, and he rolled up his russet cloak for a pillow.
Presently the head was snoring, and then Manuel too went to sleep. He
said, later, that he dreamed of Niafer.

[Illustration]

XX

The Month of Years

In the morning, after doing the head's extraordinary bidding, Manuel
went to feed his horse, and found tethered to the holm-oak the steed's
skeleton picked clean. "I grieve at this," said Manuel, "but I consider
it wiser to make no complaint." Indeed, there was nobody to complain to,
for Misery, after having been again lifted over the threshold, had
departed to put in a day's labor with the plague in the north.

Thereafter Manuel abode in this peculiarly irrational part of the
forest, serving Misery for, as men in cheerier places were estimating
the time, a month and a day. Of these services it is better not to
speak. But the head was pleased by Manuel's services, because Misery
loves company: and the two used to have long friendly talks together
when Manuel's services and Misery's work for that day were over.

"And how came you, sir, to be thus housed in a trunkless head?" asked
Manuel, one time.

"Why, when Jahveh created man on the morning of the sixth day, he set
about fashioning me that afternoon from the clay which was left over.
But he was interrupted by the coming of the Sabbath, for Jahveh was in
those days, of course, a very orthodox Jew. So I was left incomplete,
and must remain so always."

"I deduce that you, then, sir, are Heaven's last crowning work, and the
final finishing touch to creation."

"So the pessimists tell me," the clay head assented, with a yawn. "But I
have had a hard day of it, what with the pestilence in Glathion, and
wars between the Emperor and the Milanese, and all those October colds,
so we will talk no more philosophy."

Thus Manuel served the head of Misery, for a month of days and a day. It
was a noticeable peculiarity of this part of the forest--a peculiarity
well known to everybody, though not quite unanimously explained by the
learned,--that each day which one spent therein passed as a year, so
that Dom Manuel in appearance now aged rapidly. This was unfortunate,
especially when his teeth began to fail him, because there were no
dentists handy, but his interest in the other Plagues which visited this
forest left Manuel little time wherein to think about private worries.
For Beda was visited by many of his kindred, such as Mitlan and Kali and
Thragnar and Pwyll