by L. T. Meade
theirpreparation for breakfast, the men took their short pipes out of theirmouths; every dog, with the exception of Tiger, barked ferociously.Tiger and Annie alone were motionless.
The cause of all this uproar was a body of police, about six in number,who came boldly into the field, and demanded instantly to search thetents.
"We want a woman who calls herself Mother Rachel," they said. "Shebelongs to this encampment. We know her: let her come forward at once;we wish to question her."
The men stood about; the women came near; the children crept out oftheir tents, placing their fingers to their frightened lips, and staringat the men who represented those horrors to their unsophisticated mindscalled Law and Order.
"We must search the tents. We won't stir from the spot until we havehad an interview with Mother Rachel," said the principal member of thepolice force.
The men answered respectfully that the gipsy mother was not yet up; butif the gentlemen would wait a moment she would soon come and speak tothem.
The officers expressed their willingness to wait, and collected roundthe tents.
Just at this instant, under the hedge-row, Tiger raised his head.Annie's watchful eyes accompanied the dog's. He was gazing after a tinygipsy maid who was skulking along the hedge, and who presentlydisappeared through a very small opening into the neighbouring field.
Quick as thought Annie, holding Tiger's collar, darted after her. Thelittle maid heard the footsteps: but seeing another gipsy girl, andtheir own dog, Tiger, she took no further notice, but ran openly andvery swiftly across the field until she came to a broken wall. Here shetugged and tugged at some loose stones, managed to push one away, andthen called down into the ground--
"Mother Rachel!"
"Come, Tiger," said Annie. She flew to a hedge not far off, and oncemore the dog and she hid themselves. The small girl was too excited tonotice either their coming or going; she went on calling anxiously intothe ground--
"Mother Rachel! Mother Rachel!"
Presently a black head and a pair of brawny shoulders appeared, and thetall woman whose face and figure Annie knew so well stepped up out ofthe ground, pushed back the stones into their place, and, taking thegipsy child into her arms, ran swiftly across the field in the directionof the tents.
CHAPTER FORTY SIX.
FOR LOVE OF NAN.
Now was Annie's time. "Tiger," she said, for she had heard the mencalling the dog's name. "I want to go right down into that hole in theground, and you are to come with me. Don't let us lose a moment, gooddog."
The dog wagged his tail, capered about in front of Annie, and then witha wonderful shrewdness ran before her to the broken wall, where he stoodwith his head bent downwards and his eyes fixed on the ground.
Annie pulled and tugged at the loose stones; they were so heavy and socunningly arranged that she wondered how the little maid, who wassmaller than herself, had managed to remove them. She saw quickly,however, that they were arranged with a certain leverage, and that thelargest stone that which formed the real entrance to the undergroundpassage, was balanced in its place in such a fashion that when she leanton a certain portion of it, it moved aside, and allowed plenty of roomfor her to go down into the earth.
Very dark and dismal and uninviting did the rude steps, which led nobodyknew where, appear. For one moment Annie hesitated; but the thought ofNan hidden somewhere in this awful wretchedness nerved her courage.
"Go first, Tiger, please," she said, and the dog scampered down,sniffing the earth as he went. Annie followed him, but she had scarcelygot her head below the level of the ground before she found herself intotal and absolute darkness; she had unwittingly touched the heavystone, which had swung back into its place. She heard Tiger sniffingbelow, and, calling to him to keep by her side, she went very carefullydown and down and down, until at last she knew by the increase of airthat she must have come to the end of the narrow entrance passage.
She was now able to stand upright, and raising her hand, she tried invain to find a roof. The room where she stood, then, must be lofty.She went forward in the utter darkness very, very slowly; suddenly herhead again came in contact with the roof; she made a few steps fartheron, and then found that to proceed at all she must go on her hands andknees. She bent down and peered through the darkness.
"We'll go on, Tiger," she said, and, holding the dog's collar andclinging to him for protection, she crept along the narrow passage.
