"No one has sought me but you in all these years," he continued. "Who are
you that you should come? I did not call, and there was my command that
none should call to me."
A bolder look grew in the other's face. His carriage gained in ease.
"There is trouble everywhere--in Italy, in Spain, in France, in England,
in Russia, in mother India"--he made a gesture of salutation and bowed
low--"and our rites and mysteries are like water spilt upon the ground.
If the hand be cut off, how shall the body move? That is how it is. You
are vanished, my lord, and the body dies."
The old man plucked his beard again fiercely and his words came with
guttural force. "That is fool's talk. In the past I was never everywhere
at once. When I was in Russia, I was not in Greece; when I was in
England, I was not in Portugal. I was always 'vanished' from one place to
another, yet the body lived."
"But your word was passed along the roads everywhere, my Ry. Your tongue
was not still from sunrise to the end of the day. Your call was heard
always, now here, now there, and the Romanys were one; they held
together."
The old man's face darkened still more and his eyes flashed fire. "These
are lies you are telling, and they will choke you, my Romany 'chal'.
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