THE FIFTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE RODE IN THE TWILIGHT AND SAW SERAFINA
Rodriguez, who loved philosophy, turned his mind at once to the journeythat lay before him, deciding which was the north; for he knew that itwas by the north that he must leave Spain, which he still desired toleave since there were no wars in that country.
Morano knew not clearly what philosophy was, yet he wasted no thoughtsupon the night that was gone; and, fitting up his frying-panimmediately, he brought out what was left of his bacon and began tolook for material to make a fire. The bacon lay waiting in thefrying-pan for some while before this material was gathered, fornothing grew on the mountain but a heath; and of that there were fewbushes, scattered here and there.
Rodriguez, far from ruminating upon the events of the previous night,realised as he watched these preparations that he was enormouslyhungry. And when Morano had kindled a fire and the smell of cookingarose, he who had held the chair of magic at Saragossa was banishedfrom both their minds, although upon this very spot they had spent sostrange a night; but where bacon is, and there be hungry men, thethings of yesterday are often forgotten.
"Morano," said Rodriguez, "we must walk far to-day."
"Indeed, master," said Morano, "we must push on to these wars; for youhave no castle, master, no lands, no fortune ..."
"Come," said Rodriguez.
Morano slung his frying-pan behind him: they had eaten up the last ofhis bacon: he stood up, and they were ready for the journey. The smokefrom their meagre fire went thinly into the air, the small grey cloudsof it went slowly up: nothing beside remained to bid them farewell, orfor them to thank for their strange night's hospitality. They climbedtill they reached the rugged crest of the mountain; thence they saw awide plain and the morning: the day was waiting for them.
The northern slope of the mountain was wholly different from that blackcongregation of angry rocks through which they had climbed by night tothe House of Wonder.
The slope that now lay before them was smooth and grassy, flowingbefore them far, a gentle slope that was soon to lend speed toRodriguez' feet, adding nimbleness even to youth. Soon, too, it was tolift onward the dull weight of Morano as he followed his master towardsunknown wars, youth going before him like a spirit and the good slopehelping behind. But before they gave themselves to that waiting journeythey stood a moment and looked at the shining plain that lay beforethem like an open page, on which was the whole chronicle of that day'swayfaring. There was the road they should travel by, there were thestreams it crossed and narrow woods they might rest in, and dim on thefarthest edge was the place they must spend that night. It was all, asit were written, upon the plain they watched, but in a writing notintended for them, and, clear although it be, never to be interpretedby one of our race. Thus they saw clear, from a height, the road theywould go by, but not one of all the events to which it would lead them.
"Master," said Morano, "shall we have more adventures to-day?"
"I trust so," said Rodriguez. "We have far to go, and it will be dulljourneying without them."
Morano turned his eyes from his master's face and looked back to theplain. "There, master," he said, "where our road runs through a wood,will our adventure be there, think you? Or there, perhaps," and hewaved his hand widely farther.
"No," said Rodriguez, "we pass that in bright daylight."
"Is that not good for adventure?" said Morano.
"The romances teach," said Rodriguez, "that twilight or night arebetter. The shade of deep woods is favourable, but there are no suchwoods on this plain. When we come to evening we shall doubtless meetsome adventure, far over there." And he pointed to the grey rim of theplain where it started climbing towards hills.
"These are good days," said Morano. He forgot how short a time ago hehad said regretfully that these days were not as the old days. But ourrace, speaking generally, is rarely satisfied with the present, andMorano's cheerfulness had not come from his having risen suddenlysuperior to this everyday trouble of ours; it came from his havingshifted his gaze to the future. Two things are highly tolerable to us,and even alluring, the past and the future. It was only with thepresent that Morano was ever dissatisfied.
When Morano said that the days were good Rodriguez set out to findthem, or at least that one that for some while now lay waiting for themon the plain. He strode down the slope at once and, endowing naturewith his own impatience, he felt that he heard the morning call to himwistfully. Morano followed.
