would not say anything about her to them. I was so weak in that creature’s hands, that I obeyed all her whims. And besides, this was the first time she had revealed herself as possessing any of the reserve of a well-conducted woman, and I was simple enough to believe she had really cast off her former habits.
“Our gang, which consisted of eight or ten men, was hardly ever together except at decisive moments, and we were usually scattered by twos and threes about the towns and villages. Each one of us pretended to have some trade. One was a tinker, another was a groom; I was supposed to peddle haberdashery, but I hardly ever showed myself in large places, on account of my unlucky business at Seville. One day, or rather one night, we were to meet below Veger. El Dancaire and I got there before the others.
“‘We shall soon have a new comrade,’ said he. ‘Carmen has just managed one of her best tricks. She has contrived the escape of her rom, who was in the presidio at Tarifa.’
“I was already beginning to understand the gipsy language, which nearly all my comrades spoke, and this word rom startled me.
“What! her husband? Is she married, then?’ said I to the captain.
“‘Yes!’ he replied, ‘married to Garcia el Tuerto—as cunning a gipsy as she is herself. The poor fellow has been at the galleys. Carmen has wheedled the surgeon of the presidio to such good purpose that she has managed to get her rom* out of prison. Faith! that girl’s worth her weight in gold. For two years she has been trying to contrive his escape, but she could do nothing until the authorities took it into their