or the
sound of war and, hearing none, continued his discourse. "But if I have
not come as yet to the wars I sleep beneath a roof."

For the second time therefore he drew his sword, and began to strike
methodically at the door, noting the grain in the wood and hitting
where it was softest. Scarcely had he got a good strip of the oak to
look like coming away, when the steps once more descended the wooden
stair and came lumbering over the stones; both the steps and the
breathing were quicker, for mine host of the Dragon and Knight was
hurrying to save his door.

When he heard the sound of the bolts and chains again Rodriguez ceased
to beat upon the door: once more it opened swiftly, and he saw mine
host before him, eyeing him with those bad eyes; of too much girth, you
might have said, to be nimble, yet somehow suggesting to the swift
intuition of youth, as Rodriguez looked at him standing upon his
door-step, the spirit and shape of a spider, who despite her ungainly
build is agile enough in her way.

Mine host said nothing; and Rodriguez, who seldom concerned himself
with the past, holding that the future is all we can order the scheme
of (and maybe even here he was wrong), made no mention of bolts or door
and merely demanded a bed for himself for the night.

Mine host rubbed his chin; he had neither beard nor moustache but wore
hideous whiskers; he rubbed it thoughtfully and looked at Rodriguez.
Yes, he said, he could have a bed for the night. No more words he said,
but turned and led the way; while Rodriguez, who could sing to the
mandolin, wasted none of his words on this discourteous object. They
ascended the short oak stairway down which mine host had come, the
great timbers of which were gnawed by a myriad rats, and they went by
passages with the light of one candle into the interior of the inn,
which went back farther from the street than the young man had
supposed; indeed he perceived when they came to the great corridor at
the end of which was his appointed chamber, that here was no ordinary
inn, as it had appeared from outside, but that it penetrated into the
fastness of some great family of former times which had fallen on evil
days. The vast size of it, the noble design where the rats had spared
the carving, what the moths had left of the tapestries, all testified
to that; and, as for the evil days, they hung about the place, evident
even by the light of one candle guttering with every draught that blew