For an hour these refugees escaping from peace went down the slope; andin that hour they did five swift miles, miles that seemed to run bythem as they walked, and so they came lightly to the level plain. Andin the next hour they did four miles more. Words were few, eitherbecause Morano brooded mainly upon one thought, the theme of which washis lack of bacon, or because he kept his breath to follow his masterwho, with youth and the morning, was coming out of the hills at a pacenot tuned to Morano's forty years or so. And at the end of these ninemiles Morano perceived a house, a little way from the road, on theleft, upon rising ground. A mile or so ahead they saw the narrow woodthat they had viewed in the morning from the mountain running acrossthe plain. They saw now by the lie of the ground that it probablyfollowed a stream, a pleasant place in which to take the rest demandedby Spain at noon. It was just an hour to noon; so Rodriguez, keepingthe road, told Morano to join him where it entered the wood when he hadacquired his bacon. And then as they parted a thought occurred toRodriguez, which was that bacon cost money. It was purely anafterthought, an accidental fancy, such as inspirations are, for he hadnever had to buy bacon. So he gave Morano a fifth part of his money, alarge gold coin the size of one of our five-shilling pieces, engravedof course upon one side with the glories and honours of that goldenperiod of Spain, and upon the other with the head of the lord the King.It was only by chance he had brought any at all; he was not what ournewspapers will call, if they ever care to notice him, a level-headedbusiness man. At the sight of the gold piece Morano bowed, for he feltthis gift of gold to be an occasion; but he trusted more for thepurchase of the bacon to some few small silver coins of his own that hekept among lumps of lard and pieces of string.
And so they parted for a while, Rodriguez looking for some greatshadowy oak with moss under it near a stream, Morano in quest of bacon.
When Rodriguez entered the wood he found his oak, but it was not suchan oak as he cared to rest beneath during the heat of the day, norwould you have done so, my reader, even though you have been to thewars and seen many a pretty mess; for four of la Garda were by it andwere arranging to hang a man from the best of the branches.
"La Garda again," said Rodriguez nearly aloud.
His eye drooped, his look was listless, he gazed at other things; whilea glance that you had not noticed, flashed slantingly at la Garda,satisfied Rodriguez that all four were strangers: then he walkedstraight towards them merrily. The man they proposed to hang was astranger too. He appeared at first to be as stout as Morano, and he wasnearly half a foot taller, but his stoutness turned out to be sheermuscle. The broad man was clothed in old brown leather and had blueeyes.
Now there was something about the poise of Rodriguez' young head whichgave him an air not unlike that which the King himself sometimes worewhen he went courting. It suited his noble sword and his merry plume.When la Garda saw him they were all politeness at once, and invited himto see the hanging, for which Rodriguez thanked them with amplestcourtesy.
"It is not a bull-fight," said the chief of la Garda almostapologetically. But Rodriguez waved aside his deprecations and declaredhimself charmed at the prospect of a hanging.
Bear with me, reader, while I champion a bad cause and seek to palliatewhat is inexcusable. As we travel about the world on our way throughlife we meet and pass here and there, in peace or in war, other men,fellow-travellers: and sometimes there is no more than time for aglance, eye to eye. And in that glance you see the sort of man: andchiefly there are two sorts. The one sort always broodi
ng, alwaysplanning; mean, silent men, collecting properties and money; keepingthe law on their side, keeping everything on their side; except womenand heaven, and the late, leisurely judgment of simple people: and theothers merry folk, whose eyes twinkle, whose money flies, who willsooner laugh than plan, who seem to inherit rightfully the happinessthat the others plot for, and fail to come by with all their schemes.In the man who was to provide the entertainment Rodriguez recognisedthe second kind.
Now even though the law had caught a saint that had strayed too faroutside the boundary of Heaven, and desired to hang him, Rodriguez knewthat it was his duty to help the law while help was needed, and toapplaud after the thing was done. The law to Rodriguez was the mostsacred thing man had made, if indeed it were not divine; but since theprivilege that two days ago had afforded him of studying it moreclosely, it appeared to him the blindest, silliest thing with which hehad had to do since the kittens were drowned that his cat Tabitharinahad had at Arguento Harez.
It was in this deplorable state of mind that Rodriguez' glance fell onthe merry eyes and the solemn predicament of the man in the leathercoat, standing pinioned under a long branch of the oak-tree: and hedetermined from that moment to disappoint la Garda and, I fear also, myreader, perhaps to disappoint you, of the hanging that they at leasthad promised themselves.
