--It
will presently be seen with what event these hopes were attended.
Numerous were the precautions exercised by the gang of thieves with whom
I now resided, to elude the vigilance of the satellites of justice. It
was one of their rules to commit no depredations but at a considerable
distance from the place of their residence; and Gines had transgressed
this regulation in the attack to which I was indebted for my present
asylum. After having possessed themselves of any booty, they took care,
in the sight of the persons whom they had robbed, to pursue a route as
nearly as possible opposite to that which led to their true haunts. The
appearance of their place of residence, together with its environs, was
peculiarly desolate avid forlorn, and it had the reputation of being
haunted. The old woman I have described had long been its inhabitant,
and was commonly supposed to be its only inhabitant; and her person well
accorded with the rural ideas of a witch. Her lodgers never went out or
came in but with the utmost circumspection, and generally by night.
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