ar the whistle I will
give you as a signal, then you must come."

"And if you go, and I cannot get out! Oh, Cora, I should die here
alone now!"

"Faint heart! Be brave! Be strong! Say you will win!"

Cora was jubilant. To her it meant freedom! She had no fear of
detection. All she thought of was success. To get away and then to
send word to her dear ones!

Lena tapped on the door.

"Helka," she said, "could I, too, go?"

"You, Lena--why?"

"I will not be happy without Helka and without the good lady. I, too,
would go away!"

Her eyes were sad, and her voice trembled.

"Why, Lena, they would search the earth for you--you are a real gypsy,"
said Helka.

"But I have no mother, no father, and what right have they to me? In
the world I could learn, I would work for you, I would be your slave!"

The poor girl was almost in tears. Her manner pleaded her cause more
eloquently than could any words.

"How would you go?" asked the queen.

"When I go out to lock the barn, I would just run, and run through the
woods. I would wait for you at the big oak."

"Where is Sam?" asked Helka.

"He went out with the wagon this afternoon. He will not be back."

"And Mother Hull?"

"Smoking by the fire. She will sleep. I have put some powder in her
tobacco."

Cora murmured a protest.

"Oh, she likes it," and the queen smiled. "Tonight it will be a treat.
But the men--the guards?"

"One went to gamble his money that you gave him; the other is out with
his fishing pole. I have fixed it all."

"Good girl. You told him I wanted fish for breakfast, and you told the
other he could spend his money at the inn. Lena, I wish you _could_
come with us."

"I _am_ going. I will not stay here."

"But in the morning, when they find three gone--what then?"

"In the morning," said Cora, "it does not matter what. We shall be
safe some place. Yes, Lena, we will take you. This is no life for any
girl."

Lena fell on her knees and kissed Cora's hands wildly. She had
befriended Cora ever since she saw her lying so still and white in that
awful wagon, and now she might get her reward.

"You will come up with tea when everything is safe," said Helka. "That
will be our signal."

Lena went away with a smile on her thin lips. True, she was a real
gypsy girl, but she longed for another life, and felt keenly the
injustice of that to which she was enslaved.

"Then I will sing," said Cora. "See, the stars are