"It is your belief in any such saying that has made a miller's wife of you, and will keep you a miller's wife until the end of time. Now I learned better from my misadventures upon Vraidex, and from my talking with that insane Horvendile about the things which have been and some things which are to be." Math, who was a wise woman, said queerly, "I perceive that you are letting your hair grow." Manuel said, "Yes." "Boy, fast and loose is a mischancy game to play." "And being born, also, is a most hazardous speculation, Sister, yet we perforce risk all upon that cast." "Now you talk stuff and nonsense--" "Yes, Sister; but I begin to suspect that the right sort of stuff and nonsense is not unremunerative. I may be wrong, but I shall afford my notion a testing." "And after what shiftless idiocy will you be chasing now, to neglect your work?" "Why, as always, Sister, I must follow my own thinking and my own desire," says Manuel, lordlily, "and both of these are for a flight above pigs." Thereafter Manuel kissed Math, and, again without taking leave of Suskind in the twilight, or of anyone else, he set forth for the far land of Provence. VII The Crown of Wisdom So did it come about that as King Helmas rode a-hunting in Nevet under the Hunter's Moon he came upon a gigantic and florid young fellow, who was very decently clad in black, and had a queer droop to his left eye, and who appeared to be wandering at adventure in the autumn woods: and the King remembered what had been foretold. Says King Helmas to Manuel the swineherd, "What is that I see in your pocket wrapped in red silk?" "It is a feather, King, wrapped in a bit of my sister's best petticoat" "Now, glory be to your dark magics, friend, and at what price will you sell me that feather?" "But a feather is no use to anybody, King, for, as you see, it is a quite ordinary feather?" "Come, come!" the King says, shrewdly, "do people anywhere wrap ordinary feathers in red silk? Friend, do not think to deceive King Helmas of Albania, or it will be worse for you. I perfectly recognize that shining white feather as the feather which was moulted in this forest by the Zhar-Ptitza Bird, in the old time before my grandfathers came into this country. For it was foretold that such a young sorcerer as you would bring to me, who have long been the silliest King that ever reigned over the Peohtes, this feather which confers upon its owner perfect wisdom: and for you to dispute the prophecy would be blasphemous." "I do not dispute your silliness, King Helmas, nor do I dispute anybody's prophecies in a world wherein nothing is certain." "One thing at least is certain," remarked King Helmas, frowning uglily, "and it is that among the Peohtes all persons who dispute our prophecies are burned at the stake."