I, standing there, facing Murdo, trembling, held under the spell of Murdo’s eyes, which were immeasurably dilated with his own excitement, only remembered his words, “Don’t question. Do what I tell thee.” “Pull the trigger!” he ordered. And I did as he told me. There was a loud report. I fell exhausted with my own emotions. Yet Murdo remained standing and laughing. “That is what the witch I met did for me! Until some man meets a more powerful one, I shall be immune. That’s what makes a great chief. Immunity from disease and murderous weapons.” When I recovered I saw that the Gypsies no longer crowded their chief. Awe kept them open-mouthed at a distance. Only Miora, the old witch, allowed a little cynical smile to play around her lips as she looked at Murdo and her son. I was fully aware that Murdo had noticed that, and was also aware that Miora’s disbelief in the power of that great witch about whom Murdo had spoken was not displeasing to the chief. The following day Murdo, who recuperated more rapidly than I thought possible, was up and about his work. I had never before seen him as quarrelsome. He found fault with everything. The horses had been neglected too much. The dogs were too lean. The canvas of the wagons had not been kept in order. The goats were dry. Murdo, who had never paid any attention to the work of the women in the camp, now found fault with it and censored the women for their lack of order. When Sunday came he quarreled with the younger women for having too many jewels; too many dresses, he said, had been wheedled out of their men, who had become as soft as old women. Some of the children whom he inspected closely had sores and boils which had broken out among them while Murdo was ill. And then he accused Miora of knowing as little of incantations and witchery as the cat in the tree. While Murdo was talking to Miora, Lica came nearer the chief. Murdo sailed savagely right into him, telling him that he was the worthy son of his mother, that he was sloppy, that his whip was not strong enough to hurt a chicken, that his boots were as dirty as those of a beggar, and that while he had carefully waxed his mustache he had not washed his face. “Has all the water dried up?” Murdo asked sarcastically, “or are you waiting for your mother to wash your face clean with her tongue, as a mother cat her kitten?” The big, taut frame of Lica shook upon hearing his chief’s words. He loved his mother passionately and believed implicitly in her supernatural powers. That Murdo should have singled him out, him and his mother, for such unjust reproaches, when he had done his best to keep some order when Murdo had been ill, pained the big Gypsy. “If thou hast lost entire belief in the power of my mother’s witchcraft,” Lica answered, “why not bring here the one thou hast newly met to replace her? At any rate, I thought she had only coarsened thy hide, but I see I was mistaken----”