Page:Selected Czech tales - 1925.djvu/204

 praising them according to their colour, their bodies and dresses, all that differentiates them and all that they have in common. I have experienced most of the sicknesses which different climates generate, and I have often been a prisoner and have escaped; but even when I was not a captive, even though I might be resting beneath palm trees in the most lovely parts of the world, my only longing and desire was to escape and go yet farther afield, so that I flew to fresh distances.’

‘Sailor,’ said the priest, ‘I do not ask what you have been and what you have seen, but what deeds you have done, and what there was of good and bad in your roaming life.’

‘My deeds,’ said Manoel, ‘were various, according to the various countries in which I sojourned, but I am certain that I have done everything which I had occasion to do. Sometimes I was so rich that I did not know the extent of my fortune, and sometimes I was naked, and did not possess so much as a stick to drive away snakes and the wicked monkeys. At other times, it is true, I used my stick on the obstinate backs of slaves, and I would lean upon them, when all the people bowed before me in the bazaars and in the streets. But for much the greatest