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Title: The Missourian
Author: Lyle, Eugene P. (Eugene Percy), 1873-1961
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Missourian" ***
THE MISSOURIAN
[Illustration: "JACQUELINE"
"She was the spirit of the enigma, the very personification of the
Napoleonic sphinx"]
THE MISSOURIAN
by
EUGENE P. LYLE, Jr.
"In my predestin'd Plot of Dust and Soul."--Omar
Illustrated by Ernest Haskell
New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1905
Copyright, 1905, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
Published, August, 1905
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian
To
MY TWO BEST FRIENDS
My Father and my Mother
CONTENTS
PART I.
THE THORN IN THE LAND OF ROSES
I. A Wilful Maid Arrives 3
II. A Fra Diavolo in the Land of Roses 11
III. The Violent End of a Terrible Bandit 18
IV. _La Luz_, Blockade Runner 27
V. The Storm Centre 34
VI. A Bruising of Arms for Jacqueline 45
VII. Swordsmanship in the Dark 55
VIII. The Thoughts of Youth May Be
Prodigiously Long Thoughts 64
IX. Toll-Taking in the Huasteca 69
X. The Brigand Chief 80
XI. The Cossacks and Their Tiger Colonel 89
XII. Pastime Passing Excellent 98
XIII. Unregistered in Any Studbook 108
XIV. The Herald of the Fair God 114
XV. The Ritual 122
XVI. He of the Debonair Sceptre 131
XVII. Rather a Small Man 140
XVIII. Little Monarchs, Big Mistakes 149
XIX. A Tartar, _and_ a Tartar 156
XX. In the Wake of Princely Cavalcades 164
XXI. The Red Mongrel 173
XXII. "Equidad en la Justicia" 182
XXIII. A Curious Pagan Rite 188
XXIV. The Man Who Did Not Want to be Shot 193
XXV. The Person on the Other Horse 200
XXVI. The Strangest Avowal of Love 209
XXVII. Berthe 219
XXVIII. "Mike" 228
XXIX. The Whisper of the Sphinx 238
XXX. The Ambassador 242
XXXI. Carlota 253
XXXII. The Woman Who Did Not Hesitate 258
XXXIII. A Sponsor to the Fat Padre 266
PART II.
THE ROSE THAT WAS A THORN IN THE LAND OF ROSES
I. Meagre Shanks 273
II. The Black Decree 284
III. As Between Women 293
IV. The Lacking Coincidence 298
V. The Missourians 306
VI. If a Kiss Were All 315
VII. A Crop of Colonels 324
VIII. Royal Resolution 335
IX. Interpreter to the Almighty 344
X. Alone Among His Loving Subjects 351
XI. Fatality and the Missourian 359
XII. The Rendezvous of the Republic 369
XIII. A Buccaneer and a Battle 380
XIV. Blood and Noise--What Else? 391
XV. Of All News the Most Spiteful 406
XVI. Vendetta's Half Sister, Better Born 422
XVII. Under a Spanish Cloak 434
XVIII. El Chaparrito 443
XIX. In Articulo Mortis 459
XX. Knighthood's Belated Flower 465
XXI. The Title of Nobility 475
XXII. The Abbey of Mount Regret 484
XXIII. The Contrariness of Jacqueline 496
XXIV. The Journalistic Sagacity of a Daniel 506
THE PEOPLE OF THE STORY
THE MISSOURIAN, known in every fight as the Storm Centre. His
real name is John D. Driscoll, familiarly shortened to Din Driscoll. At
the close of the Civil War he finds himself a lieutenant-colonel in
General Joe Shelby's brigade of Confederate daredevils, sent by his
comrades as emissary to the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico.
JACQUELINE, who is the Marquise Jeanne d'Aumerle, on a mission
of high politics from Napoleon III. to the Court of Mexico.
BERTHE, her maid.
MAXIMILÍAN, archduke of Austria, occupant of the New World
throne created for him.
CHARLOTTE OF ORLEANS, the Empress.
ANASTASIO MURGUÍA, a Mexican hacendado, who acquires riches by
running Federal blockades into Southern ports. He is both a coward and a
miser.
MARÍA DE LA LUZ, his daughter.
RODRIGO GALÁN, brigand and guerrilla.
TIBURCIO, blackmailer of the highway, scout, and "loyal
Imperialist."
AUGUSTIN FISCHER, "the Fat Padre," a renegade priest of subtle
parts.
MICHEL NEY, grandson of the "Bravest of the Brave."
THE MARSHAL BAZAINE, commander-in-chief of the French Army of
Occupation in Mexico.
MADAME LA MARECHALE, his bride.
COLONEL DUPIN, the "Tiger of the Tropics," chief of the Contra
Guerrillas.
MIGUEL LOPEZ, colonel of Dragoons, a favorite of the Emperor.
MONSIEUR ÉLOIN, the Emperor's secretary.
MARQUEZ, MIRAMON, MEJÍA, MENDEZ,
Imperialist officers.
RÉGULES, ESCOBEDO, Republican officers.
DANIEL BOONE, first scout among the Missourians, one-time
editor and editor yet to be.
"OLD BROTHERS AND SISTERS," "TALL MOSE" BLEDSOE,
OF THE COUNTY OF PIKE, and yet more of the Missouri colonels.
BENITO JUAREZ, president of the Mexican Republic.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"JACQUELINE" "She was the spirit of the enigma, the
very personification of the Napoleonic sphinx" _Frontispiece_
Facing page
"MURGUÍA" "He had evidently passed through salty spray, had
braved the deep, this shrinking old man in frayed black" 16
"RODRIGO GALÁN" "The fierce stranger, however, seemed
undecided. His brow furrowed, and for the moment he only
stared" 18
"JOHN DINWIDDIE DRISCOLL, THE MISSOURIAN" "His cheeks were
smooth, but they were tight and hard and brown from the
weathering of sun and blizzard" 38
"COLONEL DUPIN" "The Tiger of the Tropics ... the chief of
Contra Guerrillas" 94
THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN 134
"MARÍA DE LA LUZ" "The tapestry behind them parted and fell"
146
"BERTHE" "... brought down the ponderous knocker so
terrifically that it abashed her, for all her present
agitation" 220
PART FIRST
THE THORN IN THE LAND OF ROSES
"Array you, lordyngs, one and all,
For here begins no peace."
--_The Ballad of the Battle of Otterburn_
CHAPTER I
A WILFUL MAID ARRIVES FROM FRANCE
"I'll tell thee, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France,
full of ambition."--_As You Like It._
Jacqueline was a gentlewoman of France. But there was usually mischief
in her handsome head, for all its queenly poise. Just now, she was
running away from the ship. Captain and officers of the _Impératrice
Eugénie_, Imperial red pantaloons, gilt Imperial eagles, such tokens
of awe were yet not awful enough to hold Jacqueline. So, with the
humility of limp things in that sticky air, the sailors shoved closer in
the small boat and made place for the adjustment of crisp skirts. With
the lady went her gentle little Breton maid, who trembled with the
trembling of every plank in those norther-rocked waters. The high sun,
just showing himself after the late gale, was sucking a gummy moisture
out upon all surfaces, and the perspiring men felt mean and base before
the starchy freshness of the two girls.
No one was pleased that Jacqueline was going, except Jacqueline herself.
But she was keen for it. She had been impervious to their flustered
anxiety, also to the tributes to her importance betrayed therein. In
vain they argued no fewer than two emperors to dissuade her. She meant
to have a walk on the shore and--a demure Parisian shrug settled it.
Jacqueline rested a high-heeled boot on a coil of rope and blithely
hummed an old song--"Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!" Oh, how she had
wearied of bumping, heaving, bumping! At first she had enjoyed the
storm. It was a new kind of play, and the mise-en-scène was quite
adequate. But ennui had surged in again long before danger had surged
out. And now she considered that some later sensation was due her, just
as supper after an evening of fasting. In such a way, her life long,
Jacqueline had sustained existence. Her nourishment was ever the latest
"frisson," to use her own word. She craved thrills of emotion, ecstatic
thrills. Naturally, then, three weeks of ocean had fretted the restless
lass as intolerable, tyrannical.
During the norther's blinding fury, the liner of the Compagnie
Trans-Atlantique had groped widely out of her course, to find herself
off Tampico when the storm abated. But the skipper saw in his ill-luck a
chance for fresh meat, and he decided to communicate with the port
before going on to Vera Cruz. And when Jacqueline found that out, she
decided to communicate with the port too.
Little enough harm in that, truly; if only it were any one else but
Jacqueline. In her case, though, all concerned would have felt easier to
keep her on board. Then, when the ship sailed, they were sure to have
her there. Otherwise, they assuredly were not. For they knew well her
startling capacity for whims. But never, never, could they know the
startling next way a whim of hers might jump. Yet did she give herself
the small pains of wheedling? Not she. The mystery of her august
guardianship, of no less than two emperors, and the responsibility
falling on captain, crew, red trousers, and gilt eagles--Hé bien, what
then? Neither were they cunning with their dark warnings of outlawry and
violence. Dreadfulest horrors might lurk in the motley Gulf town held by
force against bloodthirsty Mexicans. But croaking like that only gave
brighter promise of the ecstatic shiver. So, parbleu, she went!
The brunt of anxiety fell on poor Sergeant Ney. Here was a young soldier
whom a month before Louis Napoleon had summoned to the Tuileries, to
charge him with the lady's safe return to Maximilian's court in the City
of Mexico, where she was First Dame of Honor about the Empress
Charlotte. The order was not a military one, else it must have fallen to
an officer of rank. It was not even official. But no doubt it enfolded
more of weight for that very reason. Napoleon III. believed that in the
unofficial, in littleness and dark gliding, lay the way to govern a
state. Michel Ney regarded his task as a complete enigma. He had only to
see a girl to the end of her journey. He was a slow-thinking, even a
non-thinking agent, but in a contingency he could fight, still without
thinking.
The girl under his escort, however, was another sort of agent entirely.
She was the spirit of the enigma, the very personification of the
Napoleonic sphinx. She was the Imperial Secret flung a thousand leagues,
there to work itself out alone in a new land of empire. Two months ago
Louis Napoleon had recalled her from the Mexican court to her old
circle, to the Tuileries, to St. Cloud, to Compiègne, and almost at once
he had sent her back again. This time she came with the sphinx's
purpose.
Getting himself into the small boat, Ney stole a glance at the gray eyes
opposite him--for the moment they were gray, as well as treacherously
innocent and pensive--and he reflected woefully that she had quite too
much spirit altogether for an Egyptian dame of stone. She was making it
very hard for him. What caprice might not possess her while on shore,
and the ship to sail within a few hours? It was not a predicament for
sabre play. And he made the mistake of trying to wield his wits a
little.
"I should take it as an honor, mademoiselle," he faltered, "I should,
truly, if you'd only believe that I would impose my escort for the
pleasure it gives me, as well as--as well as----"
But she did not seem to notice that he stumbled. Her eyes were intent on
the green water, which the oars transmuted into eddying crystals. He
would go on, she knew, and lay more exposed the place where she meant to
strike. She had coquetted with him, old play fellow that he was, for
just a little during the voyage, as with others too, for that matter.
But she had tired of it, as she had also of the chagrin of wives and
sweethearts on board, or as she had of Hugo's "Napoleon le Petit," which
she read purely out of contrariness to the censorship laid on the exiled
poet. Michel Ney, however, and this she noted carefully, now kept close
within his soldier's shell. He had that unofficial duty to think on,
which was enough and over.
"----as well as," he finished desperately, "as a duty to an authority
over us both. If you would believe that, mademoiselle?"
Then she struck. A word sufficed. "Oh, Monsieur the Sergeant!" she
exclaimed. Her tone was deprecating, but she lingered wickedly on the
title. The young Frenchman looked down on his natty uniform. No other
cut or cloth in the whole imperial army of France was more dashing than
the sky-blue of a Chasseur d'Afrique, but none of that filled Michel's
eyes. For him there were only the worsted stripes. He colored and
winced.
"Forgive me," she said meekly, "I should have said, 'Monsieur the
Duke.'"
The Chasseur flushed like a boy. "Why _will_ you harp on what a
grandfather made me?" he blurted out. "And what's a duke----?"
"And a prince?--the Prince of Moskowa!" She courtesied from her slender
waist.
"Alas for my blunders," she sighed, "for it _was_ more delicate
after all to call you sergeant. In that I congratulate you yourself,
Michel, and never a grandfather."
Ney frowned unhappily. "The first prince of Moskowa was once a
sergeant," he murmured, "and why shouldn't I, in this new country----"
"Mironton, mironton, mirontaine," she sang, and smiled on him.
His eyes flashed, and because of the voice his heart quickened. He had
heard of "this new country." It was "a gold mine in a bed of roses," but
with a thorn, to say nothing of a bayonet, for every bud, and like many
another young Frenchman he hoped to win renown in the romantic Mexican
Empire, sprung like Minerva from the brain of his own emperor. And now
here was a girl humming the war song of his fathers and of his race, and
flaunting his warrior's ambition in it.
"My Sergeant has gone to the wars,
Far off to war in Flanders.
He's a bold prince of commanders,
With a fame like Alexander's--
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!
"Mon Sergot s'en va t-en guerre--
Ne sais quand reviendra.
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!"
Having thus ousted the crusading hero of the song, and put the slang for
"sergeant" in his stead, Jacqueline leaned back on the gunwale quite
contented. She fell to gazing on the transparent emerald of the inshore,
and plunged in her hand. The soft, plump wrist turned baby pink under
the riffles. Of a sudden Berthe her maid half screamed, whereat with a
delighted little gasp of fright, she jerked out the hand. But she put it
back again, to tempt the watchful shark out there.
"_My_ grandfather was only a duke," she mused aloud, very humbly.
But she peeped up at Ney in the most exasperating manner. He could just
see the gray eyes behind the edge of lace that fell from the slanting
brim of her hat. He would not, though, meet the challenge. He kept to
sincerity as the safer ground.
"Like mine, mademoiselle, yours made himself one, under Napoleon."
"The _great_ Napoleon," she corrected him gently.
Michel assented with a sad little nod. Then he raised his head bravely.
"And why not do things _without_ a _great_ Napoleon, and,
after all, isn't he _a_ Napoleon, and one who----"
"Is lucky enough to bear a name that means seven million votes. _I_
should rather be a 'sergeant' and congratulate none but myself on it,
Monsieur the--Duke."
Again, with the wisdom of a slow intelligence, the Chasseur held back
from her subtleties. If only he might betray her into frankness--a
compliment she paid to few men and to a woman never--then, just
possibly, he might make her tractable as to their prompt return to the
ship.
"Still, it _is_ a name to rally to," he persisted, acknowledging in
spite of himself the magic that had swayed the Old Guard.
For once she left the poor shark in peace.
"A name, a name?" she repeated.
"Isn't 'France' enough of a name for your rallying, monsieur?"
But the honest mood could not last. In the same breath she hastened on,
"Yes, yes, France, the beloved of us proud grandchildren of original
dukes. Of myself, sir, with a château in the Bourbonnais, whose floors
are as well watered as the vineyards outside. And your France too,
Michel, giving you only your clean linen to disguise the sergeant and
remind us of the marshal of the First Empire. Of course," she added
kindly, "there is the bravery. I had forgotten that, O grandson of the
'brave des braves.' But then?--Bonté divine, there's no rank in courage,
mon ami! It's not the epaulette of a French uniform--it's the merest
lining."
"And that," the youth cried doggedly, "is still enough to----"
"To do things for France, eh petit piou-piou?"
"Hélas! our France can't expect much from me. But you, mademoiselle, you
will do things for her!" It was a spontaneous tribute, just that,
without thought of prying into the secret of her mission, "While I," he
ended dismally, "can only fight."
"But you forget," she answered gravely, "that after all a woman can only
give."
That cynicism of life which had become a part of the young girl was yet
gaiety itself. Youth and health and beauty would not have even cynicism
otherwise. But now, as she spoke, the irony was bitter, and worn, as of
age. And behind it was a woman's reluctance before some abhorred
sacrifice, a sacrifice which would entail the woman's power to give.
Ney stared at her uncomprehendingly. Here lay a clue to her mysterious
errand in Mexico. But he was not thinking of her as the Napoleonic
enigma personified. It was of herself he thought, an enigma apart. She
was a flower of France. Yet many, many flowers blossom there. She might
be a grande dame, of nobility of womanhood as well as of family. Or
again, she might be only an alluring, heartless witch, that helped to
make tempting, and damnable, the brilliant Second Empire. But in any
case, Jacqueline was truly as dainty as a flower.
"It has already cost us enough to gain this New World," ventured the
Chasseur, waving a hand toward the desolate shore, "and we made
Maximilian emperor, but now they say that, that he would--they say so in
Paris, mademoiselle--that he would rob us of it."
"Indeed, monsieur?" There was warning in the look she gave him.
"But," he plunged on boldly, "our soldiers still hold it, that is,
until, until someone shall win it for us for our very own, absolutely.
Ducal grandfathers never did more than that for France."
"Where _are_ you leading, Michel? Please take me with you."
"To a question. Don't you think 'someone' is risking a great deal for a
little walk on shore?"
Before she answered he knew that she had seen through all his blundering
wiles.
"Are there guerrillas there?" she asked pensively.
"_You_ should know. But they say, that out of Tampico
especially----"
She was gazing toward the land, sandy and flat. Once she looked back
with lively distaste at the rocking ship. Now she interrupted.
"It would be fun traveling overland--and _such_ excitement!"
Ney's shoulders went up in despair.
"Oh, my poor guardian!" she exclaimed contritely. "But why aren't you a
reader of the poets? Then you would find something to say to make me
feel--sorry."
"_You_ say it then."
"Why, for example, you might call all the stored vengeance of heaven
right down on my ungrateful top."
The soldier gazed at the ungrateful top. It was of burnished copper. A
rebellious lock was then blowing in the wind, and there was a wide,
rakish crown of rice-white straw. There was also a soft skin of creamy
satin, lips blood red, a velvet patch near a dimple, and two gray eyes
that danced behind the hat's filmy curtain. An ungrateful top, out of
all mercy!
CHAPTER II
A FRA DIAVOLO IN THE LAND OF ROSES
"A haunter of marshes, a holder of moors."--_Beowulf._
The torpid, sordid and sun-baked port of Tampico gave little promise of
aught so romantic and rare and exotic as the young French woman's
coveted thrill of ecstasy. There was first the sand bar, which kept
ships from coming up the deep Pánuco to the town. Beyond there were
lagoons and swamps mottling the flat, dreary, moisture-sodden,
fever-scourged land. There were solemn pelicans, and such kind of
grotesque bird as use only one leg, it being long enough for two, and
never that to walk upon, so far as anybody had ever noticed. Such an old
fellow would outline himself against the yellow loneliness, like a lump
of pessimistic philosopher impaled on the end of his own hobbling
crutch. Tarpons and sharks and sword-fish, monstrous, sinister, moved
slothfully in the viscid waters. From scrubby growth on the banks a
hundred or a hundred thousand crows had much ado with rebuking the
invaders of their solitude.
Next, clusters of thatch roofs appeared, and in an hour the party from
the _Impératrice Eugénie_ gained the wharf of the port. The sailors
managed to steer through a tangle of shipping and dugout scows, the
latter heaped high with fruits and flowers of many colors, or hides or
fish of many aromas. Before the small boat could touch the worm-eaten
quay, Jacqueline had poised herself on its edge, caught her skirts, and
hopped lightly over the stretch of water yet remaining. Then she gazed
curiously around on Mexico.
And Mexico was there in various forms to greet her, though in no form
animated. Sluggish creatures under peaked sombreros of muddied straw
seemed to be growing against the foreground of wharf and dingy
warehouses, and fastened to the background of sallow blazing streets and
sallow reflecting walls there were still the same human barnacles. But
no creature seemed ever to move. They all looked a part of the decay, of
putrefying vegetable and flesh and fish everywhere, which grew so rank
in life that in death their rotting could never keep pace.
A lazy town stretched up a lazy street. On a hill farther up the river a
fortress basked in peace, and had no desire to be disturbed. In the town
the buildings were of warped timber, and a few of stone. Parasitic
tumors, like loathsome black ulcers, swelled abundantly on the roofs.
They were the buzzards, the only form of life held sacred. To clean up
nature's and man's spendthrift killing was a blessed service in Tampico.
It saved exertion.
A strange region, by all odds! But at least one could walk thereon, and
Jacqueline thought it droll. An outlandish corner of the earth such as
this was something never experienced before. But as to that, the
outlandish corner might have said the same about Jacqueline. Men stared
like dazed sheep on the astounding apparition of a lady. Some among them
were entirely clothed, in sun-yellowed white. There was a merchant or
so, a coffee exporter or so, a ranchero or so, and hacendados from the
interior. But they were all hard, typical, and often darkly scowling,
which seemed an habitual expression inspired by the thought of a foreign
Hapsburg emperor so mighty and proud, far off in their capital. There
was not an officer among them; nor, quite likely, a gentleman. Never a
bit of red was to be seen from the garrison on the hill. The French
invaders up there, with pardonable taste, kept to themselves. Their
policing ended with the smothering of revolt. So against the stain of
tainted mankind, the vision of delicate femininity contrasted as a fleck
of spotless white on a besmeared palette. But crows, scavengers, men,
they were all so many "creatures" to Jacqueline--the setting of a very
novel scene, and she would not have had it otherwise.
She turned to her maid, who shrank hesitating in the boat. "Berthe, you
pitiful little ninny, are you coming? Then do, and do not forget the
satchel." For a promenade of an hour the inhabitants of two imperial
courts must needs have a satchel, filled of course with mysteries of the
toilet. The maid obeyed, and followed her mistress up the lazy ascending
street. They passed through the Alameda of dense cypresses, an inky blot
as on glaring manila paper, while the shade overhead was profane with
jackdaws. The lady tripped on, and into the street again. Ney and a
sailor hurried to overtake her. The other sailors meantime went on their
errand for fresh meat, but Michel had said to the steward in charge, "If
there should be any need, I'll send this man to you. Then you come, all
of you, quick!"
Jacqueline pushed on her voyage of discovery, and her retinue trooped
behind, single file, over the narrow, burning sidewalks of patched
flagstone. The word "Café" on a corner building caught her eye. It was a
native fonda, overflowing with straw-bottomed chairs and rusty iron
tables half-way across the street, making carts and burros find their
way round. Mexico's outward signs at least were being done over into
French. Hence the dignity of "Café."
"Here is Paris," the explorer announced. "And this is the Boulevard."
She seated herself before one of the iron tables that rocked on the
egg-like cobblestones. She made Ney sit down also, and included Berthe
and the sailor. An olive barefoot boy took their order for black coffee.
Jacqueline's elbows were on the table and her chin on two finger tips,
and she disposed herself placidly, as though this were the Maison Dorée
and Tout Paris sauntering by. The town was beginning to stretch after
its siesta. That is to say, divers natives manifested symptoms of going
to move in the course of time.
"Look!" exclaimed Jacqueline. "Only give yourself the trouble to look!"
She was pointing to a man, of course. The Chasseur stirred uneasily. One
could never see to the end of Jacqueline's slender finger. "There,
Berthe," she cried, "it's Fra Diavolo, just strayed from the Opéra."
The stranger she meant was talking darkly to another man in the door of
the Café. If a Fra Diavolo, he was at least not disguised in his monk's
cowl, either because the April day was too hot or because he had never
owned one. But he stood appareled in his banditti rôle, very picturesque
and barbaric and malevolent. And though he posed heavily, he yet had
that Satanic fascination which the beautiful of the masculine and the
sinister of the devil cannot help having. His battered magnificence of a
charro garb fitted well the diabolic character which Jacqueline assigned
him. Spurs as bright as dollars jangled on high russet heels. His
breeches closed to the flesh like a glove, so that his limbs were as
sleek as some glossy forest animal's. The cloth was of Robin-Hood green,
foxed over in bright yellow leather. From hip to ankle undulated a seam
of silver clasps. More silver, in braided scrolls, adorned his jacket,
and wrapped twice around the waist was a red banda. Jacqueline would
have preferred the ends dangling, like a Neapolitan's. The ranchero, for
such he appeared, wore two belts. One was a vibora, or serpent, for
carrying money; the other held his weapons, a long hunting knife and a
revolver, each in a scabbard of stamped leather embroidered with gold
thread. His sombrero was high pointed and heavy, of chocolate-colored
beaver encircled by a silver rope as thick as a garden hose.
"Now there's realism in those properties," Jacqueline noted with an
artist's critical eye. "See, there's dry mud on his shoes, and his
bright colors are faded by weather. That man sleeps among the rocks,
I'll wager, and he's in the saddle almost constantly too. My faith, our
Fra Diavolo is exquisite!"
The other of the two men was a withered, diminutive, gaunt and hollow
old Mexican. He quailed like a frightened miser before Fra Diavolo.
"The risk? Coming to this town a risk!" Fra Diavolo was echoing the
ancient man. "Bah, Murguía, you would haggle over a little risk as
though it were some poor Confederate's last bale of cotton. But I--por
Dios, I get tired of the mountains. And then I come to Tampico. Yet you
ask why I come? Bien, señor mio, this is why." A gesture explained. Fra
Diavolo unctuously rubbed his thumb over his fingers. The meaning of the
gesture was, "Money!"
The old man recognized the pantomime and shivered. He shrank into his
long black coat as though right willingly he would shrink away
altogether. His parsimony extended even to speech. He pursued his
fugitive voice into the depths of the voluminous coat and there clutched
it as a coin in a chest. Then he paid it out as though it were a coin
indeed.
"But----" he stammered.
"No buts," the fierce ranchero growled thunderously. "Not one, Don
Anastasio, not while our country bleeds under the Austrian tyrant's
heel, not while there yet breathes a patriot to scorn peril and death,
so only that he get the sinews of war."
The curiously unctuous gesture grew menacing, brutal. Don Anastasio
twitched and trembled before it. Under the towering and prismatic Fra
Diavolo he cowered, an insignificant figure. The unrelieved black of his
attire accorded with his meagre frame. It was secretive, miserly. A
black stock covered a withered collar. A dingy silk tile was tightly
packed over a rusted black wig. Boots hid their tops under the skirts of
his coat, and the coat in turn was partly concealed under a black shawl.
But there was one incongruous item. Boots, coat, hat and all were
crusted with brine. He had evidently passed through salty spray, had
braved the deep, this shrinking old man in frayed black. Just now his
eyes, normally moist and avaricious, were parched dry by fear, as though
a flame had passed over them. They might have rattled in their gaping
sockets. Fear also helped him clutch his voice, which he paid out
regardless of expense.
"You know, Don----" But Fra Diavolo scowled, and the name died on his
lips. "You know," he went on, "why you haven't seen me for so long. It's
the blockade up there. It's closer than ever now. This time I waited
many nights for a chance to run in, and as many more to run out again."
"And you squeezed the poor devils all the harder for your weevily corn
and shoddy boots?"
Jacqueline, who could not hear a word, told her companions with a
child's expectancy only to wait and they would see Fra Diavolo eat up
the poor little crow.
The crow, meantime, was trying to oust the notion that had alighted in
the brain of Fra Diavolo. "Of course I ought to ask the Confederates
higher prices as the risks increase," he said, then paused and shook his
head and wig and hat like a mournful pendulum. "But how can I? The South
hardly grows any more cotton. It cannot pay high, and----"
"And that's not my affair, but----" Again the business of thumb and
fingers--"but this is. Quick now!"
"Señor, I--Your Mercy knows that I always pay at--at the usual
place--near the forest."
[Illustration: "MURGUÍA"
"He had evidently passed through salty spray, had braved the deep,
this shrinking old man in frayed black"]
"You mean that you won't pay here, because I am the one in danger here,
and not you? Bien, you want a money-getting man for your daughter, eh,
Don Anastasio, though you'll deny that you would give her to any man?
Bien, bonissimo, I am going to prove myself an eligible suitor. In
another minute Your Mercy will be frightened enough to pay. Attention
now!"
So saying he drew a reed whistle from his jacket. It was no thicker than
a pencil, and not half so long.
Murguía gripped his arm. "My daughter?" he cried. "It has been weeks
since I--but you must have seen her lately. Oh tell me, señor, there is
no bad news of her?" He had forgotten the threatened extortion. His
voice was open too, generous in its anxiety.
"News of her, yes. But it is vague news. There's a mystery about your
daughter, Don Anastasio."
But at this point Fra Diavolo dismissed mystery and daughter both with
an ugly grimace. Nor would he say another word, for all the father's
pleading. Instead, he remembered the little reed whistle in his hand,
and swung round to blow upon it, in spite of the palsied hand clutching
at his arm. But in turning, he became aware of the amused Parisienne
watching him. His jaw fell, whereat Don Anastasio's hand slipped from
his arm, and Don Anastasio himself began to slip away.
"Stop!" roared Fra Diavolo. "No, go ahead. Wait at the mesón, though,
until I come. Wait until I give you your passports."
Then he turned again to stare at the girl who all unconsciously had
wrought the poor little crow's release.
CHAPTER III
THE VIOLENT END OF A TERRIBLE BANDIT
"Come listen to me, you gallants so free,
All you that love mirth for to hear,
And I will tell you of a bold outlaw."
--_Robin Hood._
"Oh, oh, now he's coming to eat _us_!" Jacqueline gasped.
The fierce stranger, however, seemed undecided. His brow furrowed, and
for the moment he only stared. Jacqueline peeped through the lashes
curtaining her eyes. She wanted to see his face, and she saw one of bold
lines. The chin was a hard right angle. The mouth was a cruel line
between heavily sensuous lips. The nose was a splendid line, and a very
assertive and insolent nose altogether. The forehead was rugged, with a
free curving sweep. Here there would have been a certain nobility, only
its slope was just a hint too low. The skin was tawny. The moustache was
black and bristling, as was also the thick hair, which lay back like
grass before a breeze. The shaggy eyebrows were parted by deep clefts,
the dark corrugations of frowning. One wondered if the man did not turn
the foreboding scowl on and off by design. But all these were matters
that fitted in with the other striking "properties," and Jacqueline was
fairly well satisfied with her Fra Diavolo. As she declared to herself,
here was the very dramatic presence to mount upon a war charger!
[Illustration: "RODRIGO GALÁN"
"The fierce stranger, however, seemed undecided. His brow furrowed,
and for the moment he only stared"]
Now when Jacqueline peeped--there was something irresistible about
it--the furrows in the black-beetled brow smoothed themselves out,
whether the stranger meant them to or not. And a vague resolve took hold
on him, and quickened his breath. Her glance might have been
invitation--Tampico was not a drawing room--but still he hesitated.
There was a certain hauteur in the set of the demoiselle's head, which
outbalanced the mischief in her eyes. He felt an indefinable severity in
her tempting beauty, and this was new to his philosophy of woman. But as
he drank in further details, his resolve stiffened. That Grecian bend to
her crisp skirt was evidently an extreme from the Rue de la Paix,
foretelling the end of stupendous flounces. Then there was the tilt to
the large hat, and the veil falling to the level of the eyes, and the
disquieting charm of both. The wine-red lips had a way of smiling and
curling at the same time. And still again there was that line of the
neck, from the shoulder up to where it hid under the soft, old-gold
tendrils, and that line was a thing of beauty and seductive mystery. The
dreadful ranchero went down in humility before the splendor of the
tantalizing Parisienne.
Michel Ney leaned nearer over the table. "In all conscience,
mademoiselle, your Fra Diavolo is bizarre enough," he said, "but please
don't let us stir him up. Think, if anything should happen to you, why
Mexico, why France would----"
"You flatter!" she mocked him. "Only two empires to keep me out of a
flirtation? It's not enough, Michel."
A shadow fell over them. "My apologies," spoke a deep voice, "but the
señorita, she is going to the City, to the Capital, perhaps?"
The syllables fell one by one, distinct and heavy. The Spanish was
elaborately cermonious, but the accent was Mexican and almost gutteral.
"L'impertinent!" cried Ney, bounding to his feet. No diffidence cloyed
his manner now. He was on familiar ground at last, for the first time
since fighting Arabs in Algeria. He was supremely happy too, and as mad
as a Gaul can be. "L'impertinent!" he repeated, coaxingly.
"Now don't be ridiculous, Michel," said Jacqueline. "He can't understand
you."
Moreover, the fame of the Chasseurs, of those colossal heroes with their
terrible sabres, of their legendary prowess in the Crimea, in China, in
Italy, in Africa, none of it seemed to daunt the Mexican in the least.
"How, little Soldier-Boy Blue?" he inquired with cumbrous pleasantry.
"Alas, señor," said Jacqueline, "he's quite a little brother to
dragons."
"What are you talking about?" Michel demanded.
"I am keeping you from being eaten up, young sire, but," and
Jacqueline's tone changed, "pray give yourself the trouble to be calm.
He only means a kindly offer of service, no doubt, however strange that
may seem to your delicacy of breeding, Monsieur the Duke."
Michel heaved a sigh and--sat down. He was no longer on familiar ground.
Then Fra Diavolo proceeded to verify mademoiselle's judgment of him.
Sombrero in hand and with a pompous courtliness, he repeated his natural
supposition that the señorita was on her way to the City (meaning the
City of Mexico), and perhaps to the court of His Glorious Majesty,
Maximiliano. He offered himself, therefore, in case he might have the
felicity to be of use. This she need not consider as personal, if it in
any way offended, but as an official courtesy, since she saw in him an
officer--an officer of His Most Peace-loving Majesty's Contra
Guerrillas. And thus to a conclusion, impressively, laboriously.
Jacqueline was less delighted than at first. The dash and daredeviltry
was somehow not quite sustained. But she replied that he had surmised
correctly, and added that she was Mademoiselle d'Aumerle.
He started at the name, and her eyes sparkled to note the effect. "The
Marquesa Juana de Aumerle!" he repeated.
"Jeanne d'Aumerle, no other, sir," she assured him, but she watched him
quizzically, for she knew that another name was hovering on his lips.
"Surely not----" he began.
"Si señor," and she smiled good humoredly, "I am--'Jacqueline.'"
It was a name that had sifted from the court down into distant plebeian
corners of the Mexican Empire, and it was tinged--let us say so at
once--with the unpleasing hue of notoriety.
"His Ever Considerate Majesty Maximiliano would be furious if any harm
should befall Your Ladyship," Fra Diavolo observed, "though," he added
to himself, "the empress would possibly survive it."
Jacqueline looked at him sharply. But in his deferential manner she
could detect no hint of a second meaning. Yet he had laid bare the
kernel of the whole business that bore the name of Jacqueline. She
betrayed no vexation. If this were her cross, she was at least too
haughtily proud to evade it. For a passing instant only she looked as
she had in the small boat, when she had said that about the mission of a
woman being to give. The next moment, and the mood was gone.
With knowledge of her identity, the project that was building in the
stranger's dark mind loomed more and more dangerously venturesome. But
as he gazed and saw how pretty she was, audacity marched strong and he
wavered no longer. And when she thanked him, and added that the ship was
only waiting until she finished her coffee, he roused himself and drove
with hard will to his purpose.
"Going on by water?" he protested. "But Señorita de Aumerle, we are in
the season for northers. Look, those mean another storm," and he pointed
overhead, to harmless little cotton bunches of clouds scurrying away to
the horizon.
"Éh bien," returned the señorita, "what would you?"
He would, it appeared, that she go by land. He hoped that she did not
consider his offer an empty politeness, tendered only in the expectation
of its being refused. He so contrived, however, that that was precisely
the way his offer might be interpreted, and in that he was deeper than
she imagined. She grew interested in the possibility of finishing her
journey overland. He informed her that one could travel a day westward
on horseback to a place called Valles, then take the City of Mexico and
Monterey stage, and reach the City in two days, which was much shorter
than by way of the sea and Vera Cruz. He spoke as dispassionately as a
time table. But he noted that she clothed his skeleton data with a
personal interest. And Ney also, who had caught the drift of things, saw
new mischief brewing in her gray eyes.
"You really are not thinking, mademoiselle----" he interrupted.
"And why not, pray?"
"Why not? Why--uh--the bandits, of course."
Jacqueline turned to the stranger who served as itinerary folder. Would
he dispose of the childish objection? He would. But he wondered why the
señor had not mentioned one who was the most to be feared of all
bandits; in fact, the most implacable of the rebels still battling
against His Truly Mexican Majesty. The stranger paused expectantly, but
as Ney seemed to recognize no particular outlaw from the description, he
went on with a deepening frown, "----and who is none other than the
Capitan Don Rodrigo Galán."
"Who's he?" Ney inquired, willing enough to have any scarecrow whatever
for Jacqueline.
"Is it possible?--Your Mercy does not know?"
Ney pleaded that he had never been in the country before.
"But surely," the Mexican objected, "Don Rodrigo is a household word
throughout Europe?"
"He has certainly been heard of in Mexico," said Jacqueline, whereat Fra
Diavolo turned to her gratefully. "But," she added, "Monsieur Ney will
now find in him another objection to my journeying overland."
The ardor of the bandit's eulogist faltered. "The señor might indeed,"
he confessed, "only," and here he hesitated like a man contemplating
suicide, "only, Don Rodrigo has been--yes, he's been shot, from ambush;
and his band--yes, his band is scattered forever."
Having achieved the painful massacre, Fra Diavolo traveled on more
easily to assure the señorita that since then the country had been
entirely pacified. Ney, however, was not. How did they know the story
was true? And if it was, he was sorry. He would enjoy meeting the
terrible and provokingly deceased Monsieur Rodrigue, if only to teach
him that being terrible is not good manners. But, did they know for
certain that the bandit was dead?
"We do," said the Mexican, again like a reluctant suicide, "because I
killed him myself."
"But how are we to know, sir," Ney persisted, "that you are so terrible
on your own account?"
"My identification, you mean? Bueno, it is only just. Here, this may
do," and the ranchero drew a paper from his money belt and handed it to
Jacqueline. The paper was an order addressed to one Captain Maurel, who
was to proceed with his company to the district of Tampico, and there to
take and to shoot the guerrilla thief, Rodrigo Galán, and all his band,
who infested the district aforesaid, known as the Huasteca. The Captain
Maurel would take note that this Rodrigo Galán frequented the very city
of Tampico itself, with an impudence to be punished at all hazards.
Signed: Dupin, Colonel of His Majesty's Contra Guerrillas.
"Colonel Dupin?" Jacqueline repeated with a wry mouth. Dupin, the
Contra-Guerrilla chief, was a brave Frenchman. But the quality of his
mercy had made his name a shudder on the lips of all men, his own
countrymen included.
"Yes," said Fra Diavolo between his teeth, "Mi Coronel Dupin--the
Tiger."
"So he is called, I know," said Jacqueline. "And you, it appears, are
Captain Maurel--Maurel, but that is French?"
"The way it is spelled on the paper, yes. But my Coronel, being French,
made a mistake. He should have written it 'Morel.'"
"No matter," said Jacqueline, "for you are only a trite, conventional
officer, after all. But how much merrier it would be if you
were--were----" and suddenly she leaned over the paper and placed an
impetuous finger on the bandit's name. "So," she continued wistfully,
"there is no danger. We ride, we take a stage. It is tame. I say it is
tame, monsieur!"
Captain Maurel, or Morel, desired to add that there was a trader who
owned an hacienda in the interior, and that this trader was starting for
his plantation the very next morning; all of which was very convenient,
because the trader had extra horses, and he, Captain Morel, had a
certain influence with the trader. The señorita's party could travel
with his friend's caravan as far as the stage.
"Voilá!" cried Jacqueline. "It is arranged!"
"Diable, it is not!" Michel was on his feet again.
His wayward charge looked him over reflectively. "Our Mars in his baby
clothes again," said she, as a fond, despairing mother with an
incorrigible child.
The Mexican had shown himself hostile and ready. But seeing Jacqueline's
coolness he melted out of his somewhat theatrical bristling, lest her
sarcasm veer toward himself.
The tempestuous Mars, however, was beyond the range of scorn. He kept
one stubborn purpose before him. "We go back to the ship, or"--he took
breath where he meant to put a handsome oath--"or--it's a fight!"
"There, there," said Jacqueline gently. "Besides, are you not to go with
me just the same?"
Ney turned to the stranger. "I ask you to withdraw, sir, both yourself
and your offers, because you're only meddling here."
The intruder grew rigid straightway. "_I_ am not one to take back
an offer," he stated loftily. His voice was weighted to a heavier
guttural, and in the deep staccatos harshly chopped off, and each
falling with a thud, there was a quality so ominous and deadly that even
Jacqueline had her doubts. But she would not admit them, to herself
least of all. "And I, Monsieur Ney," she said, "have decided to accept,"
though she had not really, until that very moment.
Ney turned to the one sailor with him. "Run like fury!" he whispered.
"Bring the others!"
"Oh, very well," said the Mexican.
As he doubtless intended, Fra Diavolo's words sounded like the low growl
of an awakening lion, and at the same time he brought forth the reed
whistle and put it to his lips. The note that came was faint, like that
of a distant bird in the forest.
Ney smiled. It seemed inadequate, silly. Lately he had become familiar
with the sonorous foghorn, and besides, he was not a woodsman and knew
nothing of the penetration of the thin, vibrant signal. When the sailors
should come, he would take the troublesome fellow to the commander of
the garrison on the hill. But then a weight fell on him from behind, and
uncleanliness and garlic and the sweating of flesh filled his nostrils.
Bare arms around his neck jerked up his chin, according to the stroke of
Père François. Other writhing arms twined about his waist, his legs, his
ankles; and hands clutched after his sabre and pistol. But at last he
stood free, and glared about him, disarmed and helpless. Jacqueline's
infernal Fra Diavolo was surveying him from the closed door of the Café,
behind which he had swept the two women. His stiff pose had relaxed, and
he was even smiling. He waved his hand apologetically over his
followers. "His Exceeding Christian Majesty's most valiant contra
guerrillas," he explained.
The so-called contra guerrillas were villainous wretches, at the
gentlest estimate. Their scanty, ragged and stained cotton manta flapped
loosely over their skin, which was scaly and as tough as old leather.
Most of them had knives. A few carried muskets, long, rusty,
muzzle-loading weapons that threw a slug of marble size.
Almost at once the burly French sailors appeared, but Fra Diavolo's
little demons closed in behind them and around them and so kept them
from reaching Ney. Thus both sides circled about and moved cautiously,
waiting for the trouble to begin in earnest. Michel only panted, until
at last he bethought himself that there was such a thing as strategy.
"One of you out there," he shouted in French, "quick, go to the fort.
Bring the soldiers!"
The Mexicans did not understand, and before they could prevent, a sailor
had taken to his heels.
Then Fra Diavolo comprehended. "You idiots!" he bellowed. "You--Pedro!
Catch him! Faster!--Catch him, I say!"
A little demon darted away in pursuit of the sailor. Obviously, the
situation hung on the swifter in the race.
CHAPTER IV
LA LUZ, BLOCKADE RUNNER
"For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring."
--_Romeo and Juliet._
"Mesón" is Spanish for hostelry. In the ancient caravansaries, like the
one at Bethlehem sacred to the Christ child, the same accommodations
were meted out to man and beast alike. More recently there are "hotels,"
which distinguish a man from his beast, usually; though sometimes
undeservedly. And so the word "mesòn" got left behind along with its
primitive meaning. But in Mexico word and meaning still go together to
this day, and both described pretty well the four walls in Tampico where
Anastasio Murguía tarried. Excepting the porter's lodge at the entrance,
the establishment's only roof formed an open corridor against one of the
walls, in which species of cloister the human guests were privileged to
spread their blankets in case of rain or an icy norther. Otherwise they
slept in the sky-vaulted court among the four-footed transients, for
what men on the torrid Gulf coast would allow his beast more fresh air
than himself?
Don Anastasio's caravan filled the mesón with an unflurried, hay-chewing
promise of bustle-to-be at some future date. Except for the camels and
costume lacking, the Mexican trader might have been a sheik in an oasis
khan. His bales littered the patio's stone pavement. They were of cotton
mostly, which he had bought in the Confederate States, in exchange for
necessities of warfare and life. Complacent burros and horses were
juggling into their mouths some final grains from the sacks over their
noses. Peon servants stolidly busied themselves around charcoal
braziers.
An American leaned in the cavernous doorway. The tarnished insignia on
his collar indicated an officer of Confederate cavalry. He was smoking a
cob pipe, of which he seemed quite fond. And as a return for such
affection, the venerable Missouri meerschaum lent to its young master an
air that was comfortably domestic and peaceable. The trooper wore a
woolen shirt. His boots were rough and heavy. Hard wear and weather had
softened his gray hat into a disreputable slouch affair. A broad
black-leather belt sagged about his middle from the weight of
cartridges. Under his ribs on either side protruded the butt of a
navy-six, thrust in between shirt and trousers. He watched with dozing
interest the muleteers inside as they roped up straw, tightened straps,
and otherwise got ready for departure. Then Anastasio Murguía appeared
coming up the street, just from his lately recorded interview with Fra
Diavolo. The weazened little old Mexican was in a fretful humor, and his
glance at the lounging Southerner was anything but cordial. He would
have passed on into the mesón, but the other stopped him.
"Well, Murgie, are we projecting to start to-night?" the trooper
inquired in English. "Eh?--What say?"
What Don Anastasio had said was nothing at all, but being thus urged, he
mumbled a negative.
"Not starting to-night?" his questioner repeated. "Now, why don't
we?--What?--Lordsake, man, dive! Bring up that voice there for once!"
Murguía sank to the chin in his black coat. Glancing apprehensively at
the cavalryman's long arm, he edged away to the farther side of the
doorway. Experience had accustomed the ancient trader to despots, but in
this cheery youngster of a Gringo the regal title was not clear, which
simply made tyranny the more irksome. The Gringo was the veriest
usurper. He did not justify his sway by the least ferocity. He never
uttered a threat. Where, then, was his right to the sceptre he wielded
so nonchalantly? Were there only some tangible jeopardy to his pelt,
Murguía would have been more resigned. But his latest autocrat was only
matter-of-fact, blithely and aggravatingly matter-of-fact.
By every rule governing man's attitude toward man, the Señor Don should
have been the bully, and the youngster the cringing sycophant. For since
their very odd meeting two weeks before, the tyrant had been in the
power of the tyrannized. It began on Murguía's own boat, where Murguía
was absolute. Any time after leaving Mobile he had merely to follow his
inclinations and order the fellow thrown overboard. Yet it was the
soldier boy who had assumed the ascendancy, and it could not have been
more natural were the boat's owner a scullion and the intruder an
admiral.
"And why _don't_ we start to-night?" the complacent usurper
demanded in that plaintive drawl which so irritated the other. "You went
for your passports, didn't you get 'em?"
"Si--si, señor."
"Good! Then to-night it is, eh?--Can't you speak out, _my_
gracious!"
"_You_ might go to-night," the trader suggested timidly.
"Alone?--N-o, parting isn't the sweet sorrow it's cracked up to be.
Besides, I don't know the roads, but of course that's nothing to losing
a jovial old mate like you, Murgie."
Don Anastasio smirked at the pleasantry. "But _I_ can't go
to-night, señor. I--I have to see--someone--first."
The trooper betrayed the least impatience. "Now look here--usurer,
viper, blanketed thief, honorable sir, you _know_ I'm in a hurry!"
That his haste could be any concern of Murguía's was preposterous, and
Murguía would have liked nothing better than to tell him so. But he did
not, and suffered inwardly because somehow he could not. He harbored a
dim but dreadful picture of what might happen should the amiable
cavalryman actually lose his temper. Loss of patience had menace enough,
though the Southerner had not stirred from his lazy posture in the
doorway nor overlooked a single contented puff from the Missouri
meerschaum.
"I'm sorry," Don Anastasio paid out the hard-found words through his
teeth, "but possibly we can leave to-morrow. Will, will that suit Your
Mercy, Señor Coronel?"
"Oh perhaps. Anyhow, don't go to forgetting, now, that I'm in a hurry."
Don Anastasio breathed easier, and he even grew so bold as to recall a
certain suspicion he had entertained. "Your errand down here must be of
considerable importance, Señor Coronel?" he ventured.
"There you are again--crawling again." It was evident that the trooper's
normal condition was a great, hearty, calm good humor.
But the Mexican's shriveled features grew sharper and his moist eyes
more prying. His suspicion had tormented him ever since fate had thrown
the Confederate in his way. This had happened one stormy night at
Mobile. The night in question was pitch dark. The tide was favorable,
too, but a norther was blowing, the very same norther that had turned
the _Impératrice Eugénie_ off her course. Murguía's skipper had
chosen the hour of midnight for running the Federal blockade outside,
and he had already given the order to cast off, when a horseman in a
cape overcoat rode to the edge of the wharf.
"Wait there!" the horseman trumpeted through his hand.
It was the first word Murguía had ever heard from his future tyrant, and
even then the cool tone of authority nettled him. But he reflected that
here might be a passenger, and a passenger through the blockade usually
meant five hundred dollars in gold. He ordered the plank held for a
moment.
"They tell me--whoa, Demijohn!--you are going to Tampico?" hallooed the
same voice.
"Yes," Murguía answered, and was going to name his price, when without
more ado the cavalier rode across, dismounted on the deck, and tossed
his bridle to the first sailor.
"Ca-rai!" sneered the astonished Mexican, "one would think you'd just
reached your own barnyard, señor."
"My own barnyard?" echoed the stranger bitterly. "I haven't seen my own
barnyard, or anything that is mine, during these four years past. But
you were about to start?"
"Not so fast, señor. Fare in advance, seven hundred dollars." Murguía
looked for the haggling to come next, but somehow the sniff he heard was
not promising.
"Usurer, viper, blanketed thief, benevolent old rascal," the trooper
enumerated as courteously as "Señor Don" or "Your Mercy," "you don't
surprise me a bit, not when you charge us three thousand dollars gold
for freight on a trunk of quinine!"
"G-g-get back on your horse! G-get off this boat!"
But the intruder calmly drew off his great coat, and Murguía saw the
butts of pistols at his waist. Yet they had no reference to the removal
of the cape. The latter was a simple act of making oneself at home.
"I reckon," said the newcomer cheerily, "there's no question of fare.
Here, I've got a pass."
By a lantern Murguía read the paper handed him. It was signed:
"Jefferson Davis, President C. S. A." Therein Mr. Anastasio Murguía or
any other blockade runner was required on demand of the bearer, Lieut.
Col. Jno. D. Driscoll, to transport the said Driscoll to that part
outside the Confederacy which might happen to be the blockade runner's
destination.
The peevish old man scowled, hesitated. He read the order again,
hesitated again, and at last handed it back, his mind made up.
"Have the goodness, señor, to remove yourself from my boat."
But the lieutenant colonel placidly inquired, "Carry any government
cotton this trip? No, I know you don't. Then you're in debt to the
government? Correct. So I reckon you'll carry me in place of the
cotton."
The demand was just. For their golden privileges the blockade runners
took a portion of their cargo on government account. But Murguía knew
that the army of Northern Virginia must surrender soon. The Confederacy
was really at an end, and this would be his last trip. Why, then, pay a
dying creditor?
"The favor, señor! Or must I have you kicked off?"
The señor, however, with his charger behind him, was foraging over the
deck to find a stall, and in a fury Murguía plucked at his sleeve. But
Driscoll wheeled of his own accord to inquire about horse
accommodations, and then the Mexican wondered in his timid soul at his
own boldness. It loomed before him as unutterably more preposterous than
the lone wanderer's preposterous act of taking possession single handed.
Yet the lone wanderer was only gazing down on him very benignly. But
what experience of violent life, of cool dealing in death, did poor Don
Anastasio behold on those youthful features! In a panic he realized
certain vital things. To evade his debt to a government that could never
claim it was very seductive and business-like. But there were the
Confederate batteries on the wharf, and a line of torpedoes across the
entrance to the bay. There were the Federal cannon of Fort Morgan, just
beyond. His passenger, if rejected, had only to give the word, and there
would be some right eager shooting. And as the Southerners shot, in
their present mood, they would remember various matters. They would
remember the treasure he had wrung from their distress; the cotton
bought for ten cents and sold abroad for a dollar; the nitre, the
gunpowder, the clothing and medicines, rated so mercilessly dear; the
profits boosted a thousand per cent., though an army was starving.
And yet Murguía could not lift his soul from the few hundred dollars of
passage money. He almost had his man by the sleeve again. But no, there
were four hundred odd bales on board. There was _La Luz_, his fleet
£20,000 Clyde-built side-wheeler, bought out of the proceeds of a single
former trip. Even if torpedoes and cannon missed, the Fort and
blockaders outside would be thankful for the alarm, and make sure of
him. A few hundred dollars was an amount, but the benignity in
Driscoll's whimsical brown eyes meant a great deal more, such for
instance, as cotton and steamer and Don Anastasio plunging to the bottom
of the bay.
"Oh I s'y, sir," interrupted a voice in vigorous cockney, "this 'ere
tide ain't in the 'abit o' waitin'. If we go to-night, we go this
minute, sir!" It was the skipper, and the skipper's ultimatum.
"W'y yes," drawled the lieutenant colonel, "let's be marching. I forgot
to tell you, I'm in a hurry. Come on, Demijohn," and man and horse went
in search of beds.
Murguía looked venomous, but the plank was drawn on board.
CHAPTER V
THE STORM CENTRE
"God forbid I should be so bold as to press to heaven in my
young days."
--_Titus Andronicus._
The feathering buckets of the paddle wheels began to turn; and _La
Luz_, long, low, narrow, and a racer, moved noiselessly out into the
bay. A few yards only, and the loungers on the wharf could neither see
nor hear her. Except for the muffled binnacle light, there was neither a
ray nor a spark. The anthracite gave almost no smoke. The hull, hardly
three feet above water amidships, was "Union color," and invisible at
night. The waves slipped over her like oil, without the sound of a
splash, almost without breaking. She glided along more and more swiftly.
The silent engines betrayed no hint of their power, though breathing a
force to drive a vessel five times as large.
There were many entrances to the bay, and Murguía had had his steamer
built of light draft especially, to profit by any outlet offering least
danger from the vigilant patrol outside. The skipper had already chosen
his course. Because of the gale, he calculated that the blockaders would
get a considerable offing, lest they flounder mid the shoal waters
inshore. He knew too, even if it were not so dark, that a long, foamy
line of surf curtained the bay from any watchful eye on the open sea. By
the time she reached the beach channels, _La Luz_ had full speed
on. Then, knifing the higher and higher waves, she made a dash for it.
For a slender steamer, and in such weather, the risk was desperate. The
skipper hoped that the blockaders would never credit him with quite the
insanity of it. He held the wheel himself, while beside him his
keenest-sighted quartermaster stood guard with a glass. The agitated
owner was there also, huddled in his black shawl, but the binoculars
glued to his eyes trembled so that he could hardly have seen a
full-rigged armada in broad daylight.
Suddenly the quartermaster touched the skipper's arm under the shrouded
binnacle. "I s'y sir," he whispered excitedly, "they're--_there!_
There, anchored at the inshore station, just off the bar! My eye, but
hain't they beastly idiots? They'll smash to pieces."
The skipper looked and Murguía tried to look. But they saw nothing.
Except for the booming of the surf, they might have been on a landless
sea, alone in the black night. Don Anastasio was shaking at such a rate
that his two companions in the dark wheelhouse were conscious of it. He
cursed the quartermaster for a pessimist. The skipper, though, was brave
enough to believe.
"We're expected, that's gospel," he muttered. But he did not change his
course, for he knew that on his other side there was a second fleet,
tugging at drift leads off the entrance to the main ship channel. It was
near hopeless, but he meant to dart between the two.
"Now for a reception as 'ull touch us to the quick, as Loo-ee Sixteenth
said----" The skipper cut himself short. "Aye, aye, sir," he cried,
"they've spied us!"
"They haven't!" groaned Murguía. "How could they?"
"'T'aint important now, sir, how they could. There might be a gleam in
our wake. But any'ow they 'ave."
They had indeed. Less than a mile to port there suddenly appeared two
red lights, two sullen eyeballs of fire. Then, a rocket cleft the
darkness, its slant proclaiming the fugitive's course. Hurriedly the
_Luz's_ quartermaster sent up a rocket also, but in the opposite
direction. It was useless. A third rocket from the signaling blockader
contradicted him.
"We're bein' chased," announced the skipper. "One of 'em 'as slipped her
chain and got off."
As _La Luz_ had gained the open, the skipper let his quartermaster
take the wheel. "'Old her to the wind, lad," he cautioned. "A beam sea
'ud swamp us." Next he whistled down to the engine room. They were to
stoke with turpentine and cotton. At once Murguía began to fidget. "It,
it will make smoke," he whined.
"An' steam. We're seen a'ready, ain't we, sir?"
"But it costs more."
"Not if it clears us. Soft coal 'ud seem bloomin' expensive, sir, if we
got over'auled."
The race was on. In smooth water it would scarcely have been one. But
the boiling fury cut knots from the steamer's speed, while the Federals
sent after her only their sailing vessels, which with all canvas spread
bent low to the chase. They had, however, used up time to unreef; and
with the terrific rolling they would not dare cast loose a gun.
When morning dawned thickly behind the leaden sky, the three men in the
wheelhouse made out a top-gallant sail against the horizon. "By noon,"
said the skipper, "the beggars 'ull 'ave us."
He was a small pert man, was the skipper, with a sharp face, an edge to
his voice, and two little points of eyes that glowed. Salt water had not
drenched his dry cockney speech, and he was a gamin of the sea and as
keen to its gammon ways as in boyhood he had been to those of pubs
around the old Bow Bells.
Don Anastasio heard the verdict with a shudder. Given the nature of the
man, his mortal fear was the dreadfullest torture that could be devised.
The game little cockney peered into his distorted face, and wondered.
Never was there a more pitiful coward, and yet the craven had passed
through the same agony full twenty times during the last few years.
Murguía knew nothing of the noble motives which make a man stronger than
terror, but he did know a miser's passion. He begrudged even the
costlier fuel that was their hope of safety.
"Your non-payin' guest, sir," said the skipper, pointing downward.
"'Spose he wants to buy them 'ere smokestacks?"
The trooper had appeared on deck. He was clinging to a cleat in the rail
with a landsman's awkwardness and with the cunning object of proving to
the ship that he wasn't to be surprised off his feet another time. He
swayed grandly, generously, for'ard and aft, like a metronome set at a
large, sweeping rhythm. Every billow shot a flood from stern to bow, and
swished past his boots, but he was heedless of that. His head was thrown
back, a head of stubborn black curling tufts, and he seemed absorbed in
the _Luz's_ two funnels. They gave out little smoke now, for with
daylight the skipper had changed to anthracite again, in the forlorn
hope of hiding their trail. But it had lessened their steam pressure,
and in a short time, the skipper feared, the pursuer would make them
out, hull and all.
A moment later the passenger climbed into the wheelhouse. "Look
here--Mur--Murgie," he said, "for a seven-hundred-dollar rate that was
a toler'ble unsteady cabin I had last night; restless, sort of. It's
mighty curious, but something's been acting up inside of me, and I can't
seem to make out _what_ it is!" As he spoke, he glanced inquiringly
from owner to skipper. He might have been another Panurge envying the
planter of cabbages who had one foot on solid earth and the other not
far away. He looked pale.
It afforded Don Anastasio little satisfaction to find a young man not
more than twenty-two or three. Without his great coat the Southerner
proved lithe rather than stocky. There was even an elusive angular
effect to him. Yet the night before he had looked as wide and imposing
as the general of an army. His cheeks were smooth, but they were tight
and hard and brown from the weathering of sun and blizzard. His features
had that decisive cleanliness of line which makes for strong beauty in a
man. Evidently nature had molded them boyishly soft and refined at
first, but in the hardening of life, of a life such as his, they had
become rugged. Most of all, the face was unmistakably American. The
large mouth had that dry, whimsical set, and that sensitiveness to
twitching at the corners, which foretells a smile. The brown eyes
sparkled quietly, and contour and expression generally were those which
one may find on a Missourian, or a Texan, or on a man from Montana, or
even on a New Yorker born; but never, anywhere, except on an American.
Whatever is said to the contrary, the new Western race in its fusing of
many old ones has certainly produced not one but several peculiarly
American types, and Driscoll's was American. It was most so because it
had humor, virility, and the optimism that drives back despair and holds
forth hope for all races of men.
Murguía was right, his passenger seemed a boy. But war and four years of
hardest riding had meant more of age than lagging peace could ever hold.
Sometimes there flitted across the lad's face a vague melancholy, but
being all things rather than self-inspecting, he could never quite
locate the trouble, and would shake himself out of it with a sort of
comical wonder. Bitterness had even touched him the night before, as it
did many another Southerner on the eve of the Surrender. Yet the boy
part in him made such moods rare, and only passing at their worst. On
the other hand the same boy-part gave a vigor and a lustre to his
occupation, though that occupation was--fighting. He knew no other, and
in that the young animal worked off excess of animal life with a
refreshing gusto. Even his comrades, of desperado stripe that they were,
had dubbed him the Storm Centre. And so he was, in every tempest of
arms. The very joy of living--in killing, alas!--always flung him true
to the centre. But once there, he was like a calm and busy workman, and
had as little self consciousness of the thing--of the gallantry and the
heroism--as the prosiest blacksmith. He had grown into a man of
dangerous fibre, but he was less aware of it than of his muscles.
[Illustration: "JOHN DINWIDDIE DRISCOLL--THE MISSOURIAN"
"His cheeks were smooth, but they were tight and hard and brown from
the weathering of sun and blizzard"]
Various items on the _Luz_ struck the trooper as amusing. There
was the incongruity of his seven-hundred-dollar cabin, the secession of
his stomach from the tranquillity of the federal body organic, and
finally, this running away from somebody. But he quickly perceived that
the last was serious enough. The skipper lowered his glasses, and shook
his perky head a number of times. "_Who_ said life was all beer and
skittles?" he demanded defiantly, and glared at Driscoll as though
_he_ had. But getting no answer, he seemed mollified, as though
this proved that the man who _had_ said it was an imbecile.
Murguía, by the way, had come to hate no truth more soulfully than the
palpable shortcoming of life in the matter of beer and skittles. And now
it was borne in upon him again, for the skipper announced, definitely
and with an oath, that they'd have to begin throwing the cargo
overboard.
Poor Don Anastasio behaved like a man insane. He wrung his hands. He
protested stoutly, then incoherently. He whined. He glared vengefully at
the dread sail on the horizon, and then he shrank from it, as from a
flaming sword. And as it grew larger, his eyeballs rounded and dried
into smaller discs. But at once he would remember his darling cotton
that must go to the waves, and the beady eyes swam again in moisture,
like greenish peas in a sickly broth. Avarice and terror in discord
played on the creature as the gale through the whimpering cordage.
"No 'elp for it, sir," said the skipper, bridling like a bantam. "Didn't
I try to save _my_ cargo, off Savannah, and didn't I lose my sloop
to boot? Didn't I now, sir?--Poor old girl, mebby she's our chaser out
'ere this very minute."
"Try--try more turpentine," said Murguía weakly.
"Yes, or salt bacon, sir, or cognac, or the woodwork, or any blarsted
thing I see fit, sir!" The little skipper hit out each item with a step
downward to the deck, and five minutes later Murguía groaned, for bale
after bale came tumbling out of the hold. Then over they began to go,
the first, the second, the third, and another, and another, and after
each went a moan from Anastasio. He leaned through the window to see one
tossing in the waves, then suffered a next pang to see the next follow
after. It was an excruciating cumulus of grief. The trooper regarded him
quizzically. Destruction of merely worldly goods had become routine for
him. He returned to his contemplation of the two funnels.
The skipper came back, dripping with pray. "The wind's changin'," he
said, "and that'll beat down the sea some."
"Reckon they'll get us?" Driscoll asked.
Murguía took the query as an aggravation of woe, and he turned
wrathfully on the trooper. "Don't you see we're busy?"
"I see you're very damn sullen, _gra_-cious me!--Reckon they will,
captain?"
"We'll be eatin' a United States of America supper, chained, sir."
"Now look here," said Driscoll plaintively, "_I_ don't want to get
caught."
"But I hope as you'll bide with us, sir?"
"Still, I was just thinking--now that smoke----"
"And I'm a thinkin' you don't see much smoke. We're keepin' out o' sight
as long as God'll let us."
"But, Captain, why not smoke up--big? Just wait now--this ain't any of
my regiment, I know that--but listen a minute anyway. Well, once or
twice when we were in a fix, in camp, say, and we knew more visitors
were coming than was convenient, w'y, we'd just light the campfires so
they would smoke, and then--meantime--we'd light out too. Old Indian
trick, you know."
The skipper was first impatient. But as that did no good, he cocked
himself for a laugh. Then his mouth puckered to a brisk attention, and
at the last word he jumped to his feet. "Damme!" he said, and went
thumping down the steps again. He splashed through the water on deck,
minding the stiff wind not at all, and dived into the engine-room.
"Soft coal!" gasped Murguía with relief.
It was pouring from the stacks in dense black clouds.
The captain returned. "We'll try to save the rest o' that 'ere cotton,
sir," he said.
He looked out at the trembling smoke that betrayed their course so
rashly, and from there back to the pursuer on the horizon. He waited a
little longer, carefully calculating; then sent an order down the tube
to the engineer. The dampers were shut off, and the fuel was changed to
anthracite. Soon the smoke went down, and a hazy invisible stream puffed
from the funnels instead. The _Luz_ swung at right angles to her
former course. The paddles threshed hopefully, and on she sped, leaving
no track. The skipper gazed back at the lowering line, which ended
abruptly on their port and trailed off toward the horizon with a
telegraphy of deceit for the distant sail.
"You soldiers, colonel," he announced, "don't 'ave no monopoly on tricks
and gammon, _I'm_ a thinkin'. But I s'y, w'at if you and me go down
to my cabin and have a _noggin_?"
* * * * *
Thus _La Luz_ ran her last blockade, and came safely into port. She
reached Tampico some two days before the _Impératrice Eugénie_.
Whereupon Din Driscoll, as he was called anywhere off the muster roll,
informed Don Anastasio that he would continue with him on into the
interior. And as seen already, Murguía humbly excused delay, though his
guest was not invited, not wanted, and cordially hated besides. That
meek smirk of Don Anastasio's was the absurdest thing in all psychology.
Yet what perhaps aggravated the old man most was curiosity. He craved to
know the errand of his young despot. In the doorway of the Tampico mesón
he still hovered near, and ventured more questions.
"How was it that, that _you_ happened to be sent, señor?" he asked.
"Well now," observed the trooper, "there you go figuring it out that I
was sent at all."
"It must have been--uh, because you know Spanish. Are you a--a Texan,
Señor Coronel?"
"They raised me in Missouri," said the colonel. "But I learned to talk
Pan-American some on the Santa Fé trail. We had wagon trains out of
Kansas City when I was a good sight younger."
"I thought," said the old man suspiciously, "that perhaps you learned it
with Slaughter's army, along the Rio Grande. Slaughter, he's near
Brownsville yet, isn't he?"
"Is he?"
"With about twenty-five thousand men?"
"Lord, I've clean forgot, not having counted 'em lately."
"Where did you come from then, when you came to Mobile?"
"W'y, as I remember, from Sand Spring, Missouri, near the Arkansas
line."
A more obscure crossroads may not exist anywhere, but its bare mention
had a curious effect on the prying Don Anastasio. In the instant he
seemed to cringe before his late passenger.
"Then you--Your Mercy," he exclaimed, "belongs to Shelby's Brigade?"
The Missourian nodded curtly. His questioner was extraordinarily well
informed.
"And, and how many men has Shelby at Sand Spring?"
"Oh, millions. At least millions don't appear to stop 'em any."
"But señor, how, how many Confederates are there altogether west of the
Mississippi?"
Driscoll, though, had had enough. "Look here Murgie," he said, "if you
keep on crawling, you'll crawl up on a mongoose one of these days, and
_those_ things have teeth."
He might have gone further into natural history, but a sudden commotion
down the street interrupted. "It's a race!" he cried. "No--Lordsake, if
they ain't fighting!"
He drew off his coat, took the pipe from his mouth, and shoved it into
his hip pocket, all with the air of a man who has smoked enough and must
be getting to work. His brown eyes quickened. It was akin to the
satisfaction a merchant feels who scents an unexpected order. He was
ready to deliver the goods instantly. His heavy boots went clattering
and his great spurs jangling, and soon he was stooping over two men
rolling in the dust. But he straightened and thrust his hands into his
pockets. He was disappointed. The unexpected order was a hoax. The
combatants were one to one, and he could not fairly enter into
competition. Then an unaccustomed method for getting into the bidding
occurred to him. He might be peacemaker. He leaned over again, to
separate them. Each long-fingered hand reached for a collar. Yet even as
he caught hold one of his prizes went limp in his grasp. He pulled out
the survivor, who proved to be a ragged Mexican with a knife. The other
was a French sailor. Driscoll shook the native angrily, whereupon the
little demon swung the knife with vicious intent. But Driscoll held him
at arm's length, and the sweeps fell short, to the amazement and rage of
his captive.
"You miserable little chocolate-hided galoot, why couldn't you wait for
me?"
But the chocolate-hided only squirmed to get away. Driscoll glanced up
the street whence the two had come. At the next corner, before a café,
he saw things more promising. A ranchero with a drawn revolver was
holding off a young officer in sky-blue uniform, while around them a
swarm of natives and ten or eleven sailors were circling uneasily, as if
waiting for some sign to begin hostilities. The joy of battle dilated
the trooper's nostrils.
"W'y, here I've been wasting time on a smaller edition."
So saying, he flung aside his prisoner; and in another minute he was the
centre of the main affair, and having an excellent time.
CHAPTER VI
A BRUISING OF ARMS FOR JACQUELINE
"Then John bent up his long bende-bowe,
And fetteled him to shoote."
--_Robin Hood._
Into the crowd before the café, the Storm Centre pushed the argument of
shoulders, and quickly gained for himself the place which his pseudonym
indicated. Then he stopped, and looked puzzled. Which side to take? The
French, being outnumbered, offered the larger contract.
"What's the row?" Driscoll inquired of Ney. But he was ignored. "Might
answer," he suggested insidiously, "for it's only a toss-up anyhow which
way I enlist. Look here, Sky-Blue, if you don't understand Spanish, just
say so, and tell me why you don't start the game."
Ney shoved him aside impatiently, but he calmly stepped back again.
"Come now," he argued plaintively, "let me in, don't be selfish?
But--goodness gracious, man, why don't you draw your gun?"
"Because, my good fellow, I haven't any."
The mystery cleared at once, for now Driscoll understood the strategic
outlay. Its key was Fra Diavolo, with a pistol at Ney's head, and quite
statuesque the romantic Mexican looked. But out of the tail of his eye
Fra Diavolo noted the American, at first with contemptuous amusement
only. Then, as though such had been the situation from the start, he
grew aware of an ugly black muzzle under his chin. For very safety he
froze rigid, and dared not turn his own weapon from Ney to his new
aggressor. But he wondered how the ugly black muzzle came there. He had
not seen the American move. But for those who did see, the action seemed
deliberate, with no hint of the actual panther-like turn of the wrist
from the waist outward.
With his left hand Driscoll next drew forth the second of the brace, and
held it out to Ney in his palm. The Chasseur seized the weapon joyfully.
He straightened as the humiliation of a disarmed soldier fell from him.
But at once his face clouded, and with an oath he handed back the
navy-six.
"W'y, what's the matter?" asked Driscoll.
"You are trifling, man. That thing has no trigger."
Much as an artisan would explain the peculiarities of a favorite tool,
Driscoll said, "Now look here, you strip it--this way--so."
And as he explained, he illustrated. He raised the hammer under his
thumb, he released it on the cartridge, and Fra Diavolo's sombrero flew
off.
Fra Diavolo threw up his hand involuntarily, and there was a second
report. Fra Diavolo's pistol twisted out of his grasp. The brace of
navies had not gone higher than the American's waist.
"So," Driscoll concluded.
At the same moment one of the sailors, a bullet-headed lad of Normandy,
was observed to do a very peculiar thing. Jumping in front of Fra
Diavolo he drew up one knee, for all the world like a dancer who meant
then and there to cut a pigeon's wing. His foot described a circle under
the knee, then the performer turned partly round, and as a lightning
bolt his leg straightened out full against Fra Diavolo's stomach. The
ranchero dropped like a bag of sand, except that he groaned. Ney
captured the fallen pistol. A musket blazed, and a sailor cursed. And
forthwith the maelstrom began. It went swirling round, with weird
contortions and murderous eddies, but always its seething vortex was the
lone trooper.
Luckily, firearms were out of the question where both sides were so
mixed together. But Mexicans and sailors plied their knives instead, so
that there was much soppy red spreading over the yellowish white of
shirts, and over the blue of jackets. The pigeon-wing diversion, called
the savate, also played its bizarre rôle, for wherever a Frenchman found
space for the straightening out of a leg, in that instant a little
native shot from him as a cat from the toe of a boot. Fra Diavolo was
deposited flat on his back each time he tried to rise, till the sole of
a foot took on more terror than a cannon's mouth. As for Michel Ney, he
was beautiful and gallant, now that what he had to do came without
thinking. He achieved things splendidly with the butt of his enemy's
revolver, and exhorted his men the while to the old, brilliant daring of
Frenchmen.
The Storm Centre, though, was merely workmanlike. He put away the
six-shooters, and strove barehanded with joy and vigor, which was
delightful; yet so systematic, that it was anything rather than romance.
It might have been geometry, in that a foe is safer horizontal than
perpendicular, and the theorem he applied industriously, with simple
faith and earnest fists.
Yet, all told, it was a highly successful affair. Din Driscoll objected
to the brevity, but that could hardly be altered for his sake. The
little demons of Mexicans crawled from the outskirts of the mess, here
one, there two or three, and now many, limping and nursing heads, and
rubbing themselves dubiously, with hideous grimaces.
Suddenly the café door opened, and Jacqueline emerged, tripping lightly.
Din Driscoll was filling his cob pipe, but he paused with a finger over
the bowl. "If there isn't a woman in it!" he muttered. He felt imposed
upon. The game was a man's game, and now its flavor was gone.
Jacqueline had seen nothing of the fray, but now she saw Fra Diavolo's
Contra Guerrillas skulking away and the sardonic captain himself fuming
in ignoble soreness on his back. "Indeed," with fine scorn she demanded
of Ney, "and how did you manage it?"
"Looks like the wrong side won out," mused Driscoll, feeling a little
uncomfortable.
"Permit me to congratulate you--sergeant," she went on. "It's a good
beginning for promotion. If you only knew how hard Maximilian tries to
win over these natives, and here the very first thing you--Hélas! poor
Prince Max!"
Driscoll caught one word from her French. "What's that about
Maximilian?" he interrupted. He had to repeat, and then Jacqueline only
glanced at him over her shoulder. Some mule driver, she imagined, and
turned again to the abashed Chasseur.
But the pseudo mule driver moved squarely in front of her. He was
embarrassed and respectful, but determined. Jacqueline lifted her brows.
"My good man, this is effrontery!" But her good man did not quail. She
noticed him a little then. He was ruddy and clean, with a stubble growth
on his jaw. Since the civilization of Mobile, Lieutenant Colonel Jno. D.
Driscoll had backslided into his old campaign ease. His first genuine
stiff beard had found him sabre in hand, so that his knowledge of
cutting instruments and of arched brows was limited. He said that he
would be much obliged to have his question answered. Whereat Jacqueline
thought, by her faith, "What a round, wholesome voice these rustics
sometimes have!" The one she heard possessed the full rich quality of an
Irishman's brogue, with the brogue worn off.
"You know Spanish, do you not, señorita?"
"Mais--why, better than I thought," she returned in English; and in
English that was piquant because it could not help being just the least
bit French as well. "Much better--because, I comprehend even yours,
sir."
"Con-_grat_-ulate you," Driscoll returned. "But what's this about
Maximilian?"
An eagerness in his manner caught her attention. But she answered with
her old irony. "His Imperial Majesty seems to concern you profoundly,
monsieur?"
"H'm'm--oh no! Only it's curious how he gets mixed up in this shindy of
ours."
"If--if you are asking about Maximilian, señor," a heavy voice began.
Fra Diavolo at least was not indifferent to the American's questioning,
and now he explained that the lady was the Marquesa d'Aumerle, and that
she was on her way from Paris to the Mexican court. But a storm having
brought her to Tampico, she wished to finish her journey overland. He,
the Capitan Morel of His Majesty's Contra Guerrillas, had offered her
escort for the trip. But the French caballero had presumed to force her
to continue by water.
"By water?" Driscoll repeated, glaring at Ney. "That poor little
girl!--And make her sick again!"
Jacqueline's chin tilted. "Ma foi, monsieur, I was not sick."
Driscoll noted her fragile dainty person, and recalling his own
experience, had grave doubts about the consistency of Nature. But this
was apart. There was still the mystery of his having blundered into a
business that somehow concerned the Emperor of Mexico. And it was a
matter that must be set right.
"You say you are an officer," he demanded of the ranchero, "but your
Greaser clothes, that's not a uniform?"
Uniforms were not necessarily a part of the contra-guerrilla service,
said the Mexican; and besides, there might be reasons for a disguise.
But as to his own identity, he reproduced the order signed by Colonel
Dupin.
"Correct," said Driscoll, and handed back the paper.
"Now then," he added to Ney, "what do you say for yourself?"
Unconsciously the French soldier replied as to a superior officer. "I've
just been transferred to the service of His Excellency, Marshal Bazaine,
in the City of Mexico, and am on my way there now."
"You are in the French service?"
"Of course I am."
"Your rank?"
"Sergeant."
Here, in a caprice of kind heart, as well as of mischief, Jacqueline
interposed. "Your sergeant, Monsieur the American, is the Duke of
Elchingen." But she might have called Ney a genus homo, for all the
impression it made.
"Too bad, sergeant," said Driscoll, "but a captain ranks first, you
know, and--well, I reckon I'll have to change sides. I know it's tough,"
and his brow knitted with droll perplexity, "but I'm afraid we'll just
have to do this thing all over again, unless--well, unless you give in,
sergeant."
Jacqueline had been waxing more and more agog, and her boot had tapped
impatiently. Now she gave way, and declared that it was too much. What,
she demanded, had monsieur to do with the matter in the first place?
Driscoll took off his slouch hat and ran his fingers through his hair to
grope for an answer. It had never been brought to him before that
fighting might be a private preserve. But his face cleared straightway.
In this second skirmish, due momentarily, he would be a legitimate
belligerent and not a trespasser, because since he had stumbled amuck of
Maximilian's authority, another joust was needed to correct the first.
It all depended on whether Miss--Miss--if the señorita--still wished to
go by land.
"If monsieur will have the condescension," returned Jacqueline.
Then out came the brace of navies once more, as naturally as the order
book of the grocer's clerk on your back porch. Involuntarily Ney reached
for his cap.
"Now captain," said Driscoll.
Fra Diavolo took the cue instantly. "A-i, mis muchachos!" he called, and
the little demons came hurrying back, like a damned host with a new hope
of heaven.
If there were any police about, or had been, they were mysteriously
indifferent. But Jacqueline did just as well. No one had thought to put
her back in the café, and she promptly took a hand in the man's game.
"Michel Ney," she commanded, "do you hear me; lower that pistol!"
"You, you wish me to surrender, mademoiselle?"
"You know I don't! If anyone even asks it, I will go back to the ship
with you, at once."
"But I, I don't understand."
"You understand that I want your escort overland. Is it gallant, then,
to disappoint me by getting yourself killed?"
"But all your trunks are on the ship."
Jacqueline turned to her Fra Diavolo. He could answer that? To be sure
he could, and he was honored. He suggested, with her permission, that
she spend the night on shore, she and her maid, since the café was also
a hotel. Meantime, the sailors could bring what she needed from the
boat.
As he listened, Ney's slow thoughts came to a focus. And when Jacqueline
turned to him again, he gave way graciously, which brought on him a
sharp scrutiny from the ranchero. However, the truce between the two
antagonists was patched up with a readiness on both sides. Ney restored
to Fra Diavolo his pistol, and had his own weapons back in exchange.
Next he took the ship's steward aside, apparently to instruct him about
bringing the trunk. "And steward," he whispered, "don't forget to make
it urgent. The skipper must land all the troops on board at once." He
decided that meantime he would stroll up to the fort on his own account,
and bring down more aid from there.
"Now then," reflected the beaming young Gaul, "our _spirituelle_
little marquise will find that one may have wits, and not read her dense
old poets, either."
He opened the café door for her and both joined the maid Berthe, who was
still clinging to sanctuary inside.
The American lieutenant-colonel and the Mexican capitan looked at one
another. They felt deserted. Fra Diavolo's teeth bared. "Ai, que mal
educados," he observed. "They're ill-bred, I say. They kick a gentleman
in the stomach--in the stomach, señor!"
Driscoll turned to go. It was enough of satisfaction to reflect that, if
any mention of the affair reached Maximilian, his own part therein would
not injure his errand to Mexico. As for the rest, Mexicans and French
could go their own ways--he had amused himself. "Well, adios, captain,"
he said, and swung on his heel.
"Wait! Which direction, señor?"
"To this mesón here, around the corner."
"If Your Mercy is not in a hurry----"
Driscoll nodded, and the capitan stopped to say a few words to two of
his vagabonds. One of these immediately hurried off in the direction of
the river. The other was still loafing outside the café when his chief
rejoined Driscoll.
"Looks like you were interested in His Resplendent Majesty," Fra Diavolo
began with weighty lightsomeness. "Mustn't hurt his feelings, eh,
caballero?"
Driscoll laughed easily, "It was all on the girl's account," he said.
The ranchero glanced at him quickly, sideways, a dark look of suspicion.
"On her account, señor, not Maximilian's?" he repeated. "Dios mio,
caballero, I'll wager you have forgotten her already." Which, to tell
the truth, was fairly exact.
At the mesón Don Anastasio regarded the American with much more respect
to see him returning in such company. But to Fra Diavolo he addressed
himself in his thin obsequious voice, "You see I am waiting, as you
wished. But on my, my daughter's account, I----"
"So, captain," Driscoll interrupted, "you're the one that's holding back
Murgie! Just tell him, Murgie, that I am in a rush."
Fra Diavolo smiled and bade his American have patience, for he quite
believed that the Señor Murguía would be starting in the morning.
"Si señor," he went on in a different tone, when Driscoll had left him
alone with the trader, "you set out to-morrow, and you are to have two
extra horses ready. But for whom, do you suppose? Bien, they are for La
Señorita Jacqueline and her maid."
Murguía's countenance changed strangely, a most inexplicable contortion.
His little rat eyes focused on the ranchero, and he drew back in a sort
of fear. Convoy her whom people called Jacqueline through the lawless
Huasteca, at the bidding of this man! "No, no, no!" he cried, and
shuddered too.
Trying to read a meaning behind the capitan's dark scowl, he knew only
too well the meaning that was there. He moaned at the thought.
Maximiliano would have him shot, or burned, or tortured. He would lose
his ranch, his cotton mill. He would be poor. It was vague, what would
happen, but it was horrible, horrible!
"Hush, you fool!" growled Fra Diavolo. "The entire mesón will hear you,
including that Gringo."
"That Gringo? He, he is one of your friends?"
"Friend! For Dios, he nearly ruined my little plans for Jacqueline.
Listen, he has business of some kind with Maximiliano."
"Yes, yes. And there's a--a mystery in his business."
"What do you mean?"
"If I knew, would it be a mystery?"
"Who is he?"
"He won't tell. I only know that he is a Confederate officer."
"A Confederate officer?" The capitan whistled low and softly. "Come to
the Plaza, there you can tell me what you think."
And in the solitude of the Plaza they planned according to their
suspicions.
CHAPTER VII
SWORDSMANSHIP IN THE DARK
"Cry 'holla' to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets unseasonably."
--_As You Like It._
"Strange there's no motion," thought Jacqueline the next morning,
rubbing her eyes. "Why, what ails the old boat, I wonder?" Then she
remembered. She was in the Tampico hotel which called itself a café, and
the landlord's wife was knocking on her door and calling "Niñ-a, niñ-a"
with a plaintive stress on the first syllable. The word means girl, and
oddly enough, is often used by a Mexican servant to address her
mistress.
"I'm not a n-e-e-n-ya," Jacqueline assured her drowsily, "and if I were,
madame, why make a fête out of it this way in the middle of the night?"
"Niñ-a," the unctuous nasal rose higher, "if Your Mercy goes with Don
Anastasio, she must hurry. It is late. It is four o'clock, niña."
"Four o'clock--late?" gasped the luxurious little marquise. "And how
much difference, exactly, would your four o'clocks make on the planet
Mars, my good woman?"
"But niña, there is Don Anastasio, he is ready to start."
"And who is Don Anastasio, pray?"
"The trader, niña, at the mesón. He is to take Your Mercy to Valles, as
Don--as the Capitan Morel told Your Mercy yesterday."
"The Capitan Morel, _pardi!_ Faith, if any man had told me it meant
rising at any such unholy hour. Oh well, I suppose it is the hour for
larks, too."
And sighing at the sacrifice of an age of slumber, Jacqueline reached
out for the matches. But there was no dainty limbed night table of a
Louis XV. beside her bed, which helped her again to remember where she
was, and if doubts still remained, they were gone when her bare feet
touched the fibrous, prickly native carpet instead of soft furs.
She groped to the door, and opened it enough to take a greasily odorous
candle from a dusky hand outside. As the sickly glimmer awakened the
shadows, she called the woman back in sudden dismay. "My trunk, señora,
kindly have it sent up at once. No," she added, catching a fluffy
garment from a chair, "in five minutes."
There was a brief silence, followed by positive lament. "Niña, it is not
here. I believe, niñ-a, it is at the mesón, with Don Anastasio."
"F-flute!" cried Jacqueline. The word means nothing at all, but it may
express a lass's exasperation in a wardrobe crisis, and that is nothing
except a catastrophe. "Now just possibly," she soliloquized, "they
permit themselves to imagine that one can wear a white frock two days
together," whereupon she sat herself down despairingly among the crisp
things that had already had their poor little day. To mock her there was
the jaunty handsatchel packed for an hour's shore leave. She let
petulance have sway, and informed herself that she should not go a step,
when the voice in the hall pleaded insidiously that Her Mercy make
haste.
"But I am, señora, I'm making fast haste," and she sat three minutes
longer, communing with her tragedy. "_Oh_, this bitten, biting
country," she cried, gazing ruefully at arms and shoulders, and fiery
blotches on the soft white skin. "Still, if there's a brigand for every
mosquito, it may yet be worth while." Hopefully she rose and called
Berthe from the next room to help her dress.
When the two girls came downstairs, the landlord's wife took their
satchel, and led them over broken sidewalks to the mesón, where the
street was filled with torches and laden burros and blanketed shadows.
Murguía's caravan was forming, making a weird, stealthy scene of
activity. Jacqueline picked up a lantern, and searched here and there.
"Now where _can_ it be?" she cried.
The rebosa about the shoulders of the Mexican woman rose. She knew
nothing. But the gesture was an unabridged philosophical system as to
the resignation and the indifference that is seemly when one knows
nothing. Jacqueline refrained from pinching her, and pursued the quest
of her trunk even into the mesón.
Hardly had she passed within when a greatly agitated little old man
tried to overtake her. But at the door he thought better of it and
vented his chagrin on the Mexican woman.
"Why did you let her go in there?" he cried. "She will wake the Gringo,
she will wake the Gringo!"
Jacqueline reappeared. "No trunk," she announced. "Do you know, Berthe,
I do not believe it came at all?"
The old man's voice sounded at her elbow, faltering, placating. "With
permission, señorita, we must be starting."
"And similarly with permission, señor, who are you?"
"Anastasio Murguía, the servant of Your Mercy."
"Ah, the poor little crow? Perhaps you will tell me, sir, why neither
the Señor Ney nor Fra--nor Captain Morel is here?"
The young French caballero had visited the fort last evening, he
replied. Her Mercy knew that? Yes, precisamente. Yes, the caballero had
spent the night up there with his compatriots of the garrison. Her Mercy
did not know that? No? But it was quite exact, yes, because he, Don
Anastasio, had been so informed. But the Señor Ney would meet them out
of Tampico--yes, precisamente, with a detachment of cavalry from the
fort."
"That poor Michel!" said Jacqueline. "He's determined that I am to have
a French escort. But Captain Morel, señor?"
Murguía would not answer. He repeated the question to the Mexican woman,
who took up explanations with a glib readiness. "Si, niña, I saw the
capitan, not more than an hour ago. He was riding by the café, to meet
his--Contra Guerrillas. But he stopped and woke me. He said that I was
to bring Your Mercies here to the mesón, and to say that he would meet
Your Mercies--yes, surely, before you had gone very far, niña." Her tone
was a sugared whine, and more than once she peered around at Murguía;
while he, for his part, stood by as though overseeing a task. But
Jacqueline only allowed herself a little inconsequential sniff, and went
back to the really serious business that did worry her. She demanded her
trunk.
"How, the señorita does not know?" asked Murguía.
"Know what?"
"That the sailors did not come back from the ship?"
"Not come back! Eh bien, I will not go a step."
At first Don Anastasio's pinched face lighted with relief. But at once a
conflicting anxiety, lest she might _not_ go, seemed to possess
him. "But señorita," he protested, "what will Your Mercy do? The ship,
yes, señorita, the ship has sailed already. It left last night for Vera
Cruz."
"And here am I," Jacqueline exclaimed, tapping her foot, "with only one
dress!"
A long bubbling whistle sounded near a gendarme's lantern in the middle
of the street. A block away another sounded, then another, and another,
and others yet, each thinly shrill and distant. It was the challenge to
slumber and the answer of wakefulness from the watches of the night over
the silent city.
"Another quarter gone by!" Murguía exclaimed nervously. "Come,
señoritas, if we are to reach the Valles stage by nightfall, we have no
time to lose. There are your horses, I will----"
A tremor cut short his words. Someone had just emerged from the mesón.
"Gracious, Murgie, off so early?" the newcomer observed cheerily.
Murguía scowled. He knew that tone.
"If I'm late, I apologize," the other drawled gently, from behind the
flare of a match over his pipe. "Howsoever, all my eyes weren't shut,
and you wouldn't of left me. Pretty quiet about striking camp, though!
Didn't want to disturb me, maybe? Well, well, who made you so
thoughtful? Not Captain Morel? Now I wonder!"
"I uh, why _should_ I wake you, Mis-ter Driscoll? Have I asked you
even to go?"
"N-o, but you evidently asked old Demijohn there." And Driscoll pointed
to his horse, all saddled. "But cheer up, Convoluting Squirmer, of
course I know you aren't a horse thief. No, I just come out to say you
forgot the blanket. I was sleeping on it."
Then he turned to the two girls. They were going also. But why try to
leave him behind, even without a horse? He knew, for all his whimsical
cheerfulness, that something serious was afoot. It was hardly likely
that the girls themselves had interfered. Still, he must make sure. To
provoke a reply elsewhere, he asked Murguía if it were the señoritas,
perhaps, and not Captain Morel, who preferred his absence? A surprised
"Ma foi!" from Jacqueline answered him. As he supposed, she had not
thought of him one way or another.
But she deigned to say, that since the American _gentleman_--there
was a lingering on the word, which opened wide the Storm Centre's eyes
with anticipation of battle--that since the American gentleman had
broached the subject of his going (as no doubt interesting him, being
about himself), then she would permit herself to inquire why, indeed, he
should be going with them at all. She had not observed any cordiality in
the requests for his society.
The light was not good, and she did not see his lips pucker as for a
long whistle. But he did not whistle. He replied very humbly; and so
sweetly that Murguía quailed for the little shrew.
"W'y miss," he said, "it all comes of feeling my responsibility. I'm the
cause of your going, and that's why I'm going too."
His very earnestness gave her to understand that he had forgotten her
entirely. The finesse of the Tuileries could not have struck home more
delicately, and more keenly. "I've often heard," she thought to herself,
"that an awkward swordsman is dangerous." But she made no cry of
"touchée!" Instead she caught at the point to turn the blade aside.
"Responsibility? Truly sir, you _are_ considerate. But permit
me--my safety on this trip, what concern can that have for Your Mercy?"
"None at all," replied Driscoll, heartily.
His brow, none the less, was crinkled, and he watched dubiously as
Murguía helped the two girls into great armchair-like saddles. There was
not a woman's saddle in Tampico, but Jeanne d'Aumerle did not mind that.
She, the marchioness, enjoyed the oddity of a pommel in lieu of horn.
And the lady's maid might have been on a dromedary, for all the
consciousness the poor child had of it.
"Say," Driscoll interrupted with cool obstinacy, "where's our friend the
captain and that sky-blue Frenchman?"
Murguía pretended not to heed him. Jacqueline really did not. But Berthe
spoke up eagerly. She said that the two gentlemen were to meet them
later in the day. At least she hoped so, but--no, no, there could be no
doubt of it! Yet her words faltered, and there was an appeal in them.
But if she placed any hope in the strange American, she was quickly
disappointed.
"All right," he said, as if the matter were of no further consequence.
"Then I can make a nice comfortable report to Maximilian."
"Report to Maximiliano?" exclaimed Murguía.
Driscoll nodded indifferently.
"But Señor Coronel, when you do, you--you will remember that I said
nothing to--that is, to persuade the señoritas to take this journey."
"Nor not to take it, Wriggler."
"Yet you will say to His Majesty that I did suggest--yes, I do now--that
they had better not----"
His utterance drivelled to incoherency. The Mexican woman, she of the
café, stood before him. There was a warning on her stolid countenance.
Murguía wet his lips. "But," he stammered, "there--oh what danger can
there be in their going?"
Driscoll shoved him aside and placed himself at the head of Jacqueline's
horse. "You had better risk the water, miss," he said quietly.
"My good sir," she replied, clear and cold, "I commend your prudence, in
making certain, before you dared touch my bridle-rein, that neither of
the two gentlemen were here."
Din Driscoll swung on his heel. "Damned!" he murmured, and he pronounced
the "n" and the "d" thoroughly, to make the word adequate if possible.
"Lord, I believe I feel like a closed incident! And to think, Demijohn,"
he went on as he busied himself about his horse, "to think that it's the
first and only time we've ever seen trouble coming and tried to keep out
of it."
But the trouble might appear now, he had done what he could. The thought
brightened him, and he patted his short ribs musingly. There was a
friendly protuberance there on either side. His belt sagged
comfortingly. He opened the pack which he was tying with his blanket
behind his saddle, and from it he filled with cartridges the pockets of
his rough cape coat.
By now the caravan was passing him. The burros, like square-shelled
monstrosities with ears, were settling into a steady trot. Their
blanketed arrieros ran beside them and prodded, and were in turn prodded
by the fretful Murguía. Then Jacqueline rode by on an ambling little
mountain-climber. She had forgotten his presence. This was not a pose
with the Marquise d'Aumerle; she had, really. But her little Breton maid
coming behind timidly drew rein. Driscoll looked and saw in the moving
yellow torchlights that her face was white. A thing like that somehow
alters a man's attitude. "W'y, child," he exclaimed, "what's----"
"Monsi--señor," she said hastily, in pathetic and pretty broken Spanish,
"you, oh, you will not leave us! In the mercy of heaven, tell me that
you will not! Ah, seigneur," she sobbed, "mademoiselle will yet lead us
to our death!"
