noon
In a while they seemed to be peering over the plain . They that were as pale ghosts , far off , dim like Fate , in the early part of the morning , now appeared darker , more furrowed , more sinister , more careworn ; more immediately concerned with the affairs of Earth , and so more menacing to earthly things . Still they went on and still the mountains grew . And noon came , when Spain sleeps . And now the plain was altering , as though cool winds from the mountains brought other growths to birth , so that they met with bushes straggling wild ; free , careless and mysterious , as they do , where there is none to teach great Nature how to be tidy . The wanderers chose a clump of these that were gathered near the way , like gypsies camped awhile midway on a wonderful journey , who at dawn will rise and go , leaving but a bare trace of their resting and no guess of their destiny ; so fairy-like , so free , so phantasmal those dark shrubs seemed . Morano lay down on the very edge of the shade of one , and Rodriguez lay fair in the midst of the shade of another , whereby anyone passing that way would have known which was the older traveller .