uez and Morano pressed on, and the mountains cloaked themselves
as they went, in air of many colours; till the stars came out and the
lights of the village gleamed. In darkness, with surprise in the tones
of the barking dogs, the two wanderers came to the village where so few
ever came, for it lay at the end of Spain, cut off by those mighty
rocks, and they knew not much of what lands lay beyond.

They beat on a door below a hanging board, on which was written "The
Inn of the World's End": a wandering scholar had written it and had
been well paid for his work, for in those days writing was rare. The
door was opened for them by the host of the inn, and they entered a
room in which men who had supped were sitting at a table. They were all
of them men from the Spanish side of the mountains, farmers come into
the village on the affairs of Mother Earth; next day they would be back
at their farms again; and of the land the other side of the mountains
that was so near now they knew nothing, so that it still remained for
the wanderers a thing of mystery wherein romance could dwell: and
because they knew nothing of that land the men at the inn treasured all
the more the rumours that sometimes came from it, and of these they
talked, and mine host listened eagerly, to whom all tales were brought
soon or late; and most he loved to hear tales from beyond the mountains.

Rodriguez and Morano sat still and listened, and the talk was all of
war. It was faint and vague like fable, but rumour clearly said War,
and the other side of the mountains. It may be that no man has a crazy
ambition without at moments suspecting it; but prove it by the
touchstone of fact and he becomes at once as a woman whose invalid son,
after years of seclusion indoors, wins unexpectedly some athletic
prize. When Rodriguez heard all this talk of wars quite near he thought
of his castle as already won; his thoughts went further even, floating
through Lowlight in the glowing evening, and drifting up and down past
Serafina's house below the balcony where she sat for ever.

Some said the Duke would never attack the Prince because the Duke's
aunt was a princess from the Troubadour's country. Another said that
there would surely be war. Others said that there was war already, and
too late for man to stop it. All said it would soon be over.

And one man said that it was the last war that would come, because
gunpowder made fighting impossible. It could smite a man dow