ersonally unknown to each other. And though he could not
speak deep Romany like La Giralda and the Sergeant, Rollo was yet more
expert at the "crabbed Gitano" than nine out of ten of the northern
gipsies, who, indeed, for the most part use a mere thieves' slang, or as
it is called, _Tramper's Dutch_.

The little girl directed him as well as she could, nevertheless it was
some time before he could find the place he was in quest of. For Isabel
had never been out at night before, and naturally the forms of all
things appeared strangely altered to an imaginative child. Indeed, it
may be admitted that Rollo stumbled upon the place more by good luck
than because he was guided thither by the advice of Isabel. For the
utmost the child could tell him was only that Piebald Pedro's hut was
near the dairy, and that the dairy was near Pedro's hut.

The donkey itself, however, perhaps excited by the proximity of so many
of its kind (though no one of the thieves' beasts had made the least
actual noise), presently gave vent to a series of brays which guided
them easily to the spot.

Rollo set the Princess on the ground, bidding her watch by the door and
tell him if any one came in sight. But the little girl, not yet
recovered from her fright, clung to his coat and pled so piteously to be
allowed to stay with him, that he could not insist. First of all he
groped all around the light cane-wattled walls of Pedro's hut for any
garment which might serve to disguise him. For though Rollo's garments
were by no means gay, they were at least of somewhat more fashionable
cut than was usual among the gipsies and their congeners.

After a little Rollo found the old cowherd's milking-blouse stuffed in
an empty corn-chest among scraps of harness, bits of rope, nails, broken
gardening-tools, and other collections made by the Piebald One in the
honest exercise of his vocation. He pulled the crumpled old garment out
and donned it without scruple. His own _sombrero_, much the worse for
wear and weather, served well enough, with the brim turned down, to give
the young man the appearance of a peasant turned brigand for the nonce.

His next business was to conceal the little girl in order that they
might have a chance of passing the gipsy picket at the gates, and of
escaping chance questionings by the way.

Rollo therefore continued to search in the darkness till he had
collected two large bundles, one of chopped straw, and the other of hay,
which he