Word would be passed as silently as the electric spark flies, and one day Jethro Fawe would be found dead, with no clue to his slayer, and maybe no sign of violence upon him; for while the Romany people had remedies as old as Buddha, they had poisons as old as Sekhet.
Suddenly the song ceased, and for a moment there was silence save for the whispering trees and the night-bird's song.

Fleda rose from her bed, and was about to put on her dressing-gown, when she was startled by a voice loudly whispering her name at her window, as it seemed.
"Daughter of the Ry of Rys!" it called.
In anger she started forward to the window, then, realizing that she was in her nightgown, caught up her red dressing-gown and put it on.

As she did so she understood why the voice had sounded so near.

Not thirty feet from her window there was a solitary oak-tree among the pines, in which was a seat among the branches, and, looking out, she could see a figure that blackened the starlit duskiness.
"Fleda--daughter of the Ry of Rys," the voice called again.
She gathered her dressing-gown tight about her, and, going to the window, raised it high and leaned out.
"What do you want ?" she asked sharply.
"Wife of Jethro Fawe, I bring you news," the voice said, and she saw a hat waved with mock courtesy.

In spite of herself, Fleda felt a shiver of premonition pass through her.