They
must have done fifteen miles since the mountains were pale blue.
And now, every mile they went, on the most awful of the dark
ridges the object Rodriguez saw seemed more and more like a house.
Yet neither then, nor as they drew still nearer, nor when they saw
it close, nor looking back on it after years, did it somehow seem
quite right. And Morano sometimes crossed himself as he looked at
it, and said nothing.
Rodriguez, as they walked ceaselessly through the afternoon,
seeing his servant show some sign of weariness, which comes not to
youth, pointed out the house looking nearer than it really was on
the mountain, and told him that he should find there straw, and
they would sup and stay the night. Afterwards, when the strange
appearance of the house, varying with different angles, filled him
with curious forebodings, Rodriguez would make no admission to his
servant, but held to the plan he had announced, and so approached
the queer roofs, neglecting the friendly stars.
Through the afternoon the two travellers pushed on mostly in
silence, for the glances that house seemed to give him from the
edge of its perilous ridge, had driven the mirth from Rodriguez
and had even checked the garrulity on the lips of the tougher
Morano, if garrulity can be ascribed to him whose words seldom
welled up unless some simple philosophy troubled his deeps. The
house seemed indeed to glance at him, for as their road wound on,
the house showed different aspects, different walls and edges of
walls, and different curious roofs; all these walls seemed to peer
at him.
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