Judy Part 23

He had spoken to the old woman who presided at the fire, and Judy saw her wipe her hands and make for a dilapidated tent under an oak.

It was to this tent that she was directed, and when she was once within and her eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, she saw the old hag, looking more witch-like than ever, with her head tied up in a flaming yellow bandanna, and her shoulders wrapped in a great cloak covered with cabalistic signs.

"Cross my hand with silver," she murmured, and Judy took out the only piece of money she had with her--a silver quarter of a dollar.

The old woman looked at it with dissatisfaction. "That is not enough,"

she said. "I can tell you nothing for that."

"But I haven't any more," said Judy, in dismay. "I didn't expect to come, and it is all I have."

"Oh, well," grudgingly, "I will tell you a little."

She took Judy's hand in hers and studied the palm.

"You will live to be old," she said, monotonously. "There are double rings around your wrist. You will marry a man with wealth and with gray eyes."

"I don't want to know that--" said Judy, impatiently, to whom such matters were as yet unimportant. "Tell me about--about--other things."

"Hush," said the gipsy, "I must say, what I must say. You will go on a long journey. It will be on the sea. You will look for one who is lost. You are a child of the sea--" She flung Judy's hand away from her. "That is all," she said, heavily, "I can tell you no more without more money."

"Oh, oh," cried Judy, breathlessly, "how did you know it. How did you know that I was a child of the sea--"

"What I tell, I know," crooned the old woman, theatrically. "I can tell nothing without silver."

"But I haven't any more money," cried poor Judy.

"But a ring, a pin, they will do as well,"' the old woman looked at her greedily.

"I don't wear jewelry," said Judy, "I don't care for it."

"A chain, a charm, then," urged the old woman, whose eagle eyes had caught the outline of something that glittered beneath the thin lace collar of Judy's gown.

"I have nothing."

"There, there,--what have you there?" and the yellow finger tapped Judy's throat.

Judy drew back with a little shudder, and shook her head as she showed the thin gold chain with a pearl clasp on the end of which was a quaint silver coin.

"I couldn't let you have this," she said. "My mother always wore it.

It is a Spanish coin. My father found two of them on the beach near our home, and he gave mother one, and he kept the other--they are just alike. Oh, no, I couldn't give you that--"

"I will tell you many things--about one who has gone away," tempted the old woman.

For a moment Judy wavered. "Oh, I can't," she decided. "I can't let you have this."

The old woman got up. "Then go," she said roughly.

All at once there came over Judy a feeling of fear. She turned quickly and saw the young leader in the door behind her. There was something sinister in his looks, and between the two she felt trapped.

"Let me out," she panted. "Let me out."

With a smile, the man in the door drew aside, and she stepped out into the daylight. As she did so, he whispered to the old woman, "What did you get?"

"Nothing. But the girl has on a chain with a pearl in it that would buy us food for a year."

"Oh!"

He followed Judy quickly.

"Stay, and we will play for you," he urged.

But her nerves were shaken.

"No, no," she said, hurriedly, "I must go home."

"You must stay until we play," he insisted, and called the men together, and Judy, still trembling from the moment of dread in the dark tent, sank down once more beside the sullen girl on the rugs.

But the leader called the girl away for a moment, and when she came back she sat closer to Judy than before, and her hand was busy with the fastening of the chain at the back--but so lightly, so deftly, that Judy sat unconscious.

And in the intervals of the music the girl laughed and chatted, telling Judy of the life on the road, of anything to hold her attention.

"You would look like one of us," she said, "if you wore one of these,"

and she threw across Judy's shoulders a scarf of red silk.

"I believe I am half gipsy," said Judy, trying to be agreeable, but shrinking with a feeling of repulsion from the untidy creature so near her.

The girl drew away the scarf with a loud laugh and a triumphant nod and a wink to the leader, and presently the music stopped.

"I must go," said Judy, more and more in dread of these strange people.

Once more the old woman bent over the blue flames; but the children had gone deeper into the wood, and the place was silent except for the occasional guttural remark of one of the men, or a wail from the baby in the wagon.

"I must go," she said again, and started off.

But when she reached the road, the young leader caught up with her.

"You are beautiful," he said, when he was beyond the hearing of the others.

Judy hurried on in silence, but he kept by her side. "You are beautiful," he said again, and laid his hand on her arm.

Then Judy whirled around on him. "Don't speak to me that way again,"

she said, imperiously. "I may be alone and helpless, and I know now that I was very foolish to come. But my grandfather is a Judge. If anything happens to me, he will call you to account. Go back to the camp. Go back and let me alone."

The man stopped short and gazed at her.

"You are brave," he said, in a more respectful tone.

"None of my family have ever been cowards," said Judy, who was herself again. "I am not afraid of you."