within her. Yet,
prey to haunting terrors as she was, Bobinette pressed unfalteringly
forward towards what Fate held for her.

One reassuring thought came to hearten her. At every step she took the
sequins of her gipsy circlet moved and shook and tinkled on her
forehead. They reminded her of the words chanted by the old
second-hand dealer when he sold her the string of sequins, words from
the celebrated song of the Andalusian gipsies.:

_"The coral shines on my skin so brown--
The pin of gold in my chignon:
I go in search of my fortune."..._

Was she truly hastening towards good fortune through this night of
wind and rain?... Why not? Bobinette felt comforted. She said to
herself that since Vagualame had summoned her to meet him in gipsy
costume, it must be because he intended to help her to escape:
otherwise why had he foreseen the necessity for such a disguise?

To make sure of finding the rendezvous, she had taken a reconnoitering
journey along the Sceaux road the night before.... She knew now she
was close to the famous milestone.

Bobinette jumped as though she would leap out of her skin!

On the left side of the road tall trees, stripped of their leaves,
stood swaying like skeletons in the wind. Just there her eyes had seen
something dark, a black patch, blacker than the surrounding night.

What was it?

A strange sound issued from the darkness, a low, dull, deep,
complaining sound breathed from some infernal throat! Was it a cry, a
growl, a snarl?... She halted, shivering with fright, her ears
humming, her heart contracted in the grip of an indescribable terror,
doubting her senses, doubting the reality of the sound she had heard.

Bobinette stood motionless.

The wind whistling through the branches conveyed another sound to her
senses. She heard a mocking voice, harsh, imperious, a menacing voice,
a voice whose orders she had obeyed many a time and oft, a voice she
had never heard without secret terror, the voice of her
master--Vagualame!

"Go forward, you fool! Why do you halt?"

As though galvanised, Bobinette with a supreme effort of will obeyed.
A few seconds and she was by the side of Vagualame, who had come to
meet her.

"Did you hear?" she gasped.

"I heard the bellowing of the wind," laughed Vagualame: "I heard the
sound of sleety rain, I heard the noise of trees writhing and creaking
in the wind--nothing more!"

"Someone or something cried out!"

"Who could?... We are