"Come, come! I, too, thirst for the sight of her face."
Towards the evening the two lads arrived at the gypsies' camp.
Along the dreary roadside several tall wooden crosses had been erected, tall and gaunt, with curious shapes, decorated with archaic saints in crudest colours.
These weird crosses stood in a line like silent spectres, some bending sideways, as if tired of their vigil.
It was here that old Zorka had told Eric he would find their halting-place. The fires had already been lit, the dark men and women sat about in groups. The tents stood out, dismal shadows, against the Western Bar.
Eric holding Radu by the hand led him to where Zorka was cooking her evening meal in a blackened pot.
Radu's flock had followed pitter-patter in their wake, hardly discernible in the dusk, their way-stained wool the colour of the ground they trod.
When she saw her favourite the old seer ran forward and clasped him to her breast, anxiously scanning his haggard face, but saying never a word for fear of awakening his surging grief.
"Mother Zorka," he said, "here is a friend who has come to look upon her face!"
Zorka went to her tent, brought out the wonderful picture, and put it into the peasant's hands. He stared at it in enraptured silence. Then very slowly he laid it on the ground and knelt before it, making the sign of the cross over his brow, the tears flowing down his cheeks.