So he reached the Calvary, where the road split into two roads, more closely joined than the prongs of a fork, both cutting through the pine wood. Baring his head before the image of the Crucified, Don Ruy had a moment of anguish, because he did not remember which of them led to Gallows Hill. He had already plunged into the gloomier of the two, when, from between the silent pines a light appeared dancing in the darkness. It was an old woman in rags with long flowing tresses bent over a staff, and carrying a lamp. 'Where does this road lead to?’ shouted Ruy. The old woman swung her lamp higher up to observe the knight--‘To Xarama.’ The light and the old woman immediately disappeared, melting away into the shade as if they had risen up there only to warn the knight of his mistaken road. He had already turned back with a dash, and rounding the Calvary, he galloped along the other and wider road, until, over the brightness of the sky, he caught sight of the black pillars and black beams of Gallows Hill. Then he stayed motionless, erect in his stirrups. On a tall, bare hill without either grass or heather, connected by a low wall, full of breaches, the four pillars of granite rose up black and enormous in the yellow moonlight, looking like the four corners of a ruined house. Upon the pillars rested four stout beams. From the beams were suspended four hanged men, black and rigid, in the still, dumb air. All around seemed dead as they. Fat birds of prey slept perched upon the beams. Beyond, the dead water of the Ladies’ Lagoon shone livid, and in the heavens the moon was growing large and full. Don Ruy murmured the _Paternoster_ due from every Christian to those guilty souls. Then he urged on his horse, and passed by--when, in the immense silence and the immense solitude, a voice rose and resounded, a voice that called him, supplicating and slow: 'Knight, stay you, come hither!’ Don Ruy drew rein sharply, and standing in his stirrups cast his astonished eyes over all that ominous wilderness. All he saw was the rough hill, the still, shining water, the beams, the dead men. He thought it must have been an illusion of the night, or the daring of some wandering demon, and calmly spurred his horse, without alarm or haste, as if he were in a street in Segovia. But, behind him, the voice came again and more urgently called him, with anxiety, almost with affliction: 'Wait, knight; do not go on; return; come here!’... Don Ruy pulled up again, and turning in his saddle, boldly gazed at the four bodies suspended from the beams. The voice sounded from their direction, and being human could only issue from a human form! One of these hanged men, then, had called him with all that haste and anxiety. Did there remain in any, by God’s wonderful mercy, breath and life? Or was it that--a still greater marvel--one of those half-putrified carcasses detained him to transmit him warnings from beyond the grave?... But