“I am not,” answered the guide.
“What countryman, then, are you,” demanded Quentin.
“I am of no country,” answered the guide.
“How! of no country?” repeated the Scot.
“No,” answered the Bohemian, “of none. I am a Zingaro, a Bohemian, an Egyptian, or whatever the Europeans, in their different languages, may choose to call our people, but I have no country.”
“Are you a Christian?” asked the Scotchman.
The Bohemian shook his head.
“Dog,” said Quentin (for there was little toleration in the spirit of Catholicism in those days), “dost thou worship Mahoun?”
[Mahoun: Mohammed. It was a remarkable feature of the character of these wanderers that they did not, like the Jews whom they otherwise resembled in some particulars, possess or profess any particular religion, whether in form or principle. They readily conformed, as far as might be required, with the religion of any country in which they happened to sojourn, but they did not practise it more than was demanded of them.... S.]
“No,” was the indifferent and concise answer of the guide, who neither seemed offended nor surprised at the young man's violence of manner.