"As I well knew when I was a butcher in Tortosa!" quoth Cabrera, smiling. "There were a couple of ducal families within the range of my custom, and they consumed more beef and mutton than a whole _barrio_ of poor pottage-eaters!"
To make Cabrera smile was more than half the battle.
"You are sure they had nothing to do with the slayers of my mother?" He was fierce again in a moment, and pulled the left f.l.a.n.g.e of his moustache into his mouth with a quick nervous movement of the fingers.
"I will undertake that no one of them hath ever been further South than this village of Sarria," said Concha, somewhat hastily, and without sufficient authority.
Cabrera looked at the papers. There was a Carlist commission in the name of Don Rollo Blair duly made out, a letter from General Elio, chief of the staff, commending all the four by name and description to all good servants of Don Carlos, as trustworthy persons engaged on a dangerous and secret mission. Most of all, however, he seemed to be impressed with the ring belonging to Etienne, with its revolving gem and concealed portrait of Carlos the Fifth.
He placed it on his finger and gazing intently, asked to whom it belonged. As soon as he understood, he summoned the little Frenchman to his presence. Etienne came at the word, calm as usual, and twirling his moustache in the manner of Rollo.
"This is your ring?" he demanded of the prisoner. Concha tried to catch Etienne"s eye to signal to him that he must give Cabrera that upon which his fancy had lighted. But her former lover stubbornly avoided her eye.
"That is my ring," he answered dryly, after a cursory inspection of the article in question as it lay in the palm of the _guerillero"s_ hand.
"It is very precious to you?" asked the butcher of Tortosa, suggestively.
"It was given to me by my cousin, the king," answered Etienne, briefly.
"Then I presume you do not care to part with it?" said Cabrera, turning it about on his finger, and holding it this way and that to the light.
"No," said Etienne, coolly. "You see, my cousin might not give me another!"
But the butcher of Tortosa could be as simple and direct in his methods as even Rollo himself.
"Will you give it to me?" he said, still admiring it as it flashed upon his finger.
Etienne looked at the general calmly from head to foot, Concha all the time frowning upon him to warn him of his danger. But the young man was preening himself like a little bantam-c.o.c.k of vanity, glad to be reckless under the fire of such eyes. He would not have missed the chance for worlds, so he replied serenely, "Do you still intend to shoot us?"
"What has that to do with the matter?" growled Cabrera, who was losing his temper.
"Because if you do," said Etienne, who had been waiting his opportunity, "you are welcome to the jewel--_after_ I am dead. But if I am to live, I shall require it for myself!"
CHAPTER XXIII
THE BURNING OF THE MILL-HOUSE
Cabrera bit his lip for a moment, frowned still more darkly, and then burst into a roar of laughter. For the moment the _gamin_ in him was uppermost--the same curly-pated rascal who had climbed walls and stolen apples from the market-women"s stalls of Tortosa thirty years ago.
"You are a brave fellow," cried the general, "and I would to Heaven that your royal cousin had more of your spirit. Are all of your company of the same warlike kidney?"
"I trust I am afraid of no man on the field of honour," answered the loyal little Frenchman, throwing out his chest. "Yet I speak but the truth when I aver that there is not one of my companions who could not say grace and eat me up afterwards!"
Among the letters which had formed part of Rollo"s credentials there was one superscribed "_To be opened in the camp of General Cabrera_."
Cabrera now dismissed the firing party with a wave of his hand, the officer in command exchanging an encouraging nod with Rollo. Then he summoned that young man to approach. Rollo threw away the last inch of his cigarette, and going up easily, saluted the general with his usual self-possession.
"Well, colonel," said the latter, "I little thought to exchange civilities with you again; but for that you have to thank this young lady. The fortune of war once more! But if young men will entrust precious papers to pretty girls, they must have a fund of grat.i.tude upon which to draw--that is, when the ladies arrive in time. On this occasion it was most exactly done. Yet you must have lived through some very crowded moments while you faced the muzzles of yonder rifles!"
And he pointed to the lane down which the firing party was defiling.
Rollo bowed, but did not reply, awaiting the general"s pleasure.
