to the dimness of that
sinister inn. They turned now and went back, in the wake of that
guttering candle, till they 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 a boar; and at the far end of the
table a plump and sturdy man was seated in shirt-sleeves feasting
himself on the boar's meat. He leaped up at once from his chair as
soon as his master entered, for he was the servant at the Dragon
and Knight; mine host may have said much to him with a flash of
his eyes, but he said no more with his tongue than the one word,
"Dog": he then bowed himself out, leaving Rodriguez to take the
only chair and to be waited upon by its recent possessor. The
boar's meat was cold and gnarled, another piece of meat stood on a
plate on a shelf and a loaf of bread near by, but the rats had had
most of the bread: Rodriguez demanded what the meat was.
"Unicorn's tongue," said the servant, and Rodriguez bade him set
the dish before him, and he set to well content, though I fear the
unicorn's tongue was only horse: it was a credulous age, as all
ages are. At the same time he pointed to a three-legged stool that
he perceived in a corner of the room, then to the table, then to
the boar's meat, and lastly at the servant, who perceived that he
was permitted to return to his feast, to which he ran with
alacrity. "Your name?" said Rodriguez as soon as both were eating.
"Morano," replied the servant, though it must not be supposed that
when answering Rodriguez he spoke as curtly as this; I merely give
the reader the gist of his answer, for he added Spanish words that
correspond in our depraved and decadent language of to-day to such
words as "top dog," "nut" and "boss," so that his speech had a
certain grace about it in that far-away time in Spain.

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

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

"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
he might. He must have liked you."

Verily Rodriguez was just the young man to send out with a sword
and a mandolin into the wide world, for he had much shrewd sense.
He never pressed a point, but when something had been said that
might mean much he preferred to store it, as it were, in his mind
and pass on to other things, somewhat as one might kill game and
pass on and kill more and bring it all home, while a savage would
cook the first kill where it fell and eat it on the spot. Pardon
me, reader, but at Morano's remark you may perhaps have exclaimed,
"That is not the way to treat one you like." Not so did Rodriguez.
His attention passed on to notice Morano's rings which he wore in
great profusion upon his little fingers; they were gold and of
exquisite work and had once held precious stones, as large gaps
testified; in these days they would have been priceless, but in an
age when workers only worked at arts that they understood, and
then worked for the joy of it, before the word artistic became
ridiculous, exquisite work went without saying; and as the rings
were slender they were of little value. Rodriguez made no comment
upon the rings; it was enough for him to have noticed them. He
merely noted that they were not ladies' rings, for no lady's ring
would have fitted on to any one of those fingers: the rings
therefore of gallants: and not given to Morano by their owners,
for whoever wore precious stone needed a ring to wear it in, and
rings did not wear out like hose, which a gallant might give to a
servant. Nor, thought he, had Morano stolen them, for whoever
stole them would keep them whole, or part with them whole and get
a better price. Besides Morano had an honest face, or a face at
least that seemed honest in such an inn: and while these thoughts
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 advantage of being permitted to sit there and eat those
hams, perhaps tentatively, to find out whether he might consume
the second, perhaps merely to start a conversation, being
attracted by the honest looks of Rodriguez.

"You are hungry," said Rodriguez.

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

"Is it so?" said Rodriguez.

"You see," said Morano, "the manner of it is this: my master gives
me no food, and it is only when I am hungry that I dare to rob him
by breaking in, as you saw me, upon his viands; were I not hungry
I should not dare to do so, and so ..." He made a sad and
expressive movement with 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 him no food," and then he rubbed his hands cheerfully, "and
yet the dog does 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, and for a moment he pictured the sapphire passing into
the hands of mine host and the ring of gold and the four small
angels being flung to Morano; the thought darkened his gaiety for
no longer than one of those fleecy clouds in Spring shadows the
fields of Spain.

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

"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
no guarding, but you whose meat is rare like the flesh of the
unicorn need a sword to guard your meat. The unicorn has his horn
always, and even then 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
unicorn waking. For me I am but dog's meat: when I have eaten hams
I curl up and sleep; but then you see, master, I know I shall wake
in the morning."

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

The door opened after a while and mine host appeared. "It is
late," he said. Rodriguez smiled acquiescently and mine host
withdrew, and presently leaving Morano whom his master's voice had
waked, to curl up on the floor in a corner, Rodriguez took the
candle that lit the room and passed once more through the passages
of the inn and down the great corridor 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 over that chamber; if you have
no picture of it in your mind already, my reader, you are reading
an unskilled writer, and if in that picture it appear a wholesome
room, tidy and well kept up, if it appear a place in which 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
blackness towered before Rodriguez in the night. He entered and
shut the door, as many had done before him; but for all his youth
he took some wiser precautions than had they, perhaps, who closed
that door before. For first he drew his sword; then for some while
he stood quite still near the door and listened to the rats; then
he looked round the chamber and perceived only one door; then he
looked at the heavy oak furniture, carved by some artist, gnawed
by rats, and all blackened by time; then swiftly opened the door
of the largest cupboard and thrust his sword in to see who might
be inside, but the carved satyr's heads at the top of the cupboard
eyed him silently and nothing moved. Then he noted that though
there was no bolt on the door the furniture might be placed across
to make what in the wars is called a barricado, but the wiser
thought came at once that this was too easily done, and that if
the danger that the dim room seemed gloomily to forebode were to
come from a door so readily barricadoed, then those must have been
simple gallants who parted so easily with the rings that adorned
Morano's two little fingers. No, it was something more subtle than
any attack through that door that brought his regular wages to
Morano. Rodriguez looked at the window, which let in the light of
a moon that was getting low, for the curtains had years ago been
eaten up by the moths; but the window was barred with iron bars
that were not yet rusted away, and looked out, thus guarded, over
a sheer wall that even in the moonlight fell into blackness.
Rodriguez then looked round for some hidden door, the sword all
the while in his hand, and very soon he knew that room fairly
well, but not its secret, nor why those unknown gallants had given
up their rings.

It is much to know of an unknown danger that it really is unknown.
Many have met their deaths through looking for danger from one
particular direction, whereas had they perceived that they were
ignorant of its direction they would have been wise in their
ignorance. Rodriguez had the great discretion to understand
clearly that he did not know the direction from which danger would
come. He accepted this as his only discovery about that portentous
room which seemed to beckon to him with every shadow and to sigh
over him with every mournful draught, and to whisper to him
unintelligible warnings with every rustle of tattered silk that
hung about his bed. And as soon as he discovered that this was his
only knowledge he began at once to make his preparations: he was a
right young man for the wars. He divested himself of his shoes and
doublet and the light cloak that hung from his shoulder and cast
the clothes on a chair. Over the back of the chair he slung his
girdle and the scabbard hanging therefrom and placed his plumed
hat so that none could see that his Castilian blade was not in its
resting-place. And when the sombre chamber had the appearance of
one having undressed in it before retiring Rodriguez turned his
attention to the bed, which he noticed to be of great depth and
softness. That something not unlike blood had been spilt on the
floor excited no wonder in Rodriguez; that vast chamber was
evidently, as I have said, in the fortress of some great family,
against one of whose walls the humble inn had once leaned for
protection; the great family were gone: how they were gone
Rodriguez did not know, but it excited no wonder in him to see
blood on the boards: besides, two gallants may have disagreed; or
one who loved not dumb animals might have been killing rats. Blood
did not disturb him; but what amazed him, and would have surprised
anyone who stood in that ruinous room, was that there were clean
new sheets on the bed. Had you seen the state of the furniture and
the floor, O my reader, and the vastness of the old cobwebs and
the black dust that they held, the dead spiders and huge dead
flies, and the living generation of spiders descending and
ascending through the gloom, I say that you also would have been
surprised at the sight of those nice clean sheets. Rodriguez noted
the fact and continued his preparations. He took the bolster from
underneath the pillow and laid it down the middle of the bed and
put the sheets back over it; then he stood back and looked at it,
much as a sculptor might stand back from his marble, then he
returned to it and bent it a little in the middle, and after that
he placed his mandolin on the pillow and nearly covered it with
the sheet, but not quite, for a little of the curved dark-brown
wood remained still to be seen. It looked wonderfully now like a
sleeper in the bed, but Rodriguez was not satisfied with his work
until he had placed his kerchief and one of his shoes where a
shoulder ought to be; then he stood back once more and eyed it
with satisfaction. Next he considered the light. He looked at the
light of the moon and remembered his father's advice, as the young
often do, but considered that this was not the occasion for it,
and decided to leave the light of his candle instead, so that
anyone who might be familiar with the moonlight in that shadowy
chamber should find instead a less sinister light. He therefore
dragged a table to the bedside, placed the candle upon it, and
opened a treasured book that he bore in his doublet, and laid it
on the bed near by, between the candle and his mandolin-headed
sleeper; the name of the book was Notes in a Cathedral and dealt
with the confessions of a young girl, which the author claimed to
have jotted down, while concealed behind a pillow near the
Confessional, every Sunday for the entire period of Lent. Lastly
he pulled a sheet a little loose from the bed, until a corner of
it lay on the floor; then he lay down on the boards, still keeping
his sword in his hand, and by means of the sheet and some silk
that hung from the bed, he concealed himself sufficient for his
purpose, which was to see before he should be seen by any intruder
that might enter that chamber.

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

The reader will know, if he be one of us, who have been to the
wars and slept in curious ways, that it is hard to sleep when
sober upon a floor; it is not like the earth, or snow, or a
feather bed; even rock can be more accommodating; it is hard,
unyielding and level, all night unmistakable floor. Yet Rodriguez
took no risk of falling asleep, so he said over to himself in his
mind as much as he remembered of his treasured book, Notes in a
Cathedral, which he always read to himself before going to rest
and now so sadly missed. It told how a lady who had listened to a
lover longer than her soul's safety could warrant, as he played
languorous music in the moonlight and sang soft by her low
balcony, and how she being truly penitent, had gathered many
roses, the emblems of love (as surely, she said at confession, all
the world knows), and when her lover came again by moonlight had
cast them all from her from the balcony, showing that she had
renounced love; and her lover had entirely misunderstood her. It
told how she often tried to show him this again, and all the
misunderstandings are sweetly set forth and with true Christian
penitence. Sometimes some little matter escaped Rodriguez's memory
and then he longed to rise up and look at his dear book, yet he
lay still where he was: and all the while he listened to the rats,
and the rats went on gnawing and running regularly, scared by
nothing new; Rodriguez trusted as much to their myriad ears as to
his own two. The great spiders descended out of such heights that
you could not see whence they came, and ascended again into
blackness; it was a chamber of prodigious height. Sometimes the
shadow of a descending spider that had come close to the candle
assumed a frightening size, but Rodriguez gave little thought to
it; it was of murder he was thinking, not of shadows; still, in
its way it was ominous, and reminded Rodriguez horribly of his
host; but what of an omen, 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 have done 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 all the way to the
ceiling, and his horrible shadow grew less and dwindled away.

It was not that the rats were frightened: whatever it was that
happened happened too quietly for that, but the volume of the
sound of their running had suddenly increased: it was not like
fear among them, for the running was no swifter, and it did not
fade away; it was as though the sound of rats running, which had
not been heard before, was suddenly heard now. Rodriguez looked at
the door, the door was shut. A young Englishman would long ago
have been afraid that he was making a fuss over nothing and would
have gone to sleep in the bed, and not seen what Rodriguez saw. He
might have thought that hearing more rats all at once was merely a
fancy, and that everything was all right. Rodriguez saw a rope
coming slowly down from the ceiling, he quickly determined whether
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
stop within a few feet of it. Rodriguez looked up cautiously to
see who had sent him that strange addition to the portents that
troubled the chamber, but the ceiling was too high and dim for him
to perceive anything but the rope coming down out of the darkness.
Yet he surmised that the ceiling must have softly opened, without
any sound at all, at the moment that he heard the greater number
of rats. He waited then to see what the rope would do; and at
first it hung as still as the great festoons dead spiders had made
in the corners; then as he watched it it began to sway. He looked
up into the dimness then to see who was swaying the rope; and for
a long time, as it seemed to him lying gripping his Castilian
sword on the floor he saw nothing clearly. And then he saw mine
host coming down the rope, hand over hand quite nimbly, as though
he lived by this business. In his right hand he held a poniard of
exceptional length, yet he managed to clutch the rope and hold the
poniard all the time with the same hand.

If there had been something hideous about the shadow of the spider
that came 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 bunched up on the rope, and his shadow was six times
his size: you could turn from the spider's shadow to the spider
and see that it was for the most part a fancy of the candle half
crazed by the draughts, but to turn from mine host's shadow to
himself and to see his wicked eyes was to say that the candle's
wildest fears were true. So he climbed down his rope holding his
poniard upward. But when he came within perhaps ten feet of the
bed he pointed it downward and began to sway about. It will be
readily seen that by swaying his rope at a height mine host could
drop on any part of the bed. Rodriguez as he watched him saw him
scrutinise closely and continue to sway on his rope. He feared
that mine host was ill satisfied with the look of the mandolin and
that he would climb away again, well warned of his guest's
astuteness, into the heights of the ceiling to devise some
fearfuller scheme; but he was only looking for the shoulder. And
then mine host dropped; poniard first, he went down with all his
weight behind it and drove it through the bolster below where the
shoulder should be, just where we slant our arms across our
bodies, when we lie asleep on our sides, leaving the ribs exposed:
and the soft bed received him. And the moment that mine host 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
could mine host do? He was already committed to his stroke, and
his poniard was already deep in the mattress when the good
Castilian blade passed through his ribs.





THE SECOND CHRONICLE

HOW HE HIRED A MEMORABLE SERVANT


When Rodriguez woke, the birds were singing gloriously. The sun
was up and the air was sparkling over Spain. The gloom had left
his high chamber, and much of the menace had gone from it that
overnight had seemed to bode in the corners. It had not become
suddenly tidy; it was still more suitable for spiders than men, it
still mourned and brooded over the great family that it had nursed
and that evil days had so obviously overtaken; but it no longer
had the air of finger to lips, no longer seemed to share a secret
with you, and that secret Murder. The rats still ran round the
wainscot, but the song of the birds and the jolly, dazzling
sunshine were so much larger than the sombre room that the young
man's thoughts escaped from it and ran free to the fields. It may
have been only his fancy but the world seemed somehow brighter for
the demise of mine host of the Dragon and Knight, whose body still
lay hunched up on the foot of his bed. Rodriguez jumped up and
went to the high, barred window and looked out of it at the
morning: far below him a little town with red roofs lay; the smoke
came up from the chimneys toward 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
as he dressed he looked up at the ceiling and admired mine host's
device, for there was an open hole that had come noiselessly,
without any sounds of bolts or lifting of trap-doors, but seemed
to have opened out all round on perfectly oiled groves, to fit
that well-to-do body, and down from the middle of it from some
higher beam hung the rope down which mine host had made his last
journey.

Before taking leave of his host Rodriguez looked at his poniard,
which was a good two feet in length, not counting the hilt, and
was surprised to find it an excellent blade. It bore a design on
the steel representing a town, which Rodriguez recognised for the
towers of Toledo; and had held moreover a jewel at the end of the
hilt, but the little gold socket was empty. Rodriguez therefore
perceived that the poniard was that of a gallant, and surmised
that mine host had begun his trade with a butcher's knife, but
having come by the poniard had found it to be handier for his
business. Rodriguez being now fully dressed, girt his own blade
about him, and putting the poniard under his cloak, for he thought
to find a use for it at the wars, set his plumed hat upon him and
jauntily stepped from the chamber. By the light of day he saw
clearly at what point the passages of the inn had dared to make
their intrusion on the corridors of the fortress, for he walked
for four paces between walls of huge grey rocks which had never
been plastered and were clearly a breach in the fortress, though
whether the breach were made by one of the evil days that had come
upon the family in their fastness, and whether men had poured
through it with torches and swords, or whether the gap had been
cut in later years for mine host of the Dragon and Knight, and he
had gone quietly through it rubbing his hands, nothing remained to
show Rodriguez now.

When he came to the dining-chamber he found Morano astir. Morano
looked up from his overwhelming task of tidying the Inn of the
Dragon and Knight and then went on with his pretended work, for he
felt a little ashamed of the knowledge he had concerning the ways
of that inn, which was 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
minds than a bad one. Yet, you see senor, my bad master has me
bound never to leave 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 hath bound me by San Sathanas, with
many others. I do not like the sound of that San Sathanas. And so
you see, senor, my bad master suits me better than perhaps to be
whithered in this world by a levin-stroke, and in the 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
voice as though no spider had ever sullied that chamber before.

"Yes," said Rodriguez, "I shall require you to keep my bed tidy on
our way 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
for romance became a company of two.

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

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

"Master," Morano said, "it could not be otherwise. For so many
gallants have entered the door of this inn and supped in this
chamber and never been 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 by leather straps an iron pot and
a frying-pan and took his broad felt hat from a peg on the wall.

Rodriguez' eyes looked so curiously at the great cooking utensils
dangling there from the straps that Morano perceived his young
master did not fully understand these preparations: he therefore
instructed him thus: "Master, there be two things necessary in the
wars, strategy and cooking. Now the first of these comes in use
when the captains speak of their achievements and the historians
write of the wars. Strategy is a learned thing, master, and the
wars may not be told of without it, but while the war rageth and
men be camped upon the foughten field then is the time for
cooking; for many a man that fights the wars, if he hath not his
food, were well content to let the enemy live, but feed him and at
once he becometh proud at heart and cannot a-bear the sight of the
enemy walking among his tents but must needs slay him outright.
Aye, master, the cooking for the wars; and when the wars are over
you who are learned shall study strategy."

And Rodriguez perceived that there was wisdom in the world that
was not taught 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
his lips upon his store of wisdom, and together they left the Inn
of the Dragon and Knight. And when Rodriguez saw shut behind him
that dark door of oak that he had so persistently entered, and
through which he had come again to the light of the sun by many
precautions and some luck, he felt gratitude to Morano. For had it
not been for Morano's sinister hints, and above all his remark
that mine host would have driven him thence because he liked him,
the evil look of the sombre chamber alone might not have been
enough to persuade him to the precautions that cut short the
dreadful business of that inn. And with his gratitude was a
feeling not unlike remorse, for he felt that he had deprived this
poor man of a part of his regular wages, which would have been his
own gold ring and the setting that held the sapphire, had all gone
well with the business. So he slipped the ring from his finger and
gave it to Morano, sapphire and all.

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

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

"Master," said Morano looking at the sapphire now on his own
little finger 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
Castilian blade. And when he saw that Morano's eyes were staring
at the little emeralds that were dotted along the velvet of the
scabbard he explained that it was the sword that was his wealth:

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

"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 old
songs say."

They walked on then in silence. Morano, with his low forehead and
greater girth of body than of brain to the superficial observer,
was not incapable of thought. However slow his thoughts may have
come, Morano was pondering surely. Suddenly the puckers on his
little forehead cleared and he brightly looked at Rodriguez as
they went on side by side.

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

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

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

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

So they walked in silence, Rodriguez thinking still of this
spiritual problem, Morano turning, though with infinite slowness,
to another thought upon a lower plane.

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

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

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

"A merry custom," said Rodriguez.

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

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

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

"We can hide," said Rodriguez, and he looked round over the plain,
very full of flowers, but empty and bare under the blue sky of any
place in which a man might hide to escape from pursuers on horse
back. He perceived 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
said disguises. But then Morano unfolded to him that plan which up
to that day had never been tried before, so far as records tell,
in all the straits in which fugitive men have been; and which
seems from my researches in verse and prose never to have been
attempted since.

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

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

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
Garda come by a suspicion, such as that you, master, are but
Morano, and they will cling to it even to the last, and not
abandon it until they needs must, and then throw it away as it
were in disgust and ride hence at once, for they like not tarrying
long near one who has seen them mistaken."

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

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

"Then," said Rodriguez, "I shall be hard set ever to show that I
am not you if they ever suspect I am."

"It will be hard, master," Morano answered; "but we shall do it,
for we shall 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 all marked your clothes. As for me my fat body is better known
than my clothes, yet am I not too well known by la Garda, for,
being an honest man, 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 is no place for an honest man."

"Let us disguise ourselves," said Rodriguez.

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

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

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

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

For one moment Morano raised his head with an air, as it were
preening himself, when the new moustachios had stuck; but as soon
as he saw, or felt, 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 for the impropriety of those delicate
growths that so ill become his jowl. And now they took the road
again, Rodriguez with the great frying-pan and cooking-pot; no
longer together, but not too far apart for la Garda to take them
both at once, and to make the doubly false charge that should so
confound their errand. And Morano wore that old triumphant sword,
and carried the mandolin that was ever young.

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

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

"You," they said, "are Rodriguez Trinidad Fernandez, Concepcion
Henrique 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
a man 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 the mandolin, at the gay cloak, at the emeralds in the
scabbard, for wherever emeralds go there is evidence to identify
them, until the nature of man changes or the price of emeralds.
They spoke hastily among themselves.

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

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

"Masters," answered Rodriguez, "I am but a poor traveller, and no
servant 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 them so fiercely that they were incapable of forming
any other theory that day except the one they held.

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

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

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

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

Now Rodriguez knew not the name of the next village that they
would come 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 he
questioned the rider.

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

"Can Morano talk Latin?" he said. La Garda crossed themselves, all
five men. And after some while of riding, and hard walking for
Rodriguez, to whom they allowed a hand on a stirrup leather, there
came in sight the tops of the brown roofs of a village over a fold
of the plain. "Is this your 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 a
little to its left in the idle Spanish air, they came upon the
village all in view. I do not know how to describe this village to
you, my reader, for the words that mean to you what it was are all
the wrong words to use. "Antique," "old-world," "quaint," seem
words with which to tell of it. Yet it had no antiquity denied to
the other villages; it had been brought to birth like them by the
passing of time, and was nursed like them in the lap of plains or
valleys of Spain. Nor was it quainter than any of its neighbours,
though it was like itself alone, as they had their characters
also; and, though no village in the world was like it, it differed
only from the next as sister differs from sister. To those that
dwelt in it, it was wholly apart from all the world of man.

Most of its tall white houses with green doors were gathered about
the market-place, in which were pigeons and smells and declining
sunlight, as Rodriguez and his escort came towards it, and from
round a corner at the back of it the short, repeated song of one
who would sell a commodity 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
so many that, of the village Rodriguez saw, there can be now no
more than wreckage. For all I know a village of that name may
stand on that same plain, but the Saint Judas-not-Iscariot that
Rodriguez knew is gone like youth.

Queerly tiled, sheltered by small dense trees, and standing a
little apart, Rodriguez recognised the house of the Priest. He
recognised it by a certain air it had. Thither he pointed and la
Garda rode. Again he spoke 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
low wall of round boulders. They went up a narrow path between
thick ilices and came to the green door. They pulled a bell whose
handle was a symbol carved in copper, one of the Priest's
mysteries. The bell boomed through 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 the
Priest beckoned and they all entered his house, for Rodriguez had
asked him for ink. Into a room they came where a silver ink-pot
was, and the grey plume of the goose. Picture no such ink-pot, my
reader, as they sell to-day in shops, the silver no thicker than
paper, and perhaps a pattern all over it guaranteed artistic. It
was molten silver well wrought, and hollowed for ink. And in the
hollow there was the magical fluid, the stuff that rules the world
and hinders time; that in which flows the will of a king, to
establish his laws for ever; that which gives valleys unto new
possessors; that whereby towers are held by their lawful owners;
that which, used grimly by the King's judge, is death; that which,
when poets play, is mirth for ever and ever.

No wonder la Garda looked at it in awe, no wonder they crossed
themselves again: and then Rodriguez wrote. In the silence that
followed the jaws of la Garda dropped, while the old Priest
slightly smiled, for he somewhat divined the situation already;
and, being the people's friend, he loved not la Garda more than he
was bound by the rules of his duty to man.

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

And then the Priest said a word and made a sign, against which
Satan himself can only prevail with difficulty, and in presence of
which his spells can never endure. And after this Rodriguez wrote
again. Then were 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 the roads were dangerous, and must now
depart because they had higher duties. So la Garda departed,
looking before them with stern, preoccupied faces and urging their
horses on, as men who go on an errand of great urgency. And
Rodriguez, having thanked them for their protection upon the road,
turned back into the house and the two sat down together, and
Rodriguez told his rescuer the story of the hospitality of the Inn
of the Dragon and Knight.

Not as confession he told it, but as a pleasant tale, for he
looked on the swift demise of la Garda's friend, in the night, in
the spidery room, as a fair blessing for Spain, a thing most
suited to the sweet days of Spring. The spiritual man rejoiced to
hear such a tale, as do all men of peace to hear talk of violent
deeds in which they may not share. And when the tale was ended he
reproved Rodriguez exceedingly, explaining to him the nature of
the sin of blood, and telling him that absolution could be come by
now, though hardly, but how on some future occasion there might be
none to be had. And Rodriguez listened with all the gravity of
expression that youth knows well how to wear while its thoughts
are nimbly dancing far away in fair fields of adventure or love.

And darkness came down and lamps were carried in: and the reverend
father asked Rodriguez in what other affairs of violence his sword
had unhappily been. And Rodriguez knew well the history of that
sword, having gathered all that concerned it out of spoken legend
or song. And although the reverend man frowned minatorily whenever
he heard of its passings through the ribs of the faithful, and
nodded as though his head gave benediction when he heard of the
destruction of God's most vile enemy the infidel, and though he
gasped a little through his lips when 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 leaned forward
always, listening well, and picturing clearly as though his
gleaming eyes could see them, each doleful tale of violence or
sin. And so night came, and began to wear away, and neither knew
how late the hour was. And then as Rodriguez spoke of an evening
in a garden, of which some old song told well, a night in early
summer under the evening star, and that sword there as always; as
he told of his grandfather as poets had loved to tell, going among
the scents of the huge flowers, familiar with the dark garden as
the moths that drifted by him; as he spoke of a sigh heard
faintly, as he spoke of danger near, whether to body or soul; as
the reverend father was about to raise both his hands; there came
a thunder of knockings upon the locked green door.





