had reached the ladder; he unwound his cloak, and set his foot on the cord rung. 'Oh! there he is going up, the villain!’ roared Don Ruy. The hanged man went up, and now the tall figure which was his, Don Ruy’s, was half way up the ladder, and made a black patch against the white wall. He stopped!--no! he had not stopped; he mounted--he reached the top--now he had carefully rested his knee on the rounded edge of the balcony. Don Ruy gazed despairingly, with his eyes, his soul, and all his being. And lo! suddenly a black figure rises out of the dark room, a furious voice shouts, 'Villain, villain!’ and the blade of a dagger rises and falls, and again rises, shines again and comes down, and once more shines, and once more is driven in! Like a bundle the hanged man falls heavily from the top of the ladder onto the soft earth. The glass windows and doors of the balcony are immediately shut to with a crash, and there is nothing more but the silence, the gentle calm, and the moon high up and round in the summer sky. In a flash Don Ruy had comprehended the treason, drawn his sword and retreated to the darkness of the avenue, when--oh, wonder! the hanged man appears running across the terrace, seizes his sleeve, and cries to him: 'To horse, sir, and let us be off, for the meeting was not one of love but of death!’ They both descend the avenue at full speed, hug the tank, under the protection of the flowering shrubs, plunge into the narrow walk edged with yews, pierce the gate, and stop for a moment out of breath in the road, where the moon, now fuller and more refulgent, turned night into day. And then, only then, did Don Ruy discover that the hanged man still had the dagger nailed in his breast up to the guard, while the point, shining smooth and clean, issued from his back!... But immediately the terrible man pushed and hurried him: 'To horse, sir, and let us be off, for treason is still upon us!’ Terror-struck, and burning to close that adventure full of miracles and horrors, Don Ruy plucked up the reins and rode off full tilt, and straightway, in great haste, the hanged man leapt also onto the crupper of the faithful horse. The good knight shivered all over at feeling the contact with his back of that dead body which had been hanged from a gibbet and pierced through by a dagger. With what despair he galloped then along the endless road! But violent as was his career, the hanged man neither moved to one side or the other, but sat rigid on the crupper like a statue on a pedestal, and Don Ruy felt each moment a more freezing cold congealing his shoulders as if he bore on them a sack full of ice. As he passed the Calvary, he murmured: 'Lord aid me!’ Past the Calvary he gave a sudden tremble, in the fancied fear that his funereal companion would remain with him for ever, and that he was destined to gallop over the world in an eternal night bearing a dead man on his crupper.... And he could not contain