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.