THE THIRD CHRONICLE

HOW HE CAME TO THE HOUSE OF WONDER


It was the gross Morano. Here he had tracked Rodriguez, for where
la Garda 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 dog does who comes home some hours late; a dog
comes back to his master, that is all, panting a little perhaps;
someone perhaps had caught him and he escaped and came home, a
thing too natural to attempt to speak of by any of the signs that
a dog knows.

Part of Morano's method seems to have resembled Rodriguez', for
just as Rodriguez spoke Latin, so Morano fell back upon his own
natural speech, that he as it were unbridled and allowed to run
free, the coarseness of which 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
of the King of Aragon."

"The King of Aragon!" Rodriguez said, going to the length of
showing surprise. "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
the Kings 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
that what I said was true." And Morano sighed deeply. "And now,"
he said, "I know it is true no more."

Whether he sighed for the loss of his belief in that exalted
relationship, or whether for the loss of that state of mind in
which such beliefs come easily, there was nothing in his sigh to
show. They questioned him further, but he said no more: he was
here, there was no more to say: he was here and la Garda was gone.

And then the reverend man brought for them a great supper, even at
that late hour, for many an hour had slipped softly by as he heard
the sins of 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 he should be once more, what the reverend father
feared to entertain, that dread hidalgo, the King of Aragon's
brother. And after that, the stars having then gone far on their
ways, the old Priest rose and offered a bed to Rodriguez; and even
as he eyed Morano, wondering where to put him, and was about to
speak, for he had no other bed, Morano went to a corner of the
room and curled up and lay down. And by the time his host had
walked over to him and spoken, asking anxiously if he needed
nothing more, he was almost already asleep, and muttered in
answer, after having been spoken to twice, no more than "Straw,
reverend father, straw."

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

As precaution for the night Rodriguez took one more glance at his
host's kind face; and then, with sword out of reach and an
unlocked door, he slept till the songs of birds out of the deeps
of the ilices made 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
awakened with dawn, for the simpler and humbler the creature the
nearer it is akin to the earth and the sun. The forces that woke
the birds and opened the flowers stirred the gross lump of Morano,
ending his sleep as they ended the nightingale's song.

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

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

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

They were still in each other's clothes; but the village was not
behind them 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 two men each on all the other roads, in order to
show the impartiality of the Law, which constantly needs to be
exhibited; and that therefore all men 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
had said; and so indeed there was for they had good laws in Spain,
and they differed little, though so long ago, from our own
excellent system. Therefore they changed once more, giving back to
each other everything but, alas, those delicate black moustachios;
and these to Rodriguez seemed gone for ever, for the growth of new
ones seemed so far ahead to the long days of youth that his hopes
could scarce reach to them.

When Morano found himself once more in those clothes that had been
with him night and day for so many years he seemed to expand; I
mean no metaphor here; he grew visibly fatter.

"Ah," said Morano after a huge breath, "last night I dreamed, in
your illustrious clothes, that I was in lofty station. And now,
master, I am comfortable."

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

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

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

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

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

"Master," answered Morano, "I know well who made hurry. And may he
not overtake my soul at the last. Yet it is bad for our fortunes
that these men should loiter thus. You want your castle, master;
and I, I want not always to wander roads, with la Garda perhaps
behind and no certain place to curl up and sleep in front. I look
for a heap of straw in the cellar of your great castle."

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

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

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

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

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

And now the men and the donkeys were nearly out of sight, but had
not yet at all emerged from the wrath of Morano. "Lascivious
knaves," muttered that disappointed man. And whenever he faintly
heard dim snatches of their far song that a breeze here, and
another there, brought over the plain as it ran on the errands of
Spring, he cursed their sins under his breath. Though it seemed
not so much their sins that 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
of men; and this is put into books, and so they make history. Now
I learned that there is no thing in which men have taken delight,
that is ever put away from them; for it seems that time, which
altereth every custom, hath altered none of our likings: and in
every chapter they taught me there were these wars to be found."

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

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

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

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

The word and the meaning of CONTRAST were such as is understood by
reflective minds, the product of education. Morano felt rather
than reflected; and the word CONTRAST meant nothing to him. This
ended their conversation. And the songs of the donkey-drivers,
light though they were, 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 and raise 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 early part 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,
when Spain sleeps.

And now the plain was altering, as though cool winds from the
mountains brought other growths to birth, so that they met with
bushes straggling wild; free, careless and mysterious, as they do,
where there is none to teach 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 dawn will rise and go, leaving but a bare trace of their
resting and no guess of their destiny; so fairy-like, so free, so
phantasmal those dark shrubs seemed.

Morano lay down on the very edge of the shade of one, and
Rodriguez lay fair in the midst of the shade of another, whereby
anyone passing that way would have known which was the older
traveller. Morano, according to his custom, was asleep almost
immediately; but Rodriguez, with wonder and speculation each
toying with novelty and pulling it different 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 it lately fled from
troubled by the arrival of these two.

And Rodriguez the last to sleep was the first awake, for the shade
of the shrub left him, and he awoke in the blaze of the sun to see
Morano still sheltered, well in the middle now of the shadow he
chose. The gross sleep of Morano I will not describe to you,
reader. I have chosen a 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: why should I show you the sleep
of that inelegant man whose bulk lay cumbering the earth like a
low, unseemly mountain?

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

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

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

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

Rodriguez, as they walked ceaselessly through the afternoon,
seeing his servant show some sign of weariness, which comes not to
youth, pointed out the house looking nearer than it really was on
the mountain, and told him that he should find there straw, and
they would sup and stay the 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 plan he had announced, and so approached
the queer roofs, neglecting the friendly 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 its perilous ridge, had driven the mirth from Rodriguez
and had even checked the garrulity on the lips of the tougher
Morano, if garrulity can be ascribed to him whose words seldom
welled up unless some simple philosophy troubled his deeps. The
house seemed indeed to glance at him, for as their road wound on,
the house showed different aspects, different walls and edges of
walls, and different curious roofs; all these walls seemed to peer
at him. One after another they peered, new ones glided
imperceptibly into sight as though to say, We see too.

The mountains were not before them but a little to the right of
their path, until new ones appeared ahead of them like giants
arising from sleep, and then their path seemed blocked as though
by a mighty wall against which its feeble wanderings went in vain.
In the end it turned a bit to its right and went straight for a
dark mountain, where a wild track seemed to come down out of the
rocks to meet it, and upon this track looked down that sinister
house. Had you been there, my reader, you would have said, any of
us had said, Why not choose some other house? There were no other
houses. He who dwelt on the edge of the ravine 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 the
greater splendour was; for the low rays streaming across lit up
some stormy clouds that were brooding behind the mountain and
turned their gloomy forms to an astounding purple.

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

The act astonished the wayfarers. All through half the day they
had seen the house, until it seemed part of the mountains; evil it
seemed like their ridges, that were black and bleak and
forbidding, and strange it seemed with a strangeness that moved no
fears they could name, yet it seemed inactive as night.

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

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

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
were gone; it was time to put away fears and face the event; thus
worked Morano's philosophy. And he turned his thoughts to the
achievements upon earth of a certain Saint who met Satan, and
showed to the sovereign of Hell a discourtesy alien to the ways of
the Church.

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

Nothing invited them there in the look of that house, but they
were now in such a forbidding waste that shelter had to be found;
they were all among edges of rock as black as the night and hard
as the material of which Cosmos was formed, at first upon Chaos'
brink. The sound of their climbing ran noisily up the mountain but
no sound came from the house: only the shadows moved more swiftly
across a room, passed into other rooms and came hurrying back.
Sometimes the shadows stayed and seemed to peer; and when the
travellers stood and watched to see what they were they would
disappear and there were no shadows at all, and the rooms were
filled instead with their wondering speculation. Then they pushed
on over rocks that seemed never trodden by man, so sharp were they
and slanting, all piled together: it seemed the last waste, to
which 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 raw
pieces of Chaos. Morano climbed over their edges with moans and
discomfort. Rodriguez heard him behind him and knew by his moans
when he came to the top of each sharp rock.

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

In the wall that their hands had reached there was no door, so
they felt along it till they came to the corner, and beyond the
corner was the front wall of the house. In it was the front door.
But so nearly did this door open upon the abyss that the bats that
fled from their coming, from where they hung above the door of
oak, had little more to do than fall from their crannies, slanting
ever so slightly, to find themselves safe from man in the velvet
darkness, that lay between cliffs so lonely they were almost
strangers to Echo. And here they floated upon errands far from our
knowledge; while the travellers coming along the rocky ledge
between destruction and shelter, knocked on the oaken door.

The sound of their knocking boomed huge and slow through the house
as though 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 a bell, carved like a dragon running down the wall: he
pulled it and a cry of pain arose from the basement of the house.

Even Morano wondered. It was like a terrible spirit in distress.
It was long before Rodriguez dare touch the handle again. Could it
have been the bell? He felt the iron handle and the iron chain
that went up from it. How could it have been the bell! The bell
had not sounded: he had not pulled hard enough: that scream was
fortuitous. The night on that rocky ledge had jangled his nerves.
He pulled again and more firmly. The answering scream was more
terrible. Rodriguez could doubt no longer, as he sprang back from
the bell-handle, that with the chain he had pulled he inflicted
some unknown agony.

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

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

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

"Ah, Senores," the old man sighed, "the Professor does not allow
me to be young. I have been here years and years but he never
allowed it. I have served him well but it is still the same. I say
to him, 'Master, I have served you long ...' but he interrupts me
for he will have none of youth. 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
grievance again of which even the rocks were weary. "Yes," he said
briefly, and bowed and led the way into the house. In one of the
corridors running out of the hall down which he was leading
silently, Rodriguez overtook that 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
wall Rodriguez questioned him with these words, and Morano with
his wondering, wistful eyes. The old man halted and turned half
round, and lifted his head and answered. "In the University of
Saragossa," he said with 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 wonder then that the name of Saragossa heard on that
lonely mountain awoke in Rodriguez some emotion of reverence and
even awed Morano. As for the Chair of Magic, it was of all the
royal endowments of that illustrious University 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
mountain appeared a gulf scarce to be bridged by thought.

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

And then they came to a door set deep in the stone, and their
guide opened it and they went in; and there was the Professor in a
mystical hat 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 the Professor before he turned round; and then he
rose, and with small steps backwards and sideways and many bows,
he displayed all those formulae of politeness that Saragossa knew
in the golden age and which her professors loved to execute. In
later years they became more elaborate still, and afterwards were
lost.

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

"Master," said Morano to the Professor, as soon as he found he
could move, "master, it looks like magic." Picture to yourself
some yokel shown into the library of a professor of Greek at
Oxford, taking down from a shelf one of the books of the Odyssey,
and saying to the Professor, "It looks like Greek"!

Rodriguez felt grieved by Morano's boorish ignorance. Neither he
nor his host answered him.

The Professor explained that he followed the mysteries dimly,
owing to a certain aspect of Orion, and that therefore his class
were gone to their homes and were hunting; and so he studied alone
under unfavourable auspices. And once more he welcomed Rodriguez
to his roof, and would command straw to be laid down for the man
that Rodriguez had brought 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
with all humility and delicate choice of phrase a petition that he
might be shown some mere rudiment of the studies for which that
illustrious chair in Saragossa was famous. The Professor bowed
again and, in accepting the well-rounded compliments that
Rodriguez paid to the honoured post he occupied, he introduced
himself by name. He had been once, he said, the Count of the
Mountain, but when his astral studies had made him eminent and he
had mastered the ways of the planet nearest the sun he took the
title Magister Mercurii, and by this had long been known; but had
now forsaken this title, great as it was, for a more glorious
nomenclature, and was called in the Arabic language the Slave of
Orion. When Rodriguez heard this he bowed very low.

And now the Professor asked Rodriguez in which of the activities
of life 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, he
thought, who would soon put his master on the right way, and
matters would come to a head and they would find the wars. But far
from concerning himself with the wars of that age, the Slave of
Orion explained that as events came nearer they became grosser or
more material, and that their grossness did not leave them until
they were some while passed away; so that to one whose studies
were with aetherial things, near events were opaque and dim. He
had a window, he explained, through which Rodriguez should see
clearly the ancient wars, while another window beside it looked on
all wars of the future except those which were planned already or
were coming soon to earth, and which were either invisible or seen
dim as through mist.

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

And to him who held the Chair of Magic at Saragossa it was a
precious thing that his windows could be made to show these
marvels, while the guest to whom he was about to display these two
gems of his learning was thinking of little but what he should see
through the windows, and not at all of what spells, what midnight
oil, what incantations, what witchcrafts, what lonely hours among
bats, had gone to the gratification of his young curiosity. It is
usually thus.

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

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

They came to a room where two round windows were; each of them
larger than the very largest plate, and of very thick glass
indeed, and of a wonderful blue. The blue was like the blue of the
Mediterranean at evening, when lights are in it both of ships and
of sunset, and lights of harbours being lit one by one, and the
light of Venus perhaps and about two other stars, so deeply did it
stare and so twinkled, near its edges, with lights that were
strange to that room, and so triumphed with its clear beauty over
the night outside. No, it was more magical than the Mediterranean
at evening, even though the peaks of the Esterels be purple and
their bases melting in gold and the blue sea lying below them
smiling at early stars: these windows were more mysterious than
that; it was a more triumphant blue; it was like the Mediterranean
seen with the eyes of Shelley, on a happy day in his youth, or
like the sea round Western islands of fable seen by the fancy of
Keats. They were no windows for any need of ours, unless our
dreams be needs, unless our cries for the moon be urged by the
same Necessity as makes us cry for bread. They were clearly
concerned only with magic or poetry; though the Professor claimed
that poetry was but a branch of his subject; and it was so
regarded at Saragossa, where it was taught by the name of
theoretical magic, while by the name of practical magic they
taught dooms, brews, hauntings, and spells.

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

Rodriguez looked into the deep-blue centre where the great bulge
of the glass came out towards him; it was near to the edges where
the glass seemed thinner that the little strange lights were
dancing; Morano dared to tiptoe a little nearer. Rodriguez looked
and saw no night outside. Just below and near to the window was
white mist, and the dim lines and smoke of what may have been
recent wars; but farther away on a plain of strangely vast
dimensions he saw old wars that were. War after war he saw.
Battles that long ago had passed into history and had been for
many ages skilled, glorious and pleasant encounters he saw even
now tumbling before him in their savage confusion and dirt. He saw
a leader, long glorious in histories he had read, looking round
puzzled, to see what was happening, and in a very famous fight
that he had planned very well. He saw retreats that History called
routs, and routs that he had seen History calling retreats. He saw
men winning victories without knowing they had won. Never had man
pried before so shamelessly upon History, or found her such a
liar. With his eyes on the great blue glass Rodriguez forgot the
room, forgot time, forgot his host 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 was able to see it.

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

Yet I would lay my story confidently before you, my reader,
trusting in the justice of my case and in your judicial
discernment, but for one other thing. What will the Goddess Clio
say, or the well-deserving knight, if I offend History? She has
stated her case, Sir Bartimeus has written 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 is dark, uncertain
and long; I dare not trust myself to it if I offend History. Clio
and Sir Bartimeus will make hay of my reputation; an innuendo
here, a foolish fact there, they know how to do it, and not a soul
will suspect the goddess of personal malice or the great historian
of pique. Rodriguez gazed then through the deep blue window,
forgetful of all around, on battles that had not all the elegance
or neatness of which our histories so tidily tell. And as he gazed
upon a merry encounter between two men on the fringe of an ancient
fight he felt a touch on his shoulder and then almost a tug, and
turning round beheld the room he was in. How long he had been
absent from it in thought he did not know, but the Professor was
still standing with folded arms where he had left him, probably
well satisfied with the wonder that his most secret art had
awakened in his guest. It was Morano who touched his shoulder,
unable to hold back any longer his impatience to see the wars; his
eyes as Rodriguez turned round were gazing at his master with dog-
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, dark of hue and dreadfully bright, the silent lips. He stood
there uttering no actual prohibition, concerning which Rodriguez's
eyes had sought; so, stepping aside from his window, Rodriguez
beckoned Morano, who at once ran forward delighted to see those
ancient wars.

A slight look of scorn showed faint upon the Professor's face such
as you may see anywhere when a master-craftsman perceives the gaze
of the ignorant turned towards his particular subject. But he said
no word, and soon speech would have been difficult, for the loud
clamour of Morano filled the room: he had seen the wars and his
ecstasies were ungoverned. 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 my reader discern or suppose some gulf
between religion and the recent business of the Inn of the Dragon
and Knight, Morano, if driven to admit any connection between
murder and his daily bread, would have said, "All the more need
then for God's mercy through the intercession of His most blessed
Saints." But these words had never passed Morano's lips, for
shrewd as he was in enquiry into any matter that he desired to
know, his shrewdness was no less in avoiding enquiry where there
might be something that he desired not to know, such as the origin
of his wages as servant of the Inn of the Dragon and Knight, those
delicate gold rings with settings empty of jewels.

Morano soon recognized the Infidel by his dress, and after that no
other wars concerned him. He slapped his thigh, he shouted
encouragement, he howled vile words of abuse, partly because he
believed that this foul abuse was rightly the due of the Infidel,
and partly 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 he felt pleasure or any other emotion? Perhaps his mind
was simply like ours; perhaps, as has been claimed by learned men
of the best-informed period, that mind had some control upon the
comet, even when farthest out from the paths we know. Morano
turned round for a moment to Rodriguez:

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

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

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

In answer to Morano's pitiful look Rodriguez' hand went to his
sword-hilt; the Slave of Orion merely smiled with his lips; Morano
stood there with his hands still stretched out, his face still all
appeal, and something more for there was reproach in his eyes that
men could tarry while the Cross was in danger and the Infidel
lived. He did not know that it was all finished and over hundreds
of years ago, a page of history upon which many pages were turned,
and which lay as unalterable as the fate of some warm swift
creature of early Eocene days over whose fossil today the strata
lie long and silent.

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

Morano sulky excited little more notice from his host and his
master who had watched his rejoicings, and they seem to have
forgotten this humble champion of Christendom. The Professor
slightly bowed to Rodriguez 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 look at it awhile, you are ready to go away: then your
friend shows you another. This also must be seen; for your
friend's collection is a precious thing; it is that point upon
huge Earth on which his spirit has lit, on which it rests, on
which it shelters even (who knows from what 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 twig of a plant upon
which a butterfly rests, and on some stormy day and late in the
year.

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

Below the window were those wars that were soon coming to Spain,
hooded in mist and invisible. In the centre of the window swam as
profound a blue, dwindling to paler splendour at the edge, the
wandering lights were as lovely, as in the other window just to
the left; but in the view from the right-hand window how sombre a
difference. A bare yard separated 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 decent mask. In the right-hand
window all the colours were fading, war after war they grew
dimmer; and as the colours paled Death's sole purpose showed
clearer. Through the beautiful left-hand window were killings to
be seen, and less mercy than History supposes, yet some of the
fighters were merciful, and mercy was sometimes a part of Death's
courtly pose, which went with the cloak and the plume. But in the
other window through that deep, beautiful blue Rodriguez saw Man
make a new ally, an ally who was only cruel and strong and had no
purpose but killing, who had no pretences or pose, no mask and no
manner, but was only the slave of Death and had no care but for
his business. He saw it grow bigger and stronger. Heart it had
none, but he saw its cold steel core scheming methodical plans and
dreaming always destruction. Before it faded men and their fields
and their houses. Rodriguez saw the machine.

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

Then he looked farther, for the wars that were farthest from him
in time were farther away from the window. He looked farther and
saw the ruins of Peronne. He saw them all alone with their doom at
night, all drenched in white moonlight, sheltering huge darkness
in their stricken hollows. Down the white street, past darkness
after darkness as he went by the gaping rooms that the moon left
mourning alone, Rodriguez saw a captain going back to the wars in
that far-future time, who turned his head a moment as he passed,
looking Rodriguez in the face, and so went on through the ruins to
find a floor on which to lie down for the night. When he was gone
the street was all alone with disaster, and moonlight 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 of desolation lying forlorn and ungathered, lit by the
flashing clouds and the moon and peering rockets. He turned from
the window and wept.

The deep round window glowed with serene blue glory. It seemed a
foolish thing to weep by that beautiful glass. Morano tried to
comfort him. 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
not answer, and told no man ever after what he had seen through
that window.

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

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

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

Perhaps the efforts of poor clumsy Morano to comfort him cheered
Rodriguez and sent him back to the window, perhaps he turned from
them to find comfort of his own; but, however he came by it, he
had a hope that this was a passing curse that had come on the
world, whose welfare he cared for whether he lived or died, and
that looking a little farther into the future he would see Mother
Earth smiling and her children happy again. So he looked through
the deep-blue luminous window once more, beyond the battles we
know. From this he turned back shuddering.

Again he saw the Professor smile with his lips, though whether at
his own 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 of all that is needful for our damnation. Nevertheless, he
said, if Rodriguez cared to see more of his mighty art the
mysteries of Saragossa were all at his guest's disposal.

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

"I shall be happy to see anything, senor," he said to the Slave of
Orion, "that is further from our poor Earth, and to study therein
and admire your famous art."

The Professor bowed. He drew small curtains over the windows,
matching his cloak. Morano sought a glimpse through the right-hand
window before the curtains covered it. Rodriguez held him back.
Enough had been seen already, he thought, through that window for
the peace of mind of the world: but he said no word to Morano. He
held him by the arm, and the Professor covered the windows. When
the little mauve curtains were drawn it seemed to Rodriguez that
the windows behind them disappeared and were there no more; but
this he only guessed from uncertain indications.

Then the Professor drew forth his wand and went to his cupboard of
wonder. Thence he brought condiments, oils, and dews of amazement.
These he poured into a vessel that was in the midst of the room, a
bowl of agate standing alone on a table. He lit it and it all
welled up in flame, a low broad flame of the colour of pale
emerald. Over this he waved his wand, which was of exceeding
blackness. Morano watched as children watch the dancer, who goes
from village to village when spring is come, with some new dance
out of Asia or some new song.[Footnote: He doesn't, but why
shouldn't he?] Rodriguez sat and waited. The Professor explained
that to leave this Earth alive, or even dead, was prohibited to
our bodies, unless to a very few, whose names were hidden. Yet the
spirits of men could by incantation be liberated, and being
liberated, could be directed on journeys by such minds as had that
power passed down to them from of old. Such journeys, he said,
were by no means confined by the hills of Earth. "The Saints,"
exclaimed Morano, "guard us utterly!" But Rodriguez smiled a
little. His faith was given to the Saints of Heaven. He wondered
at their wonders, he admired their miracles, he had little faith
to spare for other marvels; in fact he did 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
your art."

"And you?" he said to Morano.

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

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

They did not know what he said or what language he used. At first
Rodriguez thought Moorish, then he deemed it some secret language
come down from magicians of old, while Morano merely wondered; and
then they were lulled by the rhythm of those strange words, and so
enquired no more. Rodriguez pictured some sad wandering angel,
upon some mountain-peak of African lands, resting a moment and
talking to the solitudes, telling the lonely valley the mysteries
of his home. While lulled though Morano was he gave up his
alertness uneasily. All the while the green flame flooded upwards:
all the while the tremulous fingers made curious shadows. The
shadow seemed to run to Rodriguez and beckon him thence: even
Morano felt them calling. Rodriguez closed his eyes. The voice and
the Moorish spells made now a more haunting melody: they were now
like a golden organ on undiscoverable mountains. Fear came on
Morano at the thought: who had power to speak like this? He
grasped Rodriguez by the wrist. "Master!" he said, but at that
moment on one of those golden spells the spirit of Rodriguez
drifted away from his body, and out of the greenish light of the
curious room; unhampered by weight, or fatigue, or pain, or sleep;
and it rose above the rocks and over the mountain, an unencumbered
spirit: and the spirit of Morano followed.

The mountain dwindled at once; the Earth swept out all round them
and grew larger, and larger still, and then began to dwindle. They
saw then that they were launched upon some astounding journey.
Does my reader wonder they saw when they had no eyes? They saw as
they had never seen before, with sight beyond what they had ever
thought to be possible. Our eyes gather in light, and with the
little rays of light that they bring 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; call them by all means Things As
They Really Are, if you wish. These images then, this tiny little
brainful that we gather from the immensities, are all brought in
by our eyesight upside-down, and the brain corrects them again;
and so, and so we know something. An oculist will tell you how it
all works. He may admit it is all a little clumsy, or for the
dignity of his profession he may say it is not at all. But be this
as it may, our eyes are but barriers between us and the
immensities. All our five senses that grope a little here and
touch a little there, and seize, and compare notes, and get a
little knowledge sometimes, they are only barriers between us and
what there is to know. Rodriguez and Morano were outside these
barriers. They saw without the imperfections of eyesight; they
heard on that journey what would have deafened ears; they went
through our atmosphere unburned by speed, and were unchilled in
the bleak of the outer spaces. Thus freed of the imperfections of
the body they sped, no less upon a terrible journey, whose
direction as yet Rodriguez only began to fear.

They had seen the stars pale rapidly and then the flash of dawn.
The Sun rushed up and at once began to grow larger. Earth, with
her curved sides still diminishing violently, was soon a small
round garden in blue and filmy space, in which mountains were
planted. And still the Sun was growing wider and wider. And now
Rodriguez, though he knew nothing of Sun or planets, perceived the
obvious truth of their terrible journey: they were heading
straight for the Sun. But the spirit of Morano was merely
astounded; yet, being free of the body he suffered none of those
inconveniences that perturbation may bring to us: spirits do not
gasp, or palpitate, or weaken, or sicken.

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

Speed is comparative: compared to sound, their pace was beyond
comparison; nor could any modern projectile attain any velocity
comparable to it; even the speed of explosion was slow to it. And
yet for spirits they were moving slowly, who being independent of
all material things, travel with such velocities as that, for
instance, of thought. But they were controlled by one still
dwelling on Earth, who used material things, and the material that
the Professor was using to hurl them upon their journey was light,
the adaptation of which to this purpose he had learned at
Saragossa. At the pace of light they were travelling towards the
Sun.

