face of Sergeant Cardono
was turned upon her, and more starrily twinkled the sloe-like eyes
(diamonds set in Cordovan leather) as he replied:--"The councils of the
Rom are as an open book to me. If they are life, they are life because I
will it; if death, then I will the death!"

The old gipsy stared incredulously.

"Long have I lived," she said, staring hard at the sergeant, "much have
I seen, both of gipsy and Gorgio; but never have I seen or heard of the
man who could both make that boast, and make it good!"

She appeared to consider a moment.

"Save one," she added, "and he is dead!"

"How did he die?" said the Sergeant, his tanned visage like a mask, but
never removing his eyes from her face.

"By the _garrote_" she answered, in a hushed whisper. "I saw him die."

"Where?"

"In the great _plaza_ of Salamanca," she said, her eyes fixed in a stare
of regretful remembrance. "It was filled from side to side, and the
balconies were peopled as for a bull-fight. Ah, he was a man!"

"His name?"

"Jose Maria, the Gitano, the prince of brigands!" murmured La Giralda.

"Ah," said the Sergeant, coolly, "I have heard of him."

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE DEAD AND THE LIVING

Not a word more was uttered between the two. La Giralda, for no reason
that she would acknowledge even to herself, had conceived an infinite
respect for Sergeant Cardono, and was ready to obey him implicitly--a
fact which shows that our sweet Concha was over-hasty in supposing that
one woman in any circumstances can ever answer for another when there is
a man in the case.

But on this occasion La Giralda's submission was productive of no more
than a command to go down into the town of San Ildefonso, the white
houses of which could clearly be seen a mile or two below, while the
sergeant betook himself to certain haunts of the gipsy and the brigand
known to him in the fastnesses of the Guadarrama.

Like a dog La Giralda complied. She sharpened a stick with a knife which
she took from a little concealed sheath in her leathern leggings, and
with it she proceeded to quicken the donkey's extremely deliberate pace.

Then with the characteristic cry of the goatherd, she gathered her flock
together and drove them before her down the deeply-rutted road which led
from the farmhouse. She had not proceeded far, however, when she
suddenly turned back, with a quick warning cry to her cavalcade. The
donkey instantly stood still, patient amid its fagot