away from last night's sinister shelter, Rodriguez and five of la
Garda. Two of them stayed behind with Morano, undecided as yet
which way to take, though looking wistfully the way that that wine
was said to be; and Rodriguez left Morano to his own devices, in
which he trusted profoundly.

Now Rodriguez knew not the name of the next village that they
would come to nor the names of any of the dwellers in it.

Yet he had a plan. As he went by the side of one of the horses he
questioned the rider.

"Can Morano write?" he said. La Garda laughed.

"Can Morano talk Latin?" he said. La Garda crossed themselves, all
five men. And after some while of riding, and hard walking for
Rodriguez, to whom they allowed a hand on a stirrup leather, there
came in sight the tops of the brown roofs of a village over a fold
of the plain. "Is this your village?" said one of his captors.

"Surely," answered Rodriguez.

"What is its name?" said one.

"It has many names," said Rodriguez.

And then another one of them recognised it from the shape of its
roofs. "It is Saint Judas-not-Iscariot," he said.

"Aye, so strangers call it," said Rodriguez.