"I don't know," replied Milena, "for the story stops there."
"No, it doesn't, for my papa said that many people tried to go and offer themselves as cooks to the devil, but that they had never been heard of since then."
"And now I'll take you home. Perhaps we'll meet gospa Mara on our way."
"No, we'll not meet her," said the child, abruptly.
"Why? Because Uros has come home?"
"But Uros hasn't come home."
"How do you know?"
"I know, because Capitan Milenko came this morning and told gospa Mara that Josko Vranic had killed Uros, and so she went off at once to the Convent of St. George, where——"
Milena heard no more. A deadly faintness came over her; she loosened the grasp of the door she had clutched, her legs sank under her, and she fell lifeless on the ground.
The urchin looked at her astonished. He, for a moment, gave up sucking his peach-stone; then he turned on his heels and scampered home to inform his mother about what had happened.