the roadway trimming his long finger-nails with a small green-handled
knife.

"Hail, friends," said Manuel, "and for whom are you waiting here?"

"I wait for one to ride on this black horse of mine," replied the
mounted stranger. "It was decreed that the first person who passed this
way must be his rider, but you two come abreast. So do you choose
between you which one rides."

"Well, but it is a fine steed surely," Manuel said, "and a steed fit for
Charlemagne or Hector or any of the famous champions of the old time."

"Each one of them has ridden upon this black horse of mine," replied the
stranger.

Niafer said, "I am frightened." And above them a furtive wind began to
rustle in the torn, discolored maple-leaves.

"--For it is a fine steed and an old steed," the stranger went on, "and
a tireless steed that bears all away. It has the fault, some say, that
its riders do not return, but there is no pleasing everybody."

"Friend," Manuel said, in a changed voice, "who are you, and what is
your name?"

"I am half-brother to Miramon Lluagor, lord of the nine sleeps, but I am
lord of another kind of sleeping; and as for my name, it is the name
that is in your thoughts and the name which most troubles you, and the
name which you think about most often."