"Berthe," mademoiselle at that instant called, "oh you little ninny, are
you coming ever?"
The maid obeyed. "Just the same," she sighed, "God bless her!"
"And did I," Driscoll had begun angrily, but she was already gone, and
he finished it to himself, "did I once intend to leave you?"
He leaped astride his buckskin horse, who trotted with him briskly to
the head of the caravan. Behind was Anastasio Murguía, a quaint
combination of silk hat, shawl, and ranchero saddle. The two Frenchwomen
followed, and behind came the straggling file of burros and pack horses.
Yet the American was as a solitary traveller leaving a town for the
wilderness at the first touch of dawn. The road soon narrowed down to a
trail as it wound through the undergrowth of the Huasteca lowlands, then
westward toward a bluish line of mountains. At each cross trail the
American would turn in his saddle to force an indication of their course
from Murguía. Then on he would ride again, the while sinking deeper and
deeper into his thoughts; thoughts of why he had come, of how he might
succeed, and of the Surrender at that moment perhaps a fact. For him,
though, there was his sabre yet, dangling there under his leg. And there
were the sabres of comrades that likewise would not be given up, for to
save them that shame was he in Mexico. Riding there, so much alone, and
lonely, he was a rough, savage, military figure. But in his meditations,
so grave and unwonted in the wild, hard-riding trooper lad, there was
nothing to indicate a second nature in him, an instinct that was on the
alert against every leafy clump and cactus and mesh of vine.
CHAPTER VIII
THE THOUGHTS OF YOUTH MAY BE PRODIGIOUSLY LONG THOUGHTS
"And many a Knot unravell'd by the Road;
But not the Master-Knot of Human Fate."
--_Omar._
Another young person, Jacqueline herself, was also pondering rather
soberly this morning. And her thoughts fitted as oddly with her piquant,
lightsome, cynical youth as the gloomily patriotic ones of the Storm
Centre did with his youth, which was robust and boyish and
swashbuckling. To judge from the way their brains worked now, both young
people might have been grave wielders of state affairs, instead of the
lad and the lass so heartily and pettily scorning each other a short
hour before.
Yes, the great rugged Missourian had his disdain too, and for none other
than the darling beauty of two imperial courts. The beauty would have
been vastly amused, no doubt, had she known of the phenomenon. But
knowing a little more, such as its source and the man himself, she must
have flushed and drooped, piteously hurt, as none in her own circle
could have wounded her. The shafts which flashed in that circle were
keenly barbed. They were the more merciless for being politely gilded.
But she understood, and despised, the point of view there. It was a dais
of velvet, of scarlet velvet. And a worldly little gentlewoman like the
Marquise Jeanne was not one to be unaware of the abyss beneath, of which
the flaming color was a symbol. But she rather enjoyed the darts, if
only to fling them back more dazzlingly tipped.
The perspective of the Missouri boy was different. And his disdain was
different. A titled belle mattered little with him, and was apart, like
the girl in a spectacular chorus. Operettas and royal courts were shows,
which real men and women paid to see, and to support. He was a
deep-breathing, danger-nourished man of life and of things that count.
And his only cynicism, and even that unconscious, was the dry honest
sort which sheer unpolished naturalness bears to all things trivial and
vain and artificial. One can readily understand, then, the attitude of
such a man toward a playactor off the stage; toward a playactor, that
is, who thinks to impress the great, wide, live world with the
superficial mannerisms of his little playacting world. Here was Din
Driscoll, Jack Driscoll, Trooper Driscoll, here he was, traveling near a
handsome young woman who for the moment had been cut off from her
precious wee sphere. And he saw her outside of it, playing coquettishly,
and to her own mind, seriously; playing bewitchingly her shallow rôle
patterned after life, yet without once realizing the counterfeit. The
Western country boy, whatever his Cavalier stock, had a Puritanical
backbone in common with the whole American race. And without being aware
of it, his personal, private bearing toward the light and airy French
girl was a sneer, a tolerant, good-natured and indifferent sneer.
However, Mademoiselle la Marquise was neither amused nor hurt, because,
quite simply, she rode in happy oblivion of the rustic and his standards
for the appraising of a girl. He looked very straight of neck and spine,
and she wondered if he had been cradled in a saddle, but that was all.
Now if Lieutenant-Colonel Driscoll had had the slightest glimpse of what
was actually passing through the winsome and supposedly silly little
head behind him, there is no reliable telling into what change of
opinion he might have been jostled. But this is certain, that if he had
known, he could have saved himself some rare adventures afterward.
In Jacqueline's musings there was poetry and there were politics. The
poetry justified the politics; moreover, was their inspiration. A
dilettante such as Jacqueline, æsthetic and delicately sensitive, was
naturally a lover of the beautiful in her search after emotions. A
sentiment for her surroundings came now as a matter of course. If she
turned, she beheld the chaparral plain stretching flatly back of her to
the sands and lagoons of the coast. If she flirted her whip overhead,
down hurtled a shower of bright yellow hail from the laden boughs. Her
nostrils told her of magnolias and orange blossoms; her eyes and ears,
of parrots and paroquets and every other conceit in fantastic plumage.
They were a restless kaleidoscope of colors blending with the foliage,
and from their turmoil they might have been quarreling myriads, and
never birds of a paradise. Little red monkeys grinned down at her as
they raced clutching among the branches, while a big bandy-legged sambo,
an exceedingly ill-tempered member of the same family, bawled his
reproaches in a tone gruesomely human. Now and then her horse reared
from an adder squirming underfoot, or she would see a torpid boa twined
sluggishly around a limb, as about a victim. Once in a jungle-like place
she experienced something akin to the prized ecstatic shudder as she
made out the sleek form of a jaguar slinking into the swamp. The ugliest
of the picturesque "properties" was a monstrous green iguana with his
prickly crest and horn and slimy eye, basking full five feet along a
rotten log.
But the things of horror merely gave to those of beauty a needed
contrast, and did not hurt the poetry in the least. They were every one
on the same grand, wild scale. As the palms, for instance, rising like
slender columns a hundred feet without a single branch. As yet other
palms, which were plumed at the summit like an ostrich wing; or as the
smaller ones at their base, spreading out into fans of emerald green.
Again, as the forest giants which far overhead were the arches of a
watercourse, like the nave of a Gothic cathedral. And even the parasite
vines were of the same Titan designing, for they bound the girders of
the vault in a dense mat of leaves and woven twigs, while underfoot the
carpet was soft inches deep with fern and moss. As for the
flowers--Jacqueline wanted to pluck them all, to wreathe the wondering
fawns, as ladies with picture hats do in the old frivolous rococo
fantasies. And as to that, she might have been one of those Watteau
ladies herself, so rich was the coloring there, and she in the
foreground so white, so soft of skin, so sylvan and aristocratic a
shepherdess.
And then it was a thing for wonderment, that beyond, where the mountains
were, all this world changed, yet changed to another as strange and
vast. And that still farther on there stretched yet other regions, and
each one different, and each no less marvelous and grand. A bewildering
prodigality of Nature, spelling the little word "romance"! Jacqueline's
lip quivered as she gazed and imagined, and as the poetry of it filled
her soul. But of a sudden the little woman sighed. It was a sigh of
rebellion. And just here the politics leaped forth, inspired of the wild
thrilling beauty of the world.
"To think," she half cried, "that we are losing this--all this! And yet
we have won it! Mon Dieu, have we not won it? Yet for whom, alas?
Maximilian?--Faw, an ungrateful puppet such as that, to have, to take
from us, such as--this! Now suppose," her lips formed the unuttered
words, while her gray eyes closed to a narrowing cunning, "just suppose
that we--that someone--reminds His Majesty how ingratitude falls short
of courtesy between emperors."
The boy's thoughts were of the country he had lost. Those of the
resplendent and wayward butterfly were of an empire she meant to gain.
But in her, who might suspect the consummate diplomat? Even then she was
speaking to Murguía, asking if it were not time that Fra Diavolo
remembered his engagements. Driscoll heard the query, and his comment
was a mental shrug of the shoulders.
CHAPTER IX
TOLL-TAKING IN THE HUASTECA
"And when he came bold Robin before,
Robin asked him courteously,
'O, hast thou any money to spare,
For my merry men and me?'"
--_Robin Hood._
For all his campaigner's instincts, the first of Driscoll's expected
troubles came and was gone before he knew that it was trouble. It
arrived so naturally, and was so well behaved! With a stop for a bowl of
coffee at a roadside fonda, they had been traveling for perhaps five
hours, when Driscoll saw the heads of two horses and their riders over
the brush, and at a turn in the trail he found that they were coming
leisurely toward him. He observed them suspiciously, and wistfully. The
wild tropics around him had quite won his heart as peculiarly adapted to
violent amusements of a desperate tinge, far more so really than his own
Missouri woodlands. Yet thus far the uneventful tameness had depressed
him as a shameful waste of environment.
To boot all, here was this brace of villainous, well-armed Mexicans not
giving the least promise of entertainment. There was nothing to
distinguish them from the usual sun-baked rancheros of the Huasteca,
unless it were the first man's straw sombrero, the heavy silver mounting
of which must have been worth in bullion alone a fair pocketful of
pesos. There was a cord of silver hanging over the broad brim, and there
was a silver "T" on one side of the sugar loaf, an "M" on the other
side, and a Roman sword in front, and all three were linked together in
fanciful silver scrolls. But the rest of the man was wretched. His feet
were encased in the guaraches, or sandals, of a peon. One of his eyes
was so crossed that hardly more than a baleful crescent was ever
visible. The other vaquero, his companion, had no relieving trait at
all, either luxurious or strikingly evil. His breeches of raw leather
flapped loosely from the knee down, and at the sides they were slit,
revealing the dirty white of cotton calzoncillos beneath. Though the
April morning was hot, a crimson serape covered his shoulders. Both men
had pistols, and each also had a long machete two inches wide hanging
with a lariat from his saddle.
They lifted their sombreros, and he of the gorgeous one inquired if that
were Don Anastasio's outfit coming up behind. A civil answer was merest
traveler's courtesy, and Driscoll reluctantly took his cob pipe from his
mouth to reckon that they were pretty nearly correct. He might have
loaned them a thousand dollars, to judge from their gratitude, and they
made way for him by drawing off the trail entirely. Here they halted
till all the burros and horses had gone by. The muleteers in passing
them, confusedly touched their hats. Murguía, who was then in the rear,
stopped when he saw the two strangers. Driscoll looked back, but judged
from the greetings that the three were old acquaintances. The
assiduously respectful bearing of the timorous old man was to be counted
as only habitual. And when he saw one of Don Anastasio's mozos bring a
bottle and glasses, he was completely reassured, and rested like the
others of the caravan some little distance ahead.
Murguía dismissed the mozo, himself poured the cognac, and begged the
honor of drinking health and many pesetas to his two "friends." They
craved a like boon, and the clinking of the copitas followed
ceremoniously.
"I counted three hundred and sixty-eight half-bales," said he of the
crossed eye, with a head cocked sideways and tilted. The evidence was
against it, but Murguía knew well enough that the sinister crescent was
fixed on himself. "Three-sixty-eight, at half a peso each, that makes
one hundred and eighty-four pesos which Your Mercy owes us, Don
Anastasio. Add on collection charges, ten per cent.--well, with your
permission, we'll call it two hundred flat."
Don Anastasio manifested an itch for argument.
"Oh leave all that," he of the crimson serape broke in. "Why go over it
again? We are loyal imperialists, and only our lasting friendship for
you holds us from informing His Majesty's Contras how you contribute to
that arch rebel, Rodrigo Galán."
"But," weakly protested Murguía, "but who believes that Don Rodrigo
turns any of it over to the Liberal--to the rebel cause?"
"A swollen-lunged patriot like your Don Rodrigo--of course he does,
every cent," and the cross-eye took on a jocular gleam.
"Now, Señor Murguía," he of the same eye continued, "the favor of your
attention. See that 'T' on my sombrero? That's 'Tiburcio.' See that 'M'?
That's 'Maximiliano.' And that sword? That's 'Woe to the Conquered,' at
least the sombrero maker said so. Well, Don Anastasio----" and he ended
with a gesture that the poor trader saw even in his dreams, the unctuous
rubbing of fingers on the thumb.
Sadly Don Anastasio unstrapped a belt under his black vest, and counted
out in French gold the equivalent of two hundred Mexican dollars.
Don Tiburcio took the money, and observed, as in the nature of pleasant
gossip, that Don Anastasio had quite an unusual outfit this time.
Murguía took alarm immediately. "Not so large as usual, Don Tiburcio.
The crops up there----"
"Crops? No, I don't mean your cotton. I mean fine linen and muslin, and
silks, and laces--petticoats and stockings, Don Anastasio."
"They--they are Don Rodrigo's affairs, not mine."
"Enough yours for you to be anxious to deliver the goods safely, I
think. But the rate on that class of stuff is rather high. Now what do
you suppose, my esteemed compadre, Don Rodrigo would say if we had to
confiscate the consignment?"
But Don Anastasio did not need to suppose. "How much?" he whimpered.
"Well, with the American----"
"Fires of hell consume the American! Collect your tolls from him
yourself. He's no affair of anybody's."
The vaqueros laughed. "We'll throw in the American for nothing," said
Don Tiburcio generously. "Besides, to look at him, he may not be
very--tollable. But delicate dress goods now, there's a heavy duty on
them. I should say a hundred apiece." And without any seeming reference
to this revenue statement, the toll taker placed the tip of an index
finger under each ear, then pointed them lower down against his throat,
then lower again, and at the last the two fingers met in an acute angle,
significantly acute, under his chin, while the half-veiled black bead in
the outer corner of his eye had a sheen unutterably merry and malignant.
The pantomime bore a money value, for Murguía stifled his wrath, again
drew out the belt, and more Napoleons changed hands. Murguía was then
for remounting, leaving the flask of brandy with the two imperialist
emissaries, as had become his custom. But the jovial Tiburcio stopped
him. "What must you think of us, Don Anastasio?" he exclaimed
contritely. "We haven't offered you a drink yet." Murguía dared not
refuse, and he paused for the return of hospitality from his own bottle.
At last he was on his horse, when Tiburcio again called.
"I say, Don Anastasio, if you want a big return for your money"--Don
Anastasio halted instantly--"if you do, well, we ought not to say it,
being devoted to Maximiliano. But no matter, I will tell you this much,
poor old man--look after your daughter! Look after her, Don Anastasio!
We've just come from up there."
A half cry escaped the father as he jerked back his horse. He demanded
what they meant. He pleaded. But they waved him to go on, and rode away
indifferently, taking a cross trail through a stretch of timber.
Rigid, motionless, Murguía looked after them until they had disappeared.
But when they were gone, a frenzy possessed him. He turned and galloped
to his caravan, which was again moving. He did not stop till he reached
the American. "You owe me two hundred dollars," he cried. Thus his
decent emotion concerning his daughter found vent. "Two hundred, I tell
you!"
"Will you," asked Driscoll, "take 'em now, or after you tell me what I
owe 'em for?"
Murguía wavered. The simple question brought him to his senses. But he
had gone too far not to explain. Besides, his insane device for
reimbursing himself appealed to him as good. "Because--don't you know,
señor, that travelers here must pay toll? You don't? But it's true,
and--and I've just paid out two hundred pesos on Your Mercy's account."
The trooper's brown eyes flashed. "Which way did those thieves go?" he
demanded. "Quick! Which way?"
Murguía's avarice changed to trembling. He feared to tell. Driscoll
caught his bridle. "Which way, or by--by--Never mind, you'll pay toll to
me, too! I'll just learn this toll-taking trade myself."
Murguía saw a six-shooter sliding out. "You also!" he cried.
"Also?" laughed Driscoll. "There, I knew it, they were robbers."
He wheeled and rode back with the fury of a cavalry charge, heedless of
Murguía's cries to stop by all the saints, heedless of the saints too.
Murguía did not care what happened to his guest, but he cared for what
might happen to himself, afterward, at the hands of Don Tiburcio and
partner. He frantically called out that he was jesting, that Driscoll
owed him nothing. But Driscoll had already turned into the side trail,
and was following the hoof prints there. Murguía could hear the furious
crackling of twigs as he raced through the timber. But in a little while
he heard and saw nothing.
"He's a centaur, that country boy," observed Jacqueline critically. "The
identical break-neck Centaur himself. Really, Berthe, I think we shall
have to dub him Monsieur the Chevalier. Why Berthe, how pale you are!"
"I? Oh, mademoiselle, is there any danger?"
"Danger, child? Nonsense!"
"But what made him do that, that way?"
"Poor simple babe! That was a pose. Our mule driver knows he can ride,
but we did not. And there you are."
"But the little monsieur, he looks like a ghost?"
Jacqueline laughed. "That, I admit, is not a pose. With the little
monsieur, it's become--constitutional."
A half-hour later they heard an easy canter behind them, and Din
Driscoll reappeared, flushed and happy as a boy pounding in first from a
foot race. His left hand covered the bowl of his cob pipe from the wind,
the other held his slouch hat doubled up by the brim. As for bridle
hand, old Demijohn needed none. Driscoll seized Murguía's silk tile and
poured into it from the slouch a shimmering stream of coin and a mass of
crumpled paper.
"To be robbed while I'm along, now that makes me _mad_," he said.
"You won't tell anybody, will you, Murgie?"
The old man did not hear. His palsied hands were dipping down, dipping
down, bathing themselves in the deep silk hat. The hat was heavy with
gold and silver pesos, and foaming with bills.
"Greenbacks, Confederate notes," he mumbled. "Some I've paid
before--only, lately, the rascals won't take anything but coin."
"Why's that, Murgie?"
"Why, because these green things are not worth much now, while these
gray ones"--he fingered them contemptuously--"would not, would not buy a
drunkard's pardon from our cheapest magistrate."
The slur on Mexican justice only emphasized his scorn of the Confederate
notes.
"Give 'em here!" Driscoll snatched them from the yellow, desecrating
fingers. "These here are promises," he muttered, "and we've been
fighting for four years to make them good. For four years, even the
children and old men, and--yes, and the women folks back of us!"
The impulsive mood carried him further. He counted and pocketed the
despised notes. Then from an humble tobacco pouch he sorted out a number
of British sovereigns, and flung them into Murguía's hat.
"Prob'bly my last blow for them promises," he murmured to himself.
Meantime a burro back of them had become possessed of an idea, which for
some reason necessitated his halting stock still directly across the
trail to think it over. The caravan behind stopped also, while the
arrieros snorted "Ar-re!" and "Bur-ro!" through their noses, and prodded
the beast. Jacqueline lost patience. She touched her horse, which
bounded out of the trail and galloped past the outfit almost to Driscoll
and Murguía. So she had seen the exchange of money and she had heard.
She looked thoughtfully at the trooper's straight line of back and
shoulder.
"Monsieur the Chevalier," she murmured softly, as though trying the
sound of the words for the fast time. She would have supposed that none
but a Frenchman could have done that.
As to Don Anastasio, the Quixotic redemption in specie was beyond him
entirely. He gave it up. The counting of discs was more tangible to his
philosophy. His rusty black tile, so wondrously become a cornucopia of
wealth, had by that same magic upset the old fellow into a kind of
hysterical gaiety, which was most elfish and uncanny. He motioned
Driscoll to ride faster.
"Ai, ai, mi coronel," he cackled, when they were gone out of hearing,
"you talk of bandits! Ai, ai, Dios mio, _you_ have robbed
_them_!"
"What the devil----"
"Si señor, robbed _them_! A-di-o-dio-dios! here's more than they
took from me!"
"N-o?" said Driscoll in dismay. "Gracious, I hadn't any time to count
money when I searched 'em!"
"You!--searched Don Tiburcio?"
"Why not? Isn't he a thief?"
"But--he permitted----"
"W'y yes, they both let me, I had the drop. But they got indignant and
called me a thief--I believe they'd of called a policeman if there'd
been one handy, or even---- Now what," he exclaimed, "what ails the old
bare-bones now?"
The senile mirth had left the trader's face, and his olive skin was
ashen. "Next time," he moaned, "next time, Santa María, they will be in
force and they--they will take the very horse from under me!"
"Tough luck," Driscoll observed.
Murguía darted at him a look in which there was all the old hate, and
more added. But it disturbed the trooper as little as ever. "Come," he
said, "own up. You knew we were going to meet those fellows?" Murguía
said nothing. "Of course you knew. But why didn't you change your route,
seeing you're too high-minded to fight?--What's that?--Oh that voice!
Dive for it, man!"
"I, I couldn't change on account of my passport."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"In the passport I declare the route I take."
"I see, and you can't change it afterward?"
"No."
"Now look here, Murgie, have you got any more of these dates on?--Yes?
No?--Murgie, if you don't dive, by----"
Murguía dove, and denied with eagerness that he had any further
toll-paying appointments. But Driscoll reckoned that he was lying.
"And," he added, "we are going to change our route, passport or no
passport. We'll take--let's see--yes, we'll take the very next
crosstrail going in the same general direction."
Murguía's alarm at the proposal belied his former denial. The law
required him to follow the course laid down in his passport, but he
feared the law less than the disappointment of road agents. Don
Tiburcio's receipt protected him from those controlled by Don Tiburcio.
But Tiburcio was not powerful, except in blackmail. Murguía paid him
lest he inform the government of tribute also paid to Don Rodrigo. Now
Rodrigo Galán was powerful. His band infested the Huasteca. He called
himself a Liberal and a patriot, and he really believed it too. But he
also declared that the tolls he collected went to the revolutionary
cause, which declaration, however, even he could hardly have believed.
Don Rodrigo gave receipts, and his receipts were alleged guarantee
against other molestation, since he controlled the highway more
thoroughly than ranger patrols had ever done. But lately a competitor
had appeared in the brush, and he was that humorous scoundrel, Don
Tiburcio of the crossed eye. Goaded near to apoplexy by the double
tolls, Murguía had once ventured to upbraid Don Rodrigo with breach of
contract. There was no longer immunity in the roadmaster's receipts, he
whined. Then the robber chief had scowled with the brow of Jove, and
hurled dreadful oaths. "You pay an Imperialista!" he stormed in lofty
indignation. "You give funds to put down your struggling, starving
compatriots! So, señor, this is the love you bear your country!"
It was a touching harangue, and the remorse-stricken trader ever after
denied that he even saw Don Tiburcio, at which times a queer smile would
supplant Don Rodrigo's black frown.
It was this same Don Rodrigo who had been reported as slain by
Jacqueline's Fra Diavolo. But Driscoll, not having heard of his death,
was quite ready to expect more brigands. He insisted, therefore, on
changing trails.
"The Señor Coronel is most valiant," sneered Murguía.
"So darned much so, Murgie, that I want to dodge 'em."
But his struggle against temptation was evident. He glanced back at the
two women and again denounced the unfamiliar feminine element in men's
affairs. To avoid the brigandage encounter took more of manhood than Don
Anastasio might imagine in a lifetime.
But they had not followed their new route five minutes before Murguía
was again at the trooper's side. An "I-told-you-so" smirk hovered on his
pinched visage. "Segundino has gone," he announced.
"So Segundino has gone?" Driscoll repeated. "Well, and who's Segundino?"
"He's one of my muleteers, but now I know he is a spy too. He will tell
the bri--if there are brigands--where to meet us." Murguía was thinking,
too, of their reproachful increase on collection charges for the extra
trouble.
"Then," said Driscoll, "we'll go back to our old trail," which they did
at once. Soon after he was not surprised to hear from Murguía that "this
time it was Juan who had disappeared."
"Didn't I tell you to set a close watch?"
"Y-e-s, but what was the use? He slipped into the brush, and," the
trader complained, "I can't spare any more drivers."
"Don't need to. We'll just keep this trail now."
CHAPTER X
THE BRIGAND CHIEF
"Don Rodrigo de Vivar,
Rapaz, orgulloso, y vano."
--_El Cid._
Imagine an abnormally virtuous urchin and an abnormally kindly farmer.
The urchin resolutely turns his back on the farmer's melon patch, though
there is no end of opportunity. But the farmer catches him, brings him
in by the ear, makes him choose a big one, and leaves him there, the
sole judge of his own capacity. Driscoll had tried to dodge a fight, but
Fate was his kindly farmer.
"Better fall back a little, Murgie," he said. "You'd only scare 'em, you
know."
He himself passed on ahead. But it was mid-afternoon before anything
happened. Jacqueline meantime had shown some pettish ill-humor. Those
who had fought to be her escort were now singularly indifferent.
Driscoll was idly curious and quietly contemptuous, but he detected no
fright in her manner. "Fretting for her silver-braided Greaser," he said
to himself. "A pretty scrape she's got herself into, too! Now I wonder
why a girl can't have any sense." But as the answer was going to take
too long to find, he swerved back to the simpler matter of a possible
fracas.
"Well, well," he exclaimed at last, rising in his stirrups, "if there
isn't her nickel-plated hero now!"
A quarter of a mile ahead, mounted, waiting stock-still across the
trail, was Fra Diavolo. The American put away his pipe and barely moved
his spurred boot, yet the good buckskin's ears pointed forward and he
trotted ahead briskly. From old guerrilla habit, the cavalryman noted
all things as he rode. To his left the blue of the mountain line, being
nearer now, had deepened to black, and the Sierra seemed to hang over
him, ominously. But the dark summits were still without detail, and
midway down, where the solid color broke into deep green verdure and was
mottled by patches of dry slabs of rock, there was yet that massive blur
which told of distance. Foothills had rolled from the towering slide,
and mounds had tumbled from the hills, and a tide of giant pebbles had
swept down from the mounds. These rugged boulders had turned the trail,
so that the American was riding beneath a kind of cliff. To his right,
on the east of the trail, the boulders were smaller and scattered, like
a handful of great marbles flung across the cactus plain. He may have
glanced toward this side especially, at the clumps of spiny growth over
the pradera, and caught glimpses behind the strewn rocks, but his look
was casual, unstartled. He breathed deeply, though. The old familiar
elation set him vaguely quivering and tingling, with nervous, subtle
desire. The young animal's excess of life surged into a pain, almost.
Even the buckskin, knowing him, took his mood, and held high his
nostrils.
Fra Diavolo's peaked beaver, his jacket, his breeches, his high pommeled
saddle, his great box stirrups, the carabine case strapped behind, all
be-scrolled with silver, danced hazily to the magic of rays slanting
down from the lofty Sierra line. Like himself, his horse was a thing of
spirited flesh, for glorious display. The glossy mane flowed
luxuriantly. The tail curved to the ground. A mountain lion's skin
covered his flanks. He was large and sleek and black, with the metal and
pride of an English strain. He was a carved war-charger. The man astride
was rigid, stately. Man and horse had a heroic statue's promise of
instant, furious life.
"Oh, la beauté d'un homme!" cried Jacqueline, perceiving the majestic
outline silhouetted against the rocks. "Why, why--it's Fra Diavolo!"
"It--it is!" confessed Murguía. There was dread, not surprise, in his
exclamation. The waiting horseman, and a lonely hut there behind
him--none other than a brigand "toll-station"--these were but too
significant of an old and hated rendezvous. Don Anastasio got to his
feet and nervously hurried his caravan back a short distance. Then he
ran ahead again and overtook the two Frenchwomen. "Señoritas, wait!
Neither of you need go. But I will--I must, but I can go alone, while
you----"
"Why, what ails the man?"
"Back, señorita, back, before he sees you!"
Jacqueline looked at the imploring eyes, at the palsied hand on her
bridle. "Berthe," she said, "here's your little monsieur getting
constitutional again."
"You _will_ go, señorita?"
"Parbleu!" said the girl, and lashed her mustang.
"Dios, Dios," gasped the little monsieur, hurrying after them, "when
Maximiliano hears of this----"
"You should see Maximilian when he is angry," Jacqueline called over her
shoulder. "It is very droll."
Din Driscoll had vaulted to the ground in the instant of halting.
Immediately he led his horse behind the solitary hut, which was a
_jacal_ of bamboo and thatch built under the cliff, and left him
there. Demijohn was a seasoned campaigner, and he would not move until
his trooper came for him. When Driscoll emerged again, his coat was over
his left arm, and the pockets were bulging. Fra Diavolo had already
saluted him, but gazed down the trail at the two women approaching.
"How are you, captain?" Driscoll began cordially.
Fra Diavolo looked down from his mighty seat. "Ai, mi coronel, I was
expecting Your Mercy."
"Honest, now? Or weren't you worrying lest I'd got left back in
Tampico?"
One of the ranchero's hands rose, palm out, deprecatingly.
"But someone might have told you I didn't get left at all," Driscoll
pursued. "Segundino maybe? Or was it Juan?"
"Or Don Tiburcio?" suggested the captain. He dismounted and doffed his
big sombrero. "Good, I see you brought Her Ladyship safely."
"Or I myself, rather," said Jacqueline, reining in her pony at the
moment, "Ah, the Señor Capitan as an escort knows how to make himself
prized by much anticipation."
"Señorita!" The Mexican bent in heavy ceremony, the sombrero covering
his breast. "I am honored, even in Your Mercy's censure. Those who
deserve it could not appreciate it more."
"Forward then, captain. On with the excuses, I promise to believe them."
"Those sailors, my lady, who fight with kicks. Ugh!--they attacked some
of my men this morning in Tampico. I had to call at the fort for aid."
"Oh, but Maximilian shall hear of this!"
"I think he will," and Fra Diavolo bowed again, hiding the gleam of a
smile. "But I forget, your compatriot----"
"Monsieur Ney?--Yes?"
"He meant to help the sailors----"
"But he was not hurt?"
"Oh, no, no! But he had to be held in the fort."
"That poor Michel!"
"So," the syllable fell weightily, as if to crush Ney out of her
thoughts, "here I am at last, to claim the distinguished pleasure of
seeing Your Ladyship to the stage at Valles."
Din Driscoll had been gazing far away at the mountains, his thumbs
tucked in his belt. He stood so that the Mexican was between him and the
scattered boulders on the right of the trail. Now he addressed the
mountains. "The stage at Valles? There is no stage at Valles---- And,
captain," he dropped Nature abruptly, and turned on the man, "who are
you, hombre? Come, tell us!"
If Fra Diavolo were a humbug, he was not nearly so dismayed as one might
expect. For that matter, neither was Jacqueline. She inquired of
Driscoll how he knew more about stage lines than the natives themselves.
Because the natives themselves were not of one mind, he replied. For
instance, Murgie's muleteers had assured him fervidly that there was
such a stage, whereas passing wayfarers had told him quite simply that
there was not, nor ever had been.
Jacqueline's gray eyes, wide open and full lashed, turned on Fra
Diavolo. "You are," she exclaimed, noiselessly clapping her hands as at
a play, "then you are--Oh, _who_ are you?"
The Mexican straightened pompously. "Who?" he repeated deep in his
chest, "who, but one at Your Mercy's feet! Who, but--Rodrigo Galán
himself!"
"The _terrible_ Rodrigo?" She wanted complete identification.
He looked at her quickly. The first darkening of a frown creased his
brow. But still she was not alarmed. Berthe, however, proved more
satisfying. "Oh, my dear lady!" she cried, reining in her horse closer
to her mistress.
"And who," drawled the American at a quizzical pitch of inquiry, "may
Don Rodrigo be?"
"What, señor," thundered the robber, "you don't----" He stopped,
catching sight of the timorous Murguía hovering near. "Then, look at
that old man, for he at least knows that he is in the presence of Don
Rodrigo. He is trembling."
But Jacqueline was--whistling. The bristling highwayman swung round full
of anger. Driscoll stared at her amazed. Then he laughed outright.
"Well, well, Honorable Mr. Buccaneer of the Sierras, now maybe---- Yes,
that's what I mean," he added approvingly as Fra Diavolo leaped astride
his charger and jerked forth two pistols from their holsters, "that's
it, get the game started!"
Jacqueline's red lips were again pursed to whistle, but she changed and
hummed the refrain instead:
"Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!"
Driscoll stared at her harder. The words were strange and meant nothing.
But there was a familiarity to the tune. That at least needed no
interpreter. The old ballad of troubadours, the French war song of old,
the song of raillery, the song of Revolution, this that had been a folk
song of the Crusader, a Basque rhyme of fairy lore, the air known in the
desert tents of Happy Arabia, known to the Jews coming out of Egypt,
known to the tribes in the days without history or fifes--why, if this
wasn't the rollicking, the defiant pæan of Americans! But how came she
by it, and by what right?
"'And we won't go home till morning,'" he joined in, inquisitively.
The girl paused, as explorers singing it have paused when savages never
before seen by white men joined in with barbarian words. But she went
on, letting the miracle be as it might.
"'The news I bear, fair lady----'"
she sang, and nodded at the bandit, to indicate that here was _his_
line,
"'The news I bear, fair lady, Will cause your eyes to weep.'"
"'----Till daylight doth appear,'" Driscoll finished it with her. Then
both looked up like two children, to the awful presence on horseback.
Don Rodrigo was at some pains to recover himself. A helpless girl and
one lone trooper were practising a duet under his very frown. Only a
glance toward the boulders and cacti reassured him.
"Well, what next?" Jacqueline demanded sweetly. "Is it to be the--the
'game' at last?"
"One word," said the Mexican solemnly. Straight in his saddle, he fixed
them with keen eyes, keen, black eyes under shaggy brows. The syllables
fell portentously. His voice deepened as far away thunder. "One word
first," growled the awakening lion. "You know now that I am Don Rodrigo
Galán. Yes, I am he, the capitan of guerrillas, the rebel, the brigand,
the hunted fugitive. Such names of ignominy a true patriot must bear
because he dares to defy his poor country's oppressors." Here Fra
Diavolo scowled; he was getting into form. "But to His Majesty in our
own Mexican capital, to His Glorious Resplendent Most Christian, Most
Catholic, priest-ridden, bloodthirsty, foppish, imbecile decree-making
fool of a canting majesty--to this Austrian archduke who drove forth the
incarnation of popular sovereignty by the brutal hand of the foreign
invader--to him I will yet make it known that the love of liberty, that
the loyalty to Liberal Reforms, to the Constitution, to Law and Order,
to--uh--are not yet dead in these swamps and mountains of our Patria.
And he will know it when he--when he hears my demand for your ransom,
Señorita Marquesa. He will know it, too, when he learns that Captain
Maurel--a Frenchman, señorita, not a Mexican--now lies stark in death in
the brush near Tampico, where he came to take and to hang the steadfast
patriot, Rodrigo Galán. But his Tender-Hearted Majesty will grieve less
for that than for the loss of you, Señorita--Jacqueline. For is it not
known that you, the first lady of honor to the Empress, that you are
also His Majesty's----"
"My faith," said Jacqueline, "he speaks Spanish well!"
Thus she stopped the insult. Also she stopped an unforeseen champion at
her side. Driscoll, with pistol half drawn, was willing to be checked. A
shot just then, placed as they were, would mean a bad ending to the
game. That he knew. So he was thankful for Jacqueline's hand on his
wrist.
Forked eloquence was silenced by now. Yet the patriot had been in
earnest, under the spell of his own ardor. Don Anastasio, with head
bowed, had listened in sullen sympathy. But both Mexicans started as
though stung at Jacqueline's applauding comment. Don Rodrigo purpled
with rage. She only looked back at him, so provokingly demure, that
something besides the ransom got into his veins. He wet his lips, baring
the unpleasant gleam of teeth.
"Come!" he said thickly. "You and your maid go with me."
Driscoll's jaw dropped. "Diablos," he exclaimed, bewildered, "you don't
mean---- Look, Don Roddy, you're crazy! Such things----"
"Come!"
"But I tell you it's foolish. Such things do not happen, unless in
melodrama."
For reply the guerrilla chief wheeled his charger and caught the bridles
of the two horses that the girls rode. He pulled, so as to leave exposed
the troublesome American behind them.
"Grands dieux," exclaimed Jacqueline, "have the men in this country
nothing to do except catch my bridle! But really, sir, this situation is
forced. It is not artistic. As--as Monsieur the Chevalier says, it's
quite impossible."
She looked around for Monsieur the Chevalier to make it so, but to her
dismay, to her disgust, he had taken to his heels. He was running away,
as fast as he could go. Then her horse reared, for musket firing had
suddenly, mysteriously begun on all sides of her. Many fierce pairs of
eyes were bobbing up from behind the boulders on the right of the trail;
yellow-brown faces, like a many-headed Hydra coiled in the cacti. They
were shooting, not at her, but at the fleeing American. She felt an
object in her hand, which Driscoll had thrust there, and she remembered
that he had whispered something, though she had forgotten what.
Her captor was straining at the bridle. In his frenzy he leaned over, to
lift her from the saddle, and then she struck him across the face with
her whip. And then, with what the American had put in her other hand,
she struck again. The weapon was Driscoll's short hunting knife. The
blade grazed Rodrigo's shoulder. He loosed his hold, and before he could
prevent, both she and Berthe were in the shack under the cliff. The maid
sank to the floor. The mistress stood in the doorway. There was a glint
in the gray eyes not lovable in man or woman, but in her it was superb.
Fifty feet back up the trail she saw Driscoll scaling the cliff. That
demon yelling, which is the first spasm of Mexican warfare, had not
ceased, and each demon was shooting as fast as he could reload. She saw
the white dust spurt out from the bullet peppered rock. But either the
sun slanting down from the mountain line was in their eyes, or they were
disconcerted at the American's change in their plans; at any rate their
laboriously ascending target did not drop. Up he climbed. Jacqueline
wondered why he still clung to the jacket over his arm, as people will
cling to absurd things in time of panic.
"To go through that peril, and yet a coward!" she murmured. "It's a
waste----"
The runaway gained the top of the embankment, and fell behind a rock.
And now a half dozen of the little demons were coming across the trail
to the shack--to take her.
"Oh, the frisson, the ecstasy!" she cried. There was a certain poignant
sense of enjoyment in it.
CHAPTER XI
THE COSSACKS AND THEIR TIGER COLONEL
"Ah, Captain, here goes for a fine-drawn bead;
There's music around when my barrel's in tune."
--_Song of the Fallen Dragoon._
Din Driscoll tumbled himself over among the rocks. "There, I'm fixed,"
he grunted, as he squatted down behind his earthworks. "Plenty of
material here"--he meant the cartridges which he poured from his coat
pockets into his hat--"and plenty out there too"--indicating the Hydra
heads--"and my pipe--I'll have a nice time." He got to work busily.
In the door of the shack Jacqueline saw the campaign for her possession
begin. Don Rodrigo had fled to the corner of the shack, taking his horse
with him. The hut of bamboo and thatch was no protection against
Driscoll's fire, but the two girls, though inside the hut, were between
and afforded a better screen. Jacqueline did not, however, hold that
against her Fra Diavolo. To save himself behind a woman was quite in
keeping with his sinister rôle. And she, as an artist, could not
reproach him, and as a woman she did not care. But the American's
running away--now that was out of character, and it disappointed her.
She heard Rodrigo bellowing forth an order, and she saw five or six
guerrillas rise out of the cacti and spring toward her. But the constant
shadow of self-introspection haunted her even then. In her despair, and
worse, in her disgust, feeling already those filthy hands upon her, she
yet appraised this jewel among ecstatic shudders, and she knew in her
heart that she would not have had it otherwise.
"Oh, am I ever to _live_!" she moaned in startled wonderment at
herself. "Always a spectator, always, even of myself!--God, dost thou
know? It is a robbery of living!" And the vagabonds were twenty paces
away!
Something hurt her hand, she opened her clenched palm; it was the horn
handle of Driscoll's knife. Had she really thought to defend herself
with that inadequate thing? "Poof!" She tossed it from her, vexed at her
own unconscious heroics. Then two dark arms reached out, nearer and
nearer, and ten hooked fingers blurred her vision. But the arms shot
upward, the fingers stiffened, and a body splashed across the doorway at
her feet with the sound of a board dropped on water.
"Ai, poor man!"
She was on her knees, bending over him. But a second of the vermin
lurched against her, and he too lay still. A pistol report from the
cliff was simultaneous with each man's fall. Both were dead. A third
sank in the trail with a shattered hip, and another behind knew the
agony of a broken leg. The marksman's mercy was evidently tempered
according to distance. For, having the matter now under control, he
nonchalantly cracked only shin bones. Fra Diavolo from his shelter
roared commands and curses, but not another imp would show himself.
Crouched jealously, they chose rather to besiege their lone enemy on the
cliff.
"Must have howitzers," muttered Driscoll. The soft lead, bigger than
marbles, went "Splut! Splut!" against the rock on all sides of him,
flattening with the windy puff of mud on a wall. But he was well
intrenched, and as the guerrillas were also, he lighted his pipe and
smoked reflectively. But after awhile he perceived a slight movement,
supplemented by a carabine. One of the besiegers was working from
boulder to boulder, parallel with the trail. He did it with infinite
craft. At first the fellow crawled; then, when out of pistol range, he
got to his feet and ran. Still running, he crossed the trail at a safe
distance beyond the hut, and began working back again, this time along
the cliff, and toward Driscoll. When about a hundred yards away, he
disappeared; which is to say, he lowered himself into a little ravine
that thousands of rainy seasons had worn through from the foothills. But
almost at once his head and shoulders rose from the nearer bank, and
Driscoll promptly fired. The shot fell short. A pistol would not carry
so far; which was a tremendously important little fact, since the other
fellow was aiming a rifle. The bullet from that rifle neatly clipped a
prickly pear over Driscoll's head. The strategist certainly knew his
business. There was a familiar shimmer of silver about his high peaked
hat. Yes surely, he was Don Tiburcio, the loyal Imperialist of the
baleful eye. No doubt the malignant twinkle gleamed in that eye now,
even as the blackmailer bit a cartridge for the next shot. A victim who
had only pistols, and at rifle range, and with not a pebble for shelter
from the flank bombardment--it was assuredly a situation to tickle Don
Tiburcio.
Now Driscoll's point of view was less amusing. To change his position,
he must expose himself to a fusilade from across the way. And if he
tried to rush his friend of the gully, the brigands meantime would carry
off the two girls. A gentleman's part, therefore, was to stay where he
was and be made a target of. But he varied it a little. At Don
Tiburcio's second shot, he lunged partly to his feet and fell forward as
though mortally wounded. He lay quite still, and soon Don Tiburcio came
creeping toward him. Don Tiburcio was thinking of his lost toll-moneys
that should be on the corpse. Driscoll waited, his nerves alert, his
pistols ready. But just beyond range, the blackmailer paused.
"Go for the women, you idiots," he yelled. "The Gringo's dead."
The idiots verified the title straightway, for up they popped from
behind their boulders and started for the shack.
"'Possuming's no use," Driscoll muttered, then fired. The guerrillas got
back to cover quickly enough, and so did Don Tiburcio, grinning over his
stratagem. In his arroyo again, he proposed to make the Gringo as a
sieve. Each bullet from his carabine twanged lower and lower. "Ouch!"
ejaculated Driscoll. One had furrowed his leg, and it hurt. He looked
anxiously, to see if the Mexican were lowering his aim yet more. An inch
meant such a great deal just then. But a tremendous surprise met him.
For Don Tiburcio had changed his mind. The rascal was firing in another
direction entirely, firing rapturously, firing at his very allies, at
the little imps themselves among the boulders and nettles. And the
little imps were positively leaping up to be shot. They ran frantically,
but straight toward the traitor, and on past him up the trail. The Storm
Centre could not shoot lunatics any more than he could babies. He only
stared at them open mouthed.
"Los Cosacos!--El Tigre! Los Cosacos!" they yelled, scrambling out upon
the road, bleeding, falling, praying, and kissing whatever greasy amulet
or virgin's picture they owned.
Then there beat into Driscoll's ears the furious clatter of hoofs. It
deafened him, the familiar, glorious din of it. The blood raged in his
veins like fiery needle points. To see them--the cavalry, the cavalry!
Then they were gone--a flashing streak of centaurs, a streamer of red in
a blur of dust, maniac oaths, and pistol shots, and sweeping sabres.
Hacked bodies were sucked beneath the swarm as saplings under an
avalanche. Driscoll sprang up and gazed. Through eddying swirls he still
could see red sleeved arms reach out, and lightning rays of steel, and
half-naked fleeting creatures go down, and never a jot of the curse's
speed abate.
"Lordy, but Old Joe should 'a seen it!" he fairly shouted. He was
thinking of Shelby, of the Old Brigade back in Missouri; daredevils,
every one of them.
Don Tiburcio had sighted the vengeful horde from afar, and had
recognized them, since he was, in fact, one of their scouts. They were
the Contra Guerrillas, the Cossacks, the scourge wielded by the French
Intervention and the Empire. And they were Don Tiburcio's cue to
loyalty. For seeing them, he began firing on his late friends, the
brigands. Yet he spared their Capitan. At the first alarm Fra Diavolo
had vaulted astride his black horse, and Tiburcio darting out, had
caught his bridle, and turned him into the dry bed of the arroyo. Others
of the fugitives tried to escape by this same route, but Tiburcio fought
them off with clubbed rifle, and in such occupation was observed by him
who led the Cossacks, who was a terrible old man, and a horseman to give
the eye joy. At the gully he swerved to one side, and let the hurricane
pass on by.
"Sacred name of thunder," he cursed roundly, "a minute later and----"
"Si, mi coronel," the faithful Tiburcio acknowledged gratefully, "Your
Excellency came just in time."
The colonel of Contra Guerrillas frowned a grim approval for his scout's
handiwork of battered skulls. He was a man of frosted visage, a grisly
Woden. The hard features were more stern for being ruggedly venerable.
His beard was wiry, hoary gray, through whose billowy depth a long black
cigar struck from clenched teeth. If eyes are windows of the soul, his
were narrow, menacing slits, loopholes spiked by bristling brows. Two
deep creases between the eyes furrowed their way up and were lost under
an enormously wide sombrero. This sombrero was low crowned, like those
worn farther to the south, and ornately flowered in silver. His chest
was crossed with braid, cords of gold hung from the right shoulder to
the collar, and the sleeves were as glorious as a bugler's. His
brick-red jacket fell open from the neck, exposing the whitest of linen.
His boots were yellow, his spurs big Mexican discs. Altogether the blend
in him of the precise military and the easy ranchero was curiously
picturesque. But Colonel Dupin, the Tiger of the Tropics, was a curious
and picturesque man. His medals were more than he could wear, and each
was for splendid daring. But on a time they had been stripped from him.
It happened in China. He had made a gallant assault on the Imperial
Palace, but he had also satiated his barbarian soul in carnage and
loaded his shoulders with buccaneering loot. And though he wondered at
his own moderation, a court martial followed. However, Louis Napoleon
gave him back his medals, and sent him to Mexico to stamp out savagery
by counter savagery.
"There were two accomplices in this business," the Tiger was saying,
"one a trader, Murguía----"
"Killed him my very first shot," lied Tiburcio. He would save his golden
goose of the golden eggs.
"And the other, an American?"
"Got away with the others, señor." Again Tiburcio's reason was obvious.
The American, if taken, might tell things.
"And"--Dupin gripped his cigar hungrily--"and Rodrigo?"
For answer the scout waved a hand vaguely up the trail.
"None went that way?" and the Colonel jerked his head toward the ravine.
"No, none. Your Mercy saw me driving them back."
"Quick, then, on your horse! We're losing time."
Don Tiburcio was reluctant. He had not yet recovered his money
from the American. "But the women, mi coronel? They are there, in that
shack. Hadn't I better stay----?"
"Jacqueline, you mean? Of course the little minx is in trouble, the
second she touches land. But you come with me. She shall have another
protector."
Tiburcio knew the Cossack chief. He obeyed, and both men galloped away
after the chase.
[Illustration: "COLONEL DUPIN"
"The Tiger of the Tropics ... the chief of Contra Guerrillas"]
They had not gone far when they passed Michel Ney swiftly returning. He
was the protector Dupin had in mind. He had seen Jacqueline in the
doorway of the hut as he stormed past with the Contra Guerrillas, but he
had been too enthusiastic to stop just then. He was a Chasseur
d'Afrique, and to be a Chasseur d'Afrique was to ride in a halo of
mighty sabre sweeps. And Michel had fought Arabs too--but the good
simplicity of his countenance was woefully ruffled as he turned back
from that charge of the Cossacks.
"Michel!" cried Jacqueline, stepping over the forms of men before the
hut, and forgetting them. The natty youth was torn, rumpled, grimy. The
sky-blue of his uniform was gray with dust. But to see him at all proved
that he had escaped Fra Diavolo's web in Tampico. And the relief! It
made her almost gay. "Ah, Michel--le beau sabreur!--and did you enjoy
it, mon ami?"
He alighted at her feet, and raised her hand to his lips.
"Monsieur," she demanded quick as thought, "my trunk?"
"Mon Dieu, mademoiselle, I did well to bring myself."
"You should have brought my trunk, sir, first of all. Deign to look at
this frock! No, no, don't, please don't. But tell me everything. What
could have happened to you last night? Why did you not meet me this
morning?"
His story was brief. Of his contemplated strategy at Tampico, there had
been a most lugubrious botching. The night before, when he started to
the fort for aid, Fra Diavolo's little Mexicans had waylaid him, bound
him, and dragged him back to the café, where Jacqueline that very moment
reposed in slumber. And there, in a back room without a window, he had
gritted his teeth until morning. As for the sailors, who were to return
to the ship for her trunk; well, more little Mexicans had fired on them
from the river bank. The small boat, riddled with shot, had sunk, and
the sailors, splashing frantically to keep off the sharks, had gained
the shore opposite. But they could neither get word to the ship, nor
cross back to Tampico.
"Yet," demanded Jacqueline, "how could you know all this, there in your
prison room?"
"Am I saying I did, name of a name? Well, those poor sailors wandered
about all night in the swamps across the river, and this morning they
ran into Colonel Dupin and his Contras, and the colonel was frothing
mad. He had only just stumbled on the bodies of Captain Maurel and some
of his men, who had been ambushed and murdered. Poor Maurel was dangling
from a tree among the vultures. Others were mutilated. Some had even
been tortured. And all were stripped, and rotting naked. Mon Dieu, mon
dieu, but it's an inferno, this country!"
"Yes, yes, but how did they find you?"
"Colonel Dupin simply brought the sailors back to Tampico and searched
that café, and got me out. The proprietor wasn't thought to be any too
good an Imperialist, anyway. They shot him, and then we came right along
here."
"Very nice of you, I am sure."
"Not at all. Dupin isn't thinking of anybody but your Fra Diavolo, who
must have killed Captain Maurel.--Was he here?"
"Who? Don Rodrigo?"
"Don Rodrigo?"
"Of course. He's the same as Fra Diavolo."
"You mean that bandit," cried Ney, "that terrible Rodrigue? But he is
dead, don't you remember, Fra Diavolo said so?"
"Stupid! Fra Diavolo is Don Rodrigo himself."
"Not dead then? And I'll meet him yet! But," and his sudden hope as
suddenly collapsed, "Dupin will get him first."
"I think not, because Rodrigo did not take the trail."
"Then which way did he go? Quick, please, mademoiselle, which way?"
"He turned off into that arroyo."
"Oh, what chance, what luck!" But the boy stopped with his foot in the
stirrup. "No, mademoiselle, I can't leave you!"
"Oh yes you can. I daresay there's another champion about." She glanced
up at the cliff. "And besides, all danger is past. The donkey caravan is
still here, and for company, I have Berthe, of course."
"Really, mademoiselle?"
"Yes, Michel, really."
"Good, I'm off! But we will meet you at--Dupin just told me--at the next
village on this same trail. Now I'm off!" He was indeed. "I say,
mademoiselle," he called back, "I'm glad we left the ship, aren't you?"
Jacqueline turned hastily her gaze from the cliff. He startled her,
expressing her own secret thought.
Chasseur and steed vanished in the ravine, and she smiled. "The God of
pleasant fools go with him," she murmured.
CHAPTER XII
PASTIME PASSING EXCELLENT
"Il y a des offenses qui indignent les femmes sans les déplaire."
--_Emile Augier._
Like another Black Douglas, Din Driscoll rose among the crags, the dark
tufts curling stubbornly on his bared head. He looked a sinewy,
toughened Ajax. But he only spoiled it. For, raising his arms, he
stretched himself, stretched long and luxuriously. His very animal
revelling in the huge elongation of cramped limbs was exasperating. Next
he clapped the slouch on his head, and clambered down.
Jacqueline might have been surprised to see him. Her brows lifted. "Not
killed?" she exclaimed. "But no, of course not. You gave yourself air,
you ran away."
Driscoll made no answer. He was thinking of what to do next. She knew
that he had run because of her, and she was piqued because he would not
admit it. "So," she went on tauntingly, "monsieur counts his enemy by
numbers then?"
"Didn't count them at all," he murmured absently.
"But," and she tapped her foot, "a Frenchman, he would have done it--not
that way."
She was talking in English, and the quaintness of it began to create in
him a desire for more. "Done what, miss?" he asked.
"He would not have run--a Frenchman."
"Prob'bly not, 'less he was pretty quick about it."
She looked up angrily. Of course he must know that he had been splendid,
up there behind the rocks. And now to be unconscious of it! But that was
only a pose, she decided. Yet what made him so stupidly commonplace, and
so dense? She hated to be robbed of her enthusiasm for an artistic
bric-à-brac of emotion; and here he was, like some sordid mechanic who
would not talk shop with a girl.
"I wager one thing," she fretted, "and it is that when you bring men
down to earth you have not even at all--how do you say?--the martial
rage in your eyes?"
"W'y, uh, not's I know of. It might spoil good shooting."
"And your pipe"--her lip curled and smiled at the same time--"the pipe
does not, neither?"
His mouth twitched at the corners. "N-o," he decided soberly, "not in
close range."
She gave him up, he had no pose. Still, she was out of patience with
him. "Hélas! monsieur, all may see you are Ameri-can. But there, you
have not to feel sorry. I forgive you, yes, because--it wasn't dull."
"Hadn't we better be----"
"Now what," she persisted, "kept you so long up there, for example?"
Driscoll reddened. He had lingered behind the screen of rock to bandage
his furrowed leg. "S'pose you don't ask," he said abruptly, "there's
plenty other things to be doing."
He turned and invited the little Breton maid to come from the shack. She
was white, and trembled a little yet. "I knew, I knew you would not
leave us, monsieur," she was trying to tell him. "But if you had--oh,
what would madame----"
"Now then," the practical American interrupted, "where's Murgie?"
Jacqueline pointed with the toe of her slipper. There were prostrate
bodies around them, with teeth bared, insolent, silent, horrible. One
couldn't be sorry they were dead, but one didn't like to see them.
Jacqueline's boot pointed to a man lying on his face. A silk hat was
near by in the dust. A rusty black wig was loosened from his head. The
girl invoked him solemnly. "Arise, Ancient Black Crow, and live another
thousand years."
Driscoll lifted the shrunken bundle of a man, held him at arm's length,
looked him over, and stood him on his feet. The withered face was more
than ever like a death's head, and the eyes were glassy, senseless. But
as to hurt or scratch, there was none. The beady orbs started slowly in
their sockets, rolling from side to side. The lips opened, and formed
words. "Killed? yes, I am killed. But I want--my cotton, my burros, my
peons--I want them. I am dead, give them to me."
"You're alive, you old maverick."
The gaze focused slowly on Driscoll, and slowly wakened to a crafty
leer. Believe this Gringo?--not he!
With an arm behind his shoulders Driscoll forced him down the trail to
his caravan. Most of the animals were lying down, dozing under their
packs. Murguía's eyes grew watery when he saw them, but he was still
dazed and his delusion was obstinate. The leer shot exultant gleams. "A
rich man _can_ enter heaven," he chuckled with unholy glee.
"Oh wake up, and give me two donkeys for the girls. Their horses got
hit, you know."
Then the stunned old miser began to perceive that he was not in heaven.
His tyrant's voice! "You get my horses killed," he whined, "and now you
take my burros."
Driscoll said no more, but picked out two beasts and bound some
cushioned sacking on their backs for saddles. Then with a brisk hearty
word, he swept Berthe up on the first one.
"Next," he said, turning to Jacqueline.
But the marchioness drew back. Next--after her maid! It nettled her that
this country boy, or any other, could not recognize in her that
indefinable something which is supposed to distinguish quality.
"What's the matter, now?" he asked. "Quick, please, I'm in a hurry."
"It's too preposterous. I'll not!"
"You will," he said quietly.
Her gray eyes deepened to blue with amazement. She stood stock still,
haughtily daring him. She even lifted her arms a little, leaving the
girlish waist defenseless. Her slender figure was temptation, the pretty
ducal fury was only added zest. Up among the rocks Driscoll had found
himself whispering, "She's game, that little girl!" But at the same time
he had remembered Rodrigo's innuendo, the linking of her name with
Maximilian's. She was so brave, and so headstrong, so lovably
headstrong, and her beauty was so fresh and soft! Yet he could not but
think of that taint in what nature had made so pure. Of a sudden there
was a something wrong, something ugly and hideously wrong in life. And
the country boy, the trooper, the man of blood-letting, what you will,
was filled with helpless rage against it; and next against himself,
because the girlish waist could thrill him so. "A silly little
butterfly," he argued inwardly. Before, he had been unaware of his own
indifference. But now he angrily tried to summon it back. He set his
mind on their situation, on what it exacted. It exacted haste, simple,
impersonal haste. And keeping his mind on just that, he caught her up.
"Oh, you boor!" she cried, pushing at him.
His jaw hardened. His will was well nigh superhuman, for he battled
against two furious little hands, against the dimple and the patch so
near his lips, against the fragrance of her hair, against the subtle
warmth of his burden.
"No, no!" she panted. "Monsieur, do you hear me? I am not to be
carried!"
"Maybe not," said he, carrying her.
A moment later she discovered herself planted squarely on the burro.
"Bonté divine!" she gasped. But she took care not to fall off.
He drew a long breath.
"Now whip 'em up," he commanded.
* * * * *
The first village beyond, where Dupin had promised to meet Jacqueline,
was a squatting group of thatched cones in a dense forest of Cyprus and
eucalyptus. Its denizens were Huasteca Indians, living as they had
before the Conquest, among themselves still talking their native
dialect. The name of the hamlet was Culebra.
The coy twilight waned quickly, and the caravan was still pushing on
through the thick darkness of the wood, when a high tensioned yelping
made the vast silence insignificant, ugly. But as the travelers filed
into the clearing where the village was, the curs slunk away with coyote
humility, their yellow points of eyes glowing back on the intruders.
With a forager's direct method, Driscoll roused the early slumbering
village. He would not take alfafa, he declined rastrojo. It was human
food, corn, that he bought for his horse. He housed his dumb friend
under a human roof too. After which he prepared a habitation for the
women. He swept the likeliest hut clean of ashes, brazier, and bits of
pots and jars. He carpeted the earth floor in Spanish moss, as King
Arthur's knights once strewed their halls with rushes. It was luxury for
a coroneted lass, if one went back a dozen centuries. There were chinks
between the sooty saplings that formed the wall, but over these he hung
matting, and he drove a stake for a candle.
Supper followed. The trooper chose to change Don Anastasio from host to
guest, and he exacted what he needed from the Inditos. They, for their
part, were alert before his commands. None of them had been overlooked
in his preliminary largesse of copper tlacos and they made the teaming
wilderness contribute to his spread. Kneeling, with sleeves rolled from
his hard forearms, he broiled a steak over hickory forks. The torches of
gum tree knots lighted his banquet, and the faces of the two girls, rosy
in the blaze and mysterious in the shadow, were piquant inspiration.
Even the sharp features of Don Anastasio stirred him into a phase of
whimsical benevolence. He knocked two chickens from their perch in a
tree and baked them in a mould of clay. There was an armadilla too,
which a Culebra boy and the dogs had run down during the day. Its dark
flesh was rich and luscious, and the Missourian fondly called it
'possum. Crisply toasted tortillas, or corn cakes, served for bread, and
for spoons as well. But to Driscoll's mind the real feast was
coffee--actual coffee, which he made black, so very good and black, a
riotous orgie of blackness and strength and fragrance. Here was a feast
indeed for the poor trooper. He thought of the chickory, of the parched
corn, of all those pitiful aggravations that Shelby's Brigade had tried
so hard to imagine into coffee during the late months of privation along
the Arkansas line.
And the Marquise d'Aumerle? Learning to eat roasting ears, which somehow
just would leave a grain on her cheek with every bite, the dainty
Marquise thought how much finer was this than the tedious bumping ship.
How much more tempting than the ultra-belabored viands on white china
that had to be latticed down! Here was angel's bread in the wilderness.
And the appetite that drove her to ask for more, that was the only
sauce--an appetite that was a frisson. A new sensation, in itself!
And later, sleep too became a passion, a passion new and sweet in its
incantation out of the lost cravings of childhood. When the nearer
freshness of the woods filled her nostrils, there from the live-oak moss
in her night's abode, she smiled on the grave young fellow who had left
her at the door. And both girls laughing together over the masculine
notions for their comfort, knew a certain happy tenderness in their
gaiety.
"Éh, but it's deep, madame," said one.
"It's the politeness of the heart," the other explained.
Outside Driscoll spread his blanket across the doorway where his horse
was sheltered, and wrapped in his great cape-coat, he stretched himself
for a smoke. But Murguía came with cigars, of the Huasteca, gray and
musty. Driscoll accepted one, waving aside the old man's apologies. He
puffed and waited. Conviviality in Don Anastasio meant something.
"Ah, amigo," the thin voice cracked in a spasm of forced heartiness,
"ah, it was a banquet! Si, si, a banquet! Only, if there were but a
liqueur, a liqueur to give the after-cigar that last added relish,
verdad, señor?"
Driscoll tapped his "after-cigar" till the ashes fell. "Well? he asked.
"Ai de mi, caballero, but I am heavy with regrets. I can offer nothing.
My poor cognac--no, not after such a feast. But whiskey--ah, whiskey is
magnifico. It is American."
He stopped, with a genial rubbing of his bony hands. But his sad
good-fellowship was transparent enough, and in the darkness his eyes
were beads of malice. Driscoll half grunted. A long way round for a
drink, he thought. "Here," he said, getting out his flask, "have a pull
at this."
Murguía took it greedily. He had seen the flask before. The covering of
leather was battered and peeled. "Perhaps a little--water?" he faltered.
Driscoll nodded, and off the old Mexican ambled with the flask. When he
returned, he had a glass, into which he had poured some of the liquor.
The canteen he handed back to the trooper, who without a word replaced
it in his pocket. Murguía lingered. He sipped his toddy absently.
"I, I wonder why the friends of the señoritas do not come?" he ventured.
"Want to get rid of them, eh, Murgie?"
The old man shrugged his shoulders. "And why not? You may not believe
me, señor, but should I not feel easier if they were--well, out of the
reach of Don Rodrigo?"
"Out of----Look here, where's the danger now?"
"Ai, señor, don't be too sure. Colonel Dupin still does not come, and it
might be--because the guerrillas have stopped him."
"Man alive, he had 'em running!"
"H'm, yes, but there's plenty more. This very village breeds them, feeds
them, welcomes them home. Don Rodrigo can gather ten times what he had
to-day. And if he does, and if, if he is looking for the señoritas
again----"
Driscoll shifted on his blanket. "I see," he drawled. "F'r instance, if
the señoritas vanish before he gets here, he won't blame you? Oh no, you
were asleep, you couldn't know that I had up and carried 'em off.
Anyhow, you'd rather risk Rodrigo than Colonel Dupin----Yes, I see." He
tucked his saddle under his head, and lay flat, blinking at the stars.
"This trail go on to Valles?" he inquired drowsily.
Murguía's small eyes brightened over him. "Yes," he said, eagerly.
"Correct," yawned the American, "I've already made sure."
"And if----" But a snore floated up from the blanket.
When Murguía was gone, the sleeper awoke. He carefully poured out all
the remaining whiskey. "It may be what they call 'fine Italian,'" he
muttered, with a disgusted shake of the head, but he neglected to throw
the flask away as well. Next he saddled Demijohn and two of the pack
horses, then lay down and slept in earnest, as an old campaigner
snatches at rest.
The night was black, an hour before the dawn, when his eyes opened wide,
and he sat up, listening. He heard it again, faint and far away, a
feeble "pop-pop!" Then there were more, a sudden pigmy chorus of battle.
He got to his feet, and ran to call the two women.
"So," said Jacqueline, appearing under the stars, "monsieur does not
wish to be relieved of us? He will not wait for his friends?"
"Get on these horses! Here, I'll help you."
Soon they three were riding through the forest, in the trail toward
Valles. Behind them the fairy popping swelled louder, yet louder, and
the man glanced resentfully at his two companions. He was missing the
game.
Back in the village of Culebra a demon uproar hounded Don Anastasio out
of serape and slumber. All about him were fleeing feet. They were
shadows, bounding like frightened deer from the wood, across the
clearing, and into the wood again. Some turned and fired as they ran.
Screaming women and children hurried out of the _jacales_, and
darted here and there. Dogs howled everywhere. A storm of crashing brush
and a wild troop of horsemen, each among them a free lance of butchery,
burst on the village. A second crashing storm, and they were in the
forest again. They left quivering blots in their wake, and a moaning
gave a lower and dreadfuller note to the wailing of women. Only the
leader of the pursuers, with a few others, drew rein.
"Death of an ox!" the French oath rang out, "We're in their very nest.
Quick, you loafers, the torch, the torch!"
Flames began to crackle, and in the glare Murguía was seen frantically
driving burros and peons to safety. The leader of the troop leaned over
in his saddle and had him by the collar.
"Who the name of a name are you?"
Don Anastasio looked up. His captor was a great bearded man. "Colonel
Dupin!" he groaned.
"Who are you?--But I should know. It's the trader, the accomplice of
Rodrigo. Sacré nom, tell me, where is she? We can't find her here. Where
is she?"
"How can I know, señor? She--perhaps she is gone."
"With Rodrigo--ha! But he'll have no ransom--no, not if it breaks
Maximilian's heart.--Now, Señor Trader----"
He stopped and called to him his nearest men. Murguía sank limp.
"But he hasn't got her! Rodrigo hasn't got her!"
"Who has then?"
"The other one, the American."
"Which way did they go?"
"If Your Mercy will not----"
"Shoot him!" thundered the Tiger.
"But if he will tell us?" someone interposed.
It was Don Tiburcio, still the guardian angel of the golden goose.
"Bien," growled the Tiger, "let him live then until we find the
American."
"Which way did they go?" Tiburcio whispered in Murguía's ear.
"To, to Valles," came the reply.
The blazing huts revealed a ghoulish joy on the miser's face. The
Gringo, not he, would now have to explain to the Tiger.
CHAPTER XIII
UNREGISTERED IN ANY STUDBOOK
"La belle chose que l'aristocratie quand on a le chance d'en être."
--_Voltaire._
That garish daub which was sopped up from the burning homes of men and
bespattered over the forest's dark crest was already mellowing under the
gentler touch of dawn, when the three travelers gained the open country.
"Poor, dirty, little Inditos," Jacqueline mused aloud. Berthe struck her
pony in a tremor of fright. The American was riding ahead. "Fire and
sword," Jacqueline went on, and her voice lowered to intense scorn,
"they make the final tableau, but--it's gaudy, it's cheap."
The trail had broadened into a high road, and now it wound among the
hills like a soiled white ribbon. Driscoll turned in his saddle. "I
shouldn't wonder," he observed in the full-toned drawl that was peculiar
to him, "but what we'd better be projecting a change of venue. This
route is too public, and publicity around here strikes me as sort of
prejudiced. S'pose we just stir up an alibi?"
A certain stately old judge back in Missouri would have smiled thus to
hear the scion of his house. But the marchioness, confident in her
mastery of English, thought it was the veriest jargon. What was the boy
trying to say? His next words grew fairly intelligible. "We are now
headed for Valles. Well, we've decided not to go to Valles."
Perhaps they had, but she at least had ceased deciding anything, since
the overruling of her veto in the matter of precedence when one is
hoisted upon a burro.
A narrow pony path crossed the road. "First trail to the left, after
leaving the wood," Driscoll said aloud, "and this must be it."
Campaigner in an unfamiliar country, he had informed himself, and it was
with confidence that he led his little party into the bridlepath. But he
looked anxiously at the forest behind. He did not doubt but that
Rodrigo, if it were he back there, would terrify Murguía into betraying
their destination, or their supposed destination, which was Valles.
"Can't you hurry 'em up a bit?" he called back.
"We do try," protested Jacqueline, holding aloft a broken switch, "but
they only smile at us."
Driscoll got down and undid the spurs from his boots. One of the immense
saw-like discs he adjusted to mademoiselle's high heel, passing the
strap twice around the silk-clad ankle. Jacqueline gazed down on the
short-cropped, curly head, and she saw that the back of his neck was
suddenly red. But the discovery awakened nothing of the coquette in her.
Quite the contrary, there was something grateful, even gravely maternal,
in the smile hovering on her lips for the rough trooper who took fright
like a girl over a revealed instep. Still, the interest was not
altogether maternal as she watched him doing the same service for
Berthe. Perhaps he was too far away, or perhaps practice brought
indifference, but at any rate, his neck was no longer tinged in that
fiery way.
"Now dig 'em!" said he. "We want to make that clump of mesquite yonder,
now pretty quick."
The trees he pointed to were two or three miles away, but the travelers
covered the distance at an easy lope. Driscoll kept an eye on the road
they had just left, and once hidden by the mesquite he called a halt. As
he expected, a number of horsemen appeared at a trot from the direction
of the forest. They did not pause at the cross trail, however, but kept
to the highway in the direction of Valles. The American and the two
girls could now safely continue their journey along the bridlepath.
"Monsieur," Jacqueline questioned demurely, and in her most treacherous
way, "how much longer do we yet follow you up and down mountains?"
"W'y, uh--_I'm_ going to the City of Mexico."
"And we others, we may tag along, n'est-ce pas? But the city is far,
far. And, to-night?"
"Of course," said Driscoll, "if you should happen to know of a good
hotel----" He paused and gazed inquiringly over hills covered with
banana and coffee to the frost line. He would not have tried a frailer
temper so, but to provoke hers was incense to his own.
"You others, the Americans," she said tentatively, as though explaining
him to herself, "you are so greedy of this New World! You won't give us
of it, no, not even a poor little answer of information. Alas,
Monseigneur the American, I apologize for being on this side the ocean
at all--in a tattered frock."
Driscoll looked, but he could see nothing wrong. She seemed as crisp and
dainty as ever. If there were any disarray, it was a fetching sort, with
a certain rakish effect.
"Oh that's all right," he assured her heartily, "_you_ can stay."
"Really, and after you've been writing us notes from Washington to--to
'get out'? We French people do not think that was polite."
"I never wrote you any notes, and," he added in a lowered tone, "the
devil take Washington, since Lee didn't!"
Jacqueline's lips pursed suddenly like a cherry. "Oh pardon me," she
exclaimed. "I did not know. And so you are a--a Confederate? But," and
the gray eyes fastened upon him. She rode, too, so that she could see
his face, just ahead of her, "but your faction, the--yes, the South--she
is already vanquis--no!--whipped? I--I heard."
He did not reply, but his expression disturbed her unaccountably. She
could almost note the whimsical daredeviltry fade from his face, as
there came instead the grimmest and strangest locking of the jaws. She
tried to imagine the French beaten and her feelings then, but it was
difficult, for her countrymen were "the bravest of the world, the
unconquered." They had borne victory over four continents, into two
hemispheres. But this American, what must he feel? He was thinking, in
truth, of many things. Of his leave taking with his regiment, with those
lusty young savages of Missourians whom perhaps he was never to see
again. He was thinking of his ride through the South to Mobile, of the
misery in stubborn heroism, of the suffering everywhere, matching that
in the dreary fever camp of the Old Brigade. He was thinking of all the
beautiful Southland torn and ravaged and of the lowering cloud of
finality. Of the Army of Northern Virginia so hard pressed; of the doom
of Surrender, a knell already sounded, perhaps. Never had Jacqueline
seen such bitterness on a human face. It was a man's bitterness. And
almost a desperado's. At least there was the making of a desperado in
the youth of a moment before. She caught herself shuddering. There was
something so like a lurking death astride the yellow horse in front of
her.
But over her also there came a change, and it grew as she saw and
appreciated the man in him. Her caprices fell from her, and she was the
shrewd woman of the world, a deft creature of courts, a cunning weaver
of the delicate skeins of intrigue and politics. A glint of craft and
purpose struck from the gray eyes, as in preparation for battle. Her
mischievous bantering had really been fraught with design, and by it she
had revealed to herself this man. But the change in her came when he
proved an antagonist, as she now supposed him to be. For in the
uncloaking he stood forth a Confederate. His cause was lost. He was in
Mexico. He was on a mission, no doubt. One question remained, what could
the mission be?
Abrupt frankness, with its guileful calculation to surprise one into
betrayal, was the subtlest diplomacy. "Let us see," she mused aloud,
"you, your comrades, monsieur, you have no country now? Bien, that
accounts for your interest in Maximilian?"
"And what is your interest, Miss--Jack-leen?"
She staggered before the riposte. The "Jack-leen" was innocent
blundering, she knew that. He had heard Rodrigo address her so, and he
used it in all respect. But there was her own question turned on
herself. By "her interest" he of course meant the interest she was
showing in himself; he was not referring it to Maximilian. And yet the
double meaning was there, just the same. He had struck back, that was
certain, but because she could not tell where, nor even whether he had
wounded, she was afraid to parry, much more to venture another thrust.
Those who had sent the rustic evidently knew what they were about. He
could shoot well, which was exhilarating. To redeem one's country's
discredited bills, was quixotic. She rose to that, because she was
French. But to fence with herself--well, that was quality. Instinctive,
inbred, unconscious, and unregistered in any studbook of Burke or
Gotha--but quality. And she recognized it, for there was deference in
the silence which her baffled diplomacy now counseled.
They passed many natives plodding on to Valles with market stuff, going
at the Inditos' tireless foxtrot, now a man in loincloth stooped under a
great bundle of straw or charcoal, or a family entire, including burro
and dog. Of a gray-bearded patriarch with a chicken coop strapped to his
back, Driscoll inquired the distance to an hacienda of the region which
had the name of Moctezuma. "Probablemente, it will be ten leagues
farther on, señor," the Huastecan replied.
"We are going," Driscoll now informed his companions, "to drop in on
Murgie--the hospitable old anaconda."
They acquired a pineapple by purchase, and stopped for their morning
coffee at a hut among numberless orange trees, and at another farther on
for their midday lunch, where they learned that the Hacienda de
Moctezuma was only just beyond the first hill, and only just beyond the
first hill they learned that they had six leagues more to go. They
covered three of these leagues, and were rewarded with the information
that it was fully seven leagues yet. Geography in Mexico was clearly an
elastic quantity. But towards three o'clock a young fellow on a towering
stack of fagots waved his arm over the landscape, and said, "Why, señor,
you are there now." Yes, it was the hacienda, but how far was it to the
hacienda house? Oh, that was still a few little leagues.
In the end, after nightfall, they rode into a very wide valley, where
two broad, shallow rivers joined and flowed on as one through the
lowland. Here, on the brow of a slope, they perceived the walls and the
church tower of what seemed to be a small town. But after one last
inquiry, they learned that it was the seat of Anastasio Murguía's
baronial domain.
CHAPTER XIV
THE HERALD OF THE FAIR GOD
"Les grenouilles se lassant
De l'état démocratique,
Par leur clameurs firent tant
Que Jupin les soumit au pouvoir monarchique."
--_La Fontaine._
A wide country road swept up the slope of the hill, curved in toward the
low outer wall of the little town on the brow, then swept down again.
The portico of the hacienda house was set in the wall where the road
almost touched, so that the traveler could alight at the very threshold
of the venerable place. Mounting the half-dozen steps, Driscoll crossed
a vast porch whose bare cement columns stood as sentinels the entire
length of the high, one-storied façade, and on the heavy double doors he
found a knocker. Visitors were infrequent there, but at last a surprised
barefoot mozo answered the rapping, and in turn brought a short man of
burly girth and charro tightness of breeches. This chubby person bowed
many times and assured Their Mercies over and over again that here they
had their house. Driscoll replied with thanks that in that case he
thought that he and the other two Mercies would be taking possession,
for the night at least.
The man was Murguía's administrador, or overseer. He took it for granted
that the French señor (in those days Mexico called all foreigners
French) and the French señoras were friends of his employer, and
Driscoll did not undeceive him. The trooper's habits were those of war,
and war admitted quartering yourself on an enemy. He brought the news,
too, that Murguía had come safely through his last blockade run, which
alone insured him a welcome without the fact that ranchero hospitality
may be almost Arabian and akin to a sacrament.
Plunging into apologies for every conceivable thing that could or might
be amiss, Don Anastasio's steward led them into the sala, a long front
room, the hacendado's hall of state. To all appearances it had not been
so used in many years, but the old furnishing of some former Spanish
owner still told the tale of coaches before the colonnade outside and of
hidalgo guests within the great house. There was the stately sofa of
honor flanked by throne-like armchairs, with high-backed ones next in
line, all once of bright crimson satin and now frazzled and stained. The
inevitable mirror leaned from its inevitable place over the sofa, but it
was cracked and the gilt of the heavy frame had tarnished to red. At the
other end of the sala, a considerable journey, there hung a token of the
later and Mexican family in possession. The token was of course the
Virgin of Guadelupe in her flame of gold, as she had gaudily emblazoned
herself on the blanket, or serape, of a poor Indian. Murguía's print was
one of thousands of copies of that same revered serape.
Urging them to be seated, clapping his hands for servants, giving
orders, ever apologizing, the overseer finally got the travelers
convinced that it was their house and that supper would be ready now
directly. With a glance at his two companions, Driscoll inquired for the
señoras of the family, whereupon a sudden embarrassment darkened the
administrador's fat amiable features.
"Doña Luz, Your Mercy means? Ai, caballero, you are most kind. And you
tell me that her father will come to-morrow, that he will--surely come?"
"Might we," Jacqueline interposed, "pay our respects to Señor Murguía's
daughter?"
The poor fellow begged Their Mercies' indulgence, but Doña Matilde, the
señora aunt of Doña Luz, lay sick in the house. As for Doña Luz, yes,
Doña Luz had gone to the chapel, as she often did of an evening lately,
to pray for her aunt's recovery. Doña Luz had vowed to wear sackcloth
for six months if her dear patron saint, María de la Luz, would but hear
her petition. Out of compassion, Jacqueline said no more.
Next morning Driscoll was astir early. He wandered through a
thick-walled labyrinth of corridors and patios, and came at last into a
rankly luxuriant tropical garden, where the soft perfume of china-tree
blossoms filled his nostrils. Keeping on he passed many of the hacienda
buildings, a sugar mill, a cotton factory, warehouses, stables with
corrals, and entered a tortuous street between adobes, where he found
the hacienda store. Here the administrador was watching the clerks who
sold and the peons who bought. The latter were mostly women, barefooted
and scantily clothed. Their main want was corn, weevil-eaten corn, which
they carried away in their aprons. They made tortillas of it for their
men laboring in the hacienda fields, or on the hacienda coffee hills.
The store was a curious epitome of thrift and improvidence. One wench
grumbled boldly of short measure. She dared, because she was comely and
buxom, and her chemise fell low on her full, olive breast. She counted
her purchase of frijoles to the last grain, using her fingers, and
glaring at the clerk half coaxingly, half resentfully. But an intensely
scarlet percale caught her barbarian eye, and she took enough of it for
a skirt. A dozen cigarettes followed, and by so much she increased her
man's debt to the hacienda.
A shrunken and ancient laborer was expostulating earnestly with much
gesturing of skeleton arms, while the administrador listened as one
habituated and bored. The feeble peon protested that he could not work
that day. He parted the yellow rags over one leg and revealed decaying
flesh, sloughing away in the ravages of bone leprosy. He showed it
without emotion, as some argument in the abstract. And he was arguing
for a little corn, just a little, and he made his palm into a tiny cup
to demonstrate. The administrador opened a limp account book, held his
pudgy forefinger against a page for a second, then shut it decisively.
"No, no, Pedro, not while you owe these twelve reales. Think, man, if
you should die. You have no sons; we would lose."
"But, mi patron, there's my nephew."
"True, and he has his own father's debt waiting for him."
"Just a wee little," begged the man.
The overseer shook his head. "When you've worked to-day, yes. Then you
may have six cents' worth, and the other six cents of the day's wages
counted off your debt. There now, get along with you to the timber
cutting."
The administrador brightened on perceiving Driscoll. "How was His Mercy?
How had His Mercy passed the night? How----"
"Where," interposed Driscoll, "might one find the nearest stage to
Mexico?"
Almost nowhere, was the reply. What with the French intervention and
guerrillas, the Compañia de Diligencias had about suspended its service
altogether. "Then," said Driscoll, "could we hire some sort of a rig
from you?" The administrador believed so, though he regretted
continuously that Their Mercies must be leaving so soon.
With a nod of thanks Driscoll turned curiously to the loaded shelves,
and gazed at the bolts of manta, calico, and red flannel. "Jiminy
crickets," he burst forth, "is there anybody on this ranch who can sew?"
Yes, the wife of one of the clerks was a passable seamstress. She did
such work for the Doñas at the House.
"And can she do some to-day, and can you send it on to overtake me by
to-morrow?"
Most certainly.
Then Driscoll invested in a number of varas of calico print. It was the
best available. But the light blue flowering was modest enough, and
there was even a cheery freshness about it that called up mellowing
recollections of bright-eyed Missouri girls. Yet each time he thought of
the costumes he had ordered, he blushed until his hair roots tingled.
Intent once more on departure, Din Driscoll hastened back to the House.
But he only learned that Jacqueline and Berthe were not up yet. He
mumbled at such looseness in discipline, until he remembered that they
were not troopers, but girls. And since girls are to be waited for, he
did it in his own room. From his saddlebags he laid out shaving
material. The Old Brigade had advised these things, while speculating
with dry concern on what was correct among emperors. After much sharp
snapping of eyes, for the razor pulled, the clean line of his jaw
emerged from lather and stubble. "Just in case any emperor should happen
in," he tried to explain it, taking a transparently jocose manner with
himself.
Eight o'clock! Even civilized people do not stay abed that late! Yet he
found only Berthe in the dining room. She had come on a foraging
expedition. He watched the little Bretonne's deft arranging of a
battered tray, and offered droll suggestions until she began to suspect
that he really did not mean them. Berthe was a nice girl with soft brown
hair, and a serious, gentle way about her.
The maid found mademoiselle not only still abed, but stretched on a rack
of torture as well, her helpless gaze fixed on a Mexican woman with a
hot iron. It was a flatiron, and it was being applied to Jacqueline's
poor rumpled frock. The dress was spread over a cloth on the floor, and
the woman strove tantalizingly, and Jacqueline was trying to direct her.
"Madame is served," Berthe announced.
Madame raised herself on an elbow and looked at the tray, at the sorry
chinaware, at the earthen supplements. "Served?" she repeated. "Berthe,
exaggeration is a very bad habit. But child, what are you about? This is
not a petit déjeuner!"
"I know, madame, but he told me to bring it. He said we'd be traveling,
and there wouldn't be time for a second breakfast."
"_He?_ Who in the world----"
"Why, the, the American monsieur. He said just coffee wasn't enough, and
for me to bring along the entire contest of marksmanship--the, the whole
shooting match--and for madame to hurry."
"Berthe! one would say you thought him a prince."
"He--he is a kind of prince," said the little Bretonne doggedly.
Madame whistled softly. Still, she ate a hearty breakfast.
Meantime, outside two resplendent horsemen were galloping up the curving
sweep of the wide road. Their haste smacked of vast importance, and the
very dazzling flash of their brass helmets in the sunlight had a certain
arrogance. The foremost jerked his horse's bit with a cruel petulance
and drew up before the hacienda house. Several natives were basking on
the steps, and he cut at them sharply with his whip.
"Wake, you r-rats!" A Teutonic thickness of speech clogged his
utterance, and he turned to his companion. "Tell this canaille," he
snarled in Flemish, "to go fetch their master here at once."
The administrador came hurrying, and was overcome. His hospitable flow
gushed and choked at its source before the splendor of the two
cavaliers. They were Belgians. The first wore a long blue coat bedecked
with golden leaves and belted with a sash. Crosses and stars dangled on
his breast. His breeches were white doe, and his high glossy boots had
wrinkles like a mousquetaire's. Heavy tassels flapped from his sword
hilt. A brass eagle was perched on his helmet. Altogether, here was a
glittering bit of flotsam from the new Mexican Empire. But a narrowness
between the man's eyes affected one unpleasantly. It was a mean and a
sour scowl, of a fellow lately come into authority. The other man graced
the ornate uniform of an aide in Maximilian's imperial household.
"Your Mercy is--is the Emperor?" stammered the poor fat administrador.
He had, indeed, heard rumors of Maximilian on one of his ostentatious
voyages. The first Belgian, however, was in no way embarrassed at the
question. It was a natural mistake, in his opinion.
"Explain to this imbecile," he ordered, "since there's no better here to
receive us."
The aide explained. His Imperial Majesty, Maximiliano, was returning to
his capital. Fascinated by the beauty of the tropics, as well as ill of
a cough, he had lingered for a week past at the adjoining hacienda of
Las Palmas. He had also been deep in studies for the welfare of his
people. But now the business of the Empire demanded that he relieve the
Empress of her regency. Accordingly, His Majesty and His Majesty's
retinue had left Las Palmas that very morning, and would shortly pass by
the hacienda of Moctezuma. His Majesty, when en voyage, always took a
loving interest in his subjects, and a sincere ovation never failed to
touch his heart. So Monsieur Éloin--here the aide glanced with some
irony at the first Belgian--so Monsieur Éloin thought that the master of
La Moctezuma would be grateful to know of His Majesty's approach, in
order to gather the peons from the fields to welcome him. It would be as
well, perhaps, to reveal nothing to the Emperor of this thoughtful hint.
"To make it quite plain," concluded the speaker, "can you assemble
enough men within an hour to do a seeming and convincing reverence to
your ruler?"
"And tell him," interrupted Monsieur Éloin, "not to forget the green
boughs waving in their hands. Make him understand that there will be
consequences if it's not spontaneous."
As they galloped back to rejoin Maximilian, the imperial aide was
thoughtful. "I can't help it," he said aloud, "I feel sorry for him. How
his blue eyes glisten--there are actually tears in them--when he talks
to these Indians of freedom and a higher life! He thinks they love him!
And all this elegance--no wonder they believe that the Fair God is come
at last to right their sorrows."
"The loathsome beasts!"
"But I do feel sorry. He really believes that he will verify the
tradition and be their savior. It's his sincere goodness of heart. Man,
how exalted he is!"
"But where's the harm?"
"Because, because the poor devils were fooled once before. And their new
Messiah may deceive them as bitterly with unwise meddling as Cortez did
with greed and cruelty."
"Messiah for these pigs!" Éloin sneered. "What pleasure it gives him,
_I_ can't see."
CHAPTER XV
THE RITUAL
"... a bearded man,
Pamper'd with rank luxuriousness and ease."
--_Dante._
The Emperor was coming--elaborately, by august degrees.
First, and far in advance, arrived a haughty pack liveried in the royal
green of ancient Aztec dynasties. New tenants might have been moving on
this bright May day, for the flunkies attended a small caravan of
household stuff, which they crammed through the gaping doorway as nuts
into a goose's maw. The stuff was all royal, of royalty's absolute
necessities. There were soft rugs, and finely spun tapestries, and
portiéres to smother a whisper. There was a high-backed chair, and a
velvet-covered dais for the high-backed chair. There were brushes, whose
stroke caressed gently and purringly the Hapsburg whisker. There was a
Roman poet, fastidiously bound, and then--there was the Ritual.
The Ritual was a massive tome, of glazed, gilt-edged paper, of print as
big for the proclaiming of truth as the Family Bible, of weight to
burden a strong man, of contents to stagger a giant brain, unless the
giant brain had in it the convolution of a smile. Maximilian and
Charlotte had reigned a year, and so far the Ritual was the supreme
monument to the glory and usefulness of their Empire. It decreed, by
Imperial dictation and signature, the etiquette that must and should be
observed in the courtly circle. But alas, you can't codify
genuflections, nor yet a handshake.
The next degree in the imperial advent was the imperial courier, who
proclaimed from a curveting steed what everybody suspected. "Our August
Sovereign" was approaching.
Several hundred peons stared with open mouths. Gathered before the
house, they prattled to one another in childlike expectancy of the Señor
Emperador. Most of them were learning for the first time that they had
an emperor. Still, it sufficed to know this was an occasion for
auto-inspiring vivas, like once when the Ilustrísimo Bishop came. They
took new hold on the green boughs they were to wave. A handkerchief here
and there fluttered from a bamboo pole. Down in an adobe village by the
river junction, every gala scrap of calico print, whether shirt or
skirt, pended from cords stretched across the street; and cotton
curtains, some of crude drawn work, hung outside the windows. All the
poor finery of the Indians was on exhibition to do honor to a gorgeous
Old World court. But the fiesta air had already gotten into the
susceptible native lungs, and that alone, with only a trumpet's blare,
would make for a hurrah in genuine fervor.
The roomy porch of the old mansion was crowded with the chief people of
the hacienda, clerks, foremen, house servants, besides the administrador
and the chaplain. Behind a remote column were the three wanderers in the
wilderness; the Storm Centre, the Marchioness, and the Maid. They were
to have been gone by now, and yet it was not the coming of the emperor
that had stopped them. The cause was nearer at hand. Smoking a long
black cigar, "grizzled and fierce, as ornate in braid and decorations as
a bullfighter," Colonel Dupin had delayed them.
His Cossacks thronged the colonnade. The brick-red of their raw leather
jackets splotched every other color with rust. The Contra Guerrillas
were many things. They were Frenchmen and Mexicans. They were Americans,
Confederate deserters, Union deserters. They were Negroes and Arabs.
They were the ruined of fortune, now soldiers of fortune. They were
pirates and highwaymen. They were gold hunters, gamblers, swindlers.
They were fugitives from the noose, from the garrote, from the
guillotine. But they were all right willing desperadoes. And there was
not a softened feature on a man of the troop. Only a tigerish ferocity
could lead them, could hold them.
They surrounded the Missourian on the hacienda portico. If only for his
debonnaire indifference, they knew him for a "bad man" such as none of
them might ever hope to be. And they watched him like lynxes, though he
was unarmed. Yet he did not look "bad." He merely looked bored. He was a
prisoner, but not the only one. Anastasio Murguía fidgetted among the
Cossacks on his own porch. His restless eyes roved incessantly over the
crowd, seeking his daughter, but they were steadily baffled.
Down in the valley, where the Rio Moctezuma joined its course with the
Pánuco, a dusty mist moved nearer along the old Spanish highway, and
faintly there came the sound of clarions. An eager murmuring arose from
the throng on the hillside. It swelled more confidently to a buzz as the
far-away dust lifted at the ford and revealed the beaded stringing of a
numerous company. The distant bugles rang clearer on the pure air. "Yes,
he comes," the people cried, "There! Seest thou, hombre?--_There!_
Viva el Señor Emperador!"
For Colonel Dupin the cloud of dust would shortly evolve into a staying
hand of mercy, into the exasperating stupidity of mercy. He had captured
the American not ten minutes before, and here was interference in a
gauzy haze of dust. He signed to one of his men to follow with Murguía,
and he himself placed a gauntleted hand on Driscoll's shoulder. "Now,"
he said.
But a white figure of Mexican rebosa and silken instep moved swiftly
from behind a column and touched the Tiger's arm. Both Jacqueline and
Berthe had been watching the Cossack chief rather than the spectacle in
the valley. And as he turned on his prisoner, Berthe half screamed and
clutched at the bosom of her dress. It was Jacqueline who gained his
side. She addressed him sharply as one who hates to reopen a tedious
argument.
"Monsieur Dupin," she cried, "have I not already permitted myself to
tell you--yes, I repeat, you are mistaken. He is in no sense whatever an
accomplice of Rodrigo Galán."
The Tiger heard, no doubt, but he did not stop. He kept on toward the
door, Driscoll beside him, and his men around him. He meant to pass
through the house. Some secluded corral in the back would do for the
execution. Driscoll seemed as indifferent as ever, though there was a
lithe, alert spring in his step. Behind him Murguía was moaning, praying
to see his daughter. Berthe followed, bewildered, and silently wringing
her hands. But the death march was so business-like, and every one else
was so intent on the approach of a royally born person, that the crowds
shoved aside by the little group never once suspected that they had just
brushed elbows with tragedy in the making.
Jacqueline caught her breath, sucked it in rather, in a pang of angry
despair; and plucking up her skirts she ran ahead until she could oppose
her slender figure squarely in front of the burly Frenchman. If he were
to move on, he must trample her down. Her eyes, usually so big and round
and shading to a depth of blue with their lively mischief, were all but
closed, and through the narrowed lashes they gleamed like white steel.
Her voice, though, was clear and even, of a studied courtesy.
"Yes, I know, Monsieur le Coronel, suspicion with you is quite enough.
But," she went on in contempt and feigned surprise at his dullness,
"this rage of yours at being outwitted by Rodrigo Galán blinds you to
something else.--Pardon, monsieur, a Frenchman does not jostle a
woman.--Thank you."
"But the jostling by a woman's tongue, mademoiselle.--Well, what is it?
Have mercy, be brief, since I am not even to breathe while my lady
talks."
"I was thinking, dear monsieur, of the feelings of an artist, to which
you are very, very blind."
"Feelings, artist? Name of a name, mademoiselle!"
"Precisely, Maximilian's feelings. You know how he abhors the sight of
blood. Ma foi, and I agree with him."
"Go it, Miss Jack-leen!" Driscoll abetted her. Never a word of their
French did he understand, but he knew that she had a power of speech.
Dupin evidently knew it better yet, for though he laughed, he did not
laugh easily.
"Never fear," he said, "His Majesty's delicate prejudices are safe. It
will be all underground before he comes, and no muss at all."
"But you forget," Jacqueline cried testily, "you forget the imagination
of a poet."
"And he will imagine----"
"Yes, because I shall tell him."
"Sacré----"
"And possibly he would brace his feelings to a second æsthetic horror as
a rebuke for the first. In a word, my colonel, there will be one more
body to follow--underground. Now is this quite clear, or--do you require
my promise on it?"
The savage old brow manifested the desire to make her a victim as well,
but in this extra blood-thirst she knew that Driscoll was safe. "I
understand, Mademoiselle la Marquise," he said, laying on heavily the
suave gallantry of a Frenchman. "Yes, I understand. Prince Max values
Your Ladyship's good taste so highly---- Pardi, I believe he would
certainly shoot me if you told him to."
"Exactly," Jacqueline coldly assented.
"And Monsieur l'Americain may congratulate himself on the influence of
mademoiselle, the arbiter elegantiarum--with His Majesty."
