The Missourian Part 23

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 appet.i.te 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.

"Maria de la Luz," he read. "So, that is her name. But I never asked it.

Ident.i.ty 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 misters.h.i.+p be emperial."

--_t.i.tus 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 pa.s.sed 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 Murguia were brought in. Maximilian stared dumfounded at his new magistrate in the role of criminal. Don Anastasio looked apologetic. They had locked him up in his own stable, bronze medal and all. Dupin explained. This Murguia, 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 Galan'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 Murguia'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. Murguia 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. Murguia's yellow features darkened malevolently. The hacienda priest whispered to M. eloin, and M. eloin, brus.h.i.+ng the man of G.o.d 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 eloin 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 senores 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.