"Think you," said Rodriguez, "that for so stout a knave this branch ofyours suffices?"
Now it was an excellent branch. But it was not so much Rodriguez' wordsas the anxious way in which he looked at the branch that aroused theanxieties of la Garda: and soon they were looking about to find abetter tree; and when four men start doing this in a wood time quicklypasses. Meanwhile Morano drew near, and Rodriguez went to meet him.
"Master," said Morano, all out of breath, "they had no bacon. But I gotthese two bottles of wine. It is strong wine, which is a rare deluderof the senses, which will need to be deluded if we are to go hungry."
Rodriguez was about to cut short Morano's chatter when he thought of ause for the wine, and was silent a moment. And as he pondered Moranolooked up and saw la Garda and at the same time perceived thesituation, for he had as quick an eye for a bad business as any man.
"No one with the horses," was his comment; for they were tethered alittle apart. But Rodriguez' mind had already explored a surer methodthan the one that Morano seemed to be contemplating. This method hetold Morano. And now, from little tugs that they were giving to thedoubled rope that hung over the branch of the oak-tree, it was clearenough that the men of the law were returning to their confidence inthat very sufficient branch.
They looked up with questions ripe to drop from their lips when theysaw Rodriguez returning with Morano. But before one of them spokeMorano flung to them from far off a little piece of his wisdom: forcast a truth into an occasion and it will always trouble the waters,usually stirring up contradiction, but always bringing something to thesurface.
"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 theirown throats, wondering were they dry; and you do not wonder long aboutthis in the south without finding that what you feared is true. Andthen he let them see the two great bottles, all full of wine, for theinvention of the false bottom that gives to our champagne-bottles theplace they rightly hold among famous deceptions had not as yet beendiscovered.
"It is true," said la Garda. And Rodriguez made Morano put one of thebottles away in a piece of a sack that he carried: and when la Gardasaw one of the two bottles disappear it somehow decided them to havethe other, though how this came to be so there is no saying; and thusthe hanging was postponed again.
Now the drink was a yellow wine, sweet and heavy and stronger than ourport; only our whisky could out-triumph it, but there in the warm southit answered its purpose. Rodriguez beckoned Morano up and offered thebottle to one of la Garda; but scarcely had he put it to his lips whenRodriguez bade him stop, saying that he had had his share. And he didthe same with the next man.
Now there be few things indeed which la Garda resent more than meagrehospitality in the matter of drink, and with all their wits striving tocope with this vicious defect in Rodriguez, as they rightly or wronglyregarded it, how should they have any to spare for obvious precautions?As the third man drank, Rodriguez turned to speak to Morano; and therepresentative of the law took such advantage of an opportunity that hefeared to be fleeting, that when Rodriguez turned round again thebottle was just half empty. Rodriguez had timed it very nicely.
Next Rodriguez put the bottle to his lips and held it there a littletime, while the fourth man of the law, who was guarding the prisoner,watched Rodriguez wistfully, and afterwards Morano, who took the bottlenext. Yet neither Rodriguez nor Morano drank.
"You can finish the bottle," said Rodriguez to this anxious watcher,who came forward eagerly though full of doubts, which changed to warmfeelings of exuberant gratitude when he found how much remained. Thushe obtained not much less than two tumblerfuls of wine that, as I havesaid, was stronger than port; and noon was nearing and it was spring inSpain. And then he returned to guard his prisoner under the oak-treeand lay down there on the moss, remembering that it was his duty tokeep awake. And afterwards with one hand he took hold of a rope thatbound the prisoner's ankles, so that he might still guard his prisonereven though he should fall asleep.
Now two of the men had had little more than the full of a sherry glasseach. To these Morano made signs that there was another bottle, and,coming round behind his master, he covertly uncorked it and gave themtheir heart's desire; and a little was left over for the man who drankthird on the first occasion. And presently the spirits of all four ofla Garda grew haughty and forgot their humble bodies, and would fainhave gone forth to dwell with the sons of light, while their bodies layon the moss and the sun grew warmer and warmer, shining dappled inamongst the small green leaves. All seemed still but for the wingedinsects flashing through shafts of the sunlight out of the gloom of thetrees and disappearing again like infinitesimal meteors. But ourconcern is with the thoughts of man, of which deeds are but theshadows: wherever these are active it is wrong to say all is still; forwhether they cast their shadows, which are actions, or whether theyremain a force not visibly stirring matter, they are the source of thetales we write and the lives we lead; it is they that gave History hermaterial and they that bade her work it up into books.
