's hands, that I obeyed
all her whims. And besides, this was the first time she had revealed
herself as possessing any of the reserve of a well-conducted woman,
and I was simple enough to believe she had really cast off her former
habits.

"Our gang, which consisted of eight or ten men, was hardly ever together
except at decisive moments, and we were usually scattered by twos and
threes about the towns and villages. Each one of us pretended to have
some trade. One was a tinker, another was a groom; I was supposed to
peddle haberdashery, but I hardly ever showed myself in large places, on
account of my unlucky business at Seville. One day, or rather one night,
we were to meet below Veger. _El Dancaire_ and I got there before the
others.

"'We shall soon have a new comrade,' said he. 'Carmen has just managed
one of her best tricks. She has contrived the escape of her _rom_, who
was in the _presidio_ at Tarifa.'

"I was already beginning to understand the gipsy language, which nearly
all my comrades spoke, and this word _rom_ startled me.

"What! her husband? Is she married, then?' said I to the captain.

"'Yes!' he replied, 'married to Garcia _el Tuerto_*--as cunning a gipsy
as she is herself. The poor fellow has been at the galleys. Carmen has
wheedled the surgeon of the _presidio_ to such good purpose that she
has managed to get her _rom_ out of prison. Faith! that girl's worth
her weight in gold. For two years she has been trying to contrive his
escape, but she could do nothing until the authorities took it into
their heads to change the surgeon. She soon managed to come to an
understanding with this new one.'

* One-eyed man.

"You may imagine how pleasant this news was for me. I soon saw Garcia
_el Tuerto_. He was the very ugliest brute that was ever nursed
in gipsydom. His skin was black, his soul was blacker, and he was
altogether the most thorough-paced ruffian I ever came across in my
life. Carmen arrived with him, and when she called him her _rom_ in my
presence, you should have seen the eyes she made at me, and the faces
she pulled whenever Garcia turned his head away.

"I was disgusted, and never spoke a word to her all night. The next
morning we had made up our packs, and had already started, when we
became aware that we had a dozen horsemen on our heels. The braggart
Andalusians, who had been boasting they would murder every one who came
near them, cut a pitiful figure at once. There was a gen