“’I’m well known there too.  I’ve played so many tricks on the crayfish*—­and as I’ve only one eye, it is not overeasy for me to disguise myself.’

     * Name applied by the Spanish populace to the British
     soldiers, on account of the colour of their uniform.

“‘Then I suppose I must go,’ said I, delighted at the very idea of seeing Carmen again.  ‘Well, how am I to set about it?’

“The others answered: 

“’You must either go by sea, or you must get through by San Rocco, whichever you like the best; once you are in Gibraltar, inquire in the port where a chocolate-seller called La Rollona lives.  When you’ve found her, she’ll tell you everything that’s happening.’

“It was settled that we were all to start for the Sierra, that I was to leave my two companions there, and take my way to Gibraltar, in the character of a fruit-seller.  At Ronda one of our men procured me a passport; at Gaucin I was provided with a donkey.  I loaded it with oranges and melons, and started forth.  When I reached Gibraltar I found that many people knew La Rollona, but that she was either dead or had gone ad finibus terroe,* and, to my mind, her disappearance explained the failure of our correspondence with Carmen.  I stabled my donkey, and began to move about the town, carrying my oranges as though to sell them, but in reality looking to see whether I could not come across any face I knew.  The place is full of ragamuffins from every country in the world, and it really is like the Tower of Babel, for you can’t go ten paces along a street without hearing as many languages.  I did see some gipsies, but I hardly dared confide in them.  I was taking stock of them, and they were taking stock of me.  We had mutually guessed each other to be rogues, but the important thing for us was to know whether we belonged to the same gang.  After having spent two days in fruitless wanderings, and having found out nothing either as to La Rollona or as to Carmen, I was thinking I would go back to my comrades as soon as I had made a few purchases, when, toward sunset, as I was walking along a street, I heard a woman’s voice from a window say, ‘Orange-seller!’

     * To the galleys, or else to all the devils in hell.

“I looked up, and on a balcony I saw Carmen looking out, beside a scarlet-coated officer with gold epaulettes, curly hair, and all the appearance of a rich milord.  As for her, she was magnificently dressed, a shawl hung on her shoulders, she’d a gold comb in her hair, everything she wore was of silk; and the cunning little wretch, not a bit altered, was laughing till she held her sides.

“The Englishman shouted to me in mangled Spanish to come upstairs, as the lady wanted some oranges, and Carmen said to me in Basque: 

“‘Come up, and don’t look astonished at anything!’

“Indeed, nothing that she did ought ever to have astonished me.  I don’t know whether I was most happy or wretched at seeing her again.  At the door of the house there was a tall English servant with a powdered head, who ushered me into a splendid drawing-room.  Instantly Carmen said to me in Basque, ‘You don’t know one word of Spanish, and you don’t know me.’  Then turning to the Englishman, she added: