The Missourian Part 32

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 antic.i.p.ation 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 a.n.a.lyzed 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 antic.i.p.ating 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 Senor Murguia? The American was acquitted, I believe."

"It's the other way, senorita. They were both tried over again, and then, the American was condemned."

"Mademoiselle," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 G.o.d was having a hand in this, he knew.

Jacqueline wheeled to Driscoll's side as he dashed toward her. He was coatless. His woolen s.h.i.+rt 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, senor? 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, Senor 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."