Madame Gisèle then looked at Manuel "So you are the champion that has
come to rescue me!" she said, unhastily, as her big sapphire eyes
appraised him over her great fan of gaily colored feathers, and as
Manuel somehow began to fidget.

Gisèle looked last of all at Niafer. "I must say you have been long
enough in coming," observed Gisèle.

"It took me two days, madame, to find and catch a turtle," Niafer
replied, "and that delayed me."

"Oh, you have always some tale or other, trust you for that, but it is
better late than never. Come, Niafer, and do you know anything about
this gawky, ragtag, yellow-haired young champion?"

"Yes, madame, he formerly lived in attendance upon the miller's pigs,
down Rathgor way, and I have seen him hanging about the kitchen at
Arnaye."

Gisèle turned now toward the magician, with her thin gold chains and the
innumerable brilliancies of her jewels flashing no more brightly than
flashed the sapphire of her eyes. "There!" she said, terribly: "and you
were going to surrender me to a swineherd, with half the hair chopped
from his head, and with the shirt sticking out of both his ragged
elbows!"

"My dearest, irrespective of tonsorial tastes, and disregarding all
sartorial niceties, and swineherd or not, he holds the magic sword
Flamberge, before which all my powers are nothing."