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

Crossing the path of Mercury, Mercury appeared huger than our
Moon, an object weirdly unnatural; and they saw ahead of them the
terrific glare in which Mercury basks, from a Sun whose withering
orb had more than doubled its width since they came from the hills
of Earth. And after this the Sun grew terribly larger, filling the
centre of the sky, and spreading and spreading and spreading. It
was now that they saw what would have dazzled eyes, would have
burned up flesh and would have shrivelled every protection that
our scientists' ingenuity could have devised even today. To speak
of time there is meaningless. There is nothing in the empty space
between the Sun and Mercury with which time is at all concerned.
Far less is there meaning in time wherever the spirits of men are
under stress. A few minutes' bombardment in a trench, a few hours
in a battle, a few weeks' travelling in a trackless country; 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
in another minute, if minutes had any meaning, they were heading
for a boundless region of flame that, left and right, was
everywhere, and now towered above them, and went below them into a
flaming abyss.

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

"Master," he said, "when it was all spring in Spain, years ago
when I was thin and young, twenty years gone at least; and the
butterflies were come, and song was everywhere; there came a maid
bare-footed over a stream, walking through flowers, and all to
pluck the anemones." How fair she seemed even now, how bright that
far spring day. Morano told Rodriguez not with his blundering
lips: they were closed and resting deeply millions of miles away:
he told him as spirits tell. And in that clear communication
Rodriguez saw all that shone in Morano's memory, the grace of the
young girl's ankles, the thrill of Spring, the anemones larger and
brighter than anemones ever were, the hawks still in clear sky;
earth happy and heaven blue, and the dreams of youth between. You
would not have said, had you seen Morano's coarse fat body, asleep
in a chair in the Professor's room, that his spirit treasured such
delicate, nymph-like, pastoral memories as now shone clear to
Rodriguez. No words the blunt man had ever been able to utter had
ever hinted that he sometimes thought like a dream of pictures by
Watteau. And now in that awful space before the power of the
terrible Sun, spirit communed with spirit, and Rodriguez saw the
beauty of that far day, framed all about the beauty of one young
girl, just as it had been for years in Morano's memory. How shall
I tell with words what spirit sang wordless to spirit? We poets
may compete with each other in words; but when spirits give up the
purest gold of their store, that has shone far down the road of
their earthly journey, cheering tired hearts and guiding mortal
feet, our words shall barely interpret.

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

Rodriguez tried to comfort Morano with such knowledge as he had of
astronomy, if knowledge it could be called. Indeed, if he had
known anything he would have perplexed Morano more, and his little
pieces of ignorance were well adapted for comfort. But Morano had
given up hope, having long been taught to expect this very fire:
his spirit was no wiser than it had been on Earth, it was merely
freed of the imperfections of the five senses and so had
observation and expression beyond those of any artist the world
has known. This was the natural result of being freed of the body;
but he was not suddenly wiser; and so, as he moved towards this
boundless flame, he expected every moment to see Satan charge out
to meet him: and having no hope for the future he 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 no fear, for spirits have no fear of material things: but
Morano feared. He feared as spirits fear spiritual things; he
thought he neared the home of vast spirits of evil and that the
arena of conflict was eternity. 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 in dreams by some echo of that fear that
gripped the spirit so sorely. And it may be from such far fears
that all our nightmares come.

When they had travelled nearly ten minutes from Earth and were
about to pass into the midst of the flame, that magician who
controlled their journey halted them suddenly in Space, among the
upper mountain-peaks of the Sun. There they hovered as the clouds
hover that leave their companions and drift among crags of the
Alps: below them those awful mountains heaved and thundered. All
Atlas, and Teneriffe, and lonely Kenia might have lain amongst
them unnoticed. As often as the earthquake rocked their bases it
loosened from near their summits wild avalanches of gold that
swept down their flaming slopes with unthinkable 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 the planets had
no grip upon spirits, who were held by the power of that
tremendous spell that the Professor had learned one midnight at
Saragossa from one of that dread line who have their secrets from
a source 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, but troubled by horrible commotions, as though overtaken in
flight by some ceaseless calamity.

Rodriguez and Morano, as they looked at them, forgetting the
gardens of Earth, forgetting Spring and Summer and the sweet
beneficence of sunshine, felt that the purpose of Creation was
evil! So shocking a thought may well astound us here, where green
hills slope to lawns or peer at a peaceful sea; but there among
the flames of those dreadful peaks the Sun seemed not the giver of
joy and colour and life, but only a catastrophe huger than
everlasting war, a centre of hideous violence and ruin and anger
and terror. There came by mountains of copper burning everlasting,
hurling up to unthinkable heights their mass of emerald flame. And
mountains of iron raged by and mountains of salt, quaking and
thundering and clothed with their colours, the iron always scarlet
and the salt blue. And sometimes there came by pinnacles a
thousand miles high that from base to summit were fire, mountains
of pure flame that had no other substance. And these explosive
mountains, born of thunder and earthquake, hurling down avalanches
the size of our continents, and drawing upward out of the deeps of
the Sun new material for splendour and horror, this roaring waste,
this extravagant destruction, were necessary for every tint that
our butterflies wear on their wings. Without those flaming ranges
of mountains of iron they would have no red to show; even the
poppy could have no red for her petals: without the flames that
were blasting the mountains of salt there could be no answering
blue in any wing, or one blue flower for all the bees of Earth:
without the nightmare light of those frightful canyons of copper
that awed the two spirits watching their ceaseless ruin, the very
leaves of the woods we love would be without their green with
which to welcome Spring; for from the flames of the various metals
and wonders that for ever blaze in the Sun, our sunshine gets all
its colours that it conveys to us almost unseen, and thence the
wise little insects and patient flowers softly draw the gay tints
that they glory in; there is nowhere else to get them.

And yet to Rodriguez and Morano all that they saw seemed wholly
and hideously 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 separate days from minutes: nothing about them seemed to
escape destruction, and time itself seemed no calmer than were
those shuddering mountains.

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

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

Man knows his littleness, his own mountains remind him; many
countries are small, and some nations: but the dreams of Man make
up for our faults and failings, for the brevity of our lives, for
the narrowness of our scope; they leap over boundaries and are
away and away. But this great mountain belittled the world and
all: who gazed on it knew all his 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 to
challenge with its towering head the pettiness of the tiny world
they knew. And then the whole gleaming mountain gave one shudder
and fell into the awful plains of the Sun. Straight down before
Rodriguez and Morano it slipped roaring, till the golden peak was
gone, and the molten plain closed over it; and only ripples
remained, the size of Europe, as when a tumbling river strikes the
rocks of its bed and on its surface heaving circles widen and
disappear. And then, as though this horror left nothing more to be
shown, they felt the Professor beckon to them from Earth.

Over the plains of the Sun a storm was sweeping in gusts of
howling flame as they felt the Professor's spell drawing them
home. For the magnitude of that storm there are no words in use
among us; its velocity, if expressed in figures, would have no
meaning; its heat was immeasurable. Suffice it to say that if such
a tempest could have swept over Earth for a second, both the poles
would have boiled. The travellers left it galloping over that
plain, rippled from underneath by the restless earthquake and
whipped into flaming foam by the force of the storm. The Sun
already was receding from them, already growing smaller. Soon the
storm seemed but a cloud of light sweeping over the empty plain,
like a murderous mourner rushing swiftly away from the grave of
that mighty mountain.

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

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

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

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

Moving on with the pace of light, they saw Earth, soon after
crossing the path of Venus, beginning to grow larger than a star.
Never had home appeared 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
like seas and mountains, they looked for their own country, but
could not find it: for, travelling straight from the Sun, they
approached that part of the world that was then turned towards it,
and were heading straight for China, while Spain lay still in
darkness.

But when they came near Earth and its mountains were clear, then
the Professor drew them across the world, into the darkness and
over Spain; so that those two spirits ended their marvellous
journey much as the snipe ends his, a drop out of heaven and a
swoop low over marshes. So they 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 heard a cock crow
on the edge of the night; they heard more little sounds than words
can say; only the organ can hint at them. It was Earth calling.
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 hold
upon us; and her myriad sounds were blending in one cry now,
knowing that 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 on rare evenings hear a word of their talk, and have
brief equality with the 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
mountain and entered the room in which their bodies were.

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

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

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

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

The Professor gave this mood time to change, as change it
presently did. For the warm blood came back and lit their cheeks,
and a tingling succeeded the pain in their fingers and toes, and a
mild warmth succeeded the tingling: their thoughts came back to
the things of every day, to mundane things and the affairs of the
body. Therein they rejoiced, and Morano no less than Rodriguez;
though it was a coarse and common body that Morano's spirit
inhabited. And when the Professor saw that the first sorrow of
Earth, which all spirits feel when they land here, had passed
away, and that they were feeling again the joy of mundane things,
only then did he speak.

"Senor," he said, "beyond the path of Mars run many worlds that I
would have you know. The greatest of these is Jupiter, towards
whom all that follow my most sacred art show reverent affection.
The smallest are those that sometimes strike our world, flaming
all green upon November nights, and are even as small as apples."
He spoke of our world with a certain air and a pride, as though,
through virtue of his transcendent art, the world were only his.
"The world that we name Argola," he said, "is far smaller than
Spain and, being invisible from Earth, is only known to the few
who have spoken to spirits whose wanderings have surpassed the
path of Mars. Nearly half of Argola you shall find covered with
forests, which though very dense are no deeper than moss, and the
elephants in them are not larger than beetles. You shall see many
wonders of smallness in this world of Argola, which I desire in
especial to show you, since it is the orb with which we who study
the Art are most familiar, of all the worlds that the vulgar have
not known. It is indeed the prize of our traffic in those things
that far transcend the laws that have forbidden them."

And as he said this the green flame in the bowl before him died,
and he moved towards his cupboard of wonder. Rodriguez hastily
thanked the Professor for his great courtesy in laying bare before
him secrets that the centuries hid, and then he referred to his
own great unworthiness, to the lateness of the hour, to the
fatigue of the Professor, and to the importance to Learning of
adequate rest to refresh his illustrious mind. And all that he
said the Professor parried with bows, and drew enchantments from
his cupboard of wonder to replenish the bowl on the table. And
Rodriguez saw that he was in the clutch of a collector, one who
having devoted all his days to a hobby will exhibit his treasures
to the uttermost, and that the stars that magic knows were no less
to the Professor than all the whatnots that a man collects and
insists on showing to whomsoever enters his house. He feared some
terrible journey, perhaps some bare escape; for though no material
thing can quite encompass a spirit, he knew not what wanderers he
might not meet in lonely spaces beyond the path of Mars. So when
his last polite remonstrance failed, being turned aside with a
pleasant phrase and a smile from the grim lips, and looking at
Morano he saw that he shared his fears, then he determined to show
whatever resistance were needed to keep himself and Morano in this
old world that we know, or that youth at least believes that it
knows.

He watched the Professor return with his packets of wonder; dust
from a fallen star, phials of tears of lost lovers, poison and
gold out of elf-land, and all manner of things. But the moment
that he put them into the bowl Rodriguez' hand flew to his sword-
hilt. He heaved up his elbow, but no sword came forth, for it lay
magnetised to its scabbard by the grip of a current of magic. When
Rodriguez saw this he knew not what to do.

The Professor went on pouring into the bowl. He added an odour
distilled out of dream-roses, three drops from the gall-bladder of
a fabulous 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 so easy to free our spirits from the gross grip of our
bodies. Wonder not then, my reader, if the Professor exerted
strange powers. And all the while Morano was picking at a nail
that fastened on the handle to his frying-pan.

And just as the last few mysteries were shaken into the bowl,--and
there were two among them of which even Asia is ignorant,--just as
the dews 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 beauty and the power of its spell were as of some fallen
angel. The spirit of Rodriguez was nearly passing helplessly forth
again on some frightful journey, when Morano losed his scabbard
and sword from its girdle and tied the handle of his frying-pan
across it a little below the hilt with a piece of string. Across
the table the Professor intoned his spell, across a narrow table,
but it seemed to come from the far side of the twilight, a
twilight red and golden in long layers, of an evening wonderfully
long ago. It seemed to take its music out of the lights that it
flowed through and to call Rodriguez from immediately far away,
with a call which it were sacrilege to refuse, and anguish even,
and hard toil such as there was no strength to do. And then Morano
held up the sword in its scabbard with the handle of the frying-
pan tied across. Rodriguez, disturbed by a stammer in the spell,
looked up and saw the Professor staring at the sword where Morano
held it up before his face in the green light of the flame from
the bowl. He did not seem like a fallen angel now. His spell had
stopped. He seemed like a professor who had forgotten the theme of
his lecture, while the class waits. For Morano was holding up the
sign of the cross.

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

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

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

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

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

"How know you that?" said Rodriguez.

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

A certain diffidence about criticising his host even now; and a
very practical vein that ran through his nature, now showing
itself in anxiety for a bed at so late an hour; led Rodriguez to
change the subject. He wanted that aged butler, yet dare not ring
the bell; for he feared lest with all the bells there might be in
use that frightful practice that he had met by the outer door, a
chain connected with some hideous hook that gave anguish to
something in the basement whenever one touched the handle, so that
the menials of that grim Professor were shrilly summoned by
screams. And therefore Rodriguez sought counsel of Morano, who
straightway volunteered to find the butler's quarters, by a
certain 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 the frying-pan lashed to it, which he bore high before
him in both his hands as though he were leading some austere
procession. And even so he returned with that aged man the butler,
who led them down dim corridors of stone; but, though he showed
the way, Morano would go in front, still holding up that scabbard
and handle before him, while Rodriguez held the bare sword. And so
they came to a room lit by the flare of one candle, which their
guide told them the Professor had prepared for his guest. In the
vastness of it was a great bed. Shadows and a whir as of wings
passed out of the door as they entered. "Bats," said the ancient
guide. But Morano believed he had routed powers of evil with the
handle of his frying-pan and his master's scabbard. Who could say
what they were in such a house, where bats and evil spirits
sheltered perennially from the brooms of the just? Then that
ancient man with the lips of some woodland thing departed, and
Rodriguez went to the great bed. On a pile of straw that had been
cast into the room Morano lay down across the door, setting the
scabbard upright in a rat-hole near his head, while Rodriguez lay
down with the bare sword in his hand. There was only one door in
the room, and this Morano guarded. Windows there were, but they
were shuttered with raw oak of enormous thickness. He had already
enquired with his sword behind the velvet curtains. He felt secure
in the bulk of Morano across the only door, at least from
creatures of this world: and Morano feared no longer either spirit
or spell, believing that he had vanquished the Professor with his
symbol, and all such allies as he may have had here or elsewhere.
But not thus easily do we overcome the powers of evil.

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

"The Professor," he said, while Morano watched him grudgingly,
"returns with all his household to Saragossa at once, to resume
those studies for which his name resounds, a certain conjunction
of the stars having come favourably."

Even Morano doubted that so suddenly the courses of the stars,
which he deemed to be gradual, should have altered from antagonism
towards the Professor's art into a favourable aspect. Rodriguez
sleepily acknowledged the news and settled himself to sleep, still
sword in hand, when the servitor repeated with as much emphasis as
his aged voice could utter, "With all his household, senor."

"Yes," muttered Rodriguez. "Farewell."

And repeating again, "He takes his household with him," the old
man shuffled back from the room and hesitatingly closed the door.
Before the sound of his slow footsteps had failed to reach the
room Morano was asleep under his cross. Rodriguez still watched
for a while the shadows leaping and shuddering away from the
candle, riding over the ceiling, striding hugely along the walls,
towards him and from him, as draughts swayed the ruddy flame;
then, gripping his sword still firmer in his hand, as though that
could avail against magic, he fell into the sleep of tired men.

No sound disturbed Rodriguez or Morano till both awoke in late
morning upon the rocks of the mountain. The sun had climbed over
the crags and now shone on their faces. Rodriguez was still lying
with his sword gripped in his hand, but the cross had fallen by
Morano and now lay on the rocks beside him with the handle of the
frying-pan still tied in its place by string. A young, wild,
woodland squirrel gambolled near, though there were no woods for
it anywhere within sight: it leaped and played as though rejoicing
in youth, with such merriment as though youth 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
sign of 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
journey that lay before him, deciding which was the north; for he
knew that it was by the north that he must leave Spain, which he
still desired to leave since there were no wars in that country.

Morano knew not clearly what philosophy was, yet he wasted no
thoughts upon the night that was gone; and, fitting up his frying-
pan immediately, he brought out what was left of his bacon and
began to look for material to make a fire. The bacon lay waiting
in the frying-pan for some while before this material was
gathered, for nothing grew on the mountain but a heath; and of
that there were few bushes, scattered here and there.

Rodriguez, far from ruminating upon the events of the previous
night, realised as he watched these preparations that he was
enormously hungry. And when Morano had kindled a fire and the
smell of cooking arose, he who had held the chair of magic at
Saragossa was banished from both their minds, although upon this
very spot they had spent so strange a night; but where bacon is,
and there be hungry men, the things 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
you have no castle, master, no lands, no fortune ..."

"Come," said Rodriguez.

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

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

The slope that now lay before them was smooth and grassy, flowing
before them far, a gentle slope that was soon to lend speed to
Rodriguez' feet, adding nimbleness even to youth. Soon, too, it
was to lift onward the dull weight of Morano as he followed his
master towards unknown wars, youth going before him like a spirit
and the good slope helping behind. But before they gave themselves
to that waiting journey they stood a moment and looked at the
shining plain that lay before them like an open page, on which was
the whole chronicle of that day's wayfaring. There was the road
they should travel by, there were the streams it crossed and
narrow woods they might rest in, and dim on the farthest edge was
the place they must spend that night. It was all, as it were
written, upon the plain they watched, but in a writing not
intended for them, and, clear although it be, never to be
interpreted by one of our race. Thus they saw clear, from a
height, the road they would 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
dull journeying without them."

Morano turned his eyes from his master's face and looked back to
the plain. "There, master," he said, "where our road runs through
a wood, will our adventure be there, think you? Or there,
perhaps," and he waved 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 are
better. The shade of deep woods is favourable, but there are no
such woods on this plain. When we come to evening we shall
doubtless meet some adventure, far over there." And he pointed to
the grey rim of the plain where it started climbing towards hills.

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

When Morano said that the days were good Rodriguez set out to find
them, or at least that one that for some while now lay waiting for
them on the plain. He strode down the slope at once and, endowing
nature with his own impatience, he felt that he heard the morning
call to him wistfully. Morano followed.

For an hour these refugees escaping from peace went down the
slope; and in that hour they did five swift miles, miles that
seemed to run by them as they walked, and so they came lightly to
the level plain. And in the next hour they did four miles more.
Words were few, either because Morano brooded mainly upon one
thought, the theme of which was his lack of bacon, or because he
kept his breath to follow his master who, with youth and the
morning, was coming out of the hills at a pace not tuned to
Morano's forty years or so. And at the end of these nine miles
Morano perceived a house, a little way from the road, on the left,
upon rising ground. A mile or so ahead they saw the narrow wood
that they had viewed in the morning from the mountain running
across the plain. They saw now by the lie of the ground that it
probably followed a stream, a pleasant place in which to take the
rest demanded by Spain at noon. It was just an hour to noon; so
Rodriguez, keeping the road, told Morano to join him where it
entered the wood when he had acquired his bacon. And then as they
parted a thought occurred to Rodriguez, which was that bacon cost
money. It was purely an afterthought, an accidental fancy, such as
inspirations are, for he had never had to buy bacon. So he gave
Morano a fifth part of his money, a large gold coin the size of
one of our five-shilling pieces, engraved of course upon one side
with the glories and honours of that golden period 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 our newspapers
will call, if they ever care to notice him, a level-headed
business man. At the sight of the gold piece Morano bowed, for he
felt this gift of gold to be an occasion; but he trusted more for
the purchase of the bacon to some few small silver coins of his
own that he kept among lumps of lard and pieces of string.

And so they parted for a while, Rodriguez looking for some great
shadowy 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
such an oak as he cared to rest beneath during the heat of the
day, nor would you have done so, my reader, even though you have
been to the wars and seen many a pretty mess; for four of la Garda
were by it and were 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;
while a glance that you had not noticed, flashed slantingly at la
Garda, satisfied Rodriguez that all four were strangers: then he
walked straight towards them merrily. The man they proposed to
hang was a stranger too. He appeared at first to be as stout as
Morano, and he was nearly half a foot taller, but his stoutness
turned out to be sheer muscle. The broad man was clothed in old
brown leather and had blue eyes.

Now there was something about the poise of Rodriguez' young head
which gave him an air not unlike that which the King himself
sometimes wore when 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 him to see the hanging, for which
Rodriguez thanked them with amplest courtesy.

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

Bear with me, reader, while I champion a bad cause and seek to
palliate what is inexcusable. As we travel about the world on our
way through life 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 a glance, eye to eye. And in that glance you see the
sort of man: and chiefly there are two sorts. The one sort always
brooding, always planning; mean, silent men, collecting properties
and money; keeping the law on their side, keeping everything on
their side; except women and heaven, and the late, leisurely
judgment of simple people: and the others merry folk, whose eyes
twinkle, whose money flies, who will sooner laugh than plan, who
seem to inherit rightfully the happiness that the others plot for,
and fail to come by with all their schemes. In the man who was to
provide the entertainment Rodriguez recognised the second kind.

Now even though the law had caught a saint that had strayed too
far outside the boundary of Heaven, and desired to hang him,
Rodriguez knew that it was his duty to help the law while help was
needed, and to applaud after the thing was done. The law to
Rodriguez was the most sacred thing man had made, if indeed it
were not divine; but since the privilege that two days ago had
afforded him of studying it more closely, it appeared to him the
blindest, silliest thing with which he had had to do since the
kittens were drowned that his cat Tabitharina had had at Arguento
Harez.

It was in this deplorable state of mind that Rodriguez' glance
fell on the merry eyes and the solemn predicament of the man in
the leather coat, standing pinioned under a long branch of the
oak-tree: and he determined from that moment to disappoint la
Garda and, I fear also, my reader, perhaps to disappoint you, of
the hanging that they at least had promised themselves.

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

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

"Master," said Morano, all out of breath, "they had no bacon. But
I got these two bottles of wine. It is strong wine, which is a
rare deluder of 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 a use for the wine, and was silent a moment. And as he pondered
Morano looked up and saw la Garda and at the same time perceived
the situation, 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
a little apart. But Rodriguez' mind had already explored a surer
method than the one that Morano seemed to be contemplating. This
method he told Morano. And now, from little tugs that they were
giving to the doubled rope that hung over the branch of the oak-
tree, it was clear enough that the men of the law were returning
to their confidence in that very sufficient branch.

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

"Senores," 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
their own throats, wondering were they dry; and you do not wonder
long about this in the south without finding that what you feared
is true. And then he let them see the two great bottles, all full
of wine, for the invention of the false bottom that gives to our
champagne-bottles the place they rightly hold among famous
deceptions had not as yet been discovered.

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

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

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

Next Rodriguez put the bottle to his lips and held it there a
little time, while the fourth man of the law, who was guarding the
prisoner, watched Rodriguez wistfully, and afterwards Morano, who
took the bottle next. 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 warm feelings of exuberant gratitude when he found how
much remained. Thus he obtained not much less than two tumblerfuls
of wine that, as I have said, was stronger than port; and noon was
nearing and it was spring in Spain. And then he returned to guard
his prisoner under the oak-tree and lay down there on the moss,
remembering that it was his duty to keep awake. And afterwards
with one hand he took hold of a rope that bound the prisoner's
ankles, so that he might still guard his prisoner even though he
should fall asleep.

Now two of the men had had little more than the full of a sherry
glass each. To these Morano made signs that there was another
bottle, and, coming round behind his master, he covertly uncorked
it and gave them their heart's desire; and a little was left over
for the man who drank third on the first occasion. And presently
the spirits of all four of la Garda grew haughty and forgot their
humble bodies, and would fain have gone forth to dwell with the
sons of light, while their bodies lay on the moss and the sun grew
warmer and warmer, shining dappled in amongst the small green
leaves. All seemed still but for the winged insects flashing
through shafts of the sunlight out of the gloom of the trees and
disappearing again like infinitesimal meteors. But our concern is
with the thoughts of man, of which deeds are but the shadows:
wherever these are active it is wrong to say all is still; for
whether they cast their shadows, which are actions, or whether
they remain a force not visibly stirring matter, they are the
source of the tales we write and the lives we lead; it is they
that gave History her material and they that bade her work it up
into books.

And thoughts were very active about that oak-tree. For while the
thoughts of la Garda arose like dawn, and disappeared into mists,
their prisoner was silently living through the sunny days of his
life, which are at no time quite lost to us, and which flash vivid
and bright and near when memory touches them, herself awakened by
the nearness of death. He lived again days far from the day that
had brought him where he stood. He drew from those days (that is
to say) that delight, that essence 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 the things that it feels during its
span, are stored in something like its memory, 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 taking all he had. His
head was lifted, he was gazing northwards, far further than his
eyes could see, to shining spaces in great woods; and there his
threatened being walked in youth, with steps such as spirits take,
over immortal flowers, which were dim and faint but unfading
because they lived on in memory. In memory he walked with some who
were now far from his footsteps. And, seen through the gloaming of
that perilous day, how bright did those far days appear! Did they
not seem sunnier than they really were? No, reader; for all the
radiance that glittered so late in his mind was drawn from those
very days; it was their own brightness that was shining now: we
are not done with the days that were as soon as their sunsets have
faded, but a light remains from them and grows fairer and fairer,
like an afterglow lingering among tremendous peaks above
immeasurable slopes of snow.

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

Had Rodriguez now released the prisoner they could have been three
to three, 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 odds would be the same at two to two, and Rodriguez
preferred this to the slight uncertainties that would be connected
with the entry of another partner. They accordingly gagged the
next man and bound his wrists and ankles. And that Spanish wine
held good with the other two and bound them far down among the
deeps of dreams: and so it should, for it was of a vine that grew
in the vales of Spain and had ripened in one of the years of the
golden age.

They bound one as easily as they had bound the other two; and the
last Rodriguez watched while Morano cut the ropes off the
prisoner, for he had run out of bits of twine and all other
improvisations. With these ropes he ran back to his master, and
they tied up the last prisoner but did 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
enough answered its purpose.

And then they saw standing before them the man they had freed. And
he bowed to Rodriguez like one that had never bowed before. I do
not mean that he bowed with awkwardness, like imitative men unused
to politeness, but he bowed as the oak bows to the woodman; he
stood straight, looking Rodriguez in the eyes, then he bowed as
though he had let 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 man in the old leathern jacket. And Rodriguez
bowed to him in answer with the elegance that they that had dwelt
at Arguento Harez had slowly drawn from the ages.

