"One runs on when one is talking about one's self. I dare say all these
details bore you, but I shall soon be at the end of my story. Our new
life lasted for some considerable time. _El Dancaire_ and I gathered a
few comrades about us, who were more trustworthy than our earlier ones,
and we turned our attention to smuggling. Occasionally, indeed, I must
confess we stopped travellers on the highways, but never unless we were
at the last extremity, and could not avoid doing so; and besides, we
never ill-treated the travellers, and confined ourselves to taking their
money from them.

"For some months I was very well satisfied with Carmen. She still served
us in our smuggling operations, by giving us notice of any opportunity
of making a good haul. She remained either at Malaga, at Cordova, or at
Granada, but at a word from me she would leave everything, and come to
meet me at some _venta_ or even in our lonely camp. Only once--it was at
Malaga--she caused me some uneasiness. I heard she had fixed her fancy
upon a very rich merchant, with whom she probably proposed to play her
Gibraltar trick over again. In spite of everything _El Dancaire_ said to
stop me, I started off, walked into Malaga in broad daylight, sought for
Carmen and carried her off instantly. We had a sharp altercation.

"'Do you know,' said she, 'now that you're my _rom_ for good and all, I
don't care for you so much as when you were my _minchorro_! I won't be
worried, and above all, I won't be ordered about. I choose to be free to
do as I like. Take care you don't drive me too far; if you tire me
out, I'll find some good fellow who'll serve you just as you served _El
Tuerto_.'

"_El Dancaire_ patched it up between us; but we had said things to each
other that rankled in our hearts, and we were not as we had been before.