incredible heights, where the windows shone all safe
from any ladder of war.

At first they felt in his story his pride in his lost home, and
wondered, when he told of the height of his towers, how much he added
in pride. And then the force of that story gripped them all and they
doubted never a battlement, but each man's fancy saw between firelight
and starlight every tower clear in the air. And at great height upon
those marvellous towers the turrets of arches were; queer carvings
grinned down from above inaccessible windows; and the towers gathered
in light from the lonely air where nothing stood but they, and flashed
it far over Aragon; and the Ebro floated by them always new, always
amazed by their beauty.

He spoke to the six listeners on the lonely mountain, slowly,
remembering mournfully; and never a story that Romance has known and
told of castles in Spain has held men more than he held his listeners,
while the sparks flew up toward the peaks of the Pyrenees and did not
reach to them but failed in the night, giving place to the white stars.

And when he faltered through sorrow, or memory weakening, Morano
always, watching with glittering eyes, would touch his arm, sitting
beside him, and ask some question, and the captive would answer the
question and so talk sadly on.

He told of the upper terraces, where heliotrope and aloe and oleander
took sunlight far above their native earth: and though but rare winds
carried the butterflies there, such as came to those fragrant terraces
lingered for ever.

And after a while he spoke on carelessly, and Morano's questions ended,
and none of the men in the firelight said a word; but he spoke on
uninterrupted, holding them as by a spell, with his eyes fixed far away
on black crags of the Pyrenees, telling of his great towers: almost it
might have seemed he was speaking of mountains. And when the fire was
only a deep red glow and white ash showed all round it, and he ceased
speaking, having told of a castle marvellous even amongst the towers of
Spain: all sitting round the embers felt sad with his sadness, for his
sad voice drifted into their very spirits as white mists enter houses,
and all were glad when Rodriguez said to him that one of his ten tall
towers the captive should keep and should live in it for ever. And the
sad man thanked him sadly and showed no joy.

When the tale of the castle and those great towers was done, the wind
that blew from the snow touched