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Updated: June 14, 2025
"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.
The Turk leaves his money behind when starting on a journey at some other man's expense; but they did draw forth a most astonishing assortment of weapons. They were experts in disarmament. Maga Jhaere lost interest in Will for a moment, and pricked her stallion to a place where she could judge the assortment better.
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.
And the moment that began to happen he was the same sweet Peter Measel with the same assurance of every other body's wickedness and his own divinity, only with something new in his young life to add poignancy. "What were you doing there?" demanded Fred, as we got him to towing along between us at last. "I was looking for her." "For whom?" "For Maga Jhaere."
He had no sooner reined in beside us than I caught sight of Will, drawn between curiosity and fear lest the muleteers might bolt, standing in his stirrups to peer at us from the top of the track between the hillocks. Somebody else caught sight of him too. There came a shrill about from over where the women were packing up, and everybody turned to look, Gregor Jhaere included.
He added something in another language that the gipsies understood, for Gregor started as if stung and swore at him, and Maga Jhaere left her women-folk to ride alongside and glare into his eyes. They were enemies, those two, from that hour forward. He, once Hindu, now Moslem, had no admiration whatever to begin with for unveiled women.
By that time Magi had vanished out of view unaware that any one had seen her, creeping like a pantheress from rock to rock. "What's the matter?" Fred demanded, sitting down again, ill-tempered with himself for being startled. "Maga Jhaere!" "How exciting!" said Gloria. "I'm crazy to meet her." But Will looked less excited and more anxious than I had ever seen him, and we all three laughed.
There was a chance that she might have been in earnest in persuading me to elope, and that if I rode alone she might show herself she or else Gloria's captors. Failing signs of Maga Jhaere or her men, I proposed to ride behind Beirut Dagh in search of Will, and to get his quick Yankee wit employed on the situation.
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. "Where is Kagig?" Monty asked, and the man smiled blankly much more effectively than if he had shrugged his shoulders.
"Haide!"* shouted Gregor Jhaere, and all the motley swarm of women and children caught themselves mounts some already loaded with the gipsy baggage, some with saddles, some without, some with grass halters for bridles.
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