To make Cabrera smile was more than half the battle.
"You are sure they had nothing to do with the slayers of my mother?" He was fierce again in a moment, and pulled the left flange of his moustache into his mouth with a quick nervous movement of the fingers.
"I will undertake that no one of them hath ever been further South than this village of Sarria," said Concha, somewhat hastily, and without sufficient authority.
Cabrera looked at the papers. There was a Carlist commission in the name of Don Rollo Blair duly made out, a letter from General Elio, chief of the staff, commending all the four by name and description to all good servants of Don Carlos, as trustworthy persons engaged on a dangerous and secret mission. Most of all, however, he seemed to be impressed with the ring belonging to Etienne, with its revolving gem and concealed portrait of Carlos the Fifth.
He placed it on his finger and gazing intently, asked to whom it belonged. As soon as he understood, he summoned the little Frenchman to his presence. Etienne came at the word, calm as usual, and twirling his moustache in the manner of Rollo.
"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.