"That thou be fed burning stones from now until eternity. That thy thirst be quenched only with the blood of thy own kin."
The same incantations were repeated for more than a half hour. They ceased abruptly, at the sound of a gong. The evil one had departed. Slowly, in single file, the gypsies descended the steps of the wagon and bowed very low westward, to the setting sun of an early autumn day, before going each one to his own tent.
The circle of the curious neighbors had widened very much when I approached an old gypsy and asked him who had died. He turned full face as he said:
"Our Chief, Yorga, our Chief. We would want to bury him under a tree near a river—but can we do as we please in this country? Tell me, stranger."
Like the drippings from a burning candle the tears fell from the man's eyes as he spoke to me.
On the wooden cross over Yorga's grave I have carved with my pen-knife the name of the dead one. In the fall of every year his tribe comes to the burial grounds, and each one cuts out a piece of cloth from his best garment and leaves it there as an offering to the dead Chief.
And the old gypsy told me: "A great man was Yorga. A king among men. His mother was killed by her father when Yorga was born, because she was the daughter of a great Roumanian boyar, and the child, fruit of a secret love, was the son of a gypsy. But the child was allowed to live, so beautiful was he.
"When Yorga was six years old, his grandfather, the old boyar, who had no other children, took the boy from the servant quarters into the house and called a special teacher to show him the letters. Later on Yorga was sent to school, and grew to be a learned man. All this time he did not know who his father was, and did not know that the hand he kissed good-night was the one that had murdered his mother.
"But there was a restless spirit in the boy; a spirit that made him roam from city to city whenever he had an opportunity. And thus he wandered all over the world. In search of learning, it was thought. Because no one realized the yearning of the gypsy in this stately youth.