Then presently, when he was surer these spider swarms could not
drop into the ravine, he found a place where he could sit down,
and sat and fell into deep thought and began after his manner
to gnaw his knuckles and bite his nails. And from this he was moved
by the coming of the man with the white horse.

He heard him long before he saw him, as a clattering of hoofs,
stumbling footsteps, and a reassuring voice. Then the little man
appeared, a rueful figure, still with a tail of white cobweb trailing
behind him. They approached each other without speaking, without
a salutation. The little man was fatigued and shamed to the pitch
of hopeless bitterness, and came to a stop at last, face to face with
his seated master. The latter winced a little under his dependant's
eye. "Well?" he said at last, with no pretence of authority.

"You left him?"

"My horse bolted."

"I know. So did mine."

He laughed at his master mirthlessly.

"I say my horse bolted," said the man who once had a silver-studded
bridle.

"Cowards both," said the little man.

The other gnawed his knuckle through some meditative moments,