"Senor, your name," said the stranger.

"Lord of Arguento Harez," said Rodriguez.

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

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

Even in these days, when bullets are often thicker than prayers,
we are not quite thankless for the prayers of others: in those
days they were what "closing quotations" are on the Stock
Exchange, ink in Fleet Street, 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
growing monotonous, 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
already for a small wood, but he went and did as he was ordered.
And Rodriguez was justified of his humane decision, for the pent
thoughts of all three 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
which road go you?"

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

"That brings you to the forest," he said, "unless you go far
around, as many 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. He must 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. And then he began to rub it on a stone, and continued to rub
while Rodriguez watched in silence, until the image of the lord
the King was gone and the face of the coin was scratchy and shiny
and flat. And then he produced from a pocket or pouch in his
jacket a graving tool with a round wooden handle, which he took in
the palm of his hand, and the edge of the steel came out between
his forefinger and thumb: and with this he cut at the coin. And
Morano rejoined them from his merciful mission and stood and
wondered at the cutting. And while he cut they talked.

They did not ask him how he came to be chosen for hanging, because
in every country there are about a hundred individualists, varying
to perhaps half a hundred in poor ages. They go their hundred
ways, or their half-dozen ways; and there is a hundred and first
way, or a seventh way, which is the way that is cut for the rest:
and if some of the rest catch one of the hundred, or one of the
six, they naturally hang him, if they have a rope, and if hanging
is the custom of the country, for different countries use
different methods. And you saw by this man's eyes that he was one
of the hundred. Rodriguez therefore only sought to know how he
came to be caught.

"La Garda found you, senor?" 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. "Senor," he said,
"what is 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
these things."

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

"It is Shadow Valley," he said.

One never saw Rodriguez fail to understand anything: if he could
not clear a situation up he did not struggle with it. Morano
rubbed his chin: he had heard of Shadow Valley only dimly, for all
the travellers he had known out of the north had gone round it.
Rodriguez and Morano bent 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 to talk of the horses. He spoke as
though his plans had been clearly established by edict, and as
though no others could be.

"When I have gone with two horses," he said, "ride hard with the
other two till you reach the village named Lowlight, and take them
to the forge of Fernandez the smith, where one will shoe them who
is not Fernandez."

And he waved his hand northwards. There was only one road. Then
all his attention fell back again to his work on the gold coin;
and when those blue eyes were turned away there seemed nothing
left to question. And now Rodriguez saw the design was a crown, a
plain gold circlet with oak leaves rising up from it. And this
woodland emblem stood up out of the gold, for the worker had
hollowed the coin away all around it, and was sloping it up to the
edge. Little was said by the watchers in the wonder of seeing the
work, for no craft is very far from the line beyond which is
magic, and the man in the leather coat was clearly a craftsman:
and he said nothing for he worked at a craft. And when the
arboreal crown was finished, and its edges were straight and
sharp, an hour had passed since he began near noon. Then he
drilled a hole near the rim and, drawing a thin green ribbon from
his pocket, he passed it through 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
followed to thank him. Not finding him behind the tree where he
thought to find him, he walked round several others, and Morano
joined his search; but the stranger had vanished. When they
returned again to the little clearing they heard sounds of
movement in the wood, and a little way off where the four horses
had grazed there were now only two, which were 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 I thus 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
question calmed the four men's curses, all of a sudden, like
shutting the door on a storm.

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

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

"Morano," Rodriguez said, "I remember ten ways in the books of
romance whereby bound men untie themselves; and doubtless one or
two more I have read and forgot; and there may be other ways in
the books that I have 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 sword with his teeth and thus ..."

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

"Ride," said Rodriguez, for they were now come to the horses. And
sorrowfully Morano looked at the horse that was to be his, as a
man might look at a small, uncomfortable boat that is to carry him
far upon a 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
of the saddle with his large brown hands. But as soon as the
horses started he got a grip with his heels as well, and later on
with his knees. Rodriguez led the way on to the straggling road
and was soon galloping northwards, while Morano's heels kept his
horse up close to his master's. Morano rode as though trained in
the same school that some while later taught Macaulay's
equestrian, who rode with "loose rein and bloody spur." Yet the
miles went swiftly by as they galloped on soft white dust, which
lifted and settled, some of it, back on the lazy road, while some
of it was breathed by Morano. The gold coin on the green silk
ribbon flapped up and down as Rodriguez rode, till he stuffed it
inside his clothing and remembered no more about it. Once they saw
before them the man they had snatched from the noose: he was going
hard and leading a loose horse. And then where the road bent round
a low hill he galloped out of sight and they saw him no more. He
had 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 their minds as their host had done who went away with his
household to Saragossa.

At first Rodriguez' mandolin, that was always slung on his back,
bumped up and down uncomfortably; but he eased it by altering the
strap: small things like this bring contentment. And then he
settled down to ride. But no contentment came near Morano nor did
he look for it. On the first day of his wanderings he had worn his
master's clothes, which has been an experience standing somewhat
where toothache does, which is somewhere about half-way between
discomfort and agony. On the second day he had climbed at the end
of a weary journey over those sharp rocks whose shape was adapted
so ill to his body. On the third day he was riding. He did not
look for comfort. But he met discomfort with an easy resignation
that almost defeated the intention of Satan who sends it, unless--
as is very likely--it be from Heaven. And in spite of all
discomforts he gaily followed Rodriguez. In a thousand days at the
Inn of the Dragon and Knight no two were so different to Morano
that one stood out from the other, or any from the rest. It was
all as though one day were repeated again and again; and at some
point in this monotonous repetition, like a milestone shaped as
the rest on a perfectly featureless road, life would end and the
meaningless repetition stop: and looking back on it there would
only be one day to see, 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 of that grim inn, Rodriguez had
appeared, and Morano had known him for one of those wandering
lights that sometimes make sudden day among the stars. He knew--
no, he felt--that by following him, yesterday today and tomorrow
would be three separate possessions in memory. Morano gladly gave
up that one dull day he was living for the new strange days
through which Rodriguez was sure to lead him. Gladly he left it:
if this be not true how then has a man with a dream led thousands
to follow his fancy, from the Crusades to whatever gay madness be
the fashion when this is read? As they galloped the scent of the
flowers rushed into Rodriguez' nostrils, while Morano mainly
breathed the dust from the hooves of his master's horse. But the
quest was favoured the more by the scent of the flowers inspiring
its leader's fancies. So Morano gained even from this.

In the first hour they shortened by fifteen miles the length of
their rambling quest. In the next hour they did five miles; and in
the third hour ten. After this they rode slowly. The sun was
setting. Morano regarded the sunset with delight, for it seemed to
promise jovially the end of his sufferings, which except for brief
periods when they went on foot, to rest--as Rodriguez said--the
horses, had been continuous and even increasing since they
started. Rodriguez, perhaps a little weary too, drew from the
sunset a more sombre feeling, as sensitive minds do: he responded
to its farewell, he felt its beauty, and as little winds turned
cool and the shine of blades of grass faded, making all the plain
dimmer, he heard, or believed he heard, further off than he could
see, sounds on the plain beyond ridges, in hollows, behind clumps
of bushes; as though small creatures all unknown to his learning
played instruments cut from reeds upon unmapped streams. In this
hour, among these fancies, Rodriguez saw clear on a hill the white
walls of the village of Lowlight. And now they began to notice
that a great round moon was shining. The sunset grew dimmer and
the moonlight stole in softly, as a cat might walk through great
doors on her silent feet into a throne-room just as the king had
gone: and they entered the village slowly in the perfect moment of
twilight.

The round horizon was brimming with a pale but magical colour,
welling up to the tips of trees and the battlements of white
towers. Earth seemed a mysterious cup overfull of this pigment of
wonder. Clouds wandering low, straying far from their azure
fields, were dipped in it. The towers of Lowlight turned slowly
rose in that light, and glowed together with the infinite
gloaming, so that for this brief hour the things of man were wed
with the things of eternity. It was into this wide, pale flame of
aetherial rose that the moon came stealing like a magician on tip-
toe, to enchant the tips of the trees, low clouds and the towers
of Lowlight. A blue light from beyond our world touched the pink
that is Earth's at evening: and what was strange and a matter for
hushed voices, marvellous but yet of our earth, became at that
touch unearthly. All in a moment it was, and Rodriguez gasped to
see it. Even Morano's eyes grew round with the coming of wonder,
or with some dim feeling that an unnoticed moment had made all
things strange and new.

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

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

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

Dona Serafina of the Valley of Dawnlight had left the heat of the
room that looked on the fields, and into which the sun had all day
been streaming, and had gone at sunset to sit in the balcony that
looked along the street. Often she would do this at sunset; but
she rather dreamed as she sat there than watched the street, for
all that it had to show she knew without glancing. Evening after
evening as soon as winter was over the neighbour would come from
next door and stretch himself and yawn and sit on a chair by his
doorway, and the neighbour from opposite would saunter across the
way to him, and they would talk with 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 the two old men would
begin their talk. She knew who owned every dog that stretched
itself in the dust until chilly winds blew in the dusk and they
rose up dissatisfied. She knew the affairs of that street like an
old, old lesson taught drearily, and her thoughts went far away to
vales 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 and the candle-light. This was
so evening after evening all through spring and summer for two
long years of her youth. And then, this evening, just as the two
old neighbours began to discuss whether or not the subjugation of
the entire world by Spain would be for its benefit, just as one of
the dogs in the road was rising slowly to shake itself, neighbours
and dogs all raised their heads to look, and there was Rodriguez
riding down the street and Morano coming behind him. When Serafina
saw this she brought her eyes back from dreams, for she dreamed
not so deeply but that the cloak and plume of Rodriguez found some
place upon the boundaries of her day-dream. When she saw the way
he sat his horse and how he carried his head she let her eyes
flash for a little moment along the street from her balcony. And
if some critical reader 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!" And where she learned to do it I cannot think,
but nothing was easier. And then she smiled to think that she had
done the very thing that her mother had warned her there was
danger in doing.

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

Rodriguez missed as much of that flash of her eyes, shot from
below the darkness 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 only than the peaks of the prophets, from which
to see such things. Yet it did not need youth to notice Serafina.
Beggars had blessed her for the poise of her head.

She turned that head a little as she went between the windows,
till Rodriguez gazing up to her saw the fair shape of her neck:
and almost in that moment the last of the daylight died. The
windows shut; and Rodriguez rode on with Morano to find the forge
that was kept by Fernandez the smith. And presently they came to
the village forge, a cottage with huge, high roof whose beams were
safe from sparks; and its fire was glowing redly into the
moonlight through the wide door made for horses, although there
seemed no work to be done, and a man with a swart moustache was
piling more logs on. Over the door was burned on oak in ungainly
great letters--

"FERNANDEZ"

"For whom do you seek, senor?" he said to Rodriguez, who had
halted before 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
lead the horses in. And then he saw in the dark at the back of the
forge the other two horses that he had seen in the wood. And they
were shod as he had never seen horses shod before. For the front
pair of shoes were joined by a chain riveted stoutly to each, and
the hind pair also; and both horses were shod alike. The method
was equally new to Morano. And now the man with the swart
moustache picked up another bunch of horseshoes hanging in pairs
on chains. And Rodriguez was not far out when he guessed that
whenever la Garda overtook their horses they would find that
Fernandez was far away making holiday, while he who shod them now
would be gone upon other business. And all this work seemed to
Rodriguez not to be his affair.

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





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
had ridden. Earth darkened, the moon grew brighter: and Rodriguez
gazing at the 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 in what language such message could ever be, and
how it could fare across that limpid remoteness that wafted light
on to the coasts of Earth and lapped in silence on the lunar
shores. And as he wondered he thought of his mandolin.

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

Morano's eyes brightened: they were forty-five miles from the
hills on which he had last tasted bacon. He selected his house
with a glance, and then he was gone. And Rodriguez reflected too
late that he had forgotten to tell Morano where he should find
him, and this with night coming on in a strange village. Scarcely,
Rodriguez reflected, he knew where he was going himself. Yet if
old tunes lurking in its hollows, echoing though imperceptibly
from long-faded evenings, gave the mandolin any knowledge of human
affairs that other inanimate things cannot 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 the distance over which our fancy has called them,
look in our eyes with wonder.

"I do not know," he says, "where Don Rodriguez is going. My master
did not 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 discover
nothing: nor is this an age to which to call back spirits.

Rodriguez strolled slowly on the deep dust of that street as
though wondering all the while where he should go; and soon he and
his mandolin were below that very balcony whereon he had seen the
white neck of Serafina gleam with the last of the daylight. And
now the spells of the moon charmed Earth with their full power.

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

Soon out of the depth of that stout old mandolin, in which so many
human sorrows had spun tunes out of themselves, as the spiders
spin misty grey webs, till it was all haunted with music, soon the
old cry went up to the stars again, a thread of supplication spun
of the matter which 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 a
melody? I know not. It was the mandolin. When the mandolin was
made it knew at once all the sorrows of man, and all the old
unnamed longings that none defines. It knew them as the dog knows
the alliance that its forefathers made with man. A mandolin weeps
the tears that its master cannot shed, or utters the prayers that
are deeper than its master's lips can draw, as a dog will fight
for his master with teeth that are longer than man's. And if the
moonlight streamed on untroubled, and though Fate was deaf, yet
beauty of those fresh strains going starward from under his
fingers touched at least the heart of Rodriguez and gilded his
dreams and gave to his thoughts a mournful autumnal glory, until
he sang all newly as he never had sung before, with limpid voice
along the edge of tears, a love-song old as the woods of his
father's valleys 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 fancied the angles putting their hands each one on a
star and leaning out of Heaven through the constellations to
listen.

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

However much the words hurt his pride in his mandolin Rodriguez
recognised in the voice the hidalgo's accent and knew that it was
an equal that now approached him in the moonlight round a corner
of the house with the balcony; and he knew that the request he
courteously made would be as courteously granted.

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

"Most surely, senor," the stranger replied, "for there is no fault
with the mandolin."

"Senor," Rodriguez said, "I thank you profoundly." And he bowed to
the gallant, whom he now perceived to be young, a youth tall and
lithe like himself, one whom we might have chosen for these
chronicles had we not found Rodriguez.

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

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

"Right gladly, senor," 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
moonlight begun to gleam in the street when Morano appeared beside
them and stood there watching. He had bought his bacon and gone
straight to the house with the balcony. For though he knew no
Latin he had not missed the silent greeting that had welcomed his
master to that village, or failed to interpret the gist of the
words that Rodriguez' dumb glance would have said. He stood there
watching while each combatant stood his ground.

And Rodriguez remembered all those passes and feints that he had
had from his father, and which Sevastiani, a master of arms in
Madrid, had taught in his father's youth: and some were famous and
some were little known. And all these passes, as he tried them one
by one, his unknown antagonist parried. And for a moment Rodriguez
feared that Morano would see those passes in which he trusted
foiled by that unknown sword, and then he reflected that Morano
knew nothing of the craft of the rapier, and with more content at
that thought he parried thrusts that were strange to him. But
something told Morano that in this fight the stranger was master
and that along that pale-blue, moonlit, unknown sword lurked a
sure death for Rodriguez. He moved from his place of vantage and
was soon lost in large shadows; while the rapiers played and blade
rippled on blade with a sound as though Death were gently
sharpening his scythe in the dark. And now Rodriguez was giving
ground, now his antagonist pressed him; thrusts that he believed
invincible had failed; now he parried wearily and had at once to
parry again; the unknown 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 heap upon Rodriguez' feet, struck
full on the back of the head by Morano's frying-pan.

"Most vile knave," shouted Rodriguez as he saw Morano before him
with his frying-pan in his hand, and with something of the stupid
expression that you see on the face of a dog that has done some
foolish thing which 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,
your food, and not to your life?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The blessed Saints be praised," Rodriguez said. "It need not stop
our encounter. But rest awhile, senor."

"Indeed, it is nothing," he answered.

"But the indignity is immeasurable," sighed Rodriguez. "Would you
care, senor, 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, senor," Rodriguez said, "my own sword
is at 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 a knave."

The stranger smiled: the idea appealed to him.

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

Morano had not moved far, but stood near, wondering. "What should
a servant do if not work for his master?" he wondered. And how
work for him when dead? And dead, as it seemed to Morano, through
his own fault if 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 angrily towards 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
seize Morano by the shoulder. Up went the frying-pan, the stranger
parried, but against a stroke that no school taught or knew, and
for the second time he went down in the dust with a reeling head.
Rodriguez turned toward Morano and said to him ... No, realism is
all very well, and I know that my duty as author is to tell all
that happened, and I could win 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 read what Rodriguez
said. I do not, I trust, disappoint her. But the gist of it was
that he should leave that place now and depart from his service
for ever. And hearing those words Morano turned mournfully away
and was at once lost in the darkness. While Rodriguez ran once
more to help his fallen antagonist. "Senor, senor," he said with
an emotion that some wearing centuries and a cold climate have
taught us not to show, and beyond 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.

"Senor," Rodriguez said fervently, "we will finish our encounter
come what 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
other on. It will equalise our unsteadiness, and you shall not be
disappointed 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
cannot equalise 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 in fat and dares to usurp the dignity of man."

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

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

The stranger sat down a little wearily, and Rodriguez sitting upon
the dust took off his left shoe. And now he began to think a
little wistfully of the face that had shone from that balcony,
where all was dark now in black shadow unlit by the moon. The
emptiness of the balcony and its darkness oppressed him; for he
could scarcely hope to survive an encounter with that swordsman,
whose skill he now recognised as being of a different class from
his own, a class of which he knew nothing. All his own feints and
passes were known, while those of his antagonist had been strange
and new, and he might well have even others. The stranger's
giddiness did not alter the situation, for Rodriguez knew that his
handicap was fair and even generous. He believed he was near his
grave, and could see no spark of light to banish that dark belief;
yet more chances than we can see often guard us on such occasions.
The absence of Serafina saddened him like a sorrowful sunset.

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

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

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

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

The young hidalgo dropped silently.

Rodriguez uttered one scream of anger and rushed at Morano with
his sword. Morano had already started to run; and, knowing well
that he was running for his life, he kept for awhile the start
that he had of the rapier. Rodriguez knew that no plump man of
over forty could last against his lithe speed long. He saw Morano
clearly before him, then lost sight of him for a moment and ran
confidently on pursuing. He ran on and on. And at last he
recognised that Morano had slipped into the darkness, which lies
always so near to the moonlight, and was not in front of him at
all. So he returned to his fallen antagonist and found him
breathing heavily where he fell, scarcely conscious. The third
stroke of the frying-pan had done its work surely. Rodriguez' fury
died down, only because it is difficult to feel two emotions at
once: it died down as pity took its place, though every now and
then it would suddenly flare and fall again. He returned his sword
and lifted the young hidalgo and carried him to the door of the
house under which they had 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 to grumble, as though disturbed too early from their rusty
sleep in stone sockets.

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 in alarm, as one who runs with bad news. He carried one
candle and, when he had disappeared with the steaming flame,
Rodriguez found himself in a long hall lit by the moonlight only,
which was looking in through the small contorted panes of the
upper part of a high window. Alone with echoes and shadows
Rodriguez carried the hurt man through the hall, who was muttering
now as he came back to consciousness. And, as he went, there came
to Rodriguez thoughts between wonder and hope, for he had had no
thought at all when he beat on the door except to get shelter and
help for the hurt man. At the end of the hall they came to an open
door 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 the room. Large pictures of men in the blackness, out of the
moon's rays, frowned at Rodriguez mysteriously. He could not see
their faces in the darkness, but he somehow knew they frowned. Two
portraits that were clear in the moonlight eyed him with absolute
apathy. So cold a welcome from that house's past generations boded
no good to him from those that dwelt there today. Rodriguez knew
that in carrying the hurt man there he helped at a Christian deed;
and yet there was no putting the merits of the case against the
omens that crowded the chamber, lurking along the edge of
moonlight and darkness, disappearing and reappearing till the
gloom was heavy with portent. The omens knew. In a weak voice and
few words the hurt man thanked him, but the apathetic faces seemed
to say What of that? And the frowning faces that he could not see
still filled the darkness with anger.

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

Rodriguez in awed silence watched her come. He saw her pass
through the moonlight and grow dimmer, and glide to the moonlight
again that streamed through another window. A great dim golden
circle appeared at the far end of the chamber whence she had come,
as the servent returned with his candle and held it high to give
light for Dona Serafina. But that one flame seemed to make the
darkness only blacker; and for any cheerfulness it brought to the
gloom it had better never have challenged those masses of darkness
at all in that high chamber among the brooding portraits it seemed
trivial, ephemeral, modern, ill able to cope with the power of
ancient things, dead days and forgotten voices, which make their
home in the darkness because the days that have usurped them have
stolen the light of the sun.

And there the man stood holding his candle high, and the rays of
the moon became more magical still beside that little mundane,
flickering thing. And Serafina was moving through the moonlight as
though its rays were her sisters, which she met noiselessly and
brightly upon some island, as it seemed to Rodriguez, beyond the
costs of Earth, so quietly and so brightly did her slender figure
move and so aloof from him appeared her eyes. And there came on
Rodriguez that feeling that some deride and that others explain
away, the feeling of which romance is mainly made and which is the
aim and goal of all the earth. And his love for Serafina seemed to
him not only to be an event in his life but to have some part in
veiled and shadowy destinies and to have the blessing of most
distant days: grey beards seemed to look out of graves in
forgotten places to wag approval: hands seemed to beckon to him
out of far-future times, where faces were smiling quietly: and,
dreaming on further still, this vast approval that gave
benediction to his heart's youthful fancy seemed to widen and
widen like the gold of a summer's evening 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 earliest memory seemed to have
their part in it, as well as wonderful evenings of days that were
yet to be, till his love for Serafina was one with the fate of
earth; and, wandering far on their courses, he knew that the stars
blessed it. But Serafina went up to the man on the couch with no
look for Rodriguez.

With no look for Rodriguez she bent over the stricken hidalgo. He
raised 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
open and undimmed eyes. She put her hand to his forehead, she
spoke in a low voice to him; she lavished upon him sympathy for
which Rodriguez would have offered his head to swords; and all,
thought Rodriguez for three blows from a knave's frying-pan: and
his anger against Morano flared up again fiercely. Then there came
another thought to him out of the shadows, where Serafina was
standing all white, a figure of solace. Who was this man who so
mysteriously blended with the other unknown things that 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 interior
of the darkness, sombre and foreboding as the shadows that nursed
them. He stood there never daring to speak to Serafina; looking
for permission 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 dim place. The servant at the far end of the chamber still
held his one candle high, as though some light of earth were
needed against the fantastic moon, which if unopposed would give
everything over to magic. Rodriguez stood there, scarcely
breathing. All was silent. And then through the door by which
Serafina had come, past that lonely, golden, moon-defying candle,
all down the long room across moonlight and blackness, came the
lady of the house, Serafina's mother. She came, as Serafina came,
straight toward the man on the couch, giving no look to Rodriguez,
walking something as Serafina walked, with the same poise, the
same dignity, though the years had carried away from her the grace
Serafina had: so that, though you saw that they were mother and
daughter, the elder lady called to mind the lovely things of
earth, large gardens at evening, statues dim in the dusk, summer
and whatsoever binds us to earthly things; but Serafina turned
Rodriguez' thoughts to the twilight in which he first saw her, and
he pictured her native place as far from here, in mellow fields
near the moon, wherein she had walked on twilight outlasting any
we know, with all delicate things 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 fled as butterflies sailing high in the heat of June that
are suddenly plunged in night by a total eclipse of the sun. He
had never spoken to Serafina, or seen before her mother, and they
did not know his name; he knew that he, Rodriguez, had no claim to
a welcome. But his dreams had flocked 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 what remains, if he lingers
awhile behind them?

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

Rodriguez' depression arose from these causes, but having arisen,
it grew of its own might: he had had nothing to eat since morning,
and in the favouring atmosphere of hunger his depression grew
gigantic. He opened his lips once more to say farewell, was
oppressed by all manner of thoughts that held him dumb, and turned
away in silence and left the house. Outside he recovered his
mandolin and his shoe. He was tired with the weariness of defeated
dreams that slept in his spirit exhausted, rather than with any
fatigue his young muscles had from the journey. He needed sleep;
he looked at the shuttered houses; then at the soft dust of the
road in which dogs lay during the daylight. But the dust was near
to his mood, so he lay down where he had fought the unknown
hidalgo. A light wind wandered the street like a visitor come to
the village out of a friendly valley, but Rodriguez' four days on
the roads had made him familiar with all wandering things, and the
breeze on his forehead troubled him not at all: before it had
wearied of wandering in the night Rodriguez had fallen asleep.
Just by the edge of sleep, upon which side he knew not, he heard
the window of the balcony creak, and looked up wide awake all in a
moment. But nothing stirred in the darkness of the balcony and the
window was fast shut. So whatever sound came from the window came
not from its opening but shutting: 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
light rain that had fallen in a romantic tale. Storms there had
been, lashing oaks to terrific shapes seen at night by flashes of
lightning, through which villains rode abroad or heroes sought
shelter at midnight; hurricanes there had been, flapping huge
cloaks, fierce hail and copious 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 than the most sinister shadows of night.

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

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

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

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





THE SEVENTH CHRONICLE

HOW HE CAME TO SHADOW VALLEY


Rodriguez still believed it to be the duty of any Christian man to
kill Morano. Yet, more than comfort, more than dryness, he missed
Morano's cheerful chatter, and his philosophy into which all
occasions so easily slipped. Upon his first day's journey all was
new; the very anemones kept him company; but now he made the
discovery that lonely roads are long.

