reigners!"

Then she told me she was a gipsy, and proposed to tell my fortune.

"Have you heard people speak of La Carmencita?" she added. "That is me!"

"Good!" I said to myself. "Last week I supped with a highway robber; now
to-day I will eat ices with a gipsy. When travelling one must see
everything."

With that I escorted the Senorita Carmen to a cafe, and we had ices.

My gipsy had a strange and wild beauty, a face which astonished at
first, but which one could not forget. Her eyes, in particular, had an
expression, at once loving and fierce, that I have found in no human
face since.

It would have been ridiculous to have had my fortune told in a public
cafe and I begged the fair sorceress to allow me to accompany her to her
domicile. She at once consented, but insisted on seeing my watch again.

"Is it really of gold?" she said, examining it with great attention.

Night had set in, and most of the shops were closed and the streets
almost deserted as we crossed the Guadalquiver bridge, and went on to
the outskirts of the town.

The house we entered was by no means a palace. A child opened the door,
and disappeared when the gipsy said some words to it in the Romany
tongue.

Then the gipsy produced some cards, a magnet, a dried chameleon, and
other things necessary for her art. She told me to cross my left hand
with a piece of money, and the magic ceremonies began. It was evident to
me that she was no half-sorceress.

Unfortunately, we were soon disturbed. Of a sudden the door opened
violently, and a man entered, who denounced the gipsy in a manner far
from polite.

I at once recognised my friend Don Jose, and greeted him cheerfully.

"The same as ever! This will have an end," he said turning fiercely to
the gipsy, who now started talking to him in her own language. She grew
animated as she spoke, and her eyes became terrible. It appeared to me
she was urging him warmly to do something at which he hesitated. I think
I understood what it was only too well from seeing her quickly pass and
repass her little hand under her chin. There was some question of a
throat to cut, and I had a suspicion that the throat was mine.

Don Jose only answered with two or three words in a sharp tone, and the
gipsy, casting a look of deep contempt at him, retired to a corner of
the room, and taking an orange, peeled it and began to eat it.

Don Jose took my arm, opened the door, and led me into the street. We
walked some