Page:Talbot Mundy - Eye of Zeitoon.djvu/126

108 ?" demanded Will, and Maga Jhaere, at the sound of another woman's name, sat bolt upright between two other women whose bright eyes peeped out from under blankets.

"I had word of her an hour before you came, effendi," Kagig answered, "She and her party look fright this afternoon, and have taken to the hills. They are farther ahead than this pig dreamed"—once more he kicked Von Quedlinburg—"more than a day's march ahead from here."

"Then we'll hunt for her first," said Monty, and the rest of us nodded assent.

Kagig grinned.

"You shall find her. You shall see a castle. In the castle where you find her you shall choose again! It is agreed, effendi!"

Then he ordered his prisoners made fast, and the gipsies and our Zeitoonli servants attended to it, he himself, however, binding the German's hands and feet. Will went and put bandages on the man's burns, I standing by to help. But we got no thanks.

"Ihr seit verruckt!" he sneered. "You take the side of bandits. Passt mel auf—there will be punishment!"

The Zeitoonli were going to tie Peter Measel, but he set up such a howl that Kagig at last took notice of him and ordered him flung, unbound, into the great wooden bin in which the horse-feed was kept for sale to wayfarers. There he lay, and slept and snored for the rest of that session, with his mouth close to a mouse-hole.

Then Kagig ordered our Zeitoonli to the roof on guard, and bade us sleep with a patriarchal air of authority.

"There is no knowing when I shall decide to march," he explained.