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

The village of Lowlight was some way behind him, as he went with
mournful thoughts through the drizzling rain, when he caught the
smell of bacon. He looked for a house but the plain was bare
except for small bushes. He looked up wind, which was blowing from
the west, whence came the unmistakable smell of bacon: and there
was a small fire smoking greyly against a bush; and the fat figure
crouching beside it, although the face was averted, was clearly
none but Morano. And when Rodriguez saw that he was tenderly
holding the infamous frying-pan, the very weapon that had done the
accursed deed, then he almost felt righteous anger; but that
frying-pan held other memories too, and Rodriguez felt less fury
than what he thought he felt. As for killing Morano, Rodriguez
believed, or thought he believed, that he was too far from the
road for it to be possible to overtake him to mete out his just
punishment. As for the bacon, Rodriguez scorned it and marched on
down the road. Now one side of the frying-pan was very hot, for it
was tilted a little and the lard had run sideways. By tilting it
back again slowly Morano could make the fat run back bit by bit
over the heated metal, and whenever it did so it sizzled. He now
picked up the frying-pan and one log that was burning well and
walked parallel with Rodriguez. He was up-wind of him, and
whenever the bacon-fat sizzled Rodriguez caught the smell of it. A
small matter to inspire thoughts; but Rodriguez had eaten nothing
since the morning before, and ideas surged through his head; and
though they began with moral indignation they adapted themselves
more and more to hunger, until there came the idea that since his
money had bought the bacon the food was rightfully his, and he had
every right to eat it wherever he found it. So much can slaves
sometimes control the master, and the body rule the brain.

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

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

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

Morano, who knew when speech was good, was silent now, and blew on
the smouldering end of the log he carried and gathered a handful
of twigs and shook the rain off them; and soon had a small fire
again, warming the bacon. He had nothing to say which bacon could
not say better. And when Rodriguez had finished up the bacon he
carefully reconsidered the case of Morano, and there were points
in it which he had not thought of before. He reflected that for
the execution of knaves a suitable person was provided. He should
perhaps give Morano up to la Garda. His next thought was where to
find la Garda. And easily enough another thought followed that
one, which was that although on foot and still some way behind
four of la Garda were trying to find him. Rodriguez' mind, which
was looking at life from the point of view of a judge, changed
somewhat at this thought. He reflected next that, for the
prevention of crime, to make Morano see the true nature of his
enormity so that he should never commit it again might after all
be as good as killing him. So what we call his better nature, his
calmer judgment, decided him now to talk to Morano and not to kill
him: but Morano, looking back upon this merciful change, always
attributed it to fried bacon.

"Morano," said Rodriguez' better nature, "to offend the laws of
Chivalry 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
cook bacon for you when you are hungry, I may brush the dust from
your cloak, 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 he must, and welcome."

"Not always," said Rodriguez somewhat curtly, for it struck him
that Morano 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
you and when they may not, so that I may never offend again."

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

"In the wars," he said, "you may defend me whoever assails me, or
if robbers or any common persons attack me, but if I arrange a
meeting with a gentleman, and any knave basely interferes, then is
he damned hereafter as well as accursed now; for, the laws of
Chivalry being founded on true religion, the penalty for their
breach is by no means confined to this world."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thus he acknowledged Morano again for his servant but never
acknowledged that in Morano's words he had understood any poor
sketch of Morano's self, or that the words went to his heart.

"Timber, Master?" said Morano, though it did not need Rodriguez to
point 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,"
said Morano, and began to polish up the frying-pan as he walked.

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

And now their road dipped downhill, and they passed a huge oak and
then another. More and more often now they met these solitary
giants, till their view began to be obscured by them. The road
dwindled till it was no better than a track, the earth beside it
was wild and rocky; Rodriguez wondered to what manner of land he
was coming. But continually the branches of some tree obscured his
view and the only indication he had of it was from the road he
trod, which seemed to tell him that men came here seldom. Beyond
every huge tree that they passed as they went downhill Rodriguez
hoped to get a better view, but always there stood another to
close the vista. It was some while before he realised that he had
entered a forest. They were come to Shadow Valley.

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

He still would not have exchanged his rose for the whole forest;
but in the mighty solemnity of the forest his mourning for the
lady that he feared he had lost no longer seemed the only solemn
thing: indeed, the sombre forest seemed well attuned to his mood;
and what complaint have we against Fate wherever this is so. His
mood was one of tragic loss, the defeat of an enterprise that his
hopes had undertaken, to seize victory on the apex of the world,
to walk all his days only just outside the edge of Paradise, for
no less than that his hopes and his first love promised each
other; and then he walked despairing in small rain. In this mood
Fate had led him to solemn old oaks standing huge among shadows;
and the grandeur of their grey grip on the earth that had been
theirs for centuries was akin to the grandeur of the high hopes 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,
for Rodriguez had left Lowlight very early. And by it Morano
cooked bacon again and dried his master's cloak. They ate the
bacon and sat by the fire till all their clothes were dry, and
when the flames from the great logs fell and only embers glowed
they sat there still, with hands spread to the warmth of the
embers; for to those who wander a fire is food and rest and
comfort. Only as the embers turned grey did they throw earth over
their fire and continue their journey. Their road grew smaller 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. An arrow had struck a birch tree on the right side, ten or
twelve paces in front of him; and as he looked up another struck
it from the opposite side just level with the first; the two were
sticking in it ten feet or so from the ground. Rodriguez drew his
sword. But when a third arrow went over his head from behind and
struck the birch tree, whut! just between the other two, he
perceived, as duller minds could have done, that it was a hint,
and he returned his sword and stood still. Morano questioned his
master with his eyes, which were asking what was to be done next.
But Rodriguez shrugged his shoulders: there was no fighting with
an invisible foe that could shoot like that. That much Morano
knew, but he did not know that there might not be some law of
Chivalry that would demand that Rodriguez should wave his sword in
the air or thrust at the birch tree until someone shot him. When
there seemed to be no such rule Morano was well content. And
presently men came quietly on to the road from different parts of
the wood. They were dressed in brown leather and wore leaf-green
hats, and round each one's neck hung a disk of engraved copper.
They came up to the travellers carrying bows, and the leader said
to Rodriguez:

"Senor, all travellers here bring tribute to the King of Shadow
Valley," 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
the sake 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. There were eight or nine of them, all in their leaf-green
hats, with ribbons round their necks of the same colour to hold
the copper disks. They took a gold coin from Morano and grey
greasy pieces of silver. One of them took his frying-pan; but he
looked so pitifully at them as he said simply, "I starve," that
the frying-pan was restored to him.

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

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

Morano was pleased to hear this respect paid to his master, but
Rodriguez was so surprised that he who was never curt without
reason found 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 forest
against all men for our King."

"And who is he?" said Rodriguez.

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

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

"Is there any house on this road, senor," he said, "in which we
could rest the night?"

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

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

So they all started together, Rodriguez with the leader going in
front and Morano following with all the bowmen. And soon the
bowmen were singing songs of the forest, hunting songs, songs of
the winter; and songs of the long summer evenings, songs of love.
Cheered by this merriment, the miles slipped by.

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

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
night with his bow by one of the great pools in the forest, where
the geese come in winter. He said the forest was a hundred miles
long, lying mostly along a great valley, which they were crossing.
And once they had owned allegiance to kings of Spain, but now to
none but the King of the Shadow Valley, for the King of Spain's
men had once tried to cut some of the forest down, and the forest
was sacred.

Behind him the men sang on of woodland things, and of cottage
gardens in the villages: with singing and laughter they came to
their journey's end. A cottage as though built by peasants with
boundless material stood in the forest. It was a thatched cottage
built in the peasant's way but of enormous size. The leader
entered first and whispered to those within, who rose and bowed to
Rodriguez as he entered, twenty more bowmen who had been sitting
at a table. One does not speak of the banqueting-hall of a
cottage, but such it appeared, for it occupied more than half of
the cottage and was as large as the banqueting-hall of any castle.
It was made of great beams of oak, and high at either end just
under the thatch were windows with their little square panes of
bulging bluish glass, which at that time was rare in Spain. A
table of oak ran down the length of it, cut from a single tree,
polished and dark from the hands of many men that had sat at it.
Boar spears hung on the wall, great antlers and boar's tusks and,
carved in the oak of the wall and again on a high, dark chair that
stood at the end of the long table empty, a crown with oak leaves
that Rodriguez recognised. It was the same as the one that was cut
on his gold coin, which he had given no further thought to, riding
to Lowlight, and which the face of Serafina had driven from his
mind altogether. "But," he said, and then was silent, thinking to
learn more by watching than by talking. And his companions of the
road came in and all sat down on the benches beside the ample
table, and a brew was brought, a kind of pale mead, that they
called forest water. And all drank; and, sitting at the table,
watching them more closely than he could as he walked in the
forest, Rodriguez saw by the sunlight that streamed in low through
one window that on the copper disks they wore round their necks on
green ribbon the design was again the same. It was much smaller
than his on the gold coin but the same strange leafy crown. "Wear
it as you go through Shadow Valley," he now 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 this other man
was one of them.

His eyes strayed back to the great design on the wall. "The crown
of the forest," said Miguel as he saw his eyes wondering at it,
"as you doubtless know, senor."

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

"The King of Shadow Valley."

Morano was without curiosity; he did not question good drink; he
sat at the table with a cup of horn in his hand, as happy as
though he had come 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 the
merry men of the bow.

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

Soon the long hall grew dim, and his love for the light drew
Rodriguez out to watch the sunset. And there was the sun under
indescribable clouds, turning huge and yellow among the trunks of
the trees and casting glory munificently down glades. It set, and
the western sky became blood-red and lilac: from the other end of
the sky the moon peeped 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 great oaks became magical. A blackbird blew a tune
less of this earth than of fairy-land.

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

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

Rodriguez had no words to say. To turn into words the beauty that
was now shining in his thoughts, reflected from the evening there,
was no easier 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 our days. There are cities and roads but man is not meant for
them. I know not, master, what God intends about us; but in cities
we are against the 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 go
tomorrow to the wars."

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

"Your room, master," said Miguel Threegeese.

It was not so big as the hall where the bowmen sat, but it was a
goodly room. The bed was made of carved wood, for there were
craftsmen in the forest, and a hunt went all the way round it with
dogs and deer. Four great posts held a canopy over it: they were
four young birch-trees seemingly still wearing their bright bark,
but this had been painted on their bare timber by some woodland
artist. The chairs had not the beauty of the great ages of
furniture, but they had a dignity that the age of commerce has not
dreamed of. Each one was carved out of a single block of wood:
there was no join in them anywhere. One of them lasts to this day.

The skins of deer covered the long walls. There were great basins
and jugs of earthenware. All was forest-made. The very shadows
whispering among themselves in corners spoke of the forest. The
room was rude; but being without ornament, except for the work of
simple craftsmen, it had nothing there to offend the sense of
right of anyone entering its door, by any jarring conflict with
the purposes and traditions of the land in which it stood. All the
woodland spirits might have entered there, and slept--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
what Morano 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
they will give you whatever you ask. They are good people, master,
and they will 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
have walked after us. They must be now in Lowlight. They have all
to-night to get new shoes on their horses. And to-morrow, master,
to-morrow, if we 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 under his 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," said
Rodriguez reflectively. "They say la Garda dare not enter the
forest," Morano continued, "but thirty miles from here the forest
ends. They could 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
saw that there were only two rooms in the great cottage and his
inquiring eye saw no preparations for cooking about the fireplace
of either. And Morano pointed through a window at the back of the
room to another cottage among the trees, fifty paces away. A red
glow streamed from its windows, 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 welcomed the many signs of a dinner of boundless
variety.

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

"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
the ways of the King of Shadow Valley."

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

"If they caught the King," said another, "the forest would perish.
None loves 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
the forest." All knew whom he meant by they. "And the goodly trees
will go." He spoke as a man foretelling the end of the world; and,
as men to whom no less was announced, the others listened to him.
They all loved Shadow Valley.

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

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

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

And always they spoke of him not only with respect but also with
the discretion, Rodriguez thought, of men that spoke of one who
might be behind them at that moment, and one who tolerated no
trifling with his authority. Then they sang songs again, such as
Rodriguez had heard on the road, and their merry lives passed
clearly before his mind again, for we live in our songs as no men
live in histories. And again Rodriguez lamented his hard ambition
and his long, vague journey, turning away twice from happiness;
once in the village of Lowlight where happiness deserted him, and
here in the goodly forest where he jilted happiness. How well
could he and Morano live as two of this band, he thought; leaving
all cares in cities: for there dwelt cares in cities even then.
Then he put the thought away. And as the evening wore away with
merry talk and with song, Rodriguez turned to Miguel and told him
how it was with la Garda and broached the matter of horses. And
while the others sang Miguel spoke sadly to him. "Master," he
said, "la Garda shall never take you in Shadow Valley, yet if you
must leave us to 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 have the best."

"Tomorrow morning, senor?" 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 what
claim at all he had upon Shadow Valley, his speculations being far
more concerned with the identity of the hidalgo that he had fought
the night before, how he concerned Serafina, who had owned the
rose that he carried: in fact his mind was busy with such studies
as were proper to his age. And at last they decided between them
on the house of a lowland smith, who was the furthest man that the
bowmen knew who was secretly true to their king. At his house
Rodriguez and Morano should leave the horses. He dwelt sixty miles
from the northern edge of the forest, and would surely give
Rodriguez fresh horses if he possessed them, for he was a true man
to the bowman. His name was Gonzalez and he dwelt in a queer green
house.

They turned then to listen a moment to a hunting song that all the
bowmen were singing about the death of a boar. Its sheer merriment
constrained them. Then Miguel spoke again. "You should not leave
the forest," 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. He told him how towns on the way, and the river Ebro, and
with awe and reverence he spoke of the mighty Pyrenees. And then
Rodriguez rose, for the start was to be at dawn, and walked
quietly through the singing out of the hall to the room where the
great bed was. And soon he slept, and his dreams joined in the
endless hunt through Shadow Valley that was carved all round the
timbers of his bed.

All too soon he heard voices, voices far off at first, to which he
drew nearer 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 was gone from it but the sober beauty of the forest
flooded in through both windows with early sunlight and bird-song;
so that it had not the sad appearance of places in which we have
rejoiced, when we revisit them next day or next generation and
find them all deserted by dance and song.

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

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

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

"Farewell to the forest," said Miguel to Rodriguez. There was
almost a query 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
to wonder what his answer would be: when it came he accepted it
and walked to 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 the forest and up a rocky hill, and so to the plains again, and
one more adventure lay behind them. Rodriguez turned round once on
the high ground and took a long look back on the green undulations
of peace. The forest slept there as though empty of men.

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

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

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

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

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

"All the Saints be praised," said Morano.

They dismounted then and went on foot, for the horses were weary.
At evening they rode slowly into the village. At an inn whose
hospitable looks were as cheerfully unlike the Inn of the Dragon
and Knight as possible, they demanded lodging for all four. They
went first to the stable, and when the horses had been handed over
to the care of a groom they returned to the inn, and mine host and
Rodriguez had to help Morano up the three steps to the door, for
he had walked nine miles that 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
and variously laden, for the doors of mine hosts' larder were
opened wide in his honour; but Rodriguez ate sparingly, as do
weary men.

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

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

"Morano," said Rodriguez as he passed that foolish figure, "we go
sixty miles 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
to distance still, "Two hundred, two hundred," till the old
stairway echoed with it.

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





THE EIGHTH CHRONICLE

HOW HE TRAVELLED FAR


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

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

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

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

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

"Senor," said Rodriguez, "our horses are weary. We have been told
you will 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 and
blades of grass, twisting long shadows behind them, lights up
lawns and bushes and the deep places of woods, scattering quiet
night for a moment, so the unexpected answer of Rodriguez lit
memories in the mind of the smith all down the long years; and a
twinkle and a sparkle of those memories dancing in woods long
forsaken flashed from his eyes.

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

"We left it yesterday," said Rodriguez.

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

The questions flowed on past answering, past remembering: he had
not spoken of the forest for years. And Rodriguez answered as such
questions are always answered, saying that all was well, and
giving Gonzalez some little detail of some trifling affair of the
forest, which he treasured as small shells are treasured in inland
places when travellers bring them from the sea; but all that he
heard of the forest seemed 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
for riding at all. And Rodriguez thought of the immense miles
lying between him and the foreign land, keeping him back from his
ambition; they all pressed on his mind at once. The smith was
sorry, but he could not make horses.

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

"Ah, a small token," said Rodriguez, drawing it forth still on its
green 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
shall have them. Enter, master." And he bowed and widely opened
the door. "If you will breakfast in my house while I go to the
neighbours you shall have some horses, master."

So they entered the house, and the smith with many bows gave the
travellers over to the care of his wife, who saw from her
husband's manner that these were persons of importance and as such
she treated them both, and as such entertained them to their
second breakfast. And this meant they ate heartily, as travellers
can, who can go without a breakfast 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 the
forest, for they knew not what place her husband's early years had
in her imagination.

They had barely finished their meal when the sound of hooves on
cobbles was heard and Gonzalez beat on the door. They all went to
the door and found him there with two horses. The horses were
saddled and bridled. They fixed the stirrups to please them, then
the travellers mounted at once. Rodriguez made his grateful
farewell to the wife of the smith: then, turning to Gonzalez, he
pointed to the two tired horses which had waited 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, and added: "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 the
straight road which was going his way, north-eastward.

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

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

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

"But," and Gonzalez walked a little away from his wife, and the
horses walked 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
smith almost such as the sons of men might have worn in Genesis
when angels visited 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 and the monotonous sight of the road, on which his eyes were
fixed: nearly an hour more passed, and at last he saw his master
halt and turn round in his saddle.

"Dinner," Rodriguez said.

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

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 and gathered sticks from the bushes. And soon he had a
fire, and a thin column 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
bacon mingled with the smoke, then Morano was where all wise men
and all unwise try to be, and where some of one or the other some
times come for 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
was drawing him down the road again, of which he knew that there
remained to be travelled over two hundred miles in Spain, and how
much beyond that he knew not, nor greatly cared, for beyond the
frontier of Spain he believed there lay the dim, desired country
of romance where roads were long no more and no rain fell. They
mounted again and pushed on for this country. Not a village they
saw but that Morano hoped that here his affliction would end and
that he would dismount and rest; and always Rodriguez rode on and
Morano followed, and with a barking of dogs they were gone and the
village rested behind them. For many an hour their slow trot
carried them on; and Morano, clutching the saddle with worn arms,
already was close to despair, when Rodriguez halted in a little
village at evening before an inn. They had done their fifty miles
from the house of Gonzalez, and even a little more.

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

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

Scarcely were late birds home before Rodriguez sought his bed, and
not all of them were sleeping before he slept.

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

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

But soon their pace dwindled, the trot slackening and falling to a
walk; soon Rodriguez learned what it is to travel with tired
horses. To Morano riding was merely riding, and the discomforts of
that were so great that he noticed no difference. But to
Rodriguez, his continual hitting and kicking his horse's sides,
his dislike of doing it, the uselessness of it when done, his
ambition before and the tired beast underneath, the body always
some yards behind the beckoning spirit, were as great vexation as
a traveller knows. It came to dismounting and walking miles on
foot; even then the horses hung back. They halted an hour over
dinner while the horses grazed and rested, and they returned to
their road refreshed by the magic that was in the frying-pan, but
the horses were no fresher.

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

If the hopes of Rodriguez were low, if his fancies were faint,
what material have I left with which to make a story with glitter
enough to hold my readers' eyes to the page: for know that mere
dreams and idle fancies, and all amorous, lyrical, unsubstantial
things, are all that we writers have of which to make a tale, as
they are all that the Dim Ones have to make the story of man.

Sometimes riding, sometimes going on foot, with the thought of the
long, long miles always crowding upon Rodriguez, overwhelming his
hopes; till even the castle he was to win in the wars grew too
pale for his fancy to see, tired and without illusions, they came
at last by starlight to the glow of a smith's forge. He must have
done forty-five miles 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 his horses.

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 houses that stood together by the road. And the fever of
Rodriguez' ambition drove him on, though Morano would have lain
down and slept where they stood, though he himself was weary. The
smith had received his horses; after that he cared not whether
they gave him shelter or not, the alternative being the road, and
that bringing nearer his wars and the castle he was to win. And
that fancy that led his master Morano allowed always to lead him
too, though a few more miles and he would have fallen asleep as he
walked and dropped by the roadside and slept on. Luckily they had
gone barely two miles from the forge where the horses rested, when
they saw a high, dark house by the road and knocked on the door
and found shelter. It was an old woman who let them in, a farmer's
wife, and she had room for them and one mattress, but no bed. They
were too tired to eat and did not ask for food, but at once
followed her up the booming stairs of her house, which were all
dark but for her candle, and so came among huge minuetting shadows
to the long loft at the top. There was a mattress there which the
old woman laid out for Rodriguez, and a heap of hay for Morano.
Just for a moment, as Rodriguez climbed the last step of the stair
and entered the loft where the huge shadows twirled between the
one candle's light and the unbeaten darkness in corners, just for
a moment romance seemed to beckon to him; for a moment, in spite
of his fatigue and dejection, in spite of the possibility of his
quest being crazy, for a moment he felt that great shadows and
echoing boards, the very cobwebs even that hung from the black
rafters, were all romantic things; he felt that his was a glorious
adventure and that all these things that filled the loft in the
night were such as should fitly attend on youth and glory. In a
moment that feeling was gone he knew not why it had come. And
though he remembered it till grey old age, when he came to know
the causes of many things, he never knew what romance might have
to do with shadows or echoes at night in an empty room, and only
knew of such fancies that they came from beyond his understanding,
whether from wisdom or folly.

Morano was first asleep, as enormous snores testified, almost
before the echoes had died away of the footsteps of the old woman
descending the stairs; but soon Rodriguez followed him into the
region of dreams, where fantastic ambitions can live with less of
a struggle than in the broad light of day: he dreamed he walked at
night down a street of castles strangely colossal in an awful
starlight, with doors too vast for 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 the gargoyles on
it were angry and spoiled the dream.

Dream followed dream with furious rapidity, as the dreams of tired
men do, racing each other, jostling and mingling and dancing, an
ill-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 than
refreshed by having had it.

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

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

Breakfast cheered both the travellers. And then the old lady told
Rodriguez that Caspe was but a three hours' walk, and that cheered
them even more, for Caspe is on the Ebro, which seemed to mark for
Rodriguez a stage in his journey, being carried easily in his
imagination, like the Pyrenees. What road he would take when he
reached Caspe he had not planned. And soon Rodriguez expressed his
gratitude, full of fervour, with many a flowery phrase which lived
long in the old dame's mind; and the visit of those two travellers
became one of the strange events of that house and was chief of
the memories that faintly haunted the rafters 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 claims him. The knowledge that Caspe lay near with sure lodging
for the night, soothed Rodriguez' impatience. And as they loitered
they talked, and they decided that la Garda must now be too far
behind to pursue any longer. They came in four hours to the bank
of the Ebro and there saw Caspe near them; but they dined once
more on the grass, sitting beside the river, rather than enter the
town at once, for there had grown in both travellers a liking for
the wanderers' green table of earth.

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

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

"We might not get them over the Pyrenees," said Rodriguez, though
he had a better reason, which was that three gold pieces did not
buy two saddled horses. There were no more friends to hire from.
Morano grew thoughtful. 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
come by 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 come slowly by an idea, parted not so easily with it.

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

At this moment a certain song that boatmen sing on that river,
when the current is with them and they have nothing to do but be
idle and their lazy thoughts run to lascivious things, came to the
ears of Rodriguez and Morano; and a man with a bright blue sash
steered down the Ebro. He had 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
determined that 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
broke from his throat hailing the boatman. The boatman looked up
lazily, a young man with strong brown arms, turning black
moustaches towards Morano. Again Morano hailed him and ran along
the bank, while the boat drifted down and the boatman steered in
towards Morano. Somehow Morano persuaded him to come in to see
what he wanted; and in a creek he ran his boat aground, and there
he and Morano argued and bargained. But Rodriguez remained where
he was, wondering why it took so long to turn his 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
they had taught him this at the college of San Josephus.

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

Now between them they had but four gold pieces; but that did not
make the 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 river Segre, and that where the Ebro left them,
turning eastwards, the course of the Segre took them on their way:
but it would be rowing against the current.

"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
knew that his countrymen took a cheerful view of distance, seldom
allowing any distance to oppress them under its true name at the
out set of a journey; then he guessed that the boatman might row
five miles an hour for the first thirty miles with the stream of
the Ebro, and he hoped that he might row three against the Segre
until they came near the mountains, 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
may go 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
down to Caspe. And, in the house of Perez, Rodriguez slept that
night in a large dim room, untidy with diverse wares: they slept
on heaps of things that pertained to the river and fishing. Yet it
was late before Rodriguez slept, for in sight of his mind came
glimpses at last of the end of his journey; and, when he slept at
last, he saw the Pyrenees. Through the long night their mighty
heads rejected him, staring immeasurably beyond him in silence,
and then in happier dreams they beckoned him for a moment. Till at
last a bird that had entered the city of Caspe sang clear and it
was dawn. With that first light Rodriguez arose and awoke Morano.
Together they left that long haven of lumber and found Perez
already stirring. They ate hastily and all went down to the boat,
the unknown that waits at the end of all strange journeys
quickening their steps as they went through the early light.

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

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

They stumbled on rocks, tore the canvas on bushes, lost the same
thing over 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, and after that they slept. And over them
sleeping the starlight faded away, and in the greyness that none
of them dreamed was dawn five clear notes were heard so shrill in
the night that Rodriguez half waking wondered what bird of the
darkness called, and learned from the answering chorus that it was
day.

He woke Morano who rose in that chilly hour and, striking sparks
among last night's embers, soon had a fire: they hastily made a
meal and wrapped up their tent and soon they were going onward
against the tide of the Segre. And that day Morano rowed more
skilfully; and Rodriguez unwrapped his mandolin and played,
reclining in the boat while he rested from rowing. And the
mandolin told them all, what the words of none could say, that
they fared to adventure in the land of Romance, to the overthrow
of dullness and the sameness of all drear schemes and the conquest
of discontent in the spirit of man; and perhaps it sang of a time
that has not yet come, or the mandolin lied.

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

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

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

On this day they heard men speak of the Pyrenees, two men and a
woman walking 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 men speak of war. War that some farmers had fled from
on the other side of the mountain. When Rodriguez heard these
chance words his dreams came nearer till they almost touched the
edges of reality.

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

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

And the sun set and still they did not camp, but Perez rowed on
into the 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
slept outside the threshold of adventure.