Suddenly she gave an exclamation of joy--at the other end of this gloomypassage was light--faint twilight surely, but still undoubted light,which came down from some chink in the outer world. Annie came to theend of the passage, and, standing upright, found herself suddenly in aroom; a very small and miserable room, certainly, but with the twilightshining through it, which revealed not only that it was a room, but aroom which contained a heap of straw, a three-legged stool, and two orthree cracked cups and saucers. Here, then, was Mother Rachel's lair,and here she must look for Nan.
The darkness had been so intense that even the faint twilight of thislittle chamber had dazzled Annie's eyes for a moment; the next, however,her vision became clear. She saw that the straw bed contained a bundle;she went near--out of the wrapped-up bundle of shawls appeared the headof a child. The child slept, and moaned in its slumbers.
Annie bent over it and said, "Thank God!" in a tone of rapture, andthen, stooping down, she passionately kissed the lips of little Nan.
Nan's skin had been dyed with the walnut-juice, her pretty soft hair hadbeen cut short, her dainty clothes had been changed for the most raggedgipsy garments, but still she was undoubtedly Nan, the child whom Anniehad come to save.
From her uneasy slumbers the poor little one awoke with a cry of terror.She could not recognise Annie's changed face, and clasped her handsbefore her eyes, and said piteously--
"Me want to go home--go 'way, naughty woman, me want my Annie."
"Little darling!" said Annie, in her sweetest tones. The changed facehad not appealed to Nan, but the old voice went straight to her babyheart; she stopped crying and looked anxiously toward the entrance ofthe room.
"Turn in, Annie--me here, Annie--little Nan want 'oo."
Annie glanced around her in despair. Suddenly her quick eyes lighted ona jug of water. She flew to it, and washed and laved her face.
"Coming, darling," she said, as she tried to remove the hateful dye.She succeeded partly, and when she came back, to her great joy, thechild recognised her.
"Now, little precious, we will get out of this as fast as we can," saidAnnie, and clasping Nan tightly in her arms, she prepared to return bythe way she had come. Then and there, for the first time, there flashedacross her memory the horrible fact that the stone door had swung backinto its place, and that by no possible means could she open it. Sheand Nan and Tiger were buried in a living tomb, and must either staythere and perish, or await the tender mercies of the cruel MotherRachel.
Nan, with her arms tightly clasped round Annie's neck, began to cryfretfully. She was impatient to get out of this dismal place; she wasno longer oppressed by fears, for with the Annie whom she loved she feltabsolutely safe; but she was hungry and cold and uncomfortable, and itseemed but a step, to little inexperienced Nan, from Annie's arms to hersnug, cheerful nursery at Lavender House.
"Turn, Annie--turn home, Annie," she begged, and, when Annie did notstir, she began to weep.
In truth, the poor, brave little girl was sadly puzzled, and her firstgleam of returning hope lay in the remembrance of Zillah's words, thatthere were generally two entrances to these old underground forts.Tiger, who seemed thoroughly at home in this little room, and had curledhimself up comfortably on the heap of straw, had probably often beenhere before. Perhaps Tiger knew the way to the second entrance. Anniecalled him to her side.
"Tiger," she said, going down on her knees, and looking full into hisugly but intelligent face, "Nan and I want to go out of this."
Tiger wagged his stumpy tail.
"
We are hungry, Tiger, and we want something to eat, and you'd like abone, wouldn't you?"
Tiger's tail went with ferocious speed, and he licked Annie's hand.
"There's no use going back that way, dear dog," continued the girl,pointing with her arm in the direction they had come. "The door isfastened, Tiger, and we can't get out. We can't get out because thedoor is shut."
The dog's tail had ceased to wag; he took in the situation, for hiswhole expression showed dejection, and he drooped his head.
It was now quite evident to Annie that Tiger had been here before, andthat on some other occasion in his life he had wanted to get out andcould not because the door was shut.
"Now, Tiger," said Annie, speaking cheerfully, and rising to her feet,"we must get out. Nan and I are hungry, and you