If he could but see Fleda face to face, he made no doubt
that something would accrue to his advantage. He would not give up the
hunt without a struggle.
Twice a day Gabriel Druse had placed food and water inside the door of
the hut and locked him fast again, but had not spoken to him save once,
and then but to say that his fate had not yet been determined. Jethro's
reply had been that he was in no haste, that he could wait for what he
came to get; that it was his own--'ay bor'! it was his own, and God or
devil could not prevent the thing meant to be from the beginning of the
world.
He did not hear Fleda approach the hut; he was singing to himself a song
he had learned in Montenegro. There the Romany was held in high regard,
because of the help his own father had given to the Montenegrin people,
fighting for their independence, by admirable weapons of Gipsy
workmanship, setting all the Gipsies in that part of the Balkans at work
to supply them.
This was the song he sang
"He gave his soul for a thousand days,
The sun was his in the sky,
His feet were on the neck of the world
He loved his Romany chi.
"He sold his soul for a thousand days,
By her side to walk, in her arms to lie;
His soul might burn, but her lips were his,
And the heart of his Romany chi.
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