So, much to the astonishment of John Mortimer, who moved a little farther from him, as being a kind of second cousin of the scarlet woman of the Seven Hills, Etienne pulled out his rosary and, falling on his knees, betook him to his prayers with vigour and a single mind.
Sergeant Cardono had long ago abandoned all distinctive marks of his Carlist partisanship and military rank. Moreover, he had acquired, in some unexplained way, a leathern Montera cap, a short many-buttoned jacket, a flapped waistcoat of red plush, and leathern small-clothes of the same sort as those worn by La Giralda. Yet withal there remained something very remarkable about him. His great height, his angular build, the grim humour of his mouth, the beady blackness of eyes which twinkled with a fleck of fire in each, as a star might be reflected in a deep well on a moonless night—these all gave him a certain distinction in a country of brick-dusty men of solemn exterior and rare speech.
Also there was something indescribably daring about the man, his air and carriage. There was the swagger as of a famous matador about the way he carried himself. He gave a cock to his plain countryman's cap which betokened one of a race at once quicker and more gay—more passionate and more dangerous than the grave and dignified inhabitants of Old Castile through whose country they were presently journeying.
As Cardono and La Giralda departed out of the camp, the Sergeant driving before him a donkey which he had picked up the night before wandering by the wayside, El Sarria looked after them with a sardonic smile which slowly melted from his face, leaving only the giant's usual placid good nature apparent on the surface. The mere knowledge that Dolóres was alive and true to him seemed to have changed the hunted and desperate outlaw almost beyond recognition.
"Why do you smile, El Sarria?" said Concha, who stood near by, as the outlaw slowly rolled and lighted a cigarrillo. "You do not love this Sergeant. You do not think he is a man to be trusted?"
El Sarria shrugged his shoulders, and slowly exhaled the first long breathing of smoke through his nostrils.
"Nay," he said deliberately, "I have been both judged and misjudged myself, and it would ill become me in like manner to judge others. But if that man is not of your country and my trade, Ramon Garcia has lived in vain. That is all."
Concha nodded a little uncertainly.
"Yes," she said slowly, "yes—of my country. I believe you. He has the Andalucian manner of wearing his clothes. If he were a girl he would know how to tie a ribbon irregularly and how to place a bow-knot a little to the side in the right place—things which only Andalucians know. But what in the world do you mean by 'of your profession'?"
El Sarria smoked a while in silence, inhaling the blue cigarette smoke luxuriously, and causing it to issue from his nostrils white and moisture-laden with his breath. Then he spoke.