at croaks, croaks, in these marshes."

There was an uneasy ring in the convict's laugh, full of bravado as he
meant it to be. Margery continued with an ominously extended forefinger.
"And then they will fly to the great house where the master lies
sleeping, and they will whisper to him that you took away the angel's
gift from poor, lost Margery, and he will be angry, for he is good to
Margery, and to-morrow he will make Woodson do to you what he did to-day
to the Breaking Heart."

"To the Breaking Heart!" exclaimed her auditors.

Margery nodded. "Yes, the Breaking Heart. You call him Landless."

The Muggletonian sat up. "What dost thou mean, wretched woman! fit
descendant of the mother of all evil?"

Margery, offended by his tone, only pursed up her lips and looked wise.

"What did the master have done to Landless, Margery?" asked the youth.

Margery threw her worn figure into a singular posture. Standing
perfectly straight, she raised her arms from her sides and spread them
stiffly out, the hands turned inward in a peculiar fashion. Then, still
with extended arms, she swayed slightly forward until she appeared to
lean against, or to be fastened to, some support. Next she threw her
head back and to one side, so that her face might be seen in three
quarter over her shoulder. Her mobile features wreathed themselves in an
expression of pain and rage. Her brows drew downward, her thin lips
curled themselves away from the gleaming teeth, and, at intervals of
half a minute or more, her eyelids quivered, she shuddered, and her
whole frame appeared to shrink together.

The pantomime was too expressive to be misunderstood by men each of whom
had probably his own reasons for recognizing some one or all of its
features. The convict broke into a yelling laugh, in which he was
joined, though in a subdued and sinister fashion, by Luiz Sebastian. The
rustics looked at each other with slow grins of comprehension, and the
blue-eyed youth uttered a long shrill whistle. The great letter upon the
cheek of the Muggletonian turned a deeper red, and his eyes burned. The
youth was curious.

"Tell us all about it, Margery," he said, coaxingly, "and when the
millons are ripe, I'll steal you one every night."

Margery was nothing loth. She had attained the reputation of an
accomplished _raconteuse_, and she was proud of it. Her crazed
imagination peopled the forest with weird uncanny things, and fearful
tales she told of fays and bugab