ed name.
Kiomi clutched me to her bosom, but no one breathed the name we had in
our thoughts.

Eveleen and the old mother had searched for me upon the heath, and having
haled me head and foot to their tent, despatched a message to bring Kiomi
down from London to aid them in their desperate shift. They knew Squire
Beltham's temper. He would have scattered the tribe to the shores of the
kingdom at a rumour of foul play to his grandson. Kiomi came in time to
smuggle me through an inspection of the tent and cross-examination of its
ostensible denizens by Captain Bulsted, who had no suspicions, though he
was in a state of wonderment. Hearing all this, I was the first to say it
would be better I should get out of the neighbourhood as soon as my legs
should support me. The grin that goes for a laugh among gipsies followed
my question of how Kiomi had managed to smuggle me. Eveleen was my
informant when the dreaded Kiomi happened to be off duty for a minute. By
a hasty transformation, due to a nightcap on the bandages about the head,
and an old petticoat over my feet, Captain William's insensible friend
was introduced to him as the sore sick great-grandmother of the tribe,
mother of Kiomi's mother, aged ninety-one. The captain paid like a man
for doctor and burial fees; he undertook also to send the old lady a
pound of snuff to assist her to a last sneeze or two on the right side of
the grave, and he kept his word; for, deeming it necessary to paint her
in a characteristic, these prodigious serpents told him gravely that she
delighted in snuff; it was almost the only thing that kept her alive,
barring a sip of broth. Captain William's comment on the interesting
piece of longevity whose well-covered length and framework lay exposed to
his respectful contemplation, was, that she must have been a devilish
fine old lady in her day. 'Six foot' was given as her measurement.

One pound of snuff, a bottle of rum, and five sovereigns were the fruits
of the captain's sensibility. I shattered my ribs with laughter over the
story. Eveleen dwelt on the triumph, twinkling. Kiomi despised laughter
or triumph resulting from the natural exercise of craft in an emergency.
'But my handsome gentleman he won't tell on us, will he, when we've
nursed him and doctored him, and made him one of us, and as good a stick
o' timber as grows in the forest?' whined the old mother. I had to swear
I would not.

'He!' cried Kiomi.

'He may forget us when he'