QUEEN ZELAYA
Ruth and her chum were both a little troubled by Tom Cameron's departure, but even Helen had braced up and was determined not to show her fear. The situation of the girls in the auto on this lonely road was enough to trouble the mind of any person unfamiliar with the wilderness.
The shore of Long Lake (which they could see from their seats in the car) was as wild as any stretch of country through which they had traveled during the two days of the tour.
The stalled auto was on the main-traveled road, however, and there was a chance of somebody coming along. Ruth and Helen hoped that if this happened, it would be somebody who would remain with them until Tom's return.
Both kept this wish a secret, for each tried to cheer the other. Perhaps, had it not been for that adventure at the old house shortly before, neither girl would have felt so nervous.
The outlook from the stalled auto was very attractive, if wild. They could overlook a considerable part of Long Lake, a stretch of its distant southern shore, and several islands.
The edge of the water was perhaps half a mile away, and the ground sloped abruptly from this road toward the lake. Following the very edge of the water was another road, but one which the girls knew nothing about and could scarcely see from the auto.
It was merely a brown ribbon of cart-path through the second-growth timber, and it wound along the hillside, sometimes approaching very close to the main highway. Before the county had built the better road, this path had been the trail to Boisé Landing.
Had the girls been looking that way, they might have seen, through a small break in the trees, some minutes after Tom left them, a string of odd-looking wagons moving slowly along this lower trail.
First two men walked ahead, smoking their pipes and plowing through the mud and water without regard to where they stepped. Then followed three freshly painted green wagons—vehicles something like old-fashioned omnibuses, but with windows in the sides and front, and a door and steps behind. Through the roof of one a stovepipe was thrust.
Behind followed a troop of horses, with two bare-legged, wild-looking youngsters astride each a barebacked steed, and holding the others with leading-reins. These horses, as well as those drawing the wagons, were sleek and well curried.
A multitude of dogs ran in the mud and water, too, but there were no women and children about, save upon the front seats of each van with the drivers. Sounds from within the green vehicles, however, proclaimed the presence of a number of others.
They were a strange-looking people—all swarthy, dark-haired, red-lipped, men and women alike having their ears pierced. The rings in the lobes of the women's ears were much larger than the ornaments in those of the men.
At a certain opening in the shrubbery, the men ahead, looking upward, beheld the stalled auto and the two girls in it. One man held up his hand and the first wagon stopped. So did the remainder of the caravan.
The two spoke together, and then strode back to the first green van. The window behind the driver's seat was already open and a strange face appeared at it.
The man driving this van was young and rather handsome—in the same wild way that Roberto was handsome. Beside him sat a comely young woman, buxom of figure, with a child in her lap. Her head was encircled with a yellow silk kerchief, she wore a green, tight-fitting bodice, and her short skirt was of a peculiar purple. She wore black stockings and neat black pumps on her feet.
Between these two on the seat, from the open window, was thrust the wicked, haggard head of a woman who might have been a hundred from the network of wrinkles in her face, and her generally aged appearance. But her eyes—black as sloes—were as sharp as a bird's. Her lips were gray, thin, and drew back when she spoke, displaying several strong, yellow fangs rather than teeth!
When she spoke, it was with a hissing sound. She used the speech of the Gypsy folk, and the others—even the rough men in the road—were very respectful to her. They explained the stoppage of the caravan, and pointed out the auto and the girls above.
It was evident that one of the men had suggested something which pleased the hag, in regard to the strangers in the motor-car. She grinned suddenly, displaying gums and fangs in a most horrible grimace.
Nodding vigorously, she gave them some commands, and then spoke to the comely woman beside the driver. The latter passed the sleeping infant back to the old woman, who disappeared into the interior of the van. The younger woman leaped down into the road, and waiting beside the two rough men, allowed the entire caravan to pass on, leaving them behind.
It was fast growing dark. The sun had disappeared behind the hills in the west, and long shadows were stretching their gaunt hands out for the girls in the auto. The chill wind which came after the tempest made them shiver, although they were somewhat sheltered by the curtains which Tom had arranged.
"I suppose we could snuggle down here with the robes, in the tonneau, and spend the night in some comfort," suggested Ruth Fielding.
"Oh! don't mention it!" exclaimed her friend. "If Tom doesn't come back with a team, or with another auto, I'll never forgive him."
"Of course he will return. But he may be delayed, Helen."
"This auto-touring isn't as much fun as I thought it would be," groaned Helen Cameron. "Oh! what's that?"
She peered out of the automobile. There was a handsome, smiling, dark young woman standing in the road beside the car.
"Young ladies," said the stranger, in a pleasant voice, "are you in trouble? Can I help you at all?"
"My goodness me! do you live near here? Can we go home with you?" cried Helen, in excitement.
"Wait!" breathed Ruth, seizing her chum's arm, but Helen was too anxious to escape from her present situation to listen to Ruth.
"For if you'll take us in till my brother gets back from Severn Corners——"
"We are going to Severn Corners—my husband and I," said the woman, smiling.
"Oh! then you do not live near here?" cried Helen, in disappointment.
"Nobody lives near here, little lady," explained the stranger. "Nobody lives nearer than Severn Corners. But it is lonesome here. We will take you both on in our wagon—nobody shall hurt you. There is only my husband and baby and the old grandmother."
"Where is your wagon?" demanded Ruth, suddenly hopping out into the road and looking all about.
