There they camped as well as men can when darkness has fallen
before they reach their camping-ground; and Morano lit a great
fire before the gate, and the smooth blank shields touching
shoulders there up above them shone on Rodriguez and Alderon in
the firelight. For a while they wondered at that strange gate that
stood there dividing the wilderness; and then sleep came.
As soon as they woke they called loudly, but no one guarded that
gate, no step but theirs stirred in the forest. Then, leaving
Morano in the camp with its great gate that led nowhere, the two
young men climbed up by branches and chains, and were soon on the
other side of the gate and pressing on through the silence of the
forest to find the cottage in which Rodriguez had slept. And
almost at once the green bowmen appeared, ten of them with their
bows, in front of Rodriguez and Alderon. "Stop," said the ten
green bowmen. When the bowmen said that, there was nothing else to
do.
"What do you seek?" said the bowmen.
"The King of Shadow Valley," answered Rodriguez.
"He is not here," they said.
"Where is he?" asked Rodriguez.
"He is nowhere," said one, "when he does not wish to be seen."
"Then show me the castle that he promised me," said Rodriguez.
"We know nothing of any castle," said one of the bowmen, and they
all shook their heads.
"No castle?" said Rodriguez.
"No," they said.
"Has the King of Shadow Valley no castle?" he asked, beginning now
to despair.
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