There being nothing more to see, I took my leave, for it was getting late, and I had still a long walk before me. I had almost forgotten the little episode with the gypsies, when, near the town, I met a small linen-covered cart drawn by a ghastly-looking white horse, worthy companion of the skeleton donkey. I should probably not have given a second thought or glance to this cart, for it was nearly dark, but as it passed me two or three curly black heads peeped out from under the linen awning, and instantaneously as many semi-naked children had bounded, India-rubber-like, on to the road, surrounding me with clamorous begging. While I was giving them some coppers, I saw that in the cart was sitting a somewhat pale and jaded-looking young woman, probably their mother, holding the reins and waiting for the children to get in. “Is your name Hinka?” I asked, as a thought struck me. The woman stared at me in a bewildered manner without speaking, but her panic-struck face was answer sufficient. “Do not go back to the camp to-night,” I said, speaking on the impulse of the moment. “The gendarmes are there, and they are waiting for you.” My meaning was evidently plain, though I had spoken in German; probably the word gendarmes had a familiar ring in her ear, for she now gazed at me with positive terror in her wild, dilated eyes—the terror of a hunted animal which sees the huntsmen closing in on all sides; then, without a word of explanation, excuse, or thanks, she abruptly turned round the horse’s head, and lashing it to its utmost speed, disappeared in the opposite direction. Several very worthy friends of mine have since pronounced my behavior in this circumstance to have been highly reprehensible: I had sided with the malefactor, and possibly defeated the ends of justice by screening the culprit. Perhaps they are right, and it can only be owing to some vital defect in my moral constitution that I have never succeeded in feeling remorse for this action. On the contrary, it was with a feeling of peculiar satisfaction that I thought that evening of the three brutal gendarmes waiting in vain for the return of the guilty Hinka. I wondered how long they waited, and how many pipes they smoked, and to how many oaths they gave vent on finding that they had waited in vain, and their victim was not going to walk into the trap after all. CHAPTER XLIII. THE BRUCKENTHALS.