Part 12 (1/2)
”I'd run away, and join some other band,” said Fan, coming close and whispering the words in Zula's ear.
”No, I don't want to join any band. I don't want to be a gypsy at all.
Oh, I was so much happier when I was at home and had a nice clean bed, and everybody was so kind to me.”
”Well, that was nice, but you see, you had to work.”
”If I did, that was nothing.”
”Oh, no, but then we can lay in the shade all we like and have a nice time, and so we get something to eat and do what we please, what is the difference?”
Zula felt that there was a great difference, and, gypsy though she was, she felt that there was more happiness in having employment and kind friends than all the pleasures of a life of idleness.
”Come, Zu, hurry up, or you will get another flogging.”
”If I do it will not kill me, or, if it does I do not care. I wish it would; I'd rather be dead than live this way.”
”It is too bad, I know, but I don't see why they whip you that way. I never get such poundings.”
”Because you are good and mind what you are told,” said a harsh, croaking voice at the door.
Zula looked up, but there was neither love nor fear in the gaze that fell on her mother's face. She had grown reckless as to fear, and so accustomed to the pain inflicted by the strokes of the lash, that had she been commanded to receive fifty, she would have betrayed no emotion.
”Come, you lazy thing, you may as well make yourself useful; you are good for nothing anyway, so you may help to make music for the dance.”
”I hate music--that kind, anyway. It's like the croaking of a frog. I would rather dance if I wasn't so lame and my arms so sore.”
”Come along, then; playing a while will cure you, I guess. You have got most too smart since you ran away and stole your livin' from the white ladies.”
”I didn't steal it; they gave it to me, and didn't whip me either.”
”Then they didn't give you what you deserved; but let me tell you, you'll not get a chance to get away again very soon,” said the old gypsy, with a grin that made her fairly hideous.
Zula made no reply, but as she arose to her feet, scarcely able to stand at all, she was making a strong resolution in regard to a secret that a second party did not possess. Some day she would execute the plan which she had laid out, but she must work with the utmost caution. She was only a gypsy, which fact she fully realized, but there was something away in the distant future that her heart cried out for, and she would reach out until she could grasp it, if she died in the attempt. She was a gypsy, and she knew she could never be a fine lady, but she might find a way out of this terrible darkness and find at least a break in the clouds, if not the broad open suns.h.i.+ne in which she thought many a one lived.
She had made a resolution to escape from Crisp, but how was it to be done? She had more than half made up her mind that could she get back to Mrs. Platts, she would tell her all about her mother, and all the trouble she had gone through, but in that case they would know she was a gypsy, and the thought caused a blush of shame to pa.s.s over her face.
When the dance was over she put away the guitar with painfully tired arms and an aching heart. When she saw Crisp, as he moved about, cast exultant glances at her, and saw her mother watching her every movement, then was her resolution formed, not to be changed, for let come what would, hards.h.i.+ps, torture, or even death, nothing should change her purpose. She would escape, and as she sat quietly working with her beads, making many pretty articles for sale, her brain was working more briskly than her fingers, trying to devise a means of escape.
CHAPTER IX.
FREE AGAIN.
Zula had been a prisoner three weeks, all that time being closely watched by Crisp, and had it not been for the stolen visits she received from the young gypsy girl, Fan, she would have been desolate indeed. She entered the hut one day where Zula was imprisoned, and going close to her she whispered:
”Zula, they are going to drug you to-night, but now don't you be scared, for I'll manage to fix it myself. They don't think I would play any trick, but I will, and you be sure not to say a word against taking it.”
”What is that for? What are they going to do?”