And thoughts were very active about that oak-tree. For while thethoughts of la Garda arose like dawn, and disappeared into mists, theirprisoner was silently living through the sunny days of his life, whichare at no time quite lost to us, and which flash vivid and bright andnear when memory touches them, herself awakened by the nearness ofdeath. He lived again days far from the day that had brought him wherehe stood. He drew from those days (that is to say) that delight, thatessence of hours, that something which we call life. The sun, the wind,the rough sand, the splash of the sea, on the star-fish, and all thethings that it feels during its span, are stored in something like itsmemory, and are what we call its life: it is the same with all of us.Life is feeling. The prisoner from the store of his memory was takingall he had. His head was lifted, he was gazing northwards, far furtherthan his eyes could see, to shining spaces in great woods; and therehis threatened being walked in youth, with steps such as spirits take,over immortal flowers, which were dim and faint but unfading becausethey lived on in memory. In memory he walked with some who were now farfrom his footsteps. And, seen through the gloaming of that perilousday, how bright did those far days appear! Did they not seem sunnierthan they really were? No, reader; for all the radiance that glitteredso late in his mind was drawn from those very days; it was their ownbrightness that was shining now: we are not done with the days thatwere as soon as their sunsets have faded, but a light remains from themand grows fairer and fairer, like an afterglow lingering amongtremendous peaks above immeasurable slopes of snow.
The prisoner had scarcely noticed Rodriguez or his servant, any morethan he noticed his captors; for there come an intensity to those whowalk near death that makes them a little alien from other men, lifeflaring up in them at the last into so grand a flame that the lives ofthe others seem a little cold and dim where they dwell remote from thatsunset that we call mortality. So he looked silently at the days thatwere as they came dancing back again to him from where they had longlain lost in chasms of time, to which they had slipped over dark edgesof years. Smiling they came, but all wistfully anxious, as though theirerrand were paramount and their span short: he saw them cluster abouthim, running now, bringing their tiny gifts, and scarcely heard theheavy sigh of his guard as Rodriguez gagged him and Morano tied him up.
Had Rodriguez now released the prisoner they could have been three tothree, in the event of things going wrong with the sleep of la Garda;but, since in the same time they could gag and bind another, the oddswould be the same at two to two, and Rodriguez preferred this to theslight uncertainties that would be connected with the entry of anotherpartner. They accordingly gagged the next man and bound his wrists andankles. And that Spanish wine held good with the other two and boundthem far down among the deeps of dreams: and so it should, for it wasof a vine that grew in the vales of Spain and had ripened in one of theyears of the golden age.
They bound one as easily as they had bound the other two; and the lastRodriguez watched while Morano cut the ropes off the prisoner, for hehad run out of bits of twine and all other improvisations. With theseropes he ran back to his master, and they tied up the last prisoner butdid not gag him.
"Shall we gag him, master, like the rest?" said Morano.
"No," said Rodriguez. "He has nothing to say."
And though this remark turned out to be strictly untrue, it well enoughanswered its purpose.
And then they saw standing before them the man they had freed. And hebowed to Rodriguez like one that had never bowed before. I do not meanthat he bowed with awkwardness, like imitative men unused topoliteness, but he bowed as the oak bows to the woodman; he stoodstraight, looking Rodriguez in the eyes, then he bowed as though he hadlet his spirit break, which allowed him to bow to never a man before.Thus, if my pen has been able dimly to tell of it, thus bowed the manin the old leathern jacket. And Rodriguez bowed to him in answer withthe elegance that they that had dwelt at Arguento Harez had slowlydrawn from the ages.
"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. Andthe blessed Saints, being more busy than I, I think seldom hear myprayers: yet your name shall go up to them. I will often tell it themquietly in the forest, and not on their holy days when bells areringing and loud prayers fill Heaven. It may be ..."
