“Can you beat that?” Arthur demanded. His face had taken on the black look that rage, with him, always developed. Rosie’s eyes darted lightnings. Maida had stopped crying and her eyes had changed too. Not glowering like Rosie’s, they had grown suddenly dark. Laura looked stupefied. Dicky had turned white. Great shadows jumped out under his eyes. “That was the most dreadful thing I ever saw in my life,” Maida asserted in a voice, almost a whisper. “You might have drowned, Arthur.” “I’ll get even with them for that,” Arthur said in a quiet voice. “You wait.” “I don’t blame you,” Rosie declared. “I’m so mad I don’t know what I wouldn’t do.” “I don’t believe they’re worth taking any notice of,” Laura decided contemptuously, “gypsies like that. Why don’t you tell their aunt, Maida?” “I’d like to,” Maida answered, “but I guess I won’t. I like Aunt Save too much.” “Anyway,” Harold pointed out, “it isn’t anything that concerns them. It’s all between us children.” “No, I wouldn’t want any grown people to get mixed up in this at all,” Arthur said. “I wouldn’t say anything about it to Granny Flynn or Mrs. Dore. It’ll only worry them and nobody’s the worse for it. We didn’t do anything to be ashamed of anyway.” “Ashamed of!” Rosie echoed stormily. “You were only trying to save their lives.” “No,” Maida agreed, “I won’t say anything about it. I think you’re right Arthur.” The Burles had reached the opposite shore by this time. Before they disappeared into the woods, they raised their voices in a long derisive shout. As Arthur listened his face grew blacker and blacker. “Do all the yelling you want!” he called, “I’ll get even with you, my fine young gypsies!” CHAPTER VIII NIGHT The women were too busy to take any notice of the children when they returned except to ask them if they had a good swim. “I feel like reading,” Maida said with a determined air. She marched into the library. “There’s a book here I haven’t read for a long time, _At the Back of the North Wind_.” She went on as though talking to herself. “It’s one of the loveliest stories I ever read. I don’t know but what it’s my favorite of all. I feel like reading it now. It’s so cool ... there’s a great beautiful woman in it ... the North Wind....” Her voice melted into silence, as her hand seized a worn brown book. She dropped into one of the big chairs; seemed to forget entirely about her companions. The others--partly because there seemed nothing else to do--followed her example. “Oh, here’s _A Journey to the Centre of the Earth_!” Dicky announced joyously. “I haven’t seen it since Maida took it to Europe.” He absorbed himself in the big thick volume. Rosie and Laura contented themselves respectively with _Little Men_ and _Little Women_, and Harold began for the third time _Kidnapped_. But Arthur found a newly published book describing the exploration of Africa in a flying machine. He pored over it; gradually became absorbed.