It
was morning; dawn was old; and pale and grey and unhappy.
The balcony above him, still empty, scarcely even held romance
now. Rain dripped from it sadly. Its cheerless bareness seemed
worse than the most sinister shadows of night.
And then Rodriguez saw a rose lying on the ground beside him. And
for all the dreams, fancies, and hopes that leaped up in
Rodriguez' mind, rising and falling and fading, one thing alone he
knew and all the rest was mystery: the rose had lain there before
the rain had fallen. Beneath the rose was white dust, while all
around it the dust was turning grey with rain.
Rodriguez tried to guess how long the rain had fallen. The rose
may have lain beside him all night long. But the shadows of
mystery receded no farther than this one fact that the rose was
there before the rain began. No sign of any kind came from the
house.
Rodriguez put the rose safe under his coat, wrapped in the
kerchief that had guarded the mandolin, to carry it far from
Lowlight, through places familiar with roses and places strange to
them; but it remained for him a thing of mystery until a day far
from then.
Sadly he left the house in the sad rain, marching away alone to
look for his wars.
THE SEVENTH CHRONICLE
HOW HE CAME TO SHADOW VALLEY
Rodriguez still believed it to be the duty of any Christian man to
kill Morano. Yet, more than comfort, more than dryness, he missed
Morano's cheerful chatter, and his philosophy into which all
occasions so easily slipped.
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