breeches in most marriages."

"No, that is not the way it is at all, Miramon, for my wife is the
dearest and most dutiful of women, and never crosses my wishes in
anything."

Miramon nodded his approval. "You are quite right, for somebody might be
overhearing us. So, let us get on, and do you stop interrupting me.
Item, you must hold Poictesme, and your heirs forever after must hold
Poictesme, not in fee but by feudal tenure. Item, you shall hold these
lands, not under any saint like Ferdinand, but under a quite different
sort of liege-lord."

"I can see no objection to your terms, thus far. But who is to be my
overlord?"

"A person whom you may remember," replied Miramon, and he beckoned
toward the rainbow throng of his followers.

One of them at this signal came forward. He was a tall lean youngster,
with ruddy cheeks, wide-set brown eyes, and a smallish head covered with
crisp, tightly-curling dark red hair: and Manuel recognized him at once,
because Manuel had every reason to remember the queer talk he had held
with this Horvendile just after Niafer had ridden away with Miramon's
dreadful half-brother.

"But do you not think that this Horvendile is insane?" Dom Manuel asked
the magician, privately.

"I confess he very often has that appearance."

"Then why do you make him my overlord?"

"I have my reasons, you may depend upon it, and if I do not talk about
them you may be sure that for this reticence also I have my reasons."

"But is this Horvendile, then, one of the Leshy? Is he the Horvendile
whose great-toe is the morning star?"

"I may tell you that it was he who summoned me to help you in distress,
of which I had not heard upon Vraidex, but why should I tell you any
more, Dom Manuel? Come, is it not enough that am offering you a province
and comparatively tranquil terms of living with your wife, that you must
have all my old secrets to boot?"

"You are right," says Manuel, "and prospective benefactors must be
humored." So he rested content with his ignorance, nor did he ever find
out about Horvendile, though later Manuel must have had horrible
suspicions.

Meanwhile, Dom Manuel affably shook hands with the red-headed boy, and
spoke of their first meeting. "And I believe you were not talking utter
foolishness after all, my lad," says Manuel, laughing, "for I have
learned that the strange and dangerous thing which you told me is very
often true."

"Why, how should I know," quiet Horvendile repl