"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 Igot 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 general rout. /El Dancaire/, Garcia, a good-looking fellow from Ecija, who was called /El Remendado/, and Carmen herself, kept their wits about them.
The rest forsook the mules and took to the gorges, where the horses could not follow them. There was no hope of saving the mules, so we hastily unstrapped the best part of our booty, and taking it on our shoulders, we tried to escape through the rocks down the steepest of the slopes. We threw our packs down in front of us and followed them as best we could, slipping along on our heels. Meanwhile the enemy fired at us. It was the first time I had ever heard bullets whistling around me and I didn't mind it very much. When there's a woman looking on, there's no particular merit in snapping one's fingers at death. We all escaped except the poor /Remendado/, who received a bullet wound in the loins. I threw away my pack and tried to lift him up.
" 'Idiot!' shouted Garcia, 'what do we want with offal! Finish him off, and don't lose the cotton stockings!'
" 'Drop him!' cried Carmen.
"I was so exhausted that I was obliged to lay him down for a moment under a rock. Garcia came up, and fired his blunderbuss full into his face. 'He'd be a clever fellow who recognised him now!' said he, as he looked at the face, cut to pieces by a dozen slugs.
"There, sir; that's the delightful sort of life I've led! That night we found ourselves in a thicket, worn out with fatigue, with nothing to eat, and ruined by the loss of our mules. What do you think that devil Garcia did? He pulled a pack of cards out of his pocket and began playing games with /El Dancaire/ by the light of a fire they kindled. Meanwhile I was lying down, staring at the stars, thinking of /El Remendado/, and telling myself I would just as lief be in his place. Carmen was squatting down near me, and every now and then she would rattle her castanets and hum a tune. Then, drawing close to me, as if she would have whispered in my ear, she kissed me two or three times over almost against my will.
" 'You are a devil,' said I to her.
" 'Yes,' she replied.
"After a few hours' rest, she departed to Gaucin, and the next morning a little goatherd brought us some food. We stayed there all that day, and in the evening we moved close to Gaucin. We were expecting news from Carmen, but none came. After daylight broke we saw a muleteer attending a well-dressed woman with a parasol, and a little girl who seemed to be her servant. Said Garcia, 'There go two mules and two women whom St. Nicholas has sent us. I would rather have had four mules, but no matter. I'll do the best I can with these.'
"He took his blunderbuss, and went down the pathway, hiding himself among the brushwood.
"We followed him, /El Dancaire/ and I keeping a little way behind. As soon as the woman saw us, instead of being frightened--and our dress would have been enough to frighten any one--she burst into a fit of loud laughter. 'Ah! the /lillipendi/! They take me for an /erani/!'
"The idiots, they take me for a smart lady!""It was Carmen, but so well disguised that if she had spoken any other language I should never have recognised her. She sprang off her mule, and talked some time in an undertone with /El Dancaire/ and Garcia.
Then she said to me:
" 'Canary-bird, we shall meet again before you're hanged. I'm off to Gibraltar on gipsy business--you'll soon have news of me.'
