The boys hesitated for a minute.
"The next shot 'ull come lower if you don't," warned the man; "come on, no nonsense."
As there seemed to be nothing else to do the boys obeyed. As they drew closer they recognized the fellow.
"Oh, you know me, eh?" he snarled; "well, you'll know me better before we get through. Follow me, now. Pedro, you take the rifle and fall in behind. If they try to escape shoot them down."
Here was a fine situation. They had found the gipsies' camp with a vengeance, but for all the good it was going to do The Wren, unless they could get her away, they might as well not have come. These gloomy reflections sifted through their minds as they paced along, the man with the rifle occasionally prodding them with it just to make them "step lively," as he phrased it.
At length they came to a sort of large open place shaped like a basin, and placed in the middle of this natural island. In this basin were set up several squalid tents, about which the gipsies were squatting.
They set up a yell of surprise as the two boys were brought in.
"Where under the sun did you find them, Beppo?" exclaimed the same woman who had so cruelly ill-treated The Wren the time the boys rescued her.
"Oh, they were just taking a stroll, and happened to stroll in here," said Beppo viciously.
"I guess they won't have a chance to bother us again. They're going to make quite a stay here."