Ruth believed that a searching party had overtaken the Gypsies. She feared there would be a fight, and she was anxious to show herself, so that her unknown rescuers might see her.
But she dared not scream. Old Zelaya scowled at her so savagely and threatened her so angrily with her clenched fist, that Ruth dared not speak. Finally the old woman opened the door of the van and flung her down the steps.
The act was so unexpected that Ruth fell into the arms of the crowd waiting for her. It was evidently ready for her appearance. The boys and girls, and some of the women, received her into their midst, and they made so much noise, chattering and shrieking, and dancing about her, that Ruth was both confused and frightened.
Had she herself shrieked aloud, her voice would have been drowned in the general hullabaloo. This noise was all intentional on the part of the Gypsies, for up at the head of the caravan Ruth caught a glimpse of a big man standing with a stout oak club in his hand and a big shiny star pinned to his vest near the armhole.
A constable! Whether he was there searching for her and Helen, or was merely making inquiries about a robbed hen-roost, the girl from the Red Mill could not guess. There was so much confusion about her, that she could not hear a word the constable said!
She waved her hand to him and tried to attract his attention. The girls and boys laughed at her, and pulled her about, and the bold girl she had seen before almost tore the frock from her shoulders.
Suddenly Ruth realized that, even did the constable look right at her, he would not discover that she was a white girl. She looked just as disreputable in every way as the Gypsy children themselves!
The constable came toward the first van. Zelaya now sat upon the top step, smoking a cheroot, and nodding in the sun as though she were too old and too feeble to realize what was going on. Yet Ruth was sure that the sly old queen had planned this scene and told her tribesmen what to do.
Ruth was whisked away from the steps of the queen's van, and borne off by the shouting, dancing children. She tried to cry out so that the constable would hear her, but the crowd drowned her cries.
She saw the constable search each of the three vans. Of course, he found no girls answering to the descriptions of Ruth and Helen—and it was the girls that he was searching for. He was Sim Peck, the blacksmith-constable from Severn Corners. It was a pity Tom Cameron had not been with him!