Rodriguez awoke cold. Once more he heard the first blackbird who
sings clear at the edge of night all alone in the greyness, the
nightingale's only rival; a rival like some unknown in the midst
of a crowd who for a moment leads some well-loved song, in notes
more liquid than a master-singer's; and all the crowd joins in and
his voice is lost, and no one learns his name. At once a host of
birds answered him out of dim bushes, whose shapes had barely as
yet emerged from night. And in this chorus Perez awoke, and even
Morano.

They all three breakfasted together, and then the wanderers said
good-bye to Perez. And soon he was gone with his bright blue sash,
drifting homewards with the Segre, well paid yet singing a little
sadly as he drifted; for he had been one of a quest, and now he
left it at the edge of adventure, near solemn mountains and,
beyond them, romantic, near-unknown lands. So Perez left and
Rodriguez and Morano turned again to the road, all the more
lightly because they had not done a full day's march for so long,
and now a great one unrolled its leagues before them.

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

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

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

Rodriguez and Morano pressed on, and the mountains cloaked
themselves as they went, in air of many colours; till the stars
came out and the lights of the village gleamed. In darkness, with
surprise in the tones of the barking dogs, the two wanderers came
to the village where so few ever came, for it lay at the end of
Spain, cut off by those mighty rocks, and they knew not much of
what lands lay beyond.

They beat on a door below a hanging board, on which was written
"The Inn of the World's End": a wandering scholar had written it
and had been well paid for his work, for in those days writing was
rare. The door was opened for them by the host of the inn, and
they entered a room in which men who had supped were sitting at a
table. They were all of them men from the Spanish side of the
mountains, farmers come into the village on the affairs of Mother
Earth; next day they would be back at their farms again; and of
the land the other side of the mountains that was so near now they
knew nothing, so that it still remained for the wanderers a thing
of mystery wherein romance could dwell: and because they knew
nothing of that land the men at the inn treasured all the more the
rumours that sometimes came from it, and of these they talked, and
mine host listened eagerly, to whom all tales were brought soon 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
of war. 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 crazy ambition without at moments suspecting it; but prove
it by the touchstone of fact and he becomes at once as a woman
whose invalid son, after years of seclusion indoors, wins
unexpectedly some athletic prize. When Rodriguez heard all this
talk of wars quite near he thought of his castle as already won;
his thoughts went further even, floating through Lowlight in the
glowing evening, and drifting up and down past Serafina's house
below the balcony where she sat for ever.

Some said the Duke would never attack the Prince because the
Duke's aunt was a princess from the Troubadour's country. Another
said that there would surely be war. Others said that there was
war already, and too 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, because
gunpowder 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 suited none.

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

"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 on before the last war was over.

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

They climbed all the morning and they came to the fir woods. There
they lit a good fire and Morano brought out his frying-pan. Over
the meal they took stock of their provisions and found that, for
all the store Morano had brought from the forest, they had now
only food for three days; and they were quite without money. Money
in those uplifted wastes seemed trivial, but the dwindling food
told Rodriguez that he must press on; for man came among those
rocky monsters supplied with all his needs, or perished unnoticed
before their stony faces. All the afternoon they passed through
the fir woods, and as shadows began to grow long they passed the
last tree. The village and all the fields about it and the road by
which they had come were all spread out below them like little
trivial things dimly remembered from very long ago by one whose
memory weakens. Distance had dwarfed them, and the cold regard of
those mighty peaks ignored them. And then a shadow fell on the
village, then tiny lights shone out. It was night down there.
Still the two wanderers climbed on in the daylight. With their
faces to the rocks they scarce saw night climb up behind them. But
when Rodriguez looked up at the sky to see how much light was
left, and met the calm gaze of the evening star, he saw that Night
and the peaks were met together, 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 his
master's words but with the rocks' angular hardness. There was
scarce a plant of any kind near them now. They were near the snow,
which had flushed like a wild rose at sunset but was now all grey.
Grey cliffs seemed to be gazing sheer at eternity; and here was
man, the creature of a moment, who had strayed in the cold all
homeless among his betters. There was no welcome for them there:
whatever feeling great mountains evoke, THAT feeling was clear in
Rodriguez and Morano. They were all amongst those that have other
aims, other ends, and know naught of man. A bitter chill from the
snow and from starry space drove this 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 to give shelter from the wind, and there sought sleep;
but cold came instead, and sleep kept far from the tremendous
presences of the peaks of the Pyrenees that gazed on things far
from here.

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

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

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

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

Rodriguez and Morano were warmed by that cold peak's glow, though
no warmth came from it at all; but the sight of it cheered them
and their pulses rallied, and so they grew warmer in that bitter
hour.

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

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

In the afternoon Rodriguez, tired with the journey and with the
heat of the sun, decided that it was possible to sleep, and,
wrapping his cloak around him, he lay down, doing what Morano
would have done, by instinct. Morano was asleep at once and
Rodriguez soon after. They awoke with the cold at sunset.

Refreshed amazingly they ate some food and started their walk
again to keep themselves warm for the night. They were still on
level ground and set 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 in the starlight they felt their path
dip, and knew that they were going downward now to the land of
Rodriguez' dreams.

When the peaks glowed again, first meeting day in her earliest
dancing-grounds of filmy air, they stood now behind the wanderers.
Below them still in darkness lay the land of their dream, but
hitherto it had always faded at dawn. Now hills put up their heads
one by one through films of mist; woods showed, then hedges, and
afterwards fields, 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, at moments believed by Morano not to exist on
earth, perhaps to have faded away when fables died, swept their
fatigue from the wanderers, and they stepped out helped by the
slope of the Pyrenees and cheered by the rising sun. They came at
last to things that welcome man, little shrubs flowering, and--at
noon--to the edge of a fir wood. They entered the wood and lit a
merry fire, and heard birds singing, at which they both rejoiced,
for the great peaks had said nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then they both questioned her. It seemed the wars were but
twenty miles away. "But they will move northward," she said.
"Surely they will move 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 a French farmer that had married a Spanish girl, out
of the wonderful land beyond the mountains: but whether he
understood her or not he never understood Spanish. But both
Rodriguez and the farmer's wife knew the two languages, and he had
no difficulty in asking for lodging for the night; and she looked
wistfully at him going to the wars, for in those days wars were
small and not every man went. The night went by with dreams that
were all on the verge of waking, which passed like ghosts along
the edge of night almost touched by the light of day. It was
Rodriguez whom these dreams visited. The farmer and his wife
wondered awhile and then slept; Morano slept with all his wonted
lethargy; but Rodriguez with his long quest now on the eve of
fulfilment slept a tumultuous sleep. Sometimes his dreams raced
over the Pyrenees, running south as far as Lowlight; and sometimes
they rushed forward and clung like bats to the towers of the great
castle that he should win in the war. And always he lay so near
the edge of sleep that he never distinguished quite between
thought and dream.

Dawn came and he put by all the dreams but the one that guided him
always, and went and woke Morano. They ate hurriedly and left the
house, and again the farmer's wife looked curiously at Rodriguez,
as though there were something strange in a man that went to wars:
for those days were not as these days. They followed the direction
that had been given them, and never had the two men walked so
fast. By the end of four hours they had done sixteen miles. They
halted then, and Morano drew out his frying-pan with a haughty
flourish, and cooked in the grand manner, every movement he made
was a triumphant gesture; for they had passed refugees! War was
now obviously close: they had but to take the way that the
refugees were not taking. The dream was true: Morano saw himself
walking slowly in splendid dress along the tapestried corridors of
his master's castle. He would have slept after eating and would
have dreamed more of this, but Rodriguez commanded him to put the
things together: so what remained of the food disappeared again in
a sack, the frying-pan was slung over his shoulders, and Morano
stood ready again for the road.

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

As they strolled through the twilight they came over the brow of a
hill, a little fold of the earth disturbed eras ago by the awful
rushing up of the Pyrenees; and they saw the evening darkening
over the fields 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 few more tents scattered near them. The tents had
come up that evening with the mist, for there were men still
hammering pegs. They were lighting fires now as evening settled
in. Two hundred paces or so separated each row. It was two armies
facing each other.

The gloaming faded: mist and the tents grew greyer: camp-fires
blinked out of the dimness and grew redder and redder, and candles
began to be lit beside the tents till all were glowing pale
golden: Rodriguez and Morano stood there wondering awhile as they
looked on the beautiful aura that surrounds the horrors of war.

They came by starlight to that tented field, by twinkling
starlight to the 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 nearest
tents, never doubting that he would be guided, though not trying
to comprehend how this could be.

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

"Senor," 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 he knew that he had a way with the mandolin. And
they said that they fought a battle on the morrow and could not
listen to song: they heaped scorn on singing for they said they
must needs prepare for the fight: and all of them looked with
scorn on the mandolin. So Rodriguez bowed low to them with doffed
hat and left them; and Morano bowed also, seeing his master bow;
and the men of that camp returned to their preparations. A short
walk brought Rodriguez and his servant to the other camp, over a
flat field convenient for battle. He went up to a large tent well
lit, the door being open towards him; and, having explained his
errand to a sentry that stood outside, he entered and saw three
persons of quality that were sitting at a table. To them he bowed
low in the tent door, saying: "Senors, I am come to sing songs to
you, playing the while upon my mandolin."

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

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

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

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

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

"Morano," said Rodriguez, "there seems to be truth in that. Yet
must we fight for the right. For how would it be if those that
have denied song should 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
your castle?"

"As for that," said Rodriguez, "it must some day be won, yet not
by denying song. These have given a welcome to song, and the
others have driven it forth. And what would life be if those that
deny song are to be 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.
And they gave him a casque and breast-plate, proof, they said,
against any sword, and offered a sword that they said would surely
cleave any breast-plate. For they fought not in battle with the
nimble rapier. But Rodriguez did not forsake that famous exultant
sword whose deeds he knew from many an ancient song; which he had
brought so far to give it its old rich drink of blood. He believed
it the bright key of the castle he was to win.

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

Dawn came and he slept on still; but by seven all the camp was
loudly astir, for they had promised the enemy to begin the battle
at eight. Rodriguez breakfasted lightly; for, now that the day of
his dreams was come at last and all his hopes depended on the day,
an anxiety for many things oppressed him. It was as though his
castle, rosy and fair in dreams, chilled with its huge cold rocks
all the air near it: it was as though Rodriguez touched it at last
with his hands and felt a dankness of 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
was not yet ready and so they had to wait.

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

Now the leaders of that fair army scorned all unknightly devices,
and would never have descended to any vile ruse de querre. The
reproach can therefore never be made against them that they ever
intended to outflank their enemy. Yet, when both armies advanced
after the discharge of the musketoons and the merry noise of the
cannon, this occurred as the result of chance, which no leader can
be held accountable 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
were empty, had already chosen his adversary. For he had carefully
watched those opposite to him, before any smoke should obscure
them, and had selected the one who from the splendour of his dress
might be expected to possess the finest castle. Certainly this
adversary outshone those amongst whom he stood, and gave fair
promise of owning goodly possessions, for he wore a fine green
cloak over a dress of lilac, and his helm and cuirass had a look
of crafty workmanship. Towards him Rodriguez marched.

Then began fighting foot to foot, and there was a pretty laying on
of swords. And had there been a poet there that day then the story
of their fight had come down to you, my reader, all that way from
the Pyrenees, down all those hundreds of years, and this tale of
mine had been useless, the lame repetition in prose of songs that
your nurses had 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 dints appeared, and beat it with swift strokes yet till the
dints were cracks, and beat the cracks till hair began to appear:
and all the while his adversary's strokes grew weaker and wilder,
until he tottered to earth and Rodriguez had won. Swift then as
cats, while Morano kept off others, Rodriguez leaped to his
throat, and, holding up the stiletto that he had long ago taken as
his legacy from the host of the Dragon and Knight, he demanded the
fallen man's castle as ransom for his life.

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

"Yes," said Rodriguez impatiently.

"Yes, senor," 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
last was well.

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

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

And so Rodriguez was left undisturbed in possession of his
prisoner and with the promise of his castle as a ransom. The
battle was swiftly over, as must needs be where little armies meet
so close. The enemy's camp was occupied, his army routed, and
within an hour of beginning the battle 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.
And Rodriguez had honour among them because he had fought on the
right and so was one of those that had broken the enemy's left,
from which direction victory had come. And they would have feasted
him and done him honour, both for his work with the sword and for
his songs to the mandolin; and they would have marched away soon
to their own country and 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 the fulfilment of his
dream. And therefore he thanked the leaders of that host with many
a courtesy and many a well-bent bow, and explained to them how it
was about his castle, and felicitated them on the victory of their
good cause, and so wished them farewell. And they said farewell
sorrowfully: but when they saw he would go, they gave him horses
for himself and Morano, and another for his captive; and they
heaped them with sacks of provender and blankets and all things
that could give him comfort upon a journey: all this they brought
him out of their spoils of war, and they would give him no less
that the most that the horses could carry. And then Rodriguez
turned to his captive again, who now stood on his feet.

"Senor," he said, "pray tell us all of your castle wherewith you
ransom your life."

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

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

They got to horse then, all three; the captive on a horse of far
poorer build than the other two and well-laden with sacks, for
Rodriguez took no chance of his castle cantering, as it were, away
from him on four hooves through the dust.

And when they heard that his journey was by way of the Pyrenees
four knights of that army swore they would ride with him as far as
the frontier of Spain, to bear him company and bring him fuel in
the lonely cold of the mountains. They all set off and the merry
army cheered. He left them making ready for their banquet, and
never knew the cause for which he had fought.

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

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

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

"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
thanked Satan.

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

In the morning they were gone. They became a memory, which
lingered like a vision, made partly of sunset and partly of the
splendour of their cloaks, and so went down the years that those
two folk had, a thing of romance, magnificence and fear. And now
the slope of the mountain began to lift against them, and they
rode slowly towards those unearthly peaks that had deserted the
level fields before ever man came to them, and that sat there now
familiar with stars and dawn with the air of never having known of
man. And as they rode they talked. And Rodriguez talked with the
four knights that rode with him, and they told tales of war and
told of the ways of fighting of many men: and Morano rode behind
them beside the captive and questioned him all the morning about
his castle in Spain. And at first the captive answered his
questions slowly, as if he were weary, or as though he were long
from home and remembered its features dimly; but memory soon
returned and he answered clearly, telling of such a castle as
Morano had not dreamed; 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 to trees; they tied blankets to branches and made an
encampment; and in the midst of it they made a fire, at first,
with pine-needles and the dead lower twigs and then with great
logs. And there they feasted together, all seven, around the fire.
And when the feast was over and the great logs burning well, and
red sparks went up slowly towards the silver stars, Morano turned
to the prisoner seated beside him and "Tell the senors," he said,
"of my master's castle."

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

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

He told of strange rocks rising from the Ebro; of buttresses built
among them in unremembered times; of the great towers lifting up
in multitudes from the buttresses; and of the mighty wall,
windowless until it came to incredible heights, where the windows
shone all safe from any ladder of war.

At first they felt in his story his pride in his lost home, and
wondered, when he told of the height of his towers, how much he
added in pride. And then the force of that story gripped them all
and they doubted never a battlement, but each man's fancy saw
between firelight and starlight every tower clear in the air. And
at great height upon those marvellous towers the turrets of arches
were; queer carvings grinned down from above inaccessible
windows; and the towers gathered in light from the lonely air
where nothing stood but they, and flashed it far over Aragon; and
the Ebro floated by them always new, always amazed by their
beauty.

He spoke to the six listeners on the lonely mountain, slowly,
remembering mournfully; and never a story that Romance has known
and told 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 not reach to them but failed in the night, giving
place to the white stars.

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

He told of the upper terraces, where heliotrope and aloe and
oleander took sunlight far above their native earth: and though
but rare winds carried the butterflies there, such as came to
those fragrant terraces lingered 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 on uninterrupted, holding them as by a spell, with his eyes
fixed far away on black crags of the Pyrenees, telling of his
great towers: almost it might have seemed he was speaking of
mountains. And when the fire was only a deep red glow and white
ash showed all round it, and he ceased speaking, having told of a
castle marvellous even amongst the towers of Spain: all sitting
round the embers felt sad with his sadness, for his sad 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 tall
towers the captive should keep and should live in it for ever. And
the sad man thanked him sadly and showed no joy.

When the tale of the castle and those great towers was done, the
wind that blew from the snow touched all the hearers; they had
seemed to be away by the bank of the Ebro in the heat and light of
Spain, and now the vast night stripped them and the peaks seemed
to close round on them. They wrapped themselves in blankets and
lay down in their shelters. For a while they heard the wind waving
branches and the thump of a horse's hoof restless at night; then
they all slept except one that guarded the captive, and the
captive himself who long lay thinking and thinking.

Dawn stole through the wood and waked none of the sleepers; the
birds all shouted at them, still they slept on; and then the
captive's guard wakened Morano and he stirred up the sparks of the
fire and cooked, and they breakfasted late. And soon they left the
wood and faced the bleak slope, 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
and contemptuous away from the things of man.

In the presence of those that bore them company Rodriguez and
Morano felt none of the deadly majesty of those peaks that regard
so awfully over the solitudes. They passed through them telling
cheerfully of wars the four knights had known: and descended and
came by sunset to the lower edge of the snow. They pushed on a
little farther and then camped; and with branches from the last
camp that they had heaped on their horses they made another great
fire and, huddling round it in the blankets that they had brought,
found warmth even there so far from the hearths of men.

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

"Senors," 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.

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

And even Morano babbled a supplication.

"Methinks, senor," 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 push the frontier with us, adding the
lands over which we march to those of our liege lord."

"Senors," said Rodriguez, "the whole mountain is the frontier.
Come with us one day further." But they would not stay.

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

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

They came to the foot of the mountains, and rode on past the Inn
of the World's End. They camped in the open; and all night long
Rodriguez or Morano 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
turned further west ward to come to Aragon further up the Ebro.
All the way they avoided houses and camped in the open, for they
kept their captive to themselves: and they slept warm with their
ample store of blankets. And all the while the captive seemed
morose or ill at ease, speaking seldom and, when he did, in
nervous jerks.

Morano, as they rode, or by the camp fire at evening, still
questioned him now and then about his castle; and sometimes he
almost seemed to contradict himself, but in so vast a castle may
have been many styles of architecture, and it was difficult to
trace a contradiction among all those towers and turrets. His name
was Don Alvidar-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 his strange adventures. The captive listened with his
sombre air. But when Rodriguez told how they woke on the mountain
after their journey to the sun; and the sun was shining on their
faces in the open, but the magician and his whole house were gone;
then there came another look into Alvidar's eyes. And Rodriguez
ended his tale and silence fell, broken only by Morano saying
across the fire, "It is true," and the captive's thoughtful eyes
gazed into the darkness. And then he also spoke.

"Senor," he said, "near to my rose-pink castle which looks into
the Ebro dwells a magician also."

"Is it so?" said Rodriguez.

"Indeed so, senor," said Don Alvidar. "He is my enemy but dwells
in awe of 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
and my poultry. And he wears a thin, high hat: his beard is also
extraordinary."

"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 one
story. The walls are white and it is well thatched. The windows
are painted green; there are two doors in it and by one of them
grows a rose 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
like any small farmhouse in Spain.

"He much affects mortal ways," replied Don Alvidar.

Little more was then said, the fire being low: and Rodriguez lay
down to sleep while Morano guarded the captive.

And the day after that they came to Aragon, and in one day more
they were across the Ebro; and then they rode west for a day along
its southern bank looking all the while as they rode for
Rodriguez' castle. And more and more silent and aloof, as they
rode, grew Don Alvidar-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, a jolly 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
nothing but rode on in haste, a dim hope in his mind that
explanations at the white cottage might do something for his lost
castle.

And when the hooves were heard a woman came out of the cottage
door by the rose tree leading a small child by the hand. And the
captive called to the woman, "Maria, we are lost. And I gave my
great castle with rose-pink towers that stood just here as ransom
to this senor for my life. But now, alas, I see that that magician
who dwelt in the house where you are now has taken it whither we
know not."

"Yes, Pedro," said the woman, "he took it yesterday." And she
turned blue eyes upon Rodriguez.

And then Morano would be silent no longer. He had thought vaguely
for some days and intensely for the last few hundreds yards, and
now he blurted out the thoughts that boiled in him.

"Master," he shouted, "he has sold his cattle and bought this
raiment of his, and that helmet that you opened up for him, and
never had any castle 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 the
woman whose eyes were on him still.

"Was there a castle in this place?" he said.

"Yes, senor. 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
frightened voice, holding up a small cross that it had been taught
to revere. "I swear it too," it said.

Rodriguez heaved a sigh and turned away. "Master," Morano cried in
pained 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 up his horse. He gave its reins to the scowling Morano but
Rodriguez said never a word. Then he ran round and kissed
Rodriguez' hand, who still was silent, for his hopes were lost
with the castle; but he nodded his head 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
the horse that Morano led, as well as blankets, which gave them
comfort at night. That night they both got the sleep they needed,
now that there was no captive to guard. All the next day they rode
slowly in the April weather by roads that wandered among tended
fields; but a little way off from the fields there shone low hills
in the sunlight, so wild, so free of man, that Rodriguez
remembering them in later years, wondered if their wild shrubs
just hid the frontiers of fairyland.

For two days they rode by the edge of unguessable regions. Had Pan
piped there no one had marvelled, nor though fauns had scurried
past sheltering clumps of azaleas. In the twilight no tiny queens
had court within rings of toadstools: yet almost, almost they
appeared.

And on the third day all at once they came to a road they knew. It
was the 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 the road they knew, as wanderers always will; and, still
without aim or plan, they faced towards Shadow Valley. And in the
evening of the day that followed that, as they looked about for a
camping-ground, there came in sight the village on the hill which
Rodriguez knew to be fifty miles from the forest: it was the
village in which they had rested the first night after leaving
Shadow Valley. They did not camp but went on to the village and
knocked at the door of the inn. Habit guides us all at times, even
kings are the slaves of it (though in their presence it takes the
prouder name of precedent); and here were two wanderers without
any plans at all; they were therefore defenceless in the grip of
habit and, seeing an inn they knew, they loitered up to it. Mine
host came again to the door. He cheerfully asked Rodriguez how he
had fared on his journey, but Rodriguez would say nothing. He
asked for lodging for himself and Morano and stabling for the
horses: he ate and slept and paid his due, and in the morning was
gone.

Whatever impulses guided Rodriguez as he rode and Morano followed,
he knew not what they were or even that there could be any. He
followed the 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
was still raw; but it pleased him to notice, as he had done all
day, that they were heading for the great forest. He cooked their
evening meal in their camp by the wayside and they both ate it in
silence. For awhile Rodriguez sat and gazed at the might-have-
beens in the camp-fire: and when these began to be hidden by white
ash he went to his blankets and slept. And Morano went quietly
about the little camp, doing all that needed to be done, with
never a word. When the horses were seen to and fed, when the
knives were cleaned, when everything was ready for the start next
morning, Morano went to his blankets and slept too. And in the
morning again they wandered on.

That evening they saw the low gold rays of the sun enchanting the
tops of a forest. It almost surprised Rodriguez, travelling
without an aim, to recognise Shadow Valley. They quickened their
slow pace and, before twilight faded, they were under the great
oaks; but the last of the twilight could not pierce the dimness of
Shadow Valley, and it seemed as if night had entered the forest
with them.

They chose a camping-ground as well as they could in the darkness
and Morano tied the horses to trees a little way off from the
camp. Then he returned to Rodriguez and tied a blanket to the
windward side of two trees to make a kind of bedroom for his
master, for they had all the blankets they needed. And when this
was done he set the emblem and banner of camps, anywhere all over
the world in any time, for he gathered sticks and branches and lit
a camp-fire. The first red flames went up and waved and proclaimed
a camp: the light made a little circle, shadows ran away to the
forest, and the circle of light on the ground and on the trees
that stood round it became for that one night home.

They heard the horses stamp as they always did in the early part
of the night; and then Morano went to give them their fodder.
Rodriguez sat and gazed into the fire, his mind as full of
thoughts as the fire was full of pictures: one by one the pictures
in the fire fell in; and all his thoughts led nowhere.

He heard Morano running back the thirty or forty yards he had gone
from the camp-fire "Master," Morano said, "the three horses are
gone."

"Gone?" said Rodriguez. There was little more to say; it was too
dark to track them and he knew that to find three horses in Shadow
Valley was a task that might take years. And after more thought
than might seem to have been needed he said; "We must go on foot."

"Have we far to go, master?" said Morano, for the first time
daring to question him since they left the cottage in Spain.

"I have nowhere to go," said Rodriguez. His head was downcast as
he sat by the fire: Morano stood and looked at him unhappily, full
of a sympathy that he found no words to express. A light wind
slipped through the branches and everything else was still. It was
some while before he lifted his head; and then he saw before him
on the other side of the fire, standing with folded arms, the man
in the brown leather jacket.

"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
many songs that prove it."

Rodriguez made no answer but dropped his eyes, gazing with
listless glance once more at the ground. "Come, senor," said the
man in the leather jacket. "None are unhappy in Shadow Valley."

"Who are you?" said Rodriguez. Both he and Morano were gazing
curiously at the man whom they had saved three weeks ago from the
noose.

"Your friend," answered the stranger.

"No friend can help me," said Rodriguez.

"Senor," said the stranger across the fire, still standing with
folded arms, "I remain under an obligation to no man. If you have
an enemy or love a lady, and if they dwell within a hundred miles,
either shall be before you within a week."

Rodriguez shook his head, and silence fell by the camp-fire. And
after awhile Rodriguez, who was accustomed to dismiss a subject
when it was ended, saw the stranger's eyes on him yet, still
waiting for him to say more. And those clear blue eyes seemed to
do more than wait, seemed almost to command, till they overcame
Rodriguez' will and he obeyed and said, although he could feel
each word struggling to stay unuttered, "Senor, 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 my servant here;
but the wars are over and no castle is won."

And the stranger saw by his face in the firelight, and knew from
the tones of his voice in the still night, the trouble that his
words had not expressed.

"I remain under an obligation to no man," said the stranger. "Be
at this place in four weeks' time, and you shall have a castle as
large as any that men win by war, and a goodly park thereby."

"Your castle, master!" said Morano delighted, whose only thought
up to then was as to who had got his horses. But Rodriguez only
stared: and the stranger said no more but turned on his heel. And
then Rodriguez awoke out of his silence and wonder. "But where?"
he said. "What castle?"

