A Woman’s Eyes 77

people with our movements? That you must
tell me at once, for the sheriff blames my soldiers.
Come now, no counting twenty!”

He was pacing the room now, and she had her
face to herself. It said several things, among
them that the officer evidently did not like this
charge against his men.

“ Does the shirra blame the sojers ?”’ exclaimed
this quick-witted Egyptian. ‘ Weel, that cows,
for he has nane to blame but himsel’.”

“What!” cried Halliwell, delighted. “ It was
the sheriff who told tales? Answer me. You
are counting a hundred this time.”

Perhaps the gypsy had two reasons for with-
holding her answer. If so, one of them was that,
as the sheriff had told nothing, she had a story to
makeup. The other was that she wanted to strike
a bargain with the officer.

“If I tell you,” she said, eagerly, “ will you set
‘ me free?”

“‘T may ask the sheriff to do so.”

“But he mauna see me,” the Egyptian said, in
distress. ‘ There’s reasons, captain.”

“Why, surely you have not been before him
on other occasions,” said Halliwell, surprised.

“No in the way you mean,’ muttered the
gypsy, and for the moment her eyes twinkled.
But the light in them went out when she remem-
bered that the sheriff was near, and she looked
desperately at the window as if ready to fling her-
self from it. She had very good reasons for not
wishing to be seen by Riach, though fear that he
would put her in gaol was not one of them.

Halliwell thought it was the one cause of her