recognised it by a certain air it had. Thither he pointed and la
Garda rode. Again he spoke to them. "Can Morano speak Latin?" he
said.

"God forbid!" said la Garda.

They dismounted and opened a gate that was gilded all over, in a
low wall of round boulders. They went up a narrow path between
thick ilices and came to the green door. They pulled a bell whose
handle was a symbol carved in copper, one of the Priest's
mysteries. The bell boomed through the house, a tiny musical boom,
and the Priest opened the door; and Rodriguez addressed him in
Latin. And the Priest answered him.

At first la Garda had not realised what had happened. And then the
Priest beckoned and they all entered his house, for Rodriguez had
asked him for ink. Into a room they came where a silver ink-pot
was, and the grey plume of the goose. Picture no such ink-pot, my
reader, as they sell to-day in shops, the silver no thicker than
paper, and perhaps a pattern all over it guaranteed artistic. It
was molten silver well wrought, and hollowed for ink. And in the
hollow there was the magical fluid, the stuff that rules the world
and hinders time; that in which flows the will of a king, to
establish his laws for ever; that which gives valleys unto new
possessors; that whereby towers are held by their lawful owners;
that which, used grimly by the King's judge, is death; that which,
when poets play, is mirth for ever and ever.

No wonder la Garda looked at it in awe, no wonder they crossed
themselves again: and then Rodriguez wrote. In the silence that