The moon came up, and Nan, nymph-like, danced up a grassy hill back of the camp. A throng of wild, fox-like little children scrambled up after her. “A story. Tell us a story, Nanny,” they called. The girl paused, turned and seeing the crippled Tirol struggling to climb the hill, she ran back, lifted him to her strong young shoulder and carried him to the top of the knoll. There they all sat together, many bright black eyes watching while Nan told them a story. A fanciful tale it was of how a gypsy princess had been cruelly treated by a wicked man like Anselo Spico. How he had shut the princess and six other gypsy girls, who had defied him, in a van without horses and had let it roll down a cliff road into the sea. “But they were not drowned, for the spirits of the sea-spray carried them up to the sky, and any clear night you can see that gypsy princess and the six gypsy girls dancing in their bright crimson and gold shawls and you call it the sun-set.”
Tirol, always the most intense of Nan’s listeners leaned forward and asked in a low whisper: “What did the sea-spray spirits do to—to that wicked Romany rye?”
“That night,” the gypsy girl said in a low voice of mystery, “he went to the top of a cliff to make sure the van had gone into the sea, and it had, for it lay broken in the surf. Then the sea-spray spirits lifted a wave as high as a hill and it swept over the cliff and that wicked Romany rye was seen no more.”
Tirol’s black eyes glowed in the moonlight and his frail hand was trembling as Nan took it to lift him again to her shoulder.
“Steal back soft-like, so he won’t know we left camp,” she warned. Crouching low, the file of little fox-like children crept back of trees and brush until the vans were reached, then darted between the flaps and crawled, without undressing, into their bunk-like beds, all but Nan and Tirol. The gypsy girl felt smothered if she slept in the van.
CHAPTER II.
THE GARDEN-ALL-AGLOW.
Before day break, Gypsy Nan awakened the goblin-like boy. Rolled in blankets they had slept in the shelter of the live oak trees and close to the warm coals of the camp fire.
“Come Tirol,” she whispered, glancing at the wagons, to see if anyone was astir, “we must go now, for Nan isn’t going to dance at the inn for the gorigo. And you must come, too, else that wicked Anselo Spico will make you stand on a corner and beg, making money out of your poor little bent body that’s always a-hurting you.”
With many backward glances the two children stole away to where the mules and ponies were corralled. After carefully lifting the frail boy to the back of the mottled horse, Binnie, Nan mounted, and together they galloped down the coast highway. The last star had faded, the grey in the East was brightening, and then suddenly the sun, in a burst of glory appeared and the sky and sea flamed rose and amethyst. The dark eyes of the girl glowed with appreciation and joy, and she started singing a wild, glad song to a melody of her own creating.
They had gone perhaps a mile from camp and away from the town when Nan suddenly drew rein and listened. She heard the beating of hoofs behind them, but the riders were hidden by the curve in the road.