Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/213

 thought it was, and a very good way of clearing the ground of the curious. For there is no power like superstition, and nothing that spreads quicker or is more grossly exaggerated than tales of horror and fear. So on they rode in wild circles round and round the packponies. Beelzebub was the actual leader. He it was who gave the orders, but the mysterious Scarecrow would dash out of the mist every now and again just to see that all was well with the legion, and then as quickly would he disappear, borne away like a ghost upon that spectral gray thoroughbred.

Jerry of course knew the terror with which the pallid host could affect the unwary wayfarer—for had he not seen them himself on the night of Sennacherib's murder?—but had he needed other proof he would have got it in the case of a small encampment of gypsies. They were not a recognized band of gypsies, but a wandering family, tramping from town to town, from village to village, getting what they could here and what they shouldn't there, to keep the poor life in their bodies. The gallopers came upon them in a ditch. They had lanterns there and a small fire around which three men and a young lad were sleeping. There was an old crone rocking herself to sleep on one side of the fire, and opposite, between two of the sleeping men, was a younger woman. Her garments were tattered and ragged to the last degree, and her shoulders and arms showed bare, for she had wrapped her shawl round the babe