in a garden, of which some old song told well, a night in early
summer under the evening star, and that sword there as always; as
he told of his grandfather as poets had loved to tell, going among
the scents of the huge flowers, familiar with the dark garden as
the moths that drifted by him; as he spoke of a sigh heard
faintly, as he spoke of danger near, whether to body or soul; as
the reverend father was about to raise both his hands; there came
a thunder of knockings upon the locked green door.





THE THIRD CHRONICLE

HOW HE CAME TO THE HOUSE OF WONDER


It was the gross Morano. Here he had tracked Rodriguez, for where
la Garda goes is always known, and rumour of it remains long
behind them, like the scent of a fox. He told no tale of his
escape more than a dog does who comes home some hours late; a dog
comes back to his master, that is all, panting a little perhaps;
someone perhaps had caught him and he escaped and came home, a
thing too natural to attempt to speak of by any of the signs that
a dog knows.

Part of Morano's method seems to have resembled Rodriguez', for
just as Rodriguez spoke Latin, so Morano fell back upon his own
natural speech, that he as it were unbridled and allowed to run