er than to Miriam or
any other of the tribe?"

"Verily because he was the one being in the world beloved of Long
Robin. Miriam he trusted not, for that she was a woman, and he held
that no woman, however faithful, might be trusted with a secret. I
have heard him say so a hundred times, and have seen her flinch
beneath the words, whilst her eyes flashed fire. Methinks that Long
Robin loved gold with the miser's greed--loved to hoard and not to
spend--loved to feel it in his power, but desired not to touch it.
Miriam was content so long as vengeance on the Trevlyns had been
taken. She wanted not the gold herself so long as it was hidden
from them. But the secret was one that must not die, and to young
Robin it has been intrusted. And if I mistake me not, he has other
notions regarding it, and will not let it lie in its hiding place
for ever. He is sharp and shrewd as Lucifer. He knows by some
instinct that I suspect and that I watch him, and never has he
betrayed aught to me. But sure am I that the secret rests with him;
and if thou wouldst find it out, it is Long Robin's steps that thou
must dog and watch."

"I will watch him till I have tracked him to his lair!" cried
Cuthbert, springing to his feet in great excitement. "I will never
rest, day nor night, until the golden secret is mine!"

Chapter 14: Long Robin.

The gipsy had left him, gliding away in the moonlight like a
veritable shadow; and Cuthbert, left alone in the dim cave, buried
his face in his hands and sank into a deep reverie.

This, then, was the meaning of it all: the long-deferred vengeance
of the gipsy tribe; the avaricious greed of one amongst their
number, who had committed dastardly crimes so as to keep the secret
hiding place in his own power alone; the secret passed on (as it
seemed) to one who feigned to be what he was not, and was cunningly
awaiting time and opportunity to remove the gold, and amass to
himself this vast hoard; none beside himself of all the tribe
heeding or caring for it, all holding to the story told long ago of
the seven men who had disappeared bearing away to foreign lands the
stolen treasure. A generation had well-nigh passed since that
treasure had been filched from the grasp of the Trevlyns. The
stalwart fellows who had been bred up amongst the gipsies, or had
joined the bands of freebooters with whom they were so closely
connected, knew little of and cared nothing for the tradition of
the hidden hoard. They f