n had been set upon by a stranger in the street and had
been slain. She gave a great cry and never took her eyes from his face.
Then he said that a servant had seen an unknown man climb to the
balcony of her house. What if it were the assassin of her son? The
blood left her face and she clutched at the table behind her, as she
gave orders to have the house searched.

When the room was empty at last she went to the head of the bed and
bade the man concealed there to come forth and begone, but to cover his
face, that she might not be forced to know him again. So saying, she
dropped on her knees before a crucifix, while he slipped out of the
window again and down to the deserted street.

He sped to the corner and turned it undiscovered, and breathed a sigh
of relief and of regret. He kept on steadily, gliding stealthily along
in the shadows, until he found himself at the city gate as the bell of
the cathedral tolled the hour of midnight.

V

How it was that he passed through the gate he could not declare with
precision, for seemingly a mist had settled about him. Yet a few
minutes later he saw that in some fashion he must have got beyond the
walls of the town, for he recognized the open country all around. And,
oddly enough, he now discovered himself to be astride a bony steed. He
could not say what manner of horse it was he was riding, but he felt
sure that it was not the faithful charger that had saved his life in
Persia, once upon a time, in days long gone by, as it seemed to him
then. He was not in Persia now--of that he was certain, nor in Japan,
nor in the Iberian peninsula. Where he was he did not know.

In the dead hush of midnight he could hear the barking of a dog on the
opposite shore of a dusky and indistinct waste of waters that spread
itself far below him. The night grew darker and darker, the stars
seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid
them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. In the
centre of the road stood an enormous tulip-tree; its limbs were gnarled
and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting
down almost to the earth, and rising again into the air. As he
approached this fearful tree he thought he saw something white hanging
in the midst of it, but on looking more narrowly he perceived it was a
place where it had been scathed by lightning and the white wood laid
bare. About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook