They gazed at her for a few moments in a heavier silence. To them she had lost nothing of a beauty they had never seen, and in the wavering lights, possibly because at the moment her mind was face to face with her brother, her likeness to Rudolf was so strong as to send the blood to their heads. It rose slowly, for they were cold with long waiting and taken by surprise with a beauty they had not expected, but when they realized that the sister of their prince and the chiefest object of his affections stood before them, they suddenly sent forth a mighty cry, hard, wild, abrupt. It was almost a note of agony, such as the mountains might have given when the fires of the earth boiled them apart. The cry shot out again, but this time it swelled into volume, ended in a roar, and then split into intelligible sound. “_Élyen!_” “_Setreasca!_” “_Setreasca!_” shook the old flags like the wind of battle; then, on a higher note, “Rudolf!” “Rudolf!” “Rudolf!” They came forward like a great wave, excited, voluble, demanding to be told what they had done to anger their prince that he came no more, what his wicked enemies had done with him, why his father, the great King and Emperor, was hiding him. It was idle to attempt to answer, and Ranata stood looking down upon them, at times forgetting the strange scene, her thoughts in the crypt of the Capuchin Church with her brother. Suddenly she heard herself addressed in Hungarian, and glanced aside to see a gypsy standing on the step below her. He was regarding her with admiring eyes, but there was a sardonic twinkle in them, and his mien although friendly would not have inspired confidence in an idiot. However, Ranata came forth from her thoughts and smiled on him. “Did you know him?” she asked. He addressed her in the most extravagant forms of homage, but when he answered her question it was with directness enough. “I was with his party on every visit,” he asserted triumphantly, as if exhibiting a valued stock-in-trade; “I and my band. He was always eager to hear the Chardash. And out on Lake Zenoga, sometimes at Görgény, we sat at his board, or in the circle by the fire. Oh, those were the days, your Highness--first a prince, then a gypsy, then a prince, then a gypsy, all mixed up, all drunk, everybody happy. I know that Rudolf is dead, for I have travelled far, but I wish he were not.” The man’s speech broke through the severity of her mood and she laughed. “I have no doubt they were gay times,” she said, “and I regret that I am not a man to come and take his place among you. But I will do the best I can; and believe that I shall love you as much as he did.” The man shook his head. “We would never dare to love like that again.” He paused, then added meaningly, “The love of the chosen Hapsburgs is fatal--to themselves and to those who win it.”