whether the voice proceeded from a living breast or a dead breast, it would be great cowardice to go off as if in a fright without attending to it and listening. He immediately drove his trembling horse into the middle of the hill, and stopping, erect and calm, with his hand at his side, cried, after steadfastly gazing at the four suspended bodies, one by one: 'Which of you hanged men dared to call for Don Ruy de Cardenas?’ Then the one who had his back to the full moon replied from the top of the cord, very quietly and naturally, like a man talking from his window to the street: 'It was I, sir.’ Don Ruy drove his horse forward. He could not distinguish the man’s face, which was buried in his breast, and hidden by his long, black, falling tresses. All he saw was that his hands were free and unbound, and also his bare feet, which were already withered and the colour of bitumen. 'What do you want of me?’ The hanged man sighed and murmured: 'Do me the great favour, sir, to cut the cord by which I am suspended.’ Don Ruy snatched his sword, and with a sure blow cut the half-rotten cord. With a sinister sound of clashing bones the body fell on the ground, and lay stretched out there for a moment, but immediately righted itself on its ill-secure and still sleeping feet, and raised towards Don Ruy a dead face, which was a skull with the skin tightly glued to it, and more yellow than the moon that beat upon it. The eyes showed neither movement nor light. The two lips grinned in a stony smile. From the whitest of teeth issued the point of a very black tongue. Don Ruy displayed neither terror nor loathing, but calmly sheathing his sword, asked: 'Art thou alive or dead?’ The man slowly contracted his shoulders: 'Sir, I know not. Who knows what is life? Who knows what is death?’ ... 'But, what do you want of me?’ With his long, fleshless fingers the hanged man enlarged the knot of the cord that still encircled his neck, and said very calmly and firmly: 'Sir, I must go with you to Cabril, whither you are going.’