The knight started so sharply in his astonishment, pulling back the reins, that his good horse reared up as if struck by the same fright. 'With me to Cabril?’ The man bent his spine, displaying all the bones sharper than the teeth of a saw through a long rent in his tammy shirt. 'Sir,’ he prayed, 'deny me not, for I shall receive a great reward if I do you a great service.’ Then it suddenly occurred to Don Ruy that that might well be some dreadful trick of the Demon, and fixing his piercing eyes on the dead face which was upraised to him, anxiously awaiting his consent, he slowly made a large Sign of the Cross. The hanged man bent his knees with startled reverence. 'Why do you try me with that Sign, sir? By it alone we obtain remission, and from it alone I hope for mercy.’ Then Don Ruy thought that if that man was not sent by the Demon, he might well be sent by God, and so, straightway, devoutly, with a gesture of submission in which he abandoned all to Heaven, he consented and accepted his awful companion. 'Come with me, then, to Cabril, if God sends you, but I shall ask you no questions, and you must ask none of me!’ He took his horse down the road all lighted up by the moon. The hanged man followed at his side with such airy steps that, even when Don Ruy galloped, he kept touching his stirrup, as if he were borne along by a silent wind. Now and then, to breathe freely, he pulled back the knot of the cord that was twisted round his neck, and as they were passing between hedges where the scent of wild-flowers was wafted about, the man murmured with extraordinary relief and delight, 'How good it is to run!’ Don Ruy was filled with amazement and a torment of care. He understood clearly now that that was a corpse revived by God for a strange and hidden service. But why did God give him such a terrible companion? To protect him? To prevent Donna Leonor, beloved of Heaven for her piety, from falling into mortal sin? But had the Lord no Angels left in heaven that He must needs employ a man who had paid the death penalty on so divine a mission of such high favour?... Ah, how gladly would he turn his horse towards Segovia were it not for a knight’s gallant loyalty, his pride in never turning back, and his submission to the orders of God which he felt weigh upon him....