"Yes, but not alone. Where can we speak?"
"Come to my house; my mother is there, and there is no harm in listening to the advice of a holy bonze."
"Ever ready with your tongue as usual," said the dacoit as he rose, flung his saffron robe loosely around him and followed her with feeble steps.
And as she led him toward the house Ma Mie was thirsting for revenge. Here, here was the man who had led her into disaster, and he, above all others, with a price on his head, was walking beside her, going to her own house. The old fox was noosed at last, and it was with a beating heart that she led him into her house, where her mother, old, wrinkled, and hideous beyond measure, mumbled out a greeting.
"See, mother, this is a friend, a holy man, whom I have brought to rest here a while. I knew him in the old days, and he has something to say to me."
The hag chuckled out: "He is too old for a lover; let him speak, I will not be in hearing," and she went out of the door and sat hard by on a rude seat at the foot of a large palm tree.
"Now, what is it you want here?" said Ma Mie; "you with a price on your head!"
"You, at any rate, will not give me away."
"And why not?"
"First, because your brother is one of us, and lies sick in a place I know of; if I am lost, so is he--I have but to speak a word; and, secondly, because you want revenge, and I offer it to you."