"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.