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from them; for it seems that time, which altereth every custom, hath altered none of our likings: and in every
chapter they taught me there were these wars to be found."
"Master, the times are altered," said Morano sadly. "It is not now as in old days."
And this was not the wisdom of Morano, for anger had clouded his judgment. And a faint song came yet from
the donkey-drivers, wavering over the flowers.
"Master," Morano said, "there are men like those vile sin-mongers, who have taken delight in peace. It may be
that peace has been brought upon the world by one of these lousy likings."
"The delight of peace," said Rodriguez, "is in its contrast to war. If war were banished this delight were gone.
And man lost none of his delights in any chapter I read."
The word and the meaning of CONTRAST were such as is understood by reflective minds, the product of
education. Morano felt rather than reflected; and the word CONTRAST meant nothing to him. This ended their
conversation. And the songs of the donkey-drivers, light though they were, being too heavy to be carried farther
by the idle air of Spring, Morano ceased cursing their sins.
And now the mountains rose up taller, seeming to stretch themselves and raise their heads. In a while they
seemed to be peering over the plain. They that were as pale ghosts, far off, dim like Fate, in the early part of the
morning, now appeared darker, more furrowed, more sinister, more careworn; more immediately concerned with
the affairs of Earth, and so more menacing to earthly things.
Still they went on and still the mountains grew. And noon came, when Spain sleeps.
And now the plain was altering, as though cool winds from the mountains brought other growths to birth, so
that they met with bushes straggling wild; free, careless and mysterious, as they do, where there is none to
teach great Nature how to be tidy.
The wanderers chose a clump of these that were gathered near the way, like gypsies camped awhile midway
on a wonderful journey, who at dawn will rise and go, leaving but a bare trace of their resting and no guess of
their destiny; so fairy-like, so free, so phantasmal those dark shrubs seemed.
Morano lay down on the very edge of the shade of one, and Rodriguez lay fair in the midst of the shade of
another, whereby anyone passing that way would have known which was the older traveller. Morano, according
to his custom, was asleep almost immediately; but Rodriguez, with wonder and speculation each toying with
novelty and pulling it different ways between them, stayed awhile wakeful. Then he too slept, and a bird thought
it safe to return to an azalea of its own; which it lately fled from troubled by the arrival of these two.
And Rodriguez the last to sleep was the first awake, for the shade of the shrub left him, and he awoke in the
blaze of the sun to see Morano still sheltered, well in the middle now of the shadow he chose. The gross sleep of
Morano I will not describe to you, reader. I have chosen a pleasant tale for you in a happy land, in the fairest time
of year, in a golden age: I have youth to show you and an ancient sword, birds, flowers and sunlight, in a plain
unharmed by any dream of commerce: why should I show you the sleep of that inelegant man whose bulk lay
cumbering the earth like a low, unseemly mountain?
Rodriguez overtook the shade he had lost and lay there resting until Morano awoke, driven all at once from
sleep by a dream or by mere choking. Then from the intricacies of his clothing, which to him after those two days
was what home is to some far wanderer, Morano drew out once more a lump of bacon. Then came the fry-pan
and then a fire: it was the Wanderers' Mess. That mess-room has stood in many lands and has only one roof. We
are proud of that roof, all we who belong to that Mess. We boast of it when we show it to our friends when it is
all set out at night. It has Aldebaran in it, the Bear and Orion, and at the other end the Southern Cross. Yes we
are proud of our roof when it is at its best.
What am I saying? I should be talking of bacon. Yes, but there is a way of cooking it in our Mess that I want
to tell you and cannot. I've tasted bacon there that isn't the same as what you get at the Ritz. And I want to tell
you how that bacon tastes; and I can't so I talk about stars. But perhaps you are one of us, reader, and then you
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