Page:Talbot Mundy - Eye of Zeitoon.djvu/303

Rh knowing well that whatever their open pretenses, gipsies despise all religion except diabolism. They study creeds for the sake of plunder, just as hunters study the habits of the wild.

"Maybe nothing—maybe much! Peter Measel, he say—"

She paused, as if in doubt whether she was using the right argument. And in that moment I recalled what Rustum Khan had once said about her being no true gipsy.

"Go on," I urged her, "Peter Measel is an expert. He's a high priest. He knows it all."

"Peter Measel is saying, God is ver' angry with Zeitoon and is sending to destroy such bloody people what plan fighting and rebellion."

"I'll think it over," I said, moving to get up. But independent thinking was the last thing that Maga intended to permit me.

"No, no! No, no, no! You must dee-cide now—at once! There is no time. Now—now I give you five—six mens—now they seize that woman Gloria—now you carry 'er away into the mountains—now you make 'er yours—your own, you understan', so as she is ashamed to deny it afterward—yes?—you see?"

"Where are the men?" I demanded.

"I fetch them quick!"

I could see the hilt of her knife, and the bulge of her repeating pistol, but I could also feel the weight of my own loaded Colt against my hip. I did not doubt I could escape before her men could arrive on the scene, but that would have been to leave some secret only part uncovered. There was obviously more behind this scheme