to be cut that way any longer, and in part because it is time for bed."

The next morning Manuel and Niafer paid the ancient price which their
host required. They left him cobbling shoes, and, still ascending,
encountered no more bones, for nobody else had climbed so high. They
presently came to a bridge whereon were eight spears, and the bridge was
guarded by the Serpent of the West. This snake was striped with blue and
gold, and wore on his head a great cap of humming-birds' feathers.

Manuel half drew his sword to attack this serpentine design, with which
Miramon Lluagor made sleeping terrible for the red tribes that hunt and
fish behind the Hesperides. But Manuel looked at Niafer.

And Niafer displayed a drolly marked small turtle, saying, "Maskanako,
do you not recognize Tulapin, the turtle that never lies?"

The serpent howled, as though a thousand dogs had been kicked
simultaneously, and the serpent fled.

"Why, snip, did he do that?" asked Manuel, smiling sleepily and gravely,
as for the third time he found that his charmed sword Flamberge was
unneeded.

"Truly, 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