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 gratitude 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 passed 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 assistance 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 sex 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 assistance 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!"

Cabrera felt that he had wasted a great deal of time on a fine morning without shooting somebody, and it would certainly have gone ill with Don Luis or his brother if either of them had been compelled by the flames to issue forth from the burning mill-house of Sarria.

But they were not there. The cur dogs of the village and a few half-starved mongrels that followed the troops had great sport worrying the rats which darted continually from the burning granaries. But of the more important human rats, no sign.

All the inhabitants of the village were there likewise, held back from plundering by the bayonets of the Carlist troops. They stood recounting to each other, wistfully, the stores of clothes, the silk curtains, the uncut pieces of broadcloth, the household linen, the great eight-day clocks in their gilt ormolu cases. Every woman had something to add to the catalogue. Every householder felt keenly the injustice of permitting so much wealth to be given to the crackling flames.

"Yes, it was very well," they said; "doubtless the Fernandez family were vermin to be burned up—smoked out. But they possessed much good gear, the gathering of many years. These things have committed no treason against either Don Carlos or the Regent Cristina. Why then are we not permitted to enter and remove the valuables? It is monstrous. We will represent the matter to General Cabrera—to Don Carlos himself!"

But one glance at the former, as he sat his horse, nervously twisting the reins and watching the destruction from under his black brows, made their hearts as water within them. Their pet Valiant, old Gaspar Perico, too, had judiciously hidden himself. Esteban the supple had accompanied him, and the venta of Sarria was in the hands of the silent, swift-footed, but exceedingly capable maid-servant who had played the trick upon Etienne.

The Sarrians therefore watched the mill-house blaze up, and thanked God that it stood some way from the other dwellings of the place.

Suddenly Cabrera turned upon them.

"Hearken ye, villagers of Sarria," he cried, "I have burned the home of a traitor. If I hear of any shelter being granted to Luis Fernandez or his brother within your bounds, I swear by the martyred honour of my mother that on my return I will burn every house within your walls and shoot every man of you capable of bearing arms. You have heard of Ramon Cabrera. Let that be enough."

The villagers got apprehensively behind each other, and none answered, each waiting for the other, till with mighty bass thunder the voice rang out again:

"Have you no answer?" he cried, "no promise? Must I set a dozen of you with your backs against the wall, as I did at Espluga in Francoli, to stimulate those dull country wits of yours?"

Then a young man gaily dressed was thrust to the front. Very unwilling he was to show himself, and at his appearance, with his knees knocking together, a merry laugh rang out from behind Cabrera.

That chieftain turned quickly with wrath in his eye. For it was a sound of a woman's mirth that was heard, and all such were strictly forbidden within his lines.

But at the sight of little Concha, her dark eyes full of light, her hands clapping together in innocent delight, her white teeth disclosed in gay and dainty laughter, a certain maja note of daring unconvention in her costume, she was so exactly all that would have sent him into raptures twenty years before when he was an apprentice in Tortosa, that the grim man only smiled and turned again to the unwilling spokesman of the municipality of Sarria.

A voice from the press before the burning house announced the delegate's quality.

"Don Raphael de Flores, son of our alcalde."

"Speak on, Don Raphael," cried Cabrera; "I will not shoot you unless it should be necessary."

Thus encouraged the trembling youth began.

"Your Excellency," he quavered, "we of Sarria have nothing to do with the family of Fernandez. We would not give any one of them a handful of maize or a plate of lentil broth if he were starving. We are loyal men and women—well-wishers to the cause of the only true and absolute King Carlos Quinto."

"I am credibly informed that it is otherwise," said Cabrera, "and that you are a den of red-hot nationals. I therefore impose a fine of two thousand duros on the municipality, and as you are the alcalde's son, we will keep you in durance till they be paid."

Don Raphael fell on his knees. His pale face was reddened by the flames from the mill-house, the fate of which must have afforded a striking object-lesson to a costive magistracy in trouble about a forced loan.

"We are undone," he cried; "I am a married man, your Excellency, and have not a maravedi to call my own. You had better shoot me out of hand, and be done with it. Indeed, we cannot possibly pay."

"Go and find your father," cried Cabrera; "he pocketed half of the price of Don Ramon Garcia's house. I cannot see my namesake suffer. Tell him that two thousand duros is the price up till noon. After that it will have risen to four thousand, and by three of the afternoon, if the money be not paid into the treasury of the only absolute and Catholic sovereign (in the present instance my breeches pocket), I shall be reluctantly compelled to shoot one dozen of the leading citizens of the township of Sarria. Let a strong guard accompany this young man till he returns from carrying his message."

In this way did Cabrera replenish the treasury of his master Don Carlos, and with such pleasant argument did he induce reluctant alcaldes to discover the whereabouts of their strong boxes.

For a remarkably shrewd man was General Ramon Cabrera, the butcher of Tortosa.