"As Monsieur le Tigre may congratulate himself that the American does
not understand this insult, sir."
Behind her rose a dry hysterical cackle of renewed hope. "The Little
Black Crow!" she exclaimed. "See, my colonel, he is not worth an
execution all to himself, so do we all go back to contemplate Prince
Max's loving ovation."
"The Emperor arrives!" she cried gayly, returning to the porch. With the
others she was once more behind the remote column, an end of the rebosa
hanging over her arm ready to be flung across her face. "But
what--Hélas, I haven't my Ritual with me."--The Ritual classified every
movement, every breath of the Court, as rigidly and with as little
consciousness of humor as Linnæus did his flowers.--"It can't be a Minor
Palace Luncheon of the Third Class," she mused, "and it isn't Grand
Court Mourning of the First Degree. Ha, I have it, He--that 'H' is a
capital, please, not as a sacrilege, but to be Ritualistic--He is out on
a voyage of the Minor Class, Small Service of Honor, Lesser Cortège. Now
then, all's comfortable; no room for plebeian misconceptions."
On they came, each rigidly after his kind, a Noah's procession of
Dignitaries with the August Sovereign first of all. To bring on the
majestic climax so early was illogical, of course, but dust having
happened to be created before precedence, the Cortège was changed the
other way round for a voyage, so that the First Category people breathed
what the August Sovereign kicked up and kicked up some additional for
the Second Category, and the Second did the same for the Third, and so
on down to the Ninth, or "And all others," who breathed the best they
could and paid the bill.
Nothing preceded the royal coach except the royal escort, and that by
exactly two hundred paces, in which interval a canonical obligation was
laid on the dust to settle. It was a particularly gallant royal escort.
The Empress's Own, or the Dragoons, or Lancers, or Guardsmen, or
Hussars, or whatever they were, were picked Mexicans; and they were
frankly proud of their rich crimson tunics; also, perhaps, of their
heavily fringed standard worked by Carlota herself. A cavalry detachment
in fur caps with a feather completed the body guard. Mexico is a hot
country, but that was no reason why an Austrian regiment should
sacrifice its furry identity.
"Belgians too!" exclaimed Jacqueline. "And the Mexican emigrés! They
came back when we made it safe for them. But where, oh where, are the
French?"
"Everywhere," growled the Tiger, "in mountains and swamps, dying
everywhere, fighting for this Austrian archduke. But he doesn't like to
be seen with them."
Behind eight white mules of Spain, four abreast, rolled the coach of the
Emperor, solitary and marked as majesty itself. There were postilions
and outriders and footmen arrayed in the Imperial livery with the
Imperial crown. And on the coach door flashed Maximilian's escutcheon,
his archducal arms grafted on the torso of his new imperial estate.
There were the winged griffins with absurd scrolls for tails. They had
voracious claws, had these droll beasts of prey, and they clutched at an
oval frame ruthlessly, as though to shatter it and get at a certain bird
within. Poor bird, his shelter looked very fragile, and he about to be
smothered under an enormous diadem as under an extinguisher. He was none
other than the Mexican eagle perched on his own native cactus, and he
desired only peace and quiet while he throttled the snake of ignorance
in his talons, which snake had been his worry ever since the Aztec
hordes from the north had first caged him in. Beneath the Imperial arms
was the motto, "Equidad en la Justicia," but it seemed an idle promise.
In the huge traveling coach, with a greyhound at his feet, sat one lone
man. He had a soft skin, rosy like a baby's, and blue eyes, and what
some called a beautiful golden beard. The huzzas swelled and surged from
all sides, and he smiled on the people. But he gazed beyond them, and
into the blue eyes came the light of exaltation such as is inspired by
music that starts a heartstring in vague trembling.
The Cortège followed in carriages one hundred paces apart. The first
held the First Grand Dignitary, the only Dignitary of Third Category
rank, and hence the only one who could stand near the throne after
Highnesses, Grand Collars, and Ambassadors. He was the Grand Marshal of
the Court and Minister of the Imperial Household. His privileges
consisted of seeing "His Majesty when called for," and of "communicating
with Him in writing." But he could not see Him when not called for. In
reality the Grand Marshal was a quiet old Mexican gentleman who seemed
ill at ease. He was General Almonte, one of those conservatives who had
sought their country's tranquillity in foreign intervention. But
Maximilian had bespangled him into a Dignidad, and thus lost to himself
an able politician's usefulness. The real man of affairs was an obscure
Belgian who openly and insolently despised everything Mexican. He also
sang chansonettes. He was the sour-browed Monsieur Éloin already
mentioned.
Dignidades enough to make up the Lesser Cortège were not lacking. Riding
alone was the Chief of the Military Household, who could return no
salutes when near His Majesty except from First and Second Category
personages. Under the circumstances, recognition of his own father would
have been rank heresy. Then there was the Grand Physician, the Grand
Chaplain, and Honorary Physicians and Chaplains, who could wear Grand
Uniforms and a Cordon and eat at the Grand Marshal's table; and there
were Chamberlains and Secretaries of Ceremony and Aides. Many
surreptitiously peeped into a monster volume as they rode. It was not a
mass book nor a materia medica. It was the Ritual.
The Sixth Grand Dignitary of Cabellerizo Mayor helped His Majesty to
descend from His coach. He did it mid vociferous cheering and waving of
boughs and agitation of handkerchiefs on bamboo poles. Aides and Deputy
Dignitaries worked industriously driving back the simple Inditos.
"'The General Aide de Camp,'" Jacqueline quoted reverently, "'will keep
the people from the Imperial coach, but without maiming them.'"
CHAPTER XVI
HE OF THE DEBONAIR SCEPTRE
"And let us make a name."--_Genesis._
The flame of lofty resolve burned with a high, present heat in
Maximilian's dreamy eyes. But the thing was not statesmanship. The
danger dial pointed to some latest darling phantasy.
When the young prince--he was but thirty-three--descended from his
carriage, he signed that the Cortège should not form as yet. And instead
of mounting the colonnade steps, he turned and mingled with his humble
subjects. A pleased murmur arose among the Indians. "Que simpático!"
they breathed in little gasps of admiring awe.
The unusually tall and very fair young man, in the simplicity of black,
with only the grand cross of St. Stephen about his neck, moved about
among the ragged peons. Now and again he spoke to one and another,
questioning earnestly. Anxious orderlies were quick to brush aside the
touch of an elbow, but to those outside the circle, watching what he
would do, he seemed alone with his people. And in thought, he really
was. There was a great pity upon his face, and it was the more poignant
because these timorous children could not comprehend the wretchedness
which so appealed to him.
"And thou?" he demanded of an aged man whose tatters hung heavy in
filth.
A look of poor simple craft came into the Indian's face. "I, señor?
María purísima, I am cursed of heaven. But the rich señor wishes to
know--see!" and ere Monsieur Éloin could prevent, he bared a limb of
rotting flesh. "If it were not for my leg, Your Mercy----"
"_Animal_," snarled Éloin in his ear, "can't you say 'Your
Majesty'?"
"Your--Majesty, or if I had children, I could make my debt--oh, grande,
grande, twenty reales, maybe. And then, and then I should have a red and
purple scrape, with a green eagle, like my nephew Felipe has.--He owes,"
the man added in a kind of pride, "thirty reales, my nephew Felipe
does."
But his wiles failed. The rich señor turned toward the colonnade, his
sailor's easy swing giving way to a tread of determination. Also, the
pure flame burned consumingly.
From the top of the steps, between files of dismounted Dragoons,
Maximilian looked over the people, beyond, in some far away gaze of the
spirit.
Jacqueline hid the golden gleam of her hair under the rebosa.
"Silencium!" she whispered, laying a finger across her lips. "For now
we'll have the mountains to frisk, and the little hills to skip. In all
the Orient there blooms no flower of eloquence like unto his."
The monarch's inspired look promised as much. "Mexicans," he began. The
peons huddled closer, their responsive natures quickened. His sonorous
voice was electrical, despite an accent, despite the German over-gush of
stammering when words could not keep pace with the vast idea. But the
one word of address gave the peons a dignity they had never suspected.
"Mexicans: you have desired me. Acceding to the spontaneous expression
of your wishes, I have come to your noble country--our dear patria--to
watch over and direct your destinies. And with me came one who feels for
you all the tenderness of a mother, who is your Empress and my August
Spouse."
"But not," murmured the sententious lady of the rebosa, "august enough
to appear before Him unless He sends for Her."
Proceeding, the speaker solemnly told them of his divine right as a
Hapsburg, as one of the Cæsars, and of his anointment by the Vicar of
God at Rome, so that to God alone was he responsible. As a Mexican he
gloried with them in their liberties, in the True Liberty he brought,
for had not the Holy Father said to him, "Great are the rights of a
people, but greater and more sacred are the rights of the Church?" Hence
he burned with Heaven-given fire to lift them, his subjects, into the
vanguard of Nineteenth Century Progress.
Here Maximilian paused mid cheers, and thinking on his next words, his
delicate hand of a gentleman clenched.
"Mexicans," he began again, now in the vibrant tone of an overpowering
emotion. "I pray to fulfil the mission for which God has placed me here.
There are six millions of you, a sober and industrious race. Cortez
found you so, and you astounded him with your civilization. But the
conditions that followed have enslaved you. Enslaved, I repeat, for you
are bound by debt. Your hacendado master contrives that you cannot pay
even his usurious interest. The food you eat, you must buy from him, at
his prices, of the quality he prescribes. And if your debt be not
sufficient, that is, if there seems a chance of your paying it off, then
you must increase it to obtain your daily bread. Your very children are
slaves at birth, since with their first birth they inherit your chains.
And if you or your children run away, you or they may be brought back as
runaway slaves. It is thus that I find you, Mexicans. And I find you
awaiting a liberator, waiting vainly through the centuries. But now, at
last, the reward of your suffering and your faith has come. In a word,
which shall be formally recorded in the Journal Official, We this day
decree----"
"I knew it," exclaimed Jacqueline, "he always coins his inspirations."
"----We this day decree your debts extinguished, and each and every peon
in all our beautiful country--a free man!"
"Yet with not," said Jacqueline, "a foot of land to be free on. But you
know, messieurs, that Utopia is an asylum for the blind."
"It's a spider on his ceiling," muttered Colonel Dupin, touching his own
head significantly.
The emancipator's face was beatific. He heard the peons acclaim him, as
gradually they began to understand that there was to be no more
unhappiness. But it was curious how far, far away the sweet music
sounded, even when some belated "Viva el Señor Emperador!" cracked in
ludicrous falsetto. For the poet-prince these human chords might have
been the strings of a harp, softly touched. And as far away as
posterity.
Jacqueline fell to clapping her hands noiselessly. "Oh, lá-lá," she
cried, "if we are not to have an epic flight from Monsieur Éloin!"
It was true in a degree. Five minutes of stupendous history making had
just elapsed, and some graceful tribute was due. The royal favorite had
foreseen the need, and he was prepared; but whether by borrowing or
originating, it is impossible to say.
"'Vous l'avez relevé; votre main souveraine
L'a rendu d'un seul coup à la famille humaine.
De ce premier bienfait, Sire, soyez content:
L'Indien fera de vous MAXIMILIEN LE GRAND!'"
"Parbleu, why not?" demanded Jacqueline. "If only he were as great as
his decrees, poor man!"
Maximilian by this time remembered that he must be somebody's guest.
"Who receives Us here?" he asked. But none of his court knew. Even
Monsieur Éloin could only point to the administrador. "Why is your
master not present?" inquired General Almonte. The administrador opened
his mouth, and it stayed open. Colonel Dupin had promised to shoot him
if he breathed a word of Don Anastasio being a prisoner.
[Illustration: THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN]
But someone whispered something to a person on the outskirts of the
entourage, who passed it on to the very centre till it came to the ear
of Col. Miguel Lopez of Her Majesty's Dragoons. The someone who
initiated the message was Don Tiburcio, the watchful herder over one
golden goose. As a result, an aide rescued Murguía from the claws of the
Tiger.
Maximilian looked the weazened old man over in disappointment. Here,
then, was the lord of Moctezuma, an hacendado, and hence one of the
heavy timbers for his empire building. Don Anastasio scraped awkwardly
and craved many pardons for not being on hand to welcome His Majesty.
Overcoming a curious aversion to the man, the emperor straightway
invested him with the newly created order of Civil Merit, and Don
Anastasio, without a peon to till his fields or to oil his machinery,
quaked under the honor of a copper medal.
"And," pursued the monarch, "We find a need of stout officials, for We
have been grieved to learn of hacendados who secretly aid the prowling
rebellious outlaws that infest our country.--And as We must have a
prefect in this district of an integrity like your own, it pleases Us,
dear caballero, to name you jefe político."
The new jefe's greenish eyes contracted in terror. He thought of the
brigands whom magistrates were supposed to discourage, and he tried to
frame excuses.
"Accept, you fool," someone whispered. "Mexicans can't refuse
office--that's decreed." It was Don Tiburcio, his sombrero against his
breast. To Murguía the Roman sword on the crown seemed more than ever
emblematic of "Woe to the conquered." In a veritable panic he accepted.
As it was fitting that this day of a people's emancipation should be
commemorated by public praise to Almighty God, the Lesser Cortège
formed, and careful of precedence, went to worship their Maker. The
freedmen trooped after, waving jubilee branches.
The little church of the hacienda stood on a barren knoll, mid chaparral
and graves. The curate's white adobe adjoining was the only near
habitation. A stone walk as wide as the church itself approached for a
hundred yards, sloping up from a pasture below. The one tower opened on
four sides for the better ease of the bell ringers. Its bright mosaic
peak rose peaceful and still in the clear air.
The Emperor and suite arranged themselves within, and the Inditos gaped
stolidly outside, to hear the Te Deum for their broken shackles. At the
most solemn moment, the Grand Chaplain availed himself of his exclusive
privilege, which was to present the Gospel to the royal lips. Assisting
him in the general service was the hacienda curate. This curate,
obscurely found in the Huasteca wilds and yet not a Mexican, was a large
sleek man whose paunch bulged repulsively under the priestly surplice.
His flabby jowls hung down, and gave his head the shape of a pea, in the
top of which were the eyes set close together. They were restless
fawning little eyes and they roved constantly. But more than aught else,
they were adventurous; two bright, glowing beads of adventure. From the
folds of dull yellow flesh they peered forth at the august worshipers.
They hovered first over the Emperor before his cushioned
_prie-dieu_. Then, in hungry search, they began to roam. They
lingered with General Almonte for a moment, but darted on, unsatisfied.
They fluttered yet longer over Miguel Lopez, the gorgeously uniformed
colonel of Dragoons, and left him only reluctantly. But when they
lighted on Monsieur Éloin, they gleamed. There was no longer
uncertainty. They laid bare the man as the print of a mass-book, and
found him profitable reading. After that, the adventurous orbs returned
to their larger prey, the Emperor, and gorging themselves, scintillated
more adventurously than ever.
And such a feast as the unconscious Hapsburg afforded the ghoul of a
priest! It was a loathsome surgery; greedy fingers trembling on the
knife, the victim's soul flayed, each nerve of a vanity, or tendon of an
ambition, or full-throbbing vein of hope, each and all lifted one by one
from the clotted mass and scrutinized exultantly. There was not a
feature but held a revelation as sure as vivisection. The high, broad
forehead of a gentle poet was often shaded by a dreamy melancholy, but
never once did it furrow in either craft or cruelty. In that the priest
knew his man for a devout mystic, knew him for a child confidingly
looking to a Destiny to inspire his every footstep. Then there was the
beard. It was too great a wealth of whisker, its satin, glossy flow of
too dandified a precision. The delicate finger tips stroked it softly,
affectionately, to the left; then softly, affectionately to the right;
and always dreamily. But the most shameless traitor of all was the lower
lip. It was the Hapsburg lower lip, heavy and thick and sensuous, and
ill-fated. Hanging partly open under the silken drooping moustache, it
revealed the spoiled child of royalty, who mistakes obstinacy for
decision, and changes whims with despotic petulance. Maximilian believed
in his star. But a lower lip is more potent than predestination. He need
only have leaned close to his mirror. Then he might have seen what the
priest saw so clearly.
Maximilian paused on coming out. The freedmen were just rising from
their knees among the thorns and stones. Then it occurred to the
liberator that their participation in the rejoicing was not exactly,
ah--conspicuous. "Would you not think it well, father," said he to the
Grand Chaplain, "that these poor people partake of the holy communion on
this day that has been so eventful for them? If you approve, let it be
ordered that----"
"But Sire----"
Maximilian turned quickly, a pleased smile on his lips. The interruption
came in his own tongue, in German. And he who had spoken was a German.
It was the hacienda curate. His voice was soft, and purring with
deference. He wished to say, with permission, that the holy sacrament
for the Inditos was out of the question; scarcely one of them had been
baptized.
"Not baptized!" Maximilian exclaimed. "And this, is this fulfilling your
sacred obligations?"
The curate bowed his head. He had found them thus, when he first came, a
few weeks ago.
"And you came----"
"From Durango, sire, where as secretary I served His Señoría
Ilustrísimo, the Bishop of the state." But, as he meekly explained, he
had sought the Lord's service among the Huastecans. Pastors were said to
be needed, yet never had he imagined----He stopped short, in naïve
embarrassment.
Maximilian appreciated his delicacy in not wishing to reflect on the
Huasteca bishop. But from others he learned that neither baptism nor
other spiritual office had been performed in the community for years and
years, and that the bishop resided in the capitol, because among his
flock he had neither comforts nor a befitting state.
"But why," Maximilian demanded sternly, "have you not put to use the few
weeks you have been here?"
The curate's small eyes leaped to adventure. But he lowered them
hastily, and folded his hands over his rounded soutane. He had heard
that His Majesty might come, he said, and he had presumed so far as to
hope that His Majesty might deign to act as godfather for the poor
Indians, and so he had waited.
Nothing could have pleased Maximilian more, and he looked at the good
priest with an awakening favor. "Then let it be this afternoon," he
commanded. "I will stand their sponsor."
"----Before God, who will bless Your Majesty," murmured the priest.
And to be brief, let it be recorded that they were baptized by the
hundred, with hurried pomp--"pompes à incendie," as the godfather
himself described it.
CHAPTER XVII
RATHER A SMALL MAN
"Besides the queene, he dearly loved a fair and comely dame."
--_The Ballad of Fair Rosamond._
Jacqueline was protesting to a worried personage in Grand Uniform. The
personage was the Cerberus of the Emperor's antechamber, and he barred
her way. He was newly a personage, and did not know Jacqueline.
"But, Señor Oficial de Ordenes," she insisted, "don't you see that if I
put my name in your old register there, the man will be shot while your
Dignitaries are deciding to grant my audience!"
"Shot?" vaguely repeated the monarchial flunkey. He was a Mexican, and
took his unfamiliar responsibilities seriously. He turned to the Book of
Court Etiquette on the centre table.
"I tell you," exclaimed the impatient girl, "you won't find any
precedence for shooting in that thing. A doomed man hasn't any, take the
word of the Dama Mayor."
"Dama Mayor?" This was more tangible, and the Grand Uniform seized on it
gratefully. "But," and he quoted from the Ritual in triumph, "no Dama
can present herself except on matters of service."
Jacqueline hedged guilefully. "Of course not," she agreed, "and it's
precisely that why I must see His Majesty. It's about, about a piece of
valencienne he wished me to bring the Empress from Europe."
The Oficial de Ordenes hesitated. "But the man to be shot?"
"No matter, the lace is my business."
With which assurance, the Grand Uniform presumed to announce la Señorita
Marquesa d'Aumerle. He reappeared at once from the inner apartment. The
Emperor's order to admit her that instant rather disturbed his faith in
the Ritual and the leisurely decorum it prescribed.
Hardly had she stepped within the portières than someone caught her
hand, and she saw Maximilian bending over it. There was an involuntary
warmth in his formal courtier grace. The only other occupant of the
hacienda sala was Bebello, the greyhound. He sprang up from a Hungarian
bear rug, and frisked about her joyfully. Her greeting to him was
equally sincere. Quietly releasing her hand, she patted him fondly, and
cooed endearing French. "My little Tou-Tou! Pauvre petite bête!" Then,
raising her head, she seemed to perceive His Majesty, "Isn't a bit
older, is he, sire?"
"Mademoiselle!" the man exclaimed reproachfully.
All the time he was staring at her. He stared at the tempestuous
ruffling of her petticoat, which had a wanton air that was most
disturbing, at the rebosa tossed rakishly over her shoulder, with the
waistline beneath as languorously suggested as though she were
Spanish-born to rebosas, and lastly, at a freckle on the very tip of the
creamy nose. He admired extravagantly, but he was no less amazed to see
her at all. A moment before he had supposed her demurely breaking hearts
at St. Cloud, and Paris under her feet. He knew how capable she was. It
had happened to him. How he had sought her, before she left! And how
maddening she was! He could recall nothing of encouragement, and yet,
blind, susceptible fool, he had never ceased to be encouraged. She was a
master craftsman, since her art was hidden. Then she had gone back to
France; some said because of a note from Napoleon. But he was of the
gloomy opinion that she had simply ceased to amuse herself. Yet for all
that, here she was again, and the astonished prince was eager to suffer
yet more, if it amused her still.
She explained in a word, as though their meeting in the Huasteca were
nothing extraordinary. Away from Mexico, she had discovered that she
wanted to return to Mexico. The man left in Mexico would have augured
much from this, but at her matter-of-fact tone the glad light faded from
his eyes. Jacqueline, by the way, was a good manager. She reminded him
that she had no mother nor father nor other relative in France--which
disposed of France. Then, though he winced, she added that the
experiment of a New World court was a novel spectacle and she enjoyed it
more than the conventional affairs in Europe. Accordingly she would
resume her place as first lady of honor. At Tampico she had wearied of
ocean travel, and--well, that was all.
Maximilian shuddered. He imagined the terrors she must have encountered.
"But, mademoiselle, the bandits? You did not come alone through that
terrible coast country?"
"Of course not, sire. And that's why I reveal myself to Your Majesty.
You are to save the person that brought me."
"Have mercy, mademoiselle. One must leap too far who hopes to understand
you."
"But there's nothing to understand. Your Majesty has only to keep
Colonel Dupin from shooting him."
Maximilian frowned heavily at the Frenchman's name.
"On the porch just now," Jacqueline explained, "when you finished
speaking, he--the man I am speaking of--announced that he wanted to see
you, but the Tiger drew his pistols to shoot him if he moved."
"Then naturally your friend did not move?"
"Your Majesty does not know him. But he stopped for me."
"Were you so afraid Dupin would lose his prisoner?"
"I had no desire to see the prisoner commit suicide. But I had to
promise him that he should see Your Majesty later."
"To beg----"
"He is not one to whine for his life, sire. It is other business he
means. But Your Majesty need not hear his business. Your Majesty need
only _see_ him. Besides, it would hardly be court usage, granting
him an audience so informally, would it?"
"N-o, but if I am not to hear him, why should I see him?"
"To save his life, parbleu!"
"And why, since he is not concerned about that?"
"But I am, sire, and I count on Your Majesty to help me repay an
obligation."
Maximilian was quick at clemency, but no one likes to have his
weaknesses played upon.
"Mademoiselle, who is this man? What has he done?"
"An American, sire." Maximilian frowned. "A Confederate, I believe." The
frown vanished. "And Colonel Dupin believes him to be an accomplice of
Rodrigo Galán. But he is not. He fought Rodrigo Galán, in--in my
behalf."
Maximilian frowned again. "And so," he said, trying to do it lightly, "I
have this unknown American to thank for the pleasure of seeing you,
mademoiselle? Otherwise, I should not have known that you were here,
and----"
He stopped. The gray eyes were laughing at him. Was his jealousy then so
apparent? And was it jealousy? Evidently, since she had discovered it.
And that vexed him, because he had supposed that he was hiding his pique
under a great self control. Angrily he stepped toward her, but the saucy
eyes only grew merrier. Then his mood changed. He resolved grimly on
open fighting. He meant to have either decisive honors or a decisive
repulse. For it was his tantalizing doubts of her that made her laugh at
him. Yet, when he spoke, he could not help the quaver of entreaty in his
voice.
"Mademoiselle, tell me, _why_ have you returned?"
The question was so abrupt and so stern, she thought in a flash that he
must have penetrated that Napoleonic intrigue which had flung her back
upon the Western shores. But Maximilian believed he knew another reason
for her pallor, and was encouraged.
"You have already given one answer, mademoiselle," he hurried on, "and
in too great a humility to dare hope it otherwise, I took you at your
word. But now that you mock me--ah, you shall confess, you are back in
Mexico on _my_ account!"
"And would that merit this august displeasure, sire?"
Her words sprang from relief; he suspected nothing of her secret
mission. So the color might flood to her cheeks again, the mischief to
her eyes, and with it a most perilous daring.
For the Hapsburg, it was coy surrender.
"Mademoiselle--Jacqueline!"
Her name! The old nickname fondly given her in childhood, when she was a
torment, and an anarchist to all law, and got innumerable scoldings, and
basked unperturbed in love and adoration! Her name, that only Mexico had
tainted! For the first time it passed his lips. But the sweet, quaint
syllables had long been in his thoughts, with something, too, of the
early worship in their bestowal.
Curiously enough, a whimsical hardy figure in homespun gray took acute
shape in her mind's eye. The features were oddly sharp and clear. There
was even the rough trooper's disdain, which had been in his expression
when first he saw her, but which she had not noticed at the time. She
brushed the vision aside haughtily, as she would have done had the man
himself intruded. But she could not stem so easily the wave of self
disgust that swept her back from this other man, a prince of Europe. And
when she smothered that self-abasement, it was a matter of will. She
recalled her interview with the Sphinx in the Tuileries. She recalled
her country, and the empire she meant to win, a gift to France, worthy
of Napoleon, of the Great Napoleon. Then her will became as a master
outside of self, and horrid in its iron cruelty. She half lifted her
hand, and allowed the royal prince to possess it.
The tapestry behind them parted and fell. A light step crossing the room
was suddenly arrested, and a low bewildered cry, half stifled in the
utterance, arrested them.
"Fernando!"
The Emperor straightened and wheeled. Turning round, Jacqueline placidly
surveyed a young girl, and her brows arched. She was not deceived. There
was recognition in the startled gaze of the newcomer, and of Maximilian
too. Only for Jacqueline did the situation hold aught that was amusing.
She was Mexican, a beautiful Mexican. She might have been Spanish too,
or Moorish even, or perhaps to say that she seemed a gentle, drooping
Egyptian would give the better idea of her dark loveliness. Under her
skin, under a faintest tinge of brown, the rich blood drove its color
through, and blending with that other shade, made the cheeks a dusky
ruby, and seemingly softer and warmer. Her figure had prettily rounded
curves, and her wine-red dress and the filmy black shawl over her
shoulders deepened the tender, trusting depths of two large black eyes.
The long lashes were wet with tears. She looked once at the calm French
woman, as though afraid of her, and then at Maximilian, and at
Maximilian alone. Her gaze was vacant, groping, non-comprehending, yet
with a something of heartbreak in the beginning of comprehension.
To the Hapsburg came the dignity of proud generations, exalted above
mere human scrutiny. He turned to Jacqueline, "As you see,
mademoiselle," he said coldly, "the stupid lackeys outside have admitted
a second visitor. If you will excuse us----"
"But Fernando----"
This time the girl's moan throbbed with questioning. She was as far from
understanding as before. But she noted unconsciously his princely
bearing, his European dress, and the luxury about him in the transformed
hacienda sala. Her eyes, in spite of grief and doubts, shone with timid,
admiring love. "Que elegante!" she breathed. "Oh, is he not, truly, a
caballero!"
"Fernando?" murmured Jacqueline. "Bonté divine, this _is_ bucolic!"
"But Fernando," the girl persisted, "who is there to--to admit me? I
only come from my room." With a tremulous gesture she indicated a door
which the imperial scene shifters had covered with portières.
Maximilian's surprise at the existence of such a door was genuine. "And
I find," she cried, "I find you here, you, Fernando?"
"There, there, señorita," said Jacqueline kindly, "His Majesty, I
imagine, can explain----"
"Majesty?" exclaimed the girl. "Don Fernando--Majesty?" Yet a third time
she repeated it, as by rote; and, very slowly, understanding grew into
the words, and with understanding, terror. The dark innocent eyes went
appealingly from one to the other, and the lids began to flutter wildly
in a kind of spasm. "Majesty? Majesty?" Then, suddenly, she flung both
hands to her face, and a piteous shivering racked her body.
"Catch her, stupid!" cried Jacqueline. "Don't you see, the child is
fainting!"
But it was into Jacqueline's readier arms that she fell, and it was
Jacqueline who let her slip gently into the high-back chair that was the
imperial throne en voyage, under the claws of the oaken Hapsburg
griffins.
"Get water! quick--Majesty, you--your cologne flasks!"
[Illustration: "MARIA DE LA LUZ"
"The tapestry behind them parted and fell"]
A mist was in the prince's eyes. "Pobrecita, pobrecita," he muttered
helplessly.
On Jacqueline depended what was next to be done. She ran to the door by
which the girl had entered. "See, there's a corridor here," she cried,
"and that must be her room, there at the end, where the door is open.
Help me carry her--unless," and she deliberately punctuated her scorn,
"unless Your Majesty desires to call for aid?"
But His Majesty was so far from desiring anything of the kind that he
nodded gratefully, impatiently. So to her own room they bore her between
them, and laid her on the bed there. A pewter waiter with napkin and
coffee service was on a little table. But the tiny loaf of pan de huevo
lay untouched. Her thoughts rather than appetite had possessed the girl
when she awoke that morning, and they had kept her until she emerged to
stumble upon an emperor in her father's house.
"Out of here," ordered Jacqueline. "I am going to call the servants."
She had no sympathy for his wistful, forlorn gazing.
"It's the end, the end of my idyl," he murmured.
"_Are_ you going?"
He came nearer instead, and looked in profound melancholy at the girl.
The ruby flush was no longer there, and the face was olive and waxen.
The lips were parted, baring teeth that were marvelously white. The
shawl had fallen to the floor, and an ivory cross on a chain about her
neck caught his eye. He turned it over in his hand, and on the gold,
where the chain was attached, he saw an inscription.
"María de la Luz," he read. "So, that is her name. But I never asked it.
Identity would have blighted the idyl."
"Sire," Jacqueline protested angrily, "this poor child needs help. I
shall----"
"One moment, mademoiselle, I wish to say that I still do not know who
she is."
Then, with a last sorrowful look, he turned back to his apartment of
state.
Jacqueline's lip curled as she watched him go.
"And you wish me to find out who she is?" she apostrophized his back.
"But I shall not tell you. And she--no, she is not the kind that would,
knowing who _you_ are."
CHAPTER XVIII
LITTLE MONARCHS, BIG MISTAKES
"How now, good fellow? wouldst thou speak with us?"
"Yea, forsooth, an your mistership be emperial."
--_Titus Andronicus._
For the moment, Colonel Dupin had established headquarters in the
granary, which was a long, low adobe among the stables, with a pasture
between it and the House. The pasture opened on the highway through a
wide gap in the hacienda wall, and the coaches and steeds of the
imperial party which had passed in that morning gave the old cow lot a
gala air. The colonel was seated before a box, improvised into a desk,
and his rusty jacketed Cossacks lounged everywhere. Tiburcio and other
scouts were reporting on the dead and wounded of yesterday's raid. A
maimed enemy brought a chuckle deep in the Tiger's throat, but any
mishap to one of his own darlings got the recognition of a low-growled
oath. He was busy over this inventory of profit and loss when Jacqueline
appeared with the Emperor.
Dupin arose and saluted after the grim manner of an old soldier. The
half-dozen of obsequious courtiers he did not see at all, but to
Jacqueline he bent from the waist with a duellist's punctilio. His
countrywoman was the one adversary whom he never thought of cursing.
There was an opening innuendo. "No, Colonel Dupin," Maximilian reproved
him sternly, "I have not come to interfere with justice. I merely desire
to see what prisoners you have here."
Driscoll and Murguía were brought in. Maximilian stared dumfounded at
his new magistrate in the rôle of criminal. Don Anastasio looked
apologetic. They had locked him up in his own stable, bronze medal and
all. Dupin explained. This Murguía, like many another hacendado, had
long been suspected of aiding the guerrillas, and yesterday morning he
had actually set him, Dupin, on a false trail. The Contras were tracking
one of Rodrigo Galán's accomplices in the abduction of Mademoiselle
d'Aumerle. The accomplice was the other prisoner, the American, whom
they had found at last taking refuge at Murguía's own hacienda. Here he
had had the effrontery to welcome them as mademoiselle's rightful
escort, had even seemed surprised when a dozen Contras pounced upon him
from behind and disarmed him. Dupin added that mademoiselle herself was
deceived by the American's cunning, and he did not doubt but that she
still persisted in his innocence. He might speak further of the fellow's
part in the ambush and murder of Captain Maurel near Tampico, but he
confessed that that required further investigation.
No one could say that Maximilian had so much as listened. Such tangles
had long since become irksome, though he never ceased plunging into the
mesh. To unravel details, and incidentally confuse them more, was a
notorious mania with the poet-prince. But his thoughts now were all for
a girl who had fainted. Murguía he would leave to a court martial. If
guilty, the medal should be torn from his breast. Don Anastasio's
terrors, however, ran on the other penalties of court martial.
"Now you," Maximilian turned to the American, "I understand that you
wish to see me. But you must know that law prevails in Mexico at last,
and that even the Emperor may not keep a man from trial."
Driscoll's chin lifted eagerly. "Certainly not, but my business with
you, sir----"
"Not 'sir,'" whispered Jacqueline. "You must call him 'sire.'" Little
she cared for etiquette, but she did not propose that Driscoll should
broach his errand.
Maximilian overheard and smiled. "Yes," he said, "one tiny letter added,
and you change a man into a sovereign."
Now Jacqueline, for her purposes, had thought to disconcert the man
unused to courts. But it struck her at once that nothing of the kind
would happen. His easy naturalness was too much a part of him, was the
man himself. And she was glad of it. She was glad of the something
distinguished which his earnestness gave to the clean-cut stamp of jaw
and forehead. He had stopped and looked at them inquiringly, as an eager
speaker will when interrupted. Then his brown eyes deepened, and there
was a tugging at the corners of his mouth. He seemed to comprehend. If
this was their humor, he would play to it. A diplomat must be all things
to the people he is after.
"'Sire?' W'y," and his drawl was exquisite, "that's what we call the
daddy of a horse."
Jacqueline turned quickly, clapping her hand over her mouth. Maximilian
was always uneasy when Jacqueline did that.
"To be sure," he observed affably, "our American friend is not so far
wrong. Listen, am I not the father of my people?"
The entourage buzzed admiringly at the imperial cleverness; all except
Jacqueline, who now that she should laugh and relieve the situation,
obstinately pulled a long, blank face.
Maximilian's tone changed. He meant to wound now, and did. "So," he
added, with chilling stress, "it's 'sire,' if you will be so good as to
remember."
Driscoll flushed as though struck. He became aware that it was all some
patronizing rebuke.
"There is one," he answered gently, "who taught me manners at her knee,
or tried to, and _she_ never hurt a mortal human being by a word in
her life, but that, that, sir, seems to be where _you_ have missed
it. Now look here," he went on, kindling in spite of himself, "I respect
any man who has grounds--discoverable grounds--for respecting himself,
and if you are a man, then 'sir' won't overtop you any."
Colonel Lopez of the Dragoons nudged him anxiously. "Don't say 'you';
say 'Your Majesty.'"
"Better let him alone," Maximilian interposed wearily. "He recognizes in
me a man, and--it's not unpleasant. But which," he added, "gives me
leave to hope that as a man himself he will not cringe before the
drum-head."
"May I," said Driscoll quietly, "have one minute with you alone? It's
not about myself, I promise you that. But for you, sir, it's of the very
greatest importance."
Instantly all stirred with curiosity, except Maximilian. All there were
keenly affected by the stranger's mysterious business with the Emperor,
except the Emperor himself. And each man's wits were straightway alert,
according to the hates and ambitions of each. Even Miguel Lopez, dense
of understanding, had his suspicions. Murguía's yellow features darkened
malevolently. The hacienda priest whispered to M. Éloin, and M. Éloin,
brushing the man of God aside as though he had been thinking of the very
same thing himself, tried to get a word with Maximilian. But Jacqueline
spoke first to the Emperor. She knew the susceptibility of the royal
ear. Maximilian nodded at what she said, and Éloin bit his lip.
Maximilian glanced at the American's clothes. Homespun did not
correspond with pressing business of state, to his mind.
"My good man," he said, caressing his beard, "it's not regular, you
know. Another time, perhaps, when you can have yourself inscribed by Our
Grand Chamberlain and when your application for an audience----"
"But if these señores shoot me before then?"
Maximilian shrugged his shoulders. In any case, the Ritual would suffer
no outrage.
"But I tell you," cried the exasperated Missourian, "this thing is
serious. And it can't wait either, not if it's to help you any. I may be
too late now. I don't know what's happened since I started down here
three weeks ago. Richmond was in danger then. And the Army of Northern
Virginia--General Lee----"
"Have surrendered," calmly interposed the Emperor.
Driscoll stiffened as he stood, his lips parted as his last word had
left them. He wondered why these foreign, unsympathetic beings of
Austria and France and Belgium and Germany and Mexico looked so blurred
to him. He never imagined that there were tears in his eyes.
"It is really true," continued Maximilian, addressing them all. "A
courier brought me the news this morning. Yes, my friends, the North is
free at last to attack our Empire. But," he added blandly, "let us not
fear, not while we are sustained by the unconquered legions of France."
"How he remembers us now!" thought Jacqueline.
She thought too of him who had sent the legions. The entire fabric of
Napoleon's dream of Mexican empire was builded on the dismemberment of
the American Union. But, as the Southerners began so well by themselves,
Napoleon had left them to do his work alone. He just failed of genius.
"Oh, mon petit, _bien_ petit Napoleon," she cried in her soul, "how
terribly you have miscalculated!"
The room had filled with murmurs, with awed whispering, with frightened
questioning looks at one's neighbor, with ambitions and hates gone
panic-stricken. Driscoll came forward. The fellow of homespun held the
Empire in his hand, if they but knew it. "Now let me deliver my
message," he said earnestly. "And, afterward, on with the drum-head,
I'll not complain."
"There, there," spoke the unseeing monarch, though affected by the
dignity of sorrow, "you shall have no cause. I came here, meaning to
pardon."
"Pardon?" came the Tiger's growl. "Your Majesty saves so many enemies,
does he fear that soon he will have none left?"
"Perhaps, Colonel Dupin, since my imperial brother, Napoleon, sends me
so efficient a bloodhound. But I thought the prisoners were already
tried and condemned. That must come first, of course. Yet We are
constrained to find another judge, one without preconceived notions of
guilt, to hold the court martial. Ah yes, as Monsieur Éloin here
suggests, I name Colonel Lopez.--Colonel Lopez, you will stay behind
with a company of your own men. Finish the trial to-night, if you can,
and overtake me before I reach the city.--Colonel Dupin, I have to
request yourself and men as escort, to replace the Dragoons left with
Colonel Lopez. And you, Mademoiselle d'Aumerle, shall have a carriage.
We start this afternoon. You will be ready, mademoiselle?"
"Is Your Majesty quite resolved," Jacqueline asked in French, "that the
American must be tried? He can easily be found guilty, I warn Your
Majesty."
"And is that not reason enough?"
"Reason enough that he should not be tried, since he is not guilty. But
perhaps Your Majesty has thought of sending him under guard to the
frontier, back to his own country, where he would not longer be an
annoyance?"
"My dear young lady," returned the Emperor, "it seems that you expect me
to blot out the processes of law simply because even I cannot make them
infallible. But you do not answer my question. I offer you protection to
the City?"
"He must stand trial then?"
"Yes--but will you be ready to start this afternoon?"
"Your Majesty should know that I cannot accept."
"Does this trial interest you so much, mademoiselle?"
"Thanking Your Majesty," said Jacqueline coldly, "I should rather not
accompany him."
Maximilian swung on his heel and called Lopez aside. "Mi coronel," he
said, "when you follow to-morrow, you will offer to bring the Señorita
d'Aumerle, if she desires it.--And Lopez, you remember the young Mexican
girl we used to meet near here, during the last few evenings?"
"When you and I, sire, would ride over from Las Palmas incognito?"
"Yes. She was able to--to tell me much about the peon life, and I should
like to reward her in--in some way. Do you know, Miguel, I suspect she
lives on this very ranch. It was at the church here that we would meet
her, you know? And now, since I must leave, I wish you to find her.
Induce her to come with mademoiselle to the City under your escort.
Assure her that she shall have an honored place at court.--Jove, there's
my new order of San Carlos for women! She shall have that for--for
aiding my researches among the peons. Now, Miguel mio, do your best!"
With which words Maximilian turned back alone, and as he went, he
thought how as a simple man he had won a maiden's heart. He had been
learning that a prince may miss one or two very dear things in life.
"It's ended, the little ranchero idyl," he murmured. "But there's been
no harm. She shall not regret it."
CHAPTER XIX
A TARTAR _AND_ A TARTAR
"But all's brave that youth mounts and folly guides."
--_As You Like It._
As Maximilian crossed the pasture, he suddenly had to jump aside with
considerable sprightliness. A brace of horsemen came swerving through
the gateway from the highroad and tore down upon him as though the Day
of Judgment galloped behind. They were abreast, ten feet apart, but the
oddest thing was a lariat that dangled between them, from saddle-horn to
saddle-horn.
The thunder of hoofs brought Dragoons and Cossacks and Dignitaries, and
emptied the granary. Even insane horsemen could see that the Empire was
encamped over that cow lot. And as nearer they rushed, the two maniacs
seemed to recognize the fact. One was straightway more anxious to
arrive; a directly opposite effect was apparent in the other. And there
was the rope between them, from saddle-horn to saddle-horn. Their
opinions on destination, unexpectedly diverging, promised something. And
since one wanted to stop and the other to hasten, the something was not
long in happening.
One of the horsemen--he wore a sombrero--leaned back frantically. The
other--who wore a battered soldier cap--passed ahead like the wind. The
lariat twanged, but held. Sombrero's horse got its feet planted. The
horse of Soldier Cap slowed to a standstill, and panted. Sombrero flung
out his pistol, Soldier Cap his. They aimed at each other, the triggers
snapped, no report. They looked amazed, embarrassed; and tried again.
Same result. "Por Dios!" "Sacré nom!" They hurled the pistols, each at
the other's head. Both ducked. Sombrero wheeled, drove home the spurs,
and headed for retreat. Soldier Cap and horse braced themselves against
the shock. The spectators, running nearer, now perceived that the lariat
was tied round each man's waist as well as wrapped over his pommel.
Soldier Cap weathered the jolt, next plunged suddenly closer, and in the
instant of the slack, unwound the rope from his saddle and leaped to the
ground. In two leaps more he had Sombrero about the neck. They fell
together, rolling and fighting, while Sombrero's horse reared and plowed
the soil with them. Dragoons and Cossacks heaped themselves on all
three. It was quite an energetic mystery altogether.
Under the soldier cap, under dust and blood and scratches, Jacqueline
caught glimpses of a happy face.
"Oh lá-lá, it's--it's Michel!"
"Rodrigo Galán!" roared the Tiger, in his turn recognizing Sombrero.
"Here, up with him! Six of you, quick there, in line, shoot him!"
It was near the sweetest moment of the old warrior's life.
"One moment, colonel!" someone spoke quietly. "Is it a Huastecan custom,
by the way, to shoot a cavalier the instant he--ah--dismounts?"
"But this scoundrel is Rodrigo Galán, Your Majesty. And that black
horse, sacré tonnerre, that is Maurel's horse. Captain Maurel, sire,
whom he murdered!"
Don Rodrigo straightened pompously. "Your Most Opportune Majesty--" he
began.
"Also, Colonel Dupin," Maximilian continued, "he waylaid the Belgian
ambassador, sent by Leopold, brother to Our August Spouse."
"The more reason to shoot him, pardi!"
"Without doubt, monsieur. But his execution must have éclat. Europe must
know that Mexican outlaws do not go unpunished.--Colonel Lopez, you will
take charge of Our prisoner. Guard him well, and bring him with you to
the City. He shall be tried there, with every ceremony."
Colonel Dupin, that policeman of the backwoods forced upon Mexico by
Napoleon, could only grind his teeth, which he did.
"Now then," said His Majesty, "let Us see this brigand-catcher who
excels the redoubtable Contra Guerrillas.--As I live, the young man is a
Chasseur d'Afrique! Step nearer, sir, and tell Us who you are."
"Michel Ney, at Your Majesty's service."
"The Prince of Moskowa!" exclaimed the Emperor. In his court, he was
grateful for even a Napoleonic prince.
"Sergeant, Your Majesty." It looked as though Ney were hinting to be
made something else.
"I see," said Maximilian. "And so Our Empire of romance is to hold a
baton for another of the family of Ney. But to start more modestly, how
would a lieutenancy suit, do you think?"
"Your pardon, sire, but I report to His Excellency, Marshal Bazaine."
Maximilian's white brow clouded. The French occupation was ever a thorn
in his side. He could never quite be Emperor in fact. He could not even
promote a likely young man. He had to "recommend" to one Bazaine, who
had carried a knapsack.
"Quite so," he answered coldly. "I shall inform Our dear Marshal how
well you deserve."
"The fact is, Your Majesty," said Ney in some confusion, "I did
not--exactly--capture him. It was, uh, sort of mutual."
Everybody stared curiously. There was the rope, the unloaded pistols. It
was a queer puzzle. How did it happen? Ney began with an apology. Would
Mademoiselle d'Aumerle forgive him? But he had worried though! He should
not have left her, day before yesterday!
"Because of a greater attraction?" the young woman suggested.
Ney demurred so earnestly that Jacqueline laughed outright. "Don't make
it worse, Michel," said she. "I know how you regretted the death of the
terrible Rodrigo. Then you learned that he was alive. Oh no, I couldn't
have held you.--But go on. Did he prove interesting?"
The Frenchman told his story. It appeared that, on deserting
mademoiselle two days before, he went at the best speed of his horse up
the ravine she had so graciously indicated. He hoped to overtake the
fugitive bandit, and after an hour, at a turn in the arroyo, did meet
him, face to face. Both were equally astounded. Rodrigo was retracing
his steps, having been blocked by a dried waterfall. Either man drew and
covered the other. The Mexican did not fire. Seeing Ney, he supposed the
Contras at no great distance, and a shot would bring them on his heels.
But after a time the thing commenced to grow ridiculous, and Ney
laughed.
"Monsieur Rodrigue," he said, "I hope you will come along quietly."
Fra Diavolo mistook the Gallic humor for an assurance of armed backing
near at hand. "Where to?" he asked.
"The devil take me if _I_ know! Where would you suggest?"
It dawned then on the puzzled brigand that the other knew nothing of the
country, and accordingly they struck up an armistice; which, for the
rest, the alert revolver of each made imperative. Their protocol's chief
clause required the prisoner to conduct his captor to some neutral
point. Rodrigo suggested Anastasio Murguía's ranch, and Ney agreed. But
as to what might happen on arriving, they left in blank. Michel had a
duel in mind, if honest seconds were to be had. The craftier Rodrigo
hoped to find some of his own men lurking about the hacienda.
A cessation of hostile moves was further stipulated, though treachery of
course warranted the instant drawing of weapons. Should the prisoner try
to betray the captor to guerrillas, this was to constitute treachery.
Ney for his part insisted on his rights as captor. That is, he could
call for help if he got the chance. Rodrigo assented willingly. He knew
the neighborhood. He would avoid the Cossacks, and the Frenchman might
shout to his heart's ease. To do him justice, the outlaw had no desire
to kill Ney, even if Ney gave him leave. A duke and prince in one was
too valuable. A pretty ransom loomed brightly. Ney suspected as much,
but not being ingenuous enough to obviate the risks, took a huge delight
in them.
Conforming to the terms of the truce, each man, simultaneously, put his
gun in his holster. Then, good company enough one for the other, though
with eyes ever on the watch, they proceeded along tortuous bridle paths
until twilight, meeting no one. They camped in the same forest which
that same moment held Murguía, Driscoll, and the two girls. They
tethered their horses together and made a bed of leaves for themselves.
Each laid his pistol a comfortable distance away, so that if either
tried to arm himself while the other slept, there would be much snapping
of twigs under his feet. Again simultaneously, they sat down and talked,
and smoked cigarettes in lieu of supper. Ney progressed in his Spanish
that evening. Fra Diavolo wished to impress on the companionable
Frenchman that he, Rodrigo Galán, was a more terrible person than
Colonel Dupin. He seemed envious, even of the compliment implied in the
Tiger's nickname.
During a pause the brigand said, "Now don't jump, caballero, because I'm
only getting out my flask."
"The beautiful idea!" returned Ney. "I'll do the same."
But each stopped with the liquor at his mouth. It was consolation for
lack of food, but if one refrained and the other partook--well, there
would be a light sleeper and a heavy sleeper. With the tempting fumes in
their nostrils, they waited, each for the other, to quaff first. And
neither did. Finally Rodrigo proposed that they equalize the perils of
indulgence. Accordingly each lowered the contents of his flask by three
swallows, after which they compared the extent of the ebb tide in either
bottle.
"But, voyons," Ney objected, "you haven't taken as much as I have!"
Rodrigo admitted the impeachment, and amiably took another draught. But
the swallow proved too large, and Ney in his turn tried to balance that
one, only to fail likewise. This entailed another effort from Rodrigo,
which resulted in still another exaggeration.
"Now you've had _more_ than I have," Michel complained, growing
vague on the real point at issue.
"Bien, señor, suppose you try a little of this. It's catalan, genuine,
too, smuggled at Tampico."
"Mine's cognac," said Ney. "Have some?"
They exchanged flasks, and that night in the forest their snores were
discordant and loud. Ney half awoke once, and remembered that he seemed
to have heard the tramp of many horses. Toward morning, when it was not
yet light, he was aroused for good by a savage tightening around his
waist and a tremendous pull. He sat up, and heard his prisoner scuffling
and swearing near him.
"You've tied me, you sneaking animal without shame!"
"It's you that's tied me, tête de voleur!"
But as Rodrigo wrested in the dark, Ney found that the brigand's
stumblings corresponded with the tightening about himself. He clutched
at his waist, and discovered a rope.
Both men groped vengefully forward with the line, and lurched into one
another's arms. Each had thought to come on a tree, only to discover
himself tied to the other. In the first start of suspicion, and in no
good humor from splitting headaches, one reached for his knife, the
other for his sabre. But the knife was gone, the sabre was gone.
Forthwith they grappled and strained and breathed by jerks and tumbled
and rolled and wound themselves in the lariat, until at last they lay
exhausted on their backs and blinked up at the beautiful innocent morn
peeping through the trees.
"Now don't you untie yourself till I get untied," ordered Ney.
"Or you yourself," retorted the other.
"Let us both untie at the same time."
"But one might finish first," objected Rodrigo. The brigand had grown
amiable again. He saw advantages in the rope. It was well to have his
prospective ransom never more than a few feet away.
They discussed the problem at length, but were not equal to it. So the
modus vivendi was stretched a rope's length, and the treachery clause
expanded to include any untying or attempted untying before their
arrival at Murguía's. Scrupulously simultaneous, they arose, found their
pistols, and mounted their horses. To guard against any sudden varying
in rapidity of travel and its consequences, each wrapped the lariat once
about his saddle-horn. Where necessary, the brigand rode in front, since
Ney insisted that the other way would reverse their rôles of prisoner
and captor. Rodrigo got some tortillas from a charcoal burner, and they
lunched and rested within the forest's edge till dark. But they traveled
all that night in the open country, and approached Murguía's before noon
of the next day. Hoping to find friends about the hacienda's stables,
Rodrigo suggested that they race up the highway into the pasture. He was
thinking that then the Frenchmen might be overpowered the more easily.
Ney fell into the trap. He accepted the challenge and was keen for the
sport. Thus it happened that they all but ran down the Emperor of Mexico
himself, and instead of guerrillas, Rodrigo saw Cossacks and Dragoons.
But the mystery of the rope, added to that of the unloaded pistols,
rested unexplained.
Jacqueline was delighted. "If it were just conventional heroism," she
exclaimed, "one might talk of lieutenancies. But sire, this----"
"Never fear," replied Maximilian. "I cannot make him captain, but he
shall have his reward.--Monsieur le Prince, I will leave you a half
company of my Austrians, if, though a Chasseur, you will deign to
command them. In a word, I desire you to have the honor of escorting
mademoiselle to the City."
"And I thank you, sire. Parbleu, the sergeant is happier with such an
order than--than the captain without it."
"Michel," cried Jacqueline, "and where in the world now did you get
that?"
"Why--out of my own head. Really, mademoiselle."
CHAPTER XX
IN THE WAKE OF PRINCELY CAVALCADES
"... Now swell out, and with stiff necks
Pass on, ye sons of Eve! vale not your looks,
Lest they descry the evil of your path."
--_Dante_.
The Grand Equerry was again the Dignitary of the hour. He held the
Emperor's stirrup, while the Emperor, fittingly attired, swung
gracefully astride a curvetting charger. Behind was his coach, ready for
him when he should tire of the saddle. It was already late in the
afternoon, and he meant to travel all night. Flatterers begged him to
consider the importance of his health, which but made him unyielding.
Some slight martyrdom for his country appealed to Maximilian. No, he
said, grave affairs might be afoot since the Confederacy's surrender.
The capital needed his presence, and he reminded them that the State
came first, as always.
The retinue climbed into carriages. The escort, Dragoons, Austrians and
Contra Guerrillas, formed in hollow square about their prince. Colonel
Dupin scowled because he was going. Colonel Lopez, when unobserved,
scowled because he was left behind. And Monsieur Éloin, at the Emperor's
side, thought well of himself in substituting for a rival favorite one
so distant from favoritism as the Tiger. The Dragoons and Austrians who
were to remain presented arms on the hacienda porch, and Lopez gave them
the cue for a parting viva. The emancipated peons, still wet from
spiritual grace, swelled the din gratefully and stridently, lured to it
by their thoughtful pastor, the hacienda curate.
But Maximilian still lingered. He looked from window to window under the
colonnade, and seemed expectant. But Lopez signaled to the buglers, and
the trumpet call and the redoubled huzzas of a people thrilled him out
of his melancholy. With a sigh he gave over his private loves and poesy.
He breathed deep and his eyes flashed. And as the grand monarch and
good, he departed with the acclaim of posterity in his ears, conscious
that the superb figure he made was for History's contemplation.
At this time the Marquise d'Aumerle was half way up a ladder in the
garden. She was picking the fragrant china blossoms, tossing them down
to Berthe's apron, and humming "Mironton, mironton, mirontaine" in
blissful indifference to many things, to princes among them.
Nor was the other girl behind the hacienda shutters. Yet she, at least,
saw him ride away. High up in the chapel tower, between the bell and the
masonry, crouched a sobbing little figure. She gazed and gazed, with
straining eyes. Over there below, in front of her father's house, were
glittering swords and dazzling helmets, and the sheen of gilded
escutcheons on coach doors. And as the beautiful pageant wound its way
along the highroad, she watched in fawn-like curiosity. The sobs were
only involuntary. She was not thinking, then, that this was matter for
grief. Her dark eyes, that had been weeping, and were now so dry, held
to a certain one among the cavaliers, to the very tall and splendid one
with the slender waist, and they kept him jealously fixed among the
others, and were ever more impatient of the blurring distance. But when
finally he was lost for an instant in the general bright haze of the
company, and she could not be quite sure after that which was he, then
indeed the eyelids fluttered in a kind of despair. Yet only after the
last carriage had vanished under the giant banana leaves of the hill
beyond, did the tears come and tremble upon her lashes.
"He is married, the Emperor," she told herself, as though the fact were
that second written across the burning sky. At last, full, grim
comprehension was hers.
The stones of the tower glowed like a brazier in the sun, but the girl,
with her head on her arm against the parapet, shivered as with cold; and
a numbness at her heart grew heavier and heavier, like weighted ice.
Below her the barren knoll, where an hour before swarthy stolid hundreds
had crowded awaiting baptism, was lonely as the grave. The peons were
dispersing to their village down by the river junction, or to their huts
near the hacienda store, and on the air floated the falsetto nasal of
their holiday songs, breaking ludicrously above the mumbling bass of
loosely strung harps. Nearer by, the only life was an old man with a
fife and a boy with a drum, who marched round and round the chapel,
playing monotonously, while a second urchin every five minutes touched
off a small cannon at the door. They did these things with solemn
earnestness. It was to achieve an end, for San Felipe's day would come
soon, and meantime each and every lurking devil had to be driven off the
sacred precincts. But there was one hideous fiend who grinned, and
pinched, and shrieked. His abode was the girl's heart, and he shrieked
to her gleefully, that she could never, never in life, wed the man she
loved. The fife and drum and the stupid little cannon simply made him
the merrier.
* * * * *
The imps were left in peace for the night, and all about the chapel was
dark and silent and desolate. But a man was working stealthily at one of
the rear windows. It was a square, barred window, near the ground. The
man chipped away at the granite sill with short, quick blows. The butt
of his chisel was padded in flannel, so that even a chuckling that
escaped him now and again made more sound than the steel. Soon he
dropped his tools, and wrapping either hand around a window bar, he
braced both feet together against the wall, and pulled. The two bars
scraped slowly toward him across the stone. Then, with a sharp, downward
jerk he tore them out. Quickly he climbed inside and cut the ropes of a
man who lay bound on the floor. Both men emerged noiselessly through the
window.
"Have a care how you step," whispered the rescuer. "Your faithful guards
are busy sleeping and don't want any disturbance."
"That candle-stinking sacristy!" grumbled the rescued.
"But it's the only stone calaboose on the ranch. In fact, _I_
suggested it, since Don Rodrigo should be kept tight and safe. That's
why Dupin left me behind." The rescuer chuckled as before. "Careful,
hombre, there's a guard there, lying right in front of you!"
Rodrigo made out the prostrate form, and lifted a boot heel over the
upturned face. But his liberator jerked him aside.
"Fool, you'll wake the fat padre, and he doesn't like my jests, says
they're inspired of the Evil One."
"Thinking of the Bishop of Sonora's waiting maid, was he?"
"Well, what of it? Didn't he elope here with her?"
"And you, Don Tiburcio?"
"Of course; she naturally wanted to correct her first bad taste."
"By running away with you? If you call that good taste----"
"I call that a good joke on the padrecito."
Having by this time come safely to the front of the church, Rodrigo was
for making certain his escape at once. But Tiburcio interposed. "There's
some talk still due between you and me," he said. "Sit down, here in the
doorway."
"Well?" said the brigand uneasily.
"Well?" repeated his jocular friend.
"Well, there isn't even a moon and we can't deal monte, as if that
weren't the same as giving you what you want, anyway."
"I risk my hide saving you for money, then?" Don Tiburcio's tone was
aggrieved.
"Oh no, for friendship," the sardonic Rodrigo corrected himself, "and I
think as much of you in my turn, amigo mio. Not half an hour ago I was
wrapped in anxiety, imagining you trying to collect blackmail, and I not
near to keep my patriots from your throat. Oh, the sorrow of it!"
"God be praised that a dear friend came and eased your worries! But you
are not an ingrate. Since the Confederate Gringo took all my money the
other morning----"
"Tiburcio, on oath, I haven't had money either, not since our last game
at cards. There was Murguía, I know, but I let him off for bringing me
that French girl. She was good for a big ransom, only your same
Gringo--curse the intruder! If ever the Imperialists catch him, and
Murguía is there to testify against him----"
Tiburcio moved nearer on the church step. "And then?"
"That's our secret, Murguía's and mine."
"But Rodrigo, he _is_ caught. They are trying him and Murguía both
this very minute. And do you know what for? For being your accomplices."
The outlaw started exultantly. "Then, if you want him shot----"
"Well?--Oh don't be afraid, maybe I can help."
"Were you with Captain Maurel when we ambushed them near Tampico?"
"I can't remember," said Tiburcio tentatively.
"If you will hurry down to this court martial, perhaps you will remember
better. Go, and I'll leave you."
"Not quite so fast, Rodrigo. You forget that your devoted rescuer is
penniless."
"So am I, I tell you. We'll both have to go to work, Don Tiburcio."
"What's the lay? Tell me." The humorist's tone was unmistakable.
Rodrigo looked about him in the dark. "Listen," he whispered, "there's a
bullion convoy out of San Luis before long, but--you shall hear no more
unless it is agreed that I am to meet them first."
"Of course, hombre! How else could I threaten to expose them for
contributing to the rebels?"
"Bien, it's next week. You will meet them this side of Valles, some time
Thursday or Friday.--Now I'm off. Adios."
"Stay. You'll find your horse down by the river. The administrator is
waiting with it. And Rodrigo, don't you want your pistol? Be more
careful another time, and keep it loaded."
Something in his tone nettled the brigand. "What do you mean? Give me my
pistol."
Tiburcio pointed it at him instead. "When you cool a little, yes.
But it takes a good marksman to hit a Frenchman with an empty
pistol--especially when one wakes up and finds himself tied."
Rodrigo stiffened. This was menacing to his dignity.
"Both lassoed," Tiburcio went on, "and no telling which was heifer and
which vaquero, stampeding down on poor Max.--Ai de mi, I never thought
it could be so funny!"
"Give me my pistol!"
"Slumbering like two babes in the wood, and your sweet innocent breaths
perfuming the woody forest. I'd have covered you with leaves, like the
little robins, only----"
"Was it you tied us, you----"
"Just like two babes, but," and Tiburcio pointed his thumb to his mouth
and shook his head sorrowfully, "that's bad, very bad. Why didn't you
leave me some? Of the cognac, especially?"
"If you don't explain----"
"Softly there, amigo. Yes, I tied you."
"Another of your jokes----"
"Inspired of the Evil One? Oh no, it was--precaution. Yes, that was it,
come to think; just precaution. You see, I and Dupin had scattered your
guerrillas, and I was scouting ahead, to stir up any ambush waiting for
us--which I did later, when we chased them, and burned Culebra. But
going along, I heard snoring, and found you two, like two----Now sit
still!"
"Why didn't you wake me? Then we could have roped the Frenchman."
"And have him identify me after we'd gotten the ransom? Oh, no, I'm a
loyal Imperialist. Now listen a minute, will you?--Our Contras were
following me not a half mile behind. That meant I had to work quick. You
see, I wanted to find you both there when I could come back alone. And
meantime, I didn't want you to hurt each other. If either got killed,
there'd be no ransom. So I took your knife and his sabre. Then I tied
you both with my lariat. I was going to get your lariat too, and tether
the pair of you to a tree, hoping you'd hold each other there till I got
back. _You_ would do it, for I meant to pin a note on your sleeve,
explaining. But just that minute the Frenchman stirred, for the Cossacks
were getting into his ears, so I had to run back and turn them into
another path."
"So long as it wasn't any of your infernal farces?"
"Well, it _was_ worth a ransom, the way it turned out.--Sit still,
will you? You _know_ I take you too seriously ever to think of any
joke with _you_! Here's your artillery and cutlery. Quick now,
clear out!"
Both rose to go, each to his respective deviltry, but not six steps
ahead in the black night Tiburcio stumbled over a soft, inert mass. He
recovered himself, half cursing, half laughing.
"One of your guards, Rodrigo," he muttered. "He must have got this far
before the drug worked into his vitals."
"Your mescal probably killed him," said Rodrigo indifferently. "But a
little knife slit will look more plausible in the morning, for you it
will."
Getting to his knees on the stone walk the outlaw groped over the body
for a place to strike, holding his knife ready. But all at once he
stopped and got up hastily, without a word. He only rubbed his left hand
mechanically on his jacket.
"Well, what ails you?" asked Tiburcio.
Rodrigo gave a short, apologetic laugh. "It--it's a woman!" He quit
rubbing his hand, seeming to realize. "There's blood," he added.
"Here," said Tiburcio, "you keep back, and run if anybody comes. I'm
going to strike a match."
By the flare they saw that it was a girl and that her head was crushed.
Kneeling on either side, they peered questioningly, horrified, at each
other. Their great sombreros almost touched. Their hard faces were
yellow in the flickering light between, and the face looking up with its
quiet eyes and dark purplish cleft in the brow was white, white like
milk. With one accord the two men turned and gazed upward at the tower,
whose black outline lost itself far above in the blacker shadows of the
universe. They understood.
Tiburcio shrugged his shoulders, a silent comment on the tragedy from
its beginning to this, its end. He threw the match away and arose, but
Rodrigo still knelt, leaning over her, holding the poor battered head in
his hands, half lifting it, and trying to look again into those eyes
through the darkness. He would touch the matted hair, as if to caress,
not knowing what he did, and each time he would jerk back his hand at
the uncanny, sticky feeling. Roving thus, his fingers touched an ivory
cross, and closed over it. With no present consciousness of his act, he
placed the symbol in his jacket, over his breast.
Tiburcio touched him on the shoulder. "I'll go now, and bring her
father," he said.
"Yes," returned the other vaguely, stumbling to his feet.
"It's going to kill the old man," murmured Tiburcio, "or--God, if it
should _not_ kill him! He is a coward, but once he slapped you,
Rodrigo, for so much as looking at her. And now, the Virgin help--may
the Virgin help whoever's concerned in this!--But here, you must go, do
you hear?"
"Yes."
"Then go, go!"
"Yes," said Rodrigo again, moving slowly away.
"By the river, remember. You'll find your horse there."
"Captain Maurel's, the fine black one?"
"Yes, I slipped it out of the stables for you."
"The fine black one?"
"Yes, yes, hombre!"
"And--and she never--she never saw--how magnifico I look on--on that
fine black horse."
He was still muttering as he reeled and staggered down the hill.
When he was gone, and no alarm of sentinels rang out, Tiburcio took off
his serape and laid it over the dark blot on the stones. Then he too
stole away, to tell her father.
CHAPTER XXI
THE RED MONGREL
"Be this the whetstone of your sword; let grief
Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it."
--_Macbeth_.
"Where," inquired Din Driscoll, with a benevolent interest in their
doing the thing right, "is the judge advocate?"
Colonel Miguel Lopez resented what he took for a patronizing concern. It
festered his complacency, for his was the code of the bowed neck to
those above and the boot-tip for those below. Luckily for him, he did
not strike the helpless prisoner. He turned to his judge's bench
instead, which was none other than the frayed and stately sofa of honor
from the hacienda sala, deemed requisite to his dignity. The satin
upholstery contrasted grotesquely with the adobe walls. Pungent tallow
dips lighted the granary to a dull yellow, and mid the sluggish tobacco
clouds were a shrinking prisoner in clerical black, and the mildly
interested prisoner in gray, and red uniforms surrounding.
Lopez flung his sword across the empty box that was to serve as desk,
and filled the crimson seat with pompous menace. Lopez was a Mexican,
but did not look it. He had red hair and a florid skin, and he was
large, with great feet and coarse hands. Yet the high cheek bones of an
Indian were his. The contrast of coloring and features unpleasantly
suggested a mongrel breed. The eyes had red lids, out of which the
lashes struck like rusted needles, and the eyes themselves, of a faded
blue, seemed to fawn an excuse for Nature's maladjusting. But he had a
goodly frame on which to hang the livery of a king's guardsman. And as
the cross of the Legion of Honor ticketed his breast, he must have been
a goodly man too, and his Maker's insignia only a libel. Once Maximilian
had said, "What, Bebello, and art thou a better judge of men than I, thy
master and the master of men?" For it seemed that Bebello, the simple
hound, had read Nature's voucher instead of Napoleon's, and being thus
deceived, would ever snarl at the Colonel of Dragoons. Maximilian of
course knew better. What looked like toadying was only profound
deference for himself. The royal favorite could discriminate. He could
also be the thick-headed, intolerable martinet. The sandy lashes
bristled as the American inquired a second time if he were to have
counsel.
"Being president of this court," Lopez announced, "I am judge advocate."
In the tone of congratulation Driscoll blandly said, "Well, then, I
challenge the president."
"Challenge?"
"Certainly, Your Honor. It's my right, either on the ground of
inexperience, malice, or--but I reckon the first two will do."
"This is insolence!" cried the president, and glaring angrily, he
maintained that it was a regular court martial for the field, and that
as he was the ranking officer at hand, there could be no appeal beyond
himself.
"A regular drum-head," Driscoll observed. "Well, let it go at that. I'm
in a hurry."
Lopez called a lieutenant of Austrian cavalry to his right upon the
sofa, and the Dragoon color sergeant to his left, and the three of them
sat thenceforth in judgment. The charges were read, and next a
deposition, gathered that day from Michel Ney. Therein appeared the
American, reinforcing Rodrigo Galán at Tampico, and in so far aiding the
abduction of Mademoiselle d'Aumerle.
"The complicity is evident," stated Lopez, and his colleagues, blinking
at the candles on the box, nodded wisely.
"It's straight so far," Driscoll agreed, "but the story goes a little
further. Does the ma'am'selle herself happen to have left any
deposition?"
She had, admitted the president, but it merely corroborated the
foregoing. Driscoll, in sole charge of his own defence, insisted that
her deposition be read, but Lopez would permit no such waste of time. He
was brooding on Monsieur Éloin usurping his own place near the Emperor,
and he wanted to finish the present business so as to overtake them
both.
Dupin's written evidence provided the rest of the abduction story,
seemingly, and there remained only the other charge, that of assisting
at the ambush of the murdered Captain Maurel. For this there was no
evidence, and the accused himself was examined.
"Your name?" asked the court.
"Driscoll."
"Your full name, hombre?"
"John Dinwiddie Driscoll, Your Honor."
"Din--whatever it is--that's not a Christian name?"
"It was, when I got it. Maybe I've paganized it since."
"Devil take you, this is solemn!"
"Yes, this is solemn."
Lopez cracked his long nails irritably against each other.
"You came here via Tampico," he began anew. "What days were you in
Tampico?"
"From about the twenty-third or twenty-fourth, till we left a few days
ago."
All three judges bent over a memorandum which the president pointed out
among his notes. Captain Maurel was killed about April 26th.
"How did you occupy yourself while in Tampico?"
"Mostly trying to persuade Murgie here that it was his move."
"But your horse needed exercise. Did you at any time ride across the
river?"
"I didn't notice. Have you anyone who saw me cross?"
"Goot!" blurted out the Austrian who was one of the judges, so suddenly
that everybody half jumped. "Ya, das iss die cosa, sabe! Who has him
seen cross?"
The court floundered. The witness demanded by the accused was lacking.
Murguía, a restless, huddled form on a straw-bottomed chair, was
watching hungrily every step in the examination. Now he shifted
excitedly, and his sharp jaws worked with a grinding motion. Then his
voice came, a raucous outburst.
"Search him, Your Mercy!"
Lopez browbeat the meddler, and--took his advice. Driscoll submitted
tolerantly to their fumbling over him, and all the while Murguía looked
on as a famished dog, especially when they pulled out the whiskey flask.
But when they tossed the thing aside, he sank deep into his black coat
and gave vent to mumblings.
"Of course we find nothing," Lopez complained, "since his accomplice
recommended the search."
It seemed, too, that the state's case must fall.
"The Captain Maurel charge cannot hold," announced the court.
"Ya, goot--mucha bueno!" exclaimed the Austrian with enthusiasm, while
the color sergeant, who had a red nose, wet his lips hopefully. He
believed that an acquitted outlaw, if a gentleman, would stand a bottle.
"And as to the first charge," continued the president, "here is the
deposition of the Señorita d'Aumerle, which I have held till now for
this purpose. Read it, and you will note that though the marquesa bears
out the Señor Ney, she further testifies to the prisoner having later
saved her from this very Rodrigo Galán at peril to himself. Bien,
señores, have you any further questions?"
The Austrian crinkled his brow, and after a momentous pause, shook his
head till his cheeks rattled. The Dragoon promptly replied, "No, mi
coronel." Then the three withdrew, and when they came back, the Dragoon
wiping his lips, they informed the accused that he was not guilty.
"Which isn't news," said Driscoll as he thanked them.
Murguía's turn came next. The proof of the old man's guilt blossomed
almost of itself. Jacqueline, to clear her protector, had been forced to
depose how Murguía had willingly betrayed her into Rodrigo's hands. But
she described the old man's reluctance. He would have saved her, except
for his terror of the outlaw. The sole case for the defence was
Murguía's character for stinginess; such a miser could not be accused of
aiding the guerrillas. But this very point seemed to heighten Lopez's
prejudice against him. Driscoll, being held to testify, only talked
sociably, and told nothing, and when under the quizzing he finally lost
patience, he said, "Oh, let him go! What's the use?"
But they were so far from any such thing that they condemned him to be
shot.
Then a voice was heard at the door. The sentinel there stumbled back,
and Don Tiburcio brushed by him into the room.
"Old man," he called, "come with me! Your daughter----"
Murguía started up, weakly swaying. The senile eyeballs, so lately
parched by fear, swam in a moisture not of avarice. Someone was speaking
to him of his daughter. He had not seen her yet. They would not let him.
And now he must think of her in this new connection, which was his
death. And her misery to learn it, and her misery, afterward! On the
morrow they would be taking him to the capital, his sentence would be
confirmed, he would be shot. Nothing of this he doubted. And he would
never see her again.
Murguía stretched out his arms toward the president of the court, "You
will let me go to her, señor? Your Mercy will let me go to her?" He
murmured her name over and over, "María de la Luz! María--Luzita mia!"
until the words became a kind of crooning. Then he would break forth
again, entreating, commanding, "Your Mercy will let me see her? Señor,
you _will_ let me see her!"
At the first note of intrusion Lopez had brought the pommel of his sword
down upon the box in front of him. But the syllables of the girl's name
seemed to get into his memory, and he began to stare with a puzzled
frown at the half-crazed old man. Lifting his eyes, he met Tiburcio's,
and Tiburcio himself nodded in some deep hidden significance. Lopez
straightened abruptly, as at an astounding revelation.
"Tell me, Señor Murguía," he said, "your daughter--Yes, yes, man, you
shall see her!--But listen, what is she like? Has she large black eyes?
Does she wear red sometimes? Come, señor, answer!"
The father gazed, wonderingly, jealously. How should an elegant officer
from the City and the Court know aught of María de la Luz?
Tiburcio crept behind the sofa, and bending to Lopez's ear, he
whispered, "Si, si, mi coronel, she is the one you have in mind, and she
is his daughter."
Lopez swung round and searched the blackmailer's face. "And now----"
"You will let him come," said Tiburcio. "But bring two guards. And have
four others with--well, with a stretcher."
Again Lopez searched the dark crescent that was Tiburcio's eye, and
again Tiburcio nodded with deep significance. "Bring him," he repeated,
"but tell him nothing. Seeing will be enough."
Murguía went, unknowing. He would see her, thanks to some freakish
kindness in Don Tiburcio. He was torn between the joy of the meeting and
the sharp grief of the parting that must follow. At the time he never
noticed that they led him up the chapel walk instead of toward the
hacienda house. Tiburcio was ahead with a lantern, but when near the top
of the hill he turned back to them, yet not before the expectant Lopez
had seen a black something on the pavement under the swinging light.
"You first, mi coronel," said Tiburcio.
"I, you mean!" cried Murguía, "I, señor!"
"But we wish to see first if she is here," said Lopez. "Don Tiburcio
thought she might be at vespers."
"Vespers? There are no vespers to-night. Yet we come here! Why? Why do
we come here?"
Tiburcio motioned to the guards. "Hold him until we return," he ordered.
A Dragoon reached out a hand indifferently to Murguía's collar, and that
second the old man's ten fingers were at his throat. They overpowered
him at last, but they would have fared better with a wildcat.
Tiburcio and Lopez went alone. They stopped before the covered thing
near the church door.
"So," mused the colonel, "she ended it _this_ way."
"From the tower," Tiburcio grimly added.
"His----"
"Well, say it. You mean His Majesty?"
"His Majesty need know nothing of the--of the finale."
"Who is there to tell him, por Dios? I won't. You won't."
"But you forget a third, Don Tiburcio. I mean the man who was with you
several evenings ago, when you----"
"When I was carrying off the padre's sweetheart?"
"When somehow you two happened in this desolate neighborhood. Since you
took his name out of my mouth just now, you must have recognized that it
was His Majesty whom you saw talking to her almost where she now lies. I
was near by, guarding his privacy, but you both escaped before I could
stop you. Now then, who was that other intruder?"
The other was Rodrigo Galán, but Tiburcio replied, "The other will not
have much to say. Poor Captain Maurel!"
"Bueno, bueno!"
"Not yet, mi coronel. Only we two know of Maximilian's part in this, but
we must keep it from her father above all others. I am a loyal
Imperialist, Don Miguel."
"What difference does that make?"
"The Empire faces a crisis."
The royal favorite started guiltily. Since the news of the Confederacy's
surrender, Lopez's ambitions were clouded by a growing fear of the
fugitive Mexican republic. The Republic would have a good memory for
royal favorites, and he had been thinking on it. "Will Lee's surrender
make such--such a difference?" he faltered.
"So much," retorted Tiburcio, "that to-morrow we will have more rebels
yet. So much, that what with freeing peons and confiscating nationalized
church lands and giving them back to the church--well, a very little
more might decide between Empire and Republic."
"A little more? What do you mean?"
"I mean money for the rebels. Luz's father is rich. If he knew that
Maximilian----"
"Hombre, hombre, he's a miser!"
"Just the same, I'm a loyal Imperialist, and if you are, too, you will
take good care to tell nothing to Don Anastasio."
"You forget, señor, that I am the one to say that to you."
"Then don't forget, Colonel Lopez. Do not forget that she fell, that it
was a simple accident."
"Yes, a simple accident. Wait here, I am going to bring her father."
On returning Lopez sent the guards away, and he and Murguía were alone
together. The old man stood dazed, unresisting.
"One minute more," said Lopez. "First, I must tell you something. And
afterward, you will remember. Yes, you will remember--afterward. You
know who I am, that I command the Dragoons of the Empress.--Are you
listening? But do you know that, in a way, I am Maximilian's confidant?
Whenever he walks or rides, incognito, dressed as a ranchero, I alone go
with him, as I did during the past ten days while we stopped at Las
Palmas, three leagues from here. The very first evening there, we two
rode out, with our cloaks about us. He likes to commune with nature, and
gather curious flowers which he pastes in a book and labels with Latin
names. But this time he was interested in peons, yet as he had a
delicacy about prying into his host's business, we rode until we left
Las Palmas behind us. His Majesty would gaze on the hills and look at
the sunset, and he talked to me of a poetic calm about them which made
him long for he knew not what. And Murguía----"
Here the speaker paused abruptly, and his faded eyes shifted and
hardened.
"And Murguía, we came here, and--he met your child. He met her here, at
this chapel, where she had been to pray for her aunt. Old man, do you
hear me, the Emperor met your daughter! Then, next day, instead of going
on with his journey, he complained of a cough, and stayed at Las Palmas.
But every evening he rode here, he and I. Once I found a chance to ask
her her name, but she would only tell her given name.--There, you will
remember? Yes, you will--after you have seen her. Come, she is not far
away."
CHAPTER XXII
EQUIDAD EN LA JUSTICIA
"... and I think I shall begin to take pleasure in being at home
and minding my business. I pray God I may, for I finde a great
need thereof." --_Pepys's Diary_.
An hour later the candles were still guttering in the court room, and
here Colonel Lopez assembled his minions of justice a second time. In
his manner now there was nothing of the uncertainty, nor the feigning of
penetration, which had before marked his handling of the trials. He
pounded the box with his sword.
"In the light of new evidence," he announced shortly, "the two cases of
a while ago are reopened."
Din Driscoll strolled in. "I've come for my belt and pistols. Dupin took
them," he said.
Lopez signed to the Dragoons to close round him. Then he gave vent. Did
the Señor Gringo laugh so much at Mexican justice, since instead of
escaping while he had the chance, he came back, coolly demanding his
property? It was insolence!
"_Gra_-cious," exclaimed Driscoll in his counterfeit of a startled
old lady, "what's the matter?"
But Lopez put on a mien of dark cunning, and replied that he would find
out later.
Murguía's case came first. The stricken father was there, dragged from
his dead by the petty concerns of this world which cannot bide for
grief. He was as a sleep-walker. He had come into another universe. The
hacienda sala, where his child lay mid tapers, where mumbled prayers
arose, or this adobe, where uniformed men fouled the air with cigarettes
and looked after the Empire's business--the one or the other, both
places were of that other universe, dark and silent, in which his dazed
being groped alone.
The new element in the court martial was Tiburcio, and Tiburcio had in
mind one golden goose to save and one meddling Gringo to lose. He
riddled the foregoing evidence with refreshing originality. He testified
to the brigand attack for possession of the marquise. Had he not found
Don Anastasio stretched upon the ground? Had not the dauntless anciano,
the self-same Don Anastasio, fallen in defence of the two French
señoritas? And yet, did he not keep Rodrigo at bay? Si, señores, he had
indeed, until Colonel Dupin and the Contras arrived. He, the witness,
was with them. He had seen these things. Now, let anyone say that the
loyal Señor Murguía was an accomplice of that cut-throat without shame,
Rodrigo Galán; whom he, the witness, loathed from the innermost recesses
of his being; whom he, the witness, should be greatly pleased to strike
dead. But let anyone again besmirch the character of Don Anastasio!
"No, no," vociferously growled the Austrian.
Lopez opposed nothing. He had a clear notion this time as to what he
wanted. Driscoll marveled, and enjoyed it. Pigheadedness had made Don
Anastasio guilty, why shouldn't perjury make him innocent? And it did.
The mountain of suspicion and some few pebbles of evidence melted away
as lard in a skillet. The verdict was acquittal.
Driscoll knew well enough that the presence of the loyal Imperialist
with the baleful eye meant a reversal in his own case too. But the
recent and very definite animus of Lopez against him he could in no way
fathom. The blackmailer testified again. The prisoner, this Americano,
had waylaid him in the wood two days before, and had robbed him of his
last cent.
"Which you stole from Murgie," suggested the prisoner.
"I? I steal from Murguía?" cried Tiburcio indignantly. "Ask him! Ask
him!"
Murguía was asked. Had the witness ever, on any occasion, robbed him?
They repeated the question several times, and at last the rusty black
wig, which was bowed over a chair, slowly shook in the negative. Perhaps
he had settled a debt with the witness? The wig changed to an
affirmative.
Tiburcio gleamed triumphantly. "An audacious defence!" he exclaimed.
"But luckily for me, Don Anastasio is here."
"Oh, hurry up!" protested Driscoll.
Asked if he knew anything more of the prisoner, witness could not swear
for certain, except that he recognized in the American one of the
guerrillas who had ambushed and slain Captain Maurel near Tampico. Yes,
witness was scouting for the murdered captain at the time. Naturally,
witness was present.
"You wanted proof, Señor Americano, that you crossed the river?" said
Lopez. "Well, are you content now?"
"Go on," Driscoll returned. He was bored. "Some people on earth are
alive yet, but while Tibby is on the stand maybe I killed them too. I
wouldn't swear I didn't."
Murguía was called next, but he did not seem to hear. His body was bent
over his knees, silently trembling. A Dragoon pressed a hand on his
shoulder, but a sobbing groan racked his frame, as of a very sick man
who will not be awakened to his pain. The pause that followed was
uncanny--a syncope in the affairs of men like a gaping grave under
midnight clouds. Lopez spoke again. He regretted that they must intrude
on a fresh and poignant sorrow, but the case in hand was a matter of
state, before which the individual had to give way. It was very logical
and convincing. But the feeble old shoulders made no sign.
Tiburcio leaned over and shook him gently, and whispered in his ear.
Still Murguía did not move. Tiburcio gripped his arm. "You and Rodrigo,"
he said, so low that none could hear, "there was something arranged
between you. What was it? Tell me! Tell me, I say, if you want the
Gringo shot!"
He bent nearer, and against his ear came a muffled sound of lips. When
he straightened, it was to address the court.
If he might ask a question, had they searched the prisoner? They had.
But thoroughly? Thoroughly. But not enough to find anything? No. Then he
would suggest that they had not searched thoroughly. The court seemed
impressed, and Driscoll was fumbled over again. Still they found
nothing.
"Whose flask is that?" Tiburcio demanded, pointing to where it had been
tossed and forgotten. The prisoner's. "Look that over again," Tiburcio
insisted. A guard handed it to Lopez, who squinted inside. "There is
nothing," he said. It was only an old canteen whose leather covering was
dropping apart from rot.
Murguía's head raised, and his eyes fixed themselves on the judge, and
in their intense fixity glittered a quick, keen lust. It was hideous,
loathsome, fascinating. The eyes were swimming in tears, but their
hungered, metal-like sheen made the sorrow monstrous, and was the more
foul and ghastly because it distorted so pure a thing as sorrow.
Driscoll felt queerly that he must, must remove from the world this
decrepit old man who bemoaned a dead child. The itch for murder
terrified him, and he turned away angrily from the horrid face that
aroused it. But Murguía's stare never relaxed while Lopez toyed with the
canteen. And when Lopez, as though accidentally, thrust a finger under
the torn leather and brought out a folded paper, the bright points of
Murguía's eyes leaped to flame. But the head went down again, as once
more his grief swept over him, and another sob caught at the
heartstrings of every man there.
Lopez spread out the paper, and as he read, he started violently. He
passed it on to the Austrian and the color sergeant, and they also
started. But the most amazed was Driscoll, when he too had a chance to
read.
"Ha, you recognize it?" exclaimed the president.
"Sure I do. It's an order from Colonel Dupin to Captain Maurel. Rodrigo
had it in Tampico, making people think that _he_ was Captain
Maurel."
But the court was not so simple. "How came you by it?" demanded Lopez.
"Have occasion to be Maurel yourself sometime, eh?"
With wrath, with admiration, Driscoll faced round on Don Anastasio. "Oh
you pesky, shriveled-up gorilla!" he breathed. He was no longer amazed.
This accounted for Murguía's borrowing his flask the night they were in
the forest. It accounted for Murguía and Rodrigo plotting together in
Tampico. But why tell such things to the court? The Missourian was not a
fool like King Canute, who ordered back the waves. "Hurry up," he said
wearily to the waves instead. Since he could not hold the tide,
anticipation chilled more than the drowning bath itself.
The tide assuredly did not wait. It rolled right on, nearer and nearer.
Murguía was lifted to his feet. He was remembering already what Lopez
had told him, about his daughter and Maximilian, as Lopez had said he
would. The American's easy, stalwart form in gray filled his blurred
eyes. Here was a Confederate emissary come with an offer of aid for that
same Maximilian. Such had been Murguía's suspicion from the first, and
now it moved him with venomous hate. Yes, he would testify. Yes, yes,
the prisoner had ridden out alone at Tampico. Yes, yes, yes, the
prisoner was with Rodrigo there.
"But why, Don Anastasio," asked Tiburcio purely in fantastic mischief,
"did you bring such a disturbing man to our happy country?"
"That will do," Lopez interposed. "The Señor Murguía could not know at
the time that this fellow was Rodrigo's agent."
"And," Murguía added eagerly, "I was helpless, there at Mobile. The
Confederates could have sunk my boat, and he held an order from
Jefferson Davis."
"What's that?" cried Tiburcio, his humor suddenly vanished. "What's
that, an order from Jefferson Davis?"
Tiburcio's was a new interest, now. He possessed a mind as crooked as
his vision, and being crooked, it followed unerringly the devious paths
of other minds. So, they had made a tool of him! Rodrigo and Murguía
wanted the Gringo shot to help the rebel cause. And he, Tiburcio of the
cunning wits, had just sworn away, not only the Gringo's life, but the
possible salvation of the Empire. Coming from Jefferson Davis, the
Gringo with his mission could mean nothing else. Then there was Lopez.
Tiburcio did not love this changeling Mexican who had red hair. But what
could be the mongrel's game? Why had he freed Murguía, if not to unleash
a small terrier at Maximilian's heel? Why was he trying the American
over again, if not to poison a friendly mastiff? And why either, if Don
Miguel Lopez were not seeking to make friends with the Republic? Or
perhaps he was at heart a Republican. Thus Don Tiburcio, a loyal
Imperialist, read the finger posts as he ambled down the crooked path.
Yes, and here was Lopez putting on the final touch. Here he was, the
traitor, pronouncing the death sentence, and poor impotent Don Tiburcio
gnawing his baffled rage, as one would say of a villain. The execution
was to take place the very next morning. His Majesty the Emperor would
be asked to approve, afterward.
CHAPTER XXIII
A CURIOUS PAGAN RITE
"È un peccato che se ne va con l'acqua benedetta."
--_Machiavelli_.
The Storm Centre looked round, about and above. He was as a fly in a
bottle. A massive rough-hewn door, jammed tight, sealed him within adobe
walls two feet thick. There was one window, cross-barred, as high as his
chin, and only large enough to frame his head. They had brought him to
the carcel, or dungeon, of the hacienda, where peons were constrained to
docility. A wide masonry bench against the wall approximated a couch,
but it was as blocked ice. By the flickering of a lone tallow dip, Din
Driscoll noted these things with every sense delicately attuned to
strategy. But his verdict was unpromising.
"Tough luck!" he observed.
The adobe was built among the stables that bordered on the pasture, and
when not needed as a calabozo, it served snugly for the administrador's
best horse. From the one stall came a tentative whinny. Driscoll jumped
with delight. "Demijohn! W'y, you good old scoundrel, you!" The night
before, he remembered, he had seen the horse bedded here. "Say howdy as
loud as you want," he cried, slapping him fondly on the flank, "you'll
not betray us. _That's_ been done already."
Driscoll was cavalryman to the bone, and it heartened him unaccountably
to find his horse. If, only, he could have his pistols too! Ever since
the Federals had cut him off from his furloughs home, those black ugly
navies were next to the nearest in his affections. The nearest was the
buckskin charger. And now, only the buckskin was left, which simply made
the dilemma more poignant. The condemned man gazed critically at the
walls, the rafters, the ground, and shook his head. Supposing a chance
for escape, could he bring himself to leave Demijohn behind? He got his
pipe to going, sat down, and frowned ruefully at the candle.
"I don't want to be shot!" he burst out suddenly, with a plaintive
twang. Then he grinned. The boy still in him had prompted the absurdity.
And the rough warrior had laughed at it. Boy and warrior faced each
other, either surprised that the other existed. The boy flushed
resentfully at the veteran's contemptuous grunt. His eyes still had the
boy's naïvely inquisitive greeting to the world before him. Next, quite
abruptly, the warrior knew a bitterness against himself. If he could,
but once, whimper as the lad about to be soundly strapped! He took no
pride in his irony, nor in his hardened indifference to the visage of
death. How far, how very far, had the few past years of strife carried
him from the youngster who used to gaze so eagerly, so expectantly, out
on life!
First, he was home from the University, from the pretty, shady little
Missouri town of Columbia. But the vacation following he spent in
bloodily helping to drive the Jayhawkers back across the Kansas line.
And soon after, when the fighting opened up officially, and his State,
at the start, had more of it than any other battle ground, how many
hundreds of times did his life bide by the next throw of Fate? During
one cruel winter month he had lain with other wounded in a hospital
dug-out in the river's cliff, and there, wanting both quinine and food,
he would peep through the reeds, only to see the merciless Red Legs
prying about in search of his hiding place.
And then there was the wild, busily dangerous life with Old Joe's
Brigade, with that brigade of Missouri's young firebrands. Once,
stretched on the prairie, where he had dropped from exhaustion and
hunger and loss of blood, the Storm Centre awoke to find a Pin Indian
stooping over him for his scalp. On that occasion, the deft turning of
the wrist from the waist outward, with the stripping of the pistol's
hammer simultaneously, had enabled him later to restore to relatives
certain other scalps already dangling from the savage's girdle.
And now here he was in an adobe with walls two feet thick, and numerous
saddle-colored Greasers proposing to shoot him first thing in the
morning!
"I'll be blessedly damned," he drawled querulously, "I object!"
It was the warrior who spoke now, and with him the boy joined hands.
They became as one and the same person. The common foe was without. They
would see this through together, with grim stoicism, with young-blooded
daredeviltry.
The door opened, and one of the common foe, bearing a tray, came within.
"Well, Don Erastus, how goes it?" With a pang of homesickness the
Missourian thought of darkies who carried trays.
"Juan Bautista, at Y'r Mercy's orders," the Dragoon corrected him.
"Don John the Baptist then, como le whack?"
"Bien, señor, bien."
"Any theory as to what you've got there?"
"Y'r Mercy's supper. The Señor Coronel Lopez does not desire that Y'r
Mercy should have any complaint."
"Oh, none whatever, Johnny, except what I'm to die of. Set it down, here
on the feather bed."
There were a few native dishes, with a botellon of water and a jar of
wine. Driscoll tipped the botellon to his lips. His whiskey flask had
contained poison, though the poison of ink, and as he drank, he pondered
on why water should not be an antidote for the poisons that lurk in
whiskey flasks. Then he wondered why such foolish conceits at such times
persist in shouldering death itself out of a man's thoughts. And
meanwhile, there stood the precursor of his end, in the emblematic
person of a very brown John the Baptist. The fellow's gorgeous red
jacket was unbuttoned, revealing a sordid dirty shirt. He was officer of
the guard, and had a curiosity as to how a Gringo about to be shot would
act. He waited clumsily, lantern in hand. But he was disappointed. There
seemed to be nothing out of the commonplace. Some condemned Mexican,
though a monotonously familiar spectacle, would yet have been more
entertaining.
Driscoll looked at him over the botellon. That earthen bottle had not
left the prisoner's lips. It had stopped there, poised aloft by an idea.
"See here," Driscoll complained, "where's the rest of the water I'm to
have?"
"Of what water, señor?"
"For my bath, of course. Don't I die to-morrow?"
"Yes, but----"
"Here, this wine is too new for me. Drink it yourself, if you want."
"Many thanks, señor, with pleasure. But a bath? I don't understand."
"No? Don't you Mexicans ever bathe before you die?"
"We send for the padre."
"Oh, that's it! And he spiritually washes your sins away? But suppose
you couldn't get your padre?"
The Indian shuddered. "Ai, María purísima, one's soul would go to
everlasting torment!"
"There! Now you can understand why I count so much on ablution. It's
absolution."
The native readily believed. Like others of his class, he thought all
Protestants pagans, and none Catholic but a Mexican. "Must be something
like John the Baptist's day, verdad, señor?" he said. "On that holy day,
once a year, we must all take a bath."
"Quite right too," Driscoll returned soberly. "A man should go through
most anything for his religion.--Haven't noticed my horse there, have
you, Johnny?" The guard pricked up his ears. "Of course not," Driscoll
went on, "you're worrying about my soul instead. Well, so am I. We
Americans, you know, save our yearly baths for one big solemn final one,
just before we die. And if I don't get mine to-night, I'll be
associating with you unshrived Mexicans hereafter, and that would be
pretty bad, wouldn't it? It's what made me think of my horse there. That
horse, Johnny, is heavy on my soul. He's most too heavy to wash away.
