“The warrant, if you please, Lanky!” he said in his heavy voice.
Lanky only too willingly surrendered the precious document which called upon the officers to bring the persons of the gypsy queen, and the small child which would be found in her care, before the nearest magistrate, and charging her with having kidnapped the little girl, for some purpose unknown to the court.
Then the pompous Chief knocked upon the closed door of the van. It was immediately opened, and the astonished face of the old queen became visible. She looked at the men in their uniforms and then at the two boys. Evidently the sight of Lanky excited her anger, just as a red flag will that of a bull. She shook her fist at him, and burst out in a flow of furious words:
“You are to blame for this! I knew you were not coming here to our camp, and prowling around, without some reason. Now, what does all this mean, and what has the queen of the gypsies done that she should be disturbed in her home by the officers of the house-dweller’s law? By what right are you here? Speak up, you fat man with the silver badge on your breast, and tell me of what crime Queen Esther is accused!”
CHAPTER XXV
THE STOLEN CHILD
With her eyes sparkling with rage the old queen looked very ferocious. But Chief Hogg did not quail. It would be a pretty thing to tell if he had shown the white feather in the face of a woman, no matter if she was a swarthy gypsy queen.
“I have here,” he went on to say, pompously, never noticing the slur in her language when she addressed him; “a legally sworn warrant, charging you with having in your wagon a small child—yes, a girl at that—which it is claimed you have abducted, kidnapped, carried away from its proper parents or guardians. And by virtue of my office, and this document, I am directed by the justice to bring both woman and child before him at once. So produce the child, and prepare to accompany us back to town.”
He made a motion, and his men closed in. The old queen looked as though she might defy the authorities of Columbia; but a glance around showed that not a single one of her men was within call. So she knew she must give up.
“I have a child, I confess,” she said, scornfully, addressing Frank rather than the big policeman; “and it does not belong to my tribe, but I expected to adopt it after a while, if no one claimed it. A woman came to us several months ago, when, we were camped far away from here. She seemed to be out of her mind, and we took her in. The little girl was with her. She died soon afterwards, and the child was left with us. All this can be proved. What have I to fear?”
Turning, she spoke to someone behind her, when the girl the boys had seen before, and whom the queen had called her granddaughter, Mena, shoved forward. She, too, looked scornfully at the big policeman, and undoubtedly the defiant nature of the old queen had descended to the child.