"'Strike!' cried I, 'strike hard and quick, Carew!' But while the blade was in air, Morris and my father plucked him backwards, and suffered his intended victim to rise, although despoiled of his weapon.
"'No, Carew; that will never do,' quoth Morris. 'We should have the whole country upon us in an hour, and they would hang us altogether.'
"'Carew is that man's name, is it?' exclaimed Massingberd Heath. 'I will not forget it, be sure. You shall all pay for this, trust me; but he, and this one, more than all. Come away, wife, come away.'
"'Yes, she must go, Carew,' interposed my uncle, checking a furious movement of the young man's. 'He knows all now, and has a right to what he demands.'
"'Ay, but if he lays one finger upon her,' cried the passionate gipsy, 'if he dares to harm her even by a word, and I hear of it, as sure as I see the sun this day, I will know what is the colour of his life-blood. You may take her away across the seas, but I will follow you; you may surround yourself with precautions, but I will come at you; you may go day and night in mail, but this knife shall find your heart out.'
"Massingberd Heath nodded contempuously, without speaking; and striding from the tent, signed to Sinnamenta to follow him, which she did, moaning and weeping, and casting backward, ever and anon, pitiful glances upon the home and friends she had exchanged for such an evil lot. I never saw my little sister more."
As if the remembrance of this sad scene had utterly overcome her, Rachel Liversedge hid her face in her hands, and wept until the tears welled through her tanned and shrivelled fingers.
"I am indeed distressed," said I, "to have caused you so much pain. I will not make you sad by telling me more."
"Nay, my boy, since I have begun it, let me finish with it; I shall think of it all the same, and it is better to speak than think. That very night Stanley Carew was arrested upon the charge of stealing the horse which he had bought in open market, and ridden home just in time to play the part I have described. In the days I speak of, forty pound was given as a reward to those who gave such evidence as produced a capital conviction, and many a gipsy perished innocently in consequence of that wicked ordinance. It is possible that this accusation was made by one of those who made a practice of earning blood-money; but I am positively certain the false witness was set on by Massingberd Heath, even if that man did not originate the charge. It was pressed against poor Carew very harshly; and although the farmer of whom he bought the animal came honestly forward, and swore to its being the same which he had sold the prisoner, his evidence was rejected on account of some slight mistake in the description. You must have heard tell of that awful execution long ago at Crittenden jail, when the wretched victim to perjury and revenge uttered these terrible words: 'O God, if thou dost not deliver me, I will not believe there is a God.' That unhappy man was Stanley Carew. My father and uncle were pitilessly persecuted and imprisoned, and died before their time. These wrists have worn fetters, this back has suffered stripes; nor did the vengeance of our enemy cease even with one generation. One of my boys is beyond seas, and another within stone walls; yet I know that the hate of Sir Massingberd Heath is not yet slaked."
"But what became of your little sister, poor Sinnamenta?"