According to the Slav custom, he was asked, after the usual greetings, to tap the yule log with his stick. He at once complied, with as much good grace as he could muster, uttering the well-known phrase:
"May you have as many horses, cows, and sheep as the badnjak has given you sparks."
Knowing that while he was saying these words every member of the family, and every guest gathered together around him, would hang upon his looks, trying to read in his face whether the forthcoming year would be a prosperous one, for the expression of the features, as well as the way in which these words are uttered, are reckoned to be sure omens, Vranic, therefore, tried to put on a pleasant look and a good-natured appearance, but this was so alien to his nature that he was by no means sure of success.
Uros and Milena had, however, stood aloof; they had understood that the prediction must be unfavourable, and, though they did not look up, they heard that the voice, which was meant to be soft and oily, was bitter, hard and grating.
A gloom had come over the house just then; it seemed as if that man of ill-omen had stepped in to damp everyone's joy.
Uros remained stock-still, and though his fingers instinctively grasped the handle of his knife, still he was too much of a Slav to harm a guest in his own house. As for Milenko, not having any reasons for being so forbearing, he was about to thrust the fiend out of his adopted parents' house, when Vranic, drawing back from the hearth, caught his foot on the fag end of a log, and, not to fall, stepped over it. This was the remainder of that log which Uros had himself put upon the fire, and, according to the traditional custom, it had been taken away from the hearth before it had been quite consumed, for it was to be kept, as the fire on New Year's Eve was to be kindled with it. Vranic hardly noticed what he had done, but everyone present looked stealthily at one another, and quietly crossed themselves. Vranic, they knew, had come with evil thoughts in his head, but now he had only brought harm upon himself, for it is well known that whoever steps over a badnjak is doomed to die within the year.
The seer went off soon after this, and then, when the other well-wishers came, the gloom that he had left behind him was dispelled, and the remainder of the Christmas Day was spent in mirth and jollity.
CHAPTER IV
NEW YEAR'S DAY
On the last day of the year the pobratim were sailing on the waters of the Adriatic not far from the island of Lissa, now famed in history for its naval wars. Soon the sun went down behind a huge mass of grey clouds, and night set in when the vessel was about to sail amidst that maze of inlets, straits, channels and friths, which characterise all that part of the Dalmatian coast. But, though the night was dark and wild, their schooner was strong and stout, and accustomed to weather such heavy seas.