Presently Cabrera, recollecting the sealed letter in his hand, gave it unopened to the youth.
"There," he said, "that, I see, is to be opened in the camp of General Cabrera. Well--where Cabrera is, there is his camp. Open it, and let us see what it contains."
"I will, general," said the young Scot, "in so far, that is, as it concerns your Excellency."
The Carlist general sat watching Rollo keenly as he broke the seal and discovered a couple of enclosures. One was sealed and the other open.
The first he presented to Cabrera, who, observing the handwriting of the superscription, changed colour. Meanwhile, without paying any attention to him, Rollo read his own communication from beginning to end. It had evidently been pa.s.sed on to him from a higher authority than the Abbot, for only the address was in the handwriting of that learned ecclesiast.
It ran as follows:
"To the Man who shall be chosen by our trusted Councillor for the Mission Extraordinary in the service of Carlos Quinto--These:
"You will receive from General Cabrera such succour and a.s.sistance as may seem to you needful in pursuance of the project you have in hand, namely the capturing of the young Princess Isabel together with her mother, the so-called Regent Cristina. Thereafter you will bring them with diligence within our lines, observing all the respect and courtesy due to their exalted rank and to the s.e.x to which they belong.
"At the same time you are held indemnified for all killings of such persons as may stand in your way in the execution of the duty laid upon you, and by order of the King himself you hereby take rank as a full Colonel in his service."
Meanwhile Cabrera had been bending his brows over the note which had been directed to him personally. He rose and paced the length of the garden-wall with the letter in his hand, while Rollo stood his ground with an unmoved countenance. Presently he stopped opposite the young man and stood regarding him intently.
"I am, I understand, to furnish you with men for this venture," he said; "good--but I am at liberty to prove you first. That you are cool and brave I know. We must find out whether you are loyal as well."
"I am as loyal as any Spaniard who ever drew breath," retorted Rollo, hotly, "and in this matter I will answer for my companions as well."
"And pray in what way, Sir Spitfire?" said Cabrera, smiling.
"Why, as a man should," said Rollo, "with his sword or his pistol, or--as is our island custom--with his fists--it is all the same to me; yes, even with your abominable Spanish knife, which is no true gentleman"s weapon!"
"I am no unfriend to plainness, sir, either in speech or action," said Cabrera; "I see you are indeed a brave fellow, and will not lessen the king"s chances of coming to his own by letting you loose on the men under my command. Still for one day you will not object to ride with us!"
Rollo coloured high.
"General," he said, "I will not conceal it from you that I have wasted too much time already; but if you wish for our a.s.sistance in your designs for twenty-four hours, I am not the man to deny you."
"I thought not," cried Cabrera, much pleased. "And now have you any business to despatch before we leave this place? If so, let it be seen to at once!"
"None, Excellency," said Rollo, "save that if you are satisfied of our good faith I should like to see Luis Fernandez the miller dealt with according to his deserts!"
"I will have him shot instantly," cried Cabrera; "he hath given false tidings to his Majesty"s generals. He hath belied his honest servants.
Guard, bring Luis Fernandez hither!"
This was rather more than Rollo had bargained for. He was not yet accustomed to the summary methods of Cabrera, even though the butcher"s hand had hardly yet unclosed from himself. He was already meditating an appeal in favour of milder measures, when the guard returned with the news that Luis Fernandez was nowhere to be found. Dwelling-house, strong-room, mill, garden, and gorge beneath--all had been searched. In vain--they were empty and void. The tumbled beds where the general and his staff had slept, the granary with its trampled heaps of corn ready for grinding, the mill-wheel with the pool beneath where the lights and shadows played at bo-peep, where the trout lurked and the water-boxes seemed to descend into an infinity of blackness--all were deserted and lonesome as if no man had been near them for a hundred years.
"The rascal has escaped!" cried Cabrera, full of rage; "have I not told you a thousand times you keep no watch? I have a great mind to stand half a dozen of you up against that wall. Escaped with my entire command about the rogue"s home-nest! Well, set a torch to it and see if he is lurking anywhere about the crevices like a centipede in a crack!"