There were many caravans, painted in gay colors and hung round with various goods, such as brushes and brooms, goat-skin rugs, and much tinware, together with baskets of all sorts and sizes.  The horses, which drew these rainbow-hued vehicles, were pasturing on the outskirts of the camp, hobbled for the most part.  Interspersed among the travelling homes stood tents great and small, wherein the genuine Romany had their abode, but the autumn weather was so fine that most of the inmates preferred to sleep in the moonshine.  Of course, there were plenty of dogs quarrelling over bones near various fires, or sleeping with one eye open in odd corners, and everywhere tumbled and laughed and danced, brown-faced, lithe-limbed children, who looked uncannily Eastern.  And the men, showing their white teeth in smiles, together with the fawning women, young and handsome, or old and hideously ugly, seemed altogether alien to the quiet, tame domestic English landscape.  There was something prehistoric about the scene, and everywhere lurked that sense of dangerous primeval passions held in enforced check which might burst forth on the very slightest provocation.

“It’s a migrating tribe of Aryans driven to new hunting grounds by hunger or over-population,” said Miss Greeby, for even her unromantic nature was stirred by the unusual picturesqueness of the scene.  “The sight of these people and the reek of their fires make me feel like a cave-woman.  There is something magnificent about this brutal freedom.”

“Very sordid magnificence,” replied Lambert, raising his shoulders.  “But I understand your feelings.  On occasions we all have the nostalgia of the primitive life at times, and delight to pass from ease to hardship.”

“Well, civilization isn’t much catch, so far as I can see,” argued his companion.  “It makes men weaklings.”

“Certainly not women,” he answered, glancing sideways at her Amazonian figure.

“I agree with you.  For some reason, men are going down while women are going up, both physically and mentally.  I wonder what the future of civilized races will be.”

“Here is Mother Cockleshell.  Best ask her.”

The trio had reached a small tent at the very end of the camp by this time, snugly set up under a spreading oak and near the banks of a babbling brook.  Their progress had not been interrupted by any claims on their attention or purses, for a wink from Chaldea had informed her brother and sister gypsies that the Gentile lady had come to consult the queen of the tribe.  And, like Lord Burleigh’s celebrated nod, Chaldea’s wink could convey volumes.  At all events, Lambert and his companion were unmolested, and arrived in due course before the royal palace.  A croaking voice announced that the queen was inside her Arab tent, and she was crooning some Romany song.  Chaldea did not open her mouth, but simply snapped her fingers twice or thrice rapidly.  The woman within must have had marvellously sharp ears, for she immediately stopped her incantation—­the songs sounded like one—­and stepped forth.