"Tell them my mother gave me that, and made me promise to carry it. I don't want them to take it away!" Rollo translated, and Cabrera, after turning over the pages, handed it back with a bow. "A _gage d'amour_?" he said, smiling. "Yes, from my mother!" said John Mortimer, blushing yet more. The search through the pockets of Etienne produced nothing except a number of brief notes, daintily folded but indifferently written, and signed by various Lolas, Felesias, and Magdalenas. Most of these were brief, and to the point. "Meet me at the gate by the rose-tree at seven. My father has gone to the city!" or only "I am waiting for you! Come." But in the outer pocket of Rollo Blair was found a far more compromising document. When the searcher drew it forth from his coat, the eyes of Luis Fernandez gleamed with triumph. Cabrera took the paper and glanced it over carelessly, but as soon as his eye fell upon the signature the fashion of his countenance changed. He leaped to his feet. "Nogueras!" he cried; "you are in correspondence with Nogueras, the villain who, in cold blood, shot my poor old mother, for no crime but that of having borne me. Have the fellow out instantly, and shoot him!" Rollo stood a moment dumfounded, then he recovered himself and spoke. "General Cabrera," he said, "this is a trick. I have had no correspondence with Nogueras. I had not even heard his name. This has been dropped into my pocket by some traitor. I hold a commission in the service of Don Carlos, and have had no communication with his enemies." "But in this place you gave yourselves out as Nationalists, is it not so?" queried Cabrera. "Certainly," answered Rollo; "we were on a secret mission, and we were given to understand that this was a hostile village." Cabrera took up the letter again and read aloud-- "_To the young Englishman of the Foreign Legion, pretending service with Don Carlos._ "You are ordered to obtain any information as to the movements of the brigand Cabrera and his men, by penetrating into their district, and, if possible, joining their organisation. You will report the same to me, and this pass will hold you safe with all servants and well-wishers of the government of the Queen-Regent. "NOGUERAS." The Carlist commander, whose voice had been rising as he read, shouted rather than uttered the name of the murderer of his mother. He did not again sit down, but strode up and down, his cavalry sword clanging and battering against the furniture of the little room as if expressing the angry perturbation of his mind. "General," said Rollo, as calmly as if arguing a point in theology, "if I had been guilty of this treachery, would I have kept a paper like that loose in an outer pocket? Is it not evident that it has been placed there by some enemy--probably by that archtraitor there, the miller Fernandez?"