It was a wild scene. Every now and then a gipsy would throw on another faggot, and the pale flickering streaks of flame brought into shifting, shadowy relief the grotesque figures of which the circle was composed. In the background stood a common tinker's cart, though it seemed wonderful that anything on wheels could have arrived in safety at this remote and solitary nook, surrounded by leagues of moor; while the donkey that drew it, calmly browsed and meditated in the enjoyment of well-earned repose. Propping his back against the shaft, and raised some inches from the ground by his own and his wives' blankets doubled beneath him, Duke Michael of Egypt sat in state, with a short black pipe in his hand and a pewter measure containing gin and cider at his knee. Even Waif, accustomed as she was to many a strange sight amongst her strange people, marvelled as she gazed. His dress, though ragged and filthy in the extreme, was made of costly materials and the brightest colours, his coat being of fine blue cloth dotted by spade-guineas instead of buttons; his waistcoat, faded scarlet, bound with tawdry gold-lace; the very link that fastened his stained flannel shirt at the throat was a gold seven-shilling piece! It was thus that he loved to display the riches, of which he was as proud as if they were the fruits of an honest calling. At one extremity of this magnificence, stockingless feet peeped through a pair of rent and clouted shoes; while, at the other, a woollen nightcap under a battered hat, crowned the snow-white poll that contrasted ludicrously with his swarthy face, tanned nearly black, and seamed with so many wrinkles that it looked more like morocco leather than a human skin. Yet, even now, the dark eyes beneath their shaggy brows sparkled with intelligence and fire; the deep voice, in which he passed his jest or trolled his chorus, spoke of health and strength and vital energies unimpaired by age. He had removed the pipe from his mouth, and was pledging Parson Gale for the twentieth time, when Waif stepped into the firelight, bowed her head in a graceful obeisance, and stood silent before him with her arms crossed on her breast. The old man stared at this beautiful apparition for some seconds without a word, obviously congratulating himself, the tribe, and the Romany people in general, on the possession of so favourable a specimen of their race. Presently he chuckled, took a pull at his flagon, and spoke out: