“‘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!’”
“‘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.
THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN
THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN
135But 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 emancipation136should 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 cushionedprie-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, the137adventurous 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––”
138“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. “Then139let 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.
“Besides the queene, he dearly loved a fair and comely dame.”–The Ballad of Fair Rosamond.
“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?”
141“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, here142she 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?”
143“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 onlyseehim. 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,144when he spoke, he could not help the quaver of entreaty in his voice.
“Mademoiselle, tell me,whyhave 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 onmyaccount!”
“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,145it 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––”
146“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, thisisbucolic!”
“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!”
“MARIA DE LA LUZ”“The tapestry behind them parted and fell”
“MARIA DE LA LUZ”“The tapestry behind them parted and fell”
147A 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.
“Areyou 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––”
148“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 whoyouare.”
“How now, good fellow? wouldst thou speak with us?”“Yea, forsooth, an your mistership be emperial.”–Titus Andronicus.
“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.”
150Driscoll 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––”
151“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, andshenever hurt a mortal human being by a word in her life, but that, that, sir, seems152to be whereyouhave 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.
153“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,bienpetit 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 affected154by 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?”
155“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.”
“But all’s brave that youth mounts and folly guides.”–AsYou Like It.
“But all’s brave that youth mounts and folly guides.”
–AsYou 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;157and 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 have158éclat. 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’Aumerle159forgive 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 ifIknow! 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 craftier160Rodrigo 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.”
161But 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 hadmorethan 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, and162lurched 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. He163accepted 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.”