orts. This Chivalry forbids none of that.
But when I see anyone trying to kill you, master; why, kill you he
must, and welcome."

"Not always," said Rodriguez somewhat curtly, for it struck him that
Morano spoke somehow too lightly of sacred things.

"Not always?" asked Morano.

"No," said Rodriguez.

"Master, I implore you tell me," said Morano, "when they may kill you
and when they may not, so that I may never offend again."

Rodriguez cast a swift glance at him but found his face so full of
puzzled anxiety that he condescended to do what Morano had asked, and
began to explain to him the rudiments of the laws of Chivalry.

"In the wars," he said, "you may defend me whoever assails me, or if
robbers or any common persons attack me, but if I arrange a meeting
with a gentleman, and any knave basely interferes, then is he damned
hereafter as well as accursed now; for, the laws of Chivalry being
founded on true religion, the penalty for their breach is by no means
confined to this world."

"Master," replied Morano thoughtfully, "if I be not damned already I
will avoid those fires of Hell; and none shall kill you that you have
not chosen to kill you, and those that you choose shall kill you
whenever you have a mind."

Rodriguez opened his lips to correct Morano but reflected that, though
in his crude and base-born way, he had correctly interpreted the law so
far as his mind was able.

So he briefly said "Yes," and rose and returned to the road, giving
Morano no order to follow him; and this was the last concession he made
to the needs of Chivalry on account of the sin of Morano. Morano
gathered up the frying-pan and followed Rodriguez, and when they came
to the road he walked behind him in silence.

For three or four miles they walked thus, Morano knowing that he
followed on sufferance and calling no attention to himself with his
garrulous tongue. But at the end of an hour the rain lifted; and with
the coming out of the sun Morano talked again.

"Master," he said, "the next man that you choose to kill you, let him
be one too base-born to know the tricks of the rapier, too ignorant to
do aught but wish you well, some poor fat fool over forty who shall be
too heavy to elude your rapier's point and too elderly for it to matter
when you kill him at your Chivalry, the best of life being gone already
at forty-five."

"There is timber here," said Rodriguez. "We will have some more bacon
while you dry my cloak over