sunshine were so much larger than the sombre room that the young
man's thoughts escaped from it and ran free to the fields. It may
have been only his fancy but the world seemed somehow brighter for
the demise of mine host of the Dragon and Knight, whose body still
lay hunched up on the foot of his bed. Rodriguez jumped up and
went to the high, barred window and looked out of it at the
morning: far below him a little town with red roofs lay; the smoke
came up from the chimneys toward him slowly, and spread out flat
and did not reach so high. Between him and the roofs swallows were
sailing.

He found water for washing in a cracked pitcher of earthenware and
as he dressed he looked up at the ceiling and admired mine host's
device, for there was an open hole that had come noiselessly,
without any sounds of bolts or lifting of trap-doors, but seemed
to have opened out all round on perfectly oiled groves, to fit
that well-to-do body, and down from the middle of it from some
higher beam hung the rope down which mine host had made his last
journey.

Before taking leave of his host Rodriguez looked at his poniard,
which was a good two feet in length, not counting the hilt, and
was surprised to find it an excellent blade. It bore a design on
the steel representing a town, which Rodriguez recognised for the
towers of Toledo; and had held moreover a jewel at the end of the
hilt, but the little gold socket was empty. Rodriguez therefore
perceived that the poniard was that of a gallant, and surmised
that mine host had begun his trade with a butcher's knife, but
having come by the poniard had found it to be handier for his
business. Rodriguez being now fully dressed, girt his own blade