If the gypsy had felt astonished before, he was now terrified in the presence of a man who seemed to read his inmost thoughts; and for the first time in his life acknowledged to himself that he had met his master in cunning.
Bewildered as he was by this new charge, he still remembered that if speech was silver, silence was golden, and answered not a word.
"Baltasar," continued the strange man on horseback, rightly judging from the gypsy's confusion that he had hit the mark and determining to take another chance shot; "you stole this girl from the family of a Spanish nobleman. I am the representative of this family and have followed your trail for years. You thought I had come to get the horse. You were mistaken; it was the girl!"
"Perdita!" exclaimed the gypsy, taken completely off his guard.
"Lost indeed," responded the quack, scarcely able to conceal his pride in his own astuteness. And then he added slowly: "She must be a burden to you, Baltasar. You evidently never have been able or never have dared to take her back and claim the ransom which you expected. I will pay you for her and take her from your hands. It is the child I want and not vengeance."
"Ze Caballero muz be a Duquende (spirit)," gasped the gypsy.
"At any rate I want the child. You were reasonable about the horse. Be reasonable about her, and all will be well."
"Ze Caballero muz be made of gol'."
The horseman drew a silver coin from his pocket and flipped it into the waters of the brook.
The gypsy's face gleamed with avarice and springing into the water he began to scrape among the stones where it had fallen.