ruly, Manuel, nobody knows why this serpent dreads the turtle: but our
concern is less with the cause than with the effect. Meanwhile, those
eight spears are not to be touched on any account."

"Is what you have a quite ordinary turtle?" asked Manuel, meekly.

Niafer said: "Of course it is. Where would I be getting extraordinary
turtles?"

"I had not previously considered that problem," replied Manuel, "but the
question is certainly unanswerable."

They then sat down to lunch, and found the bread and cheese they had
purchased from the little old man that morning was turned to lumps of
silver and virgin gold in Manuel's knapsack. "This is very disgusting,"
said Manuel, "and I do not wonder my back was near breaking." He flung
away the treasure, and they lunched frugally on blackberries.

From among the entangled blackberry bushes came the glowing Serpent of
the South, who was the smallest and loveliest and most poisonous of
Miramon's designs. With this snake Niafer dealt curiously. Niafer
employed three articles in the transaction: two of these things are not
to be talked about, but the third was a little figure carved in
hazel-wood.

"Certainly you are very clever," said Manuel, when they had passed this
serpent. "Still, your employment of those first two articles was
unprecedented, and your disposal of the carved figure absolutely
embarrassed me."

"Before such danger as confronted us, Manuel, it does not pay to be
squeamish," replied Niafer, "and my exorcism was good Dirgham."

And many other adventures and perils they encountered, such as if all
were told would make a long and most improbable history. But they had
clear favorable weather, and they won through each pinch, by one or
another fraud which Niafer evolved the instant that gullery was needed.
Manuel was loud in his praises of the surprising cleverness of his
flat-faced dark comrade, and protested that hourly he loved Niafer more
and more: and Manuel said too that he was beginning to think more and
more distastefully of the time when Niafer and Manuel would have to
fight for the Count of Arnaye's daughter until one of them had killed
the other.

Meanwhile the sword Flamberge stayed in its curious blue scabbard.

[Illustration]

IV

In the Doubtful Palace

So Manuel and Niafer came unhurt to the top of the gray mountain called
Vraidex, and to the doubtful palace of Miramon Lluagor. Gongs, slowly
struck, were sounding as if in languid