"No, that’s impossible," said Jack decisively. "I couldn’t be bothered with you." "Want to go with Señor," persisted the boy. "Know the roads—Medina, Valladolid, Segovia, all the places; the Gitanos know everything." "That’s all very well, but I don’t want you. You’d be in the way. Besides, I’m riding. You couldn’t keep up with me." "Can run fast. No mule can beat me." "Nonsense! I shall be riding all day, and you’d be dead before night." "I can get a mule, then." "Where, may I ask?" "From the Busne." Jack knew that Busne was the gipsies’ name for the Spaniards. "That means that you would steal it, eh? Didn’t I tell you that if you were caught stealing you’d be hanged, or at any rate soundly flogged?" "Yes. Hanged!" He shrugged his shoulders. "Flogged!" He pulled aside his rags and showed the marks left by old thrashings on his skin. "Incorrigible little imp!" muttered Jack in English. "Look here," he went on in Spanish, "you can’t go with me; that’s settled. You must go back to Salamanca. I’ll give you a note to Ogbourne—" "He’ll flog me." "No. I’ll tell him to get you some clothes and see that you are fed, and to keep his eye on you till I get back. Now, will you promise me to keep out of mischief?" "No." "Impudent little beggar! I suppose you know no better. You know at any rate that my man will lay on pretty heavily if you plague him. Look, here’s a silver peseta. I’ll give you this if you promise to go back to Salamanca." He held up the coin between finger and thumb. "Give it me," said Pepito. "Promise." "I’ll go with you, Señor," said the boy obstinately. "Don’t you understand? It’s impossible. I can’t be clogged with you. Come now, here’s the money. Cut away, and when I see you next take care that you’ve decent clothes on your back." Jack rapidly scribbled a note, and gave it with the coin into the brown lean little paw, eagerly outstretched to receive it. Pepito stowed them both into a pocket he discovered somewhere among his rags, then grinned, and said: "Now I run with Señor’s mule." "Confound you!" cried Jack, losing patience at last. "I won’t have you with me." He raised the switch which he had laid across the saddle and made to strike at the gipsy. Pepito looked in his face with an inscrutable expression in his dark eyes, shrank back from the expected blow, then slowly turned on his heel and slunk away in the direction of Salamanca. "The obstinate little mule!" said Jack to himself as he watched him go. "I don’t wonder that Giles has given him many a tanning. I’d sooner be haunted by a ghost." As soon as Pepito was out of sight Jack remounted, and set the mule at a canter to make up for lost time. *CHAPTER V* *A Roadside Adventure* A Spanish By-Road—Negotiations—A Rupture—A Village Inn—Family History—Antonio the Brave—A Near Thing—The Other Cheek—Explanations—Recruits—Quits