“The wisdom of this world is as a dust that passes,” said Morvyth. “The wise men that had wisdom in the old time, do they retain it now?”
She then repeated the rest of Gonfal’s observations with applaudable accuracy.
And her hearers did applaud, in unfeigned emotion. “For this prying into matters which Pygé-Upsízugos has not seen fit to reveal has always seemed to me unwholesome,” remarked the prime minister.
“In fact, the claims of science, so-called—” began the Imaun; and spoke for the usual twenty minutes.
All was thus settled edifyingly. The offerings of the kings’ sons were decreed to be no true gifts; the quest was cried again; and once more the seven champions rode forth. There was no thought of tall Gonfal going with the little heroes, for a cripple who could not bear a sword was not fitted to ransack the treasures of the world. Instead, fair-bearded Gonfal stayed in Inis Dahut, and lived uneventfully in the pagan Isles of Wonder. And if people now talked outright, a queen can never hope to go wholly free of criticism.
10.
Relative to Gonfal’s Head
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IT followed through the two mischances already recorded that, when spring came again, and when once more the south wind was coursing over Inis Dahut, Gonfal of Naimes sat, as it happened, with his handsome head in Morvyth’s lap, and waited for her less ill-starred lovers to return.
“What gifts, I wonder, will they be bringing me,” Queen Morvyth said, “at about this time to-morrow?”