Hour succeeded hour, and still we sat crouching over the _brasero_, from which, by this time, all warmth had departed; the glow had long since disappeared, and only a few dying sparks were to be distinguished. The room or hall was now involved in utter darkness; the women were motionless and still; I shivered and began to feel uneasy. "Will Antonio be here to-night?" at length I demanded. "_No tenga usted cuidado_, my London Caloró," said the gipsy mother in an unearthly tone; "Pepindorio has been here some time." I was about to rise from my seat and attempt to escape from the house, when I felt a hand laid upon my shoulder, and in a moment I heard the voice of Antonio:-- "Be not afraid; 'tis I, brother. We will have a light anon, and then supper." The supper was rude enough, consisting of bread, cheese, and olives; Antonio, however, produced a leathern bottle of excellent wine. We dispatched these viands by the light of an earthen lamp, which was placed upon the floor. "Now," said Antonio to the youngest female, "bring me the _pajandi_, and I will sing a _gachapla_." The girl brought the guitar, which with some difficulty the gipsy tuned, and then, strumming it vigorously, he sang:-- "I stole a plump and bonny fowl, But ere I well had dined, The master came with scowl and growl, And me would captive bind. "My hat and mantle off I threw, And scoured across the lea; Then cried the _beng_ with loud halloo, 'Where does the gipsy flee?'" He continued playing and singing for a considerable time, the two younger females dancing in the meanwhile with unwearied diligence, whilst the aged mother occasionally snapped her fingers or beat time on the ground with her stick. At last Antonio suddenly laid down the instrument, exclaiming:-- "I see the London Caloró is weary; enough, enough, to-morrow more thereof. We will now to the _charipé_." "With all my heart," said I: "where are we to sleep?" "In the stable," said he, "in the manger; however cold the stable may be, we shall be warm enough in the _bufa_." We remained three days at the gipsies' house, Antonio departing early every morning on his mule, and returning late at night. The house was large and ruinous, the only habitable part of it with the exception of the stable being the hall, where we had supped; and there the gipsy females slept at night, on some mats and mattresses in a corner. "A strange house is this," said I to Antonio, one morning as he was on the point of saddling his mule, and departing, as I supposed, on the affairs of Egypt; "a strange house and strange people. That gipsy grandmother has all the appearance of a _sowanee_."