The four men still stood in order. Mortimer and Etienne in the middle, with slim Rollo and the giant Ramon towering on either flank. "_Load with ball--at six paces--make ready!_" The officer's commands rang out with a certain haste, for he could already hear the clattering of the horses of the general's cavalcade, and he knew that if upon his arrival he had not carried out his orders, he might expect a severe reprimand. But it was not the general's suite that rode so furiously. The sound came from a contrary direction. Two horses were being ridden at speed, and at sight of the four men set in order against the wall the foremost rider sank both spurs into her white mare and dashed forward with a wild cry. The officer already had his sword raised in the air, the falling of which was to be the signal for the volley of death. But it did not fall. Something in the aspect of the girl-rider as she swept up parallel with the low garden wall, her hair floating disordered about her shoulders--her eyes black and shining like stars--the sheaf of papers she waved in her hand, all compelled the Carlist to suspend that last irrevocable order. It was Concha Cabezos who arrived when the eleventh hour was long past, and leaped from her reeking horse opposite the place of execution. With her, wild-haired as a Maenad, rode La Giralda, cross-saddled like a man. "General Cabrera! Where is General Cabrera?" cried Concha. "I must see him instantly. These are no traitors. They are true men, and in the service of Don Carlos. Here are their papers!" "Where is Ramon Cabrera? Tell me quickly!" cried La Giralda. "I have news for him. I was with his mother when she died. They whipped me at the cross of Tortosa to tell what I knew--stripping me to the waist they whipped me, being old and the mother of many. Cabrera will avenge me. Let me but see Ramon Cabrera whom of old I suckled at my breasts!" The officer hesitated. In such circumstances one might easily do wrong. He might shoot these men, and after all find that they were innocent. He preferred to wait. The living are more easily deprived of life than the dead restored to it. Such was his thought. In any case he had not long to wait. Round the angle of the mill-house swept the general and his staff, brilliant in scarlet and white, heightened by the glitter of abundant gold-lace. For the ex-butcher of Tortosa was a kind of military dandy, and loved to surround himself with the foppery of the _matador_ and the brigand. At heart, indeed, he was still the _guerrillero_ of Morella, riding home through the streets of that little rebel city after a successful foray. As his eyes fell on the row of men dark against the dusty _adobe_ of the garden wall, and on the two pale women, a dark frown overspread his face. "What is the meaning of this?" he cried. "Why have you not obeyed your instructions? Why are these men not yet dead?"