"You won't get it, then," said Miss Greeby, eyeing the pocket into which the girl had again dropped the bullet. "Mr. Lambert was absent in London on that night. I heard that by chance."
"Then you heard wrong, my Gentile lady. Avali, quite wrong. The big rye returned on that very night and went to Lundra again in the morning."
"Even if he did," said Miss Greeby desperately, "he did not leave the cottage. His housekeeper can prove—"
"Nothing," snapped Chaldea triumphantly. "She was in her bed and the golden rye was in his bed. My brother was killed after midnight, and if the rye took a walk then, who can say where he was?"
"You have to prove all this, you know."
Chaldea snapped her fingers. "First, the letter to shame her; then the bullet to hang him. The rest comes after. My price, you know, my Gorgious artful. I toves my own gad. It's a good proverb, lady, and true Romany."
"What does it mean?"
"I wash my own shirt," said Chaldea, significantly, and sprang up the steps of her gaily-painted caravan to shut herself in.
"What a fool I am not to take that bullet from her," thought Miss Greeby, standing irresolutely before the vehicle, and she cast a glance around to see if such an idea was feasible. It was not, as she speedily decided, for a single cry from Chaldea would bring the gypsies round to protect their new queen. It was probable also that the girl would fight like a wild cat; although Miss Greeby felt that she could manage her so far. But she was not equal to fighting the whole camp of vagrants, and so was compelled to abandon her scheme. In a somewhat discontented mood, she turned away, feeling that, so far, Chaldea had the whip-hand.
Then it occurred to her that she had not yet examined Mother Cockleshell as had been her original intention when she came to the camp. Forthwith she passed back to the tent under the elm, to interview the deposed queen. Here, she found Gentilla Stanley placing her goods in an untidy bundle on the back of a large gray donkey, which was her private property. The old creature's eyes were red with weeping and her gray hair had fallen down, so that she presented a somewhat wild appearance. This, in connection with her employment, reminded Miss Greeby—whose reading was wide—of a similar scene in Borrow's "Lavengro," when Mrs. Pentulengro's mother shifted herself. And for the moment Mother Cockleshell had just the hairy looks of Mrs. Hern, and also at the moment, probably had the same amiable feelings.