“He took his blunderbuss, and went down the pathway, hiding himself among the brushwood.

“We followed him, El Dancaire and I keeping a little way behind.  As soon as the woman saw us, instead of being frightened—­and our dress would have been enough to frighten any one—­she burst into a fit of loud laughter.  ’Ah! the lillipendi!  They take me for an erani!’*

     * “The idiots, they take me for a smart lady!”

“It was Carmen, but so well disguised that if she had spoken any other language I should never have recognised her.  She sprang off her mule, and talked some time in an undertone with El Dancaire and Garcia.  Then she said to me: 

“’Canary-bird, we shall meet again before you’re hanged.  I’m off to Gibraltar on gipsy business—­you’ll soon have news of me.’

“We parted, after she had told us of a place where we should find shelter for some days.  That girl was the providence of our gang.  We soon received some money sent by her, and a piece of news which was still more useful to us—­to the effect that on a certain day two English lords would travel from Gibraltar to Granada by a road she mentioned.  This was a word to the wise.  They had plenty of good guineas.  Garcia would have killed them, but El Dancaire and I objected.  All we took from them, besides their shirts, which we greatly needed, was their money and their watches.

“Sir, a man may turn rogue in sheer thoughtlessness.  You lose your head over a pretty girl, you fight another man about her, there is a catastrophe, you have to take to the mountains, and you turn from a smuggler into a robber before you have time to think about it.  After this matter of the English lords, we concluded that the neighbourhood of Gibraltar would not be healthy for us, and we plunged into the Sierra de Ronda.  You once mentioned Jose-Maria to me.  Well, it was there I made acquaintance with him.  He always took his mistress with him on his expeditions.  She was a pretty girl, quiet, modest, well-mannered, you never heard a vulgar word from her, and she was quite devoted to him.  He, on his side, led her a very unhappy life.  He was always running after other women, he ill-treated her, and then sometimes he would take it into his head to be jealous.  One day he slashed her with a knife.  Well, she only doted on him the more!  That’s the way with women, and especially with Andalusians.  This girl was proud of the scar on her arm, and would display it as though it were the most beautiful thing in the world.  And then Jose-Maria was the worst of comrades in the bargain.  In one expedition we made with him, he managed so that he kept all the profits, and we had all the trouble and the blows.  But I must go back to my story.  We had no sign at all from Carmen. El Dancaire said:  ’One of us will have to go to Gibraltar to get news of her.  She must have planned some business.  I’d go at once, only I’m too well known at Gibraltar.’ El Tuerto said: