"Do you belong to them?" asked the woman suddenly. "They are Gypsies, black men. But you are fair like the people of the North. Where did they get you, Gigi?"

Gigi shook his head. "I do not know," he said. "I have belonged to them always, I think."

"Hark!" said Mother Margherita suddenly. "What's that?"

There was a faint noise far off on the road behind them. Gigi trembled. "They are coming for me!" he said. "What shall I do?"

"No, no," said the woman. "I do not fear that. It is too soon, surely. But it is growing dark here in the valley. This is a lonely spot, and there are many wicked men about besides your masters, Gigi."

"Thieves and villains!" whispered Giovanni. "Oh, mother, hide the bag of silver that you got at market!"

"Sh! Sh!" warned the mother sharply. "Do not speak of it! Hiew, hiew! Go on! go on!" And she urged the oxen faster.

But the great beasts would not hasten their pace for her. The noise came nearer. They could hear that it was the trotting of hoofs.

"There is only one animal," said Gigi, whose ears were keen. "I can hear his four feet patter. I think it is the donkey!"

"I can see him now!" cried Paolo. "It is a little man on a donkey. He is bending forward and beating it hard."

Gigi strained his eyes to see. "It is Tonio!" he whispered fearfully.

"I know it! Oh, the Hunchback will kill me when he finds me! And he will take your silver, too!"

"Sh! Sh!" commanded the mother. "He shall not find you. Here, take this bag, Gigi. It will be safer with you. And here, creep under my skirts and keep close. He will never guess where you are!"

Mother Margherita spread out her generous draperies, which luckily were both long and wide, and Gigi crept under them, being wholly covered.

The other boys huddled close, shivering with a not wholly unpleasant excitement. This was an adventure indeed for a holiday!

The rider drew nearer and nearer, lashing the poor donkey unmercifully.

At last they could see his face, red and lowering.

"Halt!" he cried suddenly. "You in the cart there, halt!"

V

THE HUNCHBACK

The oxen stopped. The cart came to a standstill. The boys huddled closer, and Gigi's heart beat like a tambourine.

He was sure that Tonio would hear it.

"What do you want?" asked Mother Margherita, and her usually kind voice was harsh.

"You seem to have a load of young cubs there," shouted Tonio. "Have you got my boy, Gigi the Tumbler, among them? Some one has stolen the little monster."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Have you got my boy?"]

"What are you talking about!" answered Mother Margherita sharply. "I am a respectable countrywoman returning from market-day with my children. What business have I with tumblers and vagrants!"

"That I'll see for myself, woman," said Tonio, jumping unsteadily down from the donkey and approaching the cart. Tonio had been drinking, and his little eyes were red and fierce.

"Keep your hands off my children!" cried their plucky mother, brandishing her whip.

But Tonio was not to be kept away.

"I will see them!" he snarled. He thrust his ugly face into those of the three boys, one after another, eyeing them sharply in the growing darkness. But there was little about these sun-browned, black-eyed youngsters to suggest the slender, fair-haired Gigi.

Tonio peered into the cart. He even thrust his long, lean hand into the straw that covered the floor, and felt about the corners, while the boys wriggled away from his touch like eels from a landing-net. Gigi held his breath. But Mother Margherita would not tamely endure all this.

"Get along, you vermin!" she cried, striking at his hands as he approached the forward end of the cart. "Can't you see that the boy is not here? What would he be doing in my cart, anyway? I'll trouble you to let us go on our way in peace. My man in the house down yonder will be out to help us with his crossbow and his dogs, if we scream a bit louder. Be off with you, and look for your boy in the village. Is it likely he would have come so far as this, the poor tired little lad?"

"The others are searching the village,"

growled the Hunchback tipsily. "They'll find him if he's there. 'Tis likely you are right. And then! I must be there to help at the punishing. Oh! that will be sport!--Have any other teams pa.s.sed you on the road?" he asked suddenly. "Have you overtaken no one on foot?"

"We have pa.s.sed no one," said Mother Margherita truthfully, starting up the oxen.

"Hiew! Hiew! Go on! go on," she clucked.

"We must get home to bed."

The Hunchback withdrew from the cart unsteadily, and mounted his donkey. For a moment he looked doubtfully up and down the road, then he turned the poor tired animal's head once more toward the village, and they began to plod back up the slope.

"The Lord forgive me!" whispered Mother Margherita piously. "I told a lie, and before my children, too! But it was to spare a child suffering, perhaps death. Surely, the Lord who loves little children will forgive me this sin."

So the good woman mused, as, faint with terror and gasping for breath, Gigi came out from under her skirts. He handed back the bag of silver, and gave a sigh of relief. The little boys seized him rapturously.

"You are saved, Gigi!" cried Paolo.

"He will never find you now," said Giovanni.

"See, we are almost home! You shall come and live with us and teach us how to tumble!"

cried Beppo, hugging his new friend closely.

But Mother Margherita interrupted him.

"Not so fast, not so fast, children," she warned. "Gigi is saved for now. But we may be able to do little more for him. Your father is master in the house, remember. Your father may not be pleased with what we have done.

Never promise what you may not be able to give, my Beppo." And she fell to musing again rather uneasily.

The boys were all suddenly silent, and Gigi, who had warmed to their kindness, felt a sudden chill. He had not thought of anything beyond the safety of the moment. He had made no plans, he had only hoped vaguely that these good people might help him. But now, what was to happen next? Was there still something more to fear?

Suddenly the flash of a lantern lighted the road ahead. A man's voice hailed them loudly.

"h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo! Will you never be coming home?"

"Father! It is father!" cried the three boys in an answering shout. Then with a common thought they all stopped short, and Gigi felt them looking at him in the darkness.

"What will he think of Gigi?" he heard Beppo whisper to his brothers.

"Sh!" warned Mother Margherita. And the man's voice sounded nearer.

"h.e.l.lo, old woman!" it called gruffly.

"Well, you did come back, didn't you?

I began to believe that you had all run away."

"Run away!" There was a little pause before any one answered. And Gigi felt the elbows of the boys nudging him in the side.