"You have duly sojourned with evil in a desert place, and have there been tempted to despair and blaspheme and to commit other iniquities."
"Yes, something of the sort did occur in Dun Vlechlan."
"And, as I well know, you have by your conduct of affairs upon Vraidex duly disconcerted me, who am the power of darkness—"
"Ah! ah! you, Miramon, are then the power of darkness!"
"I control all dreams and madnesses, Dom Manuel; and these are the main powers of darkness."
Manuel seemed dubious, but he only said: "Well, let us get on! It is true that all these things have happened to me, somehow."
The magician looked at the tall warrior for a while, and in the dark soft eyes of Miramon Lluagor was a queer sort of compassion. Miramon said, "Yes, Manuel, these portents have marked your living thus far, just as they formerly distinguished the beginnings of Mithras and of Huitzilopochtli and of Tammouz and of Heracles—"
"Yes, but what does it matter if these accidents did happen to me, Miramon?"
"—As they happened to Gautama and to Dionysos and to Krishna and to all other reputable Redeemers," Miramon continued.
"Well, well, all this is granted. But what, pray, am I to deduce from all this?"