No protestations moved him; and Ramon Alonzo, seeing at last that by every word he said he was disclosing more and more clearly the existence of a plan, turned away silent at last and went into the wood.
XXI
White Magic Comes to the Wood
Through the wood to which Ramon Alonzo had gone with his plans he walked disconsolate. What would he do when all his plans had succeeded and he had got back his shadow, if this sinister thing of gloom was to show at his heels whenever his human shadow should drink in the noonday sun? And his plans had seemed so sure.
Yet he was pledged to the knightly quest of the charwoman’s shadow, whatever embarrassments might befall his own, and from this the laws of chivalry did not allow him to swerve. And the more that she was an ancient and withered crone, the more he knew that he must be true to his pledge, for she had no other knight; no sword would stir for her into the light but his. But he walked disconsolate because of his own redundance of shadows which he foresaw to the end of his days.
It seems but a little thing to have two shadows, too slight a cloud to darken the gaiety of any mood of youth; how often on glittering evenings has a man or a maiden danced, happy below the splendour of arrayed chandeliers, and followed by scores of shadows? But Ramon Alonzo had learned, as those only learn who have ever lost their shadow, that side by side with great things and with trivial, there are deviations that are outside human pity; and this, the most trivial of them all, any unusual shape of a shadow, was no more tolerated than horns and tail. So absurd a prejudice cannot be credited unless it has been experienced.
He came in his melancholy walk to the mossy roots of an oak; and there he sat him down, and leaning back against the bole of the tree took out from a wallet the parchment and pen and ink he had brought and began to write supposed script of heathen lands, and amongst it the second syllable of the spell, which should shape for him two-thirds of the key of the shadow-box.
Hardly had he written that one Cathayan syllable, and added a few fantastic shapes of his own, when he heard a rustling a little way off in the wood. He sat upon the moss and listened: it grew to a pattering; a sound as of small feet scurrying over leaves, pushing through bracken, leaping rocks and dead branches, in a hurry that seemed to have suddenly come to the wood, and was stirring bramble and briar before him and far on his left and right. And it was coming nearer. Then Ramon Alonzo heard shrill little squeaks above the sound of the scurrying; and all at once an imp came bounding by, and two more and then another. Then the snap of a twig and a rustle drew his attention upon his other side, and six more were running past him; and soon he saw a line of imps fleeing desperately through the wood, not troubling to keep out of sight of him on the far side of trees going by, some passing barely out of reach of his hand. He saw their small round bodies bobbing by, then heard them brush through the bracken into the distance, and not for a moment did one of them cease to scurry. They were jabbering to each other as they went, evidently in great perturbation. And then a gnome came by, carrying a bundle, an old fellow three times as large as an imp and wearing clothes of a sort, especially a hat. And he was clearly just as frightened as the imps, though he could not go so fast. Ramon Alonzo saw that there must be some great trouble that was vexing magical things; and, since gnomes speak the language of men, and will answer if spoken to gently, he raised his hat, and asked of the gnome his name. The gnome did not stop his hasty shuffle a moment as he answered “Alaraba,” and grabbed the rim of his hat but forgot to doff it.
“What is the trouble, Alaraba?” said Ramon Alonzo.
“White magic. Run!” said the gnome, and shuffled on eagerly. More than this he did not say, nor thought more necessary, for he had uttered the one thing that magical folk dread most.
A few more things ran by that haunt woods that are subject to magic, one or two elves and their like; then a deep hush came on the wood, for everything had fled. Ramon Alonzo wondering, and listening quiet in the hush, heard after a while shod hooves, coming from that direction from which everything had fled. Then he heard branches brushing by, far noisier than the soft scurrying of the flight of the magical things, but leisurely and calmly. This was nothing that fled: this then was the white magic. The hooves drew nearer and the brushing of large branches. Then a mule’s face came through the foliage, and, bending low to avoid the bough of an oak tree, there appeared Father Joseph.
His face was very red and very moist, for riding through a wood is no joyous pastime. He did not look a shape to have driven to terror all magical things that dwelt in the dark of the wood.
“Good morrow,” said Father Joseph.
“Good morrow, Father,” replied Ramon Alonzo, rising up from his mossy seat and doffing his hat. Then Father Joseph turned awhile to the business of clambering out of the saddle, after which he took his mule by the bridle and walked up to Ramon Alonzo.
“What brings you to the wood?” said Ramon Alonzo uneasily, for every dealing with magic leaves its trace on the conscience.
Father Joseph beamed towards him with his red face. “I came to see