"Senor," Rodriguez said, "I profoundly thank you."
Even in these days, when bullets are often thicker than prayers, we arenot quite thankless for the prayers of others: in those days they werewhat "closing quotations" are on the Stock Exchange, ink in FleetStreet, machinery in the Midlands; common but valued; and Rodriguez'thanks were sincere.
And now that the curses of the ungagged one of la Garda were growingmonotonous, Rodriguez turned to Morano.
"Ungag the rest," he said, "and let them talk to each other."
"Master," Morano muttered, feeling that there was enough noise alreadyfor a small wood, but he went and did as he was ordered. And Rodriguezwas justified of his humane decision, for the pent thoughts of allthree found expression together and, all four now talking at once,mitigated any bitterness there may have been in those solitary curses.And now Rodriguez could talk undisturbed.
"Whither?" said the stranger.
"To the wars," said Rodriguez, "if wars there be."
"Aye," said the stranger, "there be always wars somewhere. By whichroad go you?"
"North," said Rodriguez, and he pointed. The stranger turned his eyesto the way Rodriguez pointed.
"That brings you to the forest," he said, "unless you go far around, asmany do."
"What forest?" said Rodriguez.
"The great forest named Shadow Valley," said the stranger.
"How far?" said Rodriguez.
"Forty miles," said the stranger.
Rodriguez looked at la Garda and then at their horses, and thought. Hemust be far from la Garda by nightfall.
"It is not easy to pass through Shadow Valley," said the stranger.
"Is it not?" said Rodriguez.
"Have you a gold great piece?" the stranger said.
Rodriguez held out one of his remaining four: the stranger took it. Andthen he began to rub it on a stone, and continued to rub whileRodriguez watched in silence, until the image of the lord the King wasgone and the face of the coin was scratchy and shiny and flat. And thenhe produced from a pocket or pouch in his jacket a graving tool with around wooden handle, which he took in the palm of his hand, and theedge of the steel came out between his forefinger and thumb: and withthis he cut at the coin. And Morano rejoined them from his mercifulmission and stood and wondered at the cutting. And while he cut theytalked.
They did not ask him how he came to be chosen for hanging, because inevery country there are about a hundred individualists, varying toperhaps half a hundred in poor ages. They go their hundred ways, ortheir half-dozen ways; and there is a hundred and first way, or aseventh way, which is the way that is cut for the rest: and if some ofthe rest catch one of the hundred, or one of the six, they naturallyhang him, if they have a rope, and if hanging is the custom of thecountry, for different countries use different methods. And you saw bythis man's eyes that he was one of the hundred. Rodriguez thereforeonly sought to know how he came to be caught.
"La Garda found you, 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, "whatis the right price for a bottle of this wine that la Garda drink?"
"I know not," said the man in the brown jacket; "they give me thesethings."
"Where is your home, senor?" Rodriguez asked.
"It is Shadow Valley," he said.
One never saw Rodriguez fail to understand anything: if he could notclear a situation up he did not struggle with it. Morano rubbed hischin: he had heard of Shadow Valley only dimly, for all the travellershe had known out of the north had gone round it. Rodriguez and Moranobent their heads and watched a design that was growing out of the gold.And as the design grew under the hand of the strange worker he began totalk of the horses. He spoke as though his plans had been clearlyestablished by edict, and as though no others could be.
"When I have gone with two horses," he said, "ride hard with the othertwo till you reach the village named Lowlight, and take them to theforge of Fernandez the smith, where one will shoe them who is notFernandez."
And he waved his hand northwards. There was only one road. Then all hisattention fell back again to his work on the gold coin; and when thoseblue eyes were turned away there seemed nothing left to question. Andnow Rodriguez saw the design was a crown, a plain gold circlet with oakleaves rising up from it. And this woodland emblem stood up out of thegold, for the worker had hollowed the coin away all around it, and wassloping it up to the edge. Little was said by the watchers in thewonder of seeing the work, for no craft is very far from the linebeyond which is magic, and the man in the leather coat was clearly acraftsman: and he said nothing for he worked at a craft. And when thearboreal crown was finished, and its edges were straight and sharp, anhour had passed since he began near noon. Then he drilled a hole nearthe rim and, drawing a thin green ribbon from his pocket, he passed itthrough the hole and, rising, he suddenly hung it round Rodriguez' neck.
"Wear it thus," he said, "while you go through Shadow Valley."
As he said this he
stepped back among the trees, and Rodriguez followedto thank him. Not finding him behind the tree where he thought to findhim, he walked round several others, and Morano joined his search; butthe stranger had vanished. When they returned again to the littleclearing they heard sounds of movement in the wood, and a little wayoff where the four horses had grazed there were now only two, whichwere standing there with their heads up.
"We must ride, Morano," said Rodriguez.
"Ride, master?" said Morano dolefully.
"If we walk away," said Rodriguez, "they will walk after us."
"They" meant la Garda. It was unnecessary for him to tell Morano what Ithus tell the reader, for in the wood it was hard to hear anyone else,while to think of anyone else was out of the question.
"What shall I do to them, master?" said Morano.
They were now standing close to their captives and this simple questioncalmed the four men's curses, all of a sudden, like shutting the dooron a storm.
"Leave them," Rodriguez said. And la Garda's spirits rose and theycursed again.
"Ah. To die in the wood," said Morano. "No," said Rodriguez; and hewalked towards the horses. And something in that "No" sounding almostcontemptuous, Morano's feelings were hurt, and he blurted out to hismaster "But how can they get away to get their food? It is good knotsthat I tie, master."
"Morano," Rodriguez said, "I remember ten ways in the books of romancewhereby bound men untie themselves; and doubtless one or two more Ihave read and forgot; and there may be other ways in the books that Ihave not read, besides any way that there be of which no books tell.And in addition to these ways, one of them may draw a comrade's swordwith his teeth and thus ..."
"Shall I pull out their teeth?" said Morano.
"Ride," said Rodriguez, for they were now come to the horses. Andsorrowfully Morano looked at the horse that was to be his, as a manmight look at a small, uncomfortable boat that is to carry him far upona stormy day. And then Rodriguez helped him into the saddle.
"Can you stay there?" Rodriguez said. "We have far to go."
"Master," Morano answered, "these hands can hold till evening."
And then Rodriguez mounted, leaving Morano gripping the high front ofthe saddle with his large brown hands. But as soon as the horsesstarted he got a grip with his heels as well, and later on with hisknees. Rodriguez led the way on to the straggling road and was soongalloping northwards, while Morano's heels kept his horse up close tohis master's. Morano rode as though trained in the same school thatsome while later taught Macaulay's equestrian, who rode with "looserein and bloody spur." Yet the miles went swiftly by as they gallopedon soft white dust, which lifted and settled, some of it, back on thelazy road, while some of it was breathed by Morano. The gold coin onthe green silk ribbon flapped up and down as Rodriguez rode, till hestuffed it inside his clothing and remembered no more about it. Oncethey saw before them the man they had snatched from the noose: he wasgoing hard and leading a loose horse. And then where the road bentround a low hill he galloped out of sight and they saw him no more. Hehad the loose horse to change on to as soon as the other was tired:they had no prospect of overtaking him. And so he passed out of theirminds as their host had done who went away with his household toSaragossa.
At first Rodriguez' mandolin, that was always slung on his back, bumpedup and down uncomfortably; but he eased it by altering the strap: smallthings like this bring contentment. And then he settled down to ride.But no contentment came near Morano nor did he look for it. On thefirst day of his wanderings he had worn his master's clothes, which hasbeen an experience standing somewhat where toothache does, which issomewhere about half-way between discomfort and agony. On the secondday he had climbed at the end of a weary journey over those sharp rockswhose shape was adapted so ill to his body. On the third day he wasriding. He did not look for comfort. But he met discomfort with an easyresignation that almost defeated the intention of Satan who sends it,unless--as is very likely--it be from Heaven. And in spite of alldiscomforts he gaily followed Rodriguez. In a thousand days at the Innof the Dragon and Knight no two were so different to Morano that onestood out from the other, or any from the rest. It was all as thoughone day were repeated again and again; and at some point in thismonotonous repetition, like a milestone shaped as the rest on aperfectly featureless road, life would end and the meaninglessrepetition stop: and looking back on it there would only be one day tosee, or, if he could not look back, it would be all gone for nothing.And then, into that one day that he was living on in the gloaming ofthat grim inn, Rodriguez had appeared, and Morano had known him for oneof those wandering lights that sometimes make sudden day among thestars. He knew--no, he felt--that by following him, yesterday today andtomorrow would be three separate possessions in memory. Morano gladlygave up that one dull day he was living for the new strange daysthrough which Rodriguez was sure to lead him. Gladly he left it: ifthis be not true how then has a man with a dream led thousands tofollow his fancy, from the Crusades to whatever gay madness be thefashion when this is read? As they galloped the scent of the flowersrushed into Rodriguez' nostrils, while Morano mainly breathed the dustfrom the hooves of his master's horse. But the quest was favoured themore by the scent of the flowers inspiring its leader's fancies. SoMorano gained even from this.
