Figures of Earth | Page 7

So Manuel girded on the charmed scabbard, and with the charmed
sword he sadly demolished the clay figure he could not get quite right.
Then Manuel sheathed Flamberge, and Manuel cried farewell to the
pigs.
"I shall not ever return to you, my pigs, because, at worst, to die
valorously is better than to sleep out one's youth in the sun. A man has
but one life. It is his all. Therefore I now depart from you, my pigs, to
win me a fine wife and much wealth and leisure wherein to discharge
my geas. And when my geas is lifted I shall not come back to you, my
pigs, but I shall travel everywhither, and into the last limits of earth, so
that I may see the ends of this world and may judge them while my life
endures. For after that, they say, I judge not, but am judged: and a man
whose life has gone out of him, my pigs, is not even good bacon."
"So much rhetoric for the pigs," says the stranger, "is well enough, and
likely to please them. But come, is there not some girl or another to
whom you should be saying good-bye with other things than words?"
"No, at first I thought I would also bid farewell to Suskind, who is
sometimes friendly with me in the twilight wood, but upon reflection it
seems better not to. For Suskind would probably weep, and exact
promises of eternal fidelity, and otherwise dampen the ardor with
which I look toward to-morrow and the winning of the wealthy Count
of Arnaye's lovely daughter."
"Now, to be sure, you are a queer cool candid fellow, you young
Manuel, who will go far, whether for good or evil!"
"I do not know about good or evil. But I am Manuel, and I shall follow
after my own thinking and my own desires."
"And certainly it is no less queer you should be saying that: for, as

everybody knows, that used to be the favorite byword of your
namesake the famous Count Manuel who is so newly dead in
Poictesme yonder."
At that the young swineherd nodded, gravely. "I must accept the omen,
sir. For, as I interpret it, my great namesake has courteously made way
for me, in order that I may go far beyond him."
Then Manuel cried farewell and thanks to the mild-mannered,
snub-nosed stranger, and Manuel left the miller's pigs to their own
devices by the pool of Haranton, and Manuel marched away in his rags
to meet a fate that was long talked about.
[Illustration]

II
Niafer
The first thing of all that Manuel did, was to fill a knapsack with simple
and nutritious food, and then he went to the gray mountain called
Vraidex, upon the remote and cloud-wrapped summit of which dread
Miramon Lluagor dwelt, in a doubtful palace wherein the lord of the
nine sleeps contrived illusions and designed the dreams of men. When
Manuel had passed under some very old maple-trees, and was
beginning the ascent, he found a smallish, flat-faced, dark-haired boy
going up before him.
"Hail, snip," says Manuel, "and whatever are you doing in this perilous
place?"
"Why, I am going," the dark-haired boy replied, "to find out how the
Lady Gisèle d'Arnaye is faring on the tall top of this mountain."
"Oho, then we will undertake this adventure together, for that is my
errand too. And when the adventure is fulfilled, we will fight together,
and the survivor will have the wealth and broad lands and the Count's

daughter to sit on his knee. What do they call you, friend?"
"I am called Niafer. But I believe that the Lady Gisèle is already
married, to Miramon Lluagor. At least, I sincerely hope she is married
to this great magician, for otherwise it would not be respectable for her
to be living with him at the top of this gray mountain."
"Fluff and puff! what does that matter?" says Manuel. "There is no law
against a widow's remarrying forthwith: and widows are quickly made
by any champion about whom the wise Norns are already talking. But I
must not tell you about that, Niafer, because I do not wish to appear
boastful. So I must simply say to you, Niafer, that I am called Manuel,
and have no other title as yet, being not yet even a baron."
"Come now," says Niafer, "but you are rather sure of yourself for a
young boy!"
"Why, of what may I be sure in this shifting world if not of myself?"
"Our elders, Manuel, declare that such self-conceit is a fault, and our
elders, they say, are wiser than we."
"Our elders, Niafer, have long had the management of this world's
affairs, and you can see for yourself what