“Ha! but I can prove it, and will when the time is ripe.  He becomes my rom does the big rye, or round his neck goes the rope; and she dances long-side, I swear.”

“What a bloodthirsty idea, you savage devil!  And how do you propose to prove that Mr. Lambert shot the man?”

“Aha,” sneered Chaldea contemptuously, “you take me for a fool, saying more than I can do.  But know this, my precious angel”—­she fumbled in her pocket and brought out a more or less formless piece of lead—­“what’s this, may I ask?  The bullet which passed through Hearne’s heart, and buried itself in a tree-trunk.”

Miss Greeby made a snatch at the article, but Chaldea was too quick for her and slipped it again into her pocket.  “You can’t prove that it is the bullet,” snapped Miss Greeby glaring, for she dreaded lest its production should incriminate Lambert, innocent though she believed him to be.

“Kara can prove it.  He went to where Hearne was shot and saw that there was a big tree by the blue door, and before the shrubbery.  A shot fired from behind the bushes would by chance strike the tree.  The bullet which killed my brother was not found in the heart.  It passed through and was in the tree-trunk.  Kara knifed it out and brought it to me.  If this,” Chaldea held up the bullet again jeeringly, “fits the pistol of the big rye he will swing for sure.  The letter hangs her and the bullet hangs him.  I want my price.”

“You won’t get it, then,” said Miss Greeby, eyeing the pocket into which the girl had again dropped the bullet.  “Mr. Lambert was absent in London on that night.  I heard that by chance.”

“Then you heard wrong, my Gentile lady.  Avali, quite wrong.  The big rye returned on that very night and went to Lundra again in the morning.”

“Even if he did,” said Miss Greeby desperately, “he did not leave the cottage.  His housekeeper can prove—­”

“Nothing,” snapped Chaldea triumphantly.  “She was in her bed and the golden rye was in his bed.  My brother was killed after midnight, and if the rye took a walk then, who can say where he was?”

“You have to prove all this, you know.”

Chaldea snapped her fingers.  “First, the letter to shame her; then the bullet to hang him.  The rest comes after.  My price, you know, my Gorgious artful.  I toves my own gad.  It’s a good proverb, lady, and true Romany.”

“What does it mean?”

“I wash my own shirt,” said Chaldea, significantly, and sprang up the steps of her gaily-painted caravan to shut herself in.

“What a fool I am not to take that bullet from her,” thought Miss Greeby, standing irresolutely before the vehicle, and she cast a glance around to see if such an idea was feasible.  It was not, as she speedily decided, for a single cry from Chaldea would bring the gypsies round to protect their new queen.  It was probable also that the girl would fight like a wild cat; although Miss Greeby felt that she could manage her so far.  But she was not equal to fighting the whole camp of vagrants, and so was compelled to abandon her scheme.  In a somewhat discontented mood, she turned away, feeling that, so far, Chaldea had the whip-hand.