children. Somebody on a gray stallion came loping down toward us,
leaping low bushes, riding erect with pluperfect hands and seat.

"I've seen that stallion before!" said I.

"And the girl on his back is looking for somebody who owns her heart!"
smiled Monty. "Hullo! Are you the lucky man?"'

She reined the stallion in, and took a good, long look at us, shading
her eyes with her hand but showing dazzling white teeth between coral
lips. Suddenly the smile departed, and a look of sullen disappointment
settled on her face, as she wheeled the stallion with a swing of
her lithe body from the hips, and loped away. Never, apparently,
did two men make less impression on a maiden's heart. The six gipsies
stood staring at us foolishly, until one of them at last held his
hand up palm outward. We accepted that as a peace signal.

"Are you waiting here for us?" Monty asked in English, and the oldest
of the six--a swarthy little man with rather bow legs--thought he
had been asked his name.

"Gregor Jhaere," be answered.

For some vague reason Monty tried him next in Arabic and then in
Hindustanee, but without result. At last he tried halting Turkish,
and the gipsy replied at once in German. As Monty used to get
two-pence or three-pence a day extra when he was in the British army,
for knowing something of that tongue, we stood at once on common ground.

"Kagig told us to wait here and bring you to him," said Gregor Jhaere.