The man's daring roused her admiration, even as her anger mounted. If her
father heard the singing, there could be no doubt that Jethro Fawe's doom
would be sealed. Gabriel Druse would resent this insolence to the
daughter of the Ry of Rys. Word would be passed as silently as the
electric spark flies, and one day Jethro Fawe would be found dead, with
no clue to his slayer, and maybe no sign of violence upon him; for while
the Romany people had remedies as old as Buddha, they had poisons as old
as Sekhet.
Suddenly the song ceased, and for a moment there was silence save for the
whispering trees and the night-bird's song. Fleda rose from her bed, and
was about to put on her dressing-gown, when she was startled by a voice
loudly whispering her name at her window, as it seemed.
"Daughter of the Ry of Rys!" it called.
In anger she started forward to the window, then, realizing that she was
in her nightgown, caught up her red dressing-gown and put it on. As she
did so she understood why the voice had sounded so near. Not thirty feet
from her window there was a solitary oak-tree among the pines, in which
was a seat among the branches, and, looking out, she could see a figure
that blackened the starlit duskiness.
"Fleda--daughter of the Ry of Rys," the voice called again.
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