The Charwoman’s Shadow

And it seemed to Ramon Alonzo, with the curious insight of youth, as he followed the black bulk of the Master of the Art looming above the wild shadows that ran from the lantern, that here was the master of a band of shadows leading them home into their native darkness. Gladly then the Lord of the Tower and Rocky Forest went to his rummage-room where strange things lay and none interfered with the spider. Ramon Alonzo stayed awhile by the door, which still opened to the gloom of the magical room, his sword in his shaken hand, and not till he saw that his enemy did not deign to follow did he turn slowly away. And all the time that Ramon Alonzo learned, his attention was fixed upon the approach of that hour when the magician would leave his room that was sacred to magic and sail away a dark shape down the corridor, and he should have leisure at last to attend to his soul’s salvation.