Now, I'm not going to tell you that I actually stole him; but just the
same, if a good man like you would take him, after I'm gone--why, I'd
feel that he was washed off pretty well."
The Mexican's sympathy grew more keen.
"But the other sins," Driscoll added, "they'll need water, and a great
plenty, too."
Juan Bautista was feeling the buckskin's knees. Driscoll longed to choke
him, but instead, he drove again at the wedge. "Another thing, I'll have
to leave my money behind." He mentioned it casually, but his breath
stopped while he waited for the effect. The guard straightened.
Demijohn's knees seemed to be all right. He took up the tray, and opened
the door, yet without a word. Driscoll's fist doubled, to strike and run
for it. Then the fellow spoke.
"Does Y'r Mercy want soap too?"
The fist unclenched. "No," came the reply, almost in a joyful gasp,
"this is for, for godliness only."
"One jar, señor?"
"Bless me, no! Two big ones, bigger'n a barrel."
With a parting glance at Demijohn, the guard stole forth to gratify the
heathen's whim.
"I'll give him enough to _buy_ a horse," Driscoll resolved.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE MAN WHO DID NOT WANT TO BE SHOT
"A horse and a man
Is more than one,
And yet not many."
--_Taming of the Shrew_.
"Now Berthe--why, what in the world----" Jacqueline began.
It was her second morning to awake in the hacienda house, and the little
Bretonne tripped into her room under a starchy mountain heaped high.
"Clothes, madame," she replied.
"Hé mais----"
"They were made yesterday by some of the ranchero women. Madame will
look?"
"Calico! Grands dieux!"
There were two dresses, one for each girl. The native seamstresses had
slyly taken stock of mademoiselle the day before, only to discover that
a "simple" frock from Paris was a formidable thing to duplicate. The
marchioness smiled, and the maid also.
"But, for example, Berthe, who inspired this?"
"He did."
"He?"
"The American monsieur, of course."
"Oh, the American monsieur, of course! So, monsieur permits himself to
observe that I need a wardrobe? But you, Berthe, you surely did not----"
"Oh, no, madame! I knew nothing, till just now, when the woman brought
them. The monsieur ordered them yesterday, she said. And naturally,
madame, if he could have found better material, I do not doubt----"
"There, child, I'll not be reproached by your even thinking it necessary
to defend----"
"And madame will see, too, that they will do nicely." She spread the
frocks on the bed, and began snipping here and there with the scissors
and taking stitches everywhere. "By letting it out this way--voilà, if
madame will kindly slip it on?"
"Berthe, you can't mean--Oh nonsense!"
None the less the skirt passed over her head, and the maid's deft
fingers kept on busily. "And why not?" she talked as she worked, "unless
one likes rags better. And who will see? Only men. Poof, those citizens
do not know percale from a Parisian toilette."
Jacqueline began to wax angry with the quiet tyranny of it. She looked
at the horror and shuddered, then with both hands pushed the calico to
the floor, gathering up her own lawn skirt instead. It was rather a
woebegone lawn skirt. She gazed ruefully at the garment, then down at
the blue flowering heaped about her ankles. Berthe, kneeling over the
dress, raised her eyes. The puckered brow of her mistress spelled fury,
and the maid tried not to laugh, at which Jacqueline stamped her foot.
"Berthe," she cried, "shall I slap you?"
"Mais oui, madame. And madame, I was thinking, what will he say if you
do not wear it?"
Jacqueline gave her a keen look. "Child, child," she exclaimed, "you
seem to imagine that whatever _he_ wants----"
"Oui, madame.--I think you can try it on again now."
And madame submitted petulantly. But to herself she had to confess the
magic in Berthe's fingers. Though she pouted over the fresh, rustic
effect, yet on her slender figure there was witchery in it.
An orderly knocked. He was one of her Austrian escorts come to say that
everything was ready for departure. She gladly hailed the chance to
escape this house of mourning. All night long old women in the death
chamber had mumbled incantations, and the droning was in her ears as she
slept. It was not nice. Because she could not blot out the inartistic
shock of ugly mortality, in very self-hate she yearned to get away. The
evening before, even while she loaned common sense to the crazed
household, even while she pressed down the icy eyelids, she
wondered--obstinately wondered, despite herself, what the dead girl
could have thought, what she could have felt, during that one horrid,
thrilling second of flight downward, and what, in anticipation of the
second after. It was gruesome, this being always and always the
spectator. Yet Jacqueline knew that, had it been she herself plunging
from the tower, she still would have been that spectator. Too well she
knew that she would have analyzed what she thought and felt. She would
have rated even the second before eternity in its degree as a frisson;
and, no doubt, would have been aware of a voluptuous satiety, while
anticipating the second after. She hated herself, and she hated too the
smart, ultra-refined life that had brought her to it. How many of those
past years, or of the years to come would she not give to shed a few
tears without interrogating them!
Ney met the two girls under the colonnade. At the steps was the coach
and eight mules left by Maximilian for their use, and drawn up in
stately line were Messieurs the Feathers and Furs, as Jacqueline called
His Majesty's Austrian Imperial Guards. When she appeared, out flashed
their curved blades. The queenly little lady in blue-flowered calico and
a rakish Leghorn hat returned the salute with a smile.
"Where are the Dragoons, Michel?" she asked.
Ney did not know. But a Mexican with a crossed eye approached, doffing a
silver-lettered sombrero. He had been waiting for her, he said. There
was time. Otherwise he would have forced his way to wherever she was.
"Indeed, Seigneur Farceur?" said Jacqueline.
She recognized that most sinister of jokers, Don Tiburcio. He was eyeing
her narrowly, and there was a vigilance in the baleful gleam, as though
of late he might have been deceived by his fellowmen.
"But," he coolly proceeded, "only a few minutes are left now."
"My good man, whatever are you talking about?"
"And after the few minutes, we'll have the shooting. I came to invite
Your Mercy."
"Shoot whom?"
"There is but one prisoner."
"You mean Señor Murguía? The American was acquitted, I believe."
"It's the other way, señorita. They were both tried over again, and
then, the American was condemned."
"Mademoiselle," ejaculated Ney, "you are deathly----"
"I am not!" Jacqueline protested furiously. "It's the powder."
But Berthe knew better. Her mistress used it not, for all the roguish
freckle on her nose-tip. Tiburcio, too, was satisfied as to her sudden
pallor. She would save him the American, he decided. "Your Mercy had
best hasten," he urged her frankly.
Jacqueline ran to the end of the portico, from were she could see the
pasture. Within, a platoon of red jackets were filing toward the carcel.
"That scoundrel Lopez!" exclaimed Tiburcio, "he has advanced the time on
us!"
Only for an instant did Jacqueline wring her hands.
"Michel, your horse!" she cried. "Quick, quick! Now hold the stirrup!"
But Tiburcio was the quicker. He bent his knee, on it she stepped, and
up she jumped, and kicked her heel as a spur. The charger leaped, and
down the road clattered girl and horse, she swaying perilously.
It was a hundred yards to the pasture gate, and as much again to the
adobe inside. When her horse rose in his gallop, she caught glimpses
over the wall. The Dragoons were drawing up before the carcel. Sentinels
tugged at the huge wooden door, and Lopez goaded them on. He saw her
coming, and would have it over with before she could interfere. He
bellowed an order, and the shooting squad threw up their guns at aim.
They would not wait. They would fire on their victim the second the door
opened. The heavy oak began to give. But that moment swinging in through
the gate, Jacqueline could see only the carcel's blank adobe wall. Yet
she pictured the man just behind. She pictured the door opening.
And--too late! Dieu, the muskets had volleyed already!
But--what made the shots scatter so? Scattered and flurried, they
sounded. And no wonder! She saw a miracle in the doing. It was the most
astounding sight of all her life long. Straight through the blank adobe
wall, for all its two feet of thickness, she beheld a man on a
great-boned yellow horse, both man and horse plunge mid a sudden cloud
of dust, plunge squarely into the light of day.
The dumfounded shooting squad had blazed crazily against the half-open
door; and for the critical quarter minute following, their weapons were
harmless. Other Dragoons ran wildly out into the pasture, and as wildly
fired at the horseman. Only one of the sentinels had happened to be on
the side of the magic exit, but as the solid wall dissolved into a
powdered cloud and the apparition hurtled past him, down upon his head
crashed a gigantic water jar filled with earth. He who had sympathized
with pagan ablutions the night before stood now with mouth agape. Some
heathen god was having a hand in this, he knew.
Jacqueline wheeled to Driscoll's side as he dashed toward her. He was
coatless. His woolen shirt was open at the neck, the sleeves were rolled
to the elbows. His slouch hat sat upon the back of his head. The short
cropped curls, gray with dust, fluttered against the brim. She had never
seen a face so buoyantly happy.
"Morning, Miss Jack-leen! Race you to the river?"
They galloped through the gate together. He was for turning down the
road, but she blocked his horse with her own. During a second the flight
was stopped.
"I'm in a hurry just now," he panted, but made no effort to get by her.
"Up that way!" she cried. "Up that way, past the House!"
"But those pretty boys----"
"The Austrians? They'll not stop you, I promise."
"Then it's our move. Careful, little girl, don't fall!"
Jacqueline, waving her arm, signaled the Feathers and Furs to make room,
and Tiburcio and Ney saw to it that they did. Man and girl raced through
them.
"Wait here, Michel!" called Jacqueline, leaving Ney still with thumb to
cap at salute. Tiburcio gazed after them.
Lopez ran across the pasture to the colonnade. His red face was redder
than ever before. Tiburcio sardonically regarded him. Lopez glared at
Ney.
"Why aren't you in pursuit?" he demanded hotly.
"And you, monsieur?"
"And I, and I! Who are you to question me, señor? Every girth has been
cut!"
"Caramba, mi coronel," cried Tiburcio in dismay, "you don't say so!"
"And it will take ten minutes to tie up the cords, while you, you, Señor
Frenchman, you stand there, your men mounted and ready! Obey me, I tell
you!"
"Can't," said Ney doggedly. "Against orders."
"Orders? Whose orders?"
"Of Mademoiselle la Marquise, monsieur."
"Who runs away with a convict. A fit commander, por Dios!"
Off came the Frenchman's gauntlet, but he paused in the gesture of
striking. Too quick at this, and not enough at wits, he might ruin her
plans.
"As fit," he retorted instead, "as another who lets prisoners escape. I
advise Monsieur the Colonel to look to his girths."
CHAPTER XXV
THE PERSON ON THE OTHER HORSE
"Yet am I sure of one pleasùre,
And shortly, it is this:
That, where ye be, me seemeth, pardè,
I could not fare amiss."
--_Ballad of the Nut Brown Maid._
Din Driscoll had never remotely imagined that there could be such
intoxication in a horseback ride. The person on the other horse made for
the difference. How the joy of her filled him that instant of his
bursting through the black prison wall into the bright morning of the
world! She, the splendid first thing to gladden his eyes! Could liberty
be really so glorious? Ravishing horsewoman, she was coming to save him.
He had supposed her on her way to Mexico, and 'twas she whom he saw
first of all.
And now, she rode beside him. They two, they were riding together,
alone. The smell of the wild free air of the universe thrilled them both
with an exquisite recklessness. Vague, limitless, subtle in mystery, the
seduction of it was ineffable. Out of the corner of his eye he peeped at
her. But wasn't she perched entrancingly on that dragoon saddle, wasn't
she, though? The richly heavy coils of burnished copper had loosened,
and they were very disconcerting in their suggestion of flowing wealth.
If they _would_ but fall about her shoulders! And the lace from the
slanting hat brim, and the velvet patch near the dimple--the velvet
patch called an assassin. And--what dress was that? Flowered calico?
Yes, and light blue. His cheeks burned as of one surprised in crime, but
the self-possessed young woman herself was oblivious. So was it this, a
blue flowered gown, that made her so suddenly tangible, so tangible and
maddening? The haughty Parisienne of imperial courts was gone. In fact,
she had become so distractingly tangible that--well, he didn't know. But
a lump got into his throat. She might be a Missouri girl, this moment.
And there came to him the vision of one, of a Missouri girl molding
biscuits, patting them, and her arms were bared, in a simple piquancy
just like Jacqueline's now. He even saw the pickaninnies in the shade of
the porch outside, worshiping the real Missouri girl from the very
whites of their eyes. How he had loved to tease her! He could not help
it; she was so daintily prim. That he should thus think of his sister,
the while gazing on the one-time gilded butterfly--to say the least, it
was a pertinent comment on the transmuting magic that lurks in blue
flowered percale.
They slowed to a trot.
"Monsieur is my prisoner, yes," said she in her wonderful English.
He took the other meaning. "I don't know--_yet_," he returned
soberly.
She laughed, and he realized that he had spoken aloud.
He turned on himself in dismay. "What's the matter with me?" he
muttered.
"I think, monsieur," said Jacqueline demurely, "that I have the guess."
"You haven't--you can't guess either! I don't know myself."
"Just the same, I wish I knew so well my chances for heaven."
"But you're mistaken, I tell you. I'm not!"
"Not what, monsieur?"
"In, in--w'y, in love."
Jacqueline's laughter was the merriest peal. In the end he half grinned.
Little use trying to convince the little witch! He had much to do
convincing himself.
On the farther slope of a hill where coffee grew and the giant
sheltering banana hid the road, they paused at a trail that crossed the
highway and wound on down toward the Pánuco river, where tropical stuff
for Tampico was transferred from burros to dugout barges. Jacqueline
listened. There were no sounds of pursuit as yet, nor was there any one
in sight. Making up her mind, she changed to the path. Driscoll
followed, with a delight in this new leadership over him.
When they gained the river, she stopped again, and he did too.
"But you must go, on, on!" she protested. "They may not be deceived, no.
They may have you to overtake here." She held out her hand. "There, this
path, you follow it to Tampico. Good bye. Yes, yes, you have not one
minute!"
Driscoll took the little gauntleted hand readily enough. He saw that the
lines of her face were drawn, but her manner was inexorable.
"How do you like your dress?" he inquired.
Had she been on her feet, she would have stamped one of them.
"Monsieur," she cried, "here is no time to observe the replenishment of
a lady's wardrobe. Do you go? I insist. I wish you bon voyage to your
own country, monsieur."
"But it's so far away. I reckon I'd better rest a spell first. A month
or so, prob'bly."
She watched him clamber down and tie Demijohn to the low branch of a
live oak on the river's bank.
"There you are, getting stubborn again," she said. But the lines in her
face had vanished.
"Of course I mean to see you back to your friends," he explained.
"Merci bien. But you will not. You will have this river straight to
Tampico. I say yes!"
She turned her horse as she spoke, whereat he started to remount his
own.
"I think, sir----" she began haughtily.
"The road is free."
"Oh, why have you to be so, so quarrelsome?"
"The temptation, I reckon."
"You really will go back with me?"
"I might be going back along about the same time. It's a public trail."
"Then _I_ will stay, and you _must_! I will not permit you to
go back there now. I will see that you do wait here so long until Lopez
has the time to start to Mexico after you. Then you will be behind him.
Have the goodness to hold my bridle. I think I shall take me a rest a
little also."
Together they sat on a huge live-oak root and watched the sluggish
Pánuco flow by.
"No hurry now," Driscoll observed comfortably. "Our scarlet upholstered
colonel won't get away for years yet."
Years, at least, were in his wishes, years in which to provoke her
quaintly inflected English, and its quaint little slips. She had learned
it in London long before, playing with wee Honorable toddlers while her
father played France's diplomacy with grown-ups. That accent of hers,
then, was as broad as Mayfair, and to the Missourian doubly foreign, and
doubly alluring.
"I cannot understand," she said, "why it is the Dragoons have not
followed you immediately?"
"Tibby's the reason, I reckon. That Tibby is a deep one."
She made him explain, and he told her. The blackmailing humorist,
Tiburcio, had paid him a visit at his dungeon window during the night.
Being chief witness for the prosecution, Tiburcio could pass the sentry
unchallenged.
"Come for your money?" Driscoll had inquired, and Tiburcio seemed hurt.
"What is the matter," Tiburcio demanded, "with pointing a revolver at
the Señor Americano right now, and making him deliver?"
Driscoll had not figured out what the objections might be, but he
reckoned some would materialize.
"But," said Tiburcio, "I'm not doing it, and why? Simply because I want
to know if you care to escape?"
"W'y," returned Driscoll, "I'll think it over, and let you know in the
morning," at which lack of confidence Tiburcio was more hurt than ever.
"What's the use," Driscoll objected, "they'd catch me again?"
"Not if I fixed their horses, and if I do, will you promise to get out?"
And thus the bargain had stood, and thus it was fulfilled, though at the
last the anxious Tiburcio had called in Jacqueline to help.
"Now," said the marchioness, settling herself for a treat, "I
_must_ know. Tame for me the miracle, explain it. I cannot longer
hold my curiosity. But it was fine--exquis--however you have done it!"
"Weren't they a surprised lot, though?"
"But the miracle, monsieur! The miracle!"
"Well, it was this way. Being on the yawning brink--as old Meagre
Shanks, friend of mine, would say--I figured it out that lacking in
godliness, I'd try to get the next best thing."
"Please, monsieur!"
"That I'd try to get a bath."
"Of dust and mud, for example?"
At that Driscoll ceased all miracle taming and brushed himself off. But,
putting him back into his dungeon, one will recall how he plotted to
obtain two jars of water. This water he used simply to soften the hard,
sun-baked adobes. First he hung his coat over the window. A suspicious
guard naturally wanted to know why, and Driscoll appeared at the bars
stripped to the waist. To keep out the cold air while he bathed, he
said, and his teeth chattered. Then he went back to work. He handled his
precious water with desperate economy. He began at the exposed end of
one adobe brick, soaking it as needed and digging it out with a chip of
earthenware knocked off one of the jars. The wall was two adobe lengths
in thickness, but after he had gotten out his first brick, it was easy,
by tugging and kicking, to tear out the others of the inside tier, since
luckily they did not dovetail in with the outer ones. Soon he had an
arch-shaped niche in the wall almost as high as his head when mounted on
Demijohn. The really tedious part remained, and it was an all night job.
To deepen the niche without breaking through, he had to scrape it out
piecemeal, wetting the dried mud as he toiled. He measured carefully
just how much of the thickness to leave, because the weed stalks in the
adobe could not be trusted to hold too thin a crust, and also he had to
take care that the water did not soak entirely through and make a
tell-tale blot on the outside when daylight should come. It was an
infinitely laborious task, and even with completion at last, there was
yet the question--which would break first, bone or masonry?
But he would learn when he should dash his horse's skull and his own
against the shell that remained. He saddled Demijohn, filled an empty
jar with the soft earth of his excavations, and waited. His dramatic
appearance at the instant of the door's opening was not a coincidence.
It was minute calculation. Already mounted, he faced the wall, with the
heavy jar poised over his head in both hands, his spurs drawn back to
strike. He waited until sentinels and shooting squad had gathered at the
door. He waited to draw their fire, to empty their muskets. But he did
not wait until the door should open enough to give them unimpeded aim.
In the second of its opening he drove back the spurs, hurled the jar
against the wall, and--crashed through his dungeon as easily as breaking
a sucked egg.
"But," demanded Jacqueline eagerly, "how is it you did feel?" She was
disappointed that the personal equation had had so little prominence.
"I don't recollect," said Driscoll, puzzled, "there was nothing hurting
especially."
"No, no! Your sensations facing death, then escaping?"
He brightened. "W'y yes," he replied, happy to catch her meaning. "I
felt toler'ble busy."
She sighed despairingly. Yet there was plenty left her for wonderment,
and in it she revelled.
"Ingenuity!" she mused. "I declare, I believe the first human being to
stand up on his hind legs must have been an American. It simply occurred
to him one day that he didn't need all fours for walking, and that he
might as well use his before-feet for something else."
"And a Frenchman, Miss Jack-leen?"
She flung up her hands.
"_He!_" she exclaimed. "If ever a compatriot of mine had gotten
that idea into his--how you say?--pate, would he not carry it out to the
idiotic limit, yes? He? _He_ would try to walk without any feet
whatever, and use _all_ of them for other things. Already you have
seen him doing the, the pugilat--the box--with every one of his fours.
Voilà!"
But time was passing. Lopez had certainly repaired his girths by this
time. Driscoll arose. "There's a shorter way back," he announced. "The
river junction can't be far down stream, and I'll wait for you there,
Miss Jack-leen, while you scout on ahead to the hacienda house. If all's
clear, you signal and I will advance with the heavy cavalry."
"C'est bien, mon colonel."
"Whatever that means, I hope it ain't mutiny."
At best it was only mock compliance. Jacqueline also knew that time was
passing, but she had not mentioned the fact. Now the reason transpired.
She harked back on their separation, with a grave earnestness and a
saddened air of finality. He was to leave her here, she said. He was to
go back to his own country. How badly had his reception fared so far?
Why not, then, leave Mexico to ingratitude, and have done? The romantic
land of roses was notoriously a blight to hopes. Why should he seek to
thrive despite the mysterious curse that seemed to hover over all things
like a deadly miasma?
Driscoll shook his head. "You know I have come to see Maximilian."
"But you are under sentence. You will lose your life."
"Miss Jack-leen, you said a while back that I was your prisoner. You
have the Austrian escort. All right. You will deliver me to the
Emperor," and he waved his hand as though the matter was arranged.
"But monsieur," she cried, "may not others have plans as vital as yours?
And, perhaps--yes, you interfere."
He did interfere, in grimmest truth. Leaving the Sphinx of the
Tuileries, she had come with her mission, and with an idea, too, of the
obstacles that must be vanquished. But here, almost at landing, she
encountered a barrier left out of her calculations, and which alone,
unaided, she had to surmount. It was the surrender of the Confederacy,
and what this upsetting complication meant against her own errand was
embodied in the man before her. For in him lay the results of the
Surrender as affecting the Mexican empire. In a word, he brought aid for
Maximilian at the moment when Maximilian might be discouraged enough to
give way to France; when the forgetful prince might gladly leave all to
the generous nation which had placed him on his throne and which by him
was cheated of the reward of its costly empire building. Should the
French threaten to withdraw, should they in reality withdraw, still he
would not abdicate, not with Confederate veterans to replace the
pantalons rouges. Like the dog of the fable, Maximilian would cling to
the manger.
"Oui, oui, monsieur," she repeated sharply, "you interfere!"
"In that case," said Driscoll quietly, "I will leave you at the river
junction. When I see that you are safely at the hacienda----"
"You will go back to America?"
"That need not worry you."
"Then you are _not_ going back, back to your own country?" He would
keep on to the City alone. She would have no chance to intercept him.
After all Fate had been good to her--no, cruel!--to cast him in her
path. "You might find the Austrian escort safer than going alone," she
said enticingly.
He hesitated. What all this was about, he could not imagine. He knew
nothing, naturally, of the dark intrigues of an enigmatical adventurer
far away in the Tuileries, nor how they could affect him. And so he put
away as absurd the fancy that she in her turn might interfere with him.
Besides, he was tempted.
"It's a go!" he said.
She for her part was thinking, hoping, rather, that perhaps she was
mistaken. Perhaps he only bore the offer of a paltry few hundred, a
handful of homeseekers from his regiment. She hoped so. She would have
prayed for it, had praying occurred to her.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE STRANGEST AVOWAL OF LOVE
"Nae living man I'll love again,
Since that my lovely knight is slain."
--_Lament of the Border Widow._
Back once more at the hacienda, Driscoll recovered his coat still
hanging over the dungeon window. Lopez would have called it insolence,
had he been there instead of scouring the country toward Mexico.
Jacqueline and Berthe settled themselves in the traveling coach left for
their comfort by Maximilian. Driscoll's effects, including his gray
cape-coat and the bundle he had carried behind his saddle, were found in
his room at the House. Jacqueline took them into the carriage with her,
along with that absurd little valise that she had brought from the ship
for an hour's jaunt on shore. Driscoll rode with Ney and the Austrians,
and was once again headed toward the capital, still sixty fair Mexican
leagues southward.
For six days it was an uneventful journey, seemingly. By day there were
sierras, and valleys, and wayside crosses marking violent deaths. By
night they accepted either ranchero hospitality or put up at some
village mesón. But within himself, adventures were continuous and
varying for the Storm Centre. He could not account for the strange,
curious elation that possessed him, especially when Jacqueline would
take Ney's horse and ride at his side, perhaps for an hour, when the sun
was not too hot. Driscoll never knew how long these occasions lasted. He
did not know that they were long at all. As a matter of fact, he had
ceased using ordinary standards of measurement. The universe, and sordid
accessories such as time, radiated entirely about one little velvet
patch near a dimple satellite.
There came to be long silences between them as they rode, either boy or
girl content to have it so, and neither the least bit lonesome. And they
talked too, naturally, though this was not so significant. She would
slyly provoke him. To her mind, there was never anyone quite so
satisfying at a quarrel. She would pause in delighted expectancy to see
his eyes grow big when she thrust, and then to see his mouth twitch at
the corners as he caught her blade on his own keen wit. She had
forgotten that he was rustic, except for the added zest it gave. Nor was
there a false note in him, so happily and totally unconscious was he of
self. And as for a certain gaucherie, that was the spice to his whole
manner.
They talked of many things; rather, she made him talk. She learned that
his name was John, as hers was Jeanne, and she wanted to know why the
horse was Demijohn.
"Because, Miss Jack-leen," he answered, "he's my other half, and
sometimes the better one, too." He remembered that once, when he had
drooped limp over the saddle, the buckskin had carried him out of the
fighting to the rear. "You see," he added, "we were both colts when our
little shindy up there broke loose."
"And you both went? Ah, Monsieur the Patriot, you did go, you did
affront the tyrant? Yes!" She had the explorer's eagerness. Perhaps she
might discover in him her own especial demon of self-introspection.
"N-o," he replied, "I reckon we went mostly for the fun of the thing."
"Fi donc!" she cried. "But wait till you are old. Oh yes, we have them
too, those blessed, over-petted veterans of the Grande Armée. They are
in the Hôtel des Invalides, with medals to diagnose their glory. Oh, là,
là, but there's a pleasant fashion! The people, the politicians, they
forget the hot blood that fought simply because there were pretty blows
to strike. They see only the gray hairs. 'Honneur aux patriotes!' You
wait, monsieur. You, too, will be made into the hero, ex post facto, and
you will believe it yourself. Yes, with the wolves, one learns to howl."
"N-o," said the young Confederate, "we--we got licked."
They talked--he rather--of Missouri. He was not reluctant to have
stirred the memories of his home, not with one who could listen as she
did. In his heart settled a warmth that was good, and the glow of it
shone on his face. He became aware that the gray eyes were upon him,
taking conscious note of his hair, his mouth, his chin, as though she
were really seeing him for the first time. What made a girl do that way?
He felt queerly, it being thus brought to him that he had awakened
interest in a woman, but the tribute she paid him was ennobling, and a
deep thankfulness, though to whom or for what he had not the least idea,
made more kindly and good the cheery warmth around his heart. The gray
eyes had never sparkled on him in coquetry as they sometimes did on
other men, and now they were grave and sweet. It was a phase of
Jacqueline that only her maid had known.
The marquise gathered that Missour-_i_, as she called it, was an
exceedingly strange and fascinating region. She learned that it was a
state, like a department in France, like her own Bourbonnais for
instance. But there the comparison ended. The rest was all startling
versatility. For the inhabitants had not only taken both sides during
the Civil War, but through their governor had proclaimed themselves an
independent republic into the bargain. They must be unusual citizens,
those Missourians.
But they were strangest because they did not seem to be actors. They did
not refine living into a cult, with every pleasure and pain classified
and weighed out and valued. No, they actually lived. It was hard to
realize this, but in the end she did, and with ever increasing wonder,
with also a beginning of envy and hunger. But there was still another
thing even more indefinable. It centered in the word "home," which she
knew neither in French nor Spanish, but which she came to know now, as
its meaning grew upon her. It was more than a "maison" or a "casa," or a
"chez nous." It was a manner of temple. And the high priest there was a
grim lord. How very grim, indeed! There was no compromise, no blinking,
no midway gilded dais between the marriage altar and the basest filth.
As grim, this was, as that original Puritanism which has become a
synonym of American backbone. Grim, yes; but the woman there, where the
high priest blinked not, was a divinity. She was a divinity in the
tenderest and most devoted sense of the word. And the Puritanism was
purity enshrined, as a simple matter of course. The longing, if only to
know more of this odd country, rose in her mysteriously, and stronger
and stronger.
When on one occasion she went back to the coach, she found that Berthe
also was enjoying the change to horseback. Jacqueline was glad of it.
Now she could be alone, and she believed that she wanted to think. But
she could not pin down what she wanted to think about; because, no
doubt, there was so very much. Instead, she looked vacantly at the Storm
Centre's cartridge belt and pistols on the seat in front of her. They
were grim, too, these playthings of a boy.
Dupin had left the weapons with Ney, back at the hacienda, and Ney had
turned them over to Jacqueline as to the real strategic chief of the
expedition. And Jacqueline had kept them, perhaps to look at, perhaps
because of a whim that a prisoner should not be armed. She liked to hear
Driscoll mourn for them, not knowing where they were, and she held back
the surprise as one lingers before an anticipated pleasure. She picked
up the great, black revolvers with a woman's fascinated respect for the
harsh, eternal male of her species, who is primeval and barbaric yet,
and ever will be, to hold his mate his very own. Her touch was gingerly,
but there was a caress in her fingers on the ugly things.
She lifted the belt. How heavy of metal it was! Idly, she thought she
would count the leaden missiles. When finally she laid the belt aside, a
bullet remained in her lap. It had fallen there out of its shell.
Starting to fit the bullet in again, she suddenly dropped both bullet
and cartridge. Her hands trembled. This particular shell contained no
powder. But it contained a tightly rolled slip of oiled paper. The
cartridge was a dummy, a wee strong box for some vital document.
It was not for scruples against looking that she paused. On the
contrary, it was that she must look, absolutely, in sacred, patriotic
duty bound, that finally decided--nay, compelled her to look. Still she
hesitated before drawing out the paper. She dreaded what it might tell
her. Concealed thus, and revealed only by a hazard, the paper held, she
felt certain, the secret and the significance of the American's errand
to Mexico. And she did not want to know. She reviled bitterly the cruel
chance that had thrust it on her.
She read. The paper was a communication addressed to the Emperor
Maximilian by the Confederate generals of the Trans-Mississippi
department. Foreseeing Lee's surrender, they had gathered from
Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, at a place in the latter state named
Marshall, and there they had decided that they would not surrender. They
would seek homes and a country elsewhere, swords in hand. At this
meeting, which had been inspired by Gen. Joe Shelby, they had deposed
the cautious general commanding, Kirby Smith, and they had put in his
stead Simon Bolivar Buckner. The Trans-Mississippi department numbered
fifty thousand men. There would also be fugitives from Lee's and
Johnson's corps, besides Jefferson Davis in person, should he contrive
to pass the Federal lines. Many thousands of veterans would shortly be
marching across the Rio Grande. In Texas, at the Confederate arsenals
and depositories, they would seize what they needed: guns, ammunition,
horses, provisions, money. In Mexico they would become citizens, and
they would defend their new homes against outlawry, rebellion, or
invasion. The signatory generals prayed the Emperor Maximilian to
consider this, and "to do it quick."
Jacqueline put the letter back in the cartridge, and everything looked
as before. But no genii, once out, can ever quite be bottled up again.
That stray bullet had wounded her to the heart.
"As bad as fifty thousand!" she cried half aloud. "And they will become
citizens, too--Mon Dieu, _that_ is a nation!"
With them Maximilian would have a people behind him, and his throne
would be as a rock. He could, and most certainly would, disdain the
French army of occupation with its thirty thousand bayonets. The French
might go back home. He would speed them cheerfully, and henceforth be
Emperor in fact.
"But our treasure and our dead," sighed Jacqueline bitterly, "we cannot
take _them_ back. No, nor our hopes, though they weigh little
enough now, for that matter. Oh dear, and _I_ am one of those
hopes!--Help me Heaven, else I shall hate my own country. Oh, I must be
true!--Now, _why_ couldn't those Missourians have sent--someone
else?"
That evening she held a pen, but it would not move, not while her
thoughts were upon it. So, by sheer will, she nerved herself not to
think, and wrote mechanically. She wrote a message to Lopez, and another
to Dupin, and yet a third. The third brought the tears long before it
was finished. An Austrian took the first two, and rode all that night.
She kept the other one herself.
This was the fifth day of their journey since leaving Murguía's
hacienda. They had taken pains to keep behind Lopez. Their pursuer,
ahead of them, had not made twenty miles the first day, for he had
delayed in order to search here and there. But the second day, he had
evidently accepted failure, and hastened on to overtake the Emperor. The
Emperor himself, after traveling constantly for a night and a day, had
rested a night and half a day to reflect on his late energy, and
thereafter he was proceeding as roadside ovations would permit.
Accordingly on this, the fifth night, Lopez was close behind the
Emperor, and both were within a day of the capital, and less than a day
ahead of Driscoll, Jacqueline and Ney.
All the next day Jacqueline kept to her coach. She was cross or
nervously excited or melancholy, and by erratic turns in every mood that
was hopelessly downcast, until her maid became well nigh frantic. At
first Ney would hover near in helpless concern, but she ordered him away
angrily. However, the storm broke at last when Driscoll reined in and
waited at the roadside. She could see him through the little front pane
of glass as the carriage drew nearer, and she watched with a fierce
hunger in her eyes. All the time she stirred in greater agitation, and
her breath came more and more quickly. At the very last moment, when a
second later he might have seen her, she sprang to the window, looked
once again, then in a fury snatched at the shade and jerked it down.
Driscoll paused uncertain, but wheeled and galloped back to the head of
the column. Berthe turned to her mistress. She was lying weakly against
the cushions, staring at nothing and panting for air.
Toward dusk they reached Tuxtla, a little pueblo on the highroad set mid
maguey farms that made the rolling hill slopes of Anahuac look like a
giant's cabbage patch. In the distance, under two snow-capped peaks
beyond, the mosaic domes and sandstone towers and painted walls of the
capital glittered in the setting sun like some picture of an Arabian
city vaguely known to memory. The travelers were not a dozen miles from
their destination, but Berthe announced that madame her mistress would
rest at Tuxtla for the night.
The Austrians were quartered in the village, and Ney and Driscoll found
accommodations for the two girls and themselves farther down the road,
at the house of a maguey grower whom they persuaded to vacate. While it
was still light Driscoll amused himself strolling alone between the rows
of the great century plants. Under their leaves, curving high above his
head, he watched peons with gourds suck out the honey water from the
onion-like bulbs into goatskin bags. After a time he wandered through
the hacendado's primitive distillery and on back to the house, with a
feeling for supper.
As he entered, he heard the clanking of a sabre in the dark room. He
thought nothing of it, but almost at once something cut through the air
and a noose fell over him. He swung round, but the rope jerked tight
about his knees, and he lurched and swayed as an oak before the axe. He
struck with his fist and had a groan for reward, but a second lariat
circled his shoulders and bound his arms to his body. As he went down
under the weight of men, the shutters were thrown open, and he looked up
into the red-lidded eyes of Colonel Lopez. A troop of cavalry was
passing on the road outside, and he caught the sound of wheels
departing.
"You hear?" said Lopez. "The marquesa is going to the City, having
decided not to wait for you. But she leaves a note, pour prendre congé,
eh? You will perhaps have time to read it before the shooting."
Once more Driscoll found himself in an adobe with a sputtering candle
for company. But he also had her note. It was the third of the messages
which she had written the night before.
"Monsieur," it began, "I cannot let you die without telling you that it
was I who betrayed----"
He jumped to his feet. "Oh--the pythoness!" he breathed fervently.
"----who betrayed you," the letter read. "That you know this, monsieur,
that your last thought shall be a curse at me, such will be my
punishment. It is a self inflicted one, because you need not have known
what I have done. The telling of this to you is my scourge, but it is
not penitence. Worse and more unbearable is my sorrow that the penitence
will never come, that I can feel no remorse, no more than if some
inevitable thing, like the fever, had taken you. I would always do again
what I have just done; as pitiless as I must be for you, Fate is for me.
Your life, monsieur, is but added to the hundreds already snuffed out in
this country for France's sake. Those hundreds are my countrymen, and
you, if you lived till to-morrow, would make _their_ offering
useless. I have tried to save you, monsieur, but you would not permit.
You would not return to your own country, and--there was no other way.
But do not think there will come emissaries in your place. Do not
believe that I would so send you to death needlessly. There will be no
emissaries after you. Your Confederates shall know that Maximilian's
court martial executed you, and is it that your compatriotes will then
desire to help Maximilian? Believe--only believe, monsieur--that it is a
cruel duty not permitting that I shall listen to my heart. If you but
knew, if you but knew--and you shall know. Monsieur Driscoll--oh, mon
chevalier, it is that I love you. There, know then, dear heart cheri,
the enormity of my sacrifice. Know the necessity of it. Know that I envy
you, for you are going, and I must stay, all alone, without you. Mon
bien aimé, _without you_, through all my long life!"
She had signed it simply, "Jacqueline."
Again Driscoll was on his feet. He paced up and down the room. "There's
one thing," he muttered, "and that is, there's nothing between her and
Maximilian, not when she's keeping help from him." And on he paced, his
fists opening and clenching. Suddenly he came to a dead halt.
"By God," he cried, "I'm not going to be shot, no sir, not now, not
after--not after this letter!"
Here was neither boy nor warrior. It was very much in the way of a
lover.
CHAPTER XXVII
BERTHE
"Il y a deux êtres en nous: l'acteur et le spectateur."
--_Sienkiewicz._
The same evening, though two hours later, a public hack entered an
outlying quarter of the City of Mexico called San Cosme, and drew up
before a white mansion with beautiful gardens. A young girl with soft
brown hair and gentle eyes got out, ran to the door, and brought down
the ponderous knocker so terrifically that it abashed her, for all her
present agitation. To the flunkey, who noted the public hack and was
reproachful, she said, "I must see His Excellency. Here, I have written
my name on Mademoiselle d'Aumerle's card. I am her maid. Say to Monsieur
le Maréchal that he will regret it, if I do not see him at once. Quick
now, you!"
If possessed of guile, Berthe could not have done better. With
Jacqueline's card, used only because it had a blank side, her admittance
was certain and immediate.
She passed the lackey into a luxurious apartment, Marshal Bazaine's
private cabinet. At one end there was a Japanese screen with a lamp
behind, and at intervals came the sound of someone turning the leaves of
a book. But Berthe thought solely of her errand. The marshal, thick
necked, heavy cheeked and stocky, was standing, waiting for her.
"So," he exclaimed, "milady is arrived, eh, and you bring me her
commands?"
"No, Your Excellency, my mistress does not know that I am here. When she
learns, she will dismiss me. I----"
The marshal of France grew cold. "It was a decoy then, the card you
used?" he interrupted. "And was that one also, young woman, when you
threatened that I should regret----"
"You will indeed regret, monsieur, if you do not let me speak. There's a
mistake to correct if--if it's not too late."
The chief of the Army of Occupation shrugged his shoulders until the
back of his neck folded over itself. He had been correcting mistakes
ever since Maximilian's landing. But he was a child of the people
himself, and the distress in her eyes made him patient. "Well, what is
it?" he asked.
"It is an American. They will shoot him, monsieur!"
"Ah, one who interests the young person now before me, eh?"
"And I want you to stop them, monsieur! I want----"
"Child, child, whom am I to stop?"
"Colonel Lopez, monsieur. The American escaped once, but mademoiselle
gave him up again. He'd saved mademoiselle's life, too. And mine."
The veteran soldier rubbed his finger tips on his bald, bullet-like
head. "He saves her, and she gives him to Lopez. He must be an important
species of American!"
"Yes, yes, monsieur."
"There, don't worry. His Majesty will pardon your friend to-morrow--if,"
he added to himself, "only from habit."
"But Lopez will shoot him before the Emperor knows."
The marshal had shrewd eyes, and now they opened wide. "Getting more
important, our American!" he grumbled uneasily. "Berthe, did your
mistress know that Lopez would shoot him before he could be pardoned?"
"Oh yes, monsieur."
[Illustration: "BERTHE"
"... Brought down the ponderous knocker so terrifically that
it abashed her, for all her present agitation"]
"Name of a name, what does she want him killed for? Why is this drôle
of a Lopez in such a hurry?--See here, child, you know something more.
What did you mean by my regretting----"
"Because, because everybody seemed to think that the poor brave American
had come with an offer of aid for Maximilian, and as you need more
troops, I thought----"
"Who, in all mercy, is this American?"
"A Confederate officer, monsieur."
Not one man, but two, paced the floor because of Jacqueline that
evening. The second was the marshal of France, and he went at it now, on
hearing of the first man. "A Confederate officer?" There were twin
creases over his straight nose, furrows of vexed and intense thinking.
The lone Southerner was linked intimately in his reflections with the
parliament of a great nation. The people of France had never warmed to
the Mexican dream, and the Chambers already were clamoring for the
return of the troops. And now, for every Confederate enlisted, a
pantalon rouge could be sent back home. But why--name of a name--should
Jacqueline try to prevent?
"Did she," he asked, but not very hopefully, "did she have any cause to
dislike this American?"
"Oh, monsieur!" The cry was pained surprise. That her mistress could or
would pay a grudge! "On the contrary," she protested vehemently, "I have
never seen her so moved, never, and if _you_ had seen her,
monsieur, as we left Tuxtla! I thought she must surely lose her mind.
One cannot imagine her terror. She cried to the driver, to the
outriders, to lash the mules, harder, faster, till it's a miracle we did
not crash over a cliff. And all the time she would look back, and at
every sound she would clap her hands over her ears and cry out to know
if that was shooting. And then she would pound at the window to them to
go faster. She wanted to get out of hearing, monsieur. It was only when
we were really here in the City that she quieted, but that was worse.
She lay and moaned. I cried, I could not help it, hearing her. She would
mutter things, too. 'France, France!' she said once, and it made me
shudder. One almost thought she had a dagger in her hand----"
"Never mind, what else did she say?"
"She said, 'Oh, I hate thee, my country!' but she wasn't in her mind, oh
no, monsieur. Then she grew very still, and that frightened me more yet.
Once I even thought she was dead, and I put my arm about her. But her
heart was beating, and her eyes were open, wide open and dry. I could
see, for we were passing between the Paseo lights. I laid her head on my
breast, and after a while I heard her lips move. 'God bless him!
God--Oh, I hope there _is_ a God, just for this, to bless him, and
keep him!'"
"H'm'm," said the marshal, and went back and forth again, more perplexed
than ever.
Berthe watched him anxiously, jealous of each moment lost. Once she
started to speak, but his gesture for silence was such that she did not
dare a second time. There was no other sound in the room except the
tramp, tramp on the soft carpet. Even the occasional turning of a leaf
behind the screen had ceased. Bazaine was groping cautiously in the
mystery. A state reason, and no personal one, had compelled Jacqueline;
that much was certain. Direct from the Tuileries, she was weighted under
some grievous responsibility, and this night, back there at Tuxtla, she
had been true to it. And whatever it was, it exacted imperatively that
no Confederate aid should reach Maximilian. Such was Napoleon's wish,
however contradictory to official instructions. But the marshal was
sufficiently a disciple of the little Napoleonic statecraft to beware of
meddling. He fretted under methods whereby the whisper of the Sphinx
reached him through private and unofficial agents, but it was a great
deal to catch the Sphinx's whisper at all. Besides, he owed his
elevation to this enigma of Europe, and he meant to be loyal.
"Berthe," he said at last, "there's just one man who can interfere where
Mademoiselle d'Aumerle disposes, but he is rather far away. I mean the
Emperor of France."
The little Bretonne looked, comprehended, and burst into tears. "My dear
mistress!" she sobbed.
There was the sound of a book dropped on a table, and the screen was
brushed aside.
"Perhaps," came a softly ironical voice, "a woman might so much as veto
our mighty Jacqueline. At any rate, suppose we try it, Don Pancho."
Bazaine had forgotten his wife, his bride, who, to be near him, often
retired behind the screen when he was busy with others. Hers was the
loving ambition of a Lady Macbeth, in that a husband's secret was never
one for her.
"Step into this little room," she said to Berthe, opening a door. "It
will not take long," she added, an assured light in her dark Spanish
eyes.
"You will save him, madame? You----"
"Against all the marshals of France, child. Go, wait in there."
The marshal of France present smiled on his bride indulgently,
admiringly, as she closed the door and faced him.
She was less than half his age, the girl wife of a gray-haired veteran,
and as his wife she was second lady of the land. A Mexican aristocrat,
small and slender, of a subtle, winsome beauty, with the prettiest mouth
and the most pyramidal of crinolines, she had reminded Bazaine of his
first wife, and he had courted her. At the wedding Maximilian had stood
padrino for the groom, and Charlotte madrina for the bride. The imperial
gift to groom and bride was Buena Vista, as the white mansion and
gardens in San Cosme were called. Naturally, then, Madame la Maréchale
approved of Napoleon's _official_ instructions, which directed that
Monsieur le Maréchal was to establish the Mexican empire solidly and for
all time.
Now her manner of calling the marshal Pancho was considerable of an
argument, especially when, archly formal, she made it Don Pancho. What
if this Confederate aid were to go to the Mexican rebels, as it surely
would if the emissary at Tuxtla were shot? And, without either French or
Confederates, the Empire would fall, the rebels would win; and then, she
wanted to know, what would become of their beautiful home, of their high
position? Moreover, the United States was threatening to drive the
French from Mexico, and Madame la Maréchale believed it a very good
thing for the French to have at their side some of the very men who had
held those Yankees back for four long years.
Bazaine wavered. Then he smiled. This Mexican bride of his was Mexican
all the time; and French, sometimes not at all. She had not the big
trust in the pantalons rouges when it came to those Yankees.
"But, Pancho mio," she went on softly, "now for the real reason, the one
that holds you back. It is your Emperor Napoleon, verdad? You think that
he does not want this offer to reach Maximilian. Bien, have you had any
intimation of what he wants? Any orders? Of course you haven't. Then
save this American. Look at me--Don Pancho, I say-if----"
"Sapristi, call the girl in! No, first I must have----"
When madame could free herself from what he must have, she opened the
door and triumphantly called to Jacqueline's maid.
A half-hour later, in one of the marshal's own carriages, Berthe
returned to the castle of Chapultepec. At once she hastened to her
mistress's apartments, and confessed what she had done. Still in the
blue flowered calico, with the dust of their frantic ride still on her,
Jacqueline was seated before a little desk. Her head was buried in her
arms, and her loosened hair fell like a shower of copper over her
shoulders. She did not move as Berthe entered, nor give any sign. But
when in a word the story was told, she got to her feet and stared
blankly at the girl. Berthe expected dismissal, but the next instant two
arms were about her, and lips were pressed to hers, and hot tears, not
her own, wetted her cheek.
"Berthe, you little addle-pated goose! You--oh you little ninny, you,
you----" Her phrases were broken by laughter, then by an uncontrollable
peal that was near a shriek, "Little, little fool, dost thou know, thou
hast this night lost to France fifteen thousand leagues of empire?
Thou--thou----" Yet kisses were again the portion of the thief of
fifteen thousand leagues.
"But do you think they will be in time, Berthe? Yes, yes, you've
answered that once. And Michel leads them, you say?"
"Oui, madame, Monsieur Ney was most eager to go, above all when His
Excellency gave him Frenchmen to command. They are the cuirassiers. They
will surely save the American monsieur."
"But will they be in time? Yes, yes, I think I've asked that already."
Her hysteric glee, changing to anxiety, now changed as quickly to
something else. Her face went deathly white, the pretty jaws set hard,
and there was the glint of resolution in the gray eyes. She seized a
cloak and threw it about her.
"Come," she said to the maid.
"Madame is going----"
"Yes, to _undo_ your mischief. Bazaine must send to overtake Ney,
must command him _not_ to interfere with the execution. Bazaine
will do this, when I see him."
"But you will not find His Excellency to-night. Madame la Maréchale
ordered the carriage for them both, as I was leaving there."
"Indeed? Then she knew you were coming here to me? Then she did not
mention where they were going?"
"No, madame."
"Of course not. Oh, she is cunning, your Madame la Maréchale!"
Alas for Jacqueline! She might conquer herself, but add to herself a
second woman against her, and she was beaten. She confessed defeat by
throwing off the cloak.
"Tuxtla is far, you think they will--will----"
"Oh I think they will, madame!"
"Say you _know_ they will! Say it, Berthe, say it!"
"Oh, I hope so, madame. Monsieur the American is lucky."
The American? Somehow the blood swept hotly into Jacqueline's cheeks.
"Say they will _not_ save him, Berthe. Say no, no, no!" she
commanded, and imperiously stamped her foot, but stamp as she would, her
furious shame was there still, flaunting its glorious color. She was
thinking of her letter, of her avowal to a doomed man. After that,
_any_ man was under obligations to get himself shot. Only, this one
was of a contrary fibre.
In such an April mood, Jacqueline was capable of yet another caprice.
"Berthe," she cried, even as the whim came, "one is tired after playing
the goose, n'est-ce pas? Do you, then, rest--yes, yes, while I comb your
hair."
"Madame!" Berthe protested with what breath astonishment left her.
"Do ye call me chief?" demanded the mistress. "Then, de grace, sit
still! And why shouldn't I, parbleu? If it took our big French
Revolution to throw me up an ancestor out of the common kettle, there
has just now been another revolution here"--she pressed a hand against
her breast--"to stir me back among the people again. Do you know, dear,
that your hair is beautiful!"
And so they were two girls, girl-like, passing the evening together.
Of a sudden Jacqueline stopped, the braiding arrested by a most
startling thought.
"Grands dieux," she told herself slowly, for it had to be believed,
however improbable, "until this very moment I've never once stopped to
think of all the emotions I have been having this day. I've never once
examined them, and such emotions--Oh, là, là, they're a collection, a
veritable museum of creeps! And here I've hurried through that museum,
till I've even forgotten my umbrella at the check stand!"
CHAPTER XXVIII
MIKE
"Quand on est aimé d'une belle femme, on se tire toujours d'affaire."
--_Zoroaster, vide Voltaire_
The Storm Centre chafed under a mad desire to verify his name, which was
not unusual. But it was the first time he had ever craved active danger
as an antidote for his thoughts. The sound of bars lifting came as a
relief, and he shook off the dark mood and was himself. Before the door
opened, he thrust her letter into the candle flame. He had kept it till
the last minute, but now he burned it, as she knew he would.
Instead of executioners, he beheld a tray, gripped by chocolate hands.
Involuntarily he looked up to the face above the tray.
"Johnny the Baptist!" he exclaimed. "Well, well, how goes it itself to
Your Mercy this evening?"
"Pues bien, señor," returned the Baptist, grinning sheepishly. "Would,
would Y'r Mercy like another bath?" The grimace was not unamiable. It
betokened that this time he, and not the prisoner, might have a game to
play.
"A thousand thanks," replied Driscoll, "but I'll try to make that other
bath answer."
"But señor, you wasted it."
"Well, perhaps so. You see, Johnny, it was this way. I had only one bath
coming, and on the other hand there were two things to save. Do you
know, Johnny, I've been mortified ever since, to think how I squandered
my one bath in saving just my life, and how I left my soul to bustle
along for itself."
The Baptist drew nearer. "But suppose, señor," he whispered, "suppose
the need of absolution was again postponed, even now?"
Driscoll's fork stopped half way to his mouth. There was no superstition
in the affair this time. The once gullible Dragoon, moreover, was
playing all the leads. "Of course," Driscoll agreed heartily, "I'd
certainly like it right well," and he went on eating. But his wits were
in a receptive state, alert for the meaning when it should come. The
opening innuendoes exasperated him, for the guard was a clumsy agent.
The man must needs feign a great dread of discovery, and tremble lest
his colonel, Don Miguel Lopez, should find him out. As though supper,
instead of a shooting squad, did not belie it all?
"Still your move, Johnny," Driscoll had to remind him.
In the end it was to be gathered that Don Benito Juarez, the fugitive
Señor Presidente of the fugitive Republic, might welcome an offer of
Confederate aid, and 'twas a pity that the condemned señor should have
no chance to escape. But if he did escape, he might find his way to the
Señor Presidente far off in the state of Chihuahua.
So, the cards were dealt at last. Driscoll looked over his hand. He
recognized a crooked game, a game of treachery and dark dealing; but
even so he perceived that a trump or two had fallen to him, perhaps
unwittingly, and he decided to "sit in for a spell."
He began, with coy hesitancy, to beat his scruples around the bush,
which was not a bad lead. Supposing he turned his offer from Maximilian
to President Juarez, wouldn't it, well, look as though he did so to save
his hide? Brown Johnny opened his eyes as at something unfamiliar.
Driscoll went on. If he were shot, how was he to go to Juarez? But if
he, uh, happened to get loose, he might just possibly be influenced to
think of the Juarez proposal. But actually buying his way out would look
dishonorable. "Now," he concluded abruptly, "run along, and put it that
way to whoever sent you."
The man protested, and in some genuine alarm, that he had no employers.
"Oh all right," said Driscoll easily, "then you're bound to help me.
Because if you don't, I'll sure tell Lopez what you've just been trying
to hatch up here."
The trap worked beautifully, for the guard tried hard to quake. But his
fright was not spontaneous enough. Driscoll smiled. Now he knew the real
player in the game.
"Cheer up, Johnny," he spoke soothingly, "I'd not tell on you. But
hadn't you better go and think it over by yourself a little?"
The Baptist would hasten straight to Lopez, and Lopez, Driscoll foresaw,
would interpret his scruples into a disguised acceptance. The
crookedness of the game left the American no other trump, and he played
it--against immediate death. Lopez, of course, would send him under
guard to Juarez, but Driscoll thought he could trust that staunch old
Roman, when once informed, to call for a new deck and an honest deal.
Juan Bautista "thought it over" outside, and directly returned with an
answer. But when he again left Driscoll, he did not bar the door behind
him. Within ten minutes thereafter Driscoll was creeping past a sleeping
sentinel, on between rows of maguey, toward the road. Around him hovered
five or six shadows. They were to be his escort and take him to Juarez.
They would join him openly a safe distance away, at a place where their
horses waited. But as he emerged upon the road, for the moment alone, a
voice in French challenged sharply. "Halte-là!"
The shadows hesitated an instant, then showed themselves with energy.
They sprang out and closed on their "escaped" prisoner. They handled him
more roughly than did the Contra Guerrillas, who had first cried "Halt,"
and who were now appearing as by magic. The blended anger and
gratification of the shadows over the escape and recapture was
vociferously sincere.
"Take them all, mes enfants," a huge tone of command filled the
darkness. It was Colonel Dupin. He had that moment arrived. Jacqueline's
message had reached him in the City not an hour before. The American had
escaped, it said; he was at Tuxtla. The Tiger, knowing nothing of Lopez
lying in wait for the same American at the same place, had dismounted
his men, surrounded town and farms, and was closing in, when Driscoll
himself fell among them.
The interview between Dupin and Lopez brewed stormy at first. The latter
turned gray under his ruddy skin when Dupin walked in upon him in the
front room of the farmhouse. But seeing that his own men were holding
Driscoll, he nervously congratulated them upon the capture.
"How did he escape this second time?" demanded the Frenchman. "It seems
to me, mon colonel, that the question would occur to you too."
Lopez was sufficiently alive to his peril. He quickly sent two Dragoons
to the temporary guard house to investigate. Dupin curtly ordered two
Cossacks to accompany them. Soon they brought back the sentinel who had
been conveniently asleep when Driscoll slipped past. The sentinel rubbed
his eyes as he faced Lopez. So far everything had passed according to
arrangement, and he looked for a severe mock examination. But the Tiger
had been left out of the calculations, and the Tiger forthwith
shouldered himself into the inquisition.
"Do you understand, Colonel Lopez, that your guard here was asleep? Si,
señor, asleep! What now, mon colonel, is the little custom as to guards
who sleep?"
Lopez glared at the sentinel. It was a fine simulation of outraged
discipline, and so life-like that when he spoke of a court martial, the
culprit weakened. He opened his mouth. At that Lopez's stern anger
became real. He feared the sentinel would tell all he knew.
"Si señor," cried Lopez, "we don't have to be taught, we Mexicans. We
shoot them. Here, six of you, out with him! Quick, before he can whine!"
"Go with them," added Dupin quietly to six of his Cossacks.
The sentinel was dragged out. His cries, whether for mercy or not, were
smothered first by a sabre belt, and then for all time by musketry. The
Cossacks returned and assured their chief that the execution was bona
fide. This allayed Dupin's suspicions.
"Permit me to suggest, Colonel Lopez," he said courteously, "that you
likewise honor our friend the American. I came from the City to do it
myself, but it is a pleasure to give way before your superior
vigilance."
It had already occurred to Lopez that Driscoll also might talk. "You are
very amiable, Señor Dupin," he replied. "My court martial found him
guilty, and as a matter of fact, he would have paid the penalty by now
had Your Mercy not arrived. Between us, Colonel Dupin, he will hardly
escape a third time."
At his command six of the crack Dragoons stood forth. They were brown,
and Mexicans. Lopez bowed to Dupin, who called forth as many Contras.
The Contras were of variously hued races, but they were all the Tiger's
whelps. The file of Dragoons was jaunty crimson, the other corroded red.
Driscoll fell in meekly between them.
"Sacred name of a dog, you are honored, señor!" Dupin exclaimed
reprovingly. It angered him when a victim quailed. The present one ought
to appreciate, too, that he was answering for two besides himself, for
Murguía and Rodrigo, whose escape had wrenched the old warrior's bowels.
The Storm Centre glanced at the picked hussars, at the famously infamous
Cossacks, and assented modestly. So plain in gray, he did indeed look
colorless among them. The Contra at his elbow was an American, whose
brutish, swaggering scowl meant the world to know what a bad man he was.
The type gives the decent citizen a mad desire to be bad himself just
once, only long enough to prove the tough a contemptible sham.
Driscoll's neighbor leered ferociously, that the prisoner flanked by
sabres and muskets might respect him and be cowed. Driscoll kept him in
mind, and in the tail of his eye.
There was one anxiety for the Storm Centre. If they should bind him! But
they had not, he was so docile. And as they marched out the door, he
exulted, and could hardly wait. Wouldn't it be a lovely row, though!
Just one good, last good time! He did not feel hard toward them, not
when they had left off the ropes. He felt that he was to have value
received, and all the while he figured out his desperate campaign.
As they passed outside beyond the window's sphere of light, docility
changed to whirlwind. A blow with his left, a jerk with his right, and
he had the tough's carbine. He swung it between the two files, a grazing
circle. He got blows in return, but not a man fired. That was because of
the darkness, and a first shot would inspire a wild, general fusillade,
endangering them all. As it was, the blows were impartial, except one,
which came down with pointed favoritism on the tough's cranium. After
that Driscoll helped one side or another, and when they were nicely
mixed, he ran. He got as far as the road, but to find a troop of cavalry
charging down upon him. Changing ends with the carbine, he fired from
the waist at the leader of the new arrivals. This leader dropped his
sabre, plunged heavily, and was dragged by the stirrup. Driscoll had not
the time to change back to club musket, he used the barrel as such. But
being for the instant alone, he was marked out, and Cossacks and
Dragoons threw themselves upon him and brought him down.
"It _was_ lovely," he muttered under the heap.
They brought him back to the house, swathed in a mesh of lariats. Lopez
awaited them, frothing oaths. Dupin was there too, and he looked an
epicure's satisfaction as they stood his victim against the wall. He did
not regret the incident, since it had turned porridge into so choice a
morsel.
"'Tis you, monsieur," he confessed with rugged grace, "who have honored
us."
"Oh, your grandmother!" said Driscoll.
"Well, be patient. It will be all over in a minute more."
The Tiger was, in fact, ordering the shooting squad, when through the
open door glittering helmets and excited French and clanking sabres
flooded the room. It was still another wondrous uniform for Driscoll,
this of the cuirassiers, with so much of brass, and a queue of horse's
hair, and loose pantaloons that merged into gigantic black boots. In
they strode, an agitated host of bristling moustaches, while outside was
the restless sound of many hard breathed horses. The cuirassiers bore
their wounded leader, and laid him on the iron bed in the room. But the
man struggled to his feet. He called loudly for "Monsieur le Colonel,"
and only by force, though gentle, could they hold him quiet.
"What is it?" responded both Dupin and Lopez.
"I, I mean the American Colonel. He--he----"
"Hello, Mike!" cried Driscoll.
He could not see for the others, nor move, but he recognized the voice
of Michel Ney. He knew, too, that Michel must be the cavalry leader he
had just shot. "Darn it, Mike!" he exclaimed, "I'm sorry! But weren't
there enough of 'em without you?"
"Monsieur Ney," the Tiger interrupted, "let your men tend you here, and
we will be back at once to see what can be done for your hurt. But just
now----"
He signed to Lopez, and Cossacks and Dragoons caught up the prisoner and
started for the door.
"Wait!" Ney moaned feebly.
"Tonnerre, mon prince, your wound must be paid for, first. Hurry there,
Messieurs les Imbeciles!"
"Wait!" Ney gasped. He half raised himself, but sank back with closing
eyes. He made a gesture to his breast. All halted as in the presence of
death.
"Help him, you there!" cried Driscoll. "Open his coat!"
The cuirassiers, eager, awkward nurses, fluttered round the bed, and
tore away the sky-blue jacket, thinking to find the wound beneath.
Instead, they drew out a paper. One of them read the address on it.
"Al Señor Coronel Don Miguel Lopez."
Lopez broke the seal, frowned, and put the message in his pocket.
"Nothing--oh, nothing important," he volunteered. "Now, once for all,
let us finish our work."
"Wait!" a faint whisper came from the bed.
"He says to wait," doggedly repeated a cuirassier.
"Yes, wait," Driscoll pleaded suddenly. "Just a minute, before I go,
before we both go, perhaps,"--he thought in a flash that it might be a
last word from Jacqueline--"perhaps, gentlemen, he, he has something to
tell me."
But Ney's head, moving weakly on the pillow, was a negative.
The prisoner's voice grew firm again.
"Then hurry up!" he ordered in the old querulous drawl. "Don't you know
I'm in a hurry?"
Ney opened his eyes as he heard the shuffling of feet. Men were carrying
out the prisoner. With feeble anger he brushed aside the hand of a
cuirassier who was trying to staunch the blood at his groin.
"I--I----" His lips barely moved.
The cuirassier sprang to his feet. He looked to his fellows, spoke to
them. Puzzled, mystified, they rushed to the door and barred the way.
"We don't know why we came," stammered one, "and he can't speak. But his
signs are enough for us. It's, it's----"
"It's something to do with the American," declared a second cuirassier.
Dupin pounded back his half unsheathed blade. Brusquely he wheeled and
faced the colonel of Dragoons. "Lopez," he roared, "what was that
message?"
"N-nothing, mi coronel, absolutely."
"If it was from Maximilian, I'd know it to be a pardon, and not blame
you. But I recognized the marshal's seal, and that's different."
Lopez blanched, yet insisted again that the message was nothing.
"Besides, señor," he added, "I do not take orders from His Excellency,
the marshal."
"But _I_ do," thundered Dupin. "And I see them obeyed too. Oh, you
can protest to your Emperor afterwards, my royal guardsman, if you want
to, but a marshal of France is the law when I am near."
Grunting contemptuously, Dupin turned to the bedside. The cuirassiers
had gathered cobwebs from the rafters, and were dressing the wound.
Michel tossed and groaned in the beginning of delirium. Dupin muttered
with vexation, but he took hold of the lad's wrist, and firmly closed
his hand over it.
"Listen," he said, very distinctly, putting into his tones every timbre
of quiet, compelling will. "Listen, hear me!"
Slowly the feverish man grew still.
"Hear me," said Dupin. "There are two questions--two, only two. You are
to answer them.--You will shake your head, 'Yes,' or 'No'--do you hear
me?"
The Chasseur's eyes opened wide, and they were calm.
"Good, that's the brave gentleman! Now then, steady. The first question:
Shall we shoot this American?"
Slowly, painfully, the head rocked on the pillow, from one side to the
other.
"It's 'No'!" cried a score of men.
"Silence!" roared the Tiger. "Now, the second question: Does this order
come from Marshal Bazaine?"
Michel's chin sank to his breast. He groaned, he could not lift it
again.
"Yes, thank----" Ney himself, his voice!
Dupin swung round. "Colonel Lopez," he ordered savagely, "you will turn
your prisoner over to Sergeant Ney, at once, sir! Open your mouth, you
dog, and every Dragooning dandy of a Mexican among you----"
The Tiger's pistols were drawn. His whelps looked hopeful. The
cuirassiers bristled in sympathy.
Cracking his finger nails, fawning to the marrow, Lopez agreed.
"Unbind the prisoner," ordered Dupin.
"Thank God!" came faintly from the bed.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE WHISPER OF THE SPHINX
"La politique, première des sciences inexactes."
--_Emile Augier._
Jacqueline had divined in Bazaine another obstacle to her mission. And
yet it seemed preposterous that he should not be her staunchest ally,
since Napoleon had found a marshal's baton for him in his knapsack, just
as he had transformed his own policeman's club into a sceptre.
Nevertheless Jacqueline had her doubts, and they were homage to her sex.
In other words, she returned to Mexico to find that His Excellency had
married again.
The very day after her arrival she called to see her dear friend, now
Madame la Maréchale. The two women were hardly more than girls, but who
shall fathom the depth of their guile? They kissed each other
affectionately on the cheek, and while the marshal was in the other
room, reading the packet Jacqueline had brought him from Napoleon, they
expressed earnestly their joy at meeting again.
When Bazaine returned, madame rose to leave them to their "stupid state
affairs." The marshal smiled, knowing how ravenous was his bride for the
same stupid affairs of state, but Jacqueline agreed that indeed they
were wearisome. Of course she might tell His Excellency much about
Paris, but as to politics--and her little shrug bespoke a Sahara of
ignorance.
In the packet delivered by Jacqueline, the Sphinx had by no means turned
oracle, and Bazaine wished to know what his crafty master would have
said between the lines. But the first topic of their conference was
Driscoll.
"Your prisoner is incommunicado then?" said she.
"Have no fears, he is comfortable, here in this very house?"
"He has sent no word to Maximilian of his arrival?"
"Not as yet, mademoiselle."
"And why not, pray?"
"Because I anticipated the honor of seeing you before permitting him so
much. I must know the campaign better. A plain soldier is dense at
guessing, mademoiselle, while you--you have talked with Napoleon.
If----"
"Oh, don't be tedious. You alone hold the knight that means royalty
triumphant or checkmated, and you know that you do."
"But you who are inspired, tell me how I shall play."
"You forget that I left this man to be shot?"
"Then I am to destroy him?"
Jacqueline shuddered. "That was my only way, but you, monsieur, you can
lift him off the board entirely."
Bazaine rose from his chair and stood before her. "I am no poet," he
said, "and these flowers of speech hide the trenches. My American means
that I may have thousands more like him, and he is a good one to be
multiplied even tenfold. Mademoiselle, _what_ am I to understand?"
"Does Napoleon's letter satisfy none of your doubts?"
Without a word he handed her the packet. It was from Napoleon's minister
of finance, and it exuded woe. The French loans were exhausted by
Maximilian's luxury and mismanagement, and therefore Bazaine was
instructed not to advance a cent further. He was, moreover, to take
charge of the Mexican ports, and administer the customs. Here, then, was
the annihilation of Maximilian's sway. Here was the whispering of the
Sphinx. France herself would take over the Empire.
"Hardly," returned the marshal, "but we will frighten His Majesty into
bettering his finances," and he handed her a confidential missive that
had accompanied the other. Bazaine was therein authorized, when the
security of the Mexican Empire absolutely demanded it, to advance ten
millions of francs.
Jacqueline sank back disheartened. Not even Napoleon would help her. The
Sphinx had not the courage of his own designs, and she contemptuously
flung him out of her way. She would strive alone, and against him,
Napoleon, among the rest. First of all, there was his captain general,
the man before her.
"Monsieur le Maréchal," she began, as impersonally as though quoting a
dry paragraph of history, "there is a party among the Mexicans who fear
the republicans and what the Republic would do. Yet their hope for the
Empire is gone, and they want no more of it. These, monsieur, are the
moderate liberals, and strange to say, they are the clericals too; in a
word, the great landowners. They are for what is good in Mexico. They
demand order. But they would not take it from the United States. They
look to France--to France, which is Catholic, and liberal."
"I know," said the marshal. "They have already hinted at annexation."
"Annexation to France, of course. Now then, monsieur, if we stay at all,
we shall have to fight the United States. But do you imagine that we
would undertake such a fight for Maximilian? Parbleu, the French people
would mob Napoleon over night. But, supposing we were to do it for
ourselves, and not for an impecunious archduke----"
His Excellency's eyes blazed. "Ah, it would be a fight superb!"
"And you commanding, Monsieur le Maréchal. And behind you, with our own
pantalons rouges, those Confederates against their old enemies.
_Then_ would be the moment to set your knight on the chess board.
And," she added insidiously, "France would need a viceroy over here."
The plain soldier started as though shot.
"Mademoiselle," he gasped, "you--_you_ are Napoleon! The
_great_ Napoleon, I salute you, mademoiselle!"
"Hélas, monsieur, that I am not in a position to credit Napoleon III.
with what I have said!"
"Yet you wish me to believe that you are only inspired by him? Pardon
me, mademoiselle, but _he_ is the inspired one, and--mon Dieu, I do
not blame him!"
"But it's very simple," said Jacqueline, "and honorable too.
Maximilian's bad faith nullifies our treaty with him. Très bien, we are
free, free to withdraw our troops. At least we may threaten as much.
Then he will, he must abdicate, unless--well, unless he first sees Your
Excellency's prisoner."
She arose, feeling that she was leaving a good Frenchman behind her. But
Madame la Maréchale appeared to bid her adieu, and Madame la Maréchale
looked sharply from one to another, noting especially Bazaine's flush of
enthusiasm. The good Frenchman straightway became uneasy. And
Jacqueline, riding back to Chapultepec in her carriage with its coronet
and arms and footmen, did not know that Driscoll had not been
incommunicado against Madame la Maréchale. Who could be? And Madame la
Maréchale betimes had paid her respects to a third woman, who also was
but little more than a girl. She and the Empress Charlotte had discussed
both the prisoner and Jacqueline.
CHAPTER XXX
THE AMBASSADOR
"Receive then this young hero with all becoming state;
'Twere ill advis'd to merit so fierce a champion's hate."
--_Nibelungenlied._
In his bedroom at Buena Vista, the marshal's residence, Driscoll the
next day received a personage, and offered him a cigar. Declined, with
bow from shoulder. Hoped he would have a nip of peach brandy? Declined,
with sweep from hips. He _was_ a personage. Driscoll noted regalia,
medals, cordon; and apologized for the temerity of Missouri hospitality.
"Especially," he said, "as you're a Grand Divinity."
"Dignity, señor," the hidalgo corrected him, "Grand Dignity."
"You'll have to pardon me again," said Driscoll, "but I really didn't
intend any short measure at all."
It was the Imperial Grand Chamberlain himself. There were no
incomunicado doors before _him_; he came from the Emperor. The
Empress had spoken to His Majesty, having just had her discussion
aforementioned with Madame la Maréchale, so that Monsieur le Maréchal
had had to lift from his prisoner the ban of the incomunicado. But
monsieur had been extremely reluctant about it.
The Chamberlain's name went well with his exalted fourth degree of
proximity to the throne. It was Velasquez de Leon, a very bristling of
Castilian pride. He looked over the battered American in homespun gray,
and wondered where the mistake was. For, as arbiter of precedence,
appraiser of inequality between men, and supervisor over court functions
generally, he had been sent in the way of business. Driscoll felt sorry
for him.
"Just tell them to let me out of here," said the prisoner, "then I'll
call in on the Emperor whenever it's convenient for him."
"But, señor," the don objected testily, "with what status, pray? Has
your country a representative here? You must obtain a letter from your
ambassador, or have him present you."
Driscoll shook his head. "Can't," he said, "haven't any country."
The minion of etiquette despaired.
"But," Driscoll added, "I've got as good as credentials from what used
to be my country."
Velasquez de Leon grasped at the straw. "Then," he cried, "we can
register you as an ambassador."
"Bringing my country with me," Driscoll suggested.
So it was all straightened out pleasantly, and quite in the orthodox
manner, too. The American's status was defined. His reception would fall
under the rubric: "Private Audience." There remained only one grave
drawback. The protocol allowed no hints as to the un-protocol aspect of
an ambassador's wardrobe. The hidalgo could only finger nervously the
Imperial Crown in his Grand Uniform, and with stiff dignity take his
leave.
The ambassador who was his own country rode in the marshal's landau to
court, with a retinue of Lancers that was also his guard. Soon they
entered the Paseo, which Maximilian was making beautiful at inordinate
cost as a link between the City and his summer palace, the alcázar of
Chapultepec. Turning into the wide, stately boulevard, Driscoll was that
moment plunged into an eddying splendor of Europe transplanted, and he
blinked his eyes, half humorously. There were mettlesome steeds, and
coaches with a high polish, and silver weighted harness, and the
insolence of livery, and armorial bearings, and the gilt of coronets on
carriage panels. There were silk hats and peaked sombreros, lace
mantillas and Parisian bonnets. A lavish use of French money was doing
these things, and the Mexicans, believing in their aristocracy since the
revival of titles never heard of in Gotha, believed also that such
brilliancy of display made their capital the peer of Vienna, or of the
Quartier St. Germain. The Mexicans were very happy and arrogant over it.
"I wonder how they can fight and yet keep their clothes so pretty,"
thought the Missourian.
The gallant carpet-knighthood of uniforms was bothering him again. They
were dashing, militant, these paladins, a bal masqué of luxurious oddity
and color. They twisted waxed moustaches, and their coursers cantered to
and fro in the gay parade, and among them only the charro cavaliers with
a glitter of spangle let one guess that this could be Mexico. There was
the Austrian dragoon with his Tyrolean feather, and the Polish uhlan,
fur fringed, and the Hungarian hussar, whose pelisse dangled
romantically, and there were some fellows in low boots and tights and
high busbies, who were cross-braided on the chest and scroll-embroidered
on the front of the leg, and looked exactly like Tzigane bandmasters or
lion tamers. The Slav, the Magyar, the Czech, and yet others of the
Emperor's score of native races, all were here out of the nearer Orient,
with curved swords and ferocious bearing. There were the countrymen of
the Empress, too; the Belgians, who were as bedecked of sleeve as a drum
corps. And as to the French, there they were in green and silver, in sky
blue, in cuirassier helmets, in the zouave fez, or in any of the other
ways in which they bore _their_ chips on the shoulder.
Shelby's ragged Missourians had tossed on straw for the lack of quinine,
and yet were presuming to save this gorgeous empire of golden spurred
gentlemen. The thought of his mission gave Driscoll an ironic twinge.
But there was the pantalon rouge, the little soldier boy of France who
did the work, and the sight of him put the American into a friendly
humor. He was everywhere, the little pantalon rouge, streaming the
walks, dotting the cafés with red, and every wee piou-piou under the
great big epaulettes of a great big comic opera generalissimo. His huge
military coat fitted him awkwardly, and the crimson pompon cocked on his
little fighting képi was more often awry, and he could not by any effort
achieve a strut. He was only bon enfant, this unconquered soldier lad;
so he gave over trying to be martial, and left to his officers the rôle
of the Gallic rooster, taking it all as a droll joke on himself, while
his vivacious eyes danced with fun.
The ambassador's coach passed under the cypresses and wound round the
Aztec hill of the Grasshopper, and came at last to the castle on the
summit. And as Guatemotzin had once ventured to this place to plead with
Moctezuma to save his empire, and to show him how to do it, so Driscoll
now entered the portals of Chapultepec on a very similar errand.
The superb Indian lord was never so hedged in with barbaric ceremony as
was his Teuton successor of three centuries later. But Driscoll was
patient. He advanced as the red tape gave way, humming under his breath
"Green Grows the Grass," a schottische which the American invaders of
'48 had sung in taking this same fortress, which also had given all
Americans the name of "Gringo."
Guardias Palatinas saluted the Missourian at the entrance. Two
Secretaries of Ceremony, Grand Uniform, with cordon and the Imperial
eagle, bowed before him in the Gran Patio. One stepped to his right, the
other to his left, with all the ceremony of which they were secretaries,
and the three walked abreast the length of the Galería de Iturbide,
where they were joined by the Lesser Service of Honor. Thus, swelling by
cumulative degrees of impressiveness, Trooper Driscoll came at last into
the Sala de Audiencias, and gazed with admiration at its beautiful
Gobelin suite.
The Emperor was there, tall, white browed, refined. He bowed. Driscoll
bowed, and started toward him, for they were scarcely in speaking
distance. But His Imperial Highness bowed again. He was absent-minded,
evidently, but Driscoll bowed also, and pretended not to notice. Then
yet a third time the monarch bowed. And with true courtesy the American
overlooked what was growing ridiculous, and did likewise. Thus the
ritualistic three obeisances were accomplished.
Maximilian dismissed the Lesser Service, and he and his guest were
alone. Now Driscoll supposed, considering the discommoding interest his
mission had awakened in everybody except in the Emperor, that the
Emperor himself would this time be concerned enough to "get down to
business." But not so. There were yet the formalities.
"I understand, Señor Embajador," Maximilian began in the language of his
court, "that Your Excellency----"
"Thank you, sir, but my name is Driscoll."
"That Your Excellency comes accredited from a government that no longer
exists. But We will waive that, since the said power existed at the
moment of Your Excellency's departure."
This was to harmonize the absurdity with the Ritual. Maximilian liked to
play at receiving an American representative. It grieved him sorely that
the United States had never recognized his dignity, but that it had
consistently rated him as merely "the Prince Maximilian."
Driscoll's first words cut short the make-believe.
"You'd hardly call them credentials," he said. "Our president, it is
true, helped me on my way, but I have nothing from him to you. And yet I
bring more than Mr. Jefferson Davis could send. Here," and he produced
the memorandum from the Confederate generals of the Trans-Mississippi
department, which in his belt Jacqueline had had restored to him with
his other effects.
Maximilian took the note handed him, but stared at the emissary.
Charlotte had induced the monarch to grant the audience. She had hinted
at its importance, but not until now did Maximilian recognize his guest.
Driscoll was attired in the full uniform of a lieutenant colonel of
cavalry, which, by the way, was what he had carried so jealously in the
bundle behind his saddle. From the dignified young officer in gray back
to the desperado young giant in homespun proved considerable of a reach
for the Hapsburg; but at last, by virtue of much caressing of his silky
beard with delicate finger tips, he arrived.
"So, it was you the marshal saved!" he exclaimed. "Yes, yes, I should
have remembered sooner. Colonel Lopez told me. A capable, faithful
officer, is Lopez! I could not but approve the finding of his court
martial. And yet, against his urgent advice, I have decided to pardon
you."
"To apologize, you mean?"
The Emperor looked hurt. As a foil for his royal clemency, there should
be humble gratitude. Maximilian often mistook fawning for such.
"Isn't it a bit odd," Driscoll queried whimsically, "that an ambassador
should be arrested?"
"Jove, that's a fact! I hadn't thought."
"Certainly. But if it don't occur again, we'll just let the apology go."
"No, no," protested the monarch. "You must have your apology. You will
receive it from the Grand Chamberlain to-morrow, and it will appear in
the Journal Officiel."
"Oh, all right," said Driscoll, "anything to clear the way." Whereupon
he plunged and stated his business.
With debonair Prince Max it was not a question of even who talked best.
It was who talked last. And Driscoll, being for the moment an exhorter
of both descriptions, drove home conviction as a sabre point. He spoke
bluntly, earnestly; and, at the scent of opposition, he spoke fiercely.
The South was defeated, he said, and the North would now make good its
threat to drive out the French. And the French would go, too. Suppose
they were even willing to undertake a great war for Maximilian, yet they
would go just the same. And why? Because they had fought the Russians.
They had fought the Austrians. And they were keeping the Italians out of
Rome to help the Pope. So they had not a friend left, not one, to help
them against the enemy they must soon fight, which was Prussia.
Consequently they would draw every bayonet out of Mexico, and Maximilian
would be left alone to face his rebels. But Maximilian could not face
the rebels alone. They had been dominant before the French came. To
replace thirty thousand French, Driscoll offered fifty thousand
Southerners, fifty thousand well-equipped, splendid veterans.
Twenty-five thousand were already on the frontier, he meaning those
under General Slaughter at Brownsville, and Shelby and the others were
not far behind.
"But," said Maximilian, smiling bitterly, "you forget that the United
States would still object to my poor Empire."
"Not when the French leave, they wouldn't. We would become citizens. We
would not be a foreign intervention. You would be backed up by Mexicans
against Mexicans, and the North could not interfere. But, suppose that
the French remain, wouldn't they have to fight? And they would need our
aid to do it, too. Don't you see, sir, that in any case you should make
us very welcome?"
"There is assuredly no other way to look at it!" admitted the prince
uneasily.
Dreaming himself a monarch of chivalry days, Maximilian was subtly
enthralled by the idea of a band of heroes flocking to his standard,
their swords on high. Stouter than those warriors who had helped
Siegfried to his bride, they would hold for him a treasure greater than
that under the Rhine. Themselves and their children forever, they would
be the real mainstay of the dynasty founded by Maximilian the Great.
They were Anglo-Saxons, Germanic, his own kindred, and to him they came
for new homes and a new country. They would be his landed gentry, his
barons, his hidalgos. It was a prospect for an emperor; above all, for a
poet emperor. As he looked now on the young Confederate officer, on him
who had seemed a desperado, Maximilian thought that here stood one who
was the instrument of Destiny.
"Can--can they really come?" he demanded breathlessly.
Driscoll smiled. "Of course, there's no time to lose," he replied. "For
instance, if I'd had your answer there at Murguía's ranch, I'd have
gotten back in time to head off whole regiments who've probably given up
their arms since then. But you can still count on an army west of the
Mississippi that hasn't surrendered yet. At least _my_ general
hasn't, not Old Joe, and he won't either. But you must say 'yes' pretty
quick. We're restless, and might conclude to run the French out of here.
We haven't forgotten how Napoleon forgot to help us."
It was a cunning stroke. Maximilian would have asked nothing better than
independence from his "dear imperial brother," and just this was the
bribe so temptingly held out by the instrument of Destiny. But the
Hapsburg of the heavy, trembling underlip credited wavering as
statesmanlike prudence.
"To-morrow," he said, "no, the day after, you shall have my decision."
Jacqueline witnessed the ambassador's departure. Hidden among the roses
of the fortress rock, where she sat with a book, she peeped out as he
came down the steps to the marshal's landau. The glacial Secretaries of
Ceremony flanked him on either side, and the statuesque Palatine Guards
saluted. She could not be mistaken, the corners of his mouth were
twitching. It was such an inimitable commentary on the Ritual that she
had much to do not to dart out and laugh with him in gleeful mischief.
Then, she noted his uniform. After the ornate regimentals of all Europe,
what a relief was the simple gray! There was the long coat, the belt,
the dragoon sabre, the unobtrusive insignia on the collar, and she
murmured her verdict advisedly. It was beautiful! Next she noted the
man--as though she had not in the first place. His easy frame still had
that charm of gaucherie, and the rollicking daredeviltry lurked
quiescent in the brown eyes, but enough to recall the rider of fury, her
chevalier de Missour-_i_, plunging through a wall and cloud of dust
on a big-boned yellow charger. And though now he was in this beautiful
simplicity of gray, she looked in vain for some hint of martial stride
or pompous chest.
She wondered for a moment why he had worn the uniform. It signified
nothing, since the Confederacy had fallen. Then she understood.
_He_ had not surrendered. Nor had those he represented. The gray,
for him, still had its reason, and was a power yet; the power to decide
an empire's fate. It was the grave dignity of a lost cause; striving,
before being doffed forever, to leave behind a new cause. Or, if
failing, to accept the lot of surrender. In either case, her chevalier
de Missour-_i_ was wearing the dear uniform for the last time. With
her keenness for intuition and sympathy, Jacqueline _knew_. She
knew what it must mean. And he looked so strong, so splendid! Her eyes
unexpectedly dimmed in tenderness for him.
Driscoll, being now a free man, established himself at a hotel near the
diligencia office in the busy Plateros street. He drilled through the
following day with tedious waiting for the day after, when he was to
have the promised reply. Used to men who knew their own minds, he hoped
for strength in this emperor fellow. Then, his mission successful, he
would be in the saddle by the next night, perhaps by noon, and hastening
toward the border with tidings of homes and more fighting for his
comrades of the Old Brigade. But the next morning, even as he was
mounting Demijohn to go to Chapultepec, a thin man in riding breeches
entered the hotel patio and accosted him.
"I am Monsieur Éloin," the stranger announced in English that could be
understood, "of Her Majesty's household. Also aide and secretary in
private to the Emperor. I see, you go to horse. It is well, sir. Mine is
outside."
"What's the answer?" asked Driscoll. "I'm not up on conundrums."
"It is that we go to Cuernavaca."
"You don't say! Now where's that, and what for?"
"Cuernavaca is His Majesty's country sit-down, about a douzaine of
leagues from here. You have not read of this morning the Journal
Officiel? Here it is. The court went there yesterday. His Majesty has to
need rest."
"But he was to see me to-day! What's the matter with him?"
M. Éloin's brow contracted narrowly, and he shrugged his shoulders. "His
Imperial Highness is much worked. He is worse of good health. Her
Majesty sought at having him stay, to give you that same-self answer he
had promised already. And the Marshal Bazaine, sensible this once, did
talk yesterday night before last, after you were there, and beseeched
him to accept your offer. And they all beseeched, Her Majesty and Madame
la Maréchale, and I.--But, what would you?"
"I'm sure I don't know. What the devil----"
"No, not him! But her, sir, her!"
"Her, who?"
"Why, her. We all talk, argue, beseech; and she, in one little whisper,
she only tell His Majesty he has to need that rest--and, poof! off they
all go to Cuernavaca, and I know nothing. Her Majesty leave me a note. I
bring you it here."
"But who is the 'she?' You don't mean----"
"Yes, we others call her Jacqueline. She did it, against everybody who
beseech. But we--how you say?--we fool her, you and me. Come, we are
there to-night, at Cuernavaca."
"Just that little girl----" Driscoll murmured wonderingly.
CHAPTER XXXI
CARLOTA
"Der sicherste Weg nicht sehr unglücklich zu sein ist das Glück nicht
erwarten."--_Schopenhauer._
Everybody he met seemed to twist Driscoll's business into a vital
personal issue, and it did not take him long to place M. Éloin. The
supercilious Belgian of the rancid brow, as Driscoll mentally described
him, wanted the perpetuation of the empire, and he wanted it for the
very simple reason that the favorite of a realmless prince does not
amount to much. Hence he intrigued for the acceptance of Driscoll's
offer and for the confusion of Jacqueline.
A small escort of Belgians joined him and Driscoll at the garita, or
little customs house, on the edge of the City. Accompanying them was a
burly priest with a head shaped like a pear. The padre had very small
eyes for so large a man, but they were exceedingly bright and roved
adventurously. They would settle with crafty calculation on Éloin time
and again, though his manner toward the favorite was always a thing of
humble deference.
"His Dutch Holiness from Murgie's!" Driscoll observed to himself.
But there might be an ecclesiastical college along, for all the
Missourian cared. His own thoughts were battalions. "When it's over, one
way or another," he kept deciding, "I'll speak to her, yes I will!
What's there to be afraid of? W'y, she's--only a girl." It might be an
unfair advantage, his not dying after the confession in her farewell
letter to him, but he would have her, he would have her! The Lord be
good to him, he _had_ to have her!
Late in the afternoon they arrived at the quaint old Aztec village of
Cuernavaca, which had been the country seat of Cortez, and was now that
of a second fair god and a second Hernando. After dismounting at the
hotel near the conquistador's palace, Éloin hurried Driscoll across the
plaza into the beautiful Italian gardens where Maximilian made his home.
At the villa, Charlotte's own residence in the gardens, Éloin had
himself announced to Her Majesty. The American reflected that women
seemed to have a great deal to do with the reigning business. In the
drawing room, the Empress received them.
She was a slender young woman whose lips were thin and proud, whose eyes
were dark and lustrous. Her hair was black and very heavy, coiled in the
old fashioned style away from a high forehead that was beautifully
white. She could not be older than twenty-five, and there was even a
girlishness in her bearing. But she had a steadiness of gaze--one eye
seemed the least heavy lidded--and there was a firmness to the slightly
large mouth, which gave an impression of strong lines to what was really
a soft, oval face. Yet the temperament could not be mistaken. She was a
woman of acute nerves. She was tensely strung, inordinately sensitive.
Driscoll believed now what he had heard, that the Empire fared better
when Charlotte was regent and her lord on a journey. Maximilian dreamed,
while she realized. The Hapsburg cadet, gazing over the Adriatic from
the marble steps of Miramar, had brooded fondly on what Destiny must
hold for him. He would be king of a Poland born again among the nations.
Then Louis Napoleon whispered of another throne in the building.
Whereupon _she_ began the study of Spanish; _she_ decided her
half hesitating spouse to accept, however loftily they both scorned the
adventurer who helped them to it.
Carlota, for so the natives called her, amiably greeted the Missourian.
She was a woman of tact, and though one Din Driscoll was for her as
impersonal a thing as some opportune event, yet events must be neatly
turned to account.
"His Majesty and I have discussed your presence in our country, sir,"
she began in English, "and feeling that he desires to see you again, I
requested M. Éloin to bring you to Cuernavaca."
"Why, thank you, ma'am," said Driscoll.
She all but reproved the form of address. But, for her at least, common
sense was beginning to prevail. The rigid court punctilio, largely of
her own enthusiastic designing, had gone hard with her. Her husband had
proved no more than consistent to the medieval revival. He was but true
to that old chivalry which distinguished between the divinely fair
damsel to be won and the mere woman won already. He was the monarch, she
his consort. Classifying others, the Empress found herself classified.
He was her liege, and she might not even enter his presence unannounced.
But how much happier was she in the blithe sailor prince who came
a-wooing, who wooed for love, in accordance with that same ancient
chivalry!
A princess of the Blood, of the House of Orleans, Charlotte had had that
nicest poise of good breeding, the kind that is unconscious. But here
among the Mexicans, she had to proclaim a superiority not taken for
granted, and the nice poise was gone. In her the generations--Henry IV.,
the Grand Monarch, and all of that stately line--in her they stooped.
And an element of sheerest vulgarity, as plebeian as a Jew's diamond,
crept in perforce. Poor tarnished escutcheon of Orleans! Poor princess
of the Blood, become menial with scouring it! She was weary. Over this
New World there floated too much of obscuring democratic dust. So she
allowed "ma'am," like a homely fleck, to settle unreproved on the
ancestral doorplate.
Driven to expediency for her very Empire's sake, she herself trampled on
the Ritual. Waiving all formalities, they would go and seek out His
Majesty. He must be somewhere in the gardens, perhaps beside the pond
with its fringe of deep shadows from the trees. There they expected to
find him, breathing the air of orange blossoms, gazing enraptured into
the water, and on the gold fish and the swans and the fountains. He
would be teasing Nature for a sonnet's inspiration.
Driscoll went ahead, since Carlota and Éloin talked earnestly in French,
intent on their plot for the persuasion of the Emperor. But as the
American parted a clump of oleanders and laden rosebushes that hid the
little lake, he stopped, his eyes wide on something just beyond. In the
instant he fell back, and confronted the other two with such a look on
his face that both started in vague alarm. They saw the sickened look of
one who turns from a revolting sight. A wretch stricken suddenly blind
may know at once the fact of a terrible grief, yet he cannot quite at
first gather to himself the fullness of the horror. He is only aware
that, afterward, the meaning will slowly take shape, like a gradually
darkening despair.
Driscoll gazed uncertainly at the Empress, as though she had somehow
arrested his thoughts. Then, as a strong man rushing from danger, he
comprehended that here was a frail woman near the same peril.
"You will not go, ma'am," he ordered in a kind of terror for her.
Éloin had already hastened on to the screen of roses. Being a fellow of
the arras and closets, he scented a royal secret. The Empress lifted her
shoulders and would have followed, but Driscoll did not hesitate. He
took her by the elbow and gently turned her the other way.
"You must not!" he said again, with that same scared manner on him.
She bridled indignantly, but when she saw how white he was, and how
earnest, something there awed her. In a flash she understood. Her lip
curled, baring teeth of the purest pearl, and a sneer quivered on the
highbred nostrils. But suddenly, in piteous tumult, her breast heaved
once, and betrayed the wound. It gave him to know the knighthood which
covets blows in a woman's behalf. But she, with a will that held him in
admiration and reverence for her, spoke to him, and her tone was even,
was unbroken.
"I dare say you are right," she said, and turned to retrace her steps.
But, as if to drink deeper of the bitter cup, she paused, and forced
herself to a last word.
"I suppose I should thank you," she went on, and her eyes, still dry of
tears, were lustrous as they lifted to his, "but a gentleman--and I have
never known one more than you, sir, this minute past--will understand
that I cannot--There, I am going now. And after--after this that you
have just beheld, I shall never see you again, sir. Alas, it's the more
pity. Such as you are rare, even in--in my world."
Driscoll watched her blankly as she left him, her head poised high, her
step as slow as dignity itself. His own face was cruelly drawn, with the
first sickened ghastliness still on him. He stumbled to a bench, and sat
down. But there was nothing to think about, nothing he could think
about, just then. Yet his brain was full to throbbing, and he had no
consciousness of where he was, nor of the passage of time.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE WOMAN WHO DID NOT HESITATE
"The soul of man is infinite in what it covets."--_Ben Jonson._
Stealthily Éloin drew aside the bushes, and peered through. The tiny
pond with its crystal surface sunk deep in foliage, its flowering island
in the centre, looked not unlike a mirror on a dining table luxuriantly
wreathed by garlands. The Belgian stared greedily. He did not see quite
what Driscoll had seen, yet he saw enough to draw his brow to a
narrowing fold of keenest interest. Jacqueline was seated on the raised
edge of the basin, pensively dipping a hand into the water. Her plump
wrist showed rosy, like coral, and glancing sideways now and again at a
poor agitated prince striding up and down, she looked as she did that
day in the small boat, while tempting a shark. As she leaned over, the
line of her waist and neck was stately and beautiful; and there were the
maddening baby tendrils of soft, glowing copper. Maximilian had
evidently found her there, in a reverie perhaps, and was at sight of her
lured to some act bold and desirous; for just as evidently, if his
flushed face and the way he bit his lip were tokens, he had that moment
been repelled. Éloin watched them avidly, the tall archduke pacing up
and down, the demure lady seated on the basin's edge.
"It was but the lowly homage of a prince," Maximilian cried out
peevishly. Such was his apology.
