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adventure; for neither he nor anyone in that village had entered Shadow Valley.
Once more next morning Rodriguez walked with Serafina, with something of the romance of the garden gone,
for Dona Mirana walked there too; and romance is like one of those sudden, wonderful colours that flash for a
moment out of a drop of dew; a passing shadow obscures them; and ask another to see it, and the colour is not
the same: move but a yard and the ray of enchantment is gone. Dona Mirana saw the romance of that garden,
but she saw it from thirty years away; it was all different what she saw, all changed from a certain day (for love
was love in the old days): and to Rodriguez and Serafina it seemed that she could not see romance at all, and
somehow that dimmed it. Almost their eyes seemed to search amongst the azaleas for the romance of that other
evening.
And then Rodriguez told Serafina that he was riding away with her brother to see about the affairs of his
castle, and that they would return in a few days. Scarcely a hint he gave that those affairs might not prosper, for
he trusted the word of the King of Shadow Valley. His confidence had returned: and soon, with swords at side
and cloaks floating brilliant on light winds of April, Rodriguez and Alderon rode away together.
Soon in the distance they saw Shadow Valley. And then Rodriguez bethought him of Morano and of the foul
wrong he committed against Don Alderon with his frying-pan, and how he was there in the camp to which he was
bringing his friend. And so he said: "That vile knave Morano still lives and insists on serving me."
"If he be near," said Don Alderon, "I pray you to disarm him of his frying-pan for the sake of my honour, which
does not suffer me to be stricken with culinary weapons, but only with the sword, the lance, or even bolts of
cannon or arquebuss ..." He was thinking of yet more weapons when Rodriguez put spurs to his horse. "He is
near," he said; "I will ride on and disarm him."
So Rodriguez came cantering into the forest while Don Alderon ambled a mile or so behind him.
And there he found his old camp and saw Morano, sitting upon the ground by a small fire. Morano sprang up at
once with joy in his eyes, his face wreathed with questions, which he did not put into words for he did not pry
openly into his master's affairs.
"Morano," said Rodriguez, "give me your frying-pan."
"My frying-pan?" said Morano.
"Yes," said Rodriguez. And when he held in his hand that blackened, greasy utensil he told Morano, "That
senor you met in Lowlight rides with me."
The cheerfulness faded out of Morano's face as light fades at sunset. "Master," he said, "he will surely slay me
now."
"He will not slay you," said Rodriguez.
"Master," Morano said, "he hopes for my fat carcase as much as men hope for the unicorn, when they wear
their bright green coats and hunt him with dogs in Spring." I know not what legend Morano stored in his mind,
nor how much of it was true. "And when he finds me without my frying-pan he will surely slay me."
"That senor," said Rodriguez emphatically, "must not be hit with the frying-pan."
"That is a hard rule, master," said Morano.
And Rodriguez was indignant, when he heard that, that anyone should thus blaspheme against an obvious law
of chivalry: while Morano's only thought was upon the injustice of giving up the sweets of life for the sake of a
frying-pan. Thus they were at cross-purposes. And for some while they stood silent, while Rodriguez hung the
reins of his horse over the broken branch of a tree. And then Don Alderon rode into the wood.
All then that was most pathetic in Morano's sense of injustice looked out of his eyes as he turned them upon
his master. But Don Alderon scarcely glanced at all at Morano, even when he handed to him the reins of his horse
as he walked on towards Rodriguez.
And there in that leafy place they rested all through the evening, for they had not started so early upon their
journey as travellers should. Eight days had gone since Rodriguez had left that small camp to ride to Lowlight, and
to the apex of his life towards which all his days had ascended; and in that time Morano had collected good store
of wood and, in little ways unthought of by dwellers in cities, had made the place like such homes as wanderers
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