“We are the robbers, effendi!” said Gregor with an air of modesty.  The others smirked, but he seemed disinclined to over-insist on the gulf between us.

“Hear him!” growled Rustum Khan.  “A thief, who boasts of thieving in the presence of sahibs!  So is corruption, stinking in the sun!”

He added something in another language that the gipsies understood, for Gregor started as if stung and swore at him, and Maga Jhaere left her women-folk to ride alongside and glare into his eyes.  They were enemies, those two, from that hour forward.  He, once Hindu, now Moslem, had no admiration whatever to begin with for unveiled women.  And, since the gipsy claims to come from India and may therefore be justly judged by Indian standards, and has no caste, but is beneath the very lees of caste, he loathed all gipsies with the prejudice peculiar to men who have deserted caste in theory and in self-protection claim themselves above it.  It was a case of height despising deep in either instance, she as sure of her superiority as he of his.

There might have been immediate trouble if Monty had not taken his new, restless, fresh horse by the mane and swung into the saddle.

“Forward, Rustum Khan!” be ordered.  “Ride ahead and let those keen eyes of yours keep us out of traps!”

The Rajput obeyed, but as he passed Will he checked his mare a moment, and waiting until Will’s blue eyes met his he raised a warning finger.

“Kubadar, sahib!”

Then he rode on, like a man who has done his duty.

“What the devil does he mean?” demanded Will.

“Kubadar means, ’Take care’!” said Monty.  “Come on, what are we waiting for?”

That was the beginning, too, of Will’s feud with the Rajput, neither so remorseless nor so sudden as the woman’s, because he had a different code to guide him and also had to convince himself that a quarrel with a man of color was compatible with Yankee dignity.  We could have wished them all three either friends, or else a thousand miles apart two hundred times before the journey ended.

As we rode forward with even our Zeitoonli mounted now on strong mules, Maga Jhaere sat her stallion beside Will with an air of owning him.  She was likely a safer friend than enemy, and we did nothing to interfere.  Monty pressed forward.  Fred and I fell to the rear.

“Haide!"* shouted Gregor Jhaere, and all the motley swarm of women and children caught themselves mounts—­some already loaded with the gipsy baggage, some with saddles, some without, some with grass halters for bridles.  In another minute Fred and I were riding surrounded by a smelly swarm of them, he with big fingers already on the keys of his beloved concertina, but I less enamored than he of the company.

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* Haide!—­Turkish, “Come on!”
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Women and children, loaded, loose and led horses were all mixed together in unsortable confusion, the two oldest hags in the world trusting themselves on sorry, lame nags between Fred and me as if proximity to us would solve the very riddle of the gipsy race.  And last of all came a pack of great scrawny dogs that bayed behind us hungrily, following for an hour until hope of plunder vanished.