"What did you say?"
"To test her I said I had seen her lover, and would know him again by his smell in the dark!"
"What did she say to that?'
"She laughed again. I tell you the woman has no shame! Then she said if I would tell that tale to Kagig as soon as I see him she would reward me with leave to live for one whole week and an extra hour in which to pray to the devil——meaning, I suppose, that she intends to kill me otherwise. Then she wheeled her stallion—the brute was trying to tear out the muscles of my thigh all that time—and rode away—and I followed—and here I am!"
"How much truth is there in your assertion that you saw her lover?"
Will demanded.
"None. I but said it to test her."
"Why in thunder should she want it believed?"
"God knows, who made gipsies!"
At that moment the advance-guard rode into an open meadow, crossed by a shallow, singing stream at which Kagig ordered a halt to water horses. So we closed up with him, and he repeated to us what he had evidently said before to Monty.
"Maga says—I let her go scouting—she says she met a man who told her that Miss Gloria Vanderman and a party of seven were attacked on the road, but escaped, and now have doubled on their tracks so that they are far on their return to Tarsus."