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It was the individual who followed Gregor at a distance, and dismounted from a gray stallion quite a long way off in order not to draw attention to herself, who made my blood turn cold. I caught sight of Maga Jhaere first because the others had their backs toward her. Then the expression of my face brought Fred to his feet.
So Fred helped me on the horse and I rode back to the castle, where I explained the details of the fighting below to the defenders, and then rode on down to Zeitoon by the other road. It was wearing along into the afternoon, and I had no idea which way to take to look for Gloria; but I did have a notion that Maga Jhaere might be looking out for me.
The thought conjured visions of Maga, and what she might do. For about ten seconds my head swam, and I could hardly keep my feet. Will left the opening bars of the overture to Fred, with rather the air of a man who lets a trout have line. And Fred blundered in contentedly. "I'll allow my name is Oakes Fred Oakes," he said. "Please explain!" She looked from one to the other of us.
Almost before the echoes of the drum-taps died among the dancing shadows overhead a voice cried from the roof in Armenian, and Kagig rose to his feet. "Let us climb to the roof and see, effendim," he said, pulling on his tattered goat-skin coat. "See what, Ermenie?" demanded Rustum Khan. The Rajput's eyes were still ablaze with pagan flame, from watching Maga.
"Fred, I'm serious!" "Entanglements with women are always serious!" "I tell you, that girl Maga " "Two of 'em, eh? Worser and worser! You'll have Will jealous into the bargain!" "Have it your own way, then!" "I'll wait until I find a man with honest ears." "Try Kagig!" he advised me dryly. And Kagig I did try. We came on him at our end of the bridge that overhung the Jihun River.
A friend unmistakable, Anna Gloria's self-constituted maid ran out of the darkest shadow and kept me from scrambling to my feet. "Wait!" she whispered. "Don't be seen talking to me. Listen!" My ankle pained considerably and I was out of breath. I was willing enough to lie there. "Maga has made a plot to betray Zeitoon! She has been talking with that Turkish colonel who was captured.
I observe that there are similar agencies in the Southern and South-western States; so that Reprint & Co. are the monopolists of Maga, from the mouth of the St Lawrence, to the deltas of the Mississippi, and before long will doubtless have their travelling agents pushing its sale in the "halls of the Montezumas," or exchanging it for peltry at the head-waters of the Colombia.
The gipsies, with Gregor Jhaere nearest to the owner of the kahveh and the fireplace, occupied the whole long platform on the other side, each with his women around him except that I noticed that Maga avoided all the men, and made herself a blanket nest in deep shadow almost within reach of a mule's heels at the far end.
He may, indeed, utter one word of remonstrance against literary and commercial piracy, like that first great sufferer by anti-copyright, Mr. Virgilius Maro, of Mantua "Hos ego versiculos emi, tulit alter honores." Or, in other words, I pay for every line and letter of Maga, and lo! Mr Bathyllus Reprint, of New York, carries off the sesterces!
Even the little children had hidden weapons, but Maga was better armed than any one, and she thrust the new mother-o-pearl-plated acquisition in the face of one of the men who dared drive his horse between hers and Will's. That not serving more than to amuse him, she slapped him three times back-handed across the face, and thrusting the pistol back into her bosom, drew a knife.
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