Don José Navarro, a cavalry brigadier in the Almanza regiment, meets Carmen, a gypsy girl from Seville whose beauty and provocative air seduces him to madness. He betrays his orders to court her, and soon, at her instigation, joins a muggling company, thus abandoning himself completely to a life of adventure. Don José commits crimes to protect the treasures entrusted to him by Carmen, but when he discovers her with another man, tragedy befalls.