nswers."

"Still, sir," said Manuel, "inasmuch as there is one thing only which
all death's ravishings have never taken from life, and that thing is the
Misery of earth--"

"Your premiss is indisputable, but what do you deduce from this?"

Manuel smiled slowly and sleepily. "I deduce, sir, that you, also, who
have not ever been dead, cannot possibly be certain as to what happens
when one is dead. And so I shall stick to my own opinion about the life
to come."

"But your opinion is absurd, on the face of it."

"That may very well be, sir, but it is much more comfortable to live
with than is your opinion, and living is my occupation just now. Dying I
shall attend to in its due turn, and, of the two, my opinion is the more
pleasant to die with. Thereafter, if your opinion be right, I shall
never even know that my opinion was wrong: so that I have everything to
gain, in the way of pleasurable anticipations anyhow, and I have nothing
whatever to lose, by clinging to the foolish fond old faith which my
fathers had before me," said Manuel, as sturdily as ever.

"Yes, but how in this world--?"

"Ah, sir," says Manuel, still smiling, "in this world men are nourished
by their beliefs; and it well may be that, yonder also, their sustenance
is the same."

But at this moment came Reeri (a little crimson naked man, having the
head of a monkey) with his cock in one hand and his gnarled club in the
other. Necessarily the Blood Demon's arrival put an end to their
talking, for that turn.

[Illustration]

XXI

Touching Repayment

So Count Manuel's youth went out of him as he became more and more
intimate with Misery, and an attachment sprang up between them, and the
two took counsel as to all Manuel's affairs. They often talked of the
royal ladies whom Manuel had loved and loved no longer.

"For at one time," Manuel admitted, "I certainly fancied myself in love
with the Princess Alianora, and at another time I was in love with Queen
Freydis. And even now I like them well enough, but neither of these
royal ladies could make me forget the slave girl Niafer whom I loved on
Vraidex. Besides, the Princess and the Queen were fond of having their
own way about everything, and they were bent on hampering me with power
and wealth and lofty station and such other obstacles to the following
of my own thinking and my own desires. I could not endure the eternal
arguing this led to, which was always reminding me, by contrast,