"That you will see," said the stranger.

"But, but how ..." said Rodriguez. What he meant was, "How can I
believe you?" but he did not put it in words.

"My word was never broken," said the other. And that is a good
boast to make, 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
though something had been cast on it. "The word," he said, "of the
King of Shadow Valley."

Rodriguez gazing through the increasing smoke saw not to the other
side. 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 in
silence. Morano was bubbling over to speak, but respected his
master's silence: for Rodriguez was gazing into the deeps of the
fire seeing pictures there that were brighter than any that he had
known. They were so clear now that they seemed almost true. He saw
Serafina's face there looking 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 were
glittering with shrewd conviction.

"What shall we do then?" said Rodriguez.

"Let us go to some village, master," said Morano, "until the time
he said."

"What village?" Rodriguez asked.

"I know not, master," answered Morano, his face a puzzle of
innocence and wonder; and Rodriguez fell back into thought again.
And the dancing flames calmed down to a deep, quiet glow; and soon
Rodriguez stepped back a yard or two from the fire to where Morano
had prepared his bed; and, watching the fire still, and turning
over thoughts that flashed and changed as fast as the embers, he
went to wonderful dreams that were 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
was a smell of bacon; and Morano, out of breath and puzzled, was
calling to him.

"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
my knots."

Rodriguez left it at that. Morano could make mistakes and the
forest was full of wonders: anything might happen. "We will ride,"
he said.

Morano's breakfast was as good as ever; and, when he had packed up
those few belongings that make a dwelling-place of any chance spot
in the wilderness, they mounted the horses, which were surely
there, and rode away through sunlight and green leaves. They rode
slow, for the branches were low over the path, and whoever canters
in a forest and closes his eyes against a branch has to consider
whether he will open them to be whipped by the next branch or
close them till he bumps his head into a tree. And it suited
Rodriguez to loiter, for he thought thus to meet the King of
Shadow Valley again or his green bowmen and learn the answers to
innumerable questions about his castle which were wandering
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 the
bowmen 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 they approached the sound of chopping ceased. Again and
again they left the track and rode towards the sound of chopping,
and every time the chopping died away just as they drew close.
They saw many a tree half felled, but never a green bowman. And at
last they left it as one of the wonders of the forest and returned
to the track lest they lose it, for the track was more important
to them than curiosity, and evening had come and was filling the
forest with dimness, and shadows stealing across the track were
beginning to hide it away. In the distance they heard the
invisible woodmen chopping.

And then they camped again and lit their fire; and night came down
and the two wanderers slept.

The nightingale sang until he woke the cuckoo: and the cuckoo
filled the leafy air so full of his two limpid notes that the
dreams of Rodriguez heard them and went away, back over their
border to dreamland. Rodriguez awoke Morano, who lit his fire: and
soon they had struck their camp and were riding on.

By noon they saw that if they hurried on they could come to
Lowlight by nightfall. But this was not Rodriguez' plan, for he
had planned to ride into Lowlight, as he had done once before, at
the hour when Serafina sat in her balcony in the cool of the
evening, as Spanish ladies in those days sometimes did. So they
tarried long by their resting-place at noon and then rode slowly
on. And when they camped that night they were still in the forest.

"Morano," said Rodriguez over the camp-fire, "tomorrow brings me
to Lowlight."

"Aye, master," said Morano, "we shall be there tomorrow."

"That senor 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
should stay in this camp while I give such greetings of ceremony
in Lowlight as courtesy demands."

"I will stay, master," said Morano.

Rodriguez was glad that this was settled, for he felt that to
follow his dreams of so many nights to that balconied house in
Lowlight with Morano would be no better than visiting a house
accompanied by a dog that had bitten one of the family.

"I will stay," repeated Morano. "But, master ..." The fat man's
eyes were all supplication.

"Yes?" said Rodriguez.

"Leave me your mandolin," implored Morano.

"My mandolin?" said Rodriguez.

"Master," said Morano, "that senor who likes my fat body so ill he
would 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
his sword, but he smiled as he looked at Morano's anxious face.

"He would kill you for your mandolin," Morano went on eagerly, "as
he would kill me for my frying-pan."

And at the mention of that frying-pan Rodriguez frowned, although
it had 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 under the balcony of his heart's desire without a
mandolin.

So Rodriguez would hear no more of Morano's request; and soon he
left the fire and went to lie down; but Morano sighed and sat
gazing on into the embers unhappily; while thoughts plodded slow
through his mind, leading to nothing. Late that night he threw
fresh logs on the camp-fire, so that when they awoke there was
still fire in the embers And when they had eaten their breakfast
Rodriguez said farewell to Morano, saying that he had business in
Lowlight that might keep him a few days. But Morano said not
farewell then, for he would follow his master as far as the midday
halt to cook his next meal. And when noon came they were beyond
the forest.

Once more Morano cooked bacon. Then while Rodriguez slept Morano
took his cloak and did all that could be done by brushing and
smoothing to give back to it that air that it some time had,
before it had flapped upon so many winds and wrapped Rodriguez on
such various beds, and met the 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
and gave Morano his orders. He was to go back with two of the
horses to their last camp in the forest and take with him all
their kit except one blanket and make himself comfortable there
and wait till Rodriguez came.

And then Rodriguez rode slowly away, and Morano stood gazing
mournfully and warningly at the mandolin; and the warnings were
not lost upon Rodriguez, though he would never admit that he saw
in Morano's staring eyes any wise hint that he heeded.

And Morano sighed, and went and untethered his horses; and soon he
was riding lonely back to the forest. And Rodriguez taking the
other way saw at once the towers of Lowlight.

Does my reader think that he then set spurs to his horse,
galloping towards 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 the light with never a whisper says farewell to
Earth, but with a gesture that the horizon hides takes silent
leave of the fields on which she has danced with joy; far yet from
the hour that shone for Serafina like a 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 the Chronicles of Rodriguez, who of all the things that
befell him treasured most his memory of Serafina in the twilight,
and who held that this hour was hers as much as her raiment and
her balcony: such therefore it is in these chronicles.

And so he loitered, waiting for the slow sun to set: and when at
last a tint on the walls of Lowlight came with the magic of
Earth's most faery hour he rode in slowly not perhaps wholly
unwitting, for all his anxious thoughts of Serafina, that a little
air of romance from the Spring and the evening followed this
lonely rider.

From some way off he saw that balcony that had drawn him back from
the other side of the far Pyrenees. Sometimes he knew that it drew
him and mostly he knew it not; yet always that curved balcony
brought him nearer, ever since he turned from the field of the
false Don Alvidar: the balcony held him with invisible threads,
such as those with which Earth draws in the birds at evening. And
there was Serafina in her balcony.

When Rodriguez saw Serafina sitting there in the twilight, just as
he had often dreamed, he looked no more but lowered his head to
the withered rose that he carried now in his hand, the rose that
he had found by that very balcony under another moon. And, gazing
still at the rose, he rode on under the balcony, and passed it,
until his hoof-beats were heard no more in Lowlight and he and his
horse were one dim shape between the night and the twilight. And
still he held on.

He knew not yet, but only guessed, who had thrown that rose from
the balcony on the night when he slept on the dust: he knew not
who it was that he fought on the same night, and dared not guess
what that unknown hidalgo 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 in silence. And he knew as he rode that the
cloak and the plume that he wore scarce seemed the same as those
that had floated by when more than a month ago he had ridden past
that balcony; and the withered rose that he 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 good fortune that govern all men, but that favour youth.

And, sure enough, it was not yet wholly moonlight when cantering
hooves came down the road behind him. It was once more that young
hidalgo. And as soon as he drew rein beside Rodriguez both reached
out merry hands as though their former meeting had been some
errand of joy. And as Rodriguez looked him in the eyes, while the
two men leaned over clasping hands, in light still clear though
faded, he could not doubt Serafina was his sister.

"Senor," said his old enemy, "will you tarry with us, in our house
a few days, if your journey is not urgent?"

Rodriguez gasped for joy; for the messenger from Lowlight, the
certainty that here was no rival, the summons to the house of his
dreams' pilgrimage, came all together: his hand still clasped the
stranger's. Yet he answered with the due ceremony that that age
and land demanded: then they turned and rode together towards
Lowlight. And first the young men told each other their names; and
the stranger told how he dwelt with his mother and sister in the
house that Rodriguez knew, and his name was Don Alderon of the
Valley of Dawnlight. His house had dwelt in that valley since
times out of knowledge; but then the Moors had come and his
forbears had fled to Lowlight: the Moors were gone now, for which
Saint Michael and all fighting Saints be praised; but there were
certain difficulties about his right to the Valley of Dawnlight.
So they dwelt in Lowlight still.

And Rodriguez told of the war that there was beyond the Pyrenees
and how the just cause had won, but little more than that he was
able to tell, for he knew scarce more of the cause for which he
had fought than History knows of it, who chooses her incidents and
seems to forget so much. And as they talked they came to the house
with the balcony. A waning moon cast light over it that was now no
longer twilight; but was the light of wild things of the woods,
and birds of prey, and men in mountains outlawed by the King, and
magic, and mystery, and the quests of love. Serafina had left her
place: lights gleamed now in the windows. And when the door was
opened the hall seemed to Rodriguez so much less hugely hollow, so
much less full of ominous whispered echoes, that his courage rose
high as he went through it with Alderon, and they entered the room
together that they had entered together before. In the long room
beyond many candles he saw Dona Serafina and her mother rising up
to greet him. Neither the ceremonies of that age nor Rodriguez'
natural calm would have entirely concealed his emotion had not his
face been hidden as he bowed. They spoke to him; they asked him of
his travels; Rodriguez answered with effort. He saw by their
manner that Don Alderon must have explained much in his favour. He
had this time, to cheer him, a very different greeting; and yet he
felt little more at ease than when he had stood there late at
night before, with one eye bandaged and wearing only one shoe,
suspected of he knew not what brawling and violence.

It was not until Dona Mirana, the mother of Serafina, asked him to
play to them on his mandolin that Rodriguez' ease returned. He
bowed then and brought round his mandolin, which had been slung
behind him; and knew a triumphant champion was by him now, one old
in the ways of love and wise in the sorrows of man, a slender but
potent voice, well-skilled to tell what there were not words to
say; a voice unhindered by language, unlimited even by thought,
whose universal meaning was heard and understood, sometimes
perhaps by wandering spirits of light, beaten far by some evil
thought for their heavenly courses and passing close along the
coasts of Earth.

And Rodriguez played no tune he had ever known, nor any airs that
he had heard men play in lanes in Andalusia; but he told of things
that he knew not, of sadnesses that he had scarcely felt and
undreamed exaltations. It was the hour of need, and the mandolin
knew.

And when all was told that the mandolin can tell of whatever is
wistfulest in the spirit of man, a mood of merriment entered its
old curved sides and there came from its hollows a measure such as
they dance to when laughter goes over the greens in Spain. Never a
song sang Rodriguez; the mandolin said all.

And what message did Serafina receive from those notes that were
strange even to Rodriguez? Were they not stranger to her? I have
said that spirits blown far out of their course and nearing the
mundane coasts hear mortal music sometimes, and hearing
understand. And if they cannot understand those snatches of song,
all about mortal things and human needs, that are wafted rarely to
them by chance passions, how much more surely a young mortal
heart, so near Rodriguez, heard what he would say and understood
the message however strange.

When Dona Mirana and her daughter rose, exchanging their little
curtsies for the low bows of Rodriguez, and so retired for the
night, the long room seemed to Rodriguez now empty of threatening
omens. The great portraits that the moon had lit, and that had
frowned at him in the 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 faces of dead generations had gone with the
gloom that it haunted: they were all passionless now in the quiet
light of the candles. He looked again at the portraits eye to eye,
remembering looks they had given him in the moonlight, and all
looked back at him with ages of apathy; and he knew that whatever
glimmer of former selves there lurks about portraits of the dead
and gone was thinking only of their own past days in years remote
from Rodriguez. Whether their anger had flashed for a moment over
the ages on that night a month from now, or whether it was only
the moonlight, he never knew. Their spirits were back now surely
amongst their own days, whence they deigned not to look on the
days that make these chronicles.

Not till then did Rodriguez admit, or even know, that he had not
eaten since his noonday meal. But now he admitted this to Don
Alderon's questions; and Don Alderon led him to another chamber
and there regaled him with all the hospitality for which that time
was famous. And when Rodriguez had eaten, Don Alderon sent for
wine, and the butler brought it in an olden flagon, dark wine of a
precious vintage: and soon the two young men were drinking
together and talking of the wickedness of the Moors. And while
they talked the night grew late and chilly and still, and the hour
came when moths are fewer and young men think of bed. Then Don
Alderon showed his guest to an upper room, a long room dim with
red hangings, and carvings in walnut and oak, which the one candle
he carried barely lit but only set queer shadows scampering. And
here he left Rodriguez, who was soon in bed, with the great red
hangings round him. And awhile he wondered at the huge silence of
the house all round him, with never a murmur, never an echo, never
a sigh; for he missed the passing of winds, branches waving, the
stirring of small beasts, birds of prey calling, and the hundred
sounds of the night; but soon through the silence came sleep.

He did not need to dream, for here in the home of Serafina he had
come to his dreams' end.

Another day shone on another scene; for the sunlight that went in
a narrow stream of gold and silver between the huge red curtains
had sent away the shadows that had stalked overnight through the
room, and had scattered the eeriness that had lurked on the far
side of furniture, and all the dimness was gone that the long red
room had harboured. And for a while Rodriguez did not know where
he was; and for a while, when he remembered, he could not believe
it true. He dressed with care, almost with fear, and preened his
small moustachios, which at last had grown again just when he
would have despaired. Then he descended, and found that he had
slept late, though the three of that ancient house were seated yet
at the table, and Serafina all dressed in white seemed to
Rodriguez to be shining in rivalry with the morning. Ah dreams and
fancies 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
side with them, there lodged in his memory, and went down with
them into his latter years, the days and nights when he went
through the Pyrenees and walked when he would have slept but had
to walk or freeze: and by some queer rule that guides us he
treasured them both in his memory, these happy days in this garden
and the frozen nights on the peaks.

For Serafina showed Rodriguez the garden that behind the house ran
narrow and long to the wild. There were rocks with heliotrope
pouring over them and flowers peeping behind them, and great
azaleas all in triumphant bloom, and ropes of flowering creepers
coming down from trees, and oleanders, and a plant named popularly
Joy of the South, and small 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
among the great azaleas before you lost sight of the gables; and
you did not go far before the small paths ended with their shells
from the distant sea, and there was the mistress of all gardeners
facing you, Mother Nature nursing her children, the things of the
wild. She too had azaleas and oleanders, but they stood more
solitary in their greater garden than those that grew in the
garden of Dona Mirana; and she too had little paths, only they
were without borders and without end. Yet looking from the long
and narrow garden at the back of that house in Lowlight to the
wider garden that sweeps round the world, and is fenced by 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 solitary
azaleas beyond were gathered together by distance, and from
Lowlight to the horizon seemed all one garden in bloom. And
afterwards, all his years, 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
the cool of the morning or went at evening to water favourite
blooms. And Rodriguez would bring with him his mandolin, and
sometimes he touched it lightly or even sang, as they rested on
some carved seat at the garden's end, looking out towards shadowy
shrubs on the shining hill, but mostly he heard her speak of the
things she loved, of what moths flew to their garden, and which
birds sang, and how the flowers grew. Serafina sat no longer in
her balcony but, disguising idleness by other names, they loitered
along those paths that the seashells narrowed; yet there was a
grace in their loitering such as we have not in our dances now.
And evening stealing in from the wild places, from darkening
azaleas upon distant hills, still found them in the garden, found
Rodriguez singing in idleness undisguised, or anxiously helping in
some trivial task, tying up some tendril that had gone awry,
helping some magnolia that the wind had wounded. Almost unnoticed
by him the sunlight would disappear, and the coloured blaze of the
sunset, and then the gloaming; till the colours of all the flowers
queerly changed and they shone with that curious glow which they
wear in the dusk. They returned then to the house, the garden
behind them with its dim hushed air of a secret, before them the
candlelight like a different land. And after the evening meal
Alderon and Rodriguez would sit late together discussing the
future of the world, Rodriguez holding that it was intended that
the earth should be ruled by Spain, and Alderon fearing it would
all go to the Moors.

Days passed thus.

And then one evening Rodriguez was in the garden with Serafina;
the flowers, dim and pale and more mysterious than ever, poured
out their scent towards the coming night, luring huge hawk-moths
from the far dusk that was gathering about the garden, to hover
before each bloom on myriad wingbeats too rapid for human eye:
another inch and the fairies had peeped out from behind azaleas,
yet both of these late loiterers felt fairies were surely there:
it seemed to be Nature's own most secret hour, upon which man
trespasses if he venture forth from his house: an owl from his
hidden haunt flew nearer the garden and uttered a clear call once
to remind Rodriguez of this: and Rodriguez did not heed, but
walked in silence.

He had played his mandolin. It had uttered to the solemn hush of
the understanding 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 he went dumb and mournful.

Serafina would have heard him had he spoken, for her thoughts
vibrated yet with the voice of the mandolin, which had come to her
hearing as an ambassador from Rodriguez, but he found no words to
match with the mandolin's high mood. His eyes said, and his sighs
told, what the mandolin had uttered; but his tongue was silent.

And then Serafina said, as he walked all heavy with silence past a
curving slope of dimly glowing azaleas, "You like flowers, senor?"

"Senorita, 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 or
altogether faded flower that you carried, unless I fancied wrong,
when you rode past our balcony?"

"It was indeed faded," said Rodriguez, "for the rose was some
weeks old."

"One who loved flowers, I thought," said Serafina, "would perhaps
care more for them fresh."

Half-dumb though Rodriguez was his shrewdness did not desert him.
To have said that he had the rose from Serafina would have been to
claim as though proven what was yet no more than a hope.

"Senorita," 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
evening the ghost of that rose introduced their spirits one to the
other, so that the listening flowers heard Rodriguez telling the
story of his heart, and, bending over the shell-bordered path,
heard Serafina's answer; and all they seemed to do was but to
watch the evening, with leaves uplifted in the hope of rain.

Film after film of dusk dropped down from where twilight had been,
like an army of darkness slowly pitching their tents on ground
that had been lost to the children of light. Out of the wild lands
all the owls flew nearer: their long, clear cries and the huge
hush between them warned all those lands that this was not man's
hour. And neither Rodriguez nor Serafina heard them.

In pale blue sky where none had thought to see it one smiling star
appeared. It was Venus watching lovers, as men of the crumbled
centuries had besought her to do, when they named her so long ago,
kneeling upon their hills with bended heads, and arms stretched
out to her sweet eternal scrutiny. Beneath her wandering rays as
they danced down to bless them Rodriguez and Serafina talked low
in the sight of the goddess, and their voices swayed through the
flowers with whispers and winds, not troubling the little wild
creatures that steal out shy in the dusk, and Nature forgave them
for being abroad in that hour; although, so near that a single
azalea seemed to hide it, so near seemed 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.
Don Alderon renewed his talk with Rodriguez, giving reasons for
his apprehension of the conquest of the world by the Moors, which
he had thought of since last night; and Rodriguez agreed with all
that Don Alderon said, but understood little, being full of dreams
that seemed to 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 and said 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
swiftness of the wing from which it came; on darting journeys
outspeeding the lithe swallow or that great wanderer the white-
fronted goose, his young thoughts raced by a myriad of golden
evenings far down the future years. And what of the days he saw?
Did he see them truly? Enough that he saw them in vision. Saw them
as some lone shephered on lifted downs sees 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 new songs; 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
but to observe the courtesies appropriate to this occasion, for
Dona Mirana and her daughter had spoken long together already; and
of one thing he could say little, and indeed was dumb when asked
of it, and that was the question of his home. And then he said
that he had a castle; and when Dona Mirana asked him where it was
he said vaguely it was to the North. He trusted the word of the
King of Shadow Valley and so he spoke of his castle as a man
speaks the truth. And when she asked him of his castle again,
whether on rock or river or in leafy lands, he began to describe
how its ten towers stood, being builded of a rock that was
slightly pink, and how they glowed across a hundred fields,
especially at evening; and suddenly he ceased, perceiving all in a
moment he was speaking unwittingly in the words of Don Alvidar and
describing to Dona Mirana that rose-pink castle on Ebro. And Dona
Mirana knew then that there was some mystery about Rodriguez'
home.

She spoke kindly to Rodriguez, yet she neither gave her consent
nor yet withheld it, and he knew there was no immediate hope in
her words. Graceful as were his bows as he withdrew, he left with
scarcely another word to say. All day his castle hung over him
like a cloud, not nebulous and evanescent only, but brooding
darkly, boding storms, such as the orange blossoms dread.

He walked again in the garden with Serafina, but Dona Mirana was
never far, and the glamour of the former evening, lit by one star,
was driven from the garden by his anxieties about that castle of
which he could not speak. Serafina asked him of his home. He would
not parry her question, and yet he could not tell her that all
their future hung on the promise of a man in an old leathern
jacket calling himself a king. So the mystery of his habitation
deepened, spoiling the glamour of the evening. He spoke, instead,
of the forest, hoping she might know something of that strange
monarch to whom they dwelt so near; but she glanced uneasily
towards Shadow Valley and told him that none in Lowlight went that
way. Sorrow grew heavier round Rodriguez' heart at this: believing
in the promise of a man whose eyes he trusted he had asked
Serafina to marry him, and Serafina had said Yes; and now he found
she knew nothing of such a man, which seemed somehow to Rodriguez
to weaken his promise, and, worst of all, she feared the place
where he lived. He welcomed the approach of Dona Mirana, and all
three returned to the house. For the rest of that evening he spoke
little; but he had formed his project.

When the two ladies retired Rodriguez, who had seemed tongue-tied
for many hours, turned to Don Alderon. His mother had told Don
Alderon nothing 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 was something about Rodriguez of which with many
pages I have tried to acquaint my reader but which was clear when
first she saw him to Dona Mirana. In fact she liked him at once,
as I hope that perhaps by now my reader may. He turned to Don
Alderon, who was surprised to see the vehemence with which his
guest suddenly spoke after those hours of silence, and Rodriguez
told him the story of his love and the story of both his castles,
that which had vanished from the bank of the Ebro and that which
was promised him by the King of Shadow Valley. And often Don
Alderon interrupted.

"Oh, Rodriguez," he said, "you are welcome to our ancient,
unfortunate house": and later he said, "I have met no man that had
a prettier way with the sword."

But Rodriguez held on to the end, telling all he had to tell; and
especially 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 the sword 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 that the day might come for him to do God a
service thereby by slaying some of the Moors: and heartily he gave
his consent and felicitation. But this Rodriguez would not have:
"Come with me," he said, "to the forest to the place where I met
this man, and if we find him not there we will go 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 a castle 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
no more than what we should call "one of these days," but
Rodriguez was being consumed with a great impatience. And so they
arranged it, and Don 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 nor anyone in that village had entered
Shadow Valley.

Once more next morning Rodriguez walked with Serafina, with
something of the romance of the garden gone, for Dona Mirana
walked there too; and romance is like one of those sudden,
wonderful colours that flash for a moment out of a drop of dew; a
passing shadow obscures them; and ask another to see it, and the
colour is not the same: move but a yard and the ray of enchantment
is gone. Dona Mirana saw the romance of that garden, but she saw
it from thirty years away; it was all different what she saw, all
changed from a certain day (for love was love in the old days):
and to Rodriguez and Serafina it seemed that she could not see
romance at all, and somehow that dimmed it. Almost their eyes
seemed to search amongst the azaleas for the romance of that other
evening.

And then Rodriguez told Serafina that he was riding away with her
brother to see about the affairs of his castle, and that they
would return in a few days. Scarcely a hint he gave that those
affairs might not prosper, for he trusted the word of the King of
Shadow Valley. His confidence had returned: and soon, with swords
at side and cloaks floating brilliant on light winds of April,
Rodriguez and Alderon rode away together.

Soon in the distance they saw Shadow Valley. And then Rodriguez
bethought him of Morano and of the foul wrong he committed against
Don Alderon with his frying-pan, and how he was there in the camp
to which he was bringing his friend. And so he said: "That vile
knave Morano still lives and insists on serving me."

"If he be near," said Don Alderon, "I pray you to disarm him of
his frying-pan for the sake of my honour, which does not suffer me
to be stricken with culinary weapons, but only with the sword, the
lance, or even bolts of cannon or arquebuss ..." He was thinking
of yet more weapons 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 a mile or so behind him.

And there he found his old camp and saw Morano, sitting upon the
ground by a small fire. Morano sprang up at once with joy in his
eyes, his face wreathed with questions, which he did not put into
words for he did 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 senor you met in
Lowlight rides with 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
hope for the unicorn, when they wear their bright green coats and
hunt him with 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 my frying-pan he will surely slay me."

"That senor," said Rodriguez emphatically, "must not be hit with
the frying-pan."

"That is a hard rule, master," said Morano.

And Rodriguez was indignant, when he heard that, that anyone
should thus blaspheme against an obvious law of chivalry: while
Morano's only thought was upon the injustice of giving up the
sweets of life for the sake of a frying-pan. Thus they were at
cross-purposes. And for some while they stood silent, while
Rodriguez hung the reins of his horse over the broken branch of a
tree. And then Don Alderon rode into the wood.

All then that was most pathetic in Morano's sense of injustice
looked out of his eyes as he turned them upon his master. But Don
Alderon scarcely glanced at all at Morano, even when he handed to
him the reins of his horse as he walked on towards Rodriguez.

And there in that leafy place they rested all through the evening,
for they had not started so early upon their journey as travellers
should. Eight days had gone since Rodriguez had left that small
camp to ride to Lowlight, and to the apex of his life towards
which all his days had ascended; and in that time Morano had
collected good store of wood and, in little ways unthought of by
dwellers in cities, had made the place like such homes as
wanderers find. Don Alderon was charmed with their roof of
towering greenness, and with the choirs of those which inhabited
it and which were now all coming home to sing. And at some moment
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 the twilight 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 something of the air that you see upon a
Field Marshal's face who has lost his baton and found it again.
Have you ever noticed it, reader?

