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.