Bad ending
There was a low whippoorwill-call of a whistle, and another a moment later, and a patient silence, apparently waiting for a response. When none was immediately forthcoming, there was another whistle, somehow more insistent while still sounding like a bird-call to the untrained ear.
The gypsies may have been captured, but they had friends in high places, or low places, as the case may be, the Assassins chief among them. The two tribes had been allies for generations, at least half as long as anyone could remember, and a purge like the gypsies had suffered wouldn't go unnoticed, nor unavenged.