On All Souls’ Night I was awakened, I knew not at what hour, by the
tolling of bells; their monotonous, unceasing sound brought to mind this
tradition which I heard a short time ago in Soria.
I tried to sleep again. Impossible! The imagination, once roused, is a
horse that runs wild and cannot be reined in. To pass the time, I
decided to write the story out, and so in fact I did.
I had heard it in the very place where it originated and, as I wrote, I
sometimes glanced behind me with sudden fear, when, smitten by the cold
night air, the glass of my balcony crackled.
Make of it what you will,--here it goes loose, like the mounted horseman
in a Spanish pack of cards.