It was growing dark. He knew that he was being followed by one of the stone beggars, who had turned into a four-footed animal called Portunus. In one sense the animal was a protection, in another a menace, and he knew that in summoning him he must be very careful to use the correct ritual formulary.
He had reached a square, on one side of which was a huge building with a domed roof. Light streamed from it through a great window of stained glass, on which was depicted a blue warrior fighting with a red dragon ... no, it was not a stained glass window but merely the reflection on the white walls of the building from a house in complete darkness in the opposite side of the square, inhabited by creatures made of red lacquer. He knew that they were expecting him to call, because they believed that he was courting one of them.
"What else could bring him here save all this lovely spawn?" said a voice at his elbow.
He looked round—suddenly the streets were pullulating with strange semi-human fauna: tiny green men, the wax figures of his parents from Hempie's chimney-piece, grimacing greybeards with lovely children gamboling round them dressed in beetles' shards.
Now they were dancing, some slow old-fashioned dance ... in and out, in and out. Why, they were only figures on a piece of tapestry flapping in the wind!
Once more he felt his horse beneath him. But what were these little pattering footsteps behind him? He turned uneasily in his saddle, to discover that it was nothing but a gust of wind rustling a little eddy of dead leaves.
The town and its strange fauna had vanished, and once more he was riding up the bridle-path; but now it was night.