So, if I yield at all, I must first bargain and get my price for
yielding."
He turned now from Gisele to Niafer. "Dear snip," said Manuel, "you too
must have your say in my bargaining, because from the first it has been
your cleverness that has saved us, and has brought us two so high. For
see, at last I have drawn Flamberge, and I stand at last at the doubtful
summit of Vraidex, and I am master of the hour and of the future. I have
but to sever the wicked head of this doomed magician from his foul body,
and that will be the end of him--"
"No, no," says Miramon, soothingly, "I shall merely be turned into
something else, which perhaps we had better not discuss. But it will not
inconvenience me in the least, so do you not hold back out of mistaken
kindness to me, but instead do you smite, and take your well-earned
reward."
"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.
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