Part 10 (1/2)

The other replied, still gruffly, yet in a musical language that Ruth could not identify; yet somehow she was reminded of Roberto. He, the Gypsy lad, had formed his English sentences much as this ruffian had formed his phrase. Were these two of Roberto's tribesmen?

”I like it not--I like it not!” the other burst out again, in anger.

”Why should she govern? It is an iron rod in a trembling hand.”

”Psst!” snapped the other. ”You respect neither age nor wisdom.” He now spoke in English, but later he relapsed into the Tzigane tongue. Helen crept down to Ruth's side and listened, too; but it was little the girls understood.

The angry ruffian--the complaining one--dropped more words in English now and then, like: ”We risk all--she nothing.” ”There were the pearls, my Carlo--ah! beautiful! beautiful! Does she not seize them as her own?”

”I put my neck in a noose no longer for any man but myself--surely not for a woman!”

Then it was that the man Carlo burst into a tirade in his native speech, and under cover of his loud talk Ruth motioned her chum to creep back up the stairway, and she followed.

A sudden disquieting thought came to her. The rain was growing less.

Suppose Tom should come abruptly into the house? He might get into trouble with these ruffians.

She whispered this thought to Helen, and her friend was panic-stricken again. ”We must warn Tom--oh, we _must_ warn him somehow!” she gasped.

”Surely we will,” declared the girl from the Red Mill. ”Now, careful how you step. A creaking board might give us away.”

They crept across the upper chamber to the rear of the house. Through another room they went, until they could look out of a broken window upon the sheds. There was Master Tom standing before the shed (the machine was hidden), wiping his hands upon a piece of waste, and looking out upon the falling rain.

He saw the girls almost instantly, and opened his mouth to shout to them, but Ruth clapped her own hand to her lips and motioned with the other for him to be silent. Tom understood.

He looked more than surprised--not a little startled, in fact.

”What will he think?” murmured Helen. ”He's so reckless!”

”Leave it to me,” declared Ruth, leaning out of the window into the still falling rain.

She caught the boy's eye. He watched her motions. There was built at this end of the house an outside stairway, and although it was in bad repair, she saw that an agile fellow like Tom could mount the steps without any difficulty.

Pointing to this flight, she motioned him to come by that means to their level, still warning him by gesture to make no sound. The boy understood and immediately darted across the intervening s.p.a.ce to the house.

Ruth knew there was no dining-room window from which the ruffians downstairs could see him. And they had made no move as far as she had heard.

She left Helen to meet Tom when he came in through the sagging door at the top of the outside flight of stairs, and tiptoed back into that room where they had been frightened by the bat.

It was directly over the dining-room. The same chimney was built into each room. This thought gave Ruth's active mind food for further reflection.

The rumble of the men's voices continued from below. Tom and Helen followed her so softly into the room that Ruth did not hear them until they stood beside her. Tom touched her arm and pointed downward:

”Tramps?” he asked.

”Those Gypsies, I believe,” whispered Ruth, in return.

Helen was just as scared as she could be, and clung tightly to Tom's hand. ”Wish we could scare them away,” suggested the boy, with knitted brow.

”Perhaps we can!” uttered Ruth, suddenly eager, and her brown eyes dancing. ”s.h.!.+ Wait! Let me try.”

She went to the paper-stuffed stovepipe hole, out of which the bat had fallen. Helen would have exclaimed aloud, had not Tom seen her lips open and squeezed her hand warningly.