"Either way," submitted Manuel, "I have but to strike, and I acquire
much wealth and sleek farming-lands and a lovely wife, and the swineherd
becomes a great nobleman. But it is you, Niafer, who have won all these
things for me with your cleverness, and to me it seems that these
wonderful rewards are less wonderful than my dear comrade."

"But you too are very wonderful," said Niafer, loyally.

Says Manuel, smiling sadly: "I am not so wonderful but that in the hour
of my triumph I am frightened by my own littleness. Look you, Niafer, I
had thought I would be changed when I had become a famous champion, but
for all that I stand posturing here with this long sword, and am master
of the hour and of the future, I remain the boy that last Thursday was
tending pigs. I was not afraid of the terrors which beset me on my way
to rescue the Count's daughter, but of the Count's daughter herself I am
horribly afraid. Not for worlds would I be left alone with her. No, such
fine and terrific ladies are not for swineherds, and it is another sort
of wife that I desire."

"Whom then do you desire for a wife," says Niafer, "if not the loveliest
and the wealthiest lady in all Rathgor and Lower Targamon?"

"Why, I desire the cleverest and dearest and most wonderful creature in
all the world," says Manuel,--"whom I recollect seeing some six weeks
ago when I was in the kitchen at Arnaye."

"Ah, ah! it might be arranged, then. But who is this marvelous woman?"

Manuel said, "You are that woman, Niafer."