"'_Oficial mio_, where are you taking me to?'

"'To prison, my poor child,' I replied, as gently as I could, just as
any kind-hearted soldier is bound to speak to a prisoner, and especially
to a woman.

"'Alack! What will become of me! Senor Oficial, have pity on me! You are
so young, so good-looking.' Then, in a lower tone, she said, 'Let me get
away, and I'll give you a bit of the _bar lachi_, that will make every
woman fall in love with you!'

"The _bar lachi_, sir, is the loadstone, with which the gipsies declare
one who knows how to use it can cast any number of spells. If you can
make a woman drink a little scrap of it, powdered, in a glass of white
wine, she'll never be able to resist you. I answered, as gravely as I
could:

"'We are not here to talk nonsense. You'll have to go to prison. Those
are my orders, and there's no help for it!'

"We men from the Basque country have an accent which all Spaniards
easily recognise; on the other hand, not one of them can ever learn to
say _Bai, jaona_!*

* Yes, sir.

"So Carmen easily guessed I was from the Provinces. You know, sir, that
the gipsies, who belong to no particular country, and are always moving
about, speak every language, and most of them are quite at home in
Portugal, in France, in our Provinces, in Catalonia, or anywhere else.