it--ah, and
to-night it will give me my desire!"

It was the Sergeant's belief that the girl was mad, nevertheless he
watched her with his usual quiet scrutiny, the power of which she
evidently felt. For she avoided his eyes and hastened on with her story
before he had time to cross-question her.

"Why do I hate them? I see the question on your lips. Because the
Italian woman hath taken away my father and slain my mother--slain her
as truly and with far sharper agony than she herself shall know when I
set this knife to her throat. I am the daughter of Munoz, and I swore
revenge on the man and on the woman both when I closed my mother's eyes.
My mother's heart was broken. Ah, you see, she was weak--not like me! It
would take a hundred like the Neapolitan to break my heart; and as for
the man, though he were thrice my father, he should beg his life in
vain."

She snatched her knife jealously out of his hand, tried its edge on the
back of her hand with a most unchildlike gesture, and forthwith
concealed it in her silken _faja_. Then she laid her hand once more on
the Sergeant's arm.

"You will lead us, will you not, Jose Maria?" she said pleadingly. "I
can trust you. You have done many great deeds. My nurse was a woman of
Ronda and told me of your exploits on the road from Madrid to Sevilla.
You will lead us to-night. Only you must leave these three in the palace
to me. If you will, you shall have also my share of the plunder. But
what do I say, I know you are too noble to think only of that--as these
wolves do!"

She cast a haughty glance around upon the gipsies at their card-play.

"I, that am of Old Castile and noble by four descents, have demeaned
myself to mix with _Gitanos_," she said, "but it has only been that I
might work out my revenge. I told Pepe there of my plan. I showed him
the way. He was afraid. He told ten men, and they were afraid. Fifty,
and they were afraid. Now there are a hundred and more, and were it not
that they know that all lies open and unguarded, even I could not lead
them thither. But they will follow you, because you are Jose Maria of
Ronda." The Sergeant took the girl's hand in his. She was shaking as
with an ague fit, but her eyes, blue and mild as a summer sky, had that
within them which was deadlier than the tricksome slippery demon that
lurks in all black orbs, whether masculine or feminine.

"Chica," he said, "your wrongs are indeed bitter. I would give much to
help you to se