"No, I shall have
nothing to do with your idiotic mud figures, and I shall tell you
nothing further."
"Come now, pettikins!" says Manuel. And he began coaxing the Princess of
Provence with just such cajoleries as the big handsome boy had formerly
exercised against the peasant girls of Rathgor.
"Schamir," said Alianora, at last, "is set in a signet ring which is
very well known in the country on the other side of the fire. Schamir
has the appearance of a black pebble; and if, after performing the proper
ceremonies, you were to touch one of these figures with it the figure
would become animated."
"Well, but," says Manuel, "the difficulty is that if I attempt to pass
through the fire in order to reach the country behind it, I shall be
burned to a cinder, and so I have no way of obtaining this talisman."
"In order to obtain it," Alianora told him, "one must hard-boil an egg
from the falcon's nest, then replace it in the nest, and secrete oneself
near by with a crossbow, under a red and white umbrella, until the
mother bird, finding one of her eggs resists all her endeavors to infuse
warmth into it, flies off, and plunges into the nearest fire, and
returns with this ring in her beak.
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