"Homage of a play-king," she corrected him with exasperating sweetness.
He turned on her angrily. "Why do you say that--a play-king?"
"Whose embassies," she proceeded calmly, "cringe for recognition. Like
beggars they prowl about that White House at Washington, yet never cross
the threshold."
Maximilian was too amazed for denial. "How do you know?" he exclaimed.
"While at the same time," she went on, "the same neighbor receives the
minister of the Mexican republic, and sends one in turn. But no matter.
The marionettes of empire can dance, so long as Napoleon holds the
strings. Was the princely homage a make-believe, too?"
"But--but, if I should convince you, mademoiselle, that the majesty
which only asks to kneel is genuine?"
Her eyelids narrowed, and she looked at him with the oddest smile.
"You know--sire--that I only ask to be convinced. Where will Your
Imperial Highness begin?"
"Know then that the American peasant named Lincoln, who would not
recognize a Hapsburg, is dead. He has been assassinated. He will no
longer encourage our rebels in Mexico."
"That poor gentleman whom you call a peasant," she returned with galling
frankness, "was greater than any Hapsburg. He was fifty million people,
and one million are still under arms. Your rebels know it. They still
cry, 'Viva la Intervención del Norte!' But go on, _sire_."
He chafed under her mockery in the title. But sitting there, goading an
imaginary shark, she was no less inciting than when he had ventured his
caress.
"They are of no consequence," he burst forth, "neither the Americans,
nor the dissidents. Your own countrymen, mademoiselle, will, and must,
assure my empire."
"H'm'n," she ejaculated, with a quick shrug. "Even the marshal, greatly
against his will, has had to inform Your Majesty that we will shortly
withdraw."
"Then I shall depend on my subjects alone!"
She contented herself with repeating, "Viva la Intervención del Norte!"
That too, was ample comment as to the loyalty of his subjects. The
Emperor paused in his walk. "Alas," he sighed wearily, "a Hapsburg
sacrifices himself to regenerate a people, and--they do not appreciate
it."
Jacqueline bent her head to hide a smile. She dreamily made rings in the
water, and seemed to fall into his mood of poetic melancholy. "A
comedietta of an empire," she mused sympathetically, "a harlequinade,
nothing more. Grands dieux, I do not wonder that Your Highness finds it
unworthy!"
There is no such incense to a man as when he imagines himself understood
by a pretty woman.
Yet the temptress now found herself the harder to master. It was the
thought of what she must yet do. But she gave her head an impatient
toss, and the tears that had come were gone. The lines of her mouth
tightened, and the dangerous glint shone in her eyes. "So," she added,
almost in a whisper, "you did not mean it, sire, when you offered only a
play-empire--to me."
She knew that he started violently, and was looking down at her. But she
kept her gaze averted, that he might not see the hard expression there
that was merciless for them both. He did see, though, the long lashes,
and the warm pink of her forearm, so tantalizing for shark or man.
"These imperial gardens, they are beautiful," she went on softly, "but,
hélas, they are not the Schönbrunn. Nor is Chapultepec more than a
feeble miniature of the Hofburg. Oh, the wretched farce! The wretched
farce, sire, in your pretension to--to honor me! A wooer from the
throne, indeed? A straw throne--no, no, I do not like it!"
Then she let him see her eyes. Half raised, half veiled; they held the
daring suggestion hidden in her words.
"And if," he cried, "and if we _were_ in the Schönbrunn----"
"Yes, yes," and she clapped her hands with delight, "yes, where the
heroic figures on the crest of the hill are silhouetted against the sky,
where----"
"Never mind the heroic figures! But where I shall be really an emperor,
_the_ Emperor over Austria, over Hungary. Then, what then?
Jeanne--Jacqueline, tell me!"
She had brought him to it. Yet her face clouded pitifully, as that day
in the small boat, when she told Ney that a woman might only give. Such
a woman too, would be lost for the reason that she would _not_
hesitate. Here was the errand of the Sphinx, and achievement at her
hand. Dainty flower of France, yes! But in truth, what was she?
"And then?" she repeated, and the maddening promise in her voice
thrilled him. "Why, sire, I suppose that I could not help but listen to
you. Yet first," she hastened to add with subtle emphasis, "first, you
would have to give up your play kingdom here."
His blue eyes flashed. "I will!" he cried. "It shall be mine, the Roman
empire of Charles V. They are tired of my brother Franz. Already they
cry out for me. Our mother made an uncle abdicate for him, I will do as
much for myself. I will, Jeanne, I will!"
Éloin behind his screen moved uneasily.
"The devil go with her!" the eavesdropper muttered. "She'll have him
abdicating himself in another minute. She must be stopped, she must!"
He tiptoed back, and once out of hearing, he ran. He found Driscoll on a
bench, slowly passing his fingers through his hair, and staring fixedly
at the ground.
"Coom," said Éloin, "coom quick! He is alone. You find your chance. He
is that happy, he say yes to anything."
Driscoll got heavily to his feet. There was his mission. For the sake of
that, for the sake of comrades depending on him, he would go and once
more offer succor to this libertine princelet.
"No, not that way," the Belgian directed. "The path here, it leads the
more direct at the pond, so. Quick!" He knew that foliage would hide the
couple until Driscoll should turn the corner of the hedge and burst on
them squarely. The American hastened down the walk. "A nice surprise,
mutual." Éloin chuckled to himself.
Jacqueline did not falter before her victory. She knew that Maximilian
rated the Mexican throne as a stepping-stone to another in Europe. She
knew of a certain family pact among the Hapsburgs and how it rankled in
Maximilian's breast. Therein he had, on accepting the Mexican throne,
solemnly renounced all right of inheritance to that of Austro-Hungary.
But she knew also that he considered his oath as void, since Franz Josef
had forced it on him. Craftily she pictured the Mexican enterprise, how
instead of enhancing his prestige at home, it but turned him into a
sorry and ridiculous figure. And so she won the child of Destiny. Yet,
when in a sudden fervent outburst he came and sat beside her, and would
have taken her hand, she still did not falter. Napoleon would have the
glory, and she a shame unexplained, but for all that her country would
have Mexico. Her country would have Mexico! Would have a vast expanse of
empire, greater and more enduring than any won for her by Bonaparte
himself.
Nevertheless, she brushed away the gallant's arm with more vigor than
her coy rôle demanded. "No, no," she moaned faintly, "not yet!"
"But, _cruelle_----"
"Not yet, not until I know that you will try to win in Austria, not
until--you abdicate here!"
"But, I shall sail this very month, I----"
"And never return, never to Mexico?"
"Never!"
Frankly, then, she placed her hands in his.
That moment Driscoll turned the corner of the hedge, and was before
them. He fell back, and reddened as though himself caught in wrongdoing.
It was strange how he noted, at such a time, that she was clothed in
light blue, in the very dress he had given her. But no, he perceived at
once that it was of some delicate silk from Japan. Yet the pattern was
so nearly the same. She must have selected it--she had selected
it!--with him in mind. And now, against a girl's love so quaintly, shyly
revealed, to behold this contrast, her hands there, wantonly
surrendered!
Instantly she tore herself free and confronted him.
"Oh, why, _why_," she cried fiercely, "did you not let them kill
you?"
Suddenly her hands flew up to her hot face. "Then," she moaned, "then
you would not have lived to see!"
The Emperor stepped between them. Tall, severe, he was cold in anger.
"It's the intrusion of a rowdy, mademoiselle." To Driscoll he said,
"Now, go!"
Utterly confused, the trooper turned to obey. But at the first step he
swung round, looking as he had never looked in the bloodiest of cavalry
charges.
"I am here for your answer, sir," he said.
"Answer? What answer, fellow?"
Driscoll breathed once, he breathed twice, and yet again. It may be he
counted them. Then he spoke.
"You understand, of course, that I might call you a puppy? Or break you
over my knee? But I've got something harder on hand. It's to make you
honor your promise. I've ridden forty miles for what you were to give me
six hours ago at Chapultepec. Now then, shall I bring the men to save
your empire? Think well. You need not take the question from me. Take it
from them, from an army of fifty thousand men. Now, answer! And
remember, you can save your empire."
"Save my empire?" Maximilian repeated the words.
There was a reluctant note in the query. Jacqueline heard. And the
bravest act of her life was when she raised her head and faced her
shame, with _him_ to see. She must begin her fight all over again.
"Yes, your play empire, sire," she said, wielding two weapons, the
mockery in her voice, the seduction of her eyes.
Driscoll saw his cause forlorn against eyes like those.
"It's unfair!" he protested involuntarily.
She turned on him in defiance. "It is _not_ unfair! And you,
monsieur, of all men, know that it is not. You, and you alone, know what
I, what I would give--what I tried to give--that I might win in this!"
He could not help a thrill of admiration. She was battling against all
men and women to change the destinies of two continents.
"W'y, I take it back then," he said.
She stared at him in wonder, and drew farther away. It was his tone,
altered as she could never have thought possible, nor had she known that
aught on earth might hurt her so. She heard a decent man addressing some
unavoidable word to a strumpet. All vestige of respect was gone, gone
unconsciously, except that respect for himself which would not allow
that the word be coarse or an insult. She looked in vain, too, for a
trace of anger. Once she had sought to kill him, but that had not
changed his big heart. While now! How much--oh, how much easier--was
that other sacrifice of hers than this!
"Perhaps, sir," she found the strength to say, "perhaps I have even, in
my humble opinion, favored the acceptance of your offer. But His Majesty
knows far better than I under what conditions he might accept."
Driscoll turned to Maximilian direct. "Name them."
"There is but one. We cannot give refuge to the enemies of the United
States----"
"The conditions?"
"Therefore, to avoid complications, your men must lay down their arms on
entering Mexico. Then we would deliver the arms to the United States on
their recognizing Our Empire----"
"Trade us off, you mean?"
"Or, in case the United States still held aloof, then, as citizens of
Mexico, you could take up your arms again."
Driscoll looked at Jacqueline. She, the inspiration of such a condition,
knew quite well beforehand that he would not submit.
"This is final, is it?" he demanded.
"It is, because We cannot provoke war with the United States, but,"
Maximilian urged querulously, "you have only to surrender your swords."
"After refusing them to the Federals, to the men who _fought_ for
them? And now we are to give them up to a pack of----" Driscoll stopped
short and took another breath. "By God, sir, no sir!" he cried.
CHAPTER XXXIII
A SPONSOR FOR THE FAT PADRE
"Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse."
--_Cervantes._
When Driscoll had gone, Jacqueline would not linger. Maximilian sought
to detain her, but something had happened that he could not fathom. She
was no more the same person.
"Not even a token to bid me be brave so far away in Austria?" he
pleaded.
"There have been tokens enough," she returned shortly. "I ask Your
Majesty's leave. Good-night."
She gained her room, and worked till late on a cipher dispatch to
Napoleon. Its purport was, that now, if ever, Maximilian must be
discouraged absolutely. Following on what she herself had done, such
would bring his abdication. She implored, above all things, that Bazaine
be kept from meddling, from extending false hopes. Poor girl, after what
it had cost, she was passionately bent on success. A courier took her
packet to the City the next day, whence the message was to be sped to
Paris.
"That foolish Prince Max," she thought, "if he does give it up and go, I
am really saving him from terrible sorrow. But, who will save me from
mine, I wonder? Mine, that is come already! God in Heaven cannot."
Maximilian had watched her as she left him, till her stately girlish
figure was lost in the dusk under the trees. Then with a sigh he turned
away. At the villa he found his wife. She was seated apart from her
maids, and Éloin was talking to her, in tones low and swift. Charlotte
only half listened. Her agitation was nearly hysterical. Her eyes
gleamed wildly, and sometimes they would close, as though they ached for
the soothing that tears might bring.
"Who," demanded Maximilian, "has had the presumption to introduce a spy
on these grounds?"
Éloin glanced quickly at the Empress. "A spy, sire?" he said uneasily.
"I mean that American, sir. But shall I ask the sentinels at the gate?"
"That, Ferdinand," Charlotte interposed icily, "is not necessary.
Monsieur Éloin, at my command, brought the American here. You should
know why."
"To save my play-empire, I suppose?"
"An empire," she cried, catching up the word the more hotly because she
knew it to be Jacqueline's own gage of battle, "an empire, August Sire,
to be gained by fighting, as your forefathers, as mine, won theirs. And
that is nobler, _I_ suppose, than puny inheritance. I do not know
what the Hapsburg may be fallen to, but a daughter of Orleans still has
the right to expect a crown from her husband. If not, she is unworthily
mated."
Maximilian thought of that other empire, which that other temptress
exacted of him. It seemed that he had many realms to conquer. But the
grimmest humor of all was that he blithely imagined himself capable of
satisfying the whims, not of one woman, but of two. Deluded Prince Max!
But the Emperor was not there to discuss empire building, much less to
face the tigerish light in his lady's eyes.
"Monsieur Éloin," he said, "this is my first personal complaint against
you, but there have been others, long, insistent ones, from French and
Mexicans alike. You lose me my friends, sir, however I assure them that
you have not the slightest influence over my policy. So, after the
awkward intrusion of to-day, I am resolved that you had best leave us."
"Your Majesty desires----"
"That you leave the country at once, Monsieur Éloin."
"But," protested Charlotte, "that is open disgrace. At least cover it
with the pretext of some mission."
The downcast courtier took heart. Watching his master with narrowed
sycophant eyes, he said, "But it need not be a pretext, sire. Since I
must leave Your Highness, permit me, then, to find my mission, and one
in which I can still serve my sovereign, though in spite of himself."
Imperceptibly Maximilian fell under the spell of the old fawning.
"And what mission could that be, my good friend?"
"To feel the Austrian pulse, sire. To know when the time is ripe, to
hasten the time----"
"The time for what?"
"For Your Majesty's return. Even now the unpopularity of His Imperial
Highness, Franz----"
"Éloin!" Maximilian stopped him sharply. But he could not hide the flash
of his own blue eyes.
"What would Your Majesty? In Vienna, in Budapest, in your own Venetia,
sire, they long for you; at least as regent till the crown prince shall
come of age. Would you rebuke them also, as you do me?"
Charlotte stared at the Belgian in amazement and distrust. He had only
just warned her how Jacqueline had kindled Maximilian's Austrian hopes
in order to get him out of Mexico, and here he was borrowing that
woman's guile. And here was Maximilian, too, softening under the
enervating blandishment, softening behind his frowns for the officious
meddler.
"There, there, Éloin," he said, "you know that I must be inexorable. But
in the Journal Officiel it will appear that you are gone on a secret
mission, though you have no mission at all. None at all, do you
understand, sir?"
Éloin protested that he understood.
"None," repeated the Emperor, "except to win back my confidence. When
you have taken leave of Her Majesty, you may come to my cabinet to bid
me farewell."
As Maximilian left them, Charlotte turned on the favorite. "Indeed,
Monsieur Éloin?" she said in utter scorn.
"But, Your Majesty----"
"Is Napoleon, then, so liberal a paymaster?"
"Your Majesty!" and in genuine distress the courtier hurried on. "If you
would listen, Madame! 'Tis true that Jeanne d'Aumerle has found the
surest lever to pry His Highness out of Mexico----"
"So good a lever, that you would use it too, to topple over my throne."
"Not so, Madame. It's a cunning lever, yes; but _I_ shall use
another fulcrum."
"Really, monsieur, if I were in the mood for riddles and such pretty
trifles, I'd ask you to favor Us with a chansonnette."
"But this is as plain as day. First, our little intrigante knows that if
His Majesty tries for the Austrian throne, he must leave Mexico.
_That_ is her lever to move him. But suppose we shift it to my
fulcrum. Then, whatever encourages his hopes for Austria, will make him
but the more determined to cling to Mexico. For to succeed in Austria,
he must triumph first in Mexico. He must prove to Europe that he can
reign brilliantly. But if he abandons Mexico, as Jacqueline would
persuade him, what of his prestige then? What of his glory to dazzle the
Austrians? If Your Majesty would suggest to him this phase----"
"And you, meanwhile in Europe?"
"Oh, I shall find his chances good over there, but conditional on his
success here."
"Monsieur Éloin, I find that I must congratulate you. More, I even
regret that you are going, for I dread that some other will replace you
in favor with the Emperor who----"
"Who may not be in accord with our views, Your Majesty would say? But if
you will permit, Madame, I believe I know quite a different man.
Moreover, he has already made an impression on His Highness, during our
brief stay at an hacienda in the Huasteca. Now he is here. I brought him
to commend as a future loyal follower."
"Pray, who is the paragon?"
"A priest, Madame, a German priest, who perhaps would not refuse the
Bishopric of Durango. The hope of that rich see would insure his
devotion. His name is Fischer. He is a clerical, he is an imperialist,
he is resourceful. Our Jacqueline will have much to do to outwit him.
This corpulent padre, Madame, would wheedle the sulky pope himself into
a good humor with us. If I might venture so far as to present him
before----"
"Oh, I suppose so," said Charlotte wearily.
PART SECOND
THE ROSE THAT WAS A THORN IN THE LAND OF ROSES
"The rugged battle of fate, where strength is born."
--Emerson.
CHAPTER I
MEAGRE SHANKS
"... and should a man full of talk be justified?"--_Book of Job_.
At the hotel in the City of Mexico where Driscoll stopped, the entrance
was big enough for a stage coach to drive through. But as to height, it
did not seem any too great for the attenuation of Mr. Daniel Boone, who
therein had propped himself at his ease, delightfully suggesting a
tropical gentleman lounging on a veranda under the live oaks. One
shoulder was impinged on the casing of the archway, from which contact
his spare frame drifted out and downward, to the supporting base of one
boot sole. The other boot crossed it over, and the edge of the toe
rested on the pavement of the Calle de los Plateros, familiarly
so-called.
Mr. Boone hailed from Boonville, but in Missouri, with Kentucky for
ancestral State, such was not a strained coincidence by any means. An
individual there of the name of Boone, and a bit of geography likewise
distinguished, are bound to fall together occasionally. For instance, a
flea's hop over the map, and Mr. Boone and Boonville both might have
claimed the county of Boone. Under the circumstances, Daniel's Christian
name was the most obviously Christian thing his parents could do, and
followed (to precede thereafter) as a matter of course.
Now, Missouri, in the beginning of the Civil War, was a very Flanders
for battles, and this sort of thing had ended by disturbing Mr. Boone
considerably in the manipulation of an old hand-press, dubbed his
Gutenberg, which worked with a lever and required some dozen processes
for each impression of the _Boonville Semi-Weekly Javelin_.
Finally, when Joe Shelby and his pack of fire-eaters were raiding
Missouri for the second time, Daniel plaintively laid down his stick in
the middle of an editorial on Black Republicans, and what should be done
to them. The shooting outside had gotten on his nerves at last. That
blazing away of Missourians back home made him homesick. He was like the
repressed boy called out by the gang to go coasting. And he went. An
editorial by example, he went to do unto the Black Republicans somewhat
personally. The Javelinier was a young man yet.
"There's been rumors hitherto about the pen and the sword," he mused,
"but type, now--that's _hot_!" Wherewith he emptied his cases into
a sack, took down a squirrel rifle, chased off his devil, locked in the
Gutenberg, and joined the raiders. Flinging his burden of metal at
General Shelby's feet, he said, "There sir, is _The Javelin_ in
embryo for months to come. Now it's pi, which we'll sho'ly feed out by
the bullet weight, sir."
From then on the newspaper man followed his proclivities and turned
scout, and it was a vigilant foe that could scoop him on the least of
their movements, whether in the field or in their very stronghold, St.
Louis itself.
At the present moment Mr. Boone was retrieving a lost familiarity with
good cigars. There was a black one of the Valle Nacional in his mouth,
and also in his mouth there was a wisp of straw. The steel-blue smoke
floated out lazily, which his steel-blue eyes regarded with
appreciation. It was an Elysium of indolence. The cigar, the not having
to kill anybody for a few minutes, and a place to lean against, these
were content. Troubadour phrases droned soothingly in his brain. Of
course he had to apostrophize the snow-clads:
"Popo, out there, grand, towering, whose frosty nose sniffs the vault of
heaven, whose mantle of fleecy cloud wraps him as the hoary locks of a
giant, whose--Sho', if I had some copy paper now, I'd get you fixed
_right_, you slippery old codger!"
The wisp of straw hardly tallied with poesy of soul, nor did the lank
figure and lean face, nor the cavalry uniform, badly worn, though lately
new, nor yet the sagging belt with dragoon pistols. But the eyes did.
Those eyes held the eloquence of the youth of a race. They were gentle,
or they flashed, according to what passed within. It did not matter
necessarily what might be going on without. They would as likely dart
sparks during prayer meeting, or soften as a lover's mid the charge on a
battery. Shaggy moustached Daniel, not yet thirty, was a scholar too, of
the true old school, where dead languages lived to consort familiarly
with men, and neither had to be buried out of the world because of the
comradeship. Once, in Pompeii, Daniel blundered suddenly on that mosaic
doormat which bears the warning, "Cave canem"; and before he thought, he
glanced anxiously around, half expecting a dog that could have barked at
Saint Peter himself. From which it appears that the editor had traveled,
and it would not be long in also appearing that he had gathered enough
of polite and variegated learning to fill a warehouse, in which
junk-shop he was constantly rummaging, and bringing forth queer
specimens of speech wherewith to flower his inspirations.
Streaming back and forth before the shops in lively Plateros street were
elegance and fashion and display, the languishing beauty of Spain, the
brilliancy of the Second Empire, the Teuton's martial strutting, the
Mexican's elation that Europe had come to him and with the money to pay
for it. The toughened Boone gazed on the bright morning parade of
ravishing shoppers and ogling cavaliers with the unterrified innocence
of a child, or of an American. He had the air of doing nothing, such as
only a newspaper man can have when really at work. He did not look as
though he were waiting for some one. But only a half-hour before he had
gotten from the saddle. He had just ridden four hundred and fifty miles
for the express purpose of waiting for someone now.
Finally the keen, lazy eyes singled out an immense yellow horse and
rider from among the luxurious turnouts. "Jack!" he exclaimed gladly.
"The Storm Centre," he improvised, as the new comer approached,
"straight as Tecumseh, a great bronzed Ajax, mighty thewed, as strong of
hand as of digestion--w'y, bless my soul, the boy looks pow'ful
dejected, knocked plum' galley-west! I never saw him look like that
before."
Man and horse had come all night from Cuernavaca. But Din Driscoll never
tired, wherefore Boone knew that _something_ was the matter. At the
doorway Driscoll flung himself from the saddle, gave the bridle to a
porter of the hotel, and was following, his face the picture of gloom,
when he heard the words, "How' yuh, Jack?" His brow cleared in the
instant. "Shanks!" he cried, gripping the other's hand.
Mr. Boone untwined his boots and for the first time during a half-hour
stood in them. As he shook Driscoll's hand, he shook his own head, and
at last observed, in the way of continuing a conversation, "It was the
almightiest soaking rain, Din, for the land's sake!" And he shook his
head again, quite mournfully.
Driscoll had not seen Mr. Boone since leaving Shelby's camp back in
Arkansas. He naturally wished to know what was being talked about. But
his woeful friend only kept on, "It wet all Texas, heavier'n a sponge,
and," he added, "they ain't coming."
"Shanks! You don't mean----"
"Don't I? But I do. They're a surrendered army. The whole
Trans-Mississippi Department of 'em, pretty near. But not quite, bear
that in----"
"But the rain? What in----"
"What did you come down here for, I'd like to know? To say how the
Trans-Mississippi wouldn't surrender, didn't you? Well?"
"Oh, go on!"
"Well, it rained, I tell you. Didn't it rain before Waterloo? Didn't it
now?"
Mr. Boone believed in trouble as an antidote for trouble. When he had
stirred Driscoll out of his dejection enough to make him want to fight,
he deigned to clear the atmosphere of that befogging downpour in Texas.
"You rec'lect, Din, that there war god we put up in Kirby Smith's place,
who so dashingly would lead us on to Mexico?"
"Buckner, yes."
"Him, Simon Bolivar B., whose gold lace glittered as though washed by
the dew and wiped with the sunshine----"
"Now, Shanks, drop it!" Driscoll was referring to the editorial pen
which Mr. Boone would clutch and get firmly in hand with the least rise
of emotion. Against his other conversation, the clutching always became
at once apparent.
"Anyhow," said Daniel meekly, "he wilted, did our Simon of B. B.
calibre, and he gave back the command to Smith. And Smith's first order,
his very first order, sir, was that the Department, the whole fifty
thousand, should march into Shrevepoht and--and _surrender_, by
thunder!"
"Dan, you're not going to tell me----"
"That _we_ surrendered, we, the Missourians, the flower of 'em all?
Now s'pose you just wait till Joe Shelby gets back to us in Arkansas,
after that conference with the other generals? Then you'll see what
_he_ does. He proclaims things, on wall paper. The Missouri Cavalry
Division will march to Shrevepoht, will depose Smith for good, will head
off the surrender, will lead the other divisions on to Mexico. And we
started to do it too. And then, and then--it rained. Rained, sir, till
our trains and guns were mired, and we couldn't budge! And all the time
we knew that regiment after regiment was stacking arms off there at
Shrevepoht. Did Little Joe rave? Opened Job his mouth? He did. His
fluency gave the rain pointers. I sho'ly absorbed some myself, me, that
have language tanks of my own. Well, I reckon all our hearts pretty near
broke. But we had our Missouri general and our Missouri governor, and
the Old Brigade just decided to come along anyhow. And we're a coming,
Din, we're a coming!"
Driscoll's face went blank. He thought of the scant welcome his homeless
comrades would get. But Mr. Boone did not notice. He had only stretched
his canvas, a big one, and there was a picture to paint. His long body
began to straighten out, and his eyes glowed. From Xenophon to Irving's
Astoria, from Hannibal crossing the Alps to Marching Through Georgia, he
ransacked both romance and the classics for adequate tints, but in vain.
The colors would have to be of his own mixing.
"Din Driscoll," he began solemnly, "_you_ know that devil breed? Of
coh'se, you're one of 'em. You're a chunk of brimstone, yourself. And
you'll maybe rec'lect they did some fighting off and on. There was that
raw company, f'r instance--boys, hardly a one broke in his yoke of oxen
yet--and they hadn't even gotten their firearms, but they took a battery
with their naked hands, and got themselves all tangled up in the fiery
woof of death. But you'll not be rec'lecting that that there Brigade
ever _lost_ a gun. And those raids, Din, back into Missouri, a
handful back into the Federal country, when men dozed and dropped from
their saddles and still did not wake up, and some went clean daft for
want of sleep, and fighting steady all around the clock too, fair and
square over into Kansas! And there was the night they buried eight
hundred!"
In all this Daniel might have said "We," but reportorial modesty
forbade.
"And," he went on, gaining momentum, "I don't reckon you'll be
forgetting Arkansas, and the ague and rattlesnakes? And how the
small-pox swooped down on that camp of cane shacks? And how the quinine
gave out, and--and the _tobacco_? Lawd!--And how those boys forgot
how to sew patches, their rags being so far gone! And how they made
bridles out of bark, and coffee out of corn! And how they kneaded dough
in old rubber blankets and cooked it on rocks! Well, Jack, there they
were, in Arkansas like that, and the War was over at last, and Missouri
was just a waiting for 'em. And then, to think that they had to face
square around another way entirely! Din, you'll just try to imagine that
there devil breed facing any other way except to'ds home!"
"Don't, Shanks, you----"
"Devils? They were the wildest things that are. It's a mighty good thing
they didn't go back. Think of their neighbors across the Kansas line,
getting ready for 'em with every sort of legal persecution under the
sun, and carpet-bag judges to help! Outlaw decrees? Well, I reckon those
decrees will make a few outlaws, all right, and there'll be
unsurrendered Johnny Rebs ten years from now. Shelby's boys had the look
of it. Your own Jackson county regiment would have flared into
desperadoes at sight of a United States marshal. They were all in just
that sort o' mood, as they turned their backs on Missouri. And after
four years, too! But there, it's a stiff wind that has no turning, so
cheer up! _They_ did, as soon as that deluge got done with and they
were headed for Mexico, one thousand of 'em. Soldiers mus'n't repine,
you know. For them, Fate arrays herself in April's capricious sunshine."
Driscoll had to smile. "Careful, there, Dan, don't stampede."
"I ain't, but if now 'I hold my tongue I shall give up the ghost,' and I
want to tell you first that Texas is a handsome state. We--they--were
considerable interested all the way through it."
"But, Meagre Shanks, where'd you leave 'em?"
"Back in Monterey, drinking champagne with Fat Jenny. Alas, 'who can
stay the bottles of heaven?'"
"Fat--who's she?"
"Now you wait. They've got heaps to do in Texas yet, before they get to
Fat Jenny. First, they helped themselves out of their own commissary
departments, horses, provisions trains, cannon, everything. Decently
uniformed for the first time, and the War over! You should of seen 'em,
a forest of Sharpe's carbines, a regular circulating library of Beecher
Bibles. There were four Colts and a dragoon sabre and thousands of
rounds of ammunition to each man. They had fighting tools to spare, and
they cached a lot of the stuff up in the state of Coahuila. And they
fed, and got sleek. This ain't editorial, my boy. It's God's own truth.
Adventures every step of the way only did 'em good. They saved whole
towns from renegade looters by just mentioning Shelby's name. They
fought all day and danced all night. San Antone was the best. There they
gathered in generals, governors, senators, and even Kirby Smith, all
yearning to join Old Joe--our Old Joe, who ain't thirty-four yet."
The speaker paused, and when he began again, there was a light ominous
of inspiration in his eyes.
"At the Rio Grande," he said, solemnly, "they crossed out of the
Confederacy forever, so it was meet and right that there, in midstream,
they should consign their old battle-flag to the past. They had not
surrendered it, but as a standard it existed for those gallant hearts no
more. Woman's loyal hand had bestowed it. Coy victory had caressed its
folds mid the powder pall and horror of ten score desperate fields. And
now it floated over the last of its followers, ere the waves should
close over it forevermore. With bowed heads, they gathered sadly
about----"
"Lay it down, Shanks, lay it down," Driscoll pleaded. He was referring
again to the pen in hand.
"All right, Din," Boone answered hastily. "Yes, I know, we all got kind
of weepy too. No wonder Colonel Slayback wrote some verses. Reckon you
can stand just one? This one?
'And that group of Missouri's valiant throng,
Who had fought for the weak against the strong--
Who had charged and bled
Where Shelby led,
Were the last who held above the wave
The glorious flag of the vanquished brave,
No more to rise from its watery grave!'
"And," he added savagely, "just let any parlor critic smile at the
sacred feet of those same lines!"
"Let him once!" said Driscoll. His eyes were moist.
Mr. Boone faithfully traversed the rest of the way with the "Iron
Brigade," and no company of errant knights, perhaps, ever had such a
junketing as those same lusty troopers. No sooner did they set foot in
the enchanted land of roses than a damsel in distress, the República
Mexicana herself, came to them for succor. Or more literally, a
dissident governor, backed by the authority of President Juarez, offered
Shelby military control of the three northern states and grants in the
fabulously rich Sonora mines, if he would hang high his shield and
recruit his countrymen in the republican cause. There is little doubt
that General Shelby could have raised an army and become henceforth a
power in Mexico, for Washington would have smiled on the undertaking and
all Texas would have afforded a base of supplies. But the Missourian's
Round Table voted it down. They awaited Maximilian's reply which
Driscoll was to bring. Perhaps, too, they would have a chance to wage
war against the United States again, and that was better than being
smiled on.
Henceforth they fought the forlorn damsel herself, fought every foot of
the way through desert mesquite thick enough to daunt a tarantula. There
were guerrillas, robbers, spies, deserters, and Indian tribes. It was
one eternal ambush, incessantly a skirmish, often a pitched battle. They
saved a French garrison. They rescued a real maiden by a night attack on
an hacienda stronghold, and did it with strictly de rigueur dash and
chivalry. Once or twice they were even stung, by some "langourous
dusky-eyed scorpion of a saynorita" to fight among themselves,
cavalryman's code. Daniel was never one to spoil a romance by mentioning
that a tropical maid was faced like a waffle-iron, though more than
likely she was. Finally, as a last stroke, Fat Jenny promised to shoot
Shelby and hang the rest.
"You've been derogatory about this lady before," Driscoll interposed,
"and I want to know who she is."
"She is the English for Jeanningros, the French general at Monterey,
who'd heard about those negotiations with the República. But Shelby
formed in battle line, to storm his old city, and at the same time sent
word explaining that he hadn't accepted any offer from the República.
So, instead of shooting and hanging, Jenny asked us around for supper.
That's where I left 'em."
"What for?"
"W'y," said Boone in surprise, "to see if you'd gotten here, and to take
back Maximilian's answer."
"But what's the use? The Trans-Mississippi went and surrendered."
"Gra-cious, but you're in a vicious humor! Now, here's the use. Instead
of fifty thousand, we're only one thousand, I know. But there are
hundreds and hundreds of Americans down here like us, and all of 'em
wanting service. There's that colony just starting at Córdova near Vera
Cruz. But they'd fight, if there was an American to lead them, and more
yet 'ud come from the States. Quicker'n that, Old Joe will have a
division."
Driscoll ruefully shook his head. "Maximilian wants us," he said, "if
we'll give up our arms first."
"If we----"
"If we will surrender, Dan."
Mr. Boone's jaw fell. The phrase that would measure the depth of the
proposed ignominy would not come. Finally, he dug from his pocket a
bright new gold coin, twenty pesos, and contemplated reflectively the
side that bore Maximilian's effigy.
"I've got the cub repohter's superstition," he said at last. "You get
your cards printed," here he tapped the coin significantly, "and you're
sure to lose your job--still we might of helped him."
There was nothing, though, for Daniel but to turn back and meet the
Brigade. Learning Maximilian's decision, the Missourians would probably
join the Córdova colony. Boone reckoned that _he_ would. He
discovered that he was tired of fighting. Perhaps the new citizens at
Córdova would want an organ, a weekly at least; and already his nostrils
were sniffing the pungent, fascinating aroma of printer's ink. Then he
asked Driscoll what he thought of doing, now that he was free.
"Don't know," came the reply lonesomely. "Stir around, I guess. There's
a flying column leaving this week to capture Juarez. Maybe that'll do
me."
CHAPTER II
THE BLACK DECREE
"So may heaven's grace clear whatso'er of foam
Floats turbid on the conscience."--_Dante._
That unleashed hawk which was the flying column failed to clutch its
prey. From the City of Mexico across the far northwestern desert the
Chasseurs and cuirassiers rode their swift Arabian steeds, and into the
town of Chihuahua at last. But the old Indian for whom they came was not
there. Benito Juarez had fled. He must have known. Yet how, no one might
conjecture. It was as though some watchful Republican fairy had marked
the sturdy, squat patriot as the one hope of the Empire's overthrow, and
did not propose to have him taken. Scouts, spies, the entire French
secret service, delved, gestured, and sweated. But they laid bare next
to nothing. At the Palacio Munícipal a number of functionaries told of a
peon in breech clout, a wretch coated with alkali dust till the muscles
of his legs looked like grayish ropes, who had emerged from the cacti
plain ten days before and come running into Chihuahua. The peon had made
direct for the Palacio, where, in some way, he had contrived a secret
word with Don Benito; and that very day Don Benito with his one
minister, Lerdo, had set out toward the north.
Afterward the functionaries had questioned the messenger, but he knew
next to nothing. A señor chaparro had sent him, was all he said. It was
a ridiculous anti-climax. A señor chaparro, "El Chaparrito," "Shorty,"
such a one to be the omniscient guardian of the Republic! But for all
that "El Chaparrito" was to be heard of again and many times, and always
as an enigma to both sides alike, until the absurd word became freighted
on the lips of men with superstitious awe. There was an inscrutable,
long-fingered providence at work in the blood-strife of the nation. The
warning to Juarez at Chihuahua was its first manifestation.
Their quarry had escaped, but Driscoll was not sorry. More than once he
had felt a vague shame for the unsportsmanlike chase after one lone,
indomitable old man. Driscoll held a commission, which Michel Ney,
happily recovering, had procured for him from the marshal. But as the
American's healthy spirits, like cleansing by vigorous blood, swept the
gloom from his mind, he began to wonder at the craving for bustle and
forgetfulness which had made him snatch at such an offer. The corners of
his mouth twisted in whimsical self-scorn. He, one of your drooping,
unrequited lovers! "Shucks!" that is what he thought. And he persuaded
himself that it was all over. Quite, quite persuaded himself. But as a
matter of fact, he hoped that he might never have to see her again.
It was not until October of the same year that Driscoll saw actual
battle in his new service. With the Fifth Lancers under Colonel Mendez,
the best of the few native regiments in the field, he had been assisting
at a manner of pacification. That is, they marched from town to town,
and received allegiance. Guerrillas of course punished the towns later,
but Maximilian would not be induced to organize a native army, and
thirty thousand French could not garrison fifteen thousand leagues. They
could only promenade, through sand storms, through cacti. Then the
battle took place. It was the last vestige of Liberal resistance to the
Empire. A few hundred men near Uruapan in Michoacan flaunted their
defiance. Driscoll noticed an expectant and wolfish look in his
colonel's eyes. Mendez was a strikingly handsome and gallant Indian, but
his expectancy now was not for battle. It was for the battle's sequel.
Michel Ney and a squad of Chasseurs had just brought him an Imperial
packet from the City, and the packet contained general orders very much
to his Indian taste.
The fight was a rousing one, and Driscoll enjoyed himself for the first
time in many days. His Mexicans behaved as he could have wished, better
than he had hoped. At the start in the familiar uproarious hell, he
missed the hard set, exultant faces of his old Jackson county troop, and
seeing only tawny visages through the smoke and hearing only foreign
yells, he felt a queer twinge of homesickness. But he was at once
ashamed, for the humble little chocolate centaurs whom he had been set
to train were dying about him with lethargic cynicism, just as they were
bidden. Wearing a charm, either the Virgin's picture in a tin frame, or
the cross, they might have worn the crescent. They were as effective as
Moslems. They were ruthless fatalists.
Michel Ney also spent a diverting half-hour. He had lingered for the
fray. Waving a broken sabre snapped off at the hilt, he charged with
Gallic verve and got himself knocked under his kicking and wounded
horse, and pummeled by Liberal muskets on every side. Driscoll saw, and
straightened out matters. Handing the Frenchman a whole sabre, he
reproved him soberly, as a carpenter might an apprentice caught using a
plane for a ripsaw.
After it was over, the living of the enemy were prisoners. The victors
marched them to Uruapan near by, because it was charged that at this
place two of the captured Liberals, Generals Arteaga and Salazar, had
lately shot two Imperialists. Here, in their turn, they were promptly
executed.
Driscoll heard the volleys, ran to the spot, and saw the last horrid
spasms.
"What--what----"
Ney turned on him a sickened look.
"Don't you know, it's the new decree."
"What new decree? These dead men were prisoners of war. If murderers,
they weren't tried."
"It's the decree I brought from Maximilian, the decree of general
amnesty."
Driscoll glared fiercely at such a jest, but to his utter amazement Ney
was quite in earnest.
He who had commanded the shooting squad stooped over the corpses, a
smoking pistol in his hand. Now he glanced up at Driscoll. "Pues, si
señores," he said, "of amnesty, yes," and chuckling, he indicated the
bodies with his pistol. "But wait----" He thought he saw a form quiver,
one he had overlooked. Remedying this with a belated coup de grace
through the brain, he shoved back his white gold-bordered sombrero and
mopped his forehead as a laborer whose labor is done.
"Under which general amnesty, caballeros," he went on merrily, "you have
just witnessed the first act. My loyalty to the Emperor grows. His
Majesty has a sense of humor."
It was Don Tiburcio. He had deserted the Contras to waylay the rich
bullion convoy of which Rodrigo Galán had told him. But the convoy never
came. Rodrigo, the "sin vergüenza," had not levied toll at all. He had
swallowed it whole, a luscious morsel of several millions in silver and
gold. The coup was of a humor the less appreciated by Don Tiburcio
because he had figured on doing the very same thing himself. At present
he was chief of scouts under Mendez, and commanded the Exploradores,
audacious barbarians who were invaluable for their knowledge of the
country.
From Tiburcio and Ney Driscoll finally gathered the meaning of the
decree. It was the keynote to the Imperialist hopes. Its cause was the
flight of Juarez across the border. Maximilian was surcharged anew with
enthusiasm. Even the United States must now recognize his empire, he
believed. And confounding flurry with activity, as usual, he fervently
proclaimed the courage and constancy of Don Benito Juarez, but added
that the Republican hegira finally and definitely stamped all further
resistance to the Empire as useless. Then, august and Cæsar-like, he
allowed amnesty for those who submitted immediately; he prescribed death
for all others. Rebels taken in battle were not even to have trial.
Maximilian believed that ink, thus sagaciously besmeared by a
statesman's fingers, would blot out further revolution. But it was so
fatuous, so stupidly unnecessary! The court martials, or French gardens
of acclimatization, as the dissidents called them, were already doing
the work of the decree. The poet prince merely lifted the odium of it to
his own shoulders. His amnesty became infamy, and was called the Bando
Negro, a nefast Decree to blacken his gentleness and well-meaning for
all time.
Driscoll left his informants, and walked up and down, up and down,
alone. It did not occur to him to fill the cob pipe between his teeth. A
scowl settled between his eyes, and it deepened and grew ugly. The
desperado was forming in the man--desperado, as contrast to polite
conventions. Desperado, as primitive man, who hews straight, cutting
whom or what he might, cutting first of all through the veneered bark of
civilization. For this reason, in this sense, he might be termed outlaw.
And walking up and down, up and down, he hewed till he had laid bare the
core of the matter. And he saw it naked, without the polish. Thereupon
he knew what he was going to do.
He saddled Demijohn, and Demijohn followed at his shoulder to the
jefetura. Here, at the entrance, under the brick-red portales, Driscoll
left the horse, untied, and opened the door and passed within.
The jefetura, or prefecture, was at present the headquarters of the
command, and in the long front room were assembled a number of officers,
including Ney and Tiburcio, besides the jefe of the place and several
town magistrates, all chatting with Colonel Mendez about the recent
victory. They greeted the American cordially, and poured out tequila for
him. He had done as much as any to win the fight. Michel laid a hand on
his shoulder.
"Monsieur," he said with mock formality, "to-day, when you permitted
yourself to save my skin, you called me a fool. But I would have you
observe, monsieur, that only my patron divinity, the god of fools, is
permitted to know so much."
Driscoll loosed himself from the affectionate grip, and turned to
Mendez.
"Colonel," he said, "I'm going to get out of this."
"_What?_ Oh come, mi capitan, find a better one!"
"It's not a joke, sir. Profiting by a commission that does not bind me,
I am here to tell you good-bye."
"Jean, mon ami!" Ney cried in protest.
Don Tiburcio waited with keen appreciation, as he always did when the
unexpectedness of this Gringo was unfolding. The others stared agape at
the man between them and the door. Mendez saw too that he was in
earnest, and he began to argue, almost to entreat. The Mexican leader
had lost the quality of mercy in civil wars that had touched him
cruelly, that had exacted many near to him, but there was sincerity in
the man, and men were won by the stirring sound of his voice.
"You would retire now," he exclaimed, "now, when every soul here may
look for promotion, and none of them more than you, Señor Dreescol?"
But he did not stop there. He conjured up a tempting vista of long and
honored life under an empire that was now supreme. Even the scum of
rebellion yet left on the calm surface was that day swept away, and
naught remained but to enjoy the favors of his grateful Majesty.
"Which only makes it," said Driscoll, "a good time to quit. I should
mention, too, that I intend to join the Republic, that is," he added,
"if there's any of the Republic left."
Don Tiburcio was not disappointed.
Mendez sprang to his feet and his voice was stentorian, as when he
rallied his men by the magnet of fury and hatred.
"It's desertion!" he roared.
"Or simple honesty," Driscoll corrected him. "But it doesn't matter. The
penalty is no worse for a deserter, if you catch him."
Mendez curbed his rage. He did not wish to lose this man. That is, he
would regret deeply having to kill him.
"_Why_ do you mean to change?" he demanded.
"Because I can't feel _right_! It's like--somehow it's like being
an accomplice of murderers."
"Dios mio, I suppose Your Mercy and his tender heart refers to the
Decree?"
"Partly. That thing is a blanket warrant of death. Just because your
enemy can't fight any longer----"
"But you forget, señor, the mines that exploded in the highways. You
forget the poisoned springs, the ambuscades, the massacres. Would they
not shoot prisoners too, your new friends?"
"Si señor, as you and others may some day experience personally."
"Then, mighty judge, condemn them also."
"Don't I? But I can't blame them. They are punishing crime."
"But not of murder, as we did to-day."
"That too, for that was murder to-day. But I was thinking of a worse
crime. I was thinking of theft, sir."
"Theft? How can that be worse?"
"Theft of their country, I mean, and as your accomplice I owe
restitution. Leaving after a victory ain't so bad, but if I'd known that
I was fighting for that Black Decree, I'd of dropped out before the
fight. But look at it anyway you please. _How_ it looks be damned!"
"Señor, lay down your pistols and sabre, there, on that table, because,
by Heaven, I shall stop you! But if you are armed, I--I shall have to
shoot you, too."
"Hang it, Mendez, you're a good fellow! But--I can't help it."
"Lay them down, you renegade!"
Driscoll removed his sabre and gravely placed it on the table.
"The guns are my own," he said. "Dupin had them returned to me.
_He_ took them. Suppose _you_ take them, Colonel Mendez!"
He was in the doorway, and from there he faced them. The day was hot,
and Mendez had taken off his belt with his weapons. But the others were
armed. Yet they hesitated. They were brave enough for death, but before
the certainty of death for at least one among them and the uncertainty
of which one, they paused. Driscoll had not touched the black
six-shooters under his ribs. That would have snapped the psychological
fetter. As he expected, Mendez sprang first. This put an unarmed man
between himself and the others. In the instant he wheeled, was in the
saddle, and clattering down the street.
Back in the room Mendez saw his blunder and made way. Ney passed him
first, reached the door, aimed and fired. But someone behind him touched
his arm, and the ball sped high. Ney turned, and saw Tiburcio filling
the door against the others, and regarding him with evil challenge in
his eye.
"Oh, don't think that I hold it against you," Ney cried gratefully.
Tiburcio half laughed.
"A man who don't want prisoners shot is better with the enemy than
dead," he said.
Tiburcio's chuckle was prophetic. The enemy invariably executed
Exploradores, and would certainly do as much for Don Tiburcio if they
caught him.
Ney heard the hoof beats, already far away.
"May the god of fools look after him too," he murmured heavily.
The fugitive swept round the first corner of the street and on through
the town. None thought to stop him. Soldiers and townsmen supposed him
on the Empire's urgent business, and when they knew better, there was no
longer hope for their ponies against the great Missouri buckskin, now a
diminishing dusty speck mid cacti and maguey.
"The devil of it is," Driscoll muttered ruefully, "I don't know where
there's anybody to desert _to_!"
However, he was feeling much better.
CHAPTER III
AS BETWEEN WOMEN
"A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market."--_Lamb._
Jacqueline had wrought close to success during that May twilight on the
edge of the Cuernavaca pond. She had won a promise of abdication. Yet in
the end it was not the Emperor that left Mexico, but the Empress. And
Jacqueline was to accompany her, to leave despite herself the scene of
her labors. Such was the case precisely, and it all came to pass in this
wise.
Maddened by the distance which his temptress kept, also goaded to it by
the sorry state of his empire, Maximilian thought only of abdication.
Napoleon responded to Jacqueline's cipher dispatch with orders to
Bazaine. But Bazaine, urged thereto by Empress and maréchale, ignored
the orders, and advanced Maximilian more money. And Maximilian, having
no longer his excuse to quit, stayed on to spend the money. Jacqueline
sighed, and--began all over again. Consequently Bazaine, hearing once
more from Napoleon, found himself a defaulter, and virtually recalled.
Consequently, Napoleon set dates for evacuation. Consequently the
rebellion sprang into new life, and the Empire lost armies and cities,
and thousands of men by desertion. But the darkest cloud was formed by
one hundred thousand Yankees massed along the Rio Grande. Napoleon took
heed. He ordered that the French troops should leave at once, unless
half the Mexican customs were turned over to the French administrator.
This was during the summer of 1866, only six months after the bright
hopes embodied in the Black Decree of general amnesty. Utterly appalled,
Maximilian took up his pen again to sign his abdication.
But there was Charlotte. Even yet she pettishly clung to her crown. The
Mexican agents in Paris had availed nothing with Napoleon. Bien, she
would herself go to Paris. She would get the ultimatum recalled, and
Bazaine as well, because Bazaine no longer advanced money. The imperial
favorites, among them the sleek-jowled padre recommended by Éloin,
seconded her intention. And as they all talked so well, Maximilian
quaffed of hope. With a spite hardly noble though entirely royal, he
predicted that soon the marshal would find himself in a sadder fix than
himself, the Emperor.
Suddenly, secretly, a little after midnight, Charlotte left the capital.
Maximilian bade her good-bye with a solemn promise to rejoin her in
Europe if she failed. Three days later Dupin and his Contra Guerrillas
met her in the Tierra Caliente, and offered to join her French cavalry
escort. The Empress took his presence as an affront. Of late small
things excited her to a feverish agitation which she was unable to
control. The Tiger bowed over his saddle, and kept his gray hair bared
to a torrential downpour while her carriage passed on. It was the
tropical rainy season. The clouds hung low around the mountain base and
truncated the more distant peaks, while the valley below was a bright
contrast in wet, tender green. The wheels sank deep, and mired in the
black, soggy earth. Men tugged constantly at the spokes, and the
steaming mules reared and plunged under the angry crack of whips.
The Tiger of the Tropics waited as carriage after carriage toiled past
him and creaked and was forced on its way. Behind the dripping
windowpane of the very last he saw a face he knew, a beautiful, saddened
face, puckered just now by some immediate ill-humor. She frowned on
recognizing the French barbarian, but unlike Charlotte, she did not jerk
down the shutter. Instead, she lowered the glass by the length of her
pretty nose.
"Is it dotage already, monsieur? Then put on your hat!"
"Name of a name, yet another petulant grande dame!" But the Frenchman
turned his horse and rode beside her coach.
"Did Her Majesty pout, then?" inquired the lady within.
"Almost as superbly as Mademoiselle la Marquise."
"Thank you well, but I have a superb reason for it."
"Because you return to Paris, surely not? Yet, if that is the reason,
you need not quite despair."
"Why, what--what do you mean?"
"Only brigands, mademoiselle. When everyone is looking for abdication, a
cortège mysteriously leaving the City must be the Emperor who goes back
to Austria. The news travels like wildfire. The Indito runners go as
fast as when they brought Moctezuma fresh fish from the Gulf. I rather
think they have carried the news to an old friend of ours. It's my
chance to catch him."
"Not my Fra Diavolo--Rodrigo Galán?"
"None other. But Rodrigo is stirred by more than patriotism these days.
Upon it he has grafted a deep wrong, and he swears lofty vengeance by a
little ivory cross such as these Mexican girls wear. The conceited
cut-throat imagines there is a blood feud between himself and His
Majesty. So if he hears that Prince Max comes this way----"
"He will find Charlotte instead? But he must not detain her."
"Tonnerre!" exclaimed the Cossack chief. "Why not? She goes to Europe to
sustain the Empire, while we French----"
"All the same, let her go. She will gain nothing there. Listen to me,
monsieur. She leaves that he may _not_ abdicate, while if I stay,
she fears that----"
"He _will_ abdicate?"
"Your wits, mon colonel, are entirely satisfactory. And so she invited
me to go with her, and as first lady of her household, I could not
refuse. I wonder, now, if Fra Diavolo would deign to capture just me,
alone!"
The sharp look which Dupin gave her from behind the streams tumbling off
his sombrero was the sixth of a half-dozen. But it was this last one
that seemed to satisfy him.
"Put up the window, mademoiselle," he said, "you're getting wet."
Ten minutes later Jacqueline felt the coach lurch heavily and sink to
the hub on one side.
"Go on with your nap, Berthe," she said to her one companion. "They'll
pull us out, as usual."
The customary yelling and straining began, and men grunted as they
heaved against an axle. After a long séance of such effort there came a
sharp exclamation, like an oath, and the confusion fell to a murmur of
dismay. Someone jerked open the door, and Dupin's grizzled head
appeared.
"Mademoiselle, I regret to have to announce that a wheel is dished in."
Jacqueline's gray eyes regarded him quizzically. The sardonic old face
spread to a grin, but deftly readjusted itself to the requisite despair.
Not a carriage except the wrecked one was in sight. Only the Tiger's
whelps, by the hundred, surrounded her.
"And the others? Her Majesty?"
"The others did the sensible thing. They know that you will catch up
with them when they themselves are mired. Her Majesty, being ahead, is
probably still in ignorance of your accident."
"But the wheel?"
"If mademoiselle wishes it mended?"
"Is it so bad?"
Dupin caught her expression. "It will take six hours," he said
mercilessly.
"Oh dear!" said Jacqueline.
"There's a settler's cabin a mile from here. If you will accept my
horse, and Mademoiselle Berthe can mount behind----"
"Poor Berthe," sighed Jacqueline. But she nodded eagerly.
CHAPTER IV
THE LACKING COINCIDENCE
"Achilles absent was Achilles still."--_The Iliad._
Colonel Dupin helped first one and then the other of his charges upon
the same horse and wrapped them about in the same gaudy serape till only
two pair of pretty eyes peeped forth at the rain. The Vera Cruz highway
clung to the mountain side, but the Contra Guerrillas took a venturesome
little bridle path which dropped abruptly down into the rich valley of a
thousand or more feet below. Emerging from the dense tropical growth of
the highland, they beheld a vast emerald checkerboard of cultivation,
field after field of sugar cane, and set in each bright square a little
house of bamboo with a roof of red piping. After the dreary black gorges
behind them, the light of the sun seemed boxed in here under a leaden
cover of cloud. Coming suddenly out of the chill and mist, the two girls
felt the very rain gratefully warm and the fragrant smells of the wet
earth a thing of comfort. As the beauty and the cheer of it subtly
gladdened her mood, Jacqueline thought that here at any rate was an
adequate mise-en-scène for whatever tremors might befall.
There was one circumstance that already seemed a portent, and got on a
person's nerves like the stillness of nature just before a Kansas
cyclone. This was the curious absence of all human life. Except for the
grimly expectant troop around her, and the clanking of metal as the
Contras rode, she had no token of a fellow creature. The first of the
plantations was deserted, and likewise the next. But the house doors
were open. Nothing showed preparation for departure. The riddle was
uncanny. At the third Jacqueline stated that she would go no farther.
She hated to tramp down a man's field when the man himself was not about
to express an opinion, and the ruthless swath made by her escort through
the cane gave her shame. Besides, it was too much like wading, the way
her skirts brushed the long leaves and knocked off glistening drops by
myriads.
The third cabin was abandoned too, but there were inducements within for
any houseless creature. A hammock was hanging from corner to corner in
the front room, probably to thwart the fauna of tropical stingers, and
there was that comfort unfamiliar to French women, a rocking chair,
before a most inviting fireplace, itself a luxury rare in Mexico. The
two girls removed their cloaks, and settled themselves to dry their
shoes before a roaring fire which the men lighted for them. Then the
Cossacks, including their colonel, left on some stealthy business
without, and Jacqueline and Berthe were alone.
Jacqueline tried the rocker, found it good, and smoothed her skirts over
her knees to the warmth of the blaze. "We've only to yawn at the flies,
eh, ma chérie?" said she.
"Not a thing else, madame," came a cheery voice from the hammock.
Jacqueline was at once suspicious. "You absurd little mouse," she cried,
"don't I understand that gaiety of yours! And all the while you are
really trembling in fear of terrible bandits. For months now you grieve
because you imagine that I--well, that I am sad. But you'll not make me
hilarious, you won't, Berthe, as long as it's 'madame.' Child, child,
will you not let me have my friend in you, I who have none, nor a mother
or sister! There now, if I'm not to be--ah--pensive--remember there's no
'madame' between thee and me, dear!"
The Bretonne's gentle eyes filled suddenly. Jacqueline had before sought
to change their relations, ever since Berthe's part in Driscoll's rescue
from execution, but she had always tried to bring it about by playful
bantering. Now, however, Berthe was given to see the utter loneliness of
an orphaned girl in one who for all the rest of the world was the
disdainfully independent little aristocrat, who had met the proffered
intimacy of the French empress with a sneer, who was the cold princess
when among princesses of the Blood. The loyal child of simple Breton
folk sprang impulsively to the arm of the rocker, and was herself
clasped no less impulsively.
"But there," said Jacqueline, laughing rather brokenly, "we're
forgetting the flies."
A belt over the fireplace caught her eye, and she unexpectedly
discovered that her breath had quickened. She stared fascinated at the
letters on the buckle. "C. S. A.," she murmured. Then her startled gaze
roved hurriedly over the walls. It became even frightened before a faded
gray cape-coat of the Confederate cavalry and a battered white gauntlet
sticking from the pocket. Involuntarily, trembling foolishly, she looked
to see if there might not be an old cob pipe also. There was not, but
the other familiar objects made her imagination leap fearfully to what
might be. Both hope and dread will always override common sense, and
convoy imagination perforce. If _he_ did live here--if they should
meet! Could such a coincidence happen, could it, outside the neat
ordering of a book or play?
She sprang to her feet and began investigating. She went awesomely as
one would tiptoe over a haunted house. In the next room she came upon
what was an odd treasure trove for an isolated bamboo cabin tucked far
away under the Tropic of Cancer. It was a printer's shop, after a
fashion. The case was a block of stone, in whose surface the little
compartments had been chiseled. They were sparsely accoutred with type
and plentifully with cigar ashes. As for a press, there was none. But a
form had been made up on a slab of marble, and near by were a tiny
hillock of ink, a roller and a mallet. The mysterious printer could at
least take proofs. There was one now on a file. Jacqueline pulled it
off, and contemplated a miniature American newspaper, of one sheet,
printed on one side only, and no larger than a magazine cover. At the
top she read the legend, in German caps: "_The Córdova
Colonist_--_Weekly Independent_."
"Is that a pun?" she wondered.
But now at least she could identify the ghostly company of the valley,
though not its scribe. That word "Córdova" gave the clue. A year ago one
thousand hardy men had ridden into the capital from the north. Their
leader was a fiery, black-whiskered little man with a plume in his hat
and the buff sash of a brigadier general around his waist. They were the
Missourians, defamed as "Shelby's horse thieves and judges of whiskey,"
honored as "The Old Brigade," and so feared and respected under any name
that the City fairly buzzed and stared goggle-eyed. But Maximilian again
refused their offers to enlist under his standard, and they could only
disband. Some took ship to hunt for Kidd's treasure in the Pacific,
others went to Japan and the Sandwich Islands, and a number joined a
congenial regiment of veterans, the Zouaves. But the majority, she
remembered now, had been settlers, persuaded thereto by their
countryman, Commodore Maury, who was Imperial Commissioner of
Immigration. Maury had secured a grant of land near the town of Córdova,
within a hundred miles of Vera Cruz. There were one-half million acres
of rich land, suitable for the three Big C's of southern countries,
cotton, cane and coffee. But until now the strip had not been
cultivated. The Church had held it fallow. Then the Republic had
nationalized it; and the Empire was selling it to the Americans at $1.25
an acre. The hopeful settlement bore the name of Carlota.
So the cape-coat and those other things were explained. She was denied
her coincidence. But as there was so much of a plot forward anyway, she
ought to have been satisfied--as an artist, she ought. She craved an
ecstasy of peril or of terror, not as the former dilettante of emotions,
but as the lotus eater who exacts forgetfulness.
Meantime she read editorials, and got interested. The _Colonist_
never advanced beyond the proof-sheet stage, but as such it circulated
with avidity over the valley. Eloquence flowed serene under mashed type
and variegated fonts. The editor persisted in viewing the Empire and
Republic as political parties, and the horrors of civil warfare as
incidents of an electoral campaign. He had congenial scope for his
unpartisan and independent pen, advising with owl-like sagacity or
abusing with peppery virulence, and either, for either side, with blithe
impartiality. At times, though, the strained analogy between ballots and
bullets evidently cracked, and rather floored the editor. For instance,
in a pot-pourri of long primer and pica with a dash of Old English
lower-case was the following:
As we wen[t] to press last week we paused to entertain a torchlight
procession of the Young Imperialists' Flambeau [C]lub, which was
collecting a campaign contribution in the semblance of our alfalfa
stack. The spectacle of citizens taking an active [p]art in the issues
before their country ne'er fails to rouse in us a spirit of
collaboration, so [w]hat could we do but join heartily in the
celebration, so that a most excellent time was had. Later our
editorial staff, a score who in our canefields teach the tender
sprouts [h]ow to shoot, knowing t[h]e same so well themselves, gently
laid to rest a score and one Cossacks, past members of the [F]lambeau
Club, wh[o] had lingered behind for the reason that they _were_ past.
But, we ask, _ad quod damnum_?--i.e., isn't it as futile as
cauterizing a wooden leg? How much longer, O Jove, must we let our
public-opinion moulds cool off while we chase enthusiastic young
patriots away from our alfal[f]a!!!... In conclusion, with a cool
brow, we are constrained to say that if the party in power cannot
discourage the depredations above ci[t]ed, we shall have to fortify
ourselves to the contemplation of a c[h]ange of administration.
[Transcriber's note: characters in brackets were originally printed
as bold Old English lower-case as explained above.]
"Why," cried Jacqueline, "what an _animal disputans_ it is!" She
perceived an ink bottle, and exclaimed, "Ah, more milk from the black
cow!" Taking up a wad of copy paper, on which a future editorial was
already begun, she read, and quickly her amusement changed to a livelier
interest.
"Rumor goes," she read under the caption, _Ardentia Verba_, "that
Father Augustine, political manager for the administration, vice Éloin,
is soon to leave for Europe. He goes to have a pourparler with the Pope.
He will concede everything, since the Empire no longer hopes to win over
the moderate Mexicans. But the obstinate though Holy Father will
negotiate a concordat on one basis only, and that is the return to the
Mexican church of all nationalized church lands.
"Men of the colony, attention now! We each own something like three
hundred acres apiece of these lands. And we are paying for them, we are
cultivating them, and we have to defend them against both guerrillas and
contra-guerrillas. And now they are to be confiscated! Our new homes are
to be taken from us!! Alas, we who are peaceful settlers, to think that
we were Trojans on a time!!! Fellow citizens, with us it's a severe case
of _e pluribus unum_. Oh, for a leader! But our incomparable chief
of yore will not stir. Yet there _was_ one, gallant cavalier of the
South, peerless captain, just the dauntless heart for any forlorn hope
under the starry vault of heaven, if he were only here! If he, John D.
Driscoll, were only----"
The matter stopped abruptly. More than that, by force of habit the
scribe had ringed the figures "30" underneath. They meant "finis." The
editor had known, then, that he would not return to end his harangue.
"A flea bite," mused Jacqueline, "would interrupt the penning of an
Alexandrian line. Now, I wonder who or what the flea could have been,
and what----"
But there, she would ask herself no question concerning the editorially
mentioned "John D. Driscoll."
It was mid afternoon when Colonel Dupin, like a shaggy, dripping bear,
returned to the house and begged leave to dry himself. Standing before
the fire, he reloaded his holster pistols. They were tremendous, elegant
utensils of French make, with a nine-chambered cylinder, and a second
barrel underneath that carried a rifle ball. Where no prisoners were
taken on either side, the owner of such a weapon usually reserved the
murderous slug for himself, and the loading of that lower barrel became
a sort of ghastly rite. Jacqueline shuddered as she watched him fix on
the cap.
"How do you explain your desertion of Her Majesty?" she asked. "Our Fra
Diavolo should thank me for drawing you off."
The Tiger adjusted the double hammer so that it would play on the
cylinder first. A rumbling chuckle came from the depths of his throat.
"I should be honored with mademoiselle's approval," he said, "for at
court mademoiselle is a guileful warrior. The casualties there may not
be so sanguinary, but the strategic principle is the same. Know, then,
that Rodrigo Galán employs a spy whom I own, body and soul. By now
Rodrigo has learned from this spy that the Imperial coach broke down,
and that to-night Her Majesty rests--here. So you see that she is not
likely to be attacked----"
"But I see that _we_ are, parbleu!"
"Of course," and the Tiger unctuously rubbed his hands in the blaze.
"It's my chance to trap him. He has only three hundred men."
"And you, monsieur?"
"Our mutual spy has told him that I have less than two hundred men. The
brigand knows that I was forced to leave a garrison at Tampico."
"But how many have you, really?"
Dupin motioned her to the window. But she saw not a man, not a musket.
She saw only the wet fields of cane, and the black mist-shrouded
mountains beyond.
"Just the same," the Frenchman assured her pleasantly, "they are there,
full five hundred of my little tribe. Does mademoiselle approve?"
"It looks like the curtain on 'Fra Diavolo,'" she replied, shuddering.
CHAPTER V
THE MISSOURIANS
"Men sententious of speech and quick of pistol practice."
--_Major John N. Edwards._
An hour before nightfall the guerrillas attacked. Jacqueline was
standing at the window, when she heard a jubilant din and saw a tawny
troop charging through the fields toward the house. They yelled as they
came, waving machetes and carbines. It was the usual theatrical dash of
Mexicans. Like savages, they thought first to frighten their
adversaries.
"Won't you come and see, Berthe? It's like a hippodrome."
She felt sorry for them. The dulcet cane grew thorns. Under the leaves
the black soil was become clay red with leather jackets. The Cossacks
had fixed sword-bayonets to their muskets, and were waiting on their
knees.
Stung by the hidden barbs, the first horses reared in air, pawing and
screeching frantically. Many sank down again, and they were limp as the
life ebbed. Others crashed backward, their riders underneath, and those
behind plunged over them, unable to stop. Soon it was a fearful jumble;
men and beasts, hoofs and steel, curses and shrill neighing. Then the
firing began, a woof of fine red threads through the warp of pale-green
reeds. The guerrillas yet fought. The myth of their own heavier numbers
kept them from panic. Ragged fellows with feet bare in the stirrups
leaned over to slash at heads between the tasselled stalks. They
squirmed like snakes from under kicking horses, and fainting, got a
carbine to the shoulder at aim, and someway, pulled the trigger. Then
they were taken in the rear. One-half of the Contra forces, mounted, had
waited under the sapling growth of the nearest foothill. Now they sprang
from cover, bloodthirsty whelps trailing the Tiger. The guerrillas could
not turn back. To retreat they must cleave the way in front, and they
did, by sheer desperation. Falling in the mesh at every step, they at
last gained the large open space around the cabin.
Then it was that Jacqueline got a near view of Don Rodrigo. He was
superbly mounted, and his long body made a heroic figure on the
curveting charger. He frowned, and his mustachios bristled fiercely, and
his shouts of command were heavily ominous. The wind turned the folds of
his black cloak. It was faced with scarlet silk; and the charro elegance
beneath was black and resplendent. All told, he was a very outburst of
glitter; breeches, jacket, sombrero, saddle, stirrups, and bridle; not
of silver, but of gold. Good carbines for his vagabond Inditos,
magnificence for himself, these had come from that fabulous theft of the
bullion convoy. And he had arrayed himself this rainy day to dazzle a
princess of the Blood. So now he wielded his sword with a conscious
flourish, glancing toward the window to see if he were seen.
"The poseur, never out of his rôle," murmured his audience there. "How
will he enjoy running, I wonder?"
But to her astonishment he did not run, though Dupin was cutting closer
and closer through tangled bodies, eager to grapple with his old-time
slippery foe. Don Rodrigo raised in his saddle, and looked anxiously in
all directions. Suddenly his dark face lighted, and wheeling round, he
called to his men, and in his turn strove as furiously to reach the
Tiger as the Tiger had striven to reach him. Jacqueline could not now
tell which side to feel sorry for. But she exulted in the thrill of it,
even as she wrung her hands at sight of the red agony.
Then something happened, which even the Tiger, who knew his warfare so
well, had never known; which got into even his dried and toughened
marrow. It was the Rebel yell. It rose over a sudden thunderous rush of
hoof beats. And next, as a puff of air, a herd of horsemen, a wild
mud-spattering streak, surged past the house. On across the open, and
straight upon the fray, they merged everywhere, and made bigger and
livelier the blotch of mad swarming. Some wore slouch hats, others straw
sombreros, and all were ruddily burned. They fought with revolvers, and
often one would pause between shots to spit tobacco. They brought to the
battle one thing above all else, and that was vim, vim unbounded, vim
that simply had to have vent.
Jacqueline caught her breath. What race of men were these? Exalted,
quivering, she watched them doing as workmen what fell to their hands,
yet ever with that whirlwind of vim.
"The Missourians--of course!" she cried.
Through powder smoke and misty rain the figure of one horseman slowly
grew familiar. She caught fleeting glimpses of him, as he darted into a
mêlée, as he spurred round to find a hotter field. Suddenly her eyes
widened, and she pressed a hand hard against her breast.
"The coincidence!" she gasped, trembling from head to foot. "It is the
coincidence!"
Her nose flattened against the wet pane. She remembered how that general
of the Missourians had told Charlotte about this man, for the Empress
had asked. And the general had related how the troop had dubbed him the
Storm Centre.
"And no wonder!" she breathed. "Mon Dieu, how he _enjoys_ it!--But,
oh--he will be killed--oh!"
Yet nothing of the kind happened. When she uncovered her eyes, his
assailants were in flight. Every Cossack survivor was in flight. The
Storm Centre wheeled and confronted Don Rodrigo, who raised his sombrero
effusively.
"Rebellion makes strange comrades," thought Jacqueline. "But no,
my--the--chevalier--does not take his hand."
Indeed Driscoll was looking the guerrilla over with little favor. "So,"
he exclaimed, "it was you I was to help here!"
"And what better patriot, señor----"
"Never mind that. Why didn't you wait till dark to attack? Weren't those
the orders, or--that is, the suggestion?"
"But whose suggestion? Perhaps, señor, _you_ know who El Chaparrito
is?"
"Haven't the least idea, nor anyone else. But it's certain, Rod, that
this is your first experience of Shorty. Another time, and you'll have
sense enough to take his hints. Now then, where's the emperor we were to
catch?"
Fra Diavolo's smile was Satanic. "Your Chaparrito was either mistaken
about the Emperor, or," and he glanced toward the window, "or he
deceived you into helping me capture a beautiful young woman."
"How? What----"
"I mean that His Cautious Majesty did not come, however much El
Chaparrito seems to want him. But--" and Rodrigo's tone lowered heavily,
"but his August Spouse came instead. She is in that cabin now. It is
well, señor, for vengeance in kind is just. It is righteous, it is
biblical. Since fate has thrown----"
"E-a-s-y! Eas-y, boy. Of course, if we've gone and netted an empress,
we'll ask 'em to please take her back. This ain't a woman's game."
"Give up a queen's ransom?"
Driscoll nodded cheerfully.
"I believe, caballero," said the brigand with awful dignity, "that I
command here."
Driscoll looked at his Missourians returning from the chase. "Well," he
laughed, "you might try it on, and see how they take it."
Behind Jacqueline the door opened. She almost jumped. Of the hundreds
likely to enter there, her startled fancy pictured only one. But the new
comer was a stranger.
"Oh-ho, come a-visiting, eh?"
The voice was cordial, robust, Western.
"Missour-_i_!" she exclaimed involuntarily.
"Yes'm, Cooper county."
She turned, won to friendliness, and beheld a man who, to use her mental
ejaculation, was "of a leanness!"
"Monsieur----" and she paused.
"Boone, ma'am. Daniel, your most obedient servant. If I'd known--Sho',
we might of had things spruced up a bit. Are you the queen, maybe?"
The lady's laugh rang as clear as a bell. Taken aback, Boone sought to
correct his mistake. He saw that Berthe was seated in the hammock. She,
then, must be the Empress.
"I'm downright sorry we went and captured Your Majesty," he began.
"Her Imperial Highness does not understand English," Jacqueline
explained.
Then to her surprise the man proceeded in French. He was evidently
greatly disturbed because Missouri hospitality did not harmonize with
war. "It was a blunder," he apologized earnestly, "come of our deciding
just this morning to make you Europeans vacate our continent. But don't
let that worry Your Majesty. Here, under my roof, the decision doesn't
hold, _at_ all!"
Berthe lifted her head quickly. It was her second promotion in the
social scale that day. She had trembled when the door opened, for she
knew that Rodrigo's side had triumphed. But this tall stranger brought
relief to one's nerves, and somehow she had watched him trustingly. He
was of the same race as Monsieur Driscoll, to whom also she had once
turned instinctively for help. But when the tremendous young fellow
addressed her with reverence due a queen, she felt only the respectful
admiration due a pretty young woman. It unexpectedly awakened in her the
knowledge that she was a pretty young woman; and with a winsomeness that
amazed and delighted Jacqueline, to say nothing of its effect on Daniel,
she gently put him right as to her identity.
"It doesn't matter," Boone protested stoutly, "you ought to be one!"
The door opened again. It struck the wall with an insolent bang, and in
strode Don Rodrigo. Jacqueline noted who it was and indifferently seated
herself in the rocking chair, with her back toward him. The Mexican
advanced to the centre of the room. The brief twilight had fallen, and
the place was in half light except for the blazing logs. He stopped
rigid and flung his scarlet-lined cloak back over his shoulder.
"Where," he demanded in the huge tones of a victorious general, "is the
tyrant's empress?"
No one volunteered as to where the tyrant's empress might be. The toe of
Jacqueline's boot was indolently busy with the embers on the hearth. The
heads of both girls were in shadow.
Rodrigo's furrowed brow creased more deeply. "Which of you is she?" The
heavy syllables dropped one by one. He stepped tentatively toward
Berthe. So did Boone.
"Stand aside, señor!"
"Can't, dear brigand," said Daniel.
Then Berthe spoke. "Please, messieurs," she began, "Her Majesty is
not----"
"It's only a maidservant," Rodrigo exclaimed in chagrin.
"Don't make any difference," said Boone, "she's come a-visiting."
"If, Seigneur Brigand," spoke a clear voice, "you had not interrupted
Mademoiselle Berthe, you would stand informed by now that Her Majesty is
not here. Will you deign to close the door?"
Rodrigo knew well those bell-like tones. Forgetting the question of an
empress, he drew nearer to the lady of the rocker. She gave him no heed,
but her profile against the red glow was very soft and beautiful. His
chagrin vanished. Here was a more ravishing triumph.
"A vengeance in kind," he muttered, wetting his lips. "Ha, he took
nobody's wife, as to that; and his wife may go. But in the matter of
sweethearts--ah!"
Bending, he laid a hand caressingly on her neck, against the tendrils.
At the touch she sprang to her feet, and Boone leaped forward with fist
drawn back. But both stopped. Her face changed from fury to pallor.
Boone's expressed approval.
The room had filled through the open door with men and torches, but the
first man among them had come as far as Rodrigo's shoulder even as the
insult occurred. From behind, the man's arm had straightened under
Rodrigo's chin, and twisting to a lever, was gradually forcing back his
head. Rodrigo groped for a knife, but half way to his waist the fingers
clutched vainly in a sharp spasm, and all involuntarily flew up and
gripped at the vise under his chin. Yet another ounce of pressure, and
it seemed his neck must snap like a dry twig. Suddenly his spine bent
limp. Muscles relaxed. The whole body capitulated. Then the man behind
stooped a little, and Rodrigo began to rise. Slowly at first, and next,
as from a catapult, the brigand shot backward over the man's shoulder
and struck his length on the floor.
"No, not that, boys," said the man. "Don't kick him. Laugh at him, it
hurts more."
He spoke more particularly to one "Tall Mose" Bledsoe of Pike county who
was purple with indignation that a "saddle-colored Greaser should dare
lay hands on a white woman."
But there were also "Rube" Marmaduke of Platte, "Mac" Crittenden of
Nodaway, the "Doc" of Benton, "Cal" Grinders from the Ozarks, Clay of
Carroll, and Carroll of Clay, besides a ruddy sprinkling from the county
of Jackson. Among the latter was "Old Brothers and Sisters," a plump
little young man with cherubic eyes behind round brass spectacles. Clem
Douglas had been ordained in the M. E. Church (South), and became
thereupon the Rev. Mr. Douglas. "Old Brothers and Sisters" was a
theological degree of later acquirement, lovingly bestowed by the Iron
Brigade. But in his more recent gospel of pistol practice, Clem Douglas
was not a backslider. He was simply all things Southern to all men. Like
the others in the cabin, his hat was off, his muddy boots scraped; and
like the others, he was not unaware of the two girls.
"Rather showery out," he observed genially, wiping the mist off his
glasses, and imagining weather a livelier topic than battle.
Jacqueline did not hear. Her eyes were still on the man who had
disdained to strike Rodrigo from behind, who had flung him away instead,
as one would a dog. She stood motionless, and her face was very white.
She saw that he wore loose leather "chaps," a woolen shirt, and an old
coat, with only stained shoulder straps, green braid on dark blue, to
indicate a uniform. His wet black hair was curly. His brown eyes flashed
whimsical contempt on the resplendent guerrilla at his feet. He was the
Coincidence; he was the Storm Centre. He turned, expecting to see the
Empress, and he met her eyes. His own darkened with a new anger, and
involuntarily, he swung round, himself to kick the Mexican who had
insulted her. But a flood of memory swept over him, the memory of what
he had seen at Cuernavaca. Not for her could he touch a fallen man.
"Take him into the back room, two of you."
Red, red to the neck, he was turning to follow, when he saw Berthe.
"Miss Burt!" he exclaimed.
Heartily he shook hands with her. "It's my first chance, you know, to
mention what you did for me over a year ago. But I sure appreciate
having my life saved, you know that. There now, you're not to worry over
this present mess. We'll have it straightened out, just in no time."
He stammered as he spoke, and when he turned and left the room, his
bearing was constrained. Jacqueline's eyes followed him until the inner
door closed behind him. Then, with a half shrug, she sat down and
pensively resumed the building of fiery mounds on the hearth.
CHAPTER VI
IF A KISS WERE ALL
"A man, a woman, a passion--what else matters?"--_Sardou._
"Tall Mose" Bledsoe and the Rev. Mr. Douglas conveyed Don Rodrigo to the
back room, and here Driscoll and Boone joined them. They did not disarm
the Mexican. It did not occur to them that any man would risk drawing a
weapon in such company. And as to Fra Diavolo they surmised correctly.
He sulked a little at first, for there were sore tendons that ached. But
in the end he grew reasonable, and his white teeth gleamed acquiescence
to all that the señores were pleased to say. He agreed to bivouac his
men apart from the Missourians and go his own way at daybreak. The
Contras were routed. The Tiger had barely escaped. There was no further
need of combined forces. Indeed, Don Rodrigo feared a night attack so
little that he meant to reward his men with many copitas of aguardiente.
Might he send a barrel over to his esteemed allies?
Mose Bledsoe turned a pleading look on the parson, and to his surprise
the Rev. Mr. Douglas beamed tolerant benevolence. "Why yes, my friend,"
he himself said to Don Rodrigo, "good liquor is always acceptable,
especially when soldiers must sleep on the wet ground."
The brigand was then allowed to depart, and Old Brothers and Sisters
explained. It was best to let Rodrigo send the brandy, for then one knew
what to expect. Otherwise the Christian brother and rascal would hatch
up some other plot, and any other plot might take them off their guard.
When an hour later, Rodrigo did in fact attack the presumably somnolent
Americans, more happened than either he or they expected. A third was
also waiting to strike for the sake of a woman. He was Dupin, who wanted
nothing better than the allies at each other's throat. Crouching warily
near, the Tiger sprang at both of them. In the rain and the black night,
the three-cornered fight raged like firecrackers under a tin bucket. The
guerrillas, repulsed by the Americans, fled upon the Contras, whereat
the Americans swept them both back indiscriminately. Instead of a lady,
the Tiger carried off Don Rodrigo, and was quite glad to carry himself
off. But Boone, scouting near, reported that Rodrigo was held a prisoner
instead of being executed at once. This meant something. It meant beyond
any doubt that the Mexican and the Frenchman would combine, Rodrigo for
his life, Dupin to rescue Jacqueline.
The Missourians held council in Daniel's sanctum. To restore the
captives to Dupin had been Driscoll's intention from the first. But now
it was a question of trading them against Rodrigo. Dupin must know the
American offer before he and Rodrigo should attack. Driscoll proposed
for himself alone the errand to the Tiger's camp. Rising to his feet, he
left his protesting friends without a word further. But he had to pass
through the front room first, to get the cape coat hanging there. It
was, in fact, his own. The two girls were seated before the fire,
Jacqueline still in revery, Berthe nervously agitated from the late
racket of battle. Daniel Boone had laid before them a ranchman's supper
with tropical garnishing, but it was untouched. Driscoll nodded, crossed
the room, took the coat from its nail, and started for the outer door as
he drew it on.
"Snubbing--an acquaintance," spoke an impersonal little voice, "is
cheap."
He stopped, waited.
"Of a gentleman, I reckon you'd say," he interrupted uneasily. "Maybe
not, but a ruffian's got his instincts too. When he's afraid of hurting
someone, he hides himself."
"I was mistaken," she said gravely, with that quaintest inflection of
the English he had ever heard, "yes, mistaken. Hé mais--but it is just
that the complaint. You hurt more by _not_ speaking."
"But there's nothing to say," he faltered. "I'm just going to Old
Tige's--to Dupin's camp, and get him to come here for you."
"Monsieur, monsieur, you fight for your captives only--only to give them
up?"
"That's not the question. You can overtake the Empress yet. Dupin
will----"
"But it is not that I want to overtake empresses at all. I--Berthe,
would you mind carrying back these supper things?--I," she continued,
when they were alone, "have no wish to go back to Paris. I shall return
to the City."
Again the liaison with Maximilian, he thought bitterly. And Charlotte
away! It was infamous. However, he had no right to be concerned.
"Very well," he said, "then Dupin can take you to the City, or wherever
you wish."
"Ma foi, what trouble to be rid of your prisoners, monsieur, and after
two battles too!"
"That's got nothing to do with it."
She meant, though, to have him confess that she had had a great deal to
do with it. She was taken with the self-cruel fancy to lay bare and
contemplate his love for her, that she might feel more poignantly the
happiness she had lost. But he abruptly turned again to leave, and all
else was forgotten in terror.
"You go to that Tiger!" she cried. "Do you not know that----" She darted
between him and the door--"that he recognizes no rules of war? He will
shoot you, he will, he will!"
Driscoll laughed.
"Oh, I'll be safe enough all right, thank you. Dupin holds Rodrigo, we
hold you. So it's simply an exchange of prisoners. And he'll not do
anything to me, for fear of what might happen to you here. You're not a
hostage, sure not, but as long as he thinks so, I'll profit by it."
"You are right," she admitted, yet not heeding his anxiety to pass.
"Dupin will not even detain you. He will judge you Missou-riens by
himself. So, voilá, he frees Diavolo. He comes for me. And--and you,
monsieur?"
"Me? W'y, I'll wait for the boys at Dupin's camp, after he takes charge
here. Then we'll march."
"And--you do not come back?"
"No need to. Now will you please get away from that door?"
"Not coming back!" she repeated. Could the Coincidence be for naught
after all? Could not real life be for once as complacent as art? He was
going, and when, where, in the wide world, in all time, might they ever
meet again? And he was going, like that! Except for her, he would not
even have spoken.
But--if he were the man to hold her, despite herself? If he were primal
man of primal nature, the demigod raptor who seizes his mate? Yes, she
would forgive him--if only he were that man. If, as such, he would but
hold her from her duty, from her sacrifice, despite herself,
if--if--if----And so her daring fancy raced, raced as desire and hope to
outrun sorrow. And why not? She could look him in the eye with that
honesty which pertains to woman, for she knew that the shame he thought
of her was only in the evidence of what he had seen, of what he had
heard the world say, and not--no, not in fact. And for the kindness of
that fact she thanked Providence. Then, daring to the end, her insane
hope for happiness gave her to remember that there was a clergyman among
these Americans, and to see in that the ordering of fate.
But Reality was still there, grim and greater than either Providence or
Art. The man was waiting for her to step aside, and when she did, he
would pass through the door and out of her life. She gazed, as for the
last time, on his stalwart shoulders, on his splendid head, the head of
a young Greek, on his flushed face, his mouth, and those obstinate
little waves of his hair. How good he was to look upon--for her, that
is! No, no, she could not let him go.
And she tempted him. With all her woman's beauty she tempted him. If
beauty were aught, it must win her now what she held dear. Afterward,
when she should tell him why, he would forgive her the unmaidenly
strategy. She had noted with a passionate joy that the lines of his face
were tightly drawn, were even haggard, that his breath came short; in a
word, that he suffered. It told her that his gruff manner was not
indifference, but the rugged front of self-control. What a will the man
had! Knowing that strength, she must have been an odd young woman indeed
not to try to break it.
"I suppose," she said, lowering her head and shaking it in demure
resignation, "no, I suppose a captive has not the littlest thing to say
of her disposal? But if the poor child has curiosity, monsieur? If, for
the instant, she wonders why a monsieur fights for her, and then why he
hazards his life to be rid of her?" With which she raised her eyes
inquiringly. It was disconcerting.
"We'll not talk of that any more," he grumbled. "Are you going to let me
pass?"
Frail creature between him and the door, how easy to remove her! But he
feared the warmth of her hand, should he but touch it, or the faint odor
from her hair, should a stray lock no more than brush his cheek.
"Even a captive will wonder why she is so little prized," observed the
perverse maid.
She considered with glee that the window was too small, and with yet
keener delight that his wits for strategy had left him. He did not once
think of exit by the inner door.
"Why do you keep me?" he demanded.
His tone was harsh command, and for the moment it frightened her. She
all but gave way, when she perceived that the menacing growl was really
a plea. The poor fellow was at bay. She very nearly laughed. Then, too,
he would not meet her eye again.
"Oh, am _I_ keeping you?" she exclaimed in innocent dismay.
It provoked him to what she wanted. He came toward her angrily, while
she stepped back against the door and spread her arms across it. Her
pose was a dare; and the trouble was, he had to look. He had to see the
girlish, the wonderful line of head and shoulder, the color flooding
cheek and neck, and most dangerous of all, the challenging gray eyes.
His teeth snapped to, and his hand closed over her wrist. He pulled, she
yielded. He felt her other hand laid on his. The touch seemed to sear
his flesh.
"You must not go," she whispered, "must not!"
He drew her farther from the door, toward himself.
"Must not!" she repeated. He could feel the breath of her whisper.
"Don't--Jack-leen!"
She barely heard the words, but she knew the agony there. And he, as he
gripped her wrist, sensed the throbbing that passed through her whole
body. For pity, he was powerless to thrust aside a lass who pitied him.
"It is that common, yes. It is not the instinct of----"
Yet, all the while, like another Brunhilde, she was praying in her heart
that she had not taunted him in vain. A very eerie Valkyrie, she had
taunted him to be the stronger, stronger than his will, stronger than
herself, to strive with her, to master her. And now she saw a fury of
love and hate aroused in him, a fury against herself for making him love
her more than his great will could bear. In her lust for seeing this
anger of his, she forgot her mission absolutely, forgot why she had come
to Mexico, forgot all but the prayer in her heart.
Nothing was left her but to learn the answer, and this she did, by
tugging firmly, coyly, to free her wrist. The answer was rapture; his
grip had tightened. She pulled harder, and felt herself being drawn
toward him. Yes, yes, her triumph was a fact. Slowly an arm of iron, a
tremulous, masterful vandal, circled her waist.
She pushed at him with her fists, and panting, tried to fight him off,
however the blood stung in her veins and coursed hot as in his. The
matter had gone far enough. It was time for explanations, for an
adjustment. But he did not seem to think so. He was relentless.
Barbarian Siegfried with the warrior virgin was not more so. The tendons
in that arm of his suddenly went rigid, and crushed her body against
him. It was then that a sudden horror took her, and she struggled like a
tigress. She gasped out a cry for help, but the scream had no volume.
Before she could try again, his hand covered her mouth.
And then, and then--oh, the words he was whispering! Even as he
smothered her shriek, she heard them.
"Well--we'll just have in Clem Douglas. You've seen Clem, little girl?
He's our parson."
His life long, Driscoll had never dreamed of heaven as he saw it then in
her eyes. Never, his whole life long, as she raised those eyes to his.
And the sweet relaxing of herself, the trustful pillowing of her head on
his breast, the soulful content as she softly breathed there, instead of
that wild panting of a moment before! Blinded to the world, he fervently
thanked God that he had been made.
He touched her white brow lovingly, and gently tilted back her chin.
Again her eyes lifted, confidingly. His head bent. She waited. His lips
drew nearer to hers, very slowly. He was held in a deep reverence, in an
awe of something sacred. It was a rite of adoration before a shrine. And
she, seeing that look in his eyes, wanted him to know that the shrine
was truly as pure as in his oblivion to the world he for the moment
believed. For later memory would come to him, and that she could not
bear. He must know now, before their lips met. Yet a good woman may not
brazenly avow that rumor and evidence speak what is false. But for all
that he still must know, in some way. With a playful gesture she
intercepted his lips against the soft palm of her hand, her eyes the
while holding his in their communion of soul. And thus she spoke,
prettily, saucily, and blushing the while,
"And are you so sure, sir, that you are the first?"
She had looked for protestation, and she would have answered. And he
would have believed. He must have believed. But instead the spell of
faith broke sharply. Poisoned memory rushed in before it could be
belied. She could see the tragedy of it in his changed look, in his
ashen face, cold and gray. He thought her question a gloating over his
weakness, and it revolted him. He was, then, but a caprice for her. He
remembered that after all he had only happened by, and that she was
returning to Maximilian. But still she was hardly less tempting. He had
a moment of cruel conflict with himself, which left him with a sullen
rage against the princelet in Mexico, against the order of princelets,
that thus fell a deathly pall between an honest man and a true love
kiss. Yet, she was there in his arms, dear and fearfully clinging
and--no less tempting.
"Take this woman to my mother?" the question rose.
As one might close the eyes of his dead wife, he loosed the arms about
his neck, and let them fall at her side. Once free, he leaped to the
door, flung it open, and was gone.
CHAPTER VII
A CROP OF COLONELS
"And thus they led a quiet life
During their princely raine."
--_Ballad of King Cophetua and the Beggar-Maid._
Some years after the events recorded here, there appeared in the
Boonville Javelin (post-bellum and revived) a serial of reminiscences,
which, behind an opalescent gossamer of romance, pictured the
Missourians and the chivalrous rôle they played around that forlornly
chastened and be-chased damsel, la República Mexicana.
Quite aside from the prodigious deeds set forth therein, the
journalistic epic is of itself naïvely prodigious, as anyone knowing Mr.
Boone with pen in hand will at once suspect. All the little Trojan
band--call them Gascons if you will, but own that if they boasted they
were ever keen to substantiate the bluff--all of them, then, strove and
blazed away invariably as heroes and were just as peerless as could be.
You wouldn't look for anything else from Mr. Boone. He must, however, be
credited with one peculiarity, that he never hinted at himself as one of
the glorious company. Daniel knew his newspaper ethics. He knew that the
newspaper man is _not_ the story, however they may regard it in
France, for instance, where the reporter is ever the bright particular
cynosure of any interview that bears his signature.
A few strokes of the Meagre Shanks brush in the way of excerpts from his
narrative, with plenty of extenuating dots in between, should make an
impression, even though impressionistic, and serve perhaps as a sketch
of what befell after Din Driscoll had bearded the Tiger, freed Don
Rodrigo, and surrendered his own two captives. To begin:
A retreat was had [Daniel always got under way slowly, as though
fore-resolved not to stampede.] Echo demands, "Retreat?--The Iron
Brigade in retreat?" 'Twas true. Rallied once again, but under another
flag than the Bars, the Missourians rode all that dank, wet night lest
they meet and have to fight their new friends, the guerrillas under
Rodrigo Galán. It was a weird predicament. Two days before, they were
peaceful settlers in the land--_omne solum forti patria_--their
blood-flecked swords as ploughshares fleshed in earth's warm bosom....
But tyrannical confiscation of the soil they tilled loomed
foreboding.... Pestered nigh unto forceful phrases with shooing robbers
of both sides out of their melon patches, and fired at last by the
sentiment that it behooved them to sally forth and regulate things
themselves.... They only lacked a Cincinnatus. Their old general would
not lead them. Wearing his bright chaplet of renown, Joe Shelby now
drove mules, a captain over long wagon trains....
Then gallant Din Driscoll appeared among them, the dry-humored, reckless
Jack Driscoll of other days, attired now in the brave, dashing
regimentals of the Republic[!] From out the wilds of distant Michoacan
he came with the long gallop that never would tire, and pausing at cabin
after cabin in the Colony's broad acres, summoned his old comrades to
arms ... to arms against the invader.... Who, now, will argue bucolic
content? Those lusty young planters smelled the battle from afar. What
now were waving tassels to the glory of deeds?--_a cuspide
corona_--to a wreath of powder-burned laurel? That very day the Iron
Brigade rallied again, gathered once again at the oft remembered bugle's
full, resonant blare.
Fighting came sooner than the Missourians hoped. Even as they started
for Michoacan, a ragged Indito, whose village had been razed by the
Cossacks, met the command and asked for the Señor Coronel Gringo.
Driscoll heard what he had to tell, and was greatly concerned, though
the others laughed at first and scoffed. For it seemed that the Indito
did not know who sent him, except that it was a señor chaparrito, a
short little señor. "Then you must be a Shorter Yet?" said Driscoll.
"Well, what do you bring?" The Indito produced from his ragged shirt a
bit of parchment, whereon Colonel Driscoll was urged to join with his
new recruits in an attack on Maximilian's escort, for Maximilian was on
his way to Vera Cruz. The parchment was signed, "El Chaparrito."
"Shorty! That word means 'Shorty'," the troopers guffawed. But Driscoll
showed them another handwriting at the bottom. The parchment had been
countersigned in blank, thus: "Benito Juarez, Libertad y Reforma." The
Missourians were respectful after that. Many thought that the mysterious
guardian angel of the Republic's battles must be the Presidente himself,
though the Presidente was thousands of miles away.
* * * * *
After the victory won against Dupin's Contra Guerrillas [so the
chronicle goes on], the Missourians found their ally to be none other
than that picturesque buccaneer of the Sierras, Don Rodrigo, wild as a
prairie wolf, handsome as Lucifer; and their captives to be not the
Emperor and suite but two beautiful women....
When the prisoners had been exchanged--i. e., the two fair girls
restored to Dupin, and Rodrigo freed--and Rodrigo had hurried away to
gather his scattered vagabonds from among the foothills, the Missourians
realized their predicament. That day they had fought the Empire. Then
they had turned and fought the Republic in the person of the guerrilla
chief, Rodrigo Galán. They had rebelled against the rebels, so were
doubly rebel, doubly outlawed. Ye gods, it _was_ bizarre! And as
morning dawned on them trailing along a dreary inferno gorge of the
Sierra Gorda, they blinked at each other ruefully. Poor waifs, they had
lost their native country. And now, one rainy morning, they found they
had lost an adopted one. But each man looked into a face likewise so
rueful that his own broke into a grin.
