All this time he was leading the way to the spot that he was describing, the others following breathlessly. Once there, he grasped Allen's arm excitedly, crying in a tense voice: "Look here, old man, here is one of those bags they carried the other day—the place is full of them. Now I am going to open this one. You keep a good lookout."
"Hush!" cried Allen, and they listened, scarcely daring to breathe. From the mouth of the cave, soft but unmistakable, came the sound of voices—voices speaking in a tongue the boys had heard before. There could be no mistake—the gypsies were visiting their hiding place!
"Get back," breathed Will. "Back into the other mouth of the cave." He pushed the others before him with all his force and they obeyed without question.
They shrank back in the darkness and waited for what was to come. They might have fled, but curiosity held them chained to the spot.
Once Amy uttered a weak protest, saying: "Don't you think we had better go back?" when Will silenced her, none too gently. The moment was a critical one.
The little group of young people held their breath while the gypsies entered, silent now. In the dim light of the cave their features could not be seen, but there was something about the bent old figure of the foremost gypsy that proclaimed the leader of that other day. They were as velvet-footed as cats, and as the girls' eyes became more accustomed to the gloom they discovered that the gypsies were not hunch-backed, as had first appeared, but merely carried upon their backs packs like those others scattered about the cave. These they deposited on the floor without much ceremony and were gone before the girls and boys had fairly realized it.
The watchers stood motionless even after the footsteps had died away in the distance. It seemed as though a mystic spell had been woven about them, which, for the time, they were powerless to break.
It was Roy who first "came to life," as Mollie expressed it. "I say, what's the use of standing here?" he inquired. "Let's have a look."
"Oh, hush, please!" begged Grace, alarmed at the unrestraint of his tone. "They might come back."
"No, they won't," Will asserted, for he had suddenly acquired great dignity. "They have probably gone for another haul. In the meantime it is up to us to inform the authorities, and mighty quick, too."