In the first hour they shortened by fifteen miles the length of theirrambling quest. In the next hour they did five miles; and in the thirdhour ten. After this they rode slowly. The sun was setting. Moranoregarded the sunset with delight, for it seemed to promise jovially theend of his sufferings, which except for brief periods when they went onfoot, to rest--as Rodriguez said--the horses, had been continuous andeven increasing since they started. Rodriguez, perhaps a little wearytoo, drew from the sunset a more sombre feeling, as sensitive minds do:he responded to its farewell, he felt its beauty, and as little windsturned cool and the shine of blades of grass faded, making all theplain dimmer, he heard, or believed he heard, further off than he couldsee, sounds on the plain beyond ridges, in hollows, behind clumps ofbushes; as though small creatures all unknown to his learning playedinstruments cut from reeds upon unmapped streams. In this hour, amongthese fancies, Rodriguez saw clear on a hill the white walls of thevillage of Lowlight. And now they began to notice that a great roundmoon was shining. The sunset grew dimmer and the moonlight stole insoftly, as a cat might walk through great doors on her silent feet intoa throne-room just as the king had gone: and they entered the villageslowly in the perfect moment of twilight.
The round horizon was brimming with a pale but magical colour, wellingup to the tips of trees and the battlements of white towers. Earthseemed a mysterious cup overfull of this pigment of wonder. Cloudswandering low, straying far from their azure fields, were dipped in it.The towers of Lowlight turned slowly rose in that light, and glowedtogether with the infinite gloaming, so that for this brief hour thethings of man were wed with the things of eternity. It was into thiswide, pale flame of aetherial rose that the moon came stealing like amagician on tip-toe, to enchant the tips of the trees, low clouds andthe towers of Lowlight. A blue light from beyond our world touched thepink that is Earth's at evening: and what was strange and a matter forhushed voices, marvellous but yet of our earth, became at that touchunearthly. All in a moment it was, and Rodriguez gasped to see it. EvenMorano's eyes grew round with the coming of wonder, or with some dimfeeling that an unnoticed moment had made all things strange and new.
For some moments the spell of moonlight on sunlight hovered: the airwas brimming and quivering with it: magic touched earth. For somemoments, some thirty beats of a heron's wing, had the angels sung tomen, had their songs gone earthward into that rosy glow, gliding pastlayers of faintly tinted cloud, like moths at dusk towards abriar-rose; in those few moments men would have known their language.Rodriguez reined in his horse in the heavy silence and waited. For whathe waited he knew not: some unearthly answer perhaps to his questioningthoughts that had wandered far from earth, though no words came to himwith which to ask
their question and he did not know what question theywould ask. He was all vibrating with the human longing: I know not whatit is, but perhaps philosophers know. He sat there waiting while a latebird sailed homeward, sat while Morano wondered. And nothing spake fromanywhere.
And now a dog began to notice the moon: now a child cried suddenly thathad been dragged back from the street, where it had wandered atbedtime: an old dog rose from where it had lain in the sun and feeblyyet confidently scratched at a door: a cat peered round a corner: a manspoke: Rodriguez knew there would be no answer now.
Rodriguez hit his horse, the tired animal went forward, and he andMorano rode slowly up the street.
