He is good and true and strong. Young men never make careful
chiefs."
"That be right and wise," remarked Mehmet, who was by that time ready
for the trip. During the whole conversation the young gipsy girl had
been looking to her father when he spoke and sidewise when Mehmet
answered.
At fourteen Fanutza was a full-grown woman. Her hair, braided in
tresses, was hanging from underneath a black fur cap she wore well over
her forehead. Her eyes were large and brown, the long eyebrows were coal
black. Her nose was straight and thin and the mouth full and red. Withal
she was of a somewhat lighter hue than her father or the rest of the
gipsy tribe. Yet there was something of a darker grain than the grain in
her people that lurked beneath her skin. And she was light on her feet.
Even trudging in the deep snow, she seemed more to float, to skim on
top, than to walk.
Unconcerned she had listened to the conversation that had gone on
between her father and the Tartar in the hut of the boatman. She had
hardly been interested in the whole affair, yet, when Mehmet Ali
mentioned casually as soon as he was outdoors that he knew a man who
would pay twenty pieces of gold for such a wife as Fanutza was, she
became interested in the conversation.
"I sell horses only," Marcu answered quietly.
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