It was the Sergeant's belief that the girl was mad, nevertheless he watched her with his usual quiet scrutiny, the power of which she evidently felt. For she avoided his eyes and hastened on with her story before he had time to cross-question her.
"Why do I hate them? I see the question on your lips. Because the Italian woman hath taken away my father and slain my mother—slain her as truly and with far sharper agony than she herself shall know when I set this knife to her throat. I am the daughter of Muñoz, and I swore revenge on the man and on the woman both when I closed my mother's eyes. My mother's heart was broken. Ah, you see, she was weak—not like me! It would take a hundred like the Neapolitan to break my heart; and as for the man, though he were thrice my father, he should beg his life in vain."
She snatched her knife jealously out of his hand, tried its edge on the back of her hand with a most unchildlike gesture, and forthwith concealed it in her silken faja. Then she laid her hand once more on the Sergeant's arm.
"You will lead us, will you not, José Maria?" she said pleadingly. "I can trust you. You have done many great deeds. My nurse was a woman of Ronda and told me of your exploits on the road from Madrid to Sevilla. You will lead us to-night. Only you must leave these three in the palace to me. If you will, you shall have also my share of the plunder. But what do I say, I know you are too noble to think only of that—as these wolves do!"
She cast a haughty glance around upon the gipsies at their card-play.
"I, that am of Old Castile and noble by four descents, have demeaned myself to mix with Gitanos," she said, "but it has only been that I might work out my revenge. I told Pépe there of my plan. I showed him the way. He was afraid. He told ten men, and they were afraid. Fifty, and they were afraid. Now there are a hundred and more, and were it not that they know that all lies open and unguarded, even I could not lead them thither. But they will follow you, because you are José Maria of Ronda." The Sergeant took the girl's hand in his. She was shaking as with an ague fit, but her eyes, blue and mild as a summer sky, had that within them which was deadlier than the tricksome slippery demon that lurks in all black orbs, whether masculine or feminine.
"Chica," he said, "your wrongs are indeed bitter. I would give much to help you to set the balance right. Perhaps I may do so yet. But I cannot be the commander of these men. They are not of my folk or country. They have not even asked me to lead them. They are jealous of me! You see it as well as I!"
"Ah!" cried the girl, laying her hand again on his cuff, "that is because they do not wish you to share their plunder. But tell them that you care nothing for that and they will welcome you readily enough. The place is plague-stricken, I tell you. The palace lies open. Little crook-backed Chepe brought me word. He says he adores me. He is of the village of Frias, back there behind the hills. I do not love him, even though he has a bitter heart and can hate well. Therefore I suffer him."
The Sergeant rose to his feet and looked compassionately down at the vivid little figure before him. The hair, dense and black, the blue eyes, the red-knotted handkerchief, the white teeth that showed between the parted lips clean and sharp as those of a wild animal. Cardono had seen many things on his travels, but never anything like this. His soul was moved within him. In the deeps of his heart, the heart of a Spanish gipsy, there was an infinite sympathy for any one who takes up the blood feud, who, in the face of all difficulties, swears the vendetta. But the slim arms, the spare willowy body, the little white sandalled feet of the little girl—these overcame him with a pitifully amused sense of the disproportion of means to end.
"Have you no brother, Señorita?" he said, using by instinct the title of respect which the little girl loved the most. She saw his point in a moment.