Dona Serafina of the Valley of Dawnlight had left the heat of the roomthat looked on the fields, and into which the sun had all day beenstreaming, and had gone at sunset to sit in the balcony that lookedalong the street. Often she would do this at sunset; but she ratherdreamed as she sat there than watched the street, for all that it hadto show she knew without glancing. Evening after evening as soon aswinter was over the neighbour would come from next door and stretchhimself and yawn and sit on a chair by his doorway, and the neighbourfrom opposite would saunter across the way to him, and they would talkwith eagerness of the sale of cattle, and sometimes, but more coldly,of the affairs of kings. She knew, but cared not to know, just when thetwo old men would begin their talk. She knew who owned every dog thatstretched itself in the dust until chilly winds blew in the dusk andthey rose up dissatisfied. She knew the affairs of that street like anold, old lesson taught drearily, and her thoughts went far away tovales of an imagination where they met with many another maiden fancy,and they all danced there together through the long twilight in Spring.And then her mother would come and warn her that the evening grew cold,and Serafina would turn from the mystery of evening into the house andthe candle-light. This was so evening after evening all through springand summer for two long years of her youth. And then, this evening,just as the two old neighbours began to discuss whether or not thesubjugation of the entire world by Spain would be for its benefit, justas one of the dogs in the road was rising slowly to shake itself,neighbours and dogs all raised their heads to look, and there wasRodriguez riding down the street and Morano coming behind him. WhenSerafina saw this she brought her eyes back from dreams, for shedreamed not so deeply but that the cloak and plume of Rodriguez foundsome place upon the boundaries of her day-dream. When she saw the wayhe sat his horse and how he carried his head she let her eyes flash fora little moment along the street from her balcony. And if some criticalreader ask how she did it I answer, "My good sir, I can't tell you,because I don't know," or "My dear lady, what a question to ask!" Andwhere she learned to do it I cannot think, but nothing was easier. Andthen she smiled to think that she had done the very thing that hermother had warned her there was danger in doing.
"Serafina," her mother said in that moment at the large window, "theevening grows cold. It might be dangerous to stay there longer." AndSerafina entered the house, as she had done at the coming of dusk onmany an evening.
Rodriguez missed as much of that flash of her eyes, shot from below thedarkness of her hair, as youth in its first glory and freedom misses.For at the point on the road called life at which Rodriguez was then,one is high on a crag above the promontories of watchmen, lower onlythan the peaks of the prophets, from which to see such things. Yet itdid not need youth to notice Serafina. Beggars had blessed her for thepoise of her head.
She turned that head a little as she went between the windows, tillRodriguez gazing up to her saw the fair shape of her neck: and almostin that moment the last of the daylight died. The windows shut; andRodriguez rode on with Morano to find the forge that was kept byFernandez the smith. And presently they came to the village forge, acottage with huge, high roof whose beams were safe from sparks; and itsfire was glowing redly into the moonlight through the wide door madefor horses, although there seemed no work to be done, and a man with aswart moustache was piling more logs on. Over the door was burned onoak in ungainly great letters--
"FERNANDEZ"
"For whom do you seek, senor?" he said to Rodriguez, who had haltedbefore him with his horse's nose inside the doorway sniffing.
"I look," he said, "for him who is not Fernandez."
"I am he," said the man by the fire.
Rodriguez questioned no further but dismounted, and bade Morano leadthe horses in. And then he saw in the dark at the back of the forge theother two horses that he had seen in the wood. And they were shod as hehad never seen horses shod before. For the front pair of shoes werejoined by a chain riveted stoutly to each, and the hind pair also; andboth horses were shod alike. The method was equally new to Morano. Andnow the man with the swart moustache picked up another bunch ofhorseshoes hanging in pairs on chains. And Rodriguez was not far outwhen he guessed that whenever la Garda overtook their horses they wouldfind that Fernandez was far away making holiday, while he who shod themnow would be gone upon other business. And all this work seemed toRodriguez not to be his affair.
"Farewell," he said to the smith that was not Fernandez; and with a patfor his horse he left it, having obtained a promise of oats. And soRodriguez and Morano went on foot again, Morano elated in spite offatigue and pain, rejoicing to feel the earth once more, flat under thesoles of his feet; Rodriguez a little humbled.