"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-cock 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.