"Down yonder," said the woman, pointing below. "We follow the lower road. Just there. You can see the top of it."
"Oh! A bus! It's like Uncle Noah's," declared Helen, referring to the ancient vehicle much patronized by the girls at Briarwood Hall.
"Who are you?" demanded Ruth, again, with keen suspicion.
"We are pedlars. We are good folks," laughed the woman. She did, indeed, seem very pleasant, and even Ruth's suspicions were allayed. Besides, it was fast growing dark, and there was no sign of Tom on the hilltop ahead.
"Let's go on with them," begged Helen, seizing her chum's hand. "I am afraid to stay here any longer."
"But Tom will not know where we have gone," objected Ruth, feebly.
"I'll write him a note and leave it pinned to the seat."
She proceeded to do this, while Ruth lit the auto lamps so that neither Tom, on his return, or anybody else, would run into the car in the dark. Then they were ready to go with the woman, removing only their personal wraps and bags. They would have to risk having the touring car stripped by thieves before Tom Cameron came back.
"I don't believe there are any thieves around here," whispered Helen. "They would be scared to death in such a lonesome place!" she added, with a giggle.
Ruth felt some doubt about going with the woman. She was so dark and foreign looking. Yet she seemed desirous of doing the girls a service. And even she, Ruth, did not wish to stay longer on the lonely road. Something surely had happened to detain Tom.
In the south, too, "heat lightning" played sharply—and almost continuously. Ruth knew that this meant the tempest was raging at a distance and that it might return to this side of the lake.
The thought of being marooned on this mountain road, at night, in such a storm as that which they had experienced two or three hours before, was more than Ruth Fielding could endure with calmness.
So she agreed to go with the woman. Tom would know where they had gone when he returned, for he could not miss the note his sister had left.
At least, that is what both girls believed. Only, they were scarcely out of sight of the car with the woman, when one of the rough-looking men, who had walked ahead of the Gypsy caravan, appeared from the bushes, stepped into the auto, tore the note from where it had been pinned, and at once slipped back into the shadows, with the crumpled paper in his pocket!
Now the girls and their guide were down on the lower road. There was a twinkling light that showed the green van, horses, and the handsome driver—and the man looked like Roberto.
"They are Gypsies, I believe," whispered Ruth.
"Oh! you have Gypsies on the brain," flung back her chum. "At least, we shall be dry in that bus, if it rains. And we can find somebody at Severn Corners to put us up, even if there is no hotel."
Ruth sighed, and agreed. The woman had been speaking to the man on the seat. Now she took the lantern and went around to the back of the van.
"This way, little ladies," she said, in her most winning tone. "You may rest in comfort inside here. Nobody but the good old grandmother and my bébé."
"Come on!" said Helen to Ruth, leading the way.
There was a light in the interior and it dazzled the girls' eyes, as they climbed in. The door snapped to behind them, and the horses started along the road before either Ruth or Helen were able to see much of their surroundings.
And strange enough their surroundings were; berths on either side of the strange cart, made up for sleeping and covered with gay quilts. There were chests and boxes, some of them padlocked, and all with cushions on them for seats.
There was a table, and a hanging lamp, and a stove. A child was asleep in one of the bunks; a white-haired poodle lay crouched at the child's feet, and showed its teeth and snarled at the two visitors.
But the appearance that amazed—and really startled—the girls most was the figure that sat facing them, as they entered the van. It was that of an old, old crone, sitting on a stool, bent forward with her sharp chin resting on her clenched fists, and her elbows on her knees, while iron-gray elf-locks hung about her wrinkled, nut-brown face, half screening it.
Her bead-like eyes held the girls entranced from the first. Ruth and Helen looked at each other, startled and amazed, but they could not speak. Nor could they keep their gaze for long off the strange old woman.
"Who are you, little ladies?" croaked the hag at last.
Ruth became the spokesman. "We are two girls who have been motoring over the hills. Our motor-car broke down, and we were left alone while my friend's brother went for help. We grew fearful when it became dark——"
The gray lips opened again: "You own the motor-car, little ladies?"
"My friend's father owns it," said Ruth.
"Then your parents are wealthy," and the fangs suddenly displayed themselves in a dreadful smile. "It is fine to be rich. The poor Gypsy scarcely knows where to lay her head, but you little ladies have great houses and much money—eh?"
"Gypsy!" gasped Helen, seizing Ruth's hand.
Ruth felt a sinking at her own heart. All the stories she had ever heard of these strange, wandering tribes rushed in upon her mind again. She had not been afraid of Roberto, and the woman who had brought them to the van seemed kind enough. But this old hag——!
"Do not shrink from the old Romany woman," advised the hag, her eyes sparkling again. "She would not hurt the little ladies. She is a queen among her people—what she says is law to them. Do not fear."
"Oh, I see no reason why we should be afraid of you," Ruth said, trying to speak in an unshaken voice. "I think you all mean us kindly, and we are thankful for this lift to Severn Corners."
Something like a cackle broke from the hag's throat. "Queen Zelaya will let nothing befall you, little ladies," she declared. "Fear not. Her word is law among the Romany folk, poor as she may be. And now tell me, my little birds,—tell me of your riches, and your great houses, and all the wealth your parents have. I love to hear of such things—even I, poor Zelaya, who have nothing after a long, long life of toil."