As she listened there was
a footstep at the door of the tent, a voice called to her softly, and a
hand drew aside the tent curtain. The woman who had brought her to this
place entered.
"You are all safe now," she said, reaching out both hands to Fleda. "By
long and by last, but it was a close shave! He meant to make you his wife
to-night, whether you would or no. I'm a Fawe, but I'd have none of that.
I was on my way to your father's house when I met someone--someone that
you know. He carries your father's voice in his mouth."
She stepped to the tent door and beckoned; and out of the darkness, only
faintly lightened by the dying fires, there entered one whom Fleda had
seen not more than fifty times in her life, and never but twice since she
had ceased to be a Romany. It was her father's secret agent, Rhodo, the
Roumelian, now grizzled and gaunt, but with the same vitality which had
been his in the days when she was a little child.
Here and there in the world went Rhodo, the voice of the Ry of Rys to do
his bidding, to say his say. No minister of a Czar was ever more dreaded
or loved. His words were ever few, but his deeds had been many. Now, as
he looked at Fleda, his old eyes gleamed, and he showed a double row of
teeth, not one of which was imperfect, though he was seventy years of
age.
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