smuggle me through an inspection of the tent and cross-examination of its
ostensible denizens by Captain Bulsted, who had no suspicions, though he
was in a state of wonderment. Hearing all this, I was the first to say
it would be better I should get out of the neighbourhood as soon as my
legs should support me. The grin that goes for a laugh among gipsies
followed my question of how Kiomi had managed to smuggle me. Eveleen was
my informant when the dreaded Kiomi happened to be off duty for a minute.
By a hasty transformation, due to a nightcap on the bandages about the
head, and an old petticoat over my feet, Captain William's insensible
friend was introduced to him as the sore sick great-grandmother of the
tribe, mother of Kiomi's mother, aged ninety-one. The captain paid like
a man for doctor and burial fees; he undertook also to send the old lady
a pound of snuff to assist her to a last sneeze or two on the right side
of the grave, and he kept his word; for, deeming it necessary to paint
her in a characteristic, these prodigious serpents told him gravely that
she delighted in snuff; it was almost the only thing that kept her alive,
barring a sip of broth. Captain William's comment on the interesting
piece of longevity whose well-covered length and framework lay exposed to
his respectful contemplation, was, that she must have been a devilish
fine old lady in her day. 'Six foot' was given as her measurement.

One pound of snuff, a bottle of rum, and five sovereigns were the fruits
of the captain's sensibility. I shattered my ribs with laughter over the
story. Eveleen dwelt on the triumph, twinkling. Kiomi despised laughter
or triumph resulting from the natural exercise of craft in an emergency.
'But my handsome gentleman he won't tell on us, will he, when we've
nursed him and doctored him, and made him one of us, and as good a stick
o' timber as grows in the forest?' whined the old mother. I had to swear
I would not.