CHAPTER XXVII

THE WORLD FOR SALE

As though by magic, like the pictures of a dream, out of the horizon,
in caravans, by train, on horseback, the Romany people gathered to the
obsequies of their chief and king. For months, hundreds of them had not
been very far away. Unobtrusive, silent, they had waited, watched, till
the Ry of Rys should come back home again. Home to them was the open
road where Romanys trailed or camped the world over.

A clot of blood in the heart had been the verdict of the doctors; and
Lebanon and Manitou had watched the Ry of Rys carried by his own people
to the open prairie near to Tekewani's reservation. There, in the hours
between the midnight and the dawn, all Gabriel Druse's personal
belongings--the clothes, the chair in which he sat, the table at which he
ate, the bed in which he slept, were brought forth and made into a pyre,
as was the Romany way. Nothing personal of his chattels remained behind.
The walking-stick which lay beside him in the moment of his death was the
last thing placed upon the pyre. Then came the match, and the flames
made ashes of all those things which once he called his own. Standing
apart, Tekewani and his braves watched the ceremonial of fire with a
sympathy born of primitive custom. It was all in tune with the
traditions of their race.

As dawn broke, and its rosy light valanced the horizon, a great
procession moved away from the River Sagalac towards the East, to which