“Two!  Except two!” remarked Kagig with a glance at the door.  We looked, and held our breath.

Maga Jhaere stood there, with a hand on the masonry on each side!

“You fool, Kagig, what you fill this castle full of wood for?” she demanded.

Kagig beckoned to her.

“To burn little traitoresses!” he answered tenderly.  “Come here!”

She walked over to him, and he put his arm around her waist, looking up from his seat into her face as if studying it almost for the first time.  She began running her fingers through his hair.

“Is she not beautiful?” he asked us naively.  Then, not waiting for an answer:  “She is my wife, effendim.  You would not have me be revengeful—­not toward my wife, I think?”

“Your wife?  Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

Gloria seemed the most surprised, as well as the most amused, although we were all astonished.

“Not tell you before?  Oh—­do you remember Abraham—­in the Bible—­yes?  She has been my best spy now and then.  As Kagig’s wife what good would she be?” Yet, had I not married her, I should have lost the services of most of my best spies—­Gregor Jhaere for one.  He is not her father, no.  They call her their queen.  She is daughter of another gipsy and of an Armenian lady of very good family.  She has always hoped to see me a monarch!”

He laughed, and cracked his finger-joints.

“To make of me a monarch, and to reign beside me!  Ha-ha-ha!  I did those gipsies a favor by marrying her, for she was something of a problem to them, no gipsy being good enough in her eyes, and no busne (Gentile) caring for the honor until I saw and fell in love!  Oh, yes, I fell in love!  I, Kagig, the old adventurer, I fell in love!”

He drew her down and kissed her as tenderly as if she were a little child; then rose to his feet.

“You forgive her, effendim?” he asked.  “You forgive her for my sake?”

None answered him.  Perhaps he asked too much.

“Never mind me, then, effendim.  Not for my sake, but for the good work she has so often done, and for the work she shall do—­you forgive her?”

We all looked toward Gloria.  It was her prerogative.  Gloria took Maga’s left hand in her right.

“I don’t blame you,” she said, “for coveting Will.  I’ve coveted him myself!  But you needn’t have let your men handle me so roughly!”

“No?” said Maga blandly.  “Then why did you ’urt two of them so badly that they run away?  Did not you shoot that other one?  So—­I give ’im to you.  I give you that Will Yerkees—­”

“Thanks!” put in Will, but Maga ignored the interruption.

“—­not because you are cleverer than me—­or more beautiful.  You are uglee!  You can not dance, and as for fighting, I could keel you with one ’and!  But because I like Kagig better after all!”

At that Kagig suddenly dismissed all such trivialities as treachery and matrimony from his mind with one of his Napoleonic gestures.