At the slightest provocation their knives are ready to spring from their belts; their tempers blaze like scorching flames; to them it seems but part of the day's work to leave a dagger within the heart of any who have awakened their resentment.
Now they all clamoured and yelled as they dragged at his cloak, touched his clothes, fingered his sword, and nearly pulled the staff from his hand.
But they were all laughing and excited, evidently enchanted to meet so fair a traveller who had so unexpectedly fallen in their midst.
Eric felt quite confused by this turbulent greeting, and was wondering what was going to happen next, when one of the quite old women moved out of the mob, took hold of his cloak, and pulled him towards her tent.
She was clothed in an old carpet-like cloth that she had wrapped round her loins over a discoloured shift that might once have been white, but was now the shade of the earth; the whole was held together by a long band of faded colours that was twisted several times round hips and waist. Her grey hair hung in thin strands over her face, that was wrinkled and brown like the bark of a tree, but which still showed signs of former beauty. She was bent almost double, and dragged herself along with the help of a twisted staff. Like all the others she had a short white pipe in her mouth, and her head was covered with a kerchief of brilliant colour.
From her belt hung a curiously shaped shell, a sign that she was a teller of fortunes, and therefore a respected personage amongst this troop of nomads.
Eric followed her without resistance, but hesitated at the entry to her dark dwelling, very reluctant to penetrate within anything so unclean; but the old woman was insistent, and our young traveller had to yield and even to take his place upon some indescribable rags that served as a bed and seat all in one.
The air was stifling and full of smoke, the whole place so devoid of cleanliness that Eric hardly dared to look about. The gypsy took his hand in hers, but Eric found great difficulty in understanding what she was saying, in spite of the knowledge that had come to him through the old man's tablets. With her bony finger she began following the lines on his palm. Outside the tent the other gypsies stood jabbering and laughing.
All of a sudden the old woman gave a start, and declared that whatever his fate had been, now he was near a critical moment in his life, and must expect either a great joy or a great pain, she could not tell which; ... "but," added the old creature, "great joy and great pain lie very near together, and often one rises out of the other; it is hard to say which is nearer truth.
"I am the wise woman of this wandering people; from near and far they come to listen to my words; much could I tell thee of what I have seen, for there is not a road on this earth upon which my weary feet have not moved.