“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.