As she came through the trees that palisaded the clearing round, she heard her father's voice and answering voices that she never before had heard. She hesitated a moment, then crept forward quietly, almost to the edge of the line of trees. Her body hidden by a bush, she parted the screening foliage with her hands and looked out as through a little window.
Her father, Pepe Flammenca, known to the Gypsies as Flammenco Chorolengro, stood face to face with an oddly attired stranger and with him busily talked. The fantastic stranger was hardly thirty. He was a little below the middle height, had a long body and short muscular legs, and seemed all iron and strength.
He wore the black rosette and ribbons of a matador in his coleta, his queue—that long, thick, and sacred lock of hair all bullfighters wear as the time-honored insignia of their ancient profession. His brown Andalusian face was the typical young bullfighter's face—boyish, almost effeminate with its mild contours. Upon his hands he wore riding gloves. Over the shoulders of his short, gold-braided green jacket were slung bandoleers crowded with cartridges. On a belt about his waist hung a revolver and a sheathed knife. The pink silk stockings that clad his legs were almost concealed by a pair of riding-boots of Cordovan horsehide.
Addressing Pepe Flammenca, he said, "A hundred times, in the last four days, we have lost our way on the plains. And now we are about to assault the defiles and goat paths of the Sierra Morena. We must have a guide. You know the mountains; agree to guide us at your own price!"
Behind him, standing in various attitude of attention, was a whole background of men in oddly assorted costumes. When he spoke, they all nodded assent like a Greek chorus, and remarked, "Si, si!" Evidently, the young matador was their spokesman.
"I cannot," Pepe Flammenca answered; "I must stay here. I am the chief of this clan and must remain with my own people. But there is another Gitano somewhere about the camp. To replenish our stock of wild meat, the others went early away, but he and I stayed behind to look after the horses and foals. With my permission, he can guide you. He knows the Sierra Morena thoroughly. I will call him."
Pepe Flammenca turned round, cupped his hands about his mouth and bellowed, "Aguilino!"
Came forth from behind the wagons, another man whom Paquita had never laid eyes on before.
He was clean-shaven, and brown as a mulatto. He wore the corduroy leggings of a Gypsy and a red-striped shirt, and in true Zincali fashion, his head was wrapped tightly with a red kerchief. Where his left eyebrow once had been, was a hideous yellow scar that curved down as far as the cheek bone. What with his harsh and evil features and his mulatto-mahogany skin, this yellow scar gave him an altogether villainous look. In his left hand, he held a currycomb.
As the man approached, Pepe Flammenca turned to another of the strangers and remarked: