himself, but shouted behind him, in the wind that struck them like a switch in their career: 'Whither do you wish me to take you?’ The hanged man, leaning his body so much against Don Ruy that he hurt him with the hilt of the dagger, whispered: 'Sir, it is expedient you should leave me on the hill.’ It was a sweet and immeasurable relief for the good knight, for the Hill was near, and its pillars and black beams could already be discerned in the pale light. Soon the trembling horse came to a stand, white with foam, and immediately the hanged man noiselessly slid down from the crupper, and bearing up Don Ruy’s stirrup like a good attendant, his skull uplifted, and his black tongue put further out from between his white teeth, he murmured in respectful supplication: 'Sir, do me now the great favour to hang me once again from my beam.’ Don Ruy trembled with horror. 'For God’s sake! I hang you?’ The man sighed, opening his long arms. 'Sir, it is God’s will, and Hers who is dearest to God!’ Thereupon, in resignation and submission to the commands of the Most High, Don Ruy dismounted and began to follow the man as he mounted pensively towards the hill, bending his back, from which the shining point of the dagger came sticking out. They both stopped under the empty beam. Round about the other beams hung the other carcasses. The silence was sadder and more deep than other earthly silences. The water in the lagoon had grown black. The moon was descending and waning. Don Ruy contemplated the beam where the piece of cord he had cut with his sword was left short in the air. 'How am I to hang you?’ he exclaimed. 'I cannot reach that piece of cord with my hand; nor can I hoist you up there by myself.’ 'Sir,’ replied the man, 'here, in a corner, there ought to be a long roll of cord. You will tie one end of it to this knot I have on my neck; the other end you will throw over the beam, and then, if you pull, you will, with your strength, easily be able to hang me again.’ Both men bending down and walking slowly looked for the roll of cord, and it was the hanged man who found and unrolled it.... Then Don Ruy took off his gloves, and, taught by the man who had learned his lesson well from the executioner, he tied one end of the cord to the noose the man had on his neck, and vigorously threw the other end, which undulated in the air, passed over the beam, and remained suspended close to the ground. Driving in his feet and tightening his arms, the bold knight pulled and hoisted the man until he was there suspended and black in the air like a natural hanged man among the others. 'Are you right as you are?’ Slow and sinking came the voice of the dead man. 'Sir, I am as I ought to be.’ Then to make him fast Don Ruy twisted the cord in stout knots to the stone pillar, and removing his hat and wiping with the back of his hand the sweat that covered him, he contemplated his sinister and miraculous companion. The latter was already rigid as