"We'll just start a _new_ country," cried Driscoll abruptly.
His voice sounded strange and very unlike him, but the inspiration was
characteristic of the man, and true to the old irrepressible Storm
Centre they had known. Hunted outlaws, they too were in the mood for any
desperate venture. Spontaneous as wildfire, they seconded this one ere
they had asked a question. They never did ask "How?"
"A new country," roared Tall Mose, "but where?"
"And when?" Old Brothers and Sisters inquired gently.
"We'll start right after breakfast," their intrepid leader replied. "And
right here in Mexico. It's anybody's country yet, and we might as well
slice off a little private republic for ourselves."
"And won't we fight, by Jiminy!" drawled Cal Grinders, with Ozarkian
deliberation.
"And it don't matter whom we fight," Marmaduke added. "Let 'em show
themselves, Slim Max or Don Benito. We'll meet all comers."
That was the mood they were in, and they were in it to the chin. Submit
a wholesale fighting order, and they bid for it like neither bulls nor
bears, but like wolves.
"About taxation?" asked Clay of Carroll dubiously.
But as a good general, or as another Romulus, Driscoll had figured it
all out. His answer brought comfort.
"We'll not have any. We will levy on commerce, as republics have the
right to do."
"Then," said Carroll of Clay, "we'll need a seaport?"
"Of course. Ain't Tampico simply waiting for us? The French aren't there
now. They are concentrating in Mexico City for evacuation. There's no
more of a garrison than what Old Tige left, a few hundred Cossacks. If
we get there before the Liberals----" ...
... And why not? They were nearly five hundred and greater than Romulus.
They were Missourians, sir. They were from that State which gave the
best fighters to both sides; which, population considered, gave more to
the North than any other Northern state, more to the South than any
other Southern state, and yet as a state would be a Republic unto
herself. What, then, might not be possible to these her sons on a
foreign shore? Intrepid youngsters, they were of royal State lineage,
Missourians from Kentucky, Kentuckians from Virginia, which was in the
beginning. Dauntless cavaliers of the Blood, if they chose to carve
themselves a kingdom, why not?
But they themselves answered the questions, questions that had men's
lives in them thicker than hard words in the Blue-back speller. The
business was as already done, and Mose Bledsoe could go back to his
chant with an easy mind. And once more Missouri's revered saga echoed
among the crags:
"I come from old Missouri,
Yes, all the way from Pike.
I'll tell you why I left there,
And why I came to roam
And leave my poor old mammy,
So far away from home."
Then, the bard leading in a fashion vociferous, the whole command helped
out:
"Says she to me, 'Joe Bowers,
You are the man to win;
Here's a kiss to bind the bargain,'
And she hove a dozen in...."
... Bivouacked under the black-lipped howitzers of Tampico's sullen
heights.... Dismal fens ... where fever exhaled its dread gray breath
thick over swamp and lagoon ... above, the vast ægis of the firmament,
wrought in a diamond dust of stars ... a sickly, jaundiced, moon tilted
drunkenly.... Through ooze and fetid slime the Americans crept
stealthily out of the reeds; and on, over cypress roots, silently in the
silent night; on, up the hill under the low walls of Fort Iturbide.
Gently and fleeting as a dark beauty's sigh in old Castile, they were
come in canister range.
"Steady, men," their leader whispered.
"Unto death," came the low-breathed response.
[No such words were uttered, as Daniel knew perfectly well, but he knew
that they should be--in the telling.].... A sharp cry ... fearful
alarums from the crest of the hill ... next a belching fury of grape....
But Tall Mose was happier for it. The seal was off his lips at last, and
out thundered his stentorian war-song:
"O Sally! dearest Sally!
O Sally! for your sake...."
... still upward, until the cannon fumes broke as a dun-colored wave
over pennant and plume ... and grimy troops fell as spring blossoms in a
balmy south breeze.... Dying as they loved to die, game to the last ...
they stumbled back to the river, which swept over the gallant stranger
slain....
"... It's enough to make me swear!--
That Sally had a baby,
And the baby had red hair...."
... Then piercing and wildly plaintive, the clarions rang out, clamoring
for victory and _væ victis_ ... and Din Driscoll's hoarse voice....
"We are the last of the race, let us be the best as well."... "Back at
'em, fellows!" Bledsoe bellows.... And the parson murmurs, "He prays
best who fights best, both great and small" ... his soft voice tremulous
enough for Glory, his superb trigger finger disturbing enough for
Chaos.... At last, the supreme command "like volley'd lightning"--"Give
'em the revolver. _Charge!_"...
Not until the story is told shall ... for over the battered masonry, in
through the splintered doors, felling shadowy foes on every hand....
When well within-side ... the prowess of each unto himself ... tempest
of pistol cracking ... bleeding deathfully ... ah, the killing is fast
and desperate ... and not a candle over the pitiless fray.... Huddled
together for a brief last stand, the Cossacks ... panic, flight....
_The fort is taken!_
When the incarnadine embers of sunrise glowed in the east, the
Missourians stood on the battlements and surveyed their domain. "You are
the man to win, Joe Bowers," Mose hummed with an I-told-you-so air, but
softly, for many of his comrades were wounded, though he was not, as
usual, for all his seven feet of perpendicular target. But "the Doc," of
Benton, was, of course. Getting wounded was the greatest trouble with
Doc. If he attacked a hornet's nest, he would contrive some way to get a
leg shot off. But with him such things had become to be a matter of
course, so now he crated himself together enough to move around and
attend to the others. Driscoll was most innumerably barked, with a
perforated humerus as climax. [The modest Boone might have catalogued
similarly his own casualties.] Old Brothers and Sisters, that cool
Christian, had lost a lens out of his spectacles, and was now replacing
it from a supply he always carried. What, though, were fractured arms
and busted specs to becoming a republic over night?
But eternal vigilance is ever ... and menace was not long in coming.
Three French gunboats, like sluggish water beetles, crossed the bar and
steamed up the river.... Promptly the howitzers on the ramparts were
trained.... But there was no need ... a white flag ... a naval
lieutenant at the fortress gate.... The gunboats had not come to fight.
Bazaine had sent them to carry off the endangered garrison, it being
expected that a Liberal army under a General Pavon would shortly besiege
the place. The Frenchman was astounded to find that the Liberals, as he
imagined the Missourians, had already arrived. Driscoll allowed him to
embark the dislodged garrison, as well as the defenders of the other
fort, Casa Mata; that is, all except those who might want to change
sides. And nearly every Mexican among the Cossacks did change. It was a
sign of the panic that had spread throughout the Empire. Driscoll also
insisted on the burial of certain guerrilla corpses which Dupin had left
hanging to the town's lamp posts. After which the gunboats took
themselves out of republican waters.
Yet they left behind expectancy. So, a Liberal army two thousand strong
was approaching? The Missourians provisioned themselves from the town
and rested on their arms. The Liberal host appeared, variegated of
costume, piratical of aspect.... Again a flag of truce.... "If the
señores Imperialistas desired to surrender?"... "We are not
Imperialists," came the reply from the fort, "and we're blessedly d-n-d
if we desire to surrender."... "Then, the saints bless us, _who_
are you?"... "The Republic of Tampico, de facto and determined."
The dumfounded Liberals scratched their heads. They were Republicans,
and here was a republic, and naturally it bothered them. But when they
had gotten it tangled unmistakably enough, they decided that they wanted
surrender anyhow, if the señores Tampicoistas would have the kindness
... and on refusal from the fort, they withdrew to load their siege
guns.
They had sent a shot or two and received a dozen, when an Indito,
emaciated and loathsome from scales of dirt, dashed from nowhere through
the cross-fire and pounded at the fortress door. Driscoll ordered him
admitted. The first President of the Tampico Republic seemed
extraordinarily anxious about this ragged vagabond, especially as he had
perceived a second one, likewise from nowhere, dash into the Liberal
camp. Ten minutes later the enemy ceased firing. "Now come, all of you,"
Driscoll then said to his little army, "and hear what he's got to tell.
I reckon he's a Shorter Yet."... "From Shorty, then!" exclaimed his men.
And so it proved, for the Indito produced the usual bit of parchment,
signed El Chaparrito and countersigned Benito Juarez, Libertad y
Reforma. The message thereon demanded why the Coronel Driscoll and his
new recruits for the cause had turned against it.... "'Cause we don't
hanker after hanging," Cal Grinders interposed.... Was it, Driscoll
continued to read, because they thought they had lost favor by fighting
Rodrigo Galán? If so, there was naught against them, nothing, because
President Juarez had outlawed Galán for robbing a bullion convoy. It was
true that the writer of the parchment had used the said Rodrigo, in the
hope of capturing Maximilian, but the bandit was not for that reason a
Republican officer.... "In other words," lisped Crittenden of Nodaway,
"we're in-lawed because the good patriot Don Rodrigo is away
outlawed."... "Therefore," the parchment went on, "His Excellency the
Presidente through the writer has herewith sent a message to General
Pavon of the besieging camp to comply with whatever Their Mercies the
Americans may deem fit to require. Further, knowing the temper of Their
Mercies, General Pavon is ordered to at once cease operations and leave
Their Mercies in possession."
The Missourians looked at one another and were reluctant. They hated to
forego a battle. But it takes two sides to make one. Not outlawed, not
even threatened, they had no excuse to hold against the Liberals.
"But," said Crittenden, "as an ally of this sister Republic, we'll still
have our fighting."
"Well," demanded Driscoll, "what will you ask for?"
"Our Córdova lands back, after we've won them from the Empire."
"And," put in Grinders, "equality. We want republican equality."
"Then we'll all be privates?"
"No sir-ee, by cracken! Equality high up, that's what! We'll be
colonels, breveted colonels, every last one of us--Colonel Driscoll,
Colonel Grinders, Colonel Brothers and Sisters, Colonel----"
"That's easy," said Driscoll smiling. "Now I'll go and fix it up with
General Pavon, before he gets away."
... To conclude this chapter on the Missourians' Republic, there is yet
a word, which perhaps is also explanation of the saddened change that
had come over Din Driscoll since that night after the battle with Don
Rodrigo. It must be remembered that the peerless lad had just won his
old comrades to the Mexican Republican cause. While yet rejoicing that
here he more than made good the three hundred Liberals he had helped to
capture when a captain under the Empire, he found that he had only cast
his recruits out of the pale of law, first against the Empire, and then
against the Republic.... Then he proposed their own republic, and for
themselves they took Tampico from the French. But why? What was the real
object in Driscoll's innermost thought? The suspicion arises: Was it to
win a peace-offering wherewith to make friends again with the Liberals?
Such an explanation of his otherwise wild scheme is but a theory, but
the theory fits, for John D. Driscoll, though as reckless as any and
quick for any forlorn hope, was, when a leader, scrupulously practical.
The above suggestion, moreover, is apropos in these later days, when the
Tampico Republic has become to be folklore throughout Missouri, and when
our cousins, the Kentuckians, even those proud colonels by acclamation,
cannot rank beside these five hundred colonels scattered over the sister
state; so that, when a stranger questions, a Missourian answers: "He a
colonel? W'y yes, of course, sir. And, by God sir, a Tampico colonel,
too! Yes, one of the five hundred!" and the stranger's eyes bulge as he
takes off his hat.
[The deposition of Meagre Shanks ends here.]
CHAPTER VIII
ROYAL RESOLUTION
"... O restless fate of pride,
That strives to learn what Heaven resolves to hide."--_The Iliad._
On returning to the capital, Jacqueline did not once set foot in any
Imperial palace, but she established her own salon of a grande dame, and
there installed herself mid a simple elegance. What was left of the
mortgaged château in the Bourbonnais went to pay for it. Jacqueline
would accept not a louis out of Napoleon's Black Chest. A French
gentlewoman, she impoverished herself to work for France. And when, a
little later, Napoleon dishonored his own name and that of France in his
dealings with Maximilian, she thanked the instinct that had kept her
free. Puddles muddied one's skirt so! The valiant maid broke her sword.
She would serve no longer. At least, she was quite certain that she
would not.
Napoleon's shame lay in this. Maximilian had accepted his harsh
ultimatum regarding the Mexican customs, and in return for such
humiliation he depended on the presence of the French troops for yet
another year. But the United States threatened war, and Napoleon
cringed. He would withdraw the troops immediately. He would abandon
Maximilian, treaty or no treaty. Thus the quiet forces in the American
Legation at Paris battled against the proud House of Orleans. The
princess of that House failed. She could not save her husband's throne,
and her own. Her mind gave way. She became a raving maniac. So much for
Charlotte's mission.
With the news Maximilian was a broken man. He seemed to remember his
promise to rejoin her in Europe, for he set out coastward and left the
marshal a letter that was virtually his abdication. Yet in the Hot
Country he stopped for his health. An Austrian frigate waited for him.
But behind him was his capital. Would he return? History will never
know, perhaps, the soul-despairing network of intrigue and
counter-intrigue that wound and tightened about the young sapling roots
that would strike deep in an unnourishing soil and become a dynastic
oak. The rabid clericals, who were Maximilian's ministers at the time,
thought their puppet gone, and in terror of an avenging Republic they
resigned. But Bazaine, urged to it by Padre Fischer, prevailed upon them
to remain, and Fischer gave his word that the puppet would not escape.
So France lost another chance to take back the Mexican Empire, and
thereby pave a way out of her shame. For while Maximilian recuperated,
he reconsidered. Clerical generals assured him of armies, the ministers
talked eloquently of treasure from the Church coffers. The fat padre
manipulated generals and ministers and Emperor, He was supreme. None
might come near the royal ear except at his pleasure.
It was at this time, about the first of the year, some six months after
Charlotte had sailed to Europe, and only a few weeks before the French
would do the same, that one evening Jacqueline's footman brought her a
plainly sealed envelope, without crest, without writing. She tore it
open, and started as she looked at a simple autograph on the card
inside.
"His--this gentleman, Tobie, you admitted him?"
The well-trained servant stood impassive. "What would madame have?" he
replied. "The man walked in like a lord, keeping his face hid in a
cloak. But if madame----"
"Was there a carriage?"
"No, madame, but I noticed a saddle horse at a little distance, held by
a mounted soldier with a carbine. But if madame----"
"He is in the drawing-room, then?"
"Oui, madame, and without removing his Mexican sombrero. But if madame
desires that this citizen find himself--h'm--pressed to go----"
"Tobie! No, on the contrary, you will permit him to wait undisturbed,
until I come."
A few minutes later Jacqueline beheld a tall figure in elegant charro
garb striding the length of her salon. As she entered, her guest threw
off sombrero and Spanish cloak, and revealed the drawn and troubled
features of the Emperor of Mexico.
"Your Majesty has returned to His capital!" she exclaimed. "Then it is
true----"
"That I shall cling to my play-empire? But I do not know yet,
mademoiselle, I do not know yet. If I did, I should not be here, here in
your house for the first time, and against your wishes----"
"Will Your Highness be seated?"
Maximilian flung himself wearily into an armchair. The fire of the
enthusiast had died out of his eyes, and the fire of fever had left them
faded. They reminded one of the blue of old-fashioned china.
"But why----" she began.
"Why come to you, you mean? I don't know; instinct, I suppose."
"Isn't that rather vague? Your Imperial Highness returns to the City, to
his palace----"
"Not to his palace, mademoiselle, not while it would seem a mockery of
my poor imperial state, but to an hacienda in the suburbs. If I enter my
Mexican palace again, it will be because I have decided to remain an
emperor."
"And for the reason that you have _not_ so decided, you do me the
honor----"
"I do myself the service, mademoiselle. I can bear this torment of
indecision no longer, and you can help me, for you, dear lady, see
clearly where the vision of others is distorted. The enthusiasm of the
others is unsafe. Yes," he sighed, with a little superior air of
resignation to all human foibles, "those on whose loyalty I can depend
are indeed few, but I am thankful that among them are my ministers, and
my faithful secretary, Father Augustin Fischer----"
"Then why, in heaven's name, does Your Highness come to me?"
"Instinct, or--perhaps it's mania. Something has forced me to learn what
_you_ would say."
Jacqueline's foot--a small digression, at most--was slippered in blue,
and this she pillowed on a cushion of red. And on another cushion she
settled her elbow; and the sleeve of the chemisette, or blouse, or
whatever the high-necked filmy white garment was, fell away, revealing a
rounded forearm clasped in a band of gold. And resting her chin on her
thumb, she regarded the young prince thoughtfully. In her look there may
have been a sedate twinkle of amusement, but all was gently, pityingly
sympathetic.
"Let me know," she said, "more of the doubts that trouble Your
Highness."
Unerringly she touched the right chord. Doubts, yes, doubts of a broken
dreamer. Illusions shattered as bubbles. A dweller in an ideal shadow,
believing that subjects needed only lofty phrases, Maximilian was
finding himself tragically maladjusted to the modern day in which he
lived. But as the words tumbled from his lips in the passionate relief
of unburdening, it quickly appeared that his misgivings arose only
because he had fallen short of Dark Age standards. He recalled bitterly
how, unlike the illustrious among his ancestors, he had not stirred
until others had won his crown for him. But destiny was kind. He had the
chance for redemption. To hold his empire now depended on him alone. He
would mount his horse, give to the light a true Hapsburg blade, and
valiantly ride forth to conquer or perish, and in any hazard be worthy
of his House.
Then, without abrupt change, he talked of Austria's late woes. Had he
but commanded his country's ships at Lissa! Could he but have risked his
life at Sadowa! And moreover, he was still needed over there. But in
some quick recollection a moisture dimmed the blue eyes. He drew from
his vaquero jacket a dispatch. It was from Franz Josef. If Maximilian
returned to Austria, the message ran, then he must leave behind the
title of Emperor--leave behind even the title!
"And will that hurt so much?" asked Jacqueline.
The Ritual again! For it a man withheld asylum from his brother.
"Is there no mother," cried the exasperated girl, "to spank both your
Majesties?"
"'Tis of Her Serene Highness----" Maximilian began with dignity.
"Highness? Yes, I forgot, but not high enough to chide majesty, though
she be a mother."
"Yet she has only just warned me of her deep displeasure if--No, her
message shall wait. I wish to hear first what you think. Tell me, shall
I go, or shall I stay? Tell me, tell me, and why!"
Feverishly the man craved one frank word. There was in his look the
prayer of a desperate gambler who watches a card poised between the
dealer's fingers. Jacqueline had one answer only. But exactly how to
express it, lest she be wrongly taken, made her pause.
"In the first place," she began slowly, "there is only a single
consideration involved, and in that lies the solution of Your Majesty's
doubts. I mean the consideration of honor. Now if Your Highness
is--_whipped_ off his throne--_that_ is ignominy--But wait,
wait, I am not through. I----"
"Almost my mother's words!" he cried triumphantly. And with a hand that
trembled, he got out the letter from that Archduchess Sophia who had
given one son a crown and loved this other as her darling.
"'Rather than suffer humiliation by a French policy'" he read from her
letter, "'stay, stay, though you be buried under the walls of Mexico!'"
"But----" Jacqueline interposed. She had been taken amiss after all.
"You too bid me stay," he insisted. "But I might have known. I might
have known. One who never errs said that this would be your counsel. The
Padre is wonderful--wonderful!"
Father Fischer, of course! What else? How consummate was the snake in
his cunning! He counted on honesty and nobility in another, though
having none himself. He knew Jacqueline. He thought that, both good and
frank, she must advise the Emperor as his mother had done. Accordingly,
when Maximilian became afflicted with doubts, the priest allowed him to
go to Jacqueline. She would be an accomplice despite herself. Only his
judgment did not go quite far enough. Jacqueline had not spoken
_all_ her mind.
Imperiously she compelled Maximilian's attention. "I said ignominy,
yes," she persisted, "but I would have added that honor--the modern and
the decent--and the only courage, lies in facing this same ignominy.
Listen. If the least of impure ambition enters in your decision to
remain, then for each death in the civil war that must result, Your
Highness may hold himself to account, and so be held by history. Now,"
she went on, unmoved by the fact that he had winced, "the question
remains with Your Highness--does aught besides honor hold you to stay?"
To himself he answered as she spoke, and guilt confessed mounted his
brow.
"But there," she said, "Father Fischer will interpret the will of the
Almighty. Before Your Imperial Highness retires to-night, my words will
be forgotten."
The lash fell on flesh already raw and smarting. To predict that he
would change yet again, when to change he branded himself a wilful
murderer--no! That was more than he could endure. She must not think
that of him. He held out his hand. "Jeanne!" he murmured imploringly.
"Don't!" she cried, "Don't call me that!"
Then she bit her lip, and her fury turned against herself. "Jeanne" was
feminine and French for "John," which was masculine and--American. This
important discovery she had made months ago when riding beside a man
whose horse was "Demijohn." As a girl in love, she had found a cozy joy
in their names being the same. But for that very reason any recollection
of it, since then, was the less to be borne.
Blushing indignantly, she saw that Maximilian was regarding her with a
puzzled expression. Manlike, he referred it to himself, and suddenly, he
too started. Only once before had he addressed her thus familiarly,
which was during that memorable afternoon beside the artificial lake at
Cuernavaca. Here, therefore, must lie the association that caused her
agitation. Yet, since that afternoon, she had permitted no reference to
their interview, unless to raise her brows quizzically at his continued
presence in Mexico. But now, what of the self-betrayal into which he had
just surprised her? It could not but be connected with that other time
when he had murmured her name. There was, however, no conscious vanity
in the remarkable explanation. It was remorse. He thought of Charlotte,
his wife. And this other woman, had he wronged her also? For during the
past weeks of trouble he had forgotten that he had loved her, and she
had not forgotten. In two such facts, falling together, was the wrong,
and one that a woman scarcely ever forgives, as he had had reason to
know.
"I could not help supposing, mademoiselle," he ventured diffidently,
"that what you said at Cuernavaca was inspired by--by no feeling toward
myself. I could suppose nothing else in the light of your utter
indifference since then, and--and your aversion for my very presence."
Jacqueline laughed pleasantly. "In that Your Highness deceives himself.
I did then, as I do now, feel for Your Highness enough to wish him
safely out of Mexico."
"Charity, then?"
She did not protest.
"As I thought," he said. "There was no feeling in--in----"
Jacqueline raised her eyes and met his frankly.
"When a woman feels in the sense you mean, sire," she said, "then she
does not make an empire, even the Austrian Empire, a condition. If the
man in question has no more than his horse, his pistols, even his pipe,
then the woman----" But she stopped abruptly.
"With you," he granted honestly, "it was not a matter of personal
ambition either. But if neither of these, then what--_Now_ I see!"
he cried. "A state reason! A decoy, to tempt me out of Mexico! Yes, yes,
now I see!"
"It is good to know," said Jacqueline, not ungratefully, "that Your
Majesty at least, if no other, can see a high motive in my self
abasement."
"Now what can she mean by that?" he demanded of himself. "What other, in
particular, thinks hard of her that she should care?"
Éloin was the only other man who could have seen them, there at
Cuernavaca. No, little it mattered to her what Éloin thought. But--yes,
there was another. There was the American who had intruded and wanted to
save his empire. Maximilian recalled now her change to bitterness after
the American had left them, and a moment ago he had seen the identical
pain of self-contempt tug at her lips. And yet, once she had left the
American to die. But Maximilian answered even that objection. Leaving
him to die was a necessity for her country. And the sacrifice had gone
farther. It had not faltered before the self-degradation of which she
had just spoken.
The admiration in his eyes grew. The chivalry in his race awoke within
him, and exalted him. He felt himself become the true knight, in the
purity of devotion to a woman--a gentleman, as real chivalry would have
the term. Poor man and poet, he felt even the impulse to bend the knee
and crave as a boon some risk of life in her service, without thought of
boon thereafter--a knightly impulse nearly obsolete in chivalry, if ever
customary. But he knew now that the impulse was really possible, and the
proof was this: that the constraint between them had vanished, that soon
he was talking with her easily and naturally.
For Jacqueline also the air had become blessedly pure, and deeply,
gratefully, she breathed of it. Because now she talked with one whose
respect was a fact, who _knew_ her for what she was, and during a
moment's space she was happy, with the happiness of delusion. It seemed
that other men, that one other man, might one day know her too, and give
her his esteem. But the phantasy passed. The knowledge must forever be
restricted to the man before her, and for him she did not care.
Maximilian, very strangely, was thinking of the very self-same thing.
Here was a service in her behalf already offering. If he could cause
that other man to know? But it was out of the question. Men may convince
one another of a woman's guilt, and only too easily. But of her
innocence? No, it was absurdly out of the question. Besides, next day
the true knight would be starting back for Europe. Had he not just
decided?
CHAPTER IX
INTERPRETER TO THE ALMIGHTY
"... and could make the worse appear
The better reason."--_Paradise Lost._
After half an hour's sharp canter, Maximilian dismounted at La Teja, his
suburban hacienda. He had come quickly from Jacqueline's, for his heart
was light. The stress and storm of wavering were ended at last. Soon now
he would be at Miramar, at beautiful Miramar, overlooking the sea, where
Charlotte awaited him, but knew it not. And by love and tender care he
would coax her back to sanity. Ah, no, the pure joy of living was not
done for them yet!
"Desire Father Augustin to attend me in my private cabinet," he said to
the first lackey.
The huge priest came on the instant. He bore a candle in one fat,
freckled hand, and above its light the dull flesh of his face shone
yellow. His head was as ever pear-shaped with its heavy, flabby jowls,
and in the apex the two little beads of eyes leaped adventurously at
sight of the prince.
"I am here, sire," he said purringly. "Your Majesty, then, wishes me to
prepare for his return to the imperial palace to-morrow?"
"No, father," His Majesty answered stoutly, though not without an uneasy
glance. "To-morrow I set out for the coast. The _Dandolo_ is still
there at anchor. You will give the necessary orders to my Hungarians,
who will be my escort."
Fischer opened his lips, to close them. The involuntary creasing of his
brow smoothed at once. Maximilian, who had dreaded argument from this
man, breathed easier. But of course any man would give way when a
Hapsburg had irrevocably made up his mind. The padre laid down the
candle, and interlaced his bloated fingers over his paunch in an
attitude of sleek calmness. He was smiling and fawned meek anxiety to
second his patron's least wish.
"Your Imperial Majesty's wisdom, I see, is not a thing to be turned by
the fräulein?"
"On the contrary, Mademoiselle la Marquise d'Aumerle counseled my
departure, not my remaining."
The fingers tightened slightly over the bulge of the sutane. "She then
presumed to differ from Her Serene Highness, Your Majesty's mother?"
"My mother would counsel the same, were she in Mexico. I thank you,
padre, that I went to see the only one who could so take my mother's
place, because now, at last, I know what I must do."
The priest took a long breath, and drew back, mentally, to some vantage
point whence he could survey the field and plan his campaign anew. He
nodded humble acquiescence, but the small bright eyes seemed to gorge
themselves on the prince. Maximilian stirred restively. One has seen a
lion watch the trainer's whip, as though he wondered that a creature
with only a whip should yet, in some way, compel him to do this or that.
Before an obscure adventurer the monarch hastened to justify his
abdication. But it did not make him easier because the padre listened so
obsequiously, with never a quiver before the horror and misery pictured.
He only listened, this man of God, noting it all deferentially, item by
item, with a smiling gesture that he heard and understood, and was quite
ready for the next. Maximilian became aware at last of his own low
stooping. And that moment he stopped abruptly.
"The Lord reward Your Majesty's tender heart," now spoke the priest,
"and may the reward be such as a ruler should expect from his God!"
"What do you mean?" demanded Maximilian in impatient anger. "Have all
the barbarities of civil war no power to move you? Do I not know that
the savagery has already begun?"
The curate crossed himself. In humility he would bear the charge of
hardness of heart. "Power to stir me?" he repeated. "If Your Majesty
would think on his power to bring this same savagery to an end! That is
his reward offered by Heaven, the reward of bringing holy peace to a
stricken land."
"Did I not come for that? You only remind me how I have failed."
"And why, sire? Because your instruments were not blessed. The French
oppressed the Church as well as the people. But now the French are
leaving. It is the hand of Providence."
"She _said_ he would interpret the will of Heaven!" Maximilian
exclaimed.
The priest heard, stammered, and went to wreck miserably, as a hypocrite
unmasked knows that his next word must sound like hypocrisy. How slyly
she had checkmated him! Forseeing his thrust, she had countered his
every shift of cunning through this feeble fencer before him. And the
mistake he had made, in sending Maximilian to her! For a moment the
expression of the apostate Lutheran was very ugly in its baffled rage.
But he was too wise a trainer to lose patience utterly. He realized
instead that the struggle was harder than any he had yet had with his
royal dupe, since now his real antagonist was the young Frenchwoman.
"I? I interpret the word of God?" He said it very humbly, with bowed
head. "Alas, Your Majesty knows I am the last to presume to that. But
there are those who can. There is the Holy Father in Rome, who is
infallible. I only know that _he_ told Your Majesty's servant,
myself, that a ruler blessed by the Church is an instrument of God. But
if the ruler turns his back ere his work is done----"
Maximilian's nostrils were dilating strangely, and the consummate
tempter hurried on. He exalted the grandeur of the Emperor's task, yet
craftily made success appear simple and easy. The forces of "the
arch-rebel Benito Juarez" were concentrated in "a horde of impious
thieves calling themselves the Army of the North." But Miramon, His
Majesty's own general, was hastening to meet them. One decisive battle,
and there would be no more rebels. The nation must then recognize that
the Empire had sustained itself without French aid.
"Of course a few lives will be lost," he quietly sneered, "and we who do
not understand may grieve for them, but the ways of Heaven, for its own
ends, are inscrutable. Your Majesty knows that others before him, his
ancestors, have had to wade through the blood of God's enemies. But Your
Majesty's glorious ancestors were fulfilling their destiny. And why
should not you, also, sire, you who are the child of destiny?"
It was a magic word. Fischer knew his man devilishly well.
"But how can I tell," Maximilian demanded petulantly, "that my destiny
really lies in Mexico?"
"Then your destiny, sire, must lie in Europe, in Austria," was the
priest's astounding concession. "After all, a prince's intuitions, being
given him by divine revelation, can alone be his guide."
Maximilian's eyes flashed.
"Then I abdicate--herewith!"
Fischer meekly assented.
"There are rumors, nay, more than rumors," he mused aloud, "that a
strong hand is needed in Austria. I repeat only what all Europe says
boldly, that Franz Josef cannot long hold his throne. Yes, yes, sire,
but do not stare so!--Yet the crown prince is a child. Who then shall be
regent? Who but----"
"Enough, enough, I say! Now look to my orders. We start to-morrow."
The secretary beamed unctious joy that his master had so decided, and
was bowing himself out, when abruptly he paused, "Oh, I forgot, a packet
for Your Majesty."
Maximilian took the missive. It was not heavy. It did not seem as heavy
as Fate, not as heavy as a coffin.
"This is an old date," he said in a puzzled way. "See, the postmark,
'Brussels, Sept. 17.'"
"It just came by courier from Vera Cruz, being sent via New York no
doubt accounts for the delay."
Maximilian sighed. Even the post no longer considered royalty. Packets
had taken on leisurely habits since the Empire's crumbling--or since the
secretary's ascendancy. He broke the seal with tremulous fingers. The
thing must tell him of Charlotte.
"From Monsieur Éloin," he said.
"But he--he does not send bad news, nothing, sire, of Her Imperial
Highness?"
Well enough did that soul of mud know the letter's contents. Well enough
he knew that Éloin and himself could waste no time on an insane woman.
Their chances of future position were in too critical a state. And the
packet was designed for just such a crisis as the present.
Maximilian frowned, read excitedly. He was swept along as by a torrent.
Fixed on him were the small bead eyes of the priest, darting a light,
like a flame on oil. And when the Emperor gasped quickly and sprang to
his feet with hands clenched in the manner of a strong man, the priest
was ready.
"Good news, then?" he cried. "What fortune! Now Your Majesty will hurry
the faster to Vienna?"
Maximilian gave him a glance, as though he were dense to think so.
"Here, read, read it!"
M. Éloin, sycophant, courtier, had never sung for his royal patron a
roundelay more pleasing than his prose of the moment. It caused to
vibrate the very heart chords of the susceptible prince. There were
subtle appeals to spite ungratified, to wounded pride, to ambition, to
honor. The letter ran:
... Nevertheless, I am convinced that to abandon the throne now,
before the return of the French army, would be interpreted as an
act of weakness.... If this appeal (to the Mexican people) is not
heard, then Your Majesty, having accomplished his noble mission to
the end, will return to Europe with all the prestige that
accompanied his departure; and mid important events that are
certain to happen, he will be able to play the rôle that belongs
to him in every way....
And then the supreme refrain:
In passing through Austria, I was able to bear witness to the
general discontent that reigns there. Yet nothing is done yet. The
Emperor is discouraged; the people fret and publicly demand his
abdication; the sympathies for Your Majesty are spreading visibly
throughout the entire Empire; in Venetia a whole population wishes
to acclaim its former governor....
Thus it was that Éloin pilfered Jacqueline's lever, and thus he used
another fulcrum, as he had promised Charlotte he would. By pandering to
Maximilian's Austrian ambitions, he showed the weak prince how they
could yet never be realized if prestige were lost in Mexico. To keep
this prestige, to increase it, Maximilian must prove to Austria that he
could hold the empire he already had, and that without foreign bayonets.
He had only to stay a short time after the French should evacuate. And
then, within a few months, a few weeks, he might lay down the sceptre
voluntarily, to take up the one awaiting him across the ocean.
"We will leave here in the morning," cried Maximilian--"no, to-night, at
once!"
"For Vera Cruz, sire?" queried the padre.
"No, for my capital, for my palace! And father, allow no one to mention
abdication to me again. My decision to stay is irrevocable."
The padre promised faithfully that he should not be disturbed, and this
was one promise that the good padre kept.
CHAPTER X
ALONE AMONG HIS LOVING SUBJECTS
"And Jove himself shall guard a monarch's right."
--_The Iliad_.
Early one morning a month later, a solemn little group of uniformed men
climbed to the roof of Buena Vista, the imperial wedding gift to Marshal
Bazaine, and nerving themselves, pulled down the Tricolor. France, a
Napoleon, were again leaving the New World. It was Evacuation.
The Army of the Expedition came tramping down the Paseo. There were
heavy Dragoons and Cuirassiers, on majestic chargers. There were light
Chasseurs and Lancers, on fleet Arabians that had often proved
themselves against the Mexican pony. There was the clanking of steel,
and the flash of helmets through the dust. The imperial eagles, gilded
anew, were poised for flight back to their native aeries. Lower in the
earthly cloud bobbed the tasseled fez of the bronzed Zouave, and the
perky red pompon on the fighting cap of the little piou-piou. With the
steady beat of the march, the pantalons rouges crossed, spread, crossed,
spread, like regiments of bright, bloody shears. The bands played. And
yet it was not a martial scene. Feet, not hearts, lifted to the fife's
thrilling note. Nor was the multitude that thronged the wide avenue a
fiesta populace. It looked on stolidly, without a huzza, yet without a
hiss. Enthusiasm in either sense would have been relief, but the
Mexicans assisting at the bag and baggage of an invader were as unmoved
as those other spectators, the colossal figures in the glorietas; as the
two Aztec giants, leaning on their war clubs; as Guatemotzin, with high
feathered crest and spear aloft, foreboding as in life to the European
conqueror; as Columbus, who, having himself suffered, gave now no sign
of remorse for the blows which this new hemisphere gave the old; as
Charles IV. on his iron horse, who had bargained with a former Napoleon
to be called Emperor of America, and who, unlike Maximilian, had wisely
surrendered such a crown.
Cavalry, infantry, cannon, wagons, on they came through the city and
past the Zócalo, under the Cathedral towers, under the lifeless,
shuttered windows of the Palacio. Here in the Zócalo, in the central
plaza, the sometime first lady of Her Imperial Majesty's household sat
in her barouche, and opposite her a pretty girl, and she was talking
with an officer of Chasseurs d'Afrique whose horse was restive, and all
the while there was the rumbling of wheels, the tread of feet, and the
ring of hoofs.
The sometime first lady was saying good-bye to the officer, as she had
already to many another gallant chevalier pausing beside her carriage.
But for her it was farewell to all her countrymen there, to the little
piou-pious most of all, and her gray eyes were frankly moist.
"And now they are going," she mused aloud, "really going, because,
parbleau, a monsieur in Washington says they must."
"I wish to heaven," swore the young officer gloomily, "some monsieur
would say as much to you! See here, we'd give you and Mademoiselle
Berthe enough room on the ship for a barracks, if you'd only come.
There's a many less welcome," and he jerked his head toward a stream of
vehicles straggling among the troops. They were filled with Mexican
aristocrats whose doubtful titles had been revived by the Empire, all
eagerly accepting French transport out of their native land.
Jacqueline laughed. "They're so afraid of the Liberals, they will forget
their escutcheons. So of course they've forgotten the bouquets. You
should have seen the garlands, Michel, that heralded our grand entry
here. Oh, lá-lá! We paid for them ourselves. Thus arrived the Drapeau
Civilizateur de la France. And now behold the departure. Not the cost of
a violet to spare from Napoleon's strong chest! Hé mais, hear that tune!
It's 'Leaving for Syria,' the thing decreed into our national hymn. For
once I'm glad, glad it's not the 'Marseillaise.'"
"Mademoiselle--dear friend," spoke the slow-thinking Michel, "you do not
wish to answer my question. Why do you stay behind, alone? Why? Nothing
good ever happens to anyone in this country, and who can tell what might
happen to you when the army is gone? Come now," he went on, forcing some
bluff cheer into his words, "Jeanne d'Aumerle, your friends want you out
of it. Fall in with us, here, now. Let me give the order, 'Cocher, à
Paris!--Voilà, what more's to be done?"
Indeed, what more simple? Or more to be desired? Yet there was nothing
she desired less. She thought of what she had found in Mexico, and must
leave behind. It was a dead thing, true, and already buried. But--the
grave was too fresh as yet. However, the real reason for her staying
involved something else.
She made no reply, for at the moment a strange voice, with a jagged
Mexican accent and a thin insidious inflection, broke in upon them, and
startled them all three.
"Nay, Monsieur le Duc," it began, rolling the title as a morsel on the
tongue. "Your Grace would deprive us of too much honor. Why, indeed,
should mademoiselle not remain among us?"
Turning quickly, Jacqueline beheld the stranger's black eyes upon
herself. He, too, wished to know why she stayed in Mexico, but in his
sharp, shifting look there was a penetration quite different from that
of the guileless Michel. He bestrode a magnificent horse that seemed
made for armor, whereas he himself would surely have been crushed under
so much as a Crusader's buckler. Being so very small, and perched so
very high, he cut a ludicrously martial figure with his plumed hat and
epaulettes and gold buttons and braid and medals and exquisitely mounted
sabre. It was not a French uniform that he wore, but Mexican Imperial,
and stupendously ornate. And within the brave array, he was such a
little, little man!--insignificance glorified into caricature.
But the pigmy was not altogether on parade. He had that morning been
receiving arsenals and fortresses from the French; in short, the keys of
the Empire. For he was Commander in Chief of the Imperial armies, was
this species of manikin. And ugly? He was a man of lifted upper lip
under a bristling moustache, a man of fangs, a wee, snarling, strutting,
odious creature of a man. A deep livid scar split his cheek and would
not heal. Instead of arousing sympathy, it proclaimed him rather for the
scratches he gave to others. For he was that Mexican of infamous name,
the Leopard. Once he had looted the British Legation. Another time he
massacred young medical students attending the wounded of both sides.
There were stories of children speared and tossed in ditches. Yet
certain priests blessed his ardor as defender of the Church. Maximilian
had sent him on a mission to Palestine, since he was abhorrent to the
moderates. But now he was back again, to lead the clerical armies. The
valley of Mexico shrank from his brutal proclamation demanding
submission. "Mexicans, you know me!" so ended the snarl. He gathered
forced loans. He drafted peons, though they were exempt. He emptied the
prisons, and convicts he sent in chains as recruits for the Imperial
garrisons. In such a fashion Leonardo Marquez began his duties as
generalísimo of the Empire.
"Your Excellency is most kind," said Jacqueline, for no other reason
than to annoy him by changing from French into his own language.
"On the contrary," returned Marquez, "I am flattered that you will be
here to observe how we, alone, shall crush the rebels. Your countrymen,
señorita, happily leave plenty of them. But I cannot believe that this
is why you remain."
"Make her tell you, then," interposed the helpless Ney. He was utterly
at sea. There was a trial of strength on between these two, but how or
for what was quite beyond him.
Jacqueline pushed back the Persian shawl she wore--this fifth day of
February was the Mexican springtime--and settled herself to the contest
in earnest. "I fear," she began slowly, "that my motive in staying can
hardly be intelligible, unless, perhaps, Your Excellency knows why I
came to Mexico in the first place. No señor, that blank smile of yours
will not serve. Your Excellency cannot feign ignorance of public
gossip."
"Of course, I have heard that----"
"To be sure you have," she returned dryly, "and you might add that I
failed, since Maximilian has not yet abdicated. But Your Excellency is
not one to imagine that the end can be long delayed."
She, too, was searching for a motive, his motive in the interview.
"The Mexicans alone will sustain our patriotic ruler," stoutly declared
the generalísimo. "But let us suppose, merely for pastime, that His
Majesty does abdicate. What then? What profit to France, since at this
moment, before our eyes, her army is leaving?"
Jacqueline smoothed the ruffled pleats on her full gray skirt. They
looked like an exaggerated railroad on a map, and doubtless needed
smoothing.
"And remotely supposing," she said, "that our army _might_ come
back again?"
Then, in a flash, she raised her eyes, and surprised the start he gave.
But she laughed at once, and at him, for taking her nonsense as serious.
"No," she exclaimed, "Your Excellency can more easily recall Santa Anna
from his island exile."
This, too, was nonsense, or so he was forced to consider it. But knowing
that the Empire could not endure, he was believed even then to be
negotiating with the rich former dictator. In his scowl Jacqueline
discovered what she sought. He wanted, in brief, to negotiate with
Napoleon also, and he wanted to negotiate through her. Napoleon could
bid higher than Santa Anna. She saw, moreover, what was worrying the
traitor. If Napoleon did not mean to bid, why then was she staying in
Mexico?
Marquez glanced fretfully at Ney and Berthe. If he might be honored in
the privilege of calling to pay his respects?----
But Jacqueline regretted that she was to be too much occupied in
preparations for her own early departure. And that very evening she sent
a note to Maximilian, frankly warning him against the Leopard. But she
warned His Majesty farther, that if he did not heed, that when it should
be too late to save him in any case, and Marquez still had something to
sell, that then she would advise her own emperor, should her own emperor
wish to buy. Hoping, though, for the best, she sent by Ney a message to
Bazaine at the head of the column, suggesting that he delay embarkation
as long as possible. She had in mind Maximilian awakened to the
faithlessness of his chief support and wishing to overtake the French
troops.
For which it appears that Jacqueline still wielded a free lance,
belonging to her own country alone and owning no master other than her
own conscience.
As Bazaine at the army's head rode through the Zócalo, he looked up to
find the palatial shutters closed. The Mexican Empire was sulking like a
spiteful child. The marshal wearily shrugged his shoulders, and thought
on the ingratitude of princes. But the silence of the Palace was only a
pose, mean and despicable. Maximilian himself was peeping through the
shutters down upon the gallant, moving sea of color. It was a stream of
gleaming bayonets, of champing horses, of lumbering artillery. His eyes
would single out and cling to this or that figure till it was lost in
the street beyond, and then he would try to realize that it was lost to
him forever. For the street beyond lay toward the coast, where many
ships awaited. The archducal petulance gave way to vague melancholy.
Finally he looked upon the last swinging foot, then at the dust
settling. Below, in the Zócalo, what had been a fringe of mourning
around the troops, became a scurrying of human creatures. They were his
subjects. Not a French uniform remained, but the prince sighed heavily
as he turned from his ignoble peep-hole. Courtiers and counselors
glanced at each other significantly. By tacit consent one among them
spoke.
"Free at last, sire, free at last! Ah, see them, there below. They know
their shackles are broken, they know that the foreign invader who
chilled their allegiance is gone. Nay more, their loyalty has already
borne fruit. In the north, sire----"
"How, father? You do not mean----"
"Yes, sire, yes, the mother of God be praised! I mean victory, and death
to many traitors. The news has just come. Miramon has won a decisive
battle and taken Zacatecas."
"Zacatecas! But Juarez was there?"
"Yes, sire, and Miramon entered so suddenly the arch rebel surely could
not have escaped."
"Juarez taken, that man taken!"
"Even so, sire, And"--Fischer's interlaced fingers tightened until the
veins grew large--"and, it only remains for Your Majesty to dispose of
him, according to the law."
Maximilian trembled with joy. He was master of the situation. His people
had made him master. Here was divine right vindicated. It was--Destiny!
He had but to follow whither the heavenly finger pointed. And in
rapture, he seized his pen.
Palace of Mexico, Feb. 5th, 1867.
My dear General Miramon:
I charge you particularly, in case you do capture Don Benito
Juarez, Don Sebastian Lerdo de Tejado, and others of his suite,
to have them tried and condemned by a council of war ... but
the sentence is not to be executed before receiving Our
approbation....
Your affectionate
Maximiliano.
Bazaine and the French camped the first night, the next day, and yet
another night outside the City, waiting. They did not reach Puebla until
the tenth. The rear guard fell farther and farther behind, keeping the
road open. At last there was news. Juarez had escaped Miramon at
Zacatecas, warned in time through some mysterious agency. And farther,
Miramon had encountered another Republican army, by whom he was not only
defeated, but routed completely. In panic he was fleeing to Querétero.
"Maximilian must surely abdicate now," thought Bazaine, and he sent back
a message. "I can," he wrote, "yet extend a hand to His Majesty to help
him retire."
In Vera Cruz the marshal waited for an answer. Day after day passed, and
then the answer came. Too late, was its refrain. Maximilian had left his
capital with what troops he could spare. He had left for Querétero, to
join Miramon there.
Bazaine, the last to quit the shore, climbed aboard his ship, and taking
one final look for a chance horseman with word to wait yet longer, and
seeing none, gave the order to weigh anchor.
CHAPTER XI
FATALITY AND THE MISSOURIAN
"Si debbe ai colpi della sua fortuna
Voltar il viso di lagrime asciutto."
--_Machiavelli._
The mountain villages were arming. Bronzed men, savagely joyful, poured
from under roofs of thatch, strapping on great black lead-weighted
belts. In the corrals others lassoed horses. It looked like a sudden
changing from peaceful highland domesticity, as the clans of Scotland or
the cantons of Helvetia might gather. But these men were not rising to
defend their homes. The hamlets clustered among the crags were their
barracks, nothing more. The wildest cañons of the Sierra Madre del Sur,
far away in the rocky southwestern corner of the continent, were only
their camping grounds, their refuge. To be armed was their natural
state. They were fighters by occupation. They were an army. Unceasing
hardship and constant peril had seasoned them, and their discipline was
perfect, unconscious, because it came from the herding instinct of
wolves. During years they had waged war against a ruthless foe, and
they, too, were relentless. The penalty of defeat was massacre.
The foe of this army was a greater army, and between the two it was a
duel of chieftains, of General Régules in the Sierra, of General Mendez
on the plain. Deadlier antagonists might not be imagined. Mendez, he who
had shot two Republican generals under the Black Decree, was above all
men the likeliest to hold stubborn Michoacan for the Empire. But even he
failed, because the man against him was not less a man than he, because
also the spark of resistance to sceptre and crosier never dies out in
Michoacan.
The man as good as he was Régules. A Spaniard, Régules had fought with
the Catholic Don Carlos. And now, he was suffering for Mexican Liberals
the most that any general can suffer, defeat after defeat, and sometimes
annihilation. But he was a Marion, a Fabius. He knew the mountain
recesses as no one else, even better than Mendez, who was born among
them, and here he would gather fugitives, draft every straggler, until
in time he sallied forth again to badger his arch enemy. He hoped only
to exist till that day when the French should leave Empire and Republic
face to face, on equal terms. It had taken tenacious faith and gloomy
years, but the day came at last. The news sifted through defile and
gorge. The invader had embarked for Toulon. Nearer at hand Mendez had
evacuated Morelia, and was marching to Querétero. And at Querétero was
Miramon, driven there from the north by Escobedo. At Querétero was the
Emperor--was the Empire, desperate, ferocious, an animal at bay. Out
boldly upon the plain, then! But no longer as a slinking guerrilla
horde! As an army rather, with thrilling bugles and the Mexican eagle
aloft, and regiment numbers in gold on pennons of brightest red! For the
Empire was the hunted mad-dog now, and the dignified host was the
Republic. The barracks of the Sierra were arming.
In one of the corrals an officer of cavalry was quelling insubordination
with soft words. But the mutineers, not knowing their man, did not
fathom the dangerous sweetness of his tone. They were deserters from
Mendez, come that morning, and as they had horses, were foisted on the
officer's splendid troop. But like the native infantry, they insisted
that their women, the soldaderas, should go with them on what was to be
a swift march to Querétero. Having brought useful information concerning
Mendez, they were insolent in their demands.
"Now, muchachos," said the officer of cavalry, "you see how absurd it
is, so quiet down. The women can follow later."
"A Gringo to dictate to us, bless me the saints! Us, free Mexicans, and
Republicans!" And the ringleader drew his machete and rushed on the
officer.
The Gringo smiled, in a way that a man rarely smiles. His eyes opened in
mild surprise, and as the mutineers looked to see his head roll from his
shoulders, he was still smiling in that poisonously sweet way. Perhaps
there passed across his face just the shadow of pity or of revulsion,
but none might say for certain, because of a pistol's flash that came so
quickly after. With the report the assailant plunged headlong, and on
the ground seemed to shrivel in his rags. Behind the smoke the officer
was carelessly holding a large black revolver, no higher than his hip.
"Because," he added, "it's not a woman's game."
Then he thrust the weapon back under his ribs and sauntered away. The
mutineers gaped in trembling at his back. When they picked up the
ringleader, they saw that his fingers had been neatly clipped at the
hilt of the machete.
The cavalry officer was Driscoll--but changed! He was changed as bland
Mephisto would change a man, if the material were adaptable and Mephisto
an artist. Such exquisite gentleness in peril and in slaying could be no
other than the devil's own, and in the most devilishly artistic mood of
that suave dilettante.
It was natural that any man should color somewhat into a desperado,
considering such an existence among those Sierras, but Driscoll was a
desperado refined by cynicism. And yet there was still naught of
self-consciousness in it all. The change had not been abrupt, but
gradual, as a growing into maturity. The roughened native instincts of a
gentleman had sobered from Quixotic impulses into a diabolic calm. His
bravery was turned to cool and almost supernatural self possession,
mocked withal by gentleness. And yet he was not a villain. To the
mutineers, to those who beheld his smile, he seemed a fiend. But his
horse knew no change in him, which was significant. Something had gone
wrong, that was all. The young man who had looked out on the world, half
challenging, half expectant, must have seen too suddenly that part of
life which is unlovely. However, the thing may not be thus easily
explained. The soul of a man, when bent or distorted under stress, is a
weird and fearful growth. One may contemplate it in awe; but understand
it, never.
More than a year before, when Driscoll changed sides, he was embarrassed
to find a side to change to, so thoroughly had the Empire swept away all
vestiges of the Liberal strength. But on achieving that farewell of his
to Mendez, he rode happily southward, with some vague notion of tracking
the Republic into Michoacan. The first night he slept under the stars
mid tunas and Spanish daggers, and when he awoke it was to find a
strange Indito squatting patiently at his feet. He sat up and rubbed his
eyes at what might have been a Hindoo image, except that it doffed a
straw sombrero.
"Y'r Mercy is awake?" queried the idol.
"N-o, but it will probably not be long now. Who in thunder are you?"
The Indito explained, and Driscoll covered his knees with his hands, and
stared and grew more astounded. The ragged fellow said that he had
escaped from Mendez's camp by squirming on his belly through the cacti,
and he had followed the American señor, on foot. He was, he added, a
Republican spy.
Driscoll mechanically drew his pistol, but recalled that now he also was
Republican.
"But why follow me?" he demanded.
"I was sent to watch only Y'r Mercy, Y'r Mercy's thousand pardons."
"The devil!"
"And with Y'r Mercy's permission, I was to kill Y'r Mercy at the first
chance. But since Y'r Mercy has changed sides----"
"Now look here, who--who put you up to this business, I want to know?"
The man shrugged his shoulders. He only knew that a señor chaparro had
sent him.
"A short señor?" Driscoll repeated. "Then we might call you a Shorter
Yet, and maybe you know where this República is hiding out?"
The Indito brightened. "That's why I'm here, señor. I'll take Y'r Mercy
to the Citizen General Régules."
At the name Driscoll frowned involuntarily, but laughed as he again
remembered that he no longer shared the Imperialist hates.
"Régules?" he repeated. "But we all thought he was dead, since the last
time we scoured his mountains."
"That the Virgin would have let me kill Y'r Mercy before then!" said the
Indito regretfully. "But no matter, Y'r Mercy will discover that the
citizen general is still alive."
And so he was. They found him in the wildest of the wild region of the
Sierra Madre del Sur, far away beyond the Rio de las Balsas, beyond
Michoacan, in the impassable tierra caliente of the Pacific slope. The
Indians here were the Pintos, who knew naught of the world outside, and
owned allegiance to none but a grizzly old dictator, royally described
as the Panther of the South. One thing was certain, the Empire could
never follow Régules to the fever and ambush of the Panther's marshy
realm, and Régules was hard pressed indeed when he sought such
protection. But he was there now, in that last refuge of Liberalism,
alone, wounded, fever stricken, emaciated, but undaunted. Driscoll found
him so, and became his first recruit.
For the moment Régules had no army, but armies were only weapons
brandished by the real principals in the duel. Over battle and rout and
slaughter the two chiefs would glare each at the other, blade in hand
and panting, but either ever ready for the stroke that should thrust
through the army to the heart of its general. Such a struggle needed
only antiquity and a bard to be Homeric. No Greek could equal either
champion in cunning, nor Trojan in prowess, nor both in grim persistence
and rugged hate. It was truly a fight to have a hand in, and with big,
lusty zest, the Storm Centre bounded into the lists. He leaped backward
into the age of colossal, naked emotions, which strove as great veined
giants with a rude splendor that was barbaric. It was the grandeur of
primeval man, of majesty resting on him who fought best. After a
thousand years of roof and tableware a man may be no longer primeval,
but he is no longer quite a man either if his primeval state does not
sometimes appeal to him. As for the young Missourian, he was enthralled.
During that winter, the Spaniard and the American were a recruiting
squad of two, picking up the seeds of rebellion among the fertile rocks.
The vago, or poor Indito, was drafted wherever caught. Guerrilla
fugitives rejoined their leader. The little band grew slowly, but in
appearance merited Mendez's contemptuous epithet of brigand thieves.
Fluttering yellow rags revealed only leathery-hided bones. Sandals
sloughed away. There were a few machetes, and one or two venerable
musketoons. But the commoner weapon was a heavy wooden staff, used for
trudging up the steep paths. Imagine a Mexican abandoning his horse! But
pursuers often tracked "the brigand thieves" by their mounts dying here
and there--a pitiful blazed trail. And their exhausted riders often lay
down as well, and would not rise, though Régules lashed them, though the
terrible Mendez followed close behind. If at this time the Republic
compared its conditions with the tapestried court in Mexico, then hope
of success must have seemed lugubrious irony. Yet there was the
watchword still, "Viva la Intervención del Norte!" Régules looked to the
United States to drive away the French. Driscoll's face would twist to a
grimace. It was a peculiar position for an ex-Confederate.
The Republicans in Michoacan were cut off from all outside help, while
those along the Rio Grande drew from the friendly Americans in Texas
much aid and comfort. Driscoll pondered on this, until in June he got
leave to go to the Córdova colony and there enlist, if possible, his old
comrades of Shelby's brigade. The result is known. After the affair at
Tampico, he came back with a troop of colonels. They were the nucleus of
a cavalry which he loved more than Demijohn, more than his ugly pistols,
more than his pipe.
It was a grim affection that Driscoll bore his regiment of horse. He was
no longer the same man as when he left. He returned from Córdova with a
mood on him, which settled more and more heavily as he nursed his troops
into a splendid fighting machine. There was a dangerously quiet
exultation in the patience with which he built the regiment up to full
strength and trained it into the power of a brigade. He did wonders
through the idea, pleasantly instilled, that much of the fun of fighting
lies in the winning, and he demolished, as an absurd fetich, the idea
that the hunted men of Régules were doomed never to win.
Thus he labored with the Inditos, his terrible little fatalists in
combat. There were enough to choose from, since by now the tide of
desertion was changing toward the Republic. The problem of mounts in
time solved itself. The French began selling their horses rather than
transport them back to Europe, and these being declared contraband of
war by the Liberal government, were complacently taken away from their
owners without even Juarez script in payment. The question of arms
proved more troublesome, but the answer at last was even more
satisfactory. For the besieged at Quéretero, Driscoll's troop later
became some unfamiliar dragon hissing an incessant flame of poisonous
breath. This was due to a strange and mystical weapon which not only
carried a ball farther than any rifle known before, but sixteen of them,
one after the other. The strange and mystical weapon multiplied a lone
man into a very genii of death, until the Missourian's twelve hundred
were more to be dreaded than many battalions.
The repeating rifles, it may be explained, formed a part of the cache
which General Shelby had made on crossing into Mexico. He had taken
them, among other things, from the Confederate depositories in Texas.
Driscoll knew of the cache through Boone, and by infinite patience had
it brought into Michoacan. A solitary Indito journeyed eight hundred
miles unnoticed with some seeming fragments of scrap iron. Other vagos
were in front of him. Others followed. And these passed yet others,
empty handed, trudging in the opposite direction. So an arsenal came to
the Sierra Madre del Sur all the way from the Rio Grande, and each and
every cavalier, whether miserable ranchero or veteran Missourian, became
an engine of destruction, good for a fusillade of forty shots without
the biting of a cartridge, for sixteen from his rifle, for six from each
of his revolvers, and after these, good for terrific in-fighting with
his dragoon sabre. It was no marvel that Driscoll loved such a troop,
but the wonder lay in his smile, soft and purring and far-away, as he
stroked his murderous darling.
Colonel Daniel Boone, chief of scouts, was harassed nearly to insomnia
over the change in his friend. At the bottom of the mystery there must
be inspiration for a glowing line, and with pen ready poised over the
violet fluid of romance, it was disheartening to have the solution elude
him. He proposed clues as a poet tests rhymes. There was vendetta. There
was blighted passion. But he ruefully discarded both. Either would be
marked by violent growth, while this thing that touched the Storm Centre
formed as slowly as the gravity of wisdom. But what baffled most was
that Driscoll himself was completely oblivious. If _he_ knew
nothing of the effect, how then could one ask him about the cause?
Daniel, however, overlooked the fact that a malady may break out
variously, according to temperament. As an instance Daniel's patient
would lose himself in reverie, long and deep and mellowing. Now he was
riding with a girl whose gray eyes were upon him in that pensive way she
had; or rather, in the pensive way of a girl who finds herself in love,
and wondering at it, seeks to learn the reason through a grave scrutiny
of the object. It seemed very good to be riding with her again like
that, for there was a soothing sense of companionship, of dear
camaraderie that needed no words, but only that expression of her mouth
and a pair of gray eyes. The day dream, while it lasted, had nothing of
bitterness, but lulled his soul instead, and when it passed, he would be
left with thankfulness for his moment of fleeting bliss and ineffable
comfort. Or again, he awoke to reality with a longing that fiercely
would not be denied. "Oh, I want--Jack'leen!" Often and often the
imperious smothered cry all but passed his lips. And then he would shake
himself, as out of physical slumber, and he would take up his life
again. But he would be a shade deeper in the devil's own mood, of
gentleness and a smile.
After Cuernavaca Driscoll had brooded somewhat, yet rather as a boy
whose melancholy is callow and easily fades. But during that evening in
Boone's cabin, he had changed to a man, for it was then he came to know
the meaning of possession, and in the same moment he learned the meaning
of loss. A dull and indefinable resentment thereafter grew on him. But
against whom? Against no one, perhaps. Yet he had had a vision of his
life's dearest happiness, and it was gone, that vision, beyond recall.
Ignorant as he was of Jacqueline's mission, Driscoll had but one
explanation. A man had been born a prince, and a prince dazzles a woman.
Yet the rankling in him was neither because of the prince, nor because
of the woman. It was much more hopeless than that. It was because a man
could be born a prince at all. Something was out of harmony in the
world. The irony of it made him grim, and to his sense of humor that
such things could be came the smile. A prince in the New World and in
the Nineteenth Century!--Now here was as incongruous a juxtaposition as
a bull in a crockery shop. And the result?--A people robbed of their
dignity as men; a spike among the cogs, and the machinery everywhere
grinding discordantly. For the pilfered people, however, the matter
could be righted, and Driscoll felt his vague wrath as one with theirs.
Together they would drive the bull from the shop. The Mexicans could
later repair _their_ crockery. But as to his own precious little
bit of bric-à-brac, that was shattered beyond hope. His only balm was to
help the other sufferers. His only resentment was against fatality. But
to pout at fatality is such a foolish business that he smiled, in a
gentlemanly, sardonic way. Lucifer himself would be obsequious before
fatality. And as for presuming to chastise it, that does indeed require
the devil's own mood.
CHAPTER XII
THE RENDEZVOUS OF THE REPUBLIC
"It may be short, it may be long,
'Tis reckoning-day!' sneers unpaid Wrong."
--_Lowell._
It was a long column that undulated over the cacti plain with the
turnings of the national highway. Men and horses bent like whitened
spectres under a cloud of saltpetre dust. They burned with thirst, and
had burned during fifteen days of forced marching over bad roads. They
kept their ranks after the manner of soldiers, else they would have
seemed a hurrying mob, for there was scant boast of uniforms. The
officers wore shoulder straps of green or yellow, and some of the men
had old military caps, high and black, with manta flaps protecting the
neck.
Except for an occasional pair of guaraches, or sandals, the infantry
trudged barefoot, little leather-heeled Mercuries who cared nothing for
thorns. Their olive faces, running with sweat, were for the most part
typically humble, patient under fatigue, lethargic before peril. Here
and there one held the hand of his soldadera, like him a stoic brown
creature, who shared his hardships that she might be near to grind his
ration of corn into tortillas. Veterans were there who had fought the
French at Puebla, and on coarse frayed shirts displayed their heroes'
medals. Some among them had meantime served the Empire, and had lately
deserted back again--but no matter. In the cavalry there were those who
on a time had ridden against the Americans in Santa Anna's famous guard.
Now they rode with Driscoll, among the Missourians. And the Missourians
sang:
"My name it is Joe Bowers,
And I've got a brother Ike;
I come from old Missouri,
Yes, all the way from Pike."
Their mouths opened wide to the salty dust, and they roared with
great-lunged humor, the stentor note of Tall Mose Bledsoe--Colonel
Bledsoe of the State of Pike--far and away in the van of the chorus.
Even the Mexicans, who comprised over half the regiment, chanted forth
the tune. They had heard it often enough, and thought it a species of
appropriate national hymn. Only the colonel of the troop rode in
silence, but not gloomily. This playfulness of his pet before a snarl
was music that he liked. The other Missouri colonels (brevet) were as
boys ever, were still only Joe Shelby's "young men for war." There was
Colonel Marmaduke of Platte. There was Colonel Crittenden of Nodaway.
There was Colonel Grinders from the Ozarks. There was Colonel Clay of
Carroll, and Colonel Carroll of Clay. These were captains. Colonel
Bledsoe was a major, and so was Colonel Boone, also chief of scouts.
Colonel Clayburn, otherwise the "Doc" of Benton, was ranking surgeon;
while the chaplain, lovingly known as "Old Brothers and Sisters," and
the choicest fighter among them, was lieutenant-colonel.
Of course some of the four or five hundred colonels had to be privates.
But they did not mind, they were colonels just the same. Which provoked
complications, especially with a Kansan who had wandered among them some
time since. The Kansan, whose name was Collins, was an ex-Federal, even
one of their ancient and warmest enemies, of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry.
And being a mettlesome young man into the bargain, he rose by unanimous
consent to command a native company of the troop. But Captain Collins
found it hard to address a Missouri private as colonel, and to be
addressed by the Missouri private as an inferior in rank. A sporadic
outburst of jayhawker warfare generally ensued. But according to the
merger treaty between the Republic of Colonels and the República
Mexicana, the Missourian was strictly in his rights. Besides, both
needed the exercise, and after the business of fists, formality dropped
of itself. Captain Collins thereupon became "Harry;" and the private
"Ben" or "Jim," or whatever else.
Driscoll's troop wanted for nothing. Regimentals, luckily, were not
considered a want. But in replacing worn-out slouch hats and cape-coats,
the Americans set an approximate standard, which was observed also by
their fellow troopers among the Mexicans. They were able to procure
sombreros, wide-brimmed and high-peaked, of mouse-colored beaver with a
rope of silver. The officers and many of the men had long Spanish capas,
or cloaks, which were black and faced in gray velvet. Their coats were
short charro jackets. As armor against cacti, they either had "chaps" or
trousers "foxed" over in leather, with sometimes a Wild Western fringe.
They came to be known as the Gray Troop, or the Gringo Grays. The
natives themselves were proudest of the latter title.
The brigade marched as victors, but they remembered how they had
formerly skulked as hunted guerrillas, and also, how Mendez had scourged
the dissident villages. They found bodies hanging to trees. At Morelia a
citizen who cried "Viva la Libertad!" had been brained with a sabre. It
was the hour for reprisals. And Régules exacted suffering of the
_mocho_, or clerical, towns that had sheltered the "traitors."
Requisitions for arms, horses, and provisions marked his path. Deserters
swelled his ranks. He had enough left-overs from the evacuation to
organize what in irony he called his Foreign Legion. At Acámbaro a
second Republican army, under General Corona--"welcomer than a stack of
blues," as Boone said--more than doubled their force, and together they
hastened on to Querétero.
But at Celaya, when men were thinking of rest in the cool monasteries
there, they learned that they must not pause. The word came from El
Chaparrito, who ever watched the Empire as a hawk poised in mid-air.
General Escobedo of the Army of the North had pursued Miramon south into
Querétero, but only to find him reinforced there by Mendez and the
troops from the capital. This superior array meant to attack Escobedo,
then turn and destroy Corona and Régules. The Republicans, therefore,
must be united at once.
The message was no sooner heard than the two weary brigades of Corona
and Régules set forth again. They covered the remaining thirty miles
that night, expecting a victorious Imperialist army at each bend in the
road. But they met instead, toward morning, a lone Imperialist horseman
galloping toward them. Régules's sharp eyes caught the glint of the
stranger's white gold-bordered sombrero, and with a large Castilian oath
he plucked out his revolver. Driscoll touched his arm soothingly.
"But, María purísima," cried Régules, "he's an Explorador!"
The Exploradores were Mendez's scouts, his bloodhounds for a Republican
trail, and the most hated of all that breed.
"Aye, Señor General," the stranger now spoke, "I was even the capitan of
Exploradores, who kisses Your Mercy's hand."
There was a familiar quality in the man's half chuckle, and Driscoll
hastily struck a match. In its light a face grew before him, and a pair
of malevolent eyes, one of them crossed and beaming recognition, met
his.
"Well, Tibby?" said Driscoll quietly.
"First your pistols, then what you know," commanded Régules. "Here, in
between us. Talk as we ride, or----"
Don Tiburcio complied. Such had been his intention.
"I am no more a loyal Imperialist," he announced, with a gruesome
contortion of the mouth.
"Nor a live deserter for long," said Régules. "Quick, what's the news at
Querétero?"
"Carrai, my news and more will jolt out if I open my mouth. Eh, mi
coronel," he added to Driscoll, "you've taught this barbarous gait to
the Republic too, I see?"
"Better obey orders," Driscoll warned him gently.
"But there's no need of hurry, señores. Not now, there isn't."
"You mean the Imperialists have whipped Escobedo, that----"
"Not so fast, mi general. If they had, wouldn't I want you to hurry, for
then there'd be a conquering Empire waiting for you?"
"Colonel Driscoll," said Régules, "fall back a step. I'm going to kill
this fellow now."
"As you wish, general. But he's got something to tell."
"Then por Dios, why doesn't he?"
"Yes, Tibby, why don't you?"
Don Tiburcio cocked a puzzled head toward the American. He had not known
such softness of voice in Mendez's former captain of Lancers. But he saw
that Driscoll had drawn his pistol, which accorded so grimly with the
mildness of his tone that the scout chuckled in delight and admiration.
"You know that I'll tell--now," he said reproachfully. "In a word,
there's been no battle at all, curse him, curse both----"
"No battle! Escobedo kept away then?"
"No, not even that. The Imperialists would not fight, and the Empire has
lost its last chance. Curse them both, curse----"
"Well, curse away, but who, what?"
"I curse, señores mios," and the scout's words grated in rage and
chagrin, "I curse His Excellency the general-of-division-in-chief of the
army of operations, Don Leonardo Marquez. I curse, señores, the Reverend
Señor Abbot, Padre Augustin Fischer----"
"Good, that's finished. Now tell us why there was no battle."
"I curse His Ex----"
"You have already, but now----"
Tiburcio flung up his hand in a gesture of assent, and his ugly features
relaxed. Though going at a brisk trot, he rolled a cigarette and lighted
it. Then he told his story. Querétero? Ha, Querétero was now the Court,
the Army, the Empire! Pious townsmen shouted "Viva el Señor Emperador!"
all day long. The cafés were alive with uniforms and oaths and high
play. Padres and friars shrived with ardor. There was the theatre.
Fashion promenaded under the beautiful Alameda trees, and whispered the
latest rumors of the Empress Carlota. Maximilian decorated the brave,
and bestowed gold fringed standards. Then came Escobedo and his Legion
del Norte, but they kept behind the hills. Bueno, the Empire would go
forth and smite them, and the pious townspeople climbed to the housetops
to see it done. And yesterday morning the Empire, with banners flying
and clarion blasts, did march out and form in glittering battle array.
"And then, hombre?"
"And then the Empire marched back again, señores."
Régules and Driscoll were stupefied. What gross idiocy--or
treachery--had thrown away the Empire's one magnificent chance?
Tiburcio sucked in his breath. "I curse----"
"Marquez?" cried Régules.
"Si señor, Marquez! Marquez cried out against the attack, and His
Majesty ordered the troops back into town again."
"But Miramon, hombre? Miramon, the best among you, where was he?"
"General Miramon fairly begged to fight, but he has been defeated once,
and now Marquez warns the Emperor against Miramon's 'imprudence.'
Marquez is chief of staff, and crows over Miramon, who was once his
president. He personally ordered Miramon off the field, yet it was
Miramon who first made the insolent little whelp into a general."
"This," said Driscoll, "does not explain why you desert to us?"
For an instant the old malignant humor gleamed in the baleful crescent.
"It's the fault of the fat padrecito," he replied. "Your Mercy perhaps
does not know about the pretty servant he eloped with from the Bishop of
Durango's to Murguía's hacienda? Well, but trouble started when I saw
her, or rather, when she saw me, even me, señor, for then she perceived
that the padrecito was not a handsome man. Presto, there was another
eloping, and the holy Father Fischer felt bad, so very bad that when he
got into favor with Maximilian, he had me condemned for certain
toll-taking matters he knew of. But I vanished in time, and I've been
serving under Mendez as a loyal and undiscouraged Imperialist until
yesterday. But yesterday the padre recognized me at a review of the
troops. Your Mercy figures to himself how long I waited after that? Your
Mercy observed how fast I was riding?"
The fellow's audacity saved him. The news he brought proved correct.
Escobedo had not been attacked. Besides, Régules perhaps hoped to trap
Mendez through the former Imperialist scout, though Driscoll derided the
idea and even counseled the worthy deserter's execution.
Don Tiburcio's lank jaw dropped. Driscoll's advice was too heavy a
recoil on his own wits, for had he not once saved the Gringo's life,
feeling that one day he might be a beneficiary of the Gringo's singular
aversion to shooting people? And now here was the Gringo in quite
another of his unexpected humors. But what bothered Don Tiburcio most
was the acumen that tempered the American's mercy. The facts indeed
stood as Driscoll casually laid them before General Régules. Tibby, for
instance, had neglected to call himself a "loyal" Republican. Asked for
a description of the new earthworks on the Cerro de las Campanas, he
only told how peons and criminals were forced to carry adobes there
though exposed to Escobedo's sharpshooters, which had in it for Tibby
the subtle element of a jest. Or asked about the new powder mills, he
described how Maximilian slept patriotically wrapped in a native serape,
woven with the eagle and colors, or related how the Emperor won the
hearts of soldiers and citizens by his princely and ever amiable
bearing.
"Now sing us the national hymn," said Driscoll, "and the betrayal of
your former friends will be complete."
But though Don Tiburcio had deserted for convenience and perhaps meant
to be a spy in the dissident camp, yet Régules saved him, while Driscoll
lifted his shoulders indifferently and at heart was not sorry.
The Celaya road, crossing a flat country, first touches Querétero on its
southwestern corner, and from here the two Republican brigades beheld
the ancient romantic town in the dawn as they approached. Many beautiful
Castilian towers, stately and tapering to needles of stone, rose from
among flat roofs and verdure tufts, and pointed upward to a sky as soft
and warm as over the Tuscan hills. Other spires were Gothic, and others
truncated, but the temples that gave character to the whole were those
of Byzantine domes. Lighted by the sun's level rays of early morning,
their mosaic colors glittered as in some bright glare of Algeria, but
were relieved by the town's cooling fringe of green and the palms of
many plazas within. It might have been a Moorish city, in Happy Arabia
called paradise, a city of fountains, and wooded glens, like haunts of
mythical fauns. Querétero once boasted a coat of arms, granted by a
condescending Spanish monarch, and for loyalty to the hoary order of
king and church she in those old days described herself as Very Noble
and Royal. Stern cuirassed conquistadores held her as a key to the
nation's heart, as a buckler for the capital, and lately the French did
also. And now the Hapsburg had come to a welcome of garlands, and called
her his "querida."
But however excellently Querétero served as a base of military
operations, as a besieged place pocketed among hills her aspect altered
woefully. She was like an egg clutched in the talons of an eagle. On
north and east and south the hills swept perilously near, a low,
convenient range, with only a grass plain a few miles wide separating
them from the town below. On north and east the heights were already
sprinkled with Escobedo's tents and cannon. They commanded the only two
strongholds of the besieged, as well as the town itself, which lay
between. One stronghold was the Cerro de las Campanas, a wedge-shaped
hill on the northwestern edge of the town, which held nothing but
trenches. On the northwestern edge was the other stronghold, the mound
of Sangremal, which fell away as a steep bluff to the grassy plain
below. From the bluff, across the plain, to the hills opposite,
stretched a magnificent aqueduct. On the mound's commodious summit of
tableland there was the Plaza de la Cruz, also the Church de la Cruz,
and an old Franciscan hive, called the monastery de la Cruz. Here
Maximilian established himself in a friar's lonely cell. On the north a
small river skirted the town, on the south, where nothing intervened
between the grassy plain and the wooded Alameda, the besiegers found the
most vulnerable flank.
On this side investment began with the arrival of Corona and Régules,
and soon after, of General Riva Palacio. The Republicans numbered
fifteen thousand already, and more were coming daily, but as yet there
were ragged strands in the noose being woven around the beleaguered
place. Curiously enough, the most feverish to see the cordon perfected
was none other than Don Tiburcio.
"Marquez will escape! Marquez will fly the net!" he kept bewailing. "Si
señor, and the padrecito with him, curse them both!"
Two weeks passed, filled with skirmishes and ominous tests of strength.
At night fiery parabolas blazed their course against the sky, up from
the outer hills, sweeping down on Las Campanas or La Cruz. Imperialist
chiefs urged a general attack, but again Marquez foiled their hopes.
Then, at two o'clock one morning, there came to pass what Tiburcio had
feared. A body of horse stole out upon the plain, and gained the
unguarded Sierra road to Mexico. Four thousand cavalry pursued over the
hills, but in vain. The fugitives were Marquez and the Fifth Lancers,
his escort. He was gone to the capital to raise funds, and to bring back
with him, at once, the Imperialist garrison there of five thousand men.
Doting Maximilian had even named him lieutenant of the Empire, and
Mexico City would shortly have the Leopard for regent. Querétero,
moreover, was seriously weakened by the loss of the Fifth Lancers, and
there were those who remembered how, when Guadalajara was besieged by
Liberals seven years before, Marquez had likewise set out for aid, and
had returned--too late.
To his wrathful disgust, Don Tiburcio learned that Father Fischer was
also gone with Marquez. The priest had disguised himself in an officer's
cloak, and for the moment none in the town knew of his flight. The fat
padre, it appeared, no longer hoped for the luscious bishopric of
Durango. His was the rat's instinct, as regards a sinking ship.
The Leopard and the Rat got away only in time. The very next day ten
thousand ragged Inditos, largely conscripts, arrived from the Valley of
Mexico and filled the gap in the besiegers' line. Investment was now
complete, against a paltry nine thousand within the town.
CHAPTER XIII
A BUCCANEER AND A BATTLE
"The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature
of man."
--_Bacon._
But the paltry nine thousand were the best army of Mexicans ever yet
gathered together. For weeks they kept more than thirty thousand
Republicans out of an unwalled, almost an unfortified town. But while
the Republicans were largely _chinacos_, or raw soldiery, they
inside were trained men. There were the Cazadores, a Mexican edition of
the Chasseurs, organized by Bazaine under French drill masters. There
was Mendez's seasoned brigade. There was Arellano's artillery, though
numbering only fifty pieces. There were the crack Dragoons of the
Empress, the Austro-Mexican Hussars, and a squadron of the Municipal
Guards. There were veterans who had fought at Cerro Gordo, and steadily
ever since in the civil wars. There was the ancient Battalion de Celaya,
mainstay of the Spanish viceroys, and later of the Emperor Iturbide, its
colonel. There were the Battalion del Emperador, the Tiradores de la
Frontera, a company of engineers, and several well-disciplined regiments
of the line.
But the day came when they began to starve, and being hungry took the
heart out of many things. It took the heart out of bombarding Escobedo
in his hillside adobe; out of taunting "uncouth rebels." The rebels were
in trenches often not a street's width distant, and for reply they
pointed to certain dangling acorns who had been "traitors" caught
slipping through the lines. Being hungry took the heart out of the
quick-time diana, played after a brilliant sortie. Out of the embrace
Maximilian gave Miramon. Out of Miramon's call for vivas for His Majesty
the Emperor. Out of standard decorating and promotions and thrilling
words of praise. Out of the anniversary of Maximilian's acceptance of
the throne. Out of a medal presentation for military merit, which the
generals bestowed on their Emperor in the name of the army. Out of being
made a caballero of the Order of Guadalupe, especially as the monarch
could give only a ribbon, since the cross must wait until his return to
the capital. And being hungry certainly made pathetic his prediction
that some among those present would one day wear the medal for
twenty-five years of faithful service to the Empire. Being hungry took
the poet-hero's glow out of his wan cheek as he declared again that he,
a Hapsburg, would never desert, for even then he heard Imperialist
platoons shooting recaptured deserters. Or he thought of the wounded
left to die on the grassy plain and lying there unburied. No, all the
heart was being taken out of these things, for Marquez still did not
come with the help he had gone to bring, and the noose was tightening
day by day. Attempts were made to send some one through to depose
Marquez, but each one failed. Splendid sallies resulted in prisoners
taken, which were only so many more mouths to feed. The Roman aqueduct
had long since been cut off, and now the wells were giving out. Mules
and horses drank at the river, while sharpshooters picked them off. The
feebler animals were butchered and distributed as rations. And still the
sorry Marquez gave no sign. Even hope failed the empty stomachs.
But for those who waited outside as Vengeance enthroned, expectation
began to take on a creepy quality. The besiegers were preparing against
themselves a host, not of men, but of frightful spectres, of famished
maniacs, of unearthly ghouls, who would clutch and tear with claws any
man that stood between them and a morsel of food. And the fury of
desperation sharpened with each succeeding irony of a dinner hour.
The siege had endured six weeks. Marquez had been gone a month. But the
Republicans held ready for whatever force he might bring. Their key to
the situation was the Cimatario, the highest hill on the south. Between
it and the wooded Alameda stretched the grassy plain. Republican
trenches from base to shoulder of the peak opposed Imperialist trenches
under the Alameda trees. Republican troops flanked the Cimatario on
either side, lying in wait for Marquez. On one side Driscoll's Grays
guarded the Celaya road.
So here they were sleeping encamped on the morning of April 27, when the
bugle of a patrol cracked their slumbers. They lay booted and spurred. A
moment later they were horsed as well, blinking across the plain in the
pearly mist of dawn. They had heard hoofbeats, sharp and dry on the high
tableland. Now they saw a wild, shadowy troop, which was hotly pursuing
a spectral coach of gossamer wheels, with six plunging mules frantically
lashed by outriders. At once, almost, the coach was lost among the dim
strangers, who snatched at flying ends of harness, and with their prize
raced on again.
The Grays stared. It was like some pictured hold-up, not real. But they
knew better when from among themselves a colossal yellow horse and rider
dashed toward the road. Then they awoke for certain, and tore after
their colonel to solve this ashen mystery so early in the morning. Was
it Marquez, perhaps? But the coach white with dust, and white curtains
flapping, what was that?
Striking their flank at an angle, Driscoll drove hard into the fleeing
horde. The Grays saw his hand raise as a signal, whereat they did not
close in, but swerved and galloped parallel, some fifty paces distant.
Driscoll struggled alone against the heaving sea about him. But no
cut-throat of that pirate mass so much as drew a knife. By force of
brawn, he wedged his way toward the coach, reached it, leaned forward,
and caught up the curtain. And what he saw was a poke bonnet. The bonnet
was a bower of lace and roses, held by a filmy saucy knot under a lady's
chin. He saw a face framed within, of a skin creamy white, of lips
blood-red, of hair like copper, and he saw a pair of eyes. They were
gray eyes, and as they opened suddenly and wider upon him whom she
thought must be her captor, the lady started violently, her cheeks
aflame. But at once the eyes snapped as in mockery, and her lips moved.
"Monsieur permits himself----" she began, but no one heard except her
terrified companion within the coach. Driscoll had already dropped the
curtain as a thing that burned, and was raging on again with the
turbulent stream. He got to the leader of the band, and jerked the
fellow's bridle. He raised his voice, and louder than the pounding of
hoofs he cursed in wrathful disgust.
"Dam' you Rod, this here's getting monotonous!"
The man swung in his saddle. His eyes were black-browed and savage. He
was Rodrigo Galán, the terrible Don Rodrigo. But shabby, how very shabby
he looked for the thief of million dollar convoys! Yet that bonanza coup
of the bullion train had happened two years ago. Since then the outlaw
had visited the capital. Boldly, audaciously, he had gone as a rich
hacendado, and after the manner of rich hacendados he had "seen the
City." Mozos with gorged canvas bags on their shoulders had followed his
stately stride into the gambling casinos. He had played with regal
nerve, and on the last occasion, had flung the emptied sacks away as
nonchalantly as on the first. Only, the last time, he had felt remorse
that the "bank" had profited instead of Tiburcio. In that matter of the
bullion convoy he had not treated Don Tiburcio as one caballero should
another.
Their horses--Rodrigo's and Driscoll's--were racing by bounds shoulder
to shoulder. This endured for possibly the space of a second. Then
Demijohn felt his rein tighten, and he took more time. Next his bit
suddenly pinched, and down the old fellow came upon his front feet
together, firmly planted, and sank to his haunches. Driscoll still held
Rodrigo's bridle, and Rodrigo and horse, being in air, lunged backward.
"We stop here," Driscoll announced.
Don Rodrigo plumped down heavily in his saddle. His bristling moustache
lifted over his cruel white teeth. Two hundred swarthy little demons
reining in around them looked expectantly for a signal. But their chief
frowned at the twelve hundred Gringo Grays hovering on his flank. They
too wanted only a sign, and they outnumbered the Brigand's six to one.
But Rodrigo believed he held the advantage. First he obediently halted
himself and his minions.
"Now then señor," said he in pompous and heavy syllables, "I am at your
disposition. Will your people commence the battle, or shall we?"
Driscoll appreciated the dilemma. The carriage would be in the line of
fire. He had had an intuition of its occupants, and for that reason had
kept back his men.
"Where was she going?" he demanded.
Rodrigo feigned surprise. "And where," he asked, "or rather, to whom,
should Your Mercy imagine?"
To Querétero! To Maximilian, of course! This, too, Driscoll had divined
already.
"No matter," he retorted shortly, "but how did you run across her this
time?"
The outlaw filled his chest, "You Americans, señor, do not understand
the feelings of a man bowed under a heavy wrong. You----"
"We'll let it go at that," said Driscoll, with a little wave of the
hand, "but--how in----"
"You scoff already, señor? But will you, at these stains of blood? Then
let me say to you, señor mio, they make me remember one shameless deed
for which the tyrant Maximilian must pay."
The stains Rodrigo meant were on a little ivory cross which he had taken
from his jacket. The emblem served him to lash his emotions, to goad his
precious sense of wrong. He studied the cross intently; then, by a vast
and excruciating effort, thrust it into Driscoll's hand.
"Yes, yes," he cried, "you must take it! He said so."
"He?"
"Si, señor, he who shares my wrong, Don Anastasio Murguía."
"Murgie!" exclaimed the bewildered American. "But--why, hombre, I
haven't seen the old skinflint since--since he and I both were
court-martialled by Lopez!"
"Still I promised him to send the cross to you, because you will have a
chance to give it to him. He said so."
"Oh, he did?" But Driscoll put the trinket in his pocket, not unwilling
to see more of this foolish drama in Latin-American sentiment. "Now
then, Rod," he went on impatiently, "you haven't explained yet how you
happen to find her again."
"That," replied the outlaw, "was _his_ part of the bargain."
"Whose?"
"Anastasio Murguía's."
"Rod, you talk like a----"
"But no, señor, it's because you Americans cannot understand. Murguía
also believes in vengeance. I haven't seen him either, not since he sold
his hacienda over a year ago. But I do know that he or some spy of his
is in the capital, for a messenger from him came to me in the mountains.
The messenger said that the Marquesa d'Aumerle was leaving for
Querétero. If I captured her, it would be vengeance in kind. But Murguía
wanted pay for his information. He wanted that cross--it was his
daughter's--and I was to send it to him through you. Dios mio, but I had
to hurry! A little more, and the Marquesa would have been inside your
lines."
"She is already," Driscoll corrected him, "and so are you. Will you
fight it out, or surrender?"
He pointed to the Grays as he spoke. They had dismounted, and each man
had a rifle at aim across his saddle. It was a reminiscence out of
Driscoll's boyhood of Indians and the Santa Fé trail. But Don Rodrigo
only smiled.
"You want the coach first?" he said.
"No!" Driscoll retorted. "You're the one that's wanted, and you can
either wait for your trial, or be shot now, fighting. The coach will
have to take its chances. But see here, if the firing once starts, not a
thief among you will be left standing----"
It was a perilous "bluff," and none might say if it would have broken
the deadlock. But the outlaw interrupted.
"Listen! What's that?"
"Oh, nothing. We're only throwing a few bombs into Querétero."
"Only!" The brigand's eyes flashed, and his voice was filled with envy.
Throwing bombs among the traitors?--and magnificence like that had grown
common! Yet he, whose patriotism was a passion that fed and thrived upon
itself, must be barred from such exquisite satiety.
Driscoll understood, and thought it droll. First there was that loyal
Imperialist, Don Tiburcio, frothing chagrin because he had had to
desert. And now here was this rabid Republican, heart broken over being
outlawed from the ranks of his country's avengers.
Again Rodrigo interrupted, more excitedly yet. "Señor, señor, you don't
shoot them that way every day? What does it mean?"
Both gazed across the plain to the city of domes under the green hills.
Driscoll's chin raised, and he listened intently. What had commenced
like indolent target practice against a beleaguered town had suddenly
burst into a terrific cannonading chorus. More, there was musketry,
vicious and sustained. There were troops deploying over the plain.
Something critical was happening. If it were the supreme rally of the
famishing Empire!
Driscoll stirred uneasily. He glanced at his outlaw. He thought of the
coach. To leave her with these ruffians? To miss a fight? Here was a
quandary!
"You are not going?" Rodrigo cried at him furiously. "Now, now," he
raged, "is the hour of triumph for the incarnation of popular
sovereignty. Go, I say, go, the Republic needs you!"
Until those words Rodrigo had held the situation. With them he lost it,
and Driscoll was master. And Driscoll grew serene, and very sweet of
manner. He began filling a cob pipe. A nod of his head indicated the
coach as a condition of his going.
"Look, look!" Rodrigo shouted. "Oh, que viva--they're running! We've
smoked them out! We've smoked them out!"
Driscoll swept the country with his glasses. Thousands of men were
running like frightened rabbits down the Cimatario slope, and spreading
as a fan over the grassy plain. Mountain pieces boomed farewell behind
them, until in abject panic they cast away carbines and scrambled the
faster. But other troops were pushing up the slope opposite the town,
and these were ordered ranks of infantry. Up and up they climbed, to
trench after trench, and the howitzers one by one stopped short their
roar. When Driscoll laid down the glasses, his face was white. Rodrigo's
glee turned to uncertainty.
"What--what----"
"Smoked out, you fool? We're the ones smoked out!"
"But those runaways?"
"Are our own men, ten thousand of 'em, raw conscripts to support our
batteries on the Cimatario."
"But the Cimitario?" Rodrigo knew by instinct the crucial importance of
the black cone.
"The Cimitario is taken by the Imperialists!"
Driscoll did not forget, however, the nearer contest, and as the Mexican
grew frantic, he was the more coolly indifferent.
"Max has everything his own way now," he added soothingly. "He can
either evacuate, or go around on the north side and thrash Escobedo."
But the Grays were clamoring for action. "By cracken, Din, hurry up
there!" yelled Cal Grinders.
Driscoll raised his palm, waving the fingers for patience. He scanned
the plain again. The Imperialist ranks were breaking. Hungry men rushed
on the besiegers' camps, snatching untouched breakfasts. The townsmen
poured out among the uniforms, and darted greedily in every direction.
The llano was alive with scurrying human beings. Driscoll could well
wait for the psychology of Republican defeat on Don Rodrigo, since at
the same time he awaited the effects of victory on a starving army. The
Grays fretted, but they knew their colonel was never more to be depended
upon than when his blood grew cold like this.
"If," Driscoll observed pleasantly to the Mexican, "Escobedo isn't
already making tracks for San Luis----"
It was the last straw. The patriot brigand jerked off his sombrero and
flung it to the ground. He gestured wildly over the plain, and he
gestured in the American's face. He choked on words that boiled up too
fast.
"You--you--traitor!" he spluttered. There was actually froth on his
lips.
"We haven't," Driscoll reminded him with exceeding gentleness, "settled
this other yet," and again he nodded to the coach.
"That--that is why you wait?" Rodrigo had forgotten his prize entirely.
"Take her, then, take her! Only go, go, kill all the traitors!"
"After you, caballero," Driscoll returned with Mexican politeness. He
wanted to be sure of the outlaw's departure, since holding him prisoner
was now out of the question. But Rodrigo chafed only to be gone. With a
reed whistle he signaled his little demon centaurs, then at a touch of
the spurs his horse leaped forward and all the band clattered close on
his heels.
"Sure anxious to escape," thought Driscoll. But he stared after them in
wonder. Instead of turning to the safety of the mountains, they charged
straight ahead on the town, straight against the Empire, and in any
case, straight into the maw of justice. Behind, the coach and mules
stood high and dry in the road. Driscoll was at once all action.
"Shanks," he called.
Mr. Boone hurried to him from the Grays.
"Shanks, will you stay here with six men----"
"Jack Driscoll!"
"To watch that coach, Dan. There's two girls in it."
"Jack! Miss that there fight!"
"But Dan, _these_ girls are friends of yours, you met them once."
Mr. Boone started violently.
"Never mind, I'll ask Rube Marmaduke or the Parson."
A pitiful struggle racked Mr. Boone.
"You, you're not fooling me, Din?" he pleaded.
"Sure not. It's your empress all right. It's Miss Burt all right."
"Then, Lawd help me, I'll stay!--But you'd best be hustling and get to
work."
"Just a minute, Shanks, there's the other one in the coach. She wants to
go to Querétero. If she gives her word of honor--never mind, she knows
honor from a man's standpoint--if she gives her word that she brings
nothing that will help 'em inside, then you can escort the coach into
the town after things quiet down some. All right? Good. Then we're off!"
Demijohn's hoofs pelted dust balls with each impact. The Grays were
ready. They surged behind. The sound of them was a swishing roar. In the
apex of the blinding tempest, Driscoll sat his saddle as unmoved as an
engineer in his cab. He looked ahead placidly. Empire and a prince had
just triumphed. So he was going to readjust fatality. The smile touched
his lips as it never had before, and hovered there in the midst of
battle.
CHAPTER XIV
BLOOD AND NOISE--WHAT ELSE?
"On stubborn foes he vengeance wreak'd,
And laid about him like a Tartar,
But if for mercy once they squeak'd,
He was the first to grant them quarter."
--Orlando Furioso.
Only for the moment of a cooling breath is Nature gray in Mexico. The
sun's barbed shafts had already ripped away the cloak of dawn when
Driscoll and his cavaliers swept over the glaring road. But there was no
longer any battle. The plain swarmed confusion only. Panic cringed
before hunger. The defeated besiegers panted, stumbled, ran on again, or
lay still in trembling. The victorious besieged were gorging from
fingers crammed full. It was the hour for trophies. A prosperous
townsman bore a stack of tortillas, and gloated leeringly as he hurried
to put his treasure safely away. A dashing Hungarian with fur pelisse
shouted gallant oaths at a yoke of oxen and prodded them with his curved
sword, as though a creaking cart filled with corn were the precious loot
of an Attila. Pueblo and soldiery tore ravenously at fortifications that
had so long kept them from one savory broth. With nails alone they would
demolish walls and trenches. Some lurched over fugitives in the grass,
and then pinned them there with bayonets, the lust for food turning
fiendishly to a lust for blood.