And when the meal was ready Morano served it in silence, moving
unobtrusively in the gloom of the wood; for he knew that he was
forgiven, yet not so openly that he wished to insist on his
presence or even 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 creature was 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 at which they sat, to be lost to sight in
huge wastes of blackness and stars, lost to sight utterly, lost
like the spirit of man to the gaze of our wonder when we try to
follow its journey beyond the hearths that we know.

All the next day they rode on through the forest, till they came
to the black circle of the old fire of their next camp. And here
Rodriguez halted on account of the attraction that one of his old
camps seems to have for a wanderer. It drew his feet towards it,
this blackened circle, this hearth that for one night made one
spot in the wilderness home. Don Alderon did not care whether they
tarried or hurried; he loved his journey through this leafy land;
the cool night-breeze slipping round the tree-trunks was new to
him, and new was the comradeship of the abundant stars; the quest
itself was a joy to him; with his fancy he built Rodriguez'
mysterious castle no less magnificently than did Don Alvidar.
Sometimes they talked of the castle, each of the young men
picturing it as he saw it; but in the warmth of the camp-fire
after Morano slept they talked of more than these chronicles can
tell.

In the morning they pressed on as fast as the forest's low boughs
would allow them. They passed somewhere near the great cottage in
which the bowmen feasted; but they held on, as they had decided
after discussion to do, for the last place in which Rodriguez had
seen the King of Shadow Valley, which was the place of his
promise. And before any dimness came even to the forest, or golden
shafts down colonnades which were before all cathedrals, they
found the old camp that they sought, which still had a clear
flavour of magic for Morano on account of the moth-like coming and
going of his three horses after he had tied them to that tree. And
here they looked for the King of Shadow Valley; and then Rodriguez
called him; and then all three of them called him, shouting "King
of Shadow Valley" all together. No answer came: the woods were
without echo: nothing stirred but fallen leaves. But before those
miles of silence could depress them Rodriguez hit upon a simple
plan, which was that he and Alderon should search all round, far
from the track, while Morano stayed in the camp and shouted
frequently, and they would not go out of hearing of his voice: for
Shadow Valley had a reputation of being a bad forest for
travellers to find their way there; indeed, few ever attempted to.
So they did as he said, he and Alderon searching in different
directions, while Morano remained in the camp, lifting a large and
melancholy voice. And though rumour said it was hard to find the
way when twenty yards from the track in Shadow Valley, it did not
say it was hard to find the green bowmen: and Rodriguez, knowing
that they guarded the forest as the shadows of trees guard the
coolness, was assured he would meet with some of them even though
he should miss their master. So he and Alderon searched till the
forest darkness came and only birds on high branches still had
light; and they never saw the King of Shadow Valley or any trace
whatever of any man. And Alderon first returned to the encampment;
but Rodriguez searched 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 at last 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 the firelight on
Morano's face, and the homely comfort of the camp, for everything
is comparative.

And over their supper Rodriguez and Alderon agreed that they had
come to a part of the forest too remote from the home of the King
of Shadow Valley, and decided to go the next day to the house of
the green bowmen: and before he slept Rodriguez felt once more
that all was well with his castle.

Yet when the next day came they searched again, for Rodriguez
remembered how it was to this very place that the King of Shadow
Valley had bidden him come in four weeks, and though this period
was not yet accomplished, he felt, and Alderon fully agreed, they
had waited long enough: so they searched all the morning, and then
fulfilled their decision of overnight by riding for the great
cottage Rodriguez knew. All the way they met no one. And
Rodriguez' gaiety came back as they rode, for he and Don Alderon
recognised more and more clearly that the bowmen'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
had they left the track that they had ridden the day before,
barely taken the smaller path that led after a few hundred yards
to the cottage when they found themselves stopped by huge chains
that hung from tree to tree. High into the trees went the chains
above their heads where they sat their horses, and a chain ran
every six inches down to the very ground: the road was well
blocked.

Rodriguez and Alderon hastily consulted; then, leaving the horses
with Morano, they followed the chains through dense forest to find
a place where they could get the horses through. Finding the
chains go on and on and on, and as evening was drawing in, the two
friends divided, Alderon going back and Rodriguez on, agreeing to
meet again on the path where Morano was.

It was darkening when they met there, Rodriguez having found
nothing but that iron barrier going on from trunk to trunk, and
Alderon having found a great gateway of iron; but it was shut.
Through the silent shadows stealing abroad at evening the three
men crashed their way on foot, leading their horses, towards this
gate; but their way was slow and difficult for no path at all led
up to it. It was dark when they reached it and they saw the high
gate in the night, a black barrier among the trees where no one
would wish to come, and in forest that seemed to these three to be
nearly impenetrable. And what astonished Rodriguez most of all was
that the chains had not been across the path when he had feasted
with the green bowmen.

They stood there gazing, all three, at the dark locked gate, and
then they saw two shields that met in the midst of it, and
Rodriguez mounted his horse and stretched up to feel what device
there was on the beaten iron; and both the shields were blank.

There they camped as well as men can when darkness has fallen
before they reach their camping-ground; and Morano lit a great
fire before the gate, and the smooth blank shields touching
shoulders there up above them shone on Rodriguez and Alderon in
the firelight. For a while they wondered 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 the camp with its great gate that led nowhere, the two
young men climbed up by branches and chains, and were soon on the
other side of the gate and pressing on through the silence of the
forest to find the cottage in which Rodriguez had slept. And
almost at once the green bowmen appeared, ten of them with their
bows, in front of Rodriguez and Alderon. "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
all shook their heads.

"No castle?" said Rodriguez.

"No," they said.

"Has the King of Shadow Valley no castle?" he asked, beginning now
to despair.

"We know of none," they said. "He lives in the forest."

Before Rodriguez quite despaired he asked each one if they knew
not of any castle of which their King was possessed; and each of
them said that there was no castle in all Shadow Valley. The ten
still stood in front of them with their bows: and Rodriguez turned
away then indeed in despair, and walked slowly back to the camp,
and Alderon walked behind him. In silence they reached their camp
by the great gate that led nowhere, and there Rodriguez sat down
on a log beside the dwindling fire, gazing at the grey ashes and
thinking of his dead hopes. He had not the heart to speak to
Alderon, and the silence was unbroken by Morano who, for all his
loquacity, knew when his words were not welcome. Don Alderon tried
to break that melancholy silence, saying that these ten bowmen did
not know the whole world; but he could not cheer Rodriguez. For,
sitting there in dejection on his log, thinking of 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 this was
that when the bowmen had appeared he had hung once more round his
neck that golden badge that was worked for him by the King of
Shadow Valley; and they must have seen it, and they had paid no
heed to it whatever: its magic was wholly departed. And one thing
troubled him that Rodriguez did not know, a very potent factor in
human sorrow: he had left in the morning so eagerly that he had
had no breakfast, and this he entirely forgot and knew not how
much of his dejection came from this cause, thinking that the loss
of his castle was of itself enough.

So with downcast head he sat empty and hopeless, and the little
camp was silent.

In this mournful atmosphere while no one spoke, and no one seemed
to watch, stood, when at last Rodriguez raised his head, with
folded arms before the gate to nowhere, the King of Shadow Valley.
His face was surly, as though the face of a ghost, called from
important work among asteroids needing his care, by the trivial
legerdemain of some foolish novice. Rodriguez, looking into those
angry eyes, wholly forgot it was he that had a grievance. The
silence continued. And then the King of Shadow Valley spoke.

"When have I broken my word?" he said.

Rodriguez did not know. The man was still looking at him, still
standing 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
hung below his elbow by a green cord round his body. He made no
answer to Don Alderon, but put the horn against his lips and blew.
They watched him all three in silence, till the silence was broken
by many men moving swiftly through covert, and the green bowmen
appeared.

When seven or eight were there he turned and looked at them. "When
have I 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
fierce eyes upon him still.

"Then do as I bid you," answered the King of Shadow Valley; and he
turned round and touched the lock of the gates with some key that
he had. The gates moved open and the King went through.

Don Alderon ran forward after him, and caught up with him as he
strode away, and spoke to him, and the King answered. Rodriguez
did not hear what they said, and never afterwards knew. These
words he heard only, from the King of Shadow Valley as he and Don
Alderon parted: ".... and therefore, senor, it were better for
some holy man to do his blessed work before we come." And the King
of Shadow Valley passed into the deeps of the wood.

As the great gates were slowly swinging to, Don Alderon came back
thoughtfully. The gates clanged, clicked, and were shut again. The
King of 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 made up his mind. Don Alderon led his horse back toward the
path, and Rodriguez followed with his. When they came to the path
they mounted in silence; and presently Morano followed them, with
his blankets rolled up 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. Rodriguez
without a home, without plans, without hope, went with Don Alderon
as thistledown goes with the warm wind. They rode through the
forest till it grew all so dim that only a faint tinge of
greenness lay on the dark leaves: 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 on they came to Lowlight when the
Milky Way appeared.

And there were Dona Mirana and Serafina in the hall to greet them
as they entered the door.

"What news?" they asked.

But Rodriguez hung back; he had no news to give. It was Don
Alderon that went forward, speaking cheerily to Serafina, and
afterwards to his mother, with whom he spoke long and anxiously,
pointing toward the forest sometimes, almost, as Rodriguez
thought, in fear.

And a little later, when the ladies had retired, Don Alderon told
Rodriguez over the wine, with which he had tried to cheer his
forlorn companion, that it was arranged that he should marry
Serafina. And when Rodriguez lamented that this was impossible he
replied that the King of Shadow Valley wished it. And when
Rodriguez heard this his astonishment equalled his happiness, for
he marvelled that Don Alderon should not only believe that strange
man's unsupported promise, but that he should even obey him as
though he held him in awe.

And on the next day Rodriguez spoke with Dona Mirana as they
walked in the glory of the garden. And Dona Mirana gave him her
consent as Don Alderon had done: and when Rodriguez spoke humbly
of postponement she glanced uneasily towards Shadow Valley, as
though she too feared the strange man who ruled over the forest
which she had never entered.

And so it was that Rodriguez walked with his lady, with the sweet
Serafina in that garden again. And walking there they forgot the
need of 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: and when evening came and the birds sang in azaleas, and
the shadows grew solemn 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 aureate regions of twilight, to wander in
lands wherein lovers walk briefly and only 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 the forest, and gave him his promise and left him by his camp-
fire, he went back some way towards the bowmen's cottage and blew
his horn; and his hundred bowmen were about him almost at once. To
these he gave their orders and they went back, whence they had
come, into the forest's darkness. But he went to the bowmen's
cottage and paced before it, a dark and lonely figure of the
night; and wherever he paced the ground he marked it with small
sticks. And next morning the hundred bowmen came 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 the cottage,
and attacked it. All day they swung their axes against the
forest's elders, of which nearly a hundred were fallen when
evening came. And the stoutest of these, great trunks that were
four feet through, were dragged by horses to the bowmen's cottage
and laid by the little sticks that the King of Shadow Valley had
put overnight in the ground. The bowmen's cottage and the kitchen
that was in the wood behind it, and a few trees that still stood,
were now all enclosed by four lines of fallen trees which made a
large rectangle on the ground with a small square at each of its
corners. And craftsmen came, and smoothed and hollowed the inner
sides of the four rows of trees, working far into the night. So
was the first day's work accomplished and 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 the first layer was cut flat by carpenters; at evening the
second layer was hoisted up after their under sides had been
flattened to fit the layer below them; quantities more were cast
in to make the floor when they had been gradually smoothed and
fitted: at the end of the second day a man could not see over the
walls of Castle Rodriguez. And on the third day more craftsmen
arrived, men from distant villages at the forest's edge, whence
the King of Shadow Valley had summoned them; and they carved the
walls as they grew. And a hundred trees fell that day, and the
castle was another layer higher. And all the while a park was
growing in the forest, as they felled the great trees; but the
greatest trees of all the bowmen spared, oaks that had stood there
for ages and ages of men; they left them to grip the earth for a
while longer, for a few more human generations.

On the fourth day the two windows at the back of the bowmen's
cottage began to darken, and that evening Castle Rodriguez was
fifteen feet high. And still the hundred bowmen hewed at the
forest, bringing sunlight bright on to grass that was shadowed by
oaks for ages. And at the end of the fifth day they began to roof
the lower rooms and make their second floor: and still the castle
grew a layer a day, though the second storey they built with
thinner trees that were only three feet through, 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 the wall on the
outside, till a steep slope guarded the whole of the lower part of
the castle against fire from any attacker if war should come that
way, in any of the centuries that were yet to be: and the deep
windows they guarded with bars of iron.

The shape of the castle showed itself clearly now, rising on each
side of the bowmen's cottage and behind it, with a tower at each
of its corners. To the left of the old cottage the main doorway
opened to the great hall, in which a pile of a few huge oaks was
being transformed into a massive stair. Three figures of strange
men held up this ceiling with their heads and uplifted hands, when
the castle was finished; but as yet the carvers had only begun
their work, so that only here and there an eye peeped out, or a
smile flickered, to give any expression to the curious faces of
these fabulous creatures of the wood, which were slowly taking
their shape out of three trees whose roots were still in the earth
below the floor. In an upper storey one of these trees became a
tall cupboard; and the shelves and the sides and the back and the
top of it were all one piece of oak.

All the interior of the castle was of wood, hollowed into alcoves
and polished, or carved into figures leaning out from the walls.
So vast were the timbers that the walls, at a glance, seemed
almost one piece of wood. And the centuries that were coming to
Spain darkened the walls as they came, through autumnal shades
until they were all black, as though they all mourned in secret
for lost generations; but they have not yet crumbled.

The fireplaces they made with great square red tiles, which they
also put in the chimneys amongst rude masses of mortar: and these
great dark holes remained always mysterious to those that looked
for mystery in the family that whiled away the ages in that
castle. And by every fireplace two queer carved creatures stood
upholding the mantlepiece, with mystery in their faces and curious
limbs, uniting the hearth with fable and with tales told in the
wood. Years after the men that carved them were all dust the
shadows of these creatures would come out and dance in the room,
on wintry nights when all the lamps were gone and flames 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 roses rambling along its edges: the table and its legs were all
of one piece with the floor. They would never have hollowed the
great trunk in time had they not used fire. The second storey was
barely complete on the day that Rodriguez and Don Alderon and
Morano came to the chains that guarded the park. And the King of
Shadow Valley would not permit his gift to be seen in anything
less than its full magnificence, and had commanded that no man in
the world might enter to see the work of his bowmen and craftsmen
until it should frown at all comers a castle formidable as any in
Spain.

And then they heaped up the mortar and rock to the top of the
second storey, but above that they let the timbers show, except
where they filled in plaster between the curving trunks: and the
ages blackened the timber in amongst the white plaster; but not a
storm that blew in all the years that came, nor the moss of so
many Springs, ever rotted away those beams that the forest had
given and on which the bowmen had laboured so long ago. But the
castle weathered the ages and reached our days, worn, battered
even, by its journey through the long and sometimes troubled
years, but splendid with the traffic that it had with history in
many gorgeous periods. Here Valdar the Excellent came once in his
youth. And Charles the Magnificent stayed a night in this castle
when on a pilgrimage to a holy place of the South.

It was here that Peter the Arrogant in his cups gave Africa, one
Spring night, to his sister's son. What grandeurs this castle has
seen! What chronicles could be writ of it! But not these
chronicles, for they draw near 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, adding a splendour to the wind, and
for what cause they flew. I have yet to tell of their building.

The second storey was roofed, and Castle Rodriguez still rose one
layer day 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 the
craftsmen in every chamber into which they grew: and a great
branch of the hugest of them made a little crooked stair in an
upper storey. On the floors they laid down skins of beasts that
the bowmen slew in the forest; and on the walls there hung all
manner of leather, tooled and dyed 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,
laying upon the huge rafters red tiles that they made of clay. But
the towers were not yet finished.

At this time the King of Shadow Valley sent a runner into Lowlight
to shoot a blunt arrow with a message tied to it into Don
Alderon's garden, near to the door, at evening.

And they went on building the towers above the height of the roof
And near the top of them they made homes for archers, little
turrets that leaned like swallows' nests out from each tower, high
places where they could see and shoot and not be seen from below.
And little narrow passages wound away behind perched battlements
of stone, by which archers could slip from place to place, and
shoot from here or from there and never be known. So were built in
that distant age the towers of Castle Rodriguez.

And one day four weeks from the felling of the first oak, the
period of his promise being accomplished, the King of Shadow
Valley blew his horn. And standing by what had been the bowmen's
cottage, now all shut in 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 were to go by stealth to the village
of Lowlight, and were to be by daylight before the house of Don
Alderon; and, whether wed or unwed, whether she fled or folk
defended the house, to bring Dona Serafina of the Valley of
Dawnlight to be the chatelaine of Castle Rodriguez.

For this purpose he bade them take with them a chariot that he
thought magnificent, though the mighty timbers that gave grandeur
to Castle Rodriguez had a cumbrous look in the heavy vehicle that
was to the bowmen's eyes the triumphal car of the forest. So they
took their bows and obeyed, leaving the craftsmen at their work in
the castle, which was now quite roofed over, towers and all. They
went through the forest by little paths that they knew, going
swiftly and warily in the bowmen'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 the night except those whose
art it was to gather news for their king; and three of those went
into Lowlight and mixed with the villagers there.

When white mists moved over the fields near dawn and wavered
ghostly about Lowlight, the green bowman moved with them. And just
out of hearing of the village, behind wild shrubs that hid them,
the bowmen that were coming from the forest met the three that had
spent the night in taverns of Lowlight. And the three told the
hundred of the great wedding that there was to be in the Church of
the Renunciation that morning in Lowlight: and of the preparations
that were made, and how holy men had come from far on mules, and
had slept the night in the village, and the Bishop of Toledo
himself would bless the bridegroom's sword. The bowmen therefore
retired a little way and, moving through the mists, came forward
to points whence they could watch the church, well concealed on
the wild plain, which here and there gave up a field to man but
was mostly the playground of wild creatures whose ways were the
bowmen's ways. And here they waited.

This was the wedding of Rodriguez and Serafina, of which gossips
often spoke at their doors in summer evenings, old women mumbling
of fair weddings that each had seen; and they had been children
when they saw this wedding; they were those that threw small
handfuls of anemones on the path before the porch. They told the
tale of it till they could tell 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 tongues may wag as it were a
little longer through these pages although they have been for so
many centuries dead. And this is all that books are able to do.

First there was bell-ringing and many voices, and then the voices
hushed, and there came the procession of eight divines of Murcia,
whose vestments were strange to Lowlight. Then there came a priest
from the South, near the border of Andalusia, who overnight had
sanctified the ring. (It was he who had entertained Rodriguez when
he first escaped from la Garda, and Rodriguez had sent for him
now.) Each note of the bells came clear through the hush as they
entered the church. And then with suitable attendants the bishop
strode by and they saw quite close the blessed cope of Toledo. And
the bridegroom followed him in, wearing his sword, and Don Alderon
went with him. And then the voices rose again in the street: the
bells rang on: they all saw Dona Mirana. The little bunches of
bright anemones grew sticky in their hands: the bells seemed
louder: cheering rose in the street and came all down it nearer.
Then Dona Serafina walked past them with all her maids: and that
is what the gossips chiefly remembered, telling how she smiled at
them, and praising her dress, through those distant summer
evenings. Then there was music in the church. And afterwards the
forest-people had come. And the people screamed, for none knew
what they would do. But they bowed so low to the bride and
bridegroom, and showed their great hunting bows so willingly to
all who wished to see, that the people lost their alarm and only
feared lest the Bishop of Toledo should blast the merry bowmen
with one of his curses.

And presently the bride and bridegroom entered the chariot, and
the people cheered; and there were farewells and the casting of
flowers; and the bishop blessed three of their bows; and a fat man
sat beside the driver with folded arms, wearing bright on his face
a look of foolish contentment; and the bowmen and bride and
bridegroom all went away to the forest.

Four huge white horses drew that bridal chariot, the bowmen ran
beside it, and soon it was lost to sight of the girls that watched
it from Lowlight; but their memories held it close till their eyes
could no longer see to knit and they could only sit by their
porches in fine weather 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; she knowing less than he and trusting more. And on
the untended road that the bowmen shared with stags and with rare,
very venturous travellers, the wheels of the woodland chariot sank
so deep in the sandy earth that the escort of bowmen needed seldom
to run any more; and he who sat by the driver climbed down and
walked silent for once, perhaps awed by the occasion, though he
was none other than Morano. Serafina was delighted with the
forest, but between Rodriguez and its beautiful grandeur his
anxieties crowded thickly. He leaned over once from the chariot
and asked one of the bowmen again about that castle; but the
bowman only bowed and answered with a proverb of Spain, not easily
carried so far from its own soil to thrive in our language, but
signifying that the morrow showeth all things. He was silent then,
for he knew that there was no way to a direct answer through those
proverbs, and after a while perhaps there came to him some of
Serafma's trustfulness. By evening they came to a wide avenue
leading to great gates.

Rodriguez did not know the avenue, he knew no paths so wide in
Shadow Valley; but he knew those gates. They were the gates of
iron that led nowhere. But now an avenue went from them upon the
other side, and opened widely into a park dotted with clumps of
trees. And the two great iron shields, they too had changed with
the changes that had bewitched the forest, for their surfaces that
had glowed so unmistakably blank, side by side in the firelight,
not many nights before, blazoned now the armorial bearings of
Rodriguez upon the one and those of the house of Dawnlight upon
the other. Through the opened gates they entered the young park
that seemed to wonder at its own ancient trees, where wild deer
drifted away from them like shadows through the evening: for the
bowmen had driven in deer for miles through the forest. They
passed a pool where water-lilies lay in languid beauty for
hundreds of summers, but as yet no flower peeped into 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
gasped joyously. Rodriguez saw its towers, its turrets for
archers, its guarded windows deep in the mass of stone, its solemn
row of battlements, but he did not believe what he saw. He did not
believe that here at last was his castle, that here was his dream
fulfilled and his journey done. He expected to wake suddenly in
the cold in some lonely camp, he expected the Ebro to unfold its
coils in the North and to come and sweep it away. It was but
another strayed hope, he thought, taking the form of dream. But
Castle Rodriguez still stood frowning there, and none of its
towers vanished, or changed as things change in dreams; but the
servants of the King of Shadow Valley opened the great door, and
Serafina and Rodriguez entered, and all the hundred bowmen
disappeared.

Here we will leave them, and let these Chronicles end. For whoever
would tell more of Castle Rodriguez must wield one of those
ponderous pens that hangs on the study wall in the house of
historians. Great days in the story of Spain shone on those iron-
barred windows, and things were said in its banqueting chamber and
planned in its inner rooms that sometimes turned that story this
way or that, as rocks turn a young river. And as a traveller meets
a mighty river at one of its bends, and passes on his path, while
the river sweeps on to its estuary and the sea, so I leave the
triumphs and troubles of that story which I touched for one moment
by the door of Castle Rodriguez.

My concern is but with Rodriguez and Serafina and to tell that
they lived here in happiness; and to tell that the humble Morano
found his happiness too. For he became the magnificent steward of
Castle Rodriguez, the majordomo, and upon august occasions he
wore as much red plush 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 good heaps of wolf-skins. But pining a
little in the second year of his somewhat lonely splendour, he
married one of the maidens of the forest, the child of a bowman
that hunted boars with their king. And all the green 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 the
Golden Age and bow across all those centuries to the reader: say
one farewell to him in your Spanish tongue, though the sound of it
be no louder than the sound of shadows moving, and so back to the
dim splendour of the past, for the Senor or Senora shall hear your
name no more.

For years Rodriguez lived a chieftain of the forest, owning the
overlordship of the King of Shadow Valley, whom he and Serafina
would entertain with all the magnificence of which their castle
was capable on such occasions as he appeared before the iron
gates. They seldom saw him. Sometimes they heard his horn as he
went by. They heard his bowmen follow. And all would pass and
perhaps they would see none. But upon occasions he came. He came
to the christening of the eldest son of Rodriguez and Serafina,
for whom he was godfather. He came again to see the boy shoot for
the first time with a bow. And later he came to give little
presents, small treasures of the forest, to Rodriguez' daughters;
who treated him always, not as sole lord of that forest that
travellers dreaded, but as a friend of their very own that they
had found for themselves. He had his favourites among them and
none quite knew which they were.

And one day he came in his old age to give Rodriguez a message.
And he spoke long and tenderly of the forest as though all its
glades were sacred.

And soon after that day he died, and was buried with the mourning
of all his men in the deeps of Shadow Valley, where only Rodriguez
and the bowmen knew. And Rodriguez became, as the old king had
commanded, the ruler of Shadow Valley and all its faithful men.
With them he hunted and defended the forest, holding all its ways
to be sacred, as the old king had taught. It is told how Rodriguez
ruled the forest well.

And later he made a treaty with the Spanish King acknowledging him
sole Lord of Spain, including Shadow Valley, saving that certain
right should pertain to the foresters and should be theirs for
ever. And these rights are written on parchment and sealed with
the seal of Spain; and none may harm the forest without the
bowmen's leave.

Rodriguez was made Duke of Shadow Valley and a Magnifico of the
first degree; though little he went with other hidalgos to Court,
but lived with his family in Shadow Valley, travelling seldom
beyond the splendour of the forest farther than Lowlight.

Thus he saw the glory of autumn turning the woods to fairyland:
and when the stags were roaring and winter coming on he would take
a boar-spear down from the wall and go hunting through the forest,
whose twigs were black and slender and still against the bright
menace of winter. Spring found him viewing the fields that his men
had sown, along the forest's edge, and finding in the chaunt of
the myriad birds a stirring of memories, a beckoning towards past
days. In summer he would see his boys and girls at play, running
through shafts of sunlight that made leaves and grass like pale
emeralds. He gave his days to the forest and the four seasons.
Thus he dwelt amidst splendours such as History has never seen in
any visit of hers to the courts of men.

Of him and Serafina it has been written and sung that they lived
happily ever after; and though they are now so many centuries
dead, may they have in the memories of such of my readers as will
let them linger there, that afterglow of life that remembrance
gives, which is all that there is on earth for those that walked
it once and that walk the paths of their old haunts no more.


End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Don Rodriguez
by Lord Dunsany