“Your purse, perhaps?”
“No, señor; they did not touch it either. They would have been welcome to it, and the watch as well. Ah! they might have had everything else but what they did take.”
“What was it?”
“Mias niñas! mias niñas!”
“Ninyas!” interrupted the general, without waiting for the translation, “that means young girls, don’t it, captain?”
“In its general signification it does. As he has used it, it means his own daughters.”
“What! Have the brigands robbed him of them?”
“That’s what he has just stated.”
“Poor old gentleman—for he’s evidently a gentleman! It’s a hard case, no doubt, to have his daughters carried off by brigands—worse than if Indians had got them. Go on, and question him. Let him give the whole story; and then ask him what he wants me to do. I’ll wait till you’ve finished. You can translate it all in a lump.”
As the general said this he turned away, and speaking to his aide-de-camp, dispatched the latter on some errand that carried him out of the room.