But what most inflamed the Grays were the captured cannon. They counted
as many as twenty being dragged into the Imperialist lines. The
Missourians were aggrieved. Never, never had Joe Shelby's brigade ever
lost a gun. And as they galloped, they looked anxiously about for
chances of more battle. Just then Rodrigo's outlaw band caught their
eye. These had swerved from the road out upon the field, hot to engage
anything, everything. A long provision train offered first. Many carts
had been loaded with Republican stores, and were being convoyed to the
town by a squadron of Imperialist cavalry. It was the clash between this
escort and the brigands that attracted the Grays coming on behind. But
the escort wheeled and fled and the brigands pursued, slashing with
machetes, and so charged full tilt into the Dragoons of the Empress who
were sent to retake the abandoned prize. Red tunics mixed with ragged
yellow shirts, and war-chargers and mustangs swirled together as a
maelstrom. Then the Grays pounded among them, in each hand of each man a
six-shooter. The red spots began to fall out of the peppered caldron.
The red tunics that were left broke, retreated, ran. It became a rout.
Only a few of the Empire's best survived those ten minutes of
blood-letting. Fatality? Driscoll's lip curled. Fatality? The Dragoons,
now no more, had twice held him for their bullets.
Grays and brigands chased them back toward Querétero. The fleeing
remnant began yelling for help. Driscoll rose in his stirrups, and saw
just ahead a large force of the enemy. It was gathered around the Casa
Blanca, a little house on the plain. The large Imperialist force there
was an army, nothing less, though still disordered from the late action
and victory. Surrounded by a brilliant staff was a tall, golden bearded
chieftain, sumptuously arrayed as a general of division, regally mounted
on a cream-coated horse of Spain. He was Maximilian, viewing from there
the winning of his empire. The army behind him filled his ears--"Viva Su
Majestad!"
But he who had given the cue for that thrilling music now saw the
convoy's fate. He rode up and down anxiously, striving for order in the
confused ranks. He wore the green sash of a general. He had a moustache
and imperial, searching black eyes, and an open brow. His fine features
showed in the blend of French and Castilian blood. He was the real
chieftain. He was Miramon. Impetuously he made ready to avenge the
Dragoons.
These things that he saw ahead brought Driscoll to his senses. With
reluctance, but instantly, he made up his mind. He held high his sabre
and halted his own men, turning at the same time to collide obliquely,
and purposely, against Rodrigo.
"Not that way, Rod, not that way!"
"But it's the tyrant! It's the tyrant!"
Driscoll got the brigand's bridle and swung him around fiercely. "Let
the poor tyrant be!" he yelled. "We've got to take that there Cimatario
hill."
A moment later Grays and brigands wheeled to the right and were off.
Back at the Casa Blanca Maximilian lowered his glasses. "They surely,
they surely are not--yes," he cried, "they _are_ going to attack
the Cimatario!"
Miramon smiled. "Then they are lunatics," he said. "Why, Your Highness
knows that we have five thousand of our best men on the Cimatario."
"Yes," Maximilian agreed uneasily, "but I thought I recognized the man
who leads those lunatics. Do you happen to know, general, how Tampico
fell?"
"Do not worry, sire," Miramon replied, willing to humor the prince, "I
will take our infantry to the Alameda and strengthen our reserve there,
should anything really happen."
Across the grassy plain raced the twelve hundred cavalry and the two
hundred outlaws. They raced to attack five thousand brave men who had
that morning dislodged ten thousand. Five thousand in the trenches
above, fourteen hundred in the open below, such were the odds of Empire
against Republic.
Grays and brigands drew rein under the Cimatario's west slope, and the
bugle sounded to dismount.
"But señor," Rodrigo protested, "don't we charge straight up?"
"And not have a man left when we do get up? Here Clem," Driscoll added
to Old Brothers and Sisters, the lieutenant colonel of the Grays, "you
circle round and up the other side with eight companies. Take all the
horses, but leave 'em back of the hill as you go. Don't that look like
the best scheme?"
The parson's cherubic features beamed. "Good-bye, Din," he said. "But
pshaw, I reckon--I reckon we'll be meeting up above." He referred,
however, to the top of the Cimatario.
Four companies and Rodrigo's band remained. These Driscoll spread out in
a skirmish line that made a long beaded chain around their side of the
hill. It was evidently an unfamiliar method, for the Imperialist
tiradores fired down on them contemptuously. But each time, while the
enemy above were reloading, the Grays and outlaws below were climbing a
few yards, each man of them individually, up from behind his own
particular rock. The Imperialists, it now appeared, had blundered
incomprehensibly, since they had actually taken away nearly all the
cannon captured on the Cimatario. But six-pound affairs from batteries
in the Alameda soon began to splinter and furrow around the climbing
men. One loosened boulder rolled and struck Doc Clayburn on the tip of
the shoulder, bringing him down like a bag of meal. He arose, feeling
himself. "Now, by the Great and Unterrified Continental----" he began,
as he always did at the monotony of being hit. Then his disgust changed
to wonder. "W'y," he cried, "I'm not either, I only thought I was!"
They mounted higher, and the business grew hotter. Each man had to look
to himself more and more sharply, lest he forget that economy of the
individual was now the hope of the regiment. But for all that, when a
Missourian craved tobacco--it is a craving not to be denied, in no
matter what danger, as most any fireman knows--he would leave cover to
beg his nearest neighbor for a chew, and obtaining it, would feel the
heart put back into him.
As they drew close under the first of the trenches, they concentrated
for a bit of sharp in-fighting, and so suffered more. But once they
provoked the next volley, they meant to rush the works. The Imperialists
though were loath to squander the one ball to a carbine when Indian-like
fighters like these were so near. They had one mountain piece, a brass
howitzer, and the gunner stood ready, the lanyard in his hand. But he
hesitated, bewildered. His targets were not twenty paces below, yet
nowhere crouching behind the rocks were the foe massed together. His
pride forbade that he waste twelve pounds of death on a single man.
But suddenly that happened which the gunner never in this life
explained. Poised expectant in the lull of the fray, he was trembling
under the tense silence, when he saw the impetuous Don Rodrigo dart up
the slope, full against the muzzle. At the same instant he heard shouts
of warning behind him, and he heard the tiradores there above firing at
someone almost at his feet. But the figure that had scaled up the back
of the hill, crawling around the trench, was already on him. He drew
back his arm to drive the heavy shot through Don Rodrigo in front, but
only to feel the cord in his hand part before a knife's keen edge. With
a cry of dismay he sprang to grasp the rope's end, but as in a vision a
head of curly black and an odd smile rose between, and a swinging fist
of a great bared arm crashed back his chin, and he sank as a brained ox.
"Lambaste 'em, Din Driscoll!"
It was a rapturous shout, and Cal Grinders, passing Rodrigo, tumbled
over the earth-heap and joined his colonel against five hundred. Behind
swarmed others into the newly awakened hell, coatless men of Saxon necks
tanned a dark ruby, and in the hot Imperialist fire they settled to
their work.
"By cracken, lambaste 'em! Why in all hell _don't_ ye lambaste
'em?"
This fury boiled through oaths, unable to spend itself in blows. The
tigerish rage seized on them every one. Teeth grated vengefully as men
struck.
"Lambaste 'em, Din Driscoll!"
"Lambaste 'em--_good_--Din Driscoll!"
The yell swelled to a murderous chorus. These men did not know that they
were raving. A war cry is just the natural vent. It is simply the whole
pack in full cry.
But never before--for now around him there was the contrast of hate and
panting and passions in ferment--had Driscoll seemed so distant a thing
from flesh and the human sphere. In grime, in dust, in smoke, among
faces changing demoniac wrath for the sharp, self-wondering agony of
mortality, his face was cool, serene, with just the hint of a smile
tugging at his lips. His own men would try to look another way, try
uneasily to break the fascination of this strange warrior who led them.
The battle was short, but of the hottest. Its central point was the
little brass howitzer. Driscoll, Grinders, Bledsoe, the Doc, all four
pushed at the carriage or pulled at the trunnion rings, while around
them, hindering them, swaying back and forth over rocks and in the
ditches, the two forces battled for possession, hand to hand, with
six-shooters and clubbed muskets. Grinders fell, cursing angrily.
Bledsoe fell, toppling heavily his great length. The Doc fell. "By
the----" he began, but got no further. He was not mistaken this time.
But the gun was turned at last, and a vicious hand jerked the rope.
Powder grains pierced the eyes of the nearest Imperialists. The shot
tore through the mass of them. Yet Driscoll remembered most how wan, how
_hungry_, they looked.
"Death to the traitors! Á muerte! Á mu-erte!"
It was a heavy nasal, hurled from the lungs with that force and venom
peculiar to the Spanish tongue. It came from Don Rodrigo, who had pulled
the lanyard, and who now pulled it again and again, crazed first with
joy, then with rage because the emptied gun would not respond.
While the combatants were so confused together, the tiradores in the
upper trenches had to hold their fire, but when the defenders gave way
at last, those above could wait no longer. Four thousand and more, they
leaped their earthworks, and came charging down the slope on what was
left of Driscoll's six hundred.
Grays and brigands faced about, but most of all they looked beyond the
enemy's right flank, to the line of the hill's crest there. For just
beyond that jagged line and somewhere below Old Brothers and Sisters and
the eight other companies must be toiling up. But they would have to
appear in the interval of the Imperialists' downward rush. Driscoll
turned to his bugler. "Blow, Hanks! Blow like the _very_ devil!"
The blast sounded long and shrill, like a plaintive wail. The six
hundred pumped lead up the hill mechanically, but their hearts were
echoing the clarion's cry for help, and rather than on the foe sweeping
down over the rocks to crush them, their eyes were strained on the
sun-emblazoned line against the sky. But the parson was a man. At last,
just over the slope's crest, a head appeared, a cherubic head with
spectacles, and two arms waved for haste to others behind. And instantly
more heads bobbed up, and more yet, until the jagged line was fairly
encrusted with mouse-colored sombreros, like barnacles on a stranded
keel.
From where they were the new comers began their work, lying flat on
their stomachs. Once over the ridge, down each man fell and joined the
chorus of musketry. Their fusilade thickened to a blanket of flame,
closely woven. The host rushing down the slope forgot the tales that
were told of the marvelous sixteen-shot rifles. They thought instead
that an army of Republicans, and not a man less, were upon their flank.
For how else could volleys be so well sustained, how else so deadly? And
how fast they themselves were dropping! The thing was not like bullets,
but as the earth caving under them. The charge turned to panic. They
plunged on downward, indeed, and even sheer into the cross fire of
Driscoll's six-shooters and the one howitzer. But it was headlong
flight. At the trench they did not stop to grapple, but fought their way
through and fled on down the hill, on across the grassy plain, nor
paused until they had crowded pell-mell into the main Imperialist army
drawn up before the Alameda.
Maximilian and his resplendent staff were there at the Alameda. The
Emperor was perhaps less astounded than they.
"Ai, general, if you _had_ known how Tampico fell!" he said to
Miramon.
Yet neither was actually dismayed. The Cimatario and five thousand men
had succumbed to a thousand or fifteen hundred daredevils. It was hard
enough to believe, in all conscience. But the daredevils could be
dislodged, and they must be, at once. Miramon's orders rose sharply and
quick, and the Empire sprang to obey. The Alameda batteries were trained
on the hill, and a few moments later the guns on the roof of the La Cruz
monastery were also. At the same time, the army, the entire Imperialist
reserve, battalion after battalion in close, hurried ranks, set out
across the grassy plain, straight toward the Cimatario's front slope.
Foot, horse, artillery, the concentrated might of the Austrian's
sceptre, was being hurled against a handful of jaded warriors.
Maximilian flushed with something like shame at the thought.
Back on the slope Driscoll cried, "No, no, keep to the trenches, you
fellows! This ain't _our_ promenade."
And soon, when screaming comets began to fill the air and burst around
them, they were glad of the ditches. There they waited, smoking,
spitting tobacco against the torrid rocks, but with sullen eyes on the
army moving nearer and nearer. Where, all this morning, was Escobedo,
who, with his thousands of Republicans on the north of the town had
taken no thought of the Republican stress on the south? He had not fired
a shot. Yet surely he must know by this time. But no matter. Over a
hundred outlaws were left, and nearly a thousand Grays. Missourians,
brigands, and guerrillas of Michoacan, they were a dangerous blend.
"Got a match, Harry?" asked Driscoll of the Kansan, as he filled his cob
pipe.
They _had_ to wait, you see. Yet haste was all they would have
begged of the advancing Imperialist host.
The red jackets of the Dragoons--the few that were left--brightly dotted
the van of the attacking thousands. On either side rode the Second and
Fourth Lanciers. Behind tramped the battalions of Iturbide, of Celaya,
and regiments of the line. They gained the foot of the hill and the
cavalry were dismounting before they drew fire. The baptism had a
sharpshooter deadliness, even at that distance, but the Imperialists
waited tentatively. No, there was but one volley. When the second came,
it was only after an interval long enough for reloading. Officers and
men glanced at one another more hopefully. The terrified fugitives were
of course mistaken, they thought. For the force above could not be
large, nor yet possess the mysterious sixteen-shot rifles. The assurance
gave the buoyancy of relief. To charge against carbines that made each
man as sixteen were uncanny, too much like challenging the Unknown. But
a thousand men who fired only every two or three minutes--an antagonist
like that was quite well known to their philosophy. So breathing hard,
they valiantly marched up the hill. They suffered cruelly under the
scattered fusillades, yet were not materially resisted. At last they
were near enough, and the bugles sounded for the final rush.
Now what was odd, the Republicans stopped firing altogether. But they
were waiting for shorter range, and a moment later, at a hundred paces,
their reopening volley had all the clockwork dispatch of platoon drill.
Yet the Imperialists took the dose as a thing expected, and sprang over
their wounded to gain the trenches. They required only the lull of
reloading. But instantly a second volley prolonged the first. The column
staggered, and faces blanched. In a sudden despair they realized the
enemy's tactics, for the enemy did have those terrible rifles, after
all. From the trenches a low sheet of flame had spread, searing the
breasts of rank after rank that pressed against its edge. Scarlet-coated
Dragoons, the last of them, flecked the rocks, and over them fell green
uniformed troopers, as grass will cover a bloody field, and the
Municipal Guards, swaying up from behind, paid out a sprinkling of
blue--a ghastly pousse-café, as one grim jester described it afterward.
The long massed lines wavered.
"They've stopped, they've stopped!" cried Rodrigo. "Now we'll close with
them, eh, señor--por Dios, _now_!"
"All you fellows," shouted Driscoll, "just fill your rifles while they
wait. Stopped nothing, Rod! And anyhow, who'd hold the hill if we left
it? Who?"
The answer came at once, and in dramatic form. One of the pickets
stationed on the flank ran among them.
"There's another big slew of 'em a-coming!" he yelled excitedly.
"Yonder, over yonder!"
Driscoll rose and followed the man to the east slope. From there he
beheld an overpowering force, advancing diagonally across the llano
below. It came by the Carretas road, which skirted Querétaro on that
side, and it was hurrying toward the Cimatario. The colonel of Grays
watched them anxiously through his glasses.
"Shucks," he said at last, "the fight's over. It's Escobedo. He's sent
his reserve. Don't you see those black shakos, Jim, and those gray
coats? They're the Cazadores de Galeana, and the best yet. Now we'll
have someone to hold the hill!"
But getting back to the trenches, Driscoll saw that the help might not
come soon enough. For however the Imperialists squandered their lives,
they would yet overcrowd death. Some had already gained the first
trench, and were there engaged hand to hand, with sabre and pistol. In
the trenches above the Grays steadily fed the molten flame. But Driscoll
chose the in-fighting, and naturally became himself the centre of the
hottest patch.
"Help's here! in five minutes, just five minutes!" he spoke right and
left to his men, as a carpenter will converse and hammer at the same
time. For the outnumbered Grays it was the help arrived already.
The Imperialist cannon had of necessity ceased firing, so what should be
the consternation of the attacking column to have a shell fall among
them from the rear! All eyes turned, and a murmur of panic rose. It was
not that their own batteries had made a mistake, but that there had not
been any mistake. The reserve sent by Escobedo, hearing the battle, had
wheeled and rushed straight down the centre of the plain on the chance
of giving quicker assistance. Once in sight of the trenches, though
still considerably to the right of the hill, they had unlimbered a gun,
while cavalry and infantry pushed on to the rescue. Not to be caught
between trenches and plain, the Imperialists acted with soldiery
decision. Their clarions sounded retreat.
"Now it's _our_ turn!" shouted Driscoll, and with the parson and
the Kansan and the outlaw chief, and guerrillas and Missourians pouring
out of their ditches, he chased down hill the concentrated might of an
Empire. So closely was that chasing performed that pistol flashes burned
into standards and uniforms.
Maximilian and Miramon and the high officers of the realm were still at
their post of observation in front of the Alameda. For the third time
that morning they faced Imperial cohorts hurled back upon them by a man
named Driscoll. Miramon reproached himself bitterly. His plans to
intercept Escobedo's reserve on the north had failed. The Emperor's
pallid features were drawn with the tensity of a big loser. Yet in the
soft blue eyes there flashed a chivalrous wonder at an enemy's valiant
deed.
On the llano fugitives and pursuers mingled as one in the human wave of
confusion. Escobedo's cavalry had overtaken the mêlée, and blended with
the rear of the fleeing column, until it seemed likely that both must
enter the town together. But a charge of grape, fired obliquely from the
Alameda, mowed a path between them--a Spartan business, for it reaped
Imperialists among Republicans. However, a second and third blast were
better gauged, and these carpeted the new alley-way with Republican
bodies. Also, the Imperialists were re-forming, and under a withering
fire the little band of victors had to draw back to the Cimatario.
As Escobedo's reserve occupied the hill, Driscoll marched his own force
behind the same to get his horses there. But the mustangs of the
brigands had disappeared, and far to the southwest were the brigands
themselves, moving swiftly over the plain toward the mountains. They
hardly numbered two-score now, and at that distance seemed a few men
herding a drove of empty saddles. The late indignant patriot, Don
Rodrigo, had changed back to outlaw. As another Cid, he might have
looked for pardon from a grateful country, but possibly he feared the
Roman justice of Juarez too much to risk it. Besides, a man will not
lightly give up his career. That same night Rodrigo lay again among the
sierras, quite ready for the first bullion convoy or beautiful
marchioness passing by.
Shells and minié balls were yet dropping perfunctorily, and the llano
between hill and town was still a dangerous place enough, but scattered
here and there were a few of both sides looking for their wounded, and
often themselves going down before the aim of sharpshooters. Stiffening
bodies lay under the trampled grass in every varied horror of
mutilation, and glassy eyes peered unseeing upward through the stalks,
like the absurd and ghastly contrast of a horrible dream. But among them
were the stricken living in as varied an agony, of raw wounds stung by
gnats, of pain cutting deep to vitality, of thirst, of the broiling sun,
of a buzzing fly, or of an intolerable loneliness there with death.
Groans rose over the plain, and guided the searchers. Driscoll had
already found many of his men in this way. Once he heard his own name.
The voice was weak, but there was something vaguely familiar to it, and
involuntarily he held his pistol against treachery as he parted the
grass and revealed a wounded man at his feet. It was a piteously
famished body that raised itself a little by one hand. It was a
soul-tenanted death-head that crooked gruesomely down on the shoulder
and lifted its eyes to Driscoll's in greeting. They were glowing coals,
those eyes, glowing with the virile fire of twenty men, however wasted
the face or tightly drawn the yellow parchment skin.
"Murgie!"
Driscoll's exclamation was a shudder rather than the surprise of
recognition. What could it be that had grown so--so _terrible_ in
the weazen, craven miser! And to find the abject little coward on a
battlefield, and wounded! An occasional bomb even then screeched
overhead. And he was clothed in uniform, a soldier's uniform, he, Don
Anastasio!
"Gra-_cious!_" Driscoll muttered.
More and more stupefying, the uniform was not Republican, but
Imperialist. There were the green pantaloons with red stripes, the red
jacket, the white shoes, the white kepí, of the Batallon del
Emperador--a ludicrous martial combination, but pathetic on an aged,
withered man. The Batallon del Emperador? Driscoll remembered. They were
the troop that had surrounded Maximilian during the recent battle in
front of the Alameda, and Murguía had fallen on the very spot. The
venomous Republican was then become one of the Emperor's bodyguard!
As the Republican, so also was the coward gone. The gaunt little old
Mexican seemed oblivious of peril, as fever blinds one to every nearest
emotion. There was even a grimness in the shifting gaze. And a certain
merciless capacity, born of unyielding resolve--born of an obsession,
one might say--was there also. He could have been some great military
leader, cruel and of iron, if those eyes were all. Little shriveled Don
Anastasio, he had no sense of present danger, nor of the red blood
trickling.
"That's bad, that," said Driscoll, overcoming his repugnance. "Here,
I'll get you taken right along to our surgeons."
But Murguía shrank from the offer as though he feared the Republicans of
all monsters.
"No, no," he protested feebly, yet with an odd ring of command. "Some
one on--on my side will find me."
"But you called?" Driscoll insisted.
"Yes, you--have heard from Rodrigo Galán? He was to have sent you a--to
have sent you something for me."
More and more of mystery! Rodrigo had said that Driscoll would see
Murguía to give him the ivory cross, and so it had come to pass. But the
battle, the old man's wound, surely these things were not prearranged
only that a trinket might be delivered.
"How was I to see you?" Driscoll asked abruptly.
Murguía started, and there was the old slinking evasion.
"There, there," said Driscoll hastily. "Don't move that way, you'll
bleed to death! Here, take it, here it is."
Murguía clutched the ivory thing in his bony fingers.
"María, María de la Luz," he fell to murmuring, gazing upon the cross as
though it were her poor crushed face. In the old days she had made him
forget avarice or fear, and now, before this token of her, the hardness
died out of his eyes and they swam in tears. Driscoll gazed down on him
pityingly. The old man was palsied. He trembled. There passed over him
the same spasm, so silent, so terrible, as on the night of her death,
when he had sat at the court martial, his head buried in his arm.
"Rod said you would want it," Driscoll spoke gently. Then he moved away.
An Imperialist officer was approaching over the field who would bring
the help which Murguía refused to accept of the Republicans.
Driscoll looked back once. The Imperialist officer was carrying Murguía
into the town. He was a large man, and had red hair. His regimentals
were gorgeous. There seemed to be something familiar about him, too.
Greatly puzzled, Driscoll unslung his glasses, and through them he
recognized Colonel Miguel Lopez. Lopez, the former colonel of Dragoons,
now commanded the Imperialist reserve, quartered in the monastery of La
Cruz around the person of their sovereign. But Lopez had once condemned
Murguía to death. A strange solicitude, thought Driscoll, in such a high
and mighty person for a little, insignificant, useless warrior as poor
Murgie. A strange, a very strange solicitude, and Driscoll could not get
it out of his head.
CHAPTER XV
OF ALL NEWS THE MOST SPITEFUL
"O poor and wretched ones!
That, feeble in the mind's eye, lean your trust
Upon unstaid perverseness."--_Dante_.
Her gestures, her every word, were an effervescence. There was something
near hysteria in the bright flashes of her wit. However gay, joyous,
cynical, Jacqueline may have seemed to herself, to Berthe, terrified
though the girl was, Jacqueline's mood was a sham.
"The _frisson_, oh, those few exquisite seconds of emotion, eh
Berthe?" she exclaimed. "Pursued by robbers--the chase--the rescue--and
the jolting, the jolting that took our breaths! Why, Berthe, what more
would you have? Hélas, to be over so quickly! And here we are, left
alone in our coach, robbers gone, rescuers gone! Berthe, do you know, I
believe they compared notes and decided we weren't worth it. But I
_should_ have thought," she went on in mock bitterness, "I should
indeed, that at least our Fra Diavolo would have been more gallant, even
if----"
"Even if?" prompted Berthe, then bit her lip.
"Even--Oh Berthe, _fi donc_, to catch me so because I was
wandering!--even if one could expect no such gallantry from the
Chevalier de Missour-_i_. There now, do you tell Tobie to drive
on----"
"But mademoiselle----"
"Say 'Jeanne'," the marchioness commanded, stamping her foot.
"My lady," the girl persisted, but added with affectionate earnestness,
"and my only friend, I was simply going to say that we are not deserted
after all."
"But didn't I see him riding away?"
"_Him_, yes, but look out of the window. See, he's left six or
eight--O--oh----"
It was a joyful cry, which got smothered at once in confusion. Turning
quickly, Jacqueline beheld a little Bretonne with eyes cast down and
cheeks aflame. Yet even then Berthe gave a cosy sigh of relief. There
was cannonading not far away. They had just been taken by brigands, and
as suddenly left alone on the road. Thus Jacqueline's company ever cost
her many a tremor. Yet somehow one of those chevaliers de
Missour-_i_ needed only to appear, and she felt as secure as a
kitten on the hearth rug. A chevalier de Missour-_i_ had but now
ridden up to the coach door.
"Berthe!" whispered Jacqueline severely, so that the girl thought her
dress was awry. "Quick, tuck your heart away in your pocket. It's right
there on your sleeve." Whereat Berthe employed the sleeve to hide her
higher mantling color.
Jacqueline turned on the chevalier at the window, and surveyed
_his_ sleeve. It was covered with dust, but Jacqueline's big eyes
could see through dust. She felt about her a subtle atmosphere that made
her an outsider.
"Ah, Monsieur le Troubadour?" came her bantering recognition.
Mr. Boone's French crowded pleasantly to his tongue tip. "Mademoiselle,"
he returned, "and," he added, with an odd glance toward Berthe, "Madame
l'Imperatrice, uh--how goes it?"
Jacqueline's lashes raised inquiringly, until she remembered how the
lank gentleman before her, with the tender heart of a Quixote, had
mistaken Berthe for the Empress, months before at the Córdova
plantation. She liked him somehow better now for persisting in it.
"Her Imperial Highness," she explained, very soberly, "may deign
presently to observe that you are here, monsieur, though, as you see,
her thoughts are far away. However, if you can possibly give your own to
a humbler person, to myself, dear Troubadour, I should very much like to
know what is to happen next. Use fine words, if you must; even put it
into verse, only tell me----" With an impulsive shove she flung open the
door and stepped into the road. She could still see Driscoll's troop, or
rather the cloud of dust, speeding toward Querétaro, but her arm swept
the horizon impersonally. "Only tell me," she demanded, "what's
happening now, over yonder?"
"Pressing business, ma'am--mademoiselle, and," Daniel lied promptly,
"Colonel Driscoll wished me to make you his excuses."
"The minstrels of old, sir," said Jacqueline, "usually accompanied their
more gallant fibs with a harp."
Her vivacity was rising fast, and for some reason, Berthe darted an
angry look of warning on Mr. Boone. But the poor fellow was blind to
Jacqueline's jealousy of a distant conflict, and he blundered further.
"Jack Driscoll's just that way," he apologized for his friend
cheerfully. "_Abundat dulcibus vitiis_--he's chuck full of pleasant
faults. When there's a clash of arms around, let the most alluring Peri
that ever wore sweet jessamine glide by, and--she can just glide. While
with me----"
"I see. _You_ have stayed. But I, too, like battles, monsieur.
Tobie, get back up there with the driver. There's no admission charge, I
imagine, to this battle?"
Boone gladly offered to take them for a nearer view, but he saw
Berthe--his eyes were never elsewhere--shrink involuntarily.
"Stop, arretaz! Hey there!" he ordered, and the driver stopped.
Jacqueline's pretty jaw fell in wonder. The natural order of things was
prevailing over the artificial. Social status to the contrary
notwithstanding, it was Berthe who commanded here, and not Mlle. la
Marquise. But Jacqueline was happy in it, and perhaps a little envious
too. Ah, those _Missouriens_! This one, who would rather stay than
fight! And that other, who was now fighting for quite the opposite
reason! They had a capacity for variety, those _Missouriens_!
It was much later, after a lunch from Jacqueline's hampers under the
nearest trees, and after the distant fusillades had quieted to an
occasional angry spat, that the ladies' escort of Gringo Grays, bearing
a flag of truce, set out with their charge toward the town. Daniel rode
beside the coach window, and the flaps of the old hacienda conveyance
were drawn aside. He wondered how it happened that the hours had passed
so quickly. He would not believe that his comrades had been fighting,
that many of them had died, so blissfully fleeting were those hours to
himself.
"It's all according," he mused profoundly.
And he could not help singing. He hummed the forlorn chanson of Joe
Bowers of the State of Pike, which Bledsoe, then lying cold and stiff
under a mountain howitzer, had so often bellowed forth.
"It said that Sal was false to me,
Her love for me had fled,
She's got married to a butcher--
The butcher's hair was red."
But he sung it as a plaint, yet not hopelessly, and Mademoiselle Berthe
was the maid entreated of his melody.
The sharpshooters on both sides paused as the coach drove into the
little sweet-scented wood that was called the Alameda, and the
Missourians, with sabres at salute, transferred their charge to the
Imperialists crowding around. Among the latter were some of Jacqueline's
own countrymen, and those, in starvation and defeat, were as debonair as
the cadets of Gascogne.
"A rose, mademoiselle," said one, bowing low. He had an arm bandaged,
and his sword was broken. "An early merciful bullet plucked it for you,
so that it fell unhurt, though the petals of all the others are
scattered everywhere among the leaves, among the fallen branches, among
the shattered statues of our classic grove here. See, like the rose I
tender, you come among us poor broken soldiers of fortune. I think, dear
lady, there will be those above to bless you for it."
Jacqueline smiled behind her tears. "Always a Frenchman, eh, mon
lieutenant?" she said.
The fragrance of the place was smothered under gunpowder and sluggish
fumes. The pleasant drives, the grass, the flowers, were trampled by
gaunt soldiers bearing their wounded, but the young officer murmured on
in the speech of the Alameda's one time fashionable promenade.
"Who is that?" she interrupted.
She pointed over the heads around her to a man bearing someone off the
late bloody field, and that moment staggering across the trenches into
the Alameda. It was an act that moved her, for the rescuer was a richly
uniformed officer, and the other but a common soldier. With Berthe close
behind, she alighted from the coach and hurried forward to help. The
wounded soldier's face lay on the officer's breast, and she saw only his
hair, matted and very white, from which a rusty brown wig had partly
fallen. But more to the purpose she saw that he was bleeding, and the
callous warriors there knew that the angels of the siege had come at
last.
"Lay him in my carriage--but carefully, you!" she said, and was obeyed,
while Berthe deftly fixed cloaks and blankets around the withered form.
Someone mounted with Toby and the driver, and the coach rolled slowly
away to the hospital, leaving behind the two girls staring at the richly
uniformed officer, and the officer staring tenfold harder at them. He
was a large man, with big hands and feet, and for a Mexican he had a
mongrel floridness of skin. His cap was in his hand, and his hair was
red and thin. Amazement and a startled prying anxiety choked his
utterance.
"Now then, Colonel Lopez," Jacqueline addressed him calmly, "may I ask
you the way? I have come to speak with Maximilian."
"La Señorita d-d'Aumerle!" he stuttered.
"Faith, no other, who is awaiting your pleasure, señor."
"You come from, from--Mexico?"
"But hardly to chat with you all the afternoon, caballero."
"From Mexico! From the capital!" he kept repeating. The man's finger
nails cracked disagreeably, and his features worked in an extreme of
agitation. He tried to fix his shifting blue eyes upon first one and
then the other of the two girls, as though to ferret out what they must
know. "You do bring news from there?" he said huskily. "What of Marquez?
Is he coming? Shall we have the aid he went for? When----"
"Ah, the medal for military valor!" observed Jacqueline. "Indeed, mi
coronel, all must acclaim your bravery, as well as--your loyalty. But
take me to your beloved Prince Max, for I do assure you, señor, my news
goes not without myself."
"He visits the hospital every day," Lopez advised reluctantly. "Perhaps
if I should take Your Mercy there first----"
Passing on through the ravaged Alameda, they entered the streets of
Querétaro.
"Hear!" Jacqueline exclaimed. "Such a quantity of vivas and clarins and
national hymns and triumphant dianas, one would imagine, for example,
that there had been a great victory?"
"Eh? Oh yes, or a hearty breakfast, señorita."
Which was more essential. And why not? Hope's bright hue blotted out
emaciation. They had broken through to food that day. Bueno, could they
not do it again? Old croons had returned to their stalls and accustomed
corners in the market place, and as in days of peace were already
squatted before corn or beans heaped on the stone pavement in portions
for a quartilla, a media, or a real, as though the pyramids were not so
pitifully little, as though the wholesale purchase were not made just
that morning in heavy terms of blood.
Behind the ponderous Assyrian-like church of Santa Rosa, in the old,
half ruined monastery and garden, was the hospital of the besieged. A
stifling, fetid odor, far worse than of drugs merely, sickened the two
girls as a foul breath when they passed with their guide between thick
walls into the large, overcrowded rooms. Military medical service was
not yet become an institution in Mexico, and this place was like some
horrible antechamber of the grave. Every cot had its ghastly transient,
and so had the benches, brought here from the different plazas. More and
more wounded were arriving constantly, and those found to be still alive
were laid on the flagstones wherever space for a blanket remained. But
in spite of the morning's fight, in spite of almost daily skirmishes for
weeks past, the sick outnumbered all others; and those who did come with
wounds, and survived them, stayed on to swell the longer list. Men
tossed in fever, craving what they might not have, a cooling draught, a
proper food, and effective medicine, until, with waking, they craved an
easier boon, and died. But the hospital fever, the calenturas, the
gangrene, were not to be all. Out of the diseased air, mid the fumes of
pious tapers, the spectre of epidemic was taking hideous shape over the
many, many upturned faces. The spectre was the tifo, a plague more
dreaded in high altitudes than black vomit in the low.
Jacqueline found Maximilian bending over a stricken cavalry officer. The
Emperor was far from a well man, and his fair skin more than ever
contrasted as something foreign and lonely among the swarthy faces on
every side. His ostentation was now simplicity, as befitted a monarch in
camp. He wore neither sword nor star. His garb was plain charro, in
which he often walked among citizens and soldiers, inquiring about
rations, or requesting a light for his cigar, never minding if a shell
burst and kicked dust over him, and always affable, always ready to
smile and praise. It was a rôle that came naturally to his gentle soul.
One would like to believe--if one could, alas!--that he had in mind no
kingly precedent.
Pausing unseen, Jacqueline noted tears in the blue eyes as he pinned
some decoration on the officer's bloodstained shirt. A good heart, she
thought, yet ever the prince. In his divine right was he even here,
presuming to send a dying subject to the Sovereign in Heaven with a
"character," with a recommendation for service faithfully done. His
hands trembled from haste, for he would have the soldier appear before
that dread Throne above as a Caballero of the Mexican Eagle. In pity for
them both, Jacqueline asked herself what precedence awaited the new
Caballero of the Mexican Eagle in a Court, not Imperial, but Divine.
Jacqueline had not journeyed her perilous way out of simple friendship
for a desolate prince, but could she have foreseen how his eyes lighted
with gladness to behold one friend who remembered, in sweet charity she
would almost have come for that alone.
"When Your Highness has finished here," she said, glancing at the
inquisitive Lopez near her, "or whenever I can speak with Your Highness
in private----"
There was beseeching in Maximilian's quick scrutiny of her face, as
though the helpless messenger had aught of power over her tidings.
"In--in a moment, mademoiselle," he said tremulously. "I always see
the--new ones, before I go."
The "new ones" were still being brought in, until any first aid from the
distracted surgeons was of the most casual--the ripping of bandaged
cloth, a knot tied, and so on to the next. Followed by Lopez, the two
girls, and several officers of the hospital staff, Maximilian passed
from ward to ward. But Jacqueline's hand seemed always to be threading a
needle, or holding a ligature, or lightly touching a hot forehead, and
in every case the surgeon would nod quickly, gratefully, as to a fellow
craftsman. Berthe the while gazed in tender wonder on her calm mistress,
and nerved herself someway to help also.
And so they came to the withered form in brave red coat, and green
pantaloon whom Lopez had carried off the field. One of the nurses had
placed a handkerchief over his face, because of the stinging flies, but
Jacqueline recognized the thin white hair and the twisted wig as of the
old man whom she had sent ahead in her coach. At first he seemed to be
dead, for he lay very still on the floor, though a surgeon was probing
his wound, and his blood was fast filling the bowl held by the nurse.
But now and again, the straining cords in his emaciated wrist twitched
with the protest of life. Maximilian stooped to raise the handkerchief.
Lopez made a movement to prevent, but restrained the impulse as useless.
And then Maximilian revealed the gaunt, leaden features of Anastasio
Murguía, the father of María de la Luz.
Jacqueline fell back with bloodless lips. The father of that dead
girl--and Maximilian! They were face to face, these two! But the
Emperor's expression was of pity only. He sank to his knees, the better
to make the wounded man understand the words of comfort on his lips. For
Jacqueline, the horror of it chilled her. Surely, surely, she thought,
the hidden tragedy must now unmask; because of its very awfulness, it
must! That the prince should be thus oblivious of such a knowledge, and
yet kneeling there, made the scene ghastly beyond words.
"I remember him," said Maximilian softly, looking up to the others. "One
of your orderlies, Colonel Lopez, I believe? Of course I remember him,
for I see him often. He is always near me. Even to-day, on the llano,
during the thickest of the battle, there he was at my stirrup, and there
he must have fallen, in humble, unquestioning loyalty."
Jacqueline drew back in relief, and she imagined that Lopez did also.
Maximilian had forgotten the hacendado utterly.
With a grunt of satisfaction the surgeon drew forth his forceps from the
wound and dropped a bullet to the floor. Next he gently rolled the
patient over on his back, and then it was that Jacqueline saw in
Murguía's hand, in the hand that had been under him, a little ivory
cross. Fainting, unconscious, he still clutched it, from Driscoll's
leaving him on the battlefield until the present moment. By now the
stains of his child's blood were washed away in his own. Jacqueline's
quick eyes caught an inscription on the gold mounting, and leaning close
she read the dead girl's name, "María de la Luz."
With the gripping of the bullet and its extraction, or possibly at the
sound of a voice--Maximilian's--the old man's eyes opened, and held the
Emperor's in a deathly stare. Jacqueline watched the piercing beads grow
smaller and smaller in their cavernous sockets, and all the while they
seemed to concentrate their intense fire. The others, except Lopez,
thought it delirium, but Jacqueline would have named it the very
blackest hate. "This man will live!" she said to herself, and shuddered.
Maximilian, seeing consciousness returned, spoke cheerily. "Ah, doctor,
you will have him well and sound within a week, I know? Look to it, sir;
a heroic veteran like this cannot be spared."
A strange distortion wrapped the visage of suffering. "Could that be a
smile?" Jacqueline wondered. But the Imperial party took its leave, and
the tragedy lurking beneath was not revealed, as yet.
Through the throng waiting outside the hospital to acclaim him again as
a prince victorious, Maximilian led the two girls to their coach, and
went with them to the convent of Santa Clara, where he asked that they
be received as guests by the sisters. Here, in the comfortless
_parloir_ of the retreat, he learned the reason of Jacqueline's
daring journey from the capital.
"I bring Your Highness," said she, "the most spiteful news my feeble sex
can ever bring."
Again the involuntary plea for fair tidings swept his face.
"And, and that is, mademoiselle?"
"'I told you so.'"
Maximilan's cheeks paled to the marble whiteness of his brow. He had
just heard the answer to the one question, to the one hope, of all
Querétaro.
"You, you mean Marquez?"
"Yes." And then she told him, and seeing how stricken he was, her
exasperation at his vain incapacity changed to pity for his breaking
pride--which may be called his breaking heart.
"But mademoiselle, I gave my empire into his keeping," he protested, as
though such trust in a man of itself proved that man's constancy. But
the messenger, but Truth, would not recant.
"Then," moaned the Emperor suddenly, "Marquez is not coming back?"
"Nor ever meant to, sire. Listen, Your Highness made him lieutenant of
the Empire, and sent him to the capital for aid. Bien, he turned out the
ministers. He broke into homes, and pillaged even the stanchest
Imperialists. He heard that Puebla was besieged by a Liberal general,
Porfirio Diaz, so instead of coming here, Marquez marches all his army
down there. You will observe, sire, that he wanted the road kept open to
Vera Cruz."
"But why? Tell me!"
"Ma foi, to sell the capital more easily. In any case to be able to save
himself."
"Sell the capital?"
"Just a little patience, sire. Now what did Diaz do, but take Puebla by
assault before Marquez could arrive? Then he turned on Marquez, and
Marquez turned and ran. Oui, oui, sire, he _ran_, ran like the
little ugly, skulking Leopard that he is. To cross a creek, he filled it
with all the ammunition, and kept on running, leaving his army
defenseless behind him. Groan if you must, sire; others have died in
groans. But the Leopard had done this kind of thing before, it should
have been remembered. He got back safely though, and squandered the army
that might have relieved Querétaro to do it. Mon Dieu, what that panic
must have been! One entire battalion surrendered to fifty guerrillas.
Yet the Austrian cavalry, the Hungarians, and some others fought, fought
with their sabres, and won victories too. Hélas, they only proved what
might have been. They only proved how Marquez, if he had not hesitated,
might perhaps have saved Puebla and destroyed the Liberals. As it was,
they could only retreat, and hardly two thousand of them, ragged and
bleeding and filthy, straggled back into Mexico during the next few
days. Now they are besieged there. Oui, oui, _besieged_, by Diaz,
by the army of the East, by twelve thousand Republicans, formerly called
brigands. And inside is the Leopard, snarling as ever with his regency
of terror. Oh no, he will not come to Querétaro. Bonté divine, he
cannot. Nor would he. He still holds the capital--for sale."
"No, no, mademoiselle, there you wrong him, surely. Or tell me, then,
who would buy?"
"Probably no one. At least not Santa Anna. The buyer must have an army."
"My friend, this is a cruel jest."
"Earnest enough, parbleu, to make the Leopard forget Querétaro, once he
was safely away."
"Then why doesn't he sell out to Diaz?"
Jacqueline's eyes snapped contemptuously. "Young Diaz," she replied, "is
not a fighter to buy what he can take. It's only a question of a few
weeks."
"Then by all that's mysterious, _who_ would buy? I cannot."
"Of course you cannot. That is why Marquez wants you out of the way,
sire. So he left you here. The Liberals will attend to that for him."
"Then who will buy? Who? Who?"
The blood shot into the girl's cheeks, and one small hand clenched
tightly.
"France--possibly," she said.
The Emperor started as from an acute shock. His thoughts raced backward,
then forward, gathering the whole heinous truth about the perfidy of
Marquez.
"And I," Jacqueline added calmly, though she was still flushed, "I have
forwarded his offer to Napoleon."
"You, mademoiselle? You, an accessory?"
"To Your Imperial Highness's downfall? Ah no, sire! Your Highness is no
longer a factor. Your August Majesty will be eliminated absolutely
before Napoleon can reply to my despatch. As I said, the Liberals around
Querétaro will attend to that. Your Highness has merely delayed the
profit my country might have had from his abdication. Meantime Your
Highness himself has made his own ruin inevitable. But I, sire, I would
not see Marquez, nor receive a word from him, until we were actually
besieged in the capital, and he beyond the hope of coming to Your
Highness here. Now then, if Marquez only holds out until the army of
France returns----"
A deep sigh interrupted her. "No longer a factor," murmured the Emperor.
Thus quickly, then, could the world take up its affairs again after his
elimination!
"Mademoiselle," he cried suddenly, generously, "you are--superb! Dear
little Frenchwoman, you are, you are!"
"Poof!" said Jacqueline. "But don't you see, sire," she hurried on
eagerly, "that we will have to fight the Americans? Yes, yes, then they
can no longer say they _drove_ us out."
"Indeed they cannot. And I, among the first, and the most heartily, do
wish you a warlike answer from that firebrand of a Napoleon. But tell
me, why do you come to Querétaro? How did you come?"
"How? Easily. All the guerrilla bands--except one, which I escaped--are
concentrated either here or with Diaz."
"And Marquez let you come, you who are so important to him now?"
"As though he could help it, parbleu! My message to Napoleon was in my
own cipher, and after he had sent it by a scout to Vera Cruz, I informed
him that in it I had directed Napoleon to send his answer to me at
Querétaro. Otherwise Marquez would have kept me in prison rather than
let me go. But as it was, he assisted me through the Republican lines by
a secret way he has arranged for his own escape, if need be. So----"
"But why did you wish to come at all?"
"Ma foi, as if I knew! A matter of conscience, I suppose."
"Matters of conscience are usually riddles."
"Like this one? Bien, I am still trying to get Your Highness to leave
the country. But this time, sire, it is to save you."
"To save me?"
"Of course, on account of France."
"Oh, on account of France?"
"Why else? If--if anything happens to Maximilian, France will be blamed.
Oh why, why did you not escape this morning, while the road was open?"
For the first time during the interview the fire of high resolve leaped
into the prince's eyes. "But could I, in honor?" he demanded sternly.
"Think of the townspeople, abandoned to the Liberal fury. Their Emperor,
mademoiselle, means to face the end with them, here, in Querétaro."
The dignity of his catastrophe was already beginning to appeal to him,
to exalt him, even as the vision of a Hapsburg winning his empire had so
often done before.
"But," protested the girl, "if they capture Your Highness, if they--if
they hold you for trial?"
She stopped, for Maximilian was laughing, and laughing heartily. The
idea of hands laid on him, an Archduke of Austria--ha, he was grateful
to her. Its very absurdity had given him the first relaxation of a laugh
in months.
"Nevertheless," persisted Jacqueline, whose heritage of a revolution was
an obstinate bundle of these same absurdities, "nevertheless, I had
hoped to save Your Highness with my news, since it is news that leaves
no hope. Why not, then, escape? Treat for terms, do anything, only save
your followers and--yourself, sire?"
But she found it impossible to sway him from this, his latest conceit.
His new rôle, the more desperate it looked, only ensnared him as the
more worthy. He contemplated the end serenely. As a military captain he
was culling laurels against theatric odds. His heroic loyalty to a lost
cause, with perhaps a little martyrdom (of personal inconvenience), how
these would count and be not denied when he should return to his destiny
in Europe!
His was even a mood to consort with lofty traits in others, and in a
kind of poetic ecstasy he thought of Jacqueline's steadfast devotion to
her country's glory. And he was moved again by the vague, chivalrous
longing to bend the knee, to do her some knightly service. But--yes, he
seemed to remember, there _was_ such a service to be done, yet and
yet--no, he had forgotten.
Then quite curiously, yet still without remembering, he dwelt in reverie
on that man named Driscoll who had so filled the morning with valiant
deeds.
CHAPTER XVI
VENDETTA'S HALF SISTER, BETTER BORN
"When private men shall act with original views, the lustre will
be transferred from the actions of kings to those of gentlemen."
--_Emerson_.
Just outside Driscoll's tent, under the stars, a fragrant steak was
broiling. The colonel's mozo had learned the magic of the forked stick,
and he manipulated his wand with a conscious pride, so that the low
sizzling of flesh and flame was as the mystic voice in some witch's
brew. There were many other tents on the plain, a blurred city of
whitish shadows against the night, and there were many other glowing
coals to mark where the earth lay under the stars, and the witching
murmur, the tantalizing charm of each was--supper. In this wise, and
thinking themselves very patient, men were waiting for other men to
starve to death. The besieged had tried, but they had not again cut
through to food.
In Driscoll's tent there was a galaxy of woolen-shirted warriors, a
constellation of quiescent Berserkers. For they were Missouri colonels,
except one, who being a Kansan, required no title. They were
tobacco-chewing giants, famous for expectoration. Except Meagre Shanks,
who tilted his inevitable black cigar now toward one eye, now toward the
other. Except the Storm Centre, who fondly closed his palm over his cob
meerschaum and felt its warmth and seemed far away, a dangerous poet.
Except Old Brothers and Sisters, most austere of Wesleyans, who had
neither pipe nor quid. He was cleaning his pistols. They were men hewn
for mighty deeds, but--cringe must we all before the irony that neither
life nor romance may dodge--it was not a mighty deed which that night
was to exact of them, which yet they were brave enough to do, though
sorry the figures they thought they made.
Politics was their theme, since men, though busy with war and death,
must yet relieve their statesmen, especially after supper, and neatly
arrange the Tariff, Resumption, or whatever else. Like oracles the
ex-Confederates held forth that the Yankees had only driven out the
French to march in themselves, and so tutor the Mexicans in
self-government. To which the Kansan ventured a minority opinion, though
being thus a judge of the bench, as it were, he had no need of the oaths
he took.
"Why God help me and to thunder with you, the United States ain't aiming
at any protectorate. You unreconstructed Rebs simply cain't and won't
see good faith in the Federal government!"
"Carpet bags?" Driscoll murmured sweetly. It was the majority opinion.
"Yes sir'ee," and Daniel took the cue as a bit in the mouth, "there's
blood on the face of the moon up there, _acerrima proximorum odia_,
by God sir! Look at the troops at our elections! Look at the Drake Test
Oath! Look at----" Mr. Boone was fast getting vitriolic, in heavy
editorial fashion, when a famished face, a wolfish face, appeared
between the flaps of the tent. "Look at--_that!_"
Politics vanished, war and death resumed their own.
The whole mess stared.
"Sth-hunderation, it's an Imperialist!" lisped Crittenden of Nodaway. He
pointed at the newcomer's uniform, which was of the Batallon del
Emperador.
"Well, bring him on in," said Driscoll to the pickets gripping the man
by either arm.
"He was trying to pass through our lines," one explained. "And when we
stopped him, he begged hard to be brought to the Coronel Gringo, that
is, to you, señor."
The mess turned curiously on Driscoll. Why a half dead soldier of the
Batallon del Emperador should have a preference as to his jailer was
beyond them. But they were yet more puzzled to hear Driscoll address the
prisoner by name.
"See here, Murgie," he said, "is this the occasion Rodrigo meant when he
talked about my meeting you soon? Is it? Come, crawl out of the grass.
Show us what you're up to. No, wait, feed first. There's plenty left."
But the old man had not once glanced toward the table. Whatever the
pangs of hunger, another torment was uppermost.
"What do you mean by this," Boone demanded, as though personally
offended, "you've got the hospital color, dull lead on yellow? Here,
take a drink. Yes, I know, it's mescal, out-and-out embalmed deviltry
that no self-respecting drunkard would touch, but Lord A'mighty, man,
you need _something!_"
Murguía shook his head irritably. Offers of what his body craved were
annoying hindrances before the craving of his soul. He twitched himself
free of the sentinels, and limped painfully to where Driscoll sat. He
wore no coat, but his green pantaloons with their crimson stripes were
rolled to the knee, and the white calzoncillos beneath flapped against
his skeleton ankles. His feet were bare, the better for an errand of
stealth in the night. He was a pitiful spectacle, yet a repulsive, and
the Americans despised themselves for the strange impulse they had to
kick him out like a dog. They watched him wonderingly as he tried to
speak. He panted from his late rough handling by the sentry, and his
half-closed wound gave excruciating pain. The muscles of his face jerked
horribly, but his will was tremendous, merciless, and at last the cords
of the jaw knotted and hardened.
"To-morrow morn--morning," he began, "the Emperor will fight. It is
arranged for--for daybreak, señores. To to fight--to break
through--to--to ESCAPE!"
"W'y then," exclaimed Harry Collins, the Kansan, "_good_ for him!"
The parson snatched off his brass-bowed spectacles, and his brow lowered
fiercely over his cherubic eyes.
"And so _you_ had to come and tell us?" he demanded.
But the traitorous old man had not the smallest thought of his shame,
nor could have.
"You--you will let him _escape?_" he challenged them in frantic
anger.
The mess stole abashed glances at one another. They would, they knew
well enough, have to act on this information. But they were men for a
fair fight, and they had no stomach to rob the besieged of a last
desperate chance. For a moment they were enraged against the informer.
"We'll just keep him here," said one.
"Yes, till morning. Then he'll tell no one else, and _we_ won't.
Poor old Maxie!"
"Sure," ejaculated Collins, "give Golden Whiskers a show!"
The wolfish light in the sunken eyes quickened to a flash. Lust for
Maximilian's capture turned to chagrin.
"Señores, señores mios," he whined, "you do not know yet, you do not
know, that if Maximilian is not taken----"
"Ah, here now," growled Clay of Carroll, "you needn't worry so much.
He'll be driven back into the town all right, I reckon."
"And what then, señor? No, you do not know. Your general,
señores--General Escobedo--has orders to--to raise the siege."
"_What?_"
"Si señor, to _raise_ the siege! The orders are from San Luis, from
the Señor Presidente there. He--he thinks the siege has lasted long
enough."
"Great Scot!"
"Precisamente. Yes, it would look like--defeat. It would, if--you don't
capture Maximilian by daybreak."
Meagre Shanks brought his boot soles wrathfully to the ground, kicking
the stool back of him. His whole mien exuded a newspaper man's contempt
for faking. "Now then, young fellow," and he shook a long finger at the
ancient Mexican, "here you know all that Maximilian knows. And here
again you know all that the Presidente knows. All right, s'pose you just
tell us now more or less about how mighty little you _do_ know?"
"It's--it's like a message from El Chaparrito," the parson demurred.
"From Shorty?" Daniel almost roared. "Oh come, Clem, don't you go to
mixing up the unseen and all-seeing guardian of the República with this
dried-up, wild-eyed specimen of a dried-up--of, of an old rascal. No one
ever hears from El Chaparrito 'less there's a crisis on, and is there
one on now? You know there ain't. If there was, someone would be hearing
from Shorty--Driscoll there, prob'bly. But there ain't. Shucks, this old
codger is only plum' daft. Aren't you now"--he appealed querulously to
Murguía, "aren't you just crazy--_say?_"
But even as the Americans breathed easier, they stared aghast at the old
man.
"Crazy?" he repeated. "Crazy?" he fairly shrieked, clutching Boone by
the sleeve. "No, I am not! Señor, say that I am not! No, no, no, I am
not crazy, not yet--not--not before it is done, not--before----"
"God!" Boone half whispered. "Look at his eyes now!"
The old man checked himself in trembling. No help for him lay in human
testimony. But there was his own will, which had driven his frail body.
Now as a demon it gripped his mind and held it from the brink.
"Go, out of here, all of you!" he burst on them. "Go, I have more to
tell--more, more, more, do you understand?--but I'll tell it to no one,
to no one, unless to Mister Dreescol."
A raving maniac or not, canards or not, there might be in all this what
was vital. The Americans stirred uneasily, in a kind of awe, and at a
nod from Driscoll they left the tent.
Murguía grew quieter at once. His faculties tightened on the effort
before him. He was alone with the man who would understand, so he
thought; who had the same reason to understand, so he thought.
Driscoll had shared nothing of the late emotions. He had smoked
impassively. His interest was of the coldest. Only his eyes, narrowed
fixedly on the Mexican, betrayed the heed he gave. When the others were
gone, he uncrossed his legs, and crossed them the other way, and thrust
the corncob into his pocket.
"Sit down!"
Murguía dropped to the nearest camp stool.
"Now then, you with your dirty little affairs, why do you come to me?"
Murguía leaned forward over the table between them, his bony arms among
candles and a litter of earthen plates. The odor of meat assailed his
nostrils. But the hunger in his leer had no scent for food.
"This _is_ the time I meant, señor, when Rodrigo told you that you
would see me."
"About the ivory cross? But I gave you that a month ago."
"A month ago--a month, wasted! How much sooner I would have come, only
another had to be--persuaded--first."
"Oh, had he? Then it's not about the cross? And this other? Suppose I
guess? He was--he was the red-haired puppy, my old friend the Dragoon,
who carried you off wounded that day? Humph, the very first guess, too!"
Murguía darted at him a look of uneasy admiration.
"I would have told Your Mercy, anyway," he said, half cringing. "Yes, he
is Colonel Lopez."
"And you 'persuaded' him?"
"Events did. Since the siege began I've tried, I've worked, to convince
him that these same events would happen. Ugh, the dull fool, he had to
wait for them."
"I can almost guess again," said Driscoll, as though it were some
curious game, "but if you'd just as soon explain----"
"Listen! You remember two years ago at my hacienda, when Lopez sentenced
you to death? But why did he sentence you to death, why, señor?"
"That's an easy one. It was because he didn't want my offer of
Confederate aid to reach Maximilian."
"But why not? I will tell you. It was because he was trying even then to
buy the Republic's good will, in case--in case anything should happen.
But he was _afraid_ to change, the coward! He must first
_know_ which side would win. I am his orderly--_he_ knows why
I am--and I've tried to drive it into his thick wits that the Empire is
damned and has been, but he still doubted, even when we were starving
again, even when every crumb was gathered into the common store, even
when it was useless to shoot men for not declaring hidden corn, even
when forced loans were vain, since money could no longer buy. No señor,
even with proofs like these, Miguel Lopez was stubborn."
"I'd prob'bly guess he was a loyal scoundrel, after all."
"More yet, he has fought bravely, making himself a marked man in the
Republic's eyes."
"Then why----"
"Because so long as the Empire had a chance, or he thought it had, he
hoped for more coddling. You see, señor, he thought Marquez was coming
back with relief. There was that--that Frenchwoman you know of--who
brought news from the capital. But Maximilian dared not make the news
public. He forged a letter instead, a letter from Marquez, and he had
its contents proclaimed. Marquez had been delayed, so all Querétaro
read, but he had at last destroyed the Liberals in his path, and was
then hurrying here with his victorious army. This false hope blinded
Lopez with the others in there. But when Marquez did not come, when
utter demoralization set in, when we were a starving town against
thirty-five thousand outside, when there were scores of deserters every
day, when any man who talked of surrender was executed, and still no
Marquez, then Lopez began----"
"I see, he began to be persuaded?"
"Still, he wanted to be a general. But the other generals forced
Maximilian not to promote him."
"So he was disappointed?"
"And persuaded, señor. The sally was already planned for this morning,
but Lopez argued obstacles, and so got it postponed until to-morrow
morning. He wanted to--to act on his--persuasion. And that is why,"
Murguía got to his feet and limped around the table to Driscoll, "and
that is why," he ended in a croaking whisper, "why I am here!"
"And the red puppy, how near here did _he_ come with you?"
Again Murguía darted at his questioner that uneasy glance of admiration.
"Lopez is waiting between the lines," he replied. "As to our own lines,
we passed them easily, since Lopez commands the reserve brigade and
places the sentinels himself around La Cruz monastery."
"Oh, does he?" Driscoll whistled softly. "But what's your plan?" He put
the question sympathetically, which disturbed Don Anastasio vastly more
than the American's peremptory tone in the beginning. "What's your
plan?" he asked again, gently coaxing.
Murguía hesitated. This polite drawing-room interest was the most
ironical of encouragement for villainy. Driscoll frowned impatiently,
but at once he was smiling again. He placidly filled his corncob, and a
moment later, his gaze piercing the tobacco smoke, he said, "Then I'll
tell you. You're here to make a dicker, you and your tool between the
lines. The monastery of La Cruz on top of the bluff is the citadel of
Querétaro. Maximilian has his quarters there. The troops there are the
reserve brigade. This puppy, this mongrel, commands the reserve brigade.
He places the sentinels. And you are his orderly.--Oh, I haven't
forgotten how he let you off that time he condemned me!--So now you are
his orderly, for your own reasons and his. And here you are, talking
mysteriously about _capturing_ Maximilian. But you don't mean that,
snake. You are here to _sell_ him! Howsoever," and smiling a little
at the stilted phrasing, Driscoll paused and delicately rammed the
tobacco tighter in the bowl, "howsoever, Murgie, you've come to the
wrong market. No, there's no demand for Maximilians just now, not in
this booth. But why in blazes didn't you go to Escobedo? With his
Shylock beard, I reckon _he'd_ take a flyer in human flesh."
"I was going to him, but I came to you first, to take us there, to take
Lopez and myself, I--I thought you would manage it all, because
you--Your Mercy is the strongest, the most resourceful----"
"Resourceful enough, eh, to dodge the bullets you had fixed up for me
once? Thanks, Murgie, but I liked your attentions then better than your
slimy advances now. By the way, how are you going to get to Escobedo?"
The tone was honey itself.
Murguía gasped, yet not so much to find himself a prisoner, as to find
himself mistaken in the American.
"Now maybe," Driscoll suggested, "maybe you'll be wondering yourself why
you bring your dirty little affairs to me? Lopez may be an open book,
but you seem to've read _me_ wrong. Prob'bly the language is
foreign."
Murguía's jaw dropped, and he gaped as one who beholds the collapse of
high towering walls. It was his system of life, of motives calculated,
of humanity weighed. It was the whole fabric of hate and passions which
quivered and crashed and flattened in a chaos of dust before his wildly
staring eyes.
"You mean, señor, you mean you do not want--as well, as _I!_--to
bring to his end this libertine, this thief of girlhood, this prince who
scatters death, who scatters shame, this--this----"
"Man alive, you're screaming! Stop it!"
With his nails the old man combed the froth from his lips.
"But you too have cause," he cried, "cause not so heavy, but cause
enough, as well as I! There was my daughter, my little girl! With you
there is that French wo----"
He stopped, for he thought he heard the sharp click of teeth. But
Driscoll was only grave.
"Well, go on," he said. "But--speak for your daughter only."
"I can't go on. I won't go on," Murguía burst out desperately, and flung
up his arms. "If you don't understand already, then I can't make you.
It's useless. A book? You're a stone! But any other, who had a heart for
suffering, in your place would----"
"Oh shut up, Murgie!" cried Driscoll wearily, but in something akin to
supplication.
With the serpent's wisdom, the tempter struck no more on that side. His
fangs were not for the blighted lover. What, though, of the soldier?
"No one doubts, señor," he whined unctuously, "that Your Mercy is loyal
to the Republic. So it cannot be that Y'r Mercy knows----"
"See here, Murgie, I'm getting sleepy. But I'll find you a comfortable
tent, with plenty to eat, and a polite guard----"
"Señor," stormed the old man, "I tell you you don't know what this means
to the Republic. Maximilian will escape, no matter the cost. At daybreak
there is to be a concentrated attack on some point in your lines; but
where, nobody knows except Miramon. Then Maximilian will cut through
with the cavalry. The infantry will follow, if it can. And after them,
the artillery. You Republicans may not even know it until too late,
because meantime you will be fighting the townspeople, thinking you are
fighting the whole army."
Driscoll roused himself suddenly. "The townspeople?"
"Si señor, they are to be a decoy. Some volunteered, the rest were
drafted. They have been armed, but they are only to be killed, they are
only to draw the Republican strength, while the Emperor and the army
escape."
Driscoll sprang from his seat, in an agitation that was Murguía's first
hope.
"Do you mean to tell me," he demanded, "that this Maximilian who makes
speeches about not deserting intends now to sacrifice these poor
helpless devils? Prove it!"
Murguía had touched neither lover nor soldier. But what man was here, in
boots and woolen shirt, puffing angrily at a corncob, yet sitting in
judgment supreme on the proud Hapsburg himself? Blindly stumbling,
Murguía had touched the inexplicable man who was of stone, and the
baffled fiend that was in him leaped up with a cry of glee.
"To prove it?" he cried, "Ai, then Lopez shall walk with you in our
outer trenches. For in them you shall see the doomed townsmen
themselves, a thousand townsmen, sleeping there until the dawn.
Afterward, when Maximilian is safe, they who are still alive will be
free to surrender."
"And then----" But Driscoll knew the temper of the siege. What with the
chief prize lost, there would be scant mercy for surrendered townsmen.
"God in heaven," he muttered fervently, "if there's any to suffer, it
might as well be the guilty one, and a thousand times better one than
one thousand! A man's a man, or alleged to be!--Murgie, you wait here,
I'm going to call the others."
The others came, and heard. It was the court en banc, five Missourians
and a Kansan. And the culprit was a Cæsar. But they hewed forth their
Justice as rugged and huge, and as true, as would the outlaw, Michel
Angelo. Like him, they were their own law. Nor were they nice gentlemen,
these Homeric men who spat tobacco. Finding their goddess pandered to by
those who were nice gentlemen, and finding the gift of these a pretty
scarf over her eye, they roughly tore it away. For them she was not that
kind of a woman.
"W'y, this prince is no Christian," Crittenden announced in querulous
discovery.
"One thousand loyally dying for their sovereign," Daniel mused, his
romantic soul wavering. "Sho!" he cried the instant after, "that thing's
out-dated!"
"And the prince there----" began the Kansan angrily.
"May just go--to--the--devil!"
All swung round on one of their number. It was the parson himself who
had pronounced sentence.
Then they set out under the stars to attend to it.
CHAPTER XVII
UNDER A SPANISH CLOAK
"What misadventure is so early up,
That calls our person from our morning's rest?"
--_Romeo and Juliet_.
Just within their own bivouac four Missourians waited with eight horses.
Driscoll and Boone, and the small limping shadow of Murguía between
them, went on outside the sentry line toward the Alameda. When they
returned, a stranger accompanied them, a little distance apart.
"It's true," Driscoll whispered to those who had staid. "The trenches
are filled with townsmen. _He_ took me."
The Americans glanced once the stranger's way, and grunted. He was a
large man, hidden to the eyes in a Spanish cloak. For all the charity of
darkness, he seemed ill at ease, and held himself from them, a marked
figure, alone. A leprosy in himself tainted his every thought. He would
not willingly come near any man. He understood English, unhappily now
for him, and Boone's warning as they mounted seared like vitriol. "Look
out, Harry, don't touch the filthy skut! It'll take the rotting of death
to clean your fingers." After that, even Murguía drew involuntarily away
from the stranger.
They circled the town widely, having only Republican challenges to
quiet, and they dismounted under the trees which shade the valley to the
northeast, between the Sangremal, or mound of La Cruz, and the
besiegers' range of hills. Here, under La Cruz's steep bluff, the
Republican general-in-chief had his quarters, and here he kept a hawk's
jealous watch on the walls above, where slept his country's invader.
Open battle is clear honor, so reckoned; but it takes a brave man to
dive for a pearl in slime. Driscoll was the one to conduct Murguía and
his gloomy companion into the presence of General Escobedo. When he
rejoined the other five outside the tent, he was alone.
"Well, come on," he said as he mounted under the trees. "We needn't stay
for the rest of it, thank God."
For a while they rode in silence back toward their camp. They passed
under the aqueduct and entered the open plain. Then the parson stretched
out his hand to the pommel of Driscoll's saddle.
"Well?" he ventured softly.
"Well, Clem, it's done."
The others crowded their horses nearer.
"I want to tell you all," Driscoll abruptly began again. "I want to tell
you that I've just seen the strangest thing of my whole life, right back
there in that tent. I--well, it's simply flattened me out!"
"You mean Lopez, Din?" one asked tentatively.
"Lopez? No, no, there's nothing strange in him. Any low hound will sell
out to save his hide. No, Dan, I mean the other. I mean the old man.
He's the one who used to run the blockade off Mobile, and a
whiter-livered, more contemptible old grandmother I never hope to see
anywhere, no, never! Yet not a month ago, the day of that Cimatario
scrimmage, I found him on the battlefield, and he had been wounded. But
he didn't seem to know it. He didn't even seem to know that the shells
were still banging all around him."
"An _old_ coward, too!" someone muttered.
"But wait. He used to be one thing worse, one thing more, than a coward.
He was a miser, and such a miser that he _made_ himself face
danger. You should have seen him running a blockade, with the Yankees
chasing behind. He trembled--I tell you, he trembled like a withered
cottonwood leaf on a broken stem. Yet he whined against stoking with
turpentine, because it cost a little more. I'd 'a' thought, I did then,
that the miser was in his bones until the last trumpet. But to-night,
back in that tent just now----"
"Well?"
"Well, he _refused_ money! He refused _gold_! He didn't seem
to know what it was, any more than he did bullets a month ago. Escobedo
asked him his price, and shoved a glittering heap across the table at
him. You saw how he acted when we offered him something to eat? Well, he
looked the same way at the gold. He acted impatient. He didn't want to
see anything except Lopez. But you'd have called it a miser's eagerness,
the way he watched that Lopez. Only a miser don't exult when it's
someone else who pockets the money."
"Maybe they'll divide?"
"Not much, because Murgie could have had his share over and above. No,
it wasn't that. It wasn't the gold. He was greedy--for a soul! He wanted
to see Lopez _bought_, and no hitch. And when it was done, he wet
those catfish lips of his with his tongue. I believe the devil in hell
must look just that way when he gets some poor sinner. But to think of
that old skinflint, to think of that old feeble cowardly shark not
_knowing_ danger, not _knowing_ money----"
"Come, Din," the parson's blessed, cheery voice interrupted, "let's
hurry back and wash our hands. Then we'll _all_ feel better."
While the six Americans rode gloomily away from what they had done, and
from their own thoughts as they best could, a stealthy company was
forming under the trees among the tents of the Republican general. After
a time the seeming spectres began to move in unison, an undulating wave
that spread as the grayish shadow of a low hanging cloud. The dim
figures slowly swept the little space of valley, on toward the steep
slope of La Cruz, and soon they were climbing, silently creeping, nearer
and nearer the dark walls above.
Two seemed the leaders, and the third limped close behind. But one of
the first two held a pistol ever near the heart of his companion, who
was wrapped to the eyes in a Spanish cloak.
"Who goes----" cried an Imperialist sentry.
"Your colonel, fool!" he of the cloak stopped him short. "I, Miguel
Lopez. I am changing the guard. Return now to your barracks and get what
sleep you can before morning. One of these men with me will take your
place."
In like manner each later challenge was satisfied, and so on to a
cannon-battered crevice in the wall. The spectres passed through the gap
there into a field of graves on the mound's level summit. The earth had
an uncanny softness under their tread. The plots were mostly fresh, of
slain Imperialists still keeping their rank according to battalion. But
the living, the Reserve Brigade, were here as well, sleeping over the
dead. They stirred and grumbled at being disturbed, but thought then no
more of the intruders. The secret plans for the daybreak attack
explained everything. Their colonel, whose voice they knew, was shifting
forces in preparation. But when the dawn came, they awoke to find their
weapons gone, and themselves defenseless prisoners.
Many of the spectral troop fell away to hold the cemetery, but the rest
kept on, and entered the monastery garden. Here there was a battery of
one gun, whose muzzle pointed the way to the Republican camp. Without a
sound the Imperialist gunners were replaced by Republicans. The cannon
was one captured during the Cimatario fight. It was called "La
Tempestad," and bore an inscription, "The Last Argument of Nations." Its
new possessors turned the muzzle squarely on the monastery, not fifty
yards away, where Maximilian lay then asleep.
The shadowy host did not linger in the monastery itself. They swept
through hastily, in at the garden entrance, along the corridor, and out
by the great portico door upon La Cruz Plaza. They had passed the
citadel. The town lay before them. But in the Plaza were more cannon,
which had been taken from the trenches and massed for the supreme
effort. They lay silent, under the silent bells of the church. They lay
under the giant Cross of the Apparition, which was adorned by the
Inditos with garlands in vague memory of pagan rites on that very spot.
They lay under the splendid Arabian palms. They lay among defenders. To
take them was like prowling with a torch among broken casks of
gunpowder. Not a shot must be fired until the thing was done. Otherwise,
a quick second shot was to find the heart of Lopez. So Lopez was
exceedingly cautious. However, he commanded here. He was the Emperor's
favorite. Squad after squad, the drowsy Imperialists moved off, letting
the strangers relieve them. So the critical work was achieved, even as
day appeared over the eastern hills. Then he who had kept so close to
Lopez put his revolver away.
"Your bargain is fulfilled, señor," he said. "Accordingly, here's the
paper I was to give you. It is your safe conduct throughout the
Republic. You are free. Go!"
Lopez clutched the thing that meant his life, but as his fingers
tightened over it, his first greed vanished. He stared about him
uncertainly. The Plaza swarmed with men. They were the gray battalion he
had led there. In the dawning light they were still gray. They were the
Supremos Poderes de la República. De la República? Yes, of the enemy,
and he had brought them. But it was as though he had just awakened, and
found them there. The enemy? The enemy was in La Cruz! With a sharp cry,
he turned and ran back into the monastery. He brushed aside the hateful
gray uniforms. He ran panting up the stone steps. In the dark hall above
he stopped at a cell door, and pounded, and tugged frantically at its
latch.
"Señor, awake! Hurry! We are betrayed! Hurry! Escape--escape----"
Within came a startled sleepy voice, "What, what's--" which changed at
once to reproving dignity. "Can it be?--Lopez!"
"But señor--sire--the Chinacos, the Republicans, they are here already!"
"Colonel Lopez!" In its shocked surprise the voice was edged with
rebuke. "Man, man, where are your years of training near my person? One
would think you some boorish night-watchman."
Lopez outside the door dropped his hands, and fell abjectedly silent, as
servilely abashed in his lapse of etiquette as though he stood the
traitor unmasked.
"Now then, Miguel," spoke the Emperor more kindly, "go to General Mejía
and the others. Let them have the goodness to attend me here."
Lopez turned on down the corridor, stopped at the doors of Generals
Mejía and Castillo, and the Prince Salm-Salm. At each he tapped lightly,
as one dazed, and announced that the enemy surrounded them. Then,
remembering, he fled.
Within the thick walls that narrowed his state into a friar's cell,
Maximilian rose from his iron couch. "So," he sighed, almost in relief,
"Destiny means it to end in this way." He was calm, and he attired
himself carefully. He chose his general's uniform, with its rich dark
blue, and scarlet cordon. Nor did he forget the star of some royal
order, which to common men seemed a cotillion favor. When he should step
forth that morning, it was to play a world rôle. The prince must be
serene in the moment of trial. The nations must know that Destiny had
him in hand. And musing thus, he parted his golden beard with dainty
precision. Within a month Europe would acclaim him reverently. He noted
that his high boots glistened. Mejía and the other two, hurrying to him,
fell back in admiration to behold how placid he was.
"Gentlemen," said he, "to leave here, or die! There's nothing else."
He noticed a soft heap at the door, and picked it up.
"Lopez's cloak, a disguise!" he exclaimed. "God bless the poor fellow,
he left it for me."
He wrapped the garment about him, took his pistols, and led the way. In
the dark corridor down stairs a Republican sentry mistook the cool,
commanding figure for one of his own generals, and presented arms.
Maximilian gravely saluted, and with his three companions passed out.
The Plaza was a blurred scene of confusion. Men were awakening to find
their arms gone, and themselves covered by muskets. Shots had been
fired. Curses abounded. Entire companies were being marched away as
prisoners. Republican officers either thought that Maximilian was Lopez,
from his cloak and height, or were too distracted to notice. It is
possible, too, that the victors would have had him escape, that they
might not have the trouble of his disposal, and that they preferred that
he should not thrust it on them. At any rate, he and the three behind
pushed their way undisturbed through cannon and brown stolid men in
gray, and reached the spot where the Plaza narrows into a street that
gently slopes down into the town. But here a guard was posted.
"Pues, hombre, they're civilians, let them pass."
Maximilian turned on him who spoke, and beheld the blackmailer, scout,
deserter, Don Tiburcio. He wore now the uniform of a Republican
explorador. His crossed eye gleamed so humorously up at the Emperor, it
might have been insolence, but it was only the proffered sharing of a
jest. His matter-of-fact tone prevailed, and the guard stood aside. The
four passed on down the street. In comical melancholy Don Tiburcio
looked after them, and then he perceived that a fifth had slipped by the
guard and was following closely behind.
"The saints help us--help _him_, it's Murguía!" Tiburcio muttered
in horror. He recalled the night when María de la Luz was found dead.
The old man, coatless, barefoot, in his pantaloons of Imperial green,
limped desperately to keep pace with the great strides of the four
ahead. The broad crimson stripe down each pant leg would break,
straighten, break again, in bizarre accord, with every painful step. It
was a lope, and he more like a starved wolf, a lean, persistent shadow,
ever ready for the chance to spring.
By hastening down into the town, Maximilian thought to rally what forces
were there for a last stand; or, to be more exact, for a last tableau.
The end of his empire must have éclat. He found the town panic-stricken,
since all could see the Republic's standard over the towers of La Cruz.
Dumfounded officers had gotten to housetops, and were using their
glasses. They beheld the enemy as busy as scurrying ants on the
surrounding hills. Clouds of men from every point were sweeping across
the llano toward the town. The advance were already in the narrow
streets. Killing, looting, had begun. Clanging bells, hoof beats, yells,
musketry, and in the distance deep-voiced cannon! The Emperor and his
three companions, with the malignant shadow hovering ever near,
quickened their course through the town. They paused only to dispatch
couriers. Miramon, when found, was to come at all speed with every
possible man to the Cerro de las Campanas. They gained the adobe suburbs
on the western edge, leaving behind the fearsome rising tide of human
sound. An officer forced the Emperor to mount his horse. Many joined
their flight. They crossed broken fields, and reached the summit of the
wedge-shaped rock called las Campanas. Close behind, emerging from the
town, were the first pursuers, who quickly grew to a thick black fringe
around the hill. Shells were falling. The heavens seemed to flower
vengefully, with the Campanas knoll as the one focus. The adobe stockade
crowning the top was soon packed with fugitives, until those within,
like shipwrecked creatures on a raft, barred out those still coming. The
whisper spread that in the town Miramon had been taken shot through the
cheek after shooting many others. The panic grew. Men knew themselves at
bay. They recognized the deathtrap. On the outlying heights the cannon
had their range. Grenades, bombs, grape, and canister, fell as hail.
The Emperor turned to General Mejía.
"Could we cut our way out?" he asked.
Mejía put down his glasses. He paused, then shook his head.
Straightway an orderly with a white flag was sent down the hill. But the
firing did not cease for that. Maximilian, seeing that he could make no
terms for those around him, seeing them fall by scores instead, himself
followed the orderly; and following him, was the ever faithful shadow.
From out the dark fringe a man on a white horse, a black bearded man
with monstrous flapping ears, General Escobedo, rode forth to meet the
Hapsburg. Then Maximilian forgot the eyes of the world, and thought of
her who had suffered with him, who had suffered more than he, to hazard
this, their dream.
"It is our throne, Charlotte," he murmured, and gave up his sword.
CHAPTER XVIII
EL CHAPARRITO
"Meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones."
--_Romeo and Juliet._
A few days later Jacqueline and Berthe attended a performance at the
Teatro de Iturbide. It was the first held there since the beginning of
the siege, and to the place late foes were thronging eagerly in what
seemed a most inordinate thirst for amusement. The playhouse was without
a roof. Its metal covering had been widely sown in the shape of bullets,
and only a canvas overhead kept out the sun. But the broiling pit was
filled, as well as circling tier over tier of loges, and in the street a
great crowd jostled and surged, like people who stare at the dead walls
of a jail because a man is being hanged inside. If the curious cannot
have both Time and Space to their liking, then the more ghoulish will
gorge themselves on the coincidence of Time alone. "Now," they whisper
awesomely, "his hands and feet are being strapped! What _must_ he
be thinking this very instant, and we standing here?" So those outside
the Teatro de Iturbide sweated patiently. In all evidence it was not an
ordinary performance scheduled for that day.
"Buzzards?" said Jacqueline, looking up and seeing their outspread wings
shadowed on the canvas roof, "Fi donc, _that_ effect is long since
shabby!" But it chilled her, nevertheless.
The curtain was up. A drop, showing fields in green and a receding road
in brown, filled the back. The actors seemed actors solely, and this
idea persisted with the Frenchwoman, as with many another, throughout.
Seven military characters arranged themselves in a kind of state on the
unpainted, slanting stage. They might have been supernumeraries, like
the "senators" in "Othello." At least their severe demeanor became them
awkwardly. They wore uniforms, but not of appalling rank. He who
presided was only a lieutenant colonel, the other six were captains.
Before them, each on a square stool, sat two generals, one with a
bandaged cheek. There were legal gentlemen in plain black, while guards
at stiff attention here and there completed the grouping. Beyond any
doubt, it was a trial scene. And to confirm the surmise, one of the
legal gentlemen, a very peaceable appearing youth, arose and in the
Republic's name demanded the lives of Miguel Miramon and Tomas
Mejía--here he indicated the two generals--and with impressive cadence,
also in the Republic's name, demanded likewise the life of Fernando
Maximiliano de Hapsburgo. The lieutenant colonel and the captains
knitted their seven tawny brows portentously, but they were not in the
least astounded at such a very extraordinary request.
There was no need of a theatrical production at all. Other Imperialists
had not been so unnecessarily distinguished, as for instance, General
Mendez, that ancient enemy of Régules and executioner of Republicans
under the Black Decree. Caught the day Querétaro fell, he was shot in
the back as a traitor. Yet he met a legal death. Taken in armed defiance
of the Republic, identity established, the hollow square and shooting
squad, such was the routine prescribed. But the lesser official relics
of the Empire, six hundred in all, escaped generally with a few months
of prison. The rank and file of the betrayed army had already melted
away. But for the three arch-culprits a trial was deemed requisite, and
President Juarez, in San Luis Potosi, so ordered. Hence the stage
setting as above described.
Maximilian was at first surprised. He had said to Escobedo, "I am ready
to go whenever you can favor me with an escort to the coast, but first I
require assurance that my loyal followers shall not suffer." But the
Republican chief had smiled oddly, and locked him up. Later, however,
Maximilian had seemed content. A trial for his life, that would add the
last needed glamour to the prestige of his return to Europe. So he
affably humored his captors, and was rewarded with humiliation--his
judges could hardly be more obscure. So as he was genuinely sick abed,
he got himself excused from playing his part in the Teatro Iturbide.
The soi-disant Emperor had four conscientious defenders, chosen from
Republican jurists, two of whom were then in San Luis to do what they
might before Juarez. The other two spent eloquence and acumen on the
court's seven tawny brows. Their first point came from Maximilian
himself. It was complacent, this point. The naïveté of it was superb.
"I am no longer Emperor," so the defense ran, "nor was I during the
siege; because, before leaving the capital, I drew up my abdication,
which was then countersigned by my ministers. However, it was not to
take effect until I should fall prisoner."
When the Republic recovered her breath, she felt in her amusement a
wounded pride. This prince must think her very simple. So, she was to
recognize the usurper's abdication after she had fought and suffered to
take the usurper? A captured thief draws from his pockets a quit-claim
deed to the plunder he has stolen, and giving it to the court, would
therefore go free! The tragedy changed for a spell to comic opera. And
matters were not helped greatly when next were invoked "the immunities
and privileges which pertain under any and all circumstances to an
archduke of Austria."
Though handicapped by their client's arrogance, counsel yet did their
utmost. They argued law and humanity, with tremulo effects. They prayed
that "the greatest of victories be crowned by the greatest of pardons."
But it was of no use. The bloodthirsty stripling persisted in the
Republic's name. This Maximiliano was a Mexican. In many beautiful
speeches the said Maximiliano had said so. Hence he could not evade
responsibility to the laws of his adopted country. And there was, for
instance, the law of 1862 concerning treason.
Well, in a word, the three accused were straightway sentenced to death;
and Escobedo, approving, named Sunday, June 16th, for the execution. It
might be mentioned of this Escobedo that on two former occasions, when
the circumstances were exactly reversed, Mejía had each time saved his
life. Since Querétaro, there have been comments on the vigor of
Escobedo's memory.
"Poor pliant Prince Max," sighed Jacqueline, "he is still being
influenced to stay in Mexico! Come, Berthe, we must make all speed to
San Luis and see the Presidente."
* * * * *
In the long hall of the Palacio Munícipal at San Luis Potosi, before the
old-fashioned desk there, sat an Indian. He was low and squat and
pock-marked, and there was an ugly scar, livid against yellow, across
the upper lip. He had a large mouth, high cheek-bones, and swarthy skin
with a copperish tinge. He was a pure-blooded Indian. At twelve he did
not know a word of Spanish. His race, the Zapotecas of Oaxaca, had all
but been extinguished by the Conquest. Except for the ungainly black he
wore--excepting, too, his character--he might have been a peon, or still
the servant he once had been. But the homely, heavy features of his
round head did not, in any sense, repel. On the contrary, the
countenance was frank, though yet inscrutable. The piercing black eyes
were good eyes, and indomitable, like his muscled jaw. The flat, square
forehead made one aware of intellect, and of force. So short and thick,
he looked a sluggish man, but it was the phlegm of a rock, the calm of
strength, and whatever the peril, almost inanimate. His country called
him Benemérito de América, a title the noblest and rarest in its Spartan
hint of civic virtue.
The Indian's desk was littered with messages from the princes of the
earth. Like his expiring race, he had fought their order, and they had
made of him a wandering fugitive. But now they were imploring him for
one of their number, whose surrendered sword that moment lay across
their petitions. Two of the letters, but not from princes, he had read
with deep consideration. One was from the President of the United
States, the other from Victor Hugo. But these also he shoved from him,
though regretfully, and now he was gazing out over the Plaza, the line
of his jaw as inflexible as ever.
But they were not many, the moments this man had to himself, and it was
not long before a gendarme in coarse blue, serving as an orderly,
disturbed him.
"Well, show her in then," he said, frowning at the card laid on his
desk, nor did he rise when an unusually beautiful but very grave young
woman entered the room.
"At your orders, Señorita de--d'Aumerle. You come, I suppose, to save
him?--But," he added with the austerity of a parent, "it is not
difficult to imagine why _you_ are interested."
"No, Señor Presidente," he heard himself quietly contradicted, "Your
Excellency can not imagine."
He looked up, into a pair of honest gray eyes. But her tone had already
told him enough. He rose to his feet in rugged courtesy. The Indian was
a wise man, and he knew now that other men had whispered falsely about
one exquisite Parisienne.
"Pardon me, child," he said gently. "No, I cannot imagine."
Impulsively Jacqueline leaned over the desk and gave him her hand.
"Thank you," she said, in a voice that trembled unexpectedly. From that
moment, too, she abandoned tactics. The wiles of courts would avail
nothing against the primitive straightforwardness of the man before her.
It seemed, moreover, good and homely, to cast them aside. She took a
seat near the window, since he remained standing until she did, and
waited. He should speak first, and afterward, she would accept. For
there was nothing, she felt, that she could say. O rare tongue of woman,
to so respect the leash of intuitions!
As for Don Benito Juarez, he had not meant to speak at all. But knowing
her now to be not what he had thought, he spoke as he had not to any
plenipotentiary of any crowned head.
"You are a Frenchwoman, señorita," he began. "Tell me, your coming must
be explained by that?"
"Now," said Jacqueline, smiling on him cordially, "Your Excellency's
imagination is getting better."
"And you wish to save Maximilian," the Presidente stated, rather than
questioned, "because he is a victim of France."
"Because he will be considered so."
The old Roman smiled. "My dear young lady," he said, "an answer to
France is the least of my obligations. Yet you expect it, and ask for
clemency, though I deny all the great nations?"
"Oh señor, what's the use? Let him go!"
The keen black eyes regarded her quizzically. "Do you know," he said,
"this is the second time I've heard that question to-day? One of our
American officers had himself put in command of the escort for
Maximilian's two lawyers here, and now I believe he did it simply
because he too wanted to know, 'What's the use?' It was anti-climax, and
a wet blanket over the fervid eloquence of the two lawyers. But
nevertheless, he hit the one argument."
"Yes, yes!"
"In a word, why not brush aside our archduke? He's harmless, now, he's
insignificant? Why not take from him the only dignity left, that of
dying?"
"Of course, Señor Juarez! Of course!"
"And at the same time win bright renown for ourselves, instead of what
will be called harsh cruelty?"
"Surely!"
The smile vanished. The large mouth closed tightly.
"No," spoke the judge of iron. "He dies! That is the truest mercy, a
mercy to those who might otherwise follow him here. And we, señorita, we
have already suffered enough from Europe."
"But the other two?" pleaded Jacqueline. "They are Mexicans."
"They are that, por Dios, and they make me proud of my race. Miramon,
Mejía, they are the leaven. They redeem Lopez, they redeem Marquez, they
redeem the deserters who now so largely form my armies, who before had
deserted me for the French invasion. By the signal example of these two
men to die to-morrow, the world shall know that Mexicans are not all
traitors. And as we grow, we Mexicans, we may grow beyond the empty
loyalty of glowing Spanish words. Remembering such an example, we may
come to be, in our very hearts, breathing things of honor. We have been
shackled because of infamy during the last centuries. Can you wonder,
then, that we use the treacherous weapon of the Conquistadores?--But
that's apart. The loyalty of Miramon and Mejía has been loyalty to an
invader, a wrong their country will not forgive. But our cultured
gentleman of Europe, our vain fool who would regenerate the poor Indito,
he will perhaps not feel so ashamed of us, not when he has two such
companions in death, and not when he learns, though painfully, that the
rod of Mexican justice respects neither immunity nor privilege of birth.
There, señorita, I've had to talk more about this one individual than
about the hundreds of others who have been punished for much less than
he."
"But it must be terrible to die, señor. And _he_ doesn't realize,
while a delay of only a few days----"
"Would suffice for his escape?"
Jacqueline reddened guiltily. "No, to prepare for his end," she said.
The Presidente smiled tolerantly. "Never fear," he answered first her
confusion, "our justice stands committed, and to wink at escape now
would be cowardly. Yet, whether you meant it or not, you are right, and
the execution stands postponed until the nineteenth. A doomed man may
learn much in three days to comfort him--on his way. But the criminal of
all is lacking."
"Marquez, you mean?"
"U'm, him also. But I was thinking of Louis Napoleon, _and_ his
wife."
The order of postponement, being openly telegraphed to Escobedo at
Querétaro, was known at once in San Luis, and caused a fury of
excitement. For none doubted but that it meant eventual pardon. The
tender hearted rejoiced. The rabid ones muttered. The wise shook dubious
heads. And even as Jacqueline and Berthe were hurrying back to Querétaro
in the canvas-covered coach, another caller was admitted roundly on the
president's privacy, without so much as being announced. Juarez wondered
if his orderly had gone crazy, for the newcomer thus obsequiously
presented looked to be a species of ancient vagabond.
"Well, what is it?" the President asked, frowning heavily. He was
curiously irritated. "Stay," he interposed, "those dusty, muddy rags you
have on, that green and red, that's not a Republican uniform?"
"It's of the Batallon del Emperador," replied the stranger, unabashed.
"Bless me the saints! Well, well, well, I suppose you, too, want to save
your Maximilian. But how does it happen that you're not under guard
yourself?"
For answer the old man came nearer. He limped feebly, and the while he
unbuttoned his coarse red jacket. Juarez watched him sluggishly, but
with a hand upon a revolver under the papers on his desk. The stranger,
however, drew forth nothing more sensational than five or six square
bits of parchment. Yet these aroused the President more than a weapon
could have done. They were blank, except at the bottom, and there the
President read his own signature, "Benito Juarez, Libertad y Reforma."
"Your--Your Excellency remembers?"
"How well!" The admission came involuntarily. Juarez was laboring under
an emotion that he could not at first control. He stared at his visitor
in a new wonder. So gaunt, so hollow, so utterly insignificant! The
President's wonder grew.
"You--you gained entrance here by one of these slips?" he questioned
sharply. The old man nodded. "And it was countersigned by----"
"Si señor, by El Chaparrito. The slip said, 'Admit bearer at once.'"
"Then I cannot blame my orderly! But who are you?"
"Anastasio Murguía, to serve Your Mercy."
"Bien, Señor Murguía, and now will you explain what no other messenger
from our unknown friend has done? Who--who is El Chaparrito?"
But, like the wretched messengers who had gone before, Anastasio Murguía
only shrugged his shoulders blankly. "Your Excellency does not know El
Chaparrito?" he asked. "And yet you trusted him, a stranger, with your
signature?"
There was a crafty stress on his words.
"Ah, señor," Juarez placidly inquired, "what if a chief magistrate did
not know when to trust? You are to be informed, then, that one year ago
last October, at Chihuahua, I was saved from a French flying column by
an Indito. The poor wretch had run across the desert with his warning.
But he could prove nothing. He couldn't even tell who sent him, except
that it was a short gentleman, a señor chaparro. Yet it was well for the
Republic that I took his word and fled. Later, when I reached the Rio
Grande, and he wanted my signature to some blank squares of parchment,
which he was to take back to his señor chaparro--well, señor, I trusted
again. That Indito in breech-clout obtained my autograph some twenty
times over."
The President, however, might have added that every Republican officer
was advised first to test any warning on any bit of parchment signed
"Benito Juarez." Yet, as a matter of fact, there came to be such magic
in the name of El Chaparrito that the name of Juarez thereto was only
needed as a guarantee that the lesser name was genuine.
"Now, then, Señor Emissary," said the President, "what danger hangs over
our Republic this time?"
"None, señor. I return the parchment squares left over. El--El
Chaparrito has no more thoughts for the Republic. He thinks," and
Murguía ground his knuckles into the desk top, "he thinks of no one, of
no one--except Maximilian! And he has never thought of aught else. The
Republic? Bah, the Republic was only his tool, Señor Presidente. Only
his tool, but the tool needed sharpening. They say that's the way with
the guillotine, eh, Señor Presidente?"
"But hombre--No, our unseen friend of the Republic, our Chaparrito,
would not ask for Maximilian's pardon?"
"_Pardon!_"--It was fairly a cry of rage--"Yet you, Señor
Presidente, _you_ postpone the execution! _You_ mean to pardon
him!"
"Indeed?"
"Yes, I--I think so. But you shall not, Señor Presidente. I come to,
to----"
"Now that's curious. Possibly I, too, am to be sharpened into a kind of
guillotine, eh, señor?"
"All the others were," Murguía returned stubbornly. "That is, all except
one."
"Ha, then El Chaparrito found one man who was incorruptible?"
"Yes. But still Your Excellency is mistaken. El Chaparrito did not use
money to win his agents. That, señor, is the unsafest way of all."
"You would tell me, señor, that El Chaparrito had a safe way?"
"Yes, and it was absolute. He awakened memory, the memory, Señor
Presidente, of wrongs. For example, there was Your Excellency's savior
in breech-clout. He once lived in a forest village down in the Huasteca.
One night Dupin came and burned the huts, and the Indito's family
perished with other women and children there. That village alone gave
the Chaparrito many another messenger or spy, but memories left by the
Empire were plentiful enough everywhere, and cheap. The Chaparrito
simply drafted them, that was all. But once his system failed. Yet--well
the man in that case was an American, and _they_ are liable to be
exceptions to any rule, to any passion. But in the end he was safe
enough too, though something else, that I can't understand, made him
so."
"And what did he do, this American?"
"He took me to Escobedo."
"And you?"
"I took Lopez. That same night Querétaro fell."
"_You?_ Now--now to what particular wrong in _your_ case,
señor, does the Republic stand thus indebted?"
Juarez put the question lightly, even patronizingly. But his steadfast
gaze had not once left his gaunt and battered visitor. By design, too,
he had not asked a second time who the Chaparrito was, because he saw,
or felt, that the old man knew, though former emissaries from that
mysterious source had not known. And Juarez meant to possess the secret.
But with his casual irony he never looked for any such kindling of
memory as then flashed deep in the cavernous sockets opposite him. The
eyes of the aged man glowed and darkened, glowed and darkened, and
seemed the very breathing of some famished beast. It was a thing to
startle even Benito Juarez, who during many, many years had learned the
meaning of civil war. The President leaped to his feet, pointing a
finger.
"You are," he cried, "yes, _you_ are the Chaparrito!--No?--Yes! Ha,
I've struck, I've struck!"
