“When she knew how it had all happened—­

“‘You’ll always be a lillipendi,’ she said.  ’Garcia ought to have killed you.  Your Navarrese guard is a pack of nonsense, and he has sent far more skilful men than you into the darkness.  It was just that his time had come—­and yours will come too.’

“‘Ay, and yours too!—­if you’re not a faithful romi to me.’

“‘So be it,’ said she.  ’I’ve read in the coffee grounds, more than once, that you and I were to end our lives together.  Pshaw! what must be, will be!’ and she rattled her castanets, as was her way when she wanted to drive away some worrying thought.

“One runs on when one is talking about one’s self.  I dare say all these details bore you, but I shall soon be at the end of my story.  Our new life lasted for some considerable time. El Dancaire and I gathered a few comrades about us, who were more trustworthy than our earlier ones, and we turned our attention to smuggling.  Occasionally, indeed, I must confess we stopped travellers on the highways, but never unless we were at the last extremity, and could not avoid doing so; and besides, we never ill-treated the travellers, and confined ourselves to taking their money from them.

“For some months I was very well satisfied with Carmen.  She still served us in our smuggling operations, by giving us notice of any opportunity of making a good haul.  She remained either at Malaga, at Cordova, or at Granada, but at a word from me she would leave everything, and come to meet me at some venta or even in our lonely camp.  Only once—­it was at Malaga—­she caused me some uneasiness.  I heard she had fixed her fancy upon a very rich merchant, with whom she probably proposed to play her Gibraltar trick over again.  In spite of everything El Dancaire said to stop me, I started off, walked into Malaga in broad daylight, sought for Carmen and carried her off instantly.  We had a sharp altercation.

“‘Do you know,’ said she, ’now that you’re my rom for good and all, I don’t care for you so much as when you were my minchorro!  I won’t be worried, and above all, I won’t be ordered about.  I choose to be free to do as I like.  Take care you don’t drive me too far; if you tire me out, I’ll find some good fellow who’ll serve you just as you served El Tuerto.’

“El Dancaire patched it up between us; but we had said things to each other that rankled in our hearts, and we were not as we had been before.  Shortly after that we had a misfortune:  the soldiers caught us, El Dancaire and two of my comrades were killed; two others were taken.  I was sorely wounded, and, but for my good horse, I should have fallen into the soldiers’ hands.  Half dead with fatigue, and with a bullet in my body, I sought shelter in a wood, with my only remaining comrade.  When I got off my horse I fainted away, and I thought I was going to die there in the brushwood, like a shot hare.  My comrade carried me to a cave he knew of, and then he sent to fetch Carmen.