In the twilight no tiny queens
had court within rings of toadstools: yet almost, almost they
appeared.
And on the third day all at once they came to a road they knew. It
was the road by which they had ridden when Rodriguez still had his
dream, the way from Shadow Valley to the Ebro. And so they turned
into the road they knew, as wanderers always will; and, still
without aim or plan, they faced towards Shadow Valley. And in the
evening of the day that followed that, as they looked about for a
camping-ground, there came in sight the village on the hill which
Rodriguez knew to be fifty miles from the forest: it was the
village in which they had rested the first night after leaving
Shadow Valley. They did not camp but went on to the village and
knocked at the door of the inn. Habit guides us all at times, even
kings are the slaves of it (though in their presence it takes the
prouder name of precedent); and here were two wanderers without
any plans at all; they were therefore defenceless in the grip of
habit and, seeing an inn they knew, they loitered up to it. Mine
host came again to the door. He cheerfully asked Rodriguez how he
had fared on his journey, but Rodriguez would say nothing. He
asked for lodging for himself and Morano and stabling for the
horses: he ate and slept and paid his due, and in the morning was
gone.
Whatever impulses guided Rodriguez as he rode and Morano followed,
he knew not what they were or even that there could be any.
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