account of my unlucky business at Seville. One day, or rather one night,
we were to meet below Veger. _El Dancaire_ and I got there before the
others.

"'We shall soon have a new comrade,' said he. 'Carmen has just managed
one of her best tricks. She has contrived the escape of her _rom_, who
was in the _presidio_ at Tarifa.'

"I was already beginning to understand the gipsy language, which nearly
all my comrades spoke, and this word _rom_ startled me.

"What! her husband? Is she married, then?' said I to the captain.

"'Yes!' he replied, 'married to Garcia _el Tuerto_*--as cunning a gipsy
as she is herself. The poor fellow has been at the galleys. Carmen has
wheedled the surgeon of the _presidio_ to such good purpose that she
has managed to get her _rom_ out of prison. Faith! that girl's worth
her weight in gold. For two years she has been trying to contrive his
escape, but she could do nothing until the authorities took it into
their heads to change the surgeon. She soon managed to come to an
understanding with this new one.'

* One-eyed man.

"You may imagine how pleasant this news was for me. I soon saw Garcia
_el Tuerto_. He was the very ugliest brute that was ever nursed
in gipsydom. His skin was black, his soul was blacker, and he was
altogether the most thorough-paced ruffian I ever came across in my
life. Carmen arrived with him, and when she called him her _rom_ in my
presence, you should have seen the eyes she made at me, and the faces