"They are Pomaks," said Nikka.
He spat contemptuously.
"What—"
"Moslems! Swine!"
While Wasso Mikali and the young Tzigane, whose name was Sacha, made the fire under a bowlder, Nikka and I led our tired animals down to the stream to drink. Several of the Pomaks, dirty, shifty-eyed fellows in the same gaudy raiment that the Tziganes affected, lounged up to us. One of them stepped in Nikka's path, and Nikka promptly kicked him. The man turned like a flash, his knife out, and Nikka dropped the bridle he was holding, and closed with him. Two of the Pomaks jumped for me, knives wheeling.
I did what I had done in the fight in the Gunroom, hit out with my fists. The first man I knocked into the water, and the second yelled for help, circling me cautiously the while. Nikka, after one click of blades, stabbed his man in the shoulder, and we stood back to back, half a dozen Pomaks pelting up from their fire.
"Wait," said Nikka, as I drew my automatic.
There was a scurry in the shadows, and Wasso Mikali thrust his way into the group surrounding us. He said nothing, but stood there where they could see him in the firelight, and they muttered together and slunk away, the man Nikka had wounded clutching his bloody arm.
"What is your uncle? A justice of the peace?" I inquired facetiously.
"He is Wasso Mikali," answered Nikka, wiping his knife-blade on the grass. "Now I feel better, Jack. It is still the same. The Pomak curs crawl to heel when the Gypsy speaks. I wondered if it could be just as in my boyhood, after all that has happened in the world."