He had indeed. The colossal guile and intellect and will, the giant whom
men in awe called El Chaparrito, was only old, withered Anastasio
Murguía. But the astute Juarez _knew_ that he was right. He knew it
in that one look of consuming, conquering hate. He knew the giant in
that hate. The feeble flesh, Anastasio Murguía, was an incident. Yet
even so, only the President's tenacity held him to where his instinct
had leapt. For under discovery Murguía was changed to a huddled, abject
creature, stammering denial. Yet it must be true, it must. The
strangest, the most weird of contrasts in the same soul and body--yet it
must, it _was_ true!
And Murguía? He might have asked for reward, and had it. But his was
rankest despair. His work was not finished, his goal not attained. And
now his most potent instrument of all, the Chaparrito, was miserably
identified in his own self, was taken from him.
Juarez rose and touched his shoulder, "Come," he said, "there's much too
much tension here. Now then, sit down, so. Let me see, you said your
name was--yes, Murguía. But--why, Dios mio, that's the Huasteca miser!
Well, well, well, and so you are that rich old hacendado who never gave
even a fanega of corn to Republic or French either, unless frightened
into it? But hombre, we've had _big_ sums from the Chaparrito, and
all unasked!"
And yet must it still be true, yet must even this contrast accord. El
Chaparrito had indeed given munificently. But in each case it was to
bridge a crisis. As the shrewdest general he knew a vital campaign, and
aided, if need be. But on a useless one the Republic's soldiers might
starve, might freeze, might bleed and die, without ever the most
niggardly solace ever reaching them from El Chaparrito. Economy was
applied to vengeance, and made it unspeakably grim.
"Once though," Juarez pursued, "you all but lost your Maximilian? I mean
last fall when he started for the coast. He could have escaped to
Europe."
"I know," said Murguía quietly, "but I was near him. If he had not
turned back, I would have done it myself."
"It?"
"The justice which Your Excellency has just postponed three days."
"Dios mio, but our Chaparrito is a dangerous person! He'd have to be
locked up if Maximilian were pardoned."
"But--but Your Excellency will not pardon him!"
"To be sure, I had forgotten. I am to be given a memory. Well?"
"Your Excellency remembers, he remembers Zacatecas?"
"Last February? Certainly I do. Miramon came, but a warning from El
Chaparrito, from you, came first, and a last time I escaped. As it was,
I was reported captured, and I sometimes wonder what Maximilian would
have done had that report been true."
"If I should tell you, señor?"
"Ah, that is beyond even you, since Maximilian has never had the chance
to decide my fate."
"But he did decide, señor. He got word that you were taken at Zacatecas,
and at once he sent orders to Miramon as to your treatment. But Miramon
was already defeated, already fleeing to Querétaro."
"And the orders, the orders from Maximilian?"
"They never arrived. They were intercepted. They--yes, here they are,
but before reading them, will Your Excellency promise to imagine himself
in Miramon's power?"
"I would, naturally. Come, señor, hand them over."
It made curious reading, that weather-blotched dispatch. For Don Benito
Juarez it was reading as curious as a man may ever expect to come by. In
the handwriting of his prisoner, he read his own death sentence.
"Your--Your Excellency sees?" Murguía stammered hungrily.
"H'm, what, for example?"
"Why, that--that Maximilian would not have pardoned?"
"On the contrary, señor mio, that is precisely what the generous
Maximilian did intend. Listen--Miramon was 'to delay execution until His
Majesty should pass upon it.'"
"No--no, Your Excellency, he would not have----"
"O ho, so you think you've missed your last stroke! You think that there
is no memory for me in this dispatch! But don't whine so, because, man,
there is, there is! It may not be the memory of my intended death, but
it is the memory of--intended insult. Oh, what a patriot he must have
thought me, this good, regenerating prince! He had already offered to
make me chief justice. But this time he would have saved me from his own
Black Decree. And I would have been touched by his clemency? I would
have accepted, the grateful tears streaming from my eyes? And thus I
would be regenerated? It sounds beautiful. It sounds like the chivalrous
Middle Ages, when there were Black Princes along with the Black Decrees.
My liege lord _he_ would have been, but my liege Patria, what of
her?--Well, well, well, he has three days in which to understand me
better, and to think of his own regeneration a little."
"Then," cried Murgía, limping gleefully toward him, "then there will be
no pardon?"
"I see," said Juarez, suddenly cold and very calm, "I am now corrupted.
I am now safe, like the others. Take that chair, wait!"
Saying which the Presidente left his desk, clapped his hands for the
orderly, and seated himself near the window. To the orderly he said, "Go
to the diligence office across the Plaza. Ask for Colonel Driscoll, the
American officer who commands the escort of the two lawyers. Say that I
wish to see him here at once."
When Driscoll appeared, Juarez put to him this question, "Colonel--I'll
say 'General' whenever you decide to be a citizen among us--Colonel, can
you reach Querétaro early to-morrow morning by riding all night?"
"Not with my own horse, sir. He's getting old, and deserves better."
"Then it's all right, señor. You will take any horse you want. I have
telegraphed to stop the execution, but there's been no reply. You must
therefore see General Escobedo yourself. Look on my desk. Do you find a
packet there?"
"Yes."
"Sealed? Well, break it open. Now read the contents to my visitor here."
Driscoll unfolded a long sheet of foolscap, and began to read. Murguía
the while fidgeted in an agony, but listening further, his limbs grew
tense, and a hideous joy overspread his face.
"'But at sunrise of the nineteenth you will execute the sentence already
approved.'"
The prisoners were not to be deceived by false hopes. There would be no
further appeal. The last, the final decision, had been made.
"I have signed it, I believe, Colonel Driscoll?"
"Yes."
"Then seal it again, and hurry! Good-bye, sir, good-bye."
When Driscoll was gone, the Benemérito of America turned to the grinning
hyena-like old man who was his visitor. His own dark features were
passionless, impenetrable.
"You observe, señor," he said, "that Justice does not require
corrupting, nor even a memory. So let El Chaparrito add this to his
philosophy, that he need not boast again of an infallible spur to civic
loyalty, for he will never find it, nor I. And yet--there is
patriotism."
CHAPTER XIX
IN ARTICULO MORTIS
"The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and majesty
of the soul.... Man cannot be happy and strong until he lives
in the present."--_Emerson._
For Maximilian it was the eve of execution. The soul feels that there is
much to decide at such a time, but under the nettling merciless load the
soul will either flounder pitifully and decide nothing, else lie numb
and in a half death vaingloriously believe that it has decided
everything. So may the condemned be open-eyed or blind. Or, according to
the police reporter, be either coward or stoic. But it really depends in
large measure on whether realization be dulled, or no.
Maximilian had too late come to understand that his anointed flesh was
violable at all. He learned it only when the death watch was actually
set on his each remaining breath. And now he was _en capilla_, in
the chapel of the doomed; he, Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph, Archduke of
Austria, Prince of Hungary and Bohemia, Count of Hapsburg, Prince of
Lorraine, Emperor of Mexico, even He!
They had given him the tower room of Querétaro's old Capuchin church,
and against the wall was an improvised altar. But the sacrament waited.
The tapers on the snow-white cloth were as yet unlighted. Instead the
Most Serene Archduke--Emperor no longer--read from a battered volume of
Universal History, which, with a book's queer vagaries, had strayed into
his cell. He read how Charles of England had died, then he paused,
blinking at the two candles on the rough table. They were vague shapes,
they were horrors, which he now began to see, as the visions of Truth so
often are when hazily perceived.
He bitterly envied that unhappy Stuart, who, before his palace window,
among Cavaliers and Roundheads, had died in majesty, the bright central
figure in a tragedy of august magnitude. But for the Hapsburg how
sordid, how mean, it all would be! He could see already the gaping,
yellow faces, sympathetic in their stupidity. _They_ would not
really know that a prince was dying. The very guard with shouldered
bayonet outside his door was a deserter, and it was this man, more than
aught else, that gave him to chafe against his ignoble lot. The fellow
never uttered a word, indeed; but he had a heavy, malignant eye, and
each time he passed the large inner window that opened on the corridor
he would look into the cell, as though to locate his prisoner. Then
Maximilian could feel the insolent, mocking gleam upon himself, until
for rage he clenched his fist.
Thus the Most Serene Archduke's first perception of calamity was not
that royal blood was to flow, but that it was to flow obscurely. Even
the ancient raven curse, the curse of the Habicht which had given his
House its very name, was now fulfilled by unclean buzzards. He saw them
each day, perched on the neighboring roofs.
He sighed and turned to his book. Universal History? Yes, but for
hundreds and hundreds of years that history of millions and millions of
people was no more than the record of his own little family group. Such
a course of reading for such a man held a terrible grandeur, and it must
have been a unique sensation of pride that touched the golden-bearded,
ultra-refined viking prince. A spoilt child he was, and though so
cruelly reproved by Life, he yet could learn no lesson in the passing
footnote that _he_ would add to that family record. He could not
see that the light which made the printed characters so dazzling, yet
distorted them. He could not know that the commonest man of the millions
and millions might read that Universal History by quite a different and
a calmer light. But he was aware of the sentinel's tread back of him,
and aware too of the fellow's coarse, familiar leer.
One consolation he felt he might have had, and this was the dignity of
martyrdom. But no one, alas, seemed to regard him as a martyr at all. He
had begged that he alone should suffer. But the play at knightly
generosity was too shallow. For at the time Maximilian believed that he
would not suffer in any case. Later, though, when he knew that he must
die, then with simple earnestness he had pleaded for Miramon and Mejía,
and forgot himself altogether. But Juarez had hardly more than
acknowledged the telegram, and now in the cell next him Miramon was
confessing, and in the cell on his other side Mejía waited. Each of
these two men would leave a wife and child.
Someone knocked. "No, father, not yet," Maximilian answered gently,
although his mood was impatience. The confessor sighed in protest
against the waste of precious time, but he did not move away, as he had
already twice before during the night. Instead he came and stood at the
corridor window. His lip trembled pityingly. There was news, he said.
Maximilian pushed back the book, and was on his feet. The priest meeting
his eager look, shook his head sadly.
"It comes from--from Miramar."
Maximilian fell back. One hand groped out involuntarily, as in appeal
before a blow. "News of Charlotte?" he asked faintly.
Charlotte was dead, the priest told him.
During a long time, after the priest had gone, his head lay on his arms,
between the two candles. He heard no more the sentry challenges, nor
sensed the menace in every slightest sound of the dark night outside.
There was something else. "Death?" At first he did not consciously
strive for an answer. But the question kept falling, and falling again,
as a lash. The vulgar hands which plied the scourge, the stupid yellow
faces, these no longer mattered. He felt the blows themselves, only the
blows.
She had died, the poor maniac! She had died, a thing for the lowliest
pity. And this was true of the haughty child of Orleans because she had
wanted a throne. Slowly her husband raised his head; and staring at the
wall, his tear-dimmed eyes opened wider and wider. Because she had
wanted a throne? Because she had wanted a dais above the meek and lowly,
above those who now pitied her! His eyes fell on the Universal
History--the family record, and there grew in his eyes a look of
detestation. Groaning suddenly, he buried his head again in his arms.
At dawn he too was to die, and because he too had craved a sceptre. Yet,
and yet, he had meant to be an instrument of good. Born of kings,
anointed by the Vicar of Christ, he had come as agent from the Almighty.
But God had failed to sustain him, God had--again the blue eyes raised,
but dry now, and stark in terror. "Yes, yes, yes," so his reeling soul
cried to him, "there _is_ a God! There is, there is!" One sharp
breath, and the mortal fear passed. In ghastly panic he crept back from
the brink, either of the atheist's despair or of the madman's chaos. But
the cost was heavy. Since God did exist, and God yet had failed him,
then it was the man's Divine Right that must be false. He, only a man,
had mistaken his Destiny. Nay, had he a Destiny? Or why, more than
another man? Here, then, was the cost. To keep his hope of Heaven, he
stepped down among the millions and millions. His Divine Right,
crumbling under the grandeur of partition among the millions, became for
himself the most infinitesimal of shares, neither greater nor less than
that of any other human being. But glorified now by the holy alchemy of
Charity, the tiny grain became divine indeed, and he beheld it as a
glowing spark, his own inalienable share in the rights of man. So, for a
moment, the poet prince knew again his old-time exultation. Even Truth,
he now perceived, had her sublimities.
But the pall of horror fell again. To-morrow he was to die. He was to
die because his life long he had sought to rob others of the tiny grain,
of their God-given dignity as men, and that too, even as they were
awaking to its possession. The vanity, the presumptuous, inconsistent
vanity of it all! Under the dark mediæval cloak he had planned
enlightenment, he, who had tried to rule without parliament, without
constitution! He would have made a people believe in God's injustice, in
God's choice of a man like them to be a demigod over them. Hence the
blasphemous demigod had now to answer to human law. And it was meet and
right. Purgatory was beginning on the eve of his death.
He, the torch of Progress! Maximilian smiled scornfully on himself. He
was only a clod of grit caught in the world's great wheels. The foreign
substance had wrought a discordant screech for a moment, and then was
mercilessly ground into powder and thrust out of the bearings. He
pondered on the first days of the Family Group, when there was
extenuation; more, when there was necessity, for a king. At any rate the
monarch then earned, or could earn, his pomp and state by services
actually rendered. And now? The Hapsburg decided that there was not a
more contemptible parasite on the body politic. The crowned head was
simply the first among paupers. He had his bowl of porridge, which was
the civil list.
The doomed prince sank to a depth of shame that may not be conceived. He
was humanity's puny infant. He had dawdled among men centuries older
than himself. His whole being was out of harmony with the universe. Fate
had held his soul fast during those Dark Ages when he might have striven
nobly, and now had cast it forth, an anachronism. It was a soul
misplaced in eternity. The dire realization grew and grew, and with it
the tragic agony, until with a sudden and the bitterest of cries he
flung up his arms and fell heavily across the table.
"My life!" he moaned in piteous begging for something he might not have.
"My life, to live my life over again!"
In the first light of morning Escobedo came. The Republican general
unfolded a paper, and began to read. But instead of the death sentence,
it was reprieve. President Juarez had postponed execution for three
days.
"Three days?" Maximilian repeated, wearily shaking his head. "If your
Republic could give me as many centuries, but three days!--Three days,
in which to _live_ my life!"
CHAPTER XX
KNIGHTHOOD'S BELATED FLOWER
"Trusting to shew, in wordès few,
That men have an ill use
(To their own shame) women to blame,
And causeless them accuse."
--_The Nut-Brown Maid._
Later the same morning there sounded the ineffable swish of silken
petticoats along the corridor and the clinking of high heels on the
tiles. La Señorita Marquesa d'Aumerle had obtained permission to visit
His Most Serene Highness. The sentinel of the evening before was again
on duty, and his evil crossed eye seemed to lighten with vast humor as
he presented arms for the lady to pass. She met his insolence with a
searching, level gaze.
Maximilian hastened to the door of his bare cell, and took both her
hands in his. "I am beginning to recognize my friends," he said simply.
"I know, I know," he added, "you come to tell me that you failed to get
the pardon. But you do bring reprieve."
He would have her believe that he valued that.
Jacqueline regarded steadily the tall, slight figure in black, with the
pinioned sheep of the Golden Fleece about his neck, and she sighed. She
was disappointed in him. She had thought that pride of race, if nothing
more, would give him character during these last moments. She allowed,
too, for the grief, and the remorse, in the blow of Charlotte's death.
But she was not prepared for the roving eyes, the disordered mind, the
feverish unrest of the condemned prince. Had his soul, then, been a
cringing one throughout the night just past? It was the first time she
had seen him, except at a distance, since the day she arrived in
Querétaro, for she had chosen, and perhaps maliciously, to disconcert
the tongue of slander. Hence she could not picture the ravages of
sickness and anxiety, until now when she beheld his haggard face. It was
one to bring a pang. The cheeks were hollow, the lines sharply drawn,
and the skin was white, so very white, with never a fleck of pink
remaining. And staring from the wasted flesh were the eyes, large and
round and faded blue, and in them an appealing, a haunted look. But they
softened at sight of her, as though comforted already.
"A reprieve is best," he said. "You cannot think that I want a pardon,
now that, that _she_ is dead!"
"But sire----"
"'Sire'? Ah, my lady, you are a little late, by something like a few
hundred years. You see our American was right after all; a letter no
longer makes a king."
It was a bon mot that Maximilian had always enjoyed, it being his own,
but this time he was most zealously in earnest.
"Monsieur, then," she said, in no mood for reforms of etiquette. "Only,
let me talk! We have three days, three days which are to be used. Your
Highness must escape!"
But now she understood him less than before, for he only smiled wearily.
It was, then, something else than fear that had broken him so.
Escape? And that guard in the corridor? Passing, ever passing, the
diabolical humorist seemed to chuckle inwardly, as though to stand
death-watch were the most exquisite of jokes.
"That man?" whispered Jacqueline. "Why, that's Don Tiburcio. He was
driven out of the Imperialist ranks by Father Fischer. But from his
lips, this very night, Your Highness will hear that the road is open to
Vera Cruz. Ah sire--monsieur--we have been working, we others. There
will be horses ready, there will be a long ride, and then, you will
safely board an Austrian ship waiting for you."
Maximilian slowly shook his head. "No," he said, "I am ready to die,
as--as ready as I shall ever be."
"But the remaining years of your natural life, Your Highness counts them
as nothing! Yet you might live twice your present age!"
"My life--over again," he murmured dreamily.
"Of course, why not?"
"One year to redeem each year that has gone."
"Years of Destiny!" she cried, thinking to touch him there.
"No!" he exclaimed, so harshly and quick that it startled her. "But for
me they will be years of dearest mercy. Wait, tell me first, Miramon and
Mejía----"
"Yes, yes, we will save them too. Only, the risk is greater."
"Bien!" He had almost accepted, but he smothered the word, and starting
up, began to pace the room. At last he stopped. "The risk must be
lessened, for them," he said. "_I_ will remain."
"H'm'n," the girl ejaculated, "Hamlet declines? Then there will be no
play at all, at all."
Maximilian knew how stubborn she could be; and so, reluctantly, he
joined the plot.
"I have deserved Marquez and Fischer and Lopez," he sighed. "But why
there should be friends, even now, that I cannot understand."
Yet she told him bluntly why she wanted his safety. It was on France's
account. Still, his gratitude was no less profound. She who would give
life to others, what was her life to be henceforth? The mellowing
sorrow, which her vivacity could not hide, smote him again, as it had
that evening in Mexico when he came to her for counsel. He remembered.
Out of a useless ambition for her country she had squandered her name,
blighted her future. He remembered how, looking on her saddened face, he
had been exalted to a pure devotion, and had burned with knightly fervor
to do her some impossible service. But what was the service? There his
memory failed, and he despised the chivalrous ardor which could be
quenched with feeding on itself. After the fearful vigil of the night
before, he had found a suit of armor beside him. In a word, he had
forgotten self. Simple compassion was enough. That service? that
service? If he could only remember. But he must. And in hot anger he
strode back and forth, while Jacqueline sat and gazed in wonder. Once,
turning from the corridor window, he paused. The guard had stopped a
man, who now was evidently waiting until the prisoner should be
unoccupied. Unseen himself, Maximilian recognized in the man the
American named Driscoll. And then he remembered. He remembered
Jacqueline's secret, betrayed to him that evening in Mexico. He
remembered that her happiness was lost in the loss of this man's
respect. Here, at last, lay the impossible service!
Maximilian glanced toward her stealthily. No, from where she sat she
could not see the corridor, could not see the waiting American. A moment
later Maximilian stood behind her; and when he spoke, she thought it odd
that he should change from French to halting English.
"Miss d'Aumerle," he began, in distinct if nervous phrasing, "yes, it
was for France, all, all of which you haf done. Therefore is it that you
haf come to this country, and here to Querétaro, whatever is to the
contrary said."
"De grace," she laughed, rising abruptly, "there's enough to do to-day
without discussing----"
But he intercepted her even as she opened the door.
"Will Your Highness kindly let me pass?"
"And I know, I alone, that nefer haf you toward myself once felt, once
shown, that which----"
A sharp, indignant cry escaped her. Following her gaze he saw the
American pass on down the corridor and out of hearing.
"Now who," exclaimed the chagrined prince, "would ever have imagined
such delicacy of breeding!"
"And don't ever again," cried Jacqueline furiously, "imagine that
_I_ stand in need of being righted!" Wherewith she too was gone,
leaving her clumsy knight staring blankly after her.
A few moments later Driscoll knocked.
It was the first meeting of these two men since the memorable afternoon
at Cuernavaca, when Driscoll had surprised Jacqueline listening to
royalty's shameless suit. Now he beheld Fatality's retribution for that
day's bitterness. Retribution, yes. But it was not restitution. The girl
he loved had just passed him in the corridor with a slight casual nod,
and he would not, could not, stretch forth a hand to stop her. Instead,
the smile so ironical of Fate had touched his lips.
"I was sent by Señor Juarez, sir," he addressed the archduke in the tone
of military business. "The President is afraid your three days of
reprieve will be misunderstood. He sent for me as I was leaving San Luis
yesterday, and I--I was to tell you----"
"You need not hesitate, colonel."
"Well, that you must not hope for pardon, for the sentence will
positively be carried out day after to-morrow. That--I believe that is
all."
"But--" Maximilian called, staying him. "Dios mio, such news merits a
longer telling. It seems to me too, Señor Americano, that you should
enjoy it the more, since it was partly you who brought me to this."
"I don't know as I'd thought of that. How?"
"You ask how? Do you forget how you took the traitor Lopez to Escobedo,
the night I was betrayed?"
Driscoll swung bluntly round on his questioner. "No I don't," he
replied. "But you see, there was such a lot of bloodshed scheduled for
the next day?"
"Isn't that rather a curious reproof from a soldier? Loyal hearts would
have bled, yes, and gladly. Noble fellows, they would have saved their
Emperor!"
Driscoll half snorted, and turned on his heel. But he stopped, his lips
pressed to a clean, hard line. "What of those townsmen in the trenches?"
he demanded. "It wasn't their fight."
Maximilian's eyes opened very wide, and slowly his expression changed.
The thick lower lip drooped and quivered. Suddenly he came nearer the
American, a trembling hand outstretched.
"I was saved that," he murmured earnestly.
"They were," the grim trooper corrected him.
"The townsmen, yes. But I--I was kept from murder. God in heaven, I
would have murdered them! Ah, señor, if I could put to my account a
night's work such as yours, that night, when you used the traitor! I
could almost thank Lopez. I do thank you."
Still Driscoll failed to notice the proffered hand. He might have, had
he seen his suppliant's face, and the tense anguish there.
"Those innocent non-combatants, then," Maximilian went on, "so they
counted more than a prince with you?"
"Of course, there were a thousand of 'em."
The other's haggard look gave way to a smile, half sad, half amused, and
taking the American by the shoulder in a grip almost affectionate, he
said, "Colonel, did you ever happen to know of one Don Quixote of La
Mancha? Well, lately I've begun to think that he was the truest of
gentlemen, though now I believe I could name another who----"
"And," interrupted Driscoll, "did you ever try to locate the most
dignified animal that walks, bipeds not excepted? Well, sir, it's the
donkey. Take him impartially, and you'll say so too."
The strain was over. Maximilian laughed. "If Don Quixote had only had
your sanity!" he began; "or rather," he added, charmed with the conceit,
"if knighthood had had it, then the poor don would never have been
needed to be born at all."
Ignoring the sincerity of the Hapsburg's new philosophy, and how
tragically it was grounded, Driscoll only smiled in a very peculiar way.
Knighthood? The word was supercilious cant, and irritated him. During
that very moment, while listening to Chivalry's devotee, the young
trooper thought of a little ivory cross in his pocket, a cross which was
stained with a girl's blood. Murguía had given it to him, to give to
Maximilian on the eve of execution. But Driscoll had not promised, and
yet Murguía had implored him to take it, even without promising. The old
man held faith in vengeance as a spring to drive all souls alike, and if
Maximilian's last earthly moment could be embittered with sight of a
cross, then, he firmly believed, the American needed only to be tempted
with the means to do it. Moreover, in a sudden impulse, Driscoll had
taken the holy symbol, "to do with as he chose." There was no message,
Murguía had explained. The Señor Emperador would read the graven name,
"Maria de la Luz," and that would suffice.
Looking now on the cultured gentleman caressing his beard, Driscoll
thought again how hellishly distorted was the sign of salvation then in
his pocket. But he left it there. He, too, had a king's pride, incapable
of low spite. Charity alone, though, would have held him, if he had but
known that Maximilian was ignorant of the dead girl's fate.
The archduke for his part had been amiable and conciliatory, because
there was a certain delicate question he wished to ask.
"Oh by the way, mi coronel," he said abruptly, "I must extend my excuses
for keeping you waiting in the corridor just now. But there was another
visitor here. And as we happened to be talking of--well, of a rather
personal matter, not intended for outside ears----"
"Do not worry. When you raised your voice, I turned and left."
"But perhaps," said Maximilian slowly, "it would have been better if you
had overheard, either you or another knowing the cruel rumors
which--which link my recent visitor's name with my own. Then the truth
would have been made known. That truth, señor," he hastened to add,
despite a hardening frown between the American's eyes, "means first that
I have been honored, indeed, in my visitor's----"
He got no further. A broad hand closed over his mouth.
"Another word of that, and I'll--I'll----"
The threat was left unfinished. Gasping in the chair where he had
fallen, Maximilian found himself alone. He was vaguely nonplussed. There
had been so many revelations of late that he thought this one simply a
further re-adjusting of himself to the modern world of men. The present
instance had to do with the critical juncture where the woman enters.
But he had learned something else, too. The American loved her, and that
was important. Yet lovers were very contrary beings, he mused
lugubriously.
"Still, I shall try again," he decided. "One humble success against my
career of distinguished failures should not be too much to expect."
The night that followed, a black, favorable night, was the time planned
for escape. Horses ready saddled waited outside the town under the
aqueduct. Certain guards were bribed, among them Don Tiburcio. The
humorous rascal had driven a hard bargain, but only because the money
was to be had. He would have sold himself as briskly for the cream of
the jest.
Late the same night there came a frantic pounding at Driscoll's door,
where he was quartered in the sacristy of the old Capuchin church.
"Well?" he muttered, alert already.
"Hurry, mi coronel!" a cracked voice blended with the knocking. "Hurry,
you are wanted!"
"Murgie!" Driscoll exclaimed, flinging wide the door. "Back from San
Luis, and prowling round here as usual, eh? Well, what's the matter?"
"Quick, señor! Maximilian is sick. Go, go to him!"
Partly dressed, bootless, unarmed, Driscoll shoved the old man aside,
and sped through the church, hopping over half awakened soldiers as he
went. Once in the street, he glanced up at the tower room, which was
Maximilian's, and thought it odd that no light streamed through the
narrow slits there. The sentinels, too, were gone. But he ran up the
steps and darted along the corridor, only to strike his head against a
heavy wooden door that was ajar. He rushed inside the cell, and with
arms outspread quickly covered the space of it, in the utter dark
smashing a chair, crashing over a table, cursing a mishap to his toe.
But he found no one.
"This here's a jail-break," he mumbled under his breath. "Dam' that
Murgie, he's roped me in to stop 'em!" Whereat, all unconsciously, he
smiled again at Fatality.
Groping his way back to the corridor, he felt rather than saw three dim
figures steal past the door. Silently, swiftly, he gave pursuit. He
heard a fervent whisper just ahead.
"Hasten, dear friends, and may God----"
The next second he was grappling with someone. But his unknown captive
did not resist.
"There, señor, loosen your fingers. I am not escaping. I am returning to
my cell. But I had to make the other two think that I was with them."
The voice was Maximilian's.
"Hark! Ah, poor souls, they have failed!"
The prince spoke truly. A fierce "Alto ahí!" sounded below. Then there
were musket shots and the confusion of many scrambling feet. Murguía had
routed out the church barracks. And when torches were brought, the
soldiers discovered that they had hands on Miramon and Mejía. But the
false sentinels were gone! In leaving the road clear they had used it
themselves, already.
"You fools!" suddenly a half crazed wail arose. "Fools, _he_ has
escaped! He----"
"Oh dry up, Murgie," said Driscoll, coming down the steps. "He's gone
back to his room, I reckon."
CHAPTER XXI
THE TITLE OF NOBILITY
"Hear, therefore, O ye kings, and understand."
--_Wisdom of Solomon._
One more sunset, one more sunrise! And then?...
Maximilian again confronted the ghostly enumeration. But this time his
last day should be the day of a man's work, in simple-hearted humility.
He no more searched the skies to find a supernal finger there. He let
Destiny alone, and did his best instead. For a man's best is Destiny's
peer.
The fiery June sun was dying in its larger shell of bronze over the
western sierras, and the self-same blue that vaults beautiful Tuscany was
taking on its richer, darker hue, when a foreigner in the land, Din
Driscoll, walked under the Alameda trees, his pipe cold in his mouth, he
perplexed before his heavy spirits. For he no longer had war to
distract, to engross.
Maximilian's physician, an Austrian, found him in his reverie. Would the
Herr Americano at once repair to His Highness attend? The señor's
presence would a favor be esteemed, in reason that a witness was greatly
necessitated.
Wondering not a little, Driscoll hastened back into the town. As the
physician did not follow, he arrived alone. But in the door of the
archduke's cell he stopped, angry and embarrassed. For his eyes
encountered a second pair, which were no less angry, which moreover,
were Jacqueline's. Maximilian and Padre Soria, the father confessor,
were also there, but Driscoll at first saw no one but Jacqueline. As
with him, she had been vaguely summoned, without knowing why. A last
testament was to be signed, she imagined, but in his choice of witnesses
she thought that Maximilian might at least have shown more delicacy. As
to cruelty also, she would not confess, but cruelty it was,
nevertheless. To see again this American was to know memory quickened
into torture, and days afterward there would still be with her, vividly,
hatefully, the beloved awkwardness of his strong frame, the splendid,
roguish head, now so forbidding, and more than all, the way he smiled of
late. It was a smile so cold, so cheerless, a something so changed in
him since the old, piquant days of their first acquaintance. Despise
herself as she might, Jacqueline knew how the sight of the man halted
there would leave her whole woman's being athirst and panting.
Maximilian's thin white face lighted eagerly when he perceived that
Driscoll had come. The haggard despair of two days before had given way
to a serene calm, like that which soothes a dying man when the pain is
no longer felt. In a gentleness of command that would not be denied, he
rose and brought the American into the room.
"Colonel Driscoll," he began, "you know, of course, that a witness is
the world's deputy. He is named to learn a certain truth, but afterward
he must champion that truth, even against the world. So you find
yourself here, but first I wish to thank----"
"Please don't mention it," Driscoll interposed. "I'm willing to do
anything I can."
"Then remember," said Maximilian, "that you are a witness, and a witness
only. Can you bear that in mind, señor, no matter what you may hear?"
Driscoll nodded, but the very first words all but made him a violent
actor as well. Maximilian had turned to Jacqueline. For a moment he
paused, then with a grave dignity spoke.
"Mademoiselle," he said, "reverently, prayerfully, I ask your hand in
marriage."
She gasped, and so sharp and quick that certainly she was the most
dumbfounded there. Her utter stupefaction amazed Driscoll as much again
as the question itself. He stiffened as though struck. If this were a
revelation? If it could be--if it could be that she really knew no
reason why she should marry Maximilian?
The archduke observed them both, and his eyes shone with kindliness. But
making a gesture for patience, he hurried on. "Father Soria here," he
said, "will come in the morning, just before the--the execution, to
perform the ceremony. A judge of the Republic will come too, for the
civil marriage. As to the banns----"
"But why--_why_, parbleu?"
Jacqueline stood before him, stung from her speechless trance by fury.
Behind narrowed lids the gray eyes hardened as points of steel.
"You shall know, mademoiselle," he answered softly. "It is a boon I ask
of you, the greatest, and the only one before I go----"
"Why? Tell me why!"
"Because it is _the_ boon a true knight may crave. It is to right
before the world the noblest woman a knight can ever know----"
"Sire!"
The word was rage and supplication both. It was a hurt cry, piteous to
hear. Then the glint dying from her eyes blazed to tempestuous life in
those of the Missourian. But the priest's hand touched his arm, and the
priest's voice, low and gentle, stayed him.
Maximilian, though, had seen the outburst. "Ah yes, señor, I remember,"
he said, and smiled, "one may be slapped upon the mouth, yes, yes, for
even breathing my lady's name when one talks of rumor."
Jacqueline darted at them a puzzled glance. She did not understand at
first. Then she divined. And then, wide and gloriously, her eyes opened
on Driscoll, her defender. But in the instant they sought a safer
quarter. She could not, and would not, forgive him for being there at
all.
"However," the obdurate prince continued, "our witness must bear with me
this time, for I will--_will_, I tell each of you--speak plainly.
The false scandal does exist. Deny it, dear lady, if you can.--Nay,
señor, _you_ believe it, or did. So, now, as the world's deputy
here, you must be armed to foil those venomous tongues. But there is
only one way. You shall tell them that they talk of Maximilian's
widow----"
"But----"
Jacqueline, Driscoll, both spoke at once. But the girl flashed on the
man an angry command for silence.
"Enough, enough!" she cried, "Let me speak, then end it. Whatever others
may think, Your Highness extends me his respect? Bien, but that gives me
a certain right, which is the right to consider just one thing in
answering the question of Your Highness--just one lone, little thing."
"And that?"
"Is--is whether or not I have the honor to love Your Highness. Oh, the
shame in such sacrifice, the shame you put on me! You should have known
my answer already."
Her answer? Driscoll stirred uneasily. What, indeed, was her answer?
"Yet later, mademoiselle," pursued her inflexible suitor, "when others
aspire to your hand, there might come one for whom your answer would be
favorable. How then, if this suitor, when pausing to hear what the world
says of you----"
"He'd choke it down the world's throat!" Driscoll burst forth. "He alone
need know it's a lie."
Jacqueline started as she heard him speak, but the glad and unintended
look she gave him changed as quick as thought to haughty resentment.
After all, he was still there.
"But how else," Maximilian persisted, "can such a man know so much?"
Then, a captive absolute to his lofty idea, the poet prince pleaded for
it as one inspired. All things worked, as by Heaven's own will, to
sanction what he proposed. There was Charlotte's death. There was his
own. Dying, he was still a Mexican, and might wed in any station he
chose. While if he lived, as an archduke of Austria he could not. But he
detested life. With it he had bettered no one. Yet by his death he hoped
to save more than life to another. This other was the girl before him.
He had wrecked her dearest ambition. For France's sake she would have
lured him from peril. For that, and that alone, she had sacrificed her
name. Such accounted for their interview at Cuernavaca. Such accounted
for her coming to Querétaro. Yet through his own blind weakness she had
failed. France had lost Mexico, he his life, and she--her happiness. But
the last could yet be restored. And why not purchase it with his death,
since he must have died in any case?
"Must have," Driscoll interrupted, "must have died in any case?"
The American had listened perplexed, now with a quick, eager start, now
with crinkled brows. First of all the old mystery and its anguish had
assailed him. The hideous, gloomy tangle would wound him round again.
Did Jacqueline care for this prince? Surely, because he had seen the
evidence. But why had she intrigued against his Empire, why had she
turned Confederate aid from him?
Then, as the ruined monarch spoke, the other man saw. He saw the truth.
Truth that reconciled all contradictions. That explained what even the
theory of her wanton heart had only half satisfied before. Explained
everything by that heart of purest gold. The lover knew now why she had
delivered him to Lopez and the Tiger, two years ago, though with the act
so perversely confessing her love for him. He knew why, at Boone's
Córdova plantation, she had tempted him to hold her for his own, though
even then she was returning to the capital, to Maximilian. No, it was
not wanton sport. It was not contradiction. But it was conflict. In the
contemplation of that conflict he stood unnerved. It was the conflict
between a wild yet altogether French scheme of patriotic endeavor and
her own good woman's love. His eyes wandered to her, half afraid, and
the chill of months about his heart was gone, as some great berg of ice
sinks in the warmth of sunny waters. From siren alluring flesh whose
touch was woe, she was become a sceptred angel, far, far away, so
tantalizingly far away!
Thus Driscoll listened on, happy in his soul of a man, yet abashed as a
boy. But listening, at the last he was perplexed anew, though for
another reason.
"Must have died, sir?" he repeated again. "But that wasn't what you
thought last night. No sir, last night you thought you could escape. But
just the same you turned back. You chose to die!"
"His Highness," spoke the gray-haired priest, "returned for the
señorita's answer."
"My answer?" cried Jacqueline. "You mean, father, for my sake?"
"Yes."
Driscoll started violently, perplexed no longer. "By God, sir," he
swore, and clapped Maximilian on the shoulder, "but you are a man!"
The prince recoiled, his instincts of breeding in arms against the
savage equality. But then, slowly, a smile that was almost beatific
touched his lips, and without knowing it, he straightened proudly, as
majesty would.
"A man?" he murmured, breathing exaltation. "Then am I, at my last
moment, come into harmony with God's own ordering of the universe. For
he made man on the sixth day, not a Hapsburg. Man, and after His Own
Image--Oh, but that is the title the hardest of all to win! You--you
don't think, señor, that you would like to take it back?"
Driscoll reddened inexplicably. Murguía's ivory cross was still in his
pocket.
"No!" he blurted out with sudden defiance. "It's the truth!"
"Then," said Maximilian solemnly, "on your word I stake my faith.
To-morrow, at the judgment-seat, I shall hope to hear myself called so."
"Your Highness," questioned Jacqueline in a kind of daze, "Your Highness
did not _intend_ to escape last night?"
"No, he did not," Driscoll answered for him. "He got Miramon and Mejía
started all right, and then, without knowing that your plot had failed,
he turned back to this cell here, alone."
"Your Highness, you did that for--for----"
Her voice broke, and she stopped abruptly and went to the narrow window.
With her back to them, she groped for the dainty bit of cambric that was
her handkerchief.
"So you see, my daughter," said the priest, drawing near her, "what he
would have given, what, before Heaven, he has given, to tell you what
you so hotly resent. Do you resent it now?"
The beautiful head shook slowly. She was touching her eyes with her
handkerchief.
"Then you will not let his sacrifice be in vain? You will marry him?"
Impetuously she turned, and faced them. There were blinding drops, clear
as diamonds, on the long lashes. "Oh Your Highness, Your--Oh, there is
something you can tell me that is--that is inexpressibly better?"
"Let me know what it is."
"It is if--if you can forgive me.--Mon Dieu, why did you need to heap
this terrible sacrifice on me? Why could you not remember that I tried
to drive you from your empire? That I plotted against you? That----"
"Hush, you would have saved me."
"Oh, only incidentally, and you knew it. Yet you must----"
"Don't! There's nothing to forgive.--But wait, we will grant that there
really is, but only that I may exact my price of forgiveness."
"The price? Name it."
"That you will marry me, here, to-morrow morning, before I die."
Jacqueline raised her head. "Has Your Highness," she demanded, smiling
shyly behind her tears, "has he forgotten the woman's, rather my
consideration, before such a question?"
Driscoll straightened, squared his shoulders to take a blow. To his
blindness her manner looked like awakening love for the other man--and
for the man himself, not for the prince! His sense of loss, his agony,
were extreme. But of the old bitterness he now knew nothing. His rival
was putting the question. "And according to that consideration,
mademoiselle?"
Driscoll did not see her swift glance toward himself. He was hurrying
out lest he might hear her answer. And she let him go--till he reached
the door. But there, like one frozen, he halted rigidly.
"Hélas, I do not love you, sire," Jacqueline had answered, very quietly.
Maximilian, however, did not seem heart broken.
His attention was all for the mere witness. He saw the effect on that
witness. In Driscoll's glad face he read his own triumph, his own
purpose achieved. Jacqueline was righted at last.
"No," he agreed, "I could not hope for so much.--But another might."
Then apropos of nothing, he went and flung his arms about Driscoll. The
astounded trooper could only grip his hand, just once, without a word.
Then he was gone.
Maximilian watched him go. The priest turned to Jacqueline. She, too,
stood poised so long as his spurs rang through the corridor. At last
silence fell on them. For a moment she hesitated. Then, trembling, her
eyes moist, she held out her hand. "Good-bye," she whispered. But,
impulsively, she raised her arm and touched the doomed man's forehead
lightly with her finger tips, making a blurred sign of the cross. And,
not daring an instant longer, she too fled.
Maximilian was alone with the priest. The room was growing dark. It was
the last night.
"Now, father, light the tapers, there on the altar. Yes, I am ready.
Ready? Blessed Mother in Heaven, it is more than I had thought to be!"
CHAPTER XXII
THE ABBEY OF MOUNT REGRET
"O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh."
--_Romeo and Juliet_.
It is curious and humiliating, how Nature does not vex herself in the
least for the dying of a man. And yet, to the man, the event is so very
important! Each breath of spaceless night, each twinkle from the
firmament, though but the phantom of a ray quenched ages before,
everything, he teases into anxious commentary on his own puny end. There
could not be more ado if the Universe were in the throes, writhing
against a reconquering Chaos. Harassed creature, what ails him is only
the pathetic fallacy, which is a soothing melody and stimulating to
mortal pride. But the lapses into healthier realization are very, very
hard to bear.
How cold it was, when Maximilian awoke! The chill seemed creeping nearer
his heart, nearer the citadel. And how black the night, before the dawn!
But where, now, were his matches? He had the same monotonous trouble of
any other morning in getting one to light. Then the two candles guttered
fitfully, sordidly, just as they had always done. The white cloths of
the last communion seemed a ghostly intrusion on what was of every day.
Maximilian drew his cloak about him. The chill was simply of the
plateau, of the night, not the portent of death. The world without was
dark and desolate, but that had no reference to the tomb. The world was
merely taking its normal sleep. The heavy cloak ought to answer--but, it
did not.
He took up the snuffers, coaxing the yellow flames to brighter promise,
then set the candles before him on the table. A piece of dripping tallow
fell upon his hand, and the hand jerked back. The man pondered. So, even
his flesh was part of Nature too, and heeded trivial pain, with no
thought of the bullets to drive through it shortly.
He wrote two or three letters yet remaining, to friends, to his brother,
the Emperor of Austria. He penned words of farewell, yet even as the
tears welled in his eyes, he needed to stop and make sure that he had
indeed not more than three hours yet to live. It was difficult, though,
with the candles spluttering there, in the ordinary, every-day fashion.
He signed the last letter, to his mother. He gazed at the signature, of
characters squarely formed. He might have written it yesterday, or the
year before. It looked the same. But the pen he had just dropped had
dropped forever. No, no, that should not be! And he snatched it up
again, and wrote, scribbled, covered paper, fearing to stop. But at last
he did stop, with a shivering laugh. He must face this thing, he
decided. And over and over again he told himself, "I have written my
last. Yes, my last!" and steadfastly resisted the taunting, airy quill
lying there. So, what was harder than farewell to loved ones, he nerved
himself to end the small actions of his daily existence.
Maximilian had his life long been a dreamer, ever gazing wide-eyed as a
child on the wonderful fantasies that came, whether entrancing or
dreadful. But the child's fantasies are kindred with man's philosophies.
Often, as he lay awaiting sleep, there was one particular thought that
would bring him quickly, stark, staring awake. And this thought was, how
certain things always came to pass. No matter how far away, nor how very
slow their approach, making vague the hope or horror of them, yet the
actual, present hour of their happening always struck at last. There was
the eve of the day when he should be of age. Oh, but he had longed for
that day! He had longed until he craftily suspected it never would
arrive. And yet, despite those leaden-footed oxen, the minutes, arrive
it did, in very fact. The eve of that day was a happy bed-time; but over
his ardent reveries, over the vista of future achievements, there
suddenly, darkly loomed another thought, a foretoken and clammy shroud,
which smote the young prince with trembling. For would not the day of
his death, however far away also, sometime be the present, passing
moment, as surely, just as surely, as this anniversary of his birth?
Here was a terrifying glimpse of mortality.
When, not fifteen years later, Maximilian opened his eyes in the black
Capuchin cell, and comprehension grew on him of the present day's
meaning, he recalled how the fantasy of a morning of death had first
come to him. He was a boy, and he was to go on a voyage. The boy had
awakened when there was scarcely light as yet, and heard his mother at
the door. "It is time, dear." She spoke low, not liking to break his
slumber. But in the silence of all the world her voice was clear, and
very sweet, and the words stood forth against his memory ever afterward.
He was to be gone from her for a time, and this was in her mind as she
called him. The boy, though, could think of nothing except that his
little excursion among new and strange adventures was to begin, actually
to begin. But then, quite unaccountably, there fell over his eagerness
a chilling gloom. The delightful sprite named Expectation, who had
whispered so piquantly of this same eventful morn, had basely changed
herself into a hideous vampire, and she muttered at him, in frightful,
raucous tones. Yet the hag's snarls were true promises. There was
to come, surely, inexorably, a certain other eventful morn, and
he would awake, and without his mother's calling him, he would
know--_know_--that it was time!
Back in that childhood hour he had lain for a while quite inconsolable,
until his mother came again, and rested her hand on his head, and told
him--"Why, one would think the little goose was going away forever!" It
was broad daylight by now, too; and wholly comforted, he had sprung up,
joyfully alive. Eternity did not worry him any more for a week.
But the awakening of this later morning, in a Mexican prison! And when
he understood that the old familiar fantasy was become a fact! When he
remembered how once he had been consoled in his boyhood! For a moment
the sense of loss and of helplessness was stifling, and he
yearned--yearned frantically, as he never had as a boy--for the touch of
his mother's hand, for her voice, so low and sweet. The horrid cruelty
he could not, during that moment, bear. He felt that he must cry out for
her, like a very child. And though he wept, it was the man, and the
man's despair that his was not now the boy's need of comfort.
But when they came in the first dawn and knocked at his door, they found
him serene, untroubled, and only the wonted shade of melancholy on his
brow. He greeted them courteously, and was desirous that they should
have no unnecessary difficulties on his account. Being dressed already,
punctiliously, and in black, he himself went to call Miramon and Mejía,
and brought them to his own cell, where they received the last sacrament
together.
Later the three condemned were at breakfast--bread, chicken, a little
wine and a cup of coffee--when horses' hoofs rang abruptly in the street
below, and as abruptly ceased under their window. There was a command,
and sabres rasped against their scabbards to gain the light. Maximilian
raised eyes filled with pity to his two companions. Mejía, an Indian
thoroughly, made a gesture of impatience. The handsome Miramon, of
French blood, shrugged his shoulders. Then both glanced timidly in their
turn at Maximilian, and each finding a hand stretched forth, grasped it
silently. But the priests of the condemned, who were waiting apart, felt
their blood turn to icy beads. For them the quick metallic gust of
strident life down in the street had the merciless quality of hammering
upon a coffin lid.
Troops filed up the stairs, and along the corridor. They halted, faced
the door, grounded arms. An officer stepped out, fumbled with a
document, and read the death sentence. Maximilian gently released
himself from one and another of those present, and turning to the
Austrian physician, handed him his wedding ring. "You will give it to my
mother," he said. Father Soria's eyes filled with tears, one plump fist
clenched pathetically. Maximilian passed an arm over the good man's
shoulder, and with him walked out among the soldiers. He nodded to them
encouragingly, and so started on his little journey.
Three ramshackle public hacks, set high over wabbling wheels, and drawn
by mules, waited at the door. Maximilian smiled an apology as he
motioned Father Soria to precede him into the first. The troops used
their spurs. A whip cracked. The springs jolted. Everywhere, on the
curbs, in windows, on housetops, there were people. The archduke had the
impression of breath tensely held, and of eyes, eyes strained, curious,
and awed, like those of children who witness suffering and cannot
understand.
Passing the convent of Santa Clara, Maximilian peered upward at the
windows; and, as he hoped, he saw Jacqueline. She was leaning far out,
and tremulously poised. Tender compassion was in every line of her tense
body, but as their gaze met she tried to smile, bravely and cheerfully,
and until the hack swung round the corner, there was her hand waving him
farewell. The little journey might have been, a fête, and somehow, he
was comforted.
"I wonder," he mused, "if I've done very much for her, after all. Or for
that American, named Driscoll? Will she--" He shook his head, and
sighed. "No, she is not the lass to have him, not after my little scene
of last night. But, the choice does rest with her, now. And for a girl,
that is everything.--Alas, poor young man!"
His rueful prophecies were that moment interrupted by a woman's scream.
It rose piercingly over the clatter of their march. Maximilian put out
his head and looked back. The woman was running beside Mejía's hack,
panting, stumbling through the dust, her black hair streaming. She held
a babe in her rebosa, but with her free hand she clutched weakly at the
spokes. To the clumsy, pitying soldiers who would force her away, she
cried again, "Mercy ... Mercy ... Mercy...." A low murmuring grew on
every side. Maximilian flung open his cab door. But the same instant it
was slammed against him. He sank to his seat, with a stare of dumb pain
in his eyes that the priest beside him never afterward forgot. The woman
back there was Mejía's wife. And Maximilian had had one glimpse of the
husband's face. It was a face stretched to agony, deadened to the color
of lead.
"May I, may I--_pay_ for this!" moaned the one-time Emperor. "O
God, grant Thou that I do pay for this, hereafter!"
Beyond the last hovels of the suburbs, at the foot of the Cerro de las
Campanas, the condemned were told to alight. Here again there was a
throng, hundreds and hundreds of swarthy faces, blank in awed pity. One
gaping fellow pointed wonderingly.
"Look, there they are! There--los muertos!"
Maximilian overheard, and a cold shiver crossed his spine. To be
identified already as "the dead one!"
Then he beheld his coffin, there, the longest of the three being borne
up the hill. They were boxes of cheap wood, unpainted inside, smeared
with black on the outside. A wavy streak of carmine simulated the
drooping cord and golden tassels of richer caskets. It was the pomp and
circumstance that pertains to the humblest peon clay.
Four thousand serried bayonets squared the base of the hill, and made a
compact, bristling hedge to hold back the common people. Through it
marched the doomed Imperialists, each with his confessor and a platoon
of guards, and so toiled on up the slope. The archduke looked about him.
There were many privileged spectators within the cordon, but nowhere did
he see a former friend. All, all, had kept away, and in his heart he
knew that it was better so. He could not ask that much of them. But
stay--yes, a remembered figure caught his attention; a shriveled
decrepit figure. Here, too, mid every color Republican, he beheld in the
man's garb a last surviving uniform of the vanished Empire. It was,
however, scarcely to be distinguished as such. The red coat was
threadbare, and soiled with dust. The ragged green pantaloons, held by a
knotted rope, were grotesquely faded. Yet the prince, who had once
gloried in dashing regimentals and mistook them for power, was deeply
touched. He recognized a lone unit of what had been none other than the
Batallon del Emperador. He paused, to have a word with the miserable
derelict.
"So, you would be near me, even now?" he said. "Ah, ever faithful little
old man, but are you brave enough for the horror of it? Are you?"
Red eyeballs rolled upward in their sockets, and for a space met the
archduke's kindly gaze. Then the steady repellant hate in them seemed
disconcerted, and the withered form cowered under the touch of the pale
white hand. Inaudible words rattled in the old man's throat, and he
trembled, as though to turn and run. Maximilian regarded him
benevolently, thinking it a crisis of emotion.
"There, there," he said, "go if you wish. It's not well, you see, to
think of me so much. But you must not imagine that I am ungrateful. When
you believed yourself unseen, certainly when you had no hope of reward,
throughout my misfortunes, you have always hovered near me, on the
battlefield, and more lately under my prison window. Yes, yes, I have
seen. And now, and now I thank you." The bloodshot eyes roved the
ground, but did not lift again. "As humble, as loyal as a dog,"
Maximilian murmured as he turned away.
They indicated to him that he should take his place before a wall of
adobe blocks which had been piled together near the crest of the hill,
only a little lower than those very fortifications built by the
Imperialists themselves. With a gesture of assent, he complied. The
priests fell sorrowfully back behind the soldiers, and he and Miramon
and Mejía were alone together, three tragic isolated figures in a little
oblong patch of bare rocky hillside. One end of the oblong was the adobe
shield. The other three sides were walls of living men, massed shoulder
to shoulder, with bayonets pointed outward against the jostling peering
crowd. The three who were to die could now see no human being beyond the
dense, double row of soldiery. The remainder of earth for them was the
hollow square, bounded by the slouching backs clothed in blue, by the
white flats of the képis, by the line of light playing over the thorns
of steel. Beyond was the early morning sun; above, the mystery of space.
Through the gap of an instant the shooting squads tramped in, nearer and
nearer, until they halted opposite the condemned. Maximilian then
perceived which squad was to be his own. It numbered seven tiradores and
a yellow, beardless officer. The seven were low, cumbersome, tawny, and
they shuffled awkwardly. Their stripling chief thrust out his stomach,
and he handled his large sword with an unaccustomed flourish. The
pompous severity was, after all, only insolence. He had need to keep
guard on his importance; he did not wish to hear the pounding of his
heart. Yet his muscles twitched unbecomingly, which jerked his mouth,
and sometimes his head.
Maximilian stepped forward and addressed them. To each he gave a gold
piece bearing his effigy. It was his last expenditure in that coin. He
requested them earnestly, gently, to aim at his body, not at his head.
He was thinking of his mother. He would not have her see him with
mangled features. Then with a final reassuring word, he turned back to
the wall.
They were going to place him between the other two, but with a smile and
shake of the head, he would not have it so. His last act was for
precedence. Affectionately he drew Miramon to the place of honor, so
that Mejía was on the right, and himself on the left.
Then the _fiscal_ of the Republic appeared, and read the military
law. For any who should ask the lives of the condemned, death was
prescribed. But if there was anything the condemned themselves wished to
say....
Maximilian removed his hat. "Mexicans," he said, "may my blood be the
last to be spilled for this country's welfare. Long live Independence!
Long live Mexico!"
He spoke the words calmly, gravely, and having concluded, he carefully
adjusted a large handkerchief, so that his beard might not be burned by
the powder. Then he crossed his arms on his breast, and gazed steadily
into the barrels of the leveled muskets, waiting.
A wave of motion, of tendons stiffening, passed along the thick wall of
flesh. Against it the tide without swelled higher, stronger. Tension
strained upward to the supreme crash. The quiet of a multitude is pain.
But the other two Imperialists had not spoken yet. Mejía shook his head
passionately. He saw only his young wife with her babe, panting,
stumbling through the dust. He held a crucifix, and would not take it
from his lips. Miramon, however, raised his voice to protest against the
charge of treason. Of that crime he died innocent. But he pardoned, as
he hoped for pardon. Then he cried, "Long live Mexico! Long live the
Emperor!"
Maximilian started. These were the words that he thought he should like
to hear. But now they grated. They recalled the mistake he had lived,
the anachronism of his life. They were scorpions. They stung like the
needle in an ulcer. He turned sharply, in tearful reproach. But a sword
flashed, the volley came, and the three men fell, as under a crushing
rock, one against the wall; his head broken over upon his breast. The
pert young officer pointed his blade at three convulsive bodies, and
through each a last bullet sped, burying itself in the earth beneath.
The crowd pressed, surged, stood on tiptoe.
* * * * *
There was one other among the spectators, but keeping himself hidden,
whom Maximilian would have been concerned to see there. He was Driscoll.
He came to watch the shriveled derelict, Murguía. He came to stand guard
over a soul, Maximilian's. What peace that soul had found should not be
destroyed. And so he screened himself in the crowd, holding ready to
crush a viper whose fangs were heavy with poison. When Maximilian paused
and spoke to the old man, Driscoll was very near, near enough to hear,
and to strike. But the old man had only wheezed and mumbled. Though why
that old man did not utter a first word, though why he could not, will
never be explained. But this much is true, that the ambushed soul,
moving so calmly toward eternity, then stepping so near the coiled
serpent, was yet its own guardian, unwittingly.
Until the very end Driscoll staid there alert. The old man, baffled,
insatiate, might yet cry out what he knew. Driscoll's gaze never
relaxed. He felt as though he watched a murderer while the murder was
being done. But the old man only listened. Unable to see within the
hollow square, he listened, and waited. His lower jaw hung open, and
over his lip a white froth grew and grew, until it broke and trickled
down his chin. The red eyeballs gleamed ravenously, as still he waited.
"When this is over," Driscoll said to himself, "he'll plump down in a
fit and blow out. Else he'll go raving crazy. Lord, that look!"
When it _was_ over, Driscoll went to him. He had but to reach forth
a hand and fasten on his shoulder. He held him against a scurrying of
spectators, whom the tragedy's close had that instant brought to life.
"Here, Murgie, here's something that belongs to you," he said. "Well,
what's the matter? Take it, I don't want it."
The old man looked up. An ivory cross was dangling from the other's
fingers. The cross still showed bloodstains; no later flowing of blood
had washed _them_ away. But the father of María de la Luz stared,
stared vacantly at the trinket. The masterful, consuming rage of two
years past was gone out of his eyes. Instead they were watery and
senile. The brows, and even the lashes, had turned as white as the thin
strands of hair, and contrasted gruesomely against the yellow, mottled
skin, which stretched like clouded parchment over the bony death's head.
At last the old man put out his hand and took the cross, not
comprehending.
"No, I didn't give it to him," Driscoll explained bluntly. "I told you I
wouldn't."
Yet no spasm of chagrin distorted the weazen face.
"This chain here, it's--it's _gold_!" the old man cried.
Then he sputtered, choked. What had he betrayed? Would the strange donor
reclaim the gift, knowing it was gold? He leered craftily at Driscoll,
and with a hungry, gloating secrecy--his old slimy way of handling
money--he smuggled the holy symbol under his jacket. But from cunning
the leer changed to suspicion and quick alarm. He delved into his
pockets, one after another. He searched greedily, wildly, until the last
coin on him lay in his palm. Quaking in every feeble bone, he counted
his poor wealth again and again. There was very little left. He glared
at Driscoll. He glared at townsmen, officers, blanketed Inditos, all
swarming past to gaze on the three corpses. He cried "Thief!" first at
one unheeding passer-by, then at another.
"I had more than this!" he whined. "More--more than this! There was my
hacienda, my peons, my cotton, my mills, my canvas bags. There was my
blockade runner. She was Clyde-built, she was named _La Luz_, she
cost twenty thousand English gold pieces. Who has taken these things
from me? Who--where----Curse you, do _you_ know?"
Dissipating his hoards, sacrificing his last chattel, all that was now a
blank. But his hoards, his chattels, were all that were now worth while,
and the miser clamored for them, and them only. Vengeance, however, is
an ironical bargainer. Vengeance kept her pay, and "abhorred Styx, the
flood of deadly hate," had dried and left a stranded soul, parched by
avarice. Driscoll was moved by a pity half ashamed.
"Look here, Murgie," he threatened terribly, "Do you say _I_ stole
your----By the Great Horn Spoon, I'll----" He flung his hand to his
revolver.
The counter-irritant had instant effect. All moisture died out of the
rat eyes, leaving them two little horrible beads. The miser shrank,
groveled, in mortal terror of some physical hurt.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE CONTRARINESS OF JACQUELINE
"Much adoe there was, God wot;
He wold love, and she wold not."
_--Ballad of Phillida and Corydon._
Maximiliano I. of Mexico was dead. His dynasty and his Empire were the
frippery of a past time. Yet there was his capital, still holding out
against the Republic. Leonardo Marquez, the Leopard, spitefully refused
to capitulate. But why he would not, no one knew, neither the starving
City, nor the patient besieger outside. No one, unless it was
Jacqueline. The very day of the triple execution she called on Escobedo,
commander in chief at Querétaro. She desired to return to the capital,
and she wanted a pass through the Republic's lines there. She mentioned,
in case it were any inducement, that the place would fall within
twenty-four hours after her arrival. Jacqueline had difficulty to speak
at all. She could not endure the general's monstrous flaps of ears, his
rabbinical beard, his cruel black eyes.
"María purísima," he exclaimed, "you cannot mean, señorita, that you,
all alone, will deliver the City of Mexico into our hands?"
"It will certainly be an incident of my stay there," she replied.
The hard, Jewish features lighted cunningly. "Then, por Dios, you are as
wonderful as I've always heard! But may--may one be allowed a little
curiosity?"
"I _might_ say," and Jacqueline forthwith said it, "that I have
just had a cipher telegram from Louis Napoleon."
"Which," breathlessly demanded the other, "will interest Marquez, eh?
Will disappoint him? Will cause him to surrender?"
"Your Excellency is of course entitled to his own conjectures."
But the commander-in-chief was satisfied. "We must hasten your going by
every means," he declared. "You shall have an escort. You----"
"Then I choose the Gray Troop--because," she added carefully, "they're
the best."
Now, why, by all that's feminine, was she surprised next morning when
the Gray Troop gathered round her coach, as though that were a
coincidence? At least she arched her brows, and lifted one shoulder
petulantly, and unmistakably showed that she expected a tedious time of
it. The sunburned colonel of the Grays beamed so with happiness too, as
he drew rein to report to her. They met for the first time since
Maximilian's embarrassing little scene for their express benefit.
Driscoll noted her disdain, and it is likely that he only grinned. He
did that because he knew how helpless he was, and how merciless she
could be. For she was not only beautiful, she was pretty--a demure,
sweet, and very pretty girl. Some vague instinct of self-defense guided
him. His broad smile was exasperating in the last degree, and it was not
she, but the other young woman in the coach, whom he addressed.
"I got some side saddles, Miss Burt," he announced, "and a few extra
mustangs, whenever anybody gets tired of traveling behind curtains."
Curiously enough, both girls wore riding habits. "Oh, by the way," he
inquired suddenly, "how's Miss Jack'leen this morning? Is she well
and--docile?"
Jacqueline's chin dropped in astonishment. She seized the old canvas
window flap and jerked it down. But at once she raised it again, and
thoughtfully contemplated the trooper.
"I wonder," she mused aloud, in that quaint accenting of the English
which cannot be described, "when is it that you are going to grow up,
_ever_?"
"I did start to," Driscoll informed her soberly, "but it got tiresome as
all creation, and I reckon I've backslided just since"--a world of
earnestness came into his lowered voice--"well, just since we had that
talk with poor Maximilian."
The old canvas curtain fell for good then, and very abruptly.
A moment later, however, she was avenging her flushed cheeks on Mr.
Daniel Boone, who rode at the other side, also sunburned, also effulgent
with happiness.
"If it isn't the _animal disputans_!" she exclaimed. "Look Berthe,
and rejoice; our sighing Monsieur le Troubadour!"
Driscoll hovered near a moment, then reluctantly rode ahead of his
battered dusty warriors. So he and the wilful maid from France began a
second journey together, yet far, far apart. But only after many
torturing hours did his first joy consent to perceive the distance
between them.
Now and then, though rarely, and never when he hoped for such a thing,
she would ride with him. And then he usually stirred up hostilities
before he knew it, and notwithstanding all that was tender and humble
which he meant to tell her. There was, however, cause enough for
savagery. She made him the least of the troop, though he arranged each
detail of speed and comfort, laid out tempting noon-day spreads,
improvised cheer in the cheerless hostelries, and all with a forethought
showing pathetically how his every thought was of her. But if she
divined the inwardness of this, which of course she did, outwardly she
contrived to be oblivious. She thanked him sincerely and simply, the
while that he craved repayment, as the heart repays. He yearned for only
a chance to speak his mind, and to force hers. But now craftily she
would bring the others flocking round, to decide for her if they did not
think monsieur absurdly mistaken in this or that! The same instant she
would conjure up the most trivial of arguments, and be vastly shocked
over the ridiculous contentions which she herself assigned to Driscoll.
She grew honestly fond of the other Missouri colonels, with their ranger
uniforms, and brawn scarred by weather and battle, and they and the
marchioness became great friends. She was a dainty flower among them,
but they were prime comrades, and she, the mad-cap tomboy her life long,
took to them in the impulse that here were her own kind. Driscoll was
proud to see it, without need of being generous. She gathered Berthe, as
a soberer sister, into the merry communion, and she rode with Clay of
Carroll, with Carroll of Clay, with Reub Marmaduke, with Crittenden,
with cherubic Old Brothers and Sisters, with Hanks the bugler, and she
mocked Meagre Shanks, that disputatious animal, because he tried to
monopolize Berthe and would not dispute at all. She asked them
questions. She asked Harry Collins if his tribe were the same as that of
ces Missouriens-là, and the Kansan confessed that the two tribes had
been a bit hostile of late, but what with raiding, razing, and
murdering, he guessed they'd laid the foundation for a mutual
self-respect, as behooved valiant redskins. So she often got strange
answers for her inquisitiveness, but she had grown wary among
Westerners, and she usually paid them back. They were a happy party. But
Driscoll wanted a more definite focusing of the joy. And at times,
indeed, yielding to temptation herself, she permitted him to lose his
heart deliciously over again. Shadows were lifted now, and she was just
a lovable girl, just sweet Jacqueline. And he loved her with the boy's
young strength of adoration and diffident awe. Precisely in which state
she made him suffer exquisitely. No one could be more contrary and
capricious than the lovable girl of a moment before. Whereat storms
brewed within him.
There was one of the rare times when the Missourian and the maid rode up
and down the winding white ribbon of a Mexican highway, and for awhile
both were quiet. This once they dared the risk--she did, rather--which
lurks in the silence that requires no words. For him it brought the old
time, and the rides of that time, when he wondered what was the matter
with him, and she knew all along. And he thought how during the hard
winter in the Michoacan mountains and swamps, he had caught himself
almost crying aloud, that he wanted her, that he wanted her--wanted
again the subtle comradeship of those silences which require no words.
And here, at last, here she was, riding beside him!
He looked at her furtively. She was in profile. He looked again, to be
sure that it was not memory, but the breathing girl herself. Yes, for a
fact, it was the girl herself. And here was her own queenly head, here
its regal poise, here the superb line of the neck to the shoulder.
Reverence grew on admiration, for as he gazed he beheld her character
revealed, of lines as stately, as womanly, and withal as flexible, too,
before the cheery glow of each moment's life. He stirred, and was
vaguely restive, and perhaps a little frightened also, because of the
deep mystery of something within himself which he could not understand.
The classic outline of her features was softened now in the warmth of
flesh. Her vivacity was off guard, in the forgetfulness of reverie. The
pure white of the little tip of ear was tinged with pink. Her eyes were
lowered to the saddle horn. They were melting. They were almost blue.
"Jack'leen!" He burst out fervently, before he thought, with an arm half
lifted toward her.
The drooping lashes raised. The eyes were gray again. She regarded him
for awhile without speaking.
"Why don't you quarrel?" she asked finally.
The spell was broken. Her pounding heart had vent in a nervous laugh of
raillery. She touched her horse with the riding crop in her gauntleted
hand. Somehow she would not leave that dumb brute, the horse, in peace.
Driscoll's old Demijohn, however, was used to the game by now. He
pointed his ears, and checkmated that last move by bringing his master
once more to the lady's side.
"You used to," she went on, as though there had been no interruption,
"nicely. You were of an interest then. In fact, I reck-_on_--I know
no one that I had rather have quarreled with."
But still he would not, though that "reckon" from her lips was most
alluring. She stole a mischievous glance at his face, but the fixed look
there made her lift _her_ hand toward _him_. Perhaps, if he
had seen and had spoken then--But he did see.
"Eh bien, since monsieur won't fight, won't, _won't_," she cried,
"then it's more fun to----"
Evidently to seek livelier company. For she wheeled the mustang, swerved
from a grasp at her bridle, and went galloping back to the coach. He
twisted in his saddle, pushed his sombrero higher on his head, and
dubiously watched her flying from him, a lithe, trim figure in snug
Hungarian jacket, the burnished tendrils fluttering on the nape of her
neck, the soft white veil trailing like a fleecy cloud from her black
_amazona_ hat. He bent a perplexed gaze to the road. "It's 'way,
'way beyond me," he told himself. Then he grew aware of a sense of
warmth on his forearm. Yes, he remembered. For an instant she had laid a
hand on his sleeve, and he had thrilled to the ineffable token of
nestling. He was never immune from her tantalizing contradictions. He
felt this one yet.
Hoofs pounded behind, and Mr. Boone drew up alongside. "She came back,
and made me get away from the coach," he announced. "Prob'bly she wanted
to cry some; she looked it."
Yet another of her contradictions!
"Then why in the nation," Driscoll demanded, "do you keep hanging round
that coach for? Look here Shanks, you make me plum' weary. The idea of
you falling in----"
"No more'n you, you innocent gamboling lamb of an ol' blatherskite." But
Daniel's steel blue eyes had softened to their gentlest. "Say Jack," he
added, "she's going back to Paris."
"Don't I know it? Lord A'mighty!"
"Go on, never mind me," said Mr. Boone. "Groan out loud, if you want to.
For she sho'ly is, yes, back to Paris. Now Buh'the"--The Troubadour's
_r's_ always liquefied dreamily with that name--"Buh'the has been
telling me a few things, and I'm sure reporter enough to scout out the
rest of the story, and it's just this--Jack, she's fair broken-hearted."
"Miss Burt?"
"No, no, the marchioness. She staked out a campaign over here, and it's
panned out all wrong, and it wasn't her fault either. Poor girl, no
wonder she might like to cry a little. She's lavished everything she had
on it too, ancestral château, and all that."
"But," said Driscoll quickly "she'll not suffer. There's her title----"
"Title?" exclaimed Daniel. "W'y, she's going to give that up too, not
having any château any more, and she'll trip blithely down among the
people again, where she says it's more comfortable anyhow. Title? Well,
you've suhtinly noticed that she always did take that humorously. Her
grandfather--Buh'the says--was right considerable of a jurist, used
scissors and paste, and helped make a scrap-book called the Napoleonic
code, and Nap the First changed him into a picayunish duke. But wasn't
the nobility of intellect there already? Sho'ly! Miss Jacqueline,
though, likes the father of her grandfather the best. He never was
noble, technically I mean. His was the nobility of heart, and he'd have
scorned to be tagged. He just baked bread, and fed most half of Saint
Antoine for nothing at times, while the Dauphin at Versailles was
throwing cakes to the swans. Howsoever," Mr. Boone added hastily, as sop
to his softness for princes, "I reckon that there Dauphin was noble too.
Both of 'em fed the hungry mouths that were nearest."
"But," demanded Driscoll, "doesn't her title carry some sort of a--a
compensation?"
"Not a red sou. The majorat--that's the male line--died out with her
father, which means that the annuity died out too."
"W'y, Great Scot, she's----"
"She's tired and disheartened, that's what she is, and she's going back
to Paris, and you--" Boone paused, and glared at his companion, "--and
you mean to let her!"
Old Demijohn felt a spur kicked against his flank, and he lifted his
fore feet and sped as the wind. It was fully an hour later when Meagre
Shanks caught up with horse and rider again. Rather, he met them coming
back. His conversation was guileless, at first.
"Do you know, Din," he began, "those two girls are only half educated?
Yes sir, gastronomically, they are positively illiterate, and it's a
shame! W'y, they don't know hot biscuits and molasses. They don't know
buttermilk. They don't know yams. Nor paw-paws, nor persimmons. They
don't even know watermelon. Now isn't France a backward place?"
"Don't, Shanks!" Driscoll begged. "You'll have me heading for Missouri
in a minute. You didn't, uh, mention peach cobbler?"
"_And_ peach cobbler, big as an acre covered with snow. And just
think, it's roastin' ea'ah time up there now, _now_!" How Daniel's
voice did mellow under a tender sentiment! "And to think," he went on,
"of the marchioness living on in such ignorance! It's a thing that's
just got to be remedied, Jack."
"Then suppose you take her to Missouri," growled his friend, "and let me
alone."
"_I_ take _her_? Oh come now, Din, I see I've got to tell you
something which is--" The Troubadour's accents grew low and fond, and
the other man respected them, with something between a smile and a sigh
for his own case. "Which is--well, nobody's noticed it, but the fact is
that Buh'the, that Miss Buh'the----"
"Dan," interrupted Driscoll severely, "you're not going to tell me any
secret. You mean that you weren't mistaken when you mistook her for a
queen."
"That--that's it!" ejaculated Daniel. "Of coh'se," he added soothingly,
"the other one is a--a mighty nice girl, but----"
"Oh, _is_ she? But Miss Burt is _the_ one you want to take to
Missouri? Well Dan, why don't you?"
"Because," was the doleful reply, "those two are just like orphan
sisters together, and--well, she won't desert. She _is_ a queen, by
God, sir! Miss Jacqueline might make her, but I haven't got the heart to
ask it. Now, uh, if--if you would just bring along the other one?"
So, here was the goal of all of Daniel's manoeuvering!
Driscoll cast a leg over the pommel of his saddle, and faced Boone
squarely. "Shanks," he demanded with tense vehemence, "do you suppose I
need your woes for a prod? Don't you know how much--Lord A'mighty, how
much!--I'd like to oblige you? But--she won't let me--even speak.
There's, there's something the matter."
Boone's lank jaw fell. "What, I wonder?"
"And don't I wonder too?" Driscoll muttered savagely. "But it's
_something_."
From which moment until the end of the journey, and afterward, there
were two men who pondered on what could be the trouble with Jacqueline.
But while one pondered gloomily and fiercely and with a semi-comic grin
under the lash, the other let perplexity delve and ferret into the
mystery. For Mr. Boone had grown aware that an enormous heap of
happiness for four depended on himself alone.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE JOURNALISTIC SAGACITY OF A DANIEL
"Ah, my Belovèd, fill the cup that clears
To-day of past Regret and future Fears."
_--Omar._
At last Jacqueline stabbed a dot after the word "Finis," and so rounded
out her chapter on "Failure." Beyond doubt that tiny punctuation point
saved many lives. The besiegers were waxing impatient to assault, and
within the City famine mobs ran the streets, crying, "Corn and wood!
Corn and wood!" Those who could fled to the Republican camp. The
Austrians practically mutinied. Starving and dying thousands clamored
for surrender. Yet the ugly, revolting pigmy who was lieutenant of the
Empire held them back in the terror of his heartless cruelty.
Then the angel of mercy came. From her Marquez the tyrant learned that
his speculation in treachery had collapsed. Louis Napoleon wanted no
more of that stock. Besides, every French bayonet was needed in France.
The rabid Leopard heard, and that night meanly crept away to save his
own loathsome pelt. Bombs had begun to fall into the City, when a
Mexican general worthier of the name took upon himself the heroic shame
of unconditional surrender. The Oaxacans outside marched in, led by
their young chief, Porfirio Diaz, and they fed the people, and of
"traitors" shot only a moderate few.
Renovation became the order of the days that followed. The President of
the Republic was to be welcomed back to his capital. The stubborn old
patriot's heart must be gladdened by every contrast to the dreary, rainy
night years before when he fled into exile. Mexico would honor herself
in honoring the Benemérito of America. So bunting was spread over every
façade, along every cornice, green, white, and red, a festival lichen of
magic growth. Flags cracked and snapped aloft, and lace curtains decked
the outside of windows. Soldiers put on shoes and canvased their brown
hands in white cotton gloves, and military bands rehearsed tirelessly.
Din Driscoll sat on a bench in the shady Zócalo, and contemplated the
Palacio Nacional and the Cathedral in process of changing sides from
Empire to Republic. Innumerable lanterns being hung along their massive
outlines were for incense to a goddess restored. The Mexican eagle had
prevailed over monarchial griffins, and held her serpent safely in the
way of being throttled. The blunt homely visage of Don Benito Juarez,
luxuriously framed, looked out from over the Palace entrance. It was a
huge portrait, surrounded by the national standards. Among the emblems
there was one other, the Stars and Stripes. The gaze of the
ex-Confederate was fixed. It was fixed steadily on the Stars and
Stripes. Now and then he felt a rising in his throat, which he had
difficulty to swallow down again.
"Well, Jack?"
Boone stood over him. Driscoll's eyes were oddly troubled as they turned
from that flag opposite.
"Sure it's hard," said Boone quietly, "mighty hard, to forgive our
enemies the good they do."
"What enemies?"
"W'y, them," and Daniel pointed to a flag as to a nation. "Yes sir, the
Yanks have kept faith. Do you see a single one of their uniforms down
here? Do you notice anywheres that Yankee protectorate we were
predicting? No sir, you do not! The Yanks--" But the term was damning to
eloquence. Mr. Boone found another. "The _Americans_, I repeat,
have hurled back the European invader. They have given Mexico to the
Mexicans. They have endowed a people with nationality. But they have not
gobbled up one solitary foot of territory. Which is finer, grander, than
your Napoleonic glory! And yet it's selfish, of coh'se it is. But listen
here, there'll never be any Utopia, Altruria, Millennium, or what not,
that don't coincide with self-interest. And first among the races of the
earth, the Americans have _made_ 'em coincide, and I want to know
right now if the Americans are not the hope of the world!"
The orator paused for breath. He had to. And then surprise the most
lugubrious unexpectedly clouded his lank features. "Darn it, Jack," he
exclaimed in alarm, "if I ain't getting Reconstructed, right while I am
standing here!"
"_Talked_ yourself into it," Driscoll observed scornfully. "But
Dan, you can just put the South along with your Americans. The French
laughed at the North alone, but later, when--Well, just maybe it's a
good thing we did get licked."
Mr. Boone gasped. Sparks of indignation darted from his steel blue eyes.
The recoil needed a full minute to spend itself. Then a greater horror
appalled him, a horror of himself. "The Lawd help me," he burst forth,
"but you're right, Din Driscoll! You are! It _was_ for the best.
But don't you ever think I'm going to admit it again, to nary a living
mortal soul, myself included. W'y, it would, it would knock my editorial
usefulness--all _to_ smash. There," he added, "that's decided,
we're going back. The colonels want their mamas. They've been men long
enough, and they're plum' homesick. All the old grudges up there must be
about paid off by now, so's an ex-Reb can live in Missouri without train
robbing. _Libertas et natale solum_--It's our surrender, _at_
last."
Driscoll rose abruptly. "Lay down your pen, Shanks," he said. "You're
only trying to convert the converted. Of course I'm going too. That
there flag, being down here, did it. And don't you suppose _I've_
had letters from home too?"
Meagre Shanks jumped with relief. He straightened throughout his spare
length. As the smell of battle to the war charger, the pungent odor of
printer's ink wet on galley proofs assailed his nostrils. There were
visions, of double-leaded, unterrified thunderbolts crashing from the
old Gutenberg, back in Booneville.
"Missouri," he breathed in fire, "Missouri will sho'ly stay Democratic."
Both men glowed. They were buoyant, happy. But these two could not so
soon be quit of the enervating Land of Roses. A pair of countenances
fell together. Daniel voiced their mutual thought.
"And Miss Jacqueline?" he queried boldly, with the air of meaning to
persist, no matter what happened.
Driscoll showed weariness, anger.
"And Miss Burt?" he parried.
"She won't desert, I told you once."
"You mean that she's going to Paris too? I say, Shanks, they're leaving
to-morrow."
Shanks knew that much, quite well enough.
"Have you _tried_ to stop her?" he demanded sternly.
Driscoll only looked disgusted.
"But have you--_asked_ her?"
Driscoll's head jerked a nod, of wrath ascending.
The inquisitor wisely swerved. What her answer had been was, to say the
least, palpable. But her reason for it was _the_ question with
Daniel.
"Is it," he pursued, "is it because she hasn't any dot? You know, Jack,
that in France, when a young lady----"
"No, it's not that. I know it's not."
"Oh ho," said Daniel, "so you've been guessing too! And how many guesses
did she give you? No, let me try just a few more. It ain't because,
because she's an aristocrat?"
"But I _want_ an aristocrat," cried the young Missourian, "one to
her finger tips, enough of one to be above aristocracy. And _she_
is."
"Then," said his friend in despair, "it's because she don't, just simply
don't care for you?"
"You're a long time finding that out."
"What! You don't mean----"
"Fact," said Driscoll. "Even I guessed it at last. I told her I had been
reckoning that she----"
"Cared, yes?"
Driscoll made a wry face. "And she said I mustn't jump at conclusions, I
might scare 'em."
The Troubadour chuckled heartlessly. Neither was Driscoll's sense of
humor entirely gone.
"'Oh, awful goddess! ever dreadful maid!'" Mr. Boone quoted.
"She's sure a wonder," the other owned gloomily.
"And you are a blind dunce, Jack."
"Don't talk axioms at me," said Driscoll, with a warning light in his
eye. "I don't need 'em."
"Well, now," drawled Mr. Boone, "I can't help it if I associate with you
any longer, so I'll just mosey round to the flower market. As they leave
to-morrow, they'll be wanting some violets."
And he went, and Din Driscoll sat down again and hated him.
Daniel wended his way slowly, an attenuated ranger in gray mid carriages
and blanketed forms. "Sho'", he mused, "that girl's heart is fair
bleeding for him, can't _I_ see! Her eye-lashes, they're
_wet_, every now _and_ then. And whatever the matter with her
is, it's nothing. But nothing is the very darndest thing to overcome in
a girl. There's got to be strong measures. It's got to be _jolted_
out of her. _Archimagnífico, there's_ the point!"
Mr. Boone drew out a black cigar, and mangled it between his teeth. He
pondered and pondered, absent-mindedly kicking at natives he bumped
into. "Kidnap 'em!" he cried at length. "N-o," he reflected, "they go in
the public stage, and what with the escort, somebody'd get hurt. We
don't want any dead men at this wedding. Old Brothers and Sisters would
balk anyhow, and our ecclesiastical officiator is the boy we _do_
need. Now what the everlasting----"
He meant what salutary jolt he _could_ invent, barring holdups, but
in the same breath he meant also a most startling scene which revealed
itself as he turned the corner.
A deafening crash of musketry was the first thing, and he looked up. He
had come into a small plaza before a church, and against the church's
blank wall a scene was taking place before an awe-stricken throng. He
understood. Another proscribed "traitor" had just been caught; and
executed, naturally. But no, not executed! For as the officer of the
shooting squad approached to give the stroke of mercy, the prostrate
victim raised himself by one hand and knocked aside the pistol at his
head. Then he laughed in the officer's face, the most diabolical and
unearthly mirth any there had ever heard. There was not a stain of blood
on him. He had dropped in the breath of eternity before the bullets
spattered past. But his uplifted face, with chin tilted back, was
swollen, black, distorted, corded by pulsing veins, and one of the
eyes--a crossed eye--bulged round and purple out of its socket, and
_gleamed_. The demon of pain was tearing at the man's tissue of
life, but by grip of will unspeakable the agony in that grimace changed
to a smile.
"Yes, poison! Vitriol!" he chattered at them hideously. "Adios,
imbeciles. It's my last--jest!"
Whereat he fell, writhing as the acid burned to his soul. Before the
astounded officer could shoot, he had grown entirely quiet.
Boone strained and pushed against the crowd until he reached the spot.
The cadaver was in tight charro garb of raw leather. His sombrero lay
near, on which was worked a Roman sword, meaning "Woe to the conquered!"
Boone turned inquiringly to the officer. The man, who was pallid,
touched his thumb to his cap, recognizing the uniform of the Grays.
"You should know him, mi coronel," he explained. "His name was Tiburcio.
He deserted from the Imperialistas at Querétaro, but afterward he joined
the plot for Maximilian's escape. We had his description, and I found
him. He wanted to take me to Marquez and Fischer, whom we would also
like to find. He said that he risked himself here, to spy on them, and
that he knew where they had fled, the Leopard disguised in the padre's
cloak. But of course I paid no attention. I did not delay even to tie
his hands. As Your Mercy observes, I had the honor to do my duty, at
once."
"I see," replied Boone dryly. "Lawd, this _is_ a jolt!"
Then he got himself away from there.
"A jolt," he muttered to himself again. "But shucks, it can't--Yes, it
can," he decided fervently, "it can be used. We've got to have something
terrifying, and poor cock-eyed Don Tibby won't care. He'd appreciate it.
And anyhow, I don't seem to be able to stir up inspirations to-day, and
this is the only thing."
He was as pallid as the shooting squad he had just left.
"No matter," he reflected, "I'll need just this ghastly state of mind.
But here, goodness gracious, I've got to be in a sweat," with which he
began to run, a lank knight in gray dented armor.
"Worse luck," his thought pounded along with him, "this here's the first
time I've ever faked. And it's a heap the hottest story I've ever
handled, too. Our little Parisienne will get a frisson all right, all
right, and such a one she'll not be wanting any of again very soon.
Dixie Land, I mustn't smoke, I'm to be too excited."
He came into the Zócalo, and drew up before Driscoll, who was still
there and still ruminating.
"Listen here," Boone panted, "here's your cue.--In ten minutes--to the
second--arrive--knock at her door--appear!"
"With violets?" inquired Driscoll.
"Oh shut up!--Quit, don't stop me, I'm getting cooled off!--Only do what
I say.--In just ten minutes--that is--if you want the girl."
And Daniel was off again, "with high and haughty steps" towering along.
"That Meagre Shanks, there, isn't a fool," Driscoll mentally recorded,
and he took out his watch.
The two girls were stopping at a hotel in Plateros Street, for
Jacqueline had returned to find her beautiful residence, salon and all,
ruthlessly dismantled, looted, robbed by Marquez while she was in
Querétaro, which was a manner of levying contributions not unfamiliar to
the Lieutenant of the Empire.
In the balcony room of their hotel suite the two girls strove valiantly.
Crisp gowns and dainty allied mysteries lay spread over the upholstery.
They were vanishing into cavernous trunks, with crushing indifference if
Jacqueline seized on a garment, but gently when Berthe rescued it, which
she always did. Through the double glass doors of the balcony the street
sounds below rose to their ears, clarion notes and vivas, hurrying feet
and prancing hoofs, and the National hymn a few blocks away in the
Zócalo.
Suddenly a grim apparition loomed before the glass doors on the balcony.
Berthe half screamed, in dismay clutching at ruffles and laces to hide
them, when into the sweet-scented confusion strode Mr. Daniel Boone. He
was the grim apparition. Jacqueline withheld her opinion, but she had
one. The intruder's spurs were iconoclastic of carpeting, his abrupt
presence of feminine sensibilities. But the lean, perspiring face drove
away all thought of the conventions. Jacqueline snatched up a fleecy
bank of petticoats, making room for him on the sofa. Daniel stared
vacantly. The two girls looked very pretty. They were just flurried
enough, and they wore white lawn, with sleeves short to the elbow. His
fingers groped, and soon they closed over a small, instinctive hand. He
kept hold upon that hand for strength, at the same time collapsing on
the sofa.
"Now, if you please," said Jacqueline calmly, "what----"
"O Lawd!" Boone gulped, fighting for breath. "It don't matter
much--maybe--to you all, but--O Lawd, I got to tell somebody!"
"Tell us, tell us!" cried she of the captured hand.
Daniel had sufficient presence of mind to retain it.
"You know that--that poor devil Tiburcio?" he gasped.
"Yes, yes!" But what anti-climax was here?
"Well, he--he's dead. I saw him.--Lawd!"
"Oh!" It was a little cry of relief.
"But some were--were killed--taking him." Boone noted Jacqueline's
intake of breath, her first tremor of alarm. "He fought like a--a
wildcat. He had a knife--and a machete--and a pistol--and----"
"_Who_ was killed? Monsieur--Oh, mon Dieu, what _can_ you have
to tell me?"
Daniel almost repented, there was that in her gray eyes.
"Among them was my--" He nerved himself to it, some way--"my best
friend, that peerless----"
"Who?" Her command was imperious, her white teeth were set.
"Din Driscoll!"
The man blurted it out like a whipped schoolboy. He could not look up.
He could only feel that she stood there, stricken, suffering.
"Where is he?"
He could not believe that this was her voice. It was hardened, tearless,
without emotion.
"Monsieur--where is he?"
The girl at his side sprang up with a sharp cry to her who questioned.
Then he raised his eyes. Jacqueline was unaware of the sobbing girl who
clung to her. Her face was changed to marble, her body as rigid.
"Take me to him," she spoke again, still with that deathly authority of
the grave.
The man stammered before what he had done. The great beads stood out on
his forehead. "You would not--you must not--you----"
"He is mine," she said simply. "Wait, I shall be ready, at once." She
passed into an inner room, the portières falling after her.
"She's--she's getting on her hat," Boone muttered inanely. "Buh'the,
she's got to be stopped! She's--God, why don't he come? It's shuah ten
minutes. It's--What's that?"
Someone had knocked. In the instant Boone had the hall door ajar.
"Round to the balcony window, hurry!" he whispered.
Then he turned, caught Berthe by the hand, and drew her quickly out into
the hall. As he closed the door behind him, he heard the portières
rustle, but he dared not look back.
Jacqueline stepped into the room, and her hat was upon her head. It was
of straw, with a drooping brim. She had thrown a long cloak over her
thin dress. There was ice in her veins on this tropical June day. She
paused, for she saw that the room was deserted. But no--there was a
shadow between her and the balcony door. She stared at it, and her eyes
grew big. The cloak slipped to the floor, and her fingers worked in the
tapestry behind her. She fluttered weakly, like a wounded dove on the
ground. Her knees trembled under her. And the man there? He was gazing
about him in a puzzled way, for the glare outside still blinded him.
Then he saw. He reached her, and caught her as she sank. He felt two
soft arms, but icy cold, drop as lead around his neck. The white form he
held was rigid, and he thought of shrouds and the chilled death sweat.
With savage despair he crushed her to him. After a time her body slowly
began to relax.
"Oh, oh, my lad, my lad!" he heard her crying faintly, in a kind of
hysteria.
He touched her hair dazedly, with unutterable tenderness.
"There, there--sweetheart!"
The word came, though he had never used it before.
Blood awoke, and coursed, sluggishly at first, through her being, until
her heart tripped and throbbed and pounded against his own. Her head lay
on his breast, the hat hanging by its ribbons over her back, and with
the pulsing life the head and her whole body nestled closer. The soft
arms grew warm against his neck, and tightened fiercely, to hold and
keep him. Gently he forced up her chin, and her eyes, wet with hottest
tears, opened under his. He bent and kissed the long lashes. But a small
moist hand flattened against his brow and pushed back his head, and she
raised on tiptoe. He understood, and--their lips met.
"Tu sais," she murmured deliriously--nothing but her own dear French
would answer now--"tu sais, que--oh, mon coeur, que je--que je
_t'aime_!"
The oddest contrasts fall over life's most sacred moments. The tone of
her words thrilled him, set every fibre tingling, yet he thought of dry
conjugations and declensions, conned over and over again in school, and
he was conscious of vague wonderment that those things really, actually,
had a meaning. Meaning? He believed now that no words in English could
tell so much. He did not have to understand them. They bore the flesh
and blood, the passion and the soul, of a woman who told him that she
loved him.
With a hesitant gentleness which bespoke the deep and reverent awe in
his yearning, he pressed her head back against its resting place. A man
can do without words of any kind. She grew very quiet there. The tense
quivering ceased, and she crept closer, and at last she sighed,
purringly, contentedly.
But of course there was more which she simply had to say. And this time,
when she raised her eyes, they were calm and earnest, and her beautiful
forehead was white and very grave. "Do you know, dear," she said, "I
should not care to live, I would not have lived, if what he said
were--were--" But the eyes filled with tears, and angry with herself,
she planted her fists against him to be free, and as impulsively crying,
"Oh, my--my own dear lad!" she flung her arms about his neck again. "Oh,
oh," she moaned, "he said that you were dead!"
For the first time it dawned on Driscoll that all this must have had a
cause, and for the first time since entering the room he remembered
Boone.
"_He_ told you--He----"
But Driscoll did not finish. Putting her from him he sprang to the door
and flung it open. There he waited. Boone was outside, and Boone walked
expectantly in. Without a word Driscoll raised his fist, drew it back,
his cruel arm muscled to kill. Jacqueline saw his anger for her,
terrible in murder. She threw herself upon him, got hold of the knotted
fist, got it to her lips. Another woman, too, had darted between him and
the other man, and she faced him. The gentle Berthe was become a little
tigress.
"Not that, not that!" It was Jacqueline's voice. "Listen, mon cheri,
I--I thank him. Au contraire, I do! And--and you must, too!"
Driscoll stared at all three, first at one, then at another. He
floundered, stupefied. Here was this loving girl, clinging to him as
though he might vanish, and he had left her that morning a disdainful
beauty. Then here was this Meagre Shanks with his mysterious ten
minutes, and here was this dumfounding product of those ten minutes.
Driscoll put forth an open hand.
"Dan," he muttered incoherently, "you're a--a wonder, too!"
Boone clenched the proffered hand in his own. "I never once thought,
Jack," he said earnestly, contritely, "never once, that she cared so
ever-_lastingly_ much."
"Well," said Driscoll, "don't do it again."
"Not unless," ventured Boone, "not unless she should ever want a little
antidote for ennui. By the way, mademoiselle, do you thank me for the
quaver of emotion, for the frisson?"
"Frisson?" she repeated scornfully, with loathing. For once she had been
unaware of the prized knife-like tremor. In the fear of losing one dear
she had lost consciousness of self. She had _lived_ the tremor, the
agony, and it was too dreadful, "No, monsieur," she said, "I want no
more of art. I--I want to _live_!"
"You needed something, though," said Berthe, "to make you find it out."
Driscoll looked curiously at the two girls.
"Yes, J-Jack'leen"--how quaintly awkward he was, trying her old tomboy
nickname without the "Miss!"--"Yes, what was the matter with you,
anyhow?"
"Parbleu, I forgot!" cried Jacqueline in dismay. "I was not to have
monsieur, no!" And Jacqueline's chin, tilting back with elaborate
hauteur, was meant to indicate that she was in her first mind about it.
Berthe laughed outright, and softly clapped her hands.
"Sho'," declared Mr. Boone, "the matter was nothing, nothing _at_
all!"
But before feminine caprices and scruples it is wiser to bow low into
the dust. Jacqueline turned on the editorial personage with vast
indignation. "You leave the room, Seigneur Troubadour," she commanded,
"and Berthe, you march with him. Haste, both of you!"
They went, meekly. Their attempt to hide content over the dismissal
together was extreme, but transparent.
"What was it?" Driscoll insisted, when he and Jacqueline were alone once
more.
"You mean," she exclaimed, "that you are going to quarrel--now?"
"Jack'leen, what was it?"
"I reck-on," she observed demurely, "that the animal disputans was--was
right, after all. It was nothing, I--reck-on."
He noted mockery, defiance. There was much too much independence after
her late surrender. He went up to her and deliberately reassumed the
mastery. He held her, by force. "Mon chevalier," she murmured softly. So
she confessed his strength.
"Tell me," he said.
"And you did not guess? You--Oh, how I hated you! How I never wanted to
see you, never again! Not after, not after--Mon Dieu, you were two
exasperating idiots, you and poor Prince Max! He virtually _threw_
me into your arms. But I, monsieur, am not a person to be thrown. That
is, unless--unless I do it myself, which--I did, hélas!"
The trooper's grip tightened on her arms. "Then you," he said earnestly,
"would have let me lose you?"
She laughed merrily at him.
"And would not you have followed after me?"
"W'y, little girl, I reckon I certainly would of."
"Don't," she gasped. "Let me come--closer. Oh dear, how can the bon Dieu
let people be so happy--s-o happy!"
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Missourian" ***
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