ht the Master Gorgio to the ground," said Jethro, who
now stood with sullen passiveness looking at Gabriel Druse.

"From the Master Gorgio, as you call him, I have just come," returned
the old man. "When I heard the news, I went to him. It was you who
betrayed him to the mob, and--"

"Wait, wait," Fleda cried in agitation. "Is--is he dead?"

"He is alive, but terribly hurt; and he may die," was the reply.

Then the old man turned to the Romany with a great anger and
determination in his face. He stretched out an arm, making a sign as
cabalistic as that which Fleda had used against her invisible foe in the
bedroom.

"Go, Jethro Fawe of all the Fawes," he said. "Go, and may no patrins
mark your road!"

Jethro Fawe shrank back, and half raised his arm, as though to fend
himself from a blow.

The patrin is the clue which Gipsies leave behind them on the road they
go, that other Gipsies who travel in it may know they have gone before.
It may be a piece of string, a thread of wool, a twig, or in the dust
the ancient cross of the Romany, which preceded the Christian cross and
belonged to the Assyrian or Phoenician world. The invocation that no
patrins shall mark the road of a Romany is to make him an outcast, and
for the Ry of Rys to utter the curse is sentence of death upon a Romany,
for thenceforward every hand of his race is against him, free to do him
harm.

It was that which made Jethro Fawe shrink and cower for a moment. Fleda
raised her hand suddenly in protest to Gabriel Druse.

"No, no, not that," Fleda murmured brokenly to her father, with eyes
that looked the pain and horror she felt. Though she repudiated the bond
by which the barbarian had dared to call her wife, she heard an inner
voice that said to her: "What was done by the Starzke River was the seal
of blood and race, and this man must be nearer than the stranger, dearer
than the kinsman, forgiven of his crimes like a brother, saved from
shame, danger or death when she who was sealed to him can save him."

She shuddered as she heard the inner voice. She felt that this Other
Self of her, the inner-seeing soul which had the secret of the far
paths, had spoken truly. Even as she begged her father to withdraw the
sentence, it flashed into her mind that the grim Thing of the night
was the dark spirit of hatred between Jethro Fawe and the Master Gorgio
seeking embodiment, as though Jethro's evil soul detached itself from
his body to persecute her.

At