Synopsis: One day, a poor man living with his mother finds an old traveller nearly dying on the road. They bring him home and nurse him back to health, sacrificing their own scant food. The traveller reveals that they are soon to die, but tells the man he can avoid this by bringing a drink to two old chess-players having a game on a distant mountain. These instructions are followed to the letter, and the man is granted a long life for his trouble. But when he comes back to the mountain some time later, he can find no trace of them, nor of the stone chessboard they were playing on.