"Alas! your Majesty," replied Muza, "I am constrained to say that I fare but ill. Every day your advisers present to me new schemes of aggression against my late kingdom to which I can give no manner of countenance, and they upbraid me bitterly with what they are pleased to call my disloyalty." "Precisely the same thing has happened to myself," said Fernando, "and may I say, with all due regard to the race from which you spring, that they do not compare in liberality of outlook with my own, that they are extremely conservative, and difficult of comprehension!" "On the other hand," said Muza, "I find your people much too active and unruly, and I do not encounter the same implicit obedience to which I have hitherto been accustomed. If I may say so, there is a want of dignity----" "I find some of my personal relations awkward too," groaned Fernando; "your matrimonial arrangements, for example." "And your lack of the same," replied Muza. "On the whole I think----" said Fernando. "I fully agree," replied Muza. "If we put the matter in a nutshell," remarked Fernando, "it is better for a man--even a liberal-minded one--to remain in the bosom of his own people, for no matter how broad his views may be, among strangers he must constantly be doomed to encounter much which will tend to strengthen his prejudices against them and create odious comparisons and regrets." "Once more I agree," said Muza. "When once the novelty wears off----" "Exactly," responded Fernando. "After all, what country can compare with that in which one has been born?" So the two princes parted, each to take his way to his native land. But, despite the threats and entreaties of their advisers, neither of them would ever again consent to make war upon the dominions of the other, and it was even hinted by disgruntled and badly disposed persons that Fernando and Muza met occasionally on their common frontiers for the sole purpose of settling difficulties which had arisen between their respective states--an unnatural proceeding which they avowed was bound sooner or later to end in political disaster. CHAPTER XII: TALES OF SPANISH MAGIC AND SORCERY