"
"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.
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