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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,
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