“I have business with the magician,” replied Ramon Alonzo.
“May all such blessed Saints defend us as can,” said the stranger. He wrapped his cloak round him with a trembling hand and went shuddering down the slope drivelling terrified prayer.
“A fair night to you, señor,” called out Ramon Alonzo.
“Clearly not far,” he added, thinking aloud.
And once more he heard struggling feebly against the eerie voice of the wind those plaintive words imploring: “Not there, young master, not there.” And pressing on in the direction against which those feeble hands had waved so earnestly, he had gone some while against wind and slope and branches when a feeling came dankly upon him, as though exuded from the deep moss all around him, that he came no nearer to the house in the wood. He halted then and called out loud in the darkness: “If there be a magician in this wood let him appear.”
He waited and the wind sang on triumphantly, singing of spaces unconcerned with man, blue fields of the wind’s roving, dark gardens amongst the stars. He waited there and no magician came. So he sat on a boulder that was all deep with moss, and leaned back on it and looked into the wood, and saw nothing there but blackness and outlines of oak-boles. There he pondered how to come to his journey’s end. And then it came to him that this was no common journey, to be guided by the rules of ordinary wayfaring, but, having a magician as its destination and in an ominous wood, it were better guided by spell or magic or omen; and he meditated upon how he should come by a spell. And as he thought of spells he remembered the scroll he bore, with the ink of the magician upon it written eighty years agone. Now Ramon Alonzo’s studies had not extended so far as the art of writing; the good fathers in their school on the high hill near his home had taught him orally all that is needful to know, and much more he had learned for himself, but not by reading. Script therefore in black ink upon a scroll was in itself wonderful to him and, knowing it to have been penned by a magician, he reasonably regarded it as a spell. Arising then from his seat he waved this scroll high in the night and, knowing the liking that secret folk oft show for the number three, he waved it thrice. And there before him was the house in the wood.
It seemed to have slid down quietly from the high places of night, or it quietly appeared out of darkness that had hidden it hitherto, but the silence that cloaked its appearance almost instantly glided away, giving place to Arabian music that haunted the air overhead and plaintive Hindu love-chants that yearned in the dark. Then windows flashed into light, and there just in front of the mossy stone that the young man had made his seat was an old green door all studded with old green knobs. The door was ajar.
Ramon Alonzo stepped forward and pushed the green door open, and the magician came to his door with that alacrity with which the spider descends to the spot in his web that is shaken by some lost winged traveller’s arrival. He was in the great black silk cloak that the young man’s grandfather knew, but he wore great spectacles now, for he was older than he had been eighty years ago, in spite of his magic art. Ramon Alonzo bowed and the master smiled, though whether he smiled for welcome, or at a doom that hung over the strangers who troubled his door, there was no way for unlearned men to know. Then quickly, though still without fear, Ramon Alonzo thrust out the scroll that he bore, with the magician’s own writing upon it all in black ink; saying, word for word as his father had bade him say, “I am the grandson of him that taught you the taking of boars nigh eighty years ago.” The magician received it, and as he read his smile changed its nature and appeared to Ramon Alonzo somewhat more wholesome, having something in common with smiles of unlearned men that they smile at what is pleasant in earthly affairs. With a tact that well became him the master of magic made no enquiry after the young man’s grandfather; for as the rich do not speak of poverty to the poor, or the learned discourse on ignorance to the unlearned, this sage that had mastered the way of surviving the years spoke seldom with common men on the matter of death. But he bowed a welcome as though Ramon Alonzo were not entirely a stranger; and the young man expressed the pleasure that he felt at meeting a master of arts.
“There is but one Art,” answered the Master.
“It is the one I would study,” replied Ramon Alonzo.
“Ah,” said the magician.
And with an air now grown grave, as though somewhat pondering, he raised his arm and summoned up a draught, which closed his green door. When the door was shut and the draught had run home, brushing by the loose silk sleeve of the magician to its haunt in the dark of the house, which Ramon Alonzo perceived to be full of crannies, the host led his guest to an adjacent room, whence the savour of meats arose as he opened the door. And there was a repast all ready cooked and spread, waiting for Ramon Alonzo. By what arts those meats
