p like torches at the sound of the
familiar tongue, and she eyed the weather-beaten face of Baltic with an
amazement too genuine to be feigned. 'Duvel!' said she, in a high key of
astonishment, 'who is this Gorgio who patters with the gab of a gentle
Romany?'

'I am a brother of the tribe, my sister.'

'No gipsy, though,' said the hag, in the black language. 'You have not
the glossy eye of the true Roman.'

'No Roman am I, my sister, save by adoption. As a lad I left the
Gentiles' roof for the merry tent of Egypt, and for many years I called
Lovels and Stanleys my blood-brothers.'

'Then why come you with a double face, little child?' croaked the
beldam, who knew that Baltic was speaking the truth from his knowledge
of the gipsy tongue. 'As a Gentile I would speak no word, but my brother
you are, and as my brother you shall know.'

'Know who killed Jentham!' said Baltic, hastily.

'Of a truth, brother. But call him not Jentham, for he was of Pharaoh's
blood.'

'A gipsy, mother, or only a Romany rye?'

'Of the old blood, of the true blood, of our religion verily, my
brother. One of the Lovels he was, who left our merry life to eat with
Gorgios and fiddle gold out of their pockets.'

'He called himself Amaru then, did he not?' said Baltic, who had heard
this much from Cargrim, to whom it had filtered from Miss Whichello
through Tinkler.

'It is so, brother. Amaru he called himself, and Jentham and Creagth,
and a dozen other names when cheating and choring the Gentiles. But a
Bosvile he was born, and a Bosvile he died.'

'That is just it!' said Baltic, in English, for he grew weary of using
the gipsy language, in which, from disuse, he was no great proficient.
'How did he die?'

'He was shot, lovey,' replied Mother Jael, relapsing also into the
vulgar tongue; 'shot, dearie, on this blessed common.'

'Who shot him?'

'Job! my noble rye, I can't say. Jentham, he come 'ere to patter the
calo jib and drink with us. He said as he had to see some Gentile on
that night! La! la! la!' she piped thinly, 'an evil night for him!'

'On Sunday night--the night he was killed?'

'Yes, pretty one. The Gorgio was to give him money for somethin' he
knowed.'

'Who was the Gorgio?'

'I don' know, lovey! I don' know!'

'What was the secret, then?' asked Baltic, casting round for
information.

'Bless 'ee, my tiny! Jentham nivir tole me. An' I was curis to know, my
dove, so when he walks away half-seas over I goes too.