WHAT WAS IT ALL ABOUT?
The two men were mumbling together—Ruth could not catch the words at first. When she did, they meant nothing to her, and she was puzzled.
But suddenly one said in clear, if peculiar, English:
"The old hag bags the best of the loot—always, my Carlo."
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.