ity that this young cockerel is not fonder of his dinner. How regardeth
he the women?"

This last question was asked anxiously, yet with some hope. But this
also El Sarria promptly scattered to the winds.

"I do not think that he regards them at all! He has scarcely looked at
one of them ever since I first knew him."

Sergeant Cardono groaned, seemingly greatly perturbed in spirit.

"I feared as much," he said, shaking his head; "he hath not the right
wandering eye. Now, that young Frenchman is a devil untamed! And the
Englishman--well, though he is deeper, he also hath it in him. But the
colonel is all for fighting and his duty. It is easy to see that he will
rise but little higher. When was there ever a great soldier without a
weakness for a pretty woman and a good dinner? Why, the thing is
against nature. Now, my father fought in the War of the Independence,
and the tales that he told of El Gran' Lor'--he was a soldier if you
like, worthy of the white plumes! A cook all to himself closer at his
elbow than an aide-de-camp--and as to the women--ah----!"

Sergeant Cardono nodded as one who could tell tales and he would. Yet
the Sergeant Cardono found some reason to change his mind as to Rollo's
qualifications for field-officership before the end of their first day
apart from Cabrera.

It was indeed with a feeling of intense relief that the little company
of five men separated from the white and red _boinas_ of the
butcher-general's cavalcade. Well-affected to them as Cabrera might be
for the time being, his favour was so brief and uncertain, his affection
so tiger-like, that even Sergeant Cardono sighed a sigh of satisfaction
when they turned their horses' heads towards the far-away Guadarrama
beyond which lay the goal of their adventuring.

Presently the tongues of the little cavalcade were unloosed. El Sarria
and Sergeant Cardono having found subjects of common interest, communed
together apart like old friends. John Mortimer and Etienne, who
generally had little to say to each other, conversed freely upon
wine-growing and the possibility of introducing cotton-spinning into the
South of France. For Etienne was not destitute of a certain Gascon eye
to the main chance.

Rollo alone rode gloomily apart. He was turning over the terms of his
commission in his mind, and the more he thought, the less was he
satisfied. It was not alone the desperateness of the venture that
daunted Rollo, but the difficulty of providi