those flowers, the first anemones of the year; and long after,
whenever he sang to old airs of Spain, he thought of Spain as it
appeared that day in all the wonder of Spring; the memory lent a
beauty to his voice and a wistfulness to his eyes that accorded
not ill with the theme of the songs he sang, and were more than
once to melt proud hearts deemed cold. And so gazing he came to a
town that stood on a hill, before he was yet tired, though he had
done nigh twenty of those flowery miles of Spain; and since it was
evening and the light was fading away, he went to an inn and drew
his sword in the twilight and knocked with the hilt of it on the
oaken door. The name of it was the Inn of the Dragon and Knight. A
light was lit in one of the upper windows, the darkness seemed to
deepen at that moment, a step was heard coming heavily down a
stairway; and having named the inn to you, gentle reader, it is
time for me to name the young man also, the landless lord of the
Valleys of Arguento Harez, as the step comes slowly down the inner
stairway, as the gloaming darkens over the first house in which he
has ever sought shelter so far from his father's valleys, as he
stands upon the threshold of romance. He was named Rodriguez
Trinidad Fernandez, Concepcion Henrique Maria; but we shall
briefly name him Rodriguez in this story; you and I, reader, will
know whom we mean; there is no need therefore to give him his full
names, unless I do it here and there to remind you.

The steps came thumping on down the inner stairway, different
windows took the light of the candle, and none other shone in the
house; it was clear that it was moving with the steps all down
that echoing stairway. The sound of the steps ceased to
reverberate upon the wood, and now they slowly moved over stone
flags; Rodriguez now heard breathing, one breath with every step,