The Missourian Part 7

Suddenly the cafe 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 ign.o.ble 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--Helas! 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 Cha.s.seur.

But the pseudo mule driver moved squarely in front of her. He was embarra.s.sed 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, senorita?"

"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 s.h.i.+ndy of ours."

"If--if you are asking about Maximilian, senor," 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 ident.i.ty, 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 h.o.m.o, 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 trespa.s.ser, 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 senorita--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 d.a.m.ned 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 cafe, 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p."

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 sh.o.r.e, she and her maid, since the cafe 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 s.h.i.+p'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 cafe 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, senor!"

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, senor?"