The Missourian Part 21

The emanc.i.p.ator'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 Senor 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, la-la," she cried, "if we are not to have an epic flight from Monsieur eloin!"

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 releve; votre main souveraine L'a rendu d'un seul coup a 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 eloin 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 Anastas...o...b..ing a prisoner.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN]

But someone whispered something to a person on the outskirts of the entourage, who pa.s.sed 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 Murguia 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 sc.r.a.ped 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 politico."

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 Murguia 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 emanc.i.p.ation should be commemorated by public praise to Almighty G.o.d, the Lesser Cortege formed, and careful of precedence, went to wors.h.i.+p 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. a.s.sisting 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 wors.h.i.+pers.

They hovered first over the Emperor before his cus.h.i.+oned _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 eloin, they gleamed. There was no longer uncertainty. They laid bare the man as the print of a ma.s.s-book, and found him profitable reading. After that, the adventurous...o...b.. 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 ma.s.s 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 partic.i.p.ation 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 Senoria Il.u.s.trisimo, 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 nave embarra.s.sment.

Maximilian appreciated his delicacy in not wis.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.dfather 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 G.o.d, 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 a incendie," as the G.o.dfather 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, Senor 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 a.s.surance, the Grand Uniform presumed to announce la Senorita 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 portieres 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 pet.i.te bete!" Then, raising her head, she seemed to perceive His Majesty, "Isn't a bit older, is he, sire?"

"Mademoiselle!" the man exclaimed reproachfully.