"I do not speak on supposition, caballero," pursued Don Sebastiao, with firmness; "be so good as to answer me clearly. Are these ladies, or are they not, in your power?"
"These ladies have claimed my assistance to escape from the rebels, who had made them prisoners."
"You retain them, in your camp—here, at Casa-Frama?"
Don Pablo turned with an air of vexation towards the Frenchman, whose eye he instinctively felt weighed upon him.
"It is true," at last he answered, "that these ladies are in my camp, but they enjoy perfect liberty."
"But on several occasions, when they have entreated you to allow them to rejoin General Castelmelhor, you have always objected to it on some vague pretext."
The situation became more and more embarrassing; the partisan felt rage boiling within him; he saw that he had been betrayed, that his conduct was known, that all denial was useless. The honourable distinction that had been so recently conferred upon him induced him to restrain himself, but he was not sufficiently master of himself to repress all manifestation of annoyance—there was in him too much of the partisan and the bandit for that.
"¡Vive Dios!" cried he, with violence, "One would think that you are now making me undergo an examination!"
"It is so, in fact," proudly answered the officer.
"You forget, it appears to me, where you are and to whom you are speaking, Señor."