“You can win out in the confusion, and home to Logie.”
“Yes, Dick. And what of you?”
“As if that mattered, child.”
“But if—if it mattered everything?”
So they came near to bitter quarrel, there as they waited for the sunset glow to die across the hills that seemed lost to them for ever. Then Hardcastle had his way, taking Storm with him round the bend; and she had her way, following with mute-footed disobedience, till they came in sight of the cave’s mouth.
A crimson that was not of dawn or sunset flared through the entry. The reek of a fire built of pine-wood and heather was blown indoors by a wet, gusty wind, and its heat drove inward, licking the cave-walls.
Across the flare and cackle, Hardcastle saw men dancing with women of the village in frank abandonment. Wild-beast laughter made the music for their feet, and all that had been in Garsykes, since the first cut-throat settled there, was loosened down the ladder of the centuries.
When for a moment they were tired of their devilry, Nita’s voice rang clear and low across the spurting flames.
“Shall I sing of Logie to you? Hardcastle flouted me once, but it is my turn now.”
With that she sang a ballad in the Garsykes tongue, that was a bastard child of the true Romany speech, and her people, fantastic in the fireglow, roared with applause when it was ended. They knew its meaning, though Hardcastle could only guess how foul and sinister it was.