The Missourian Part 75

"Still, I shall try again," he decided. "One humble success against my career of distinguished failures should not be too much to expect."

The night that followed, a black, favorable night, was the time planned for escape. Horses ready saddled waited outside the town under the aqueduct. Certain guards were bribed, among them Don Tiburcio. The humorous rascal had driven a hard bargain, but only because the money was to be had. He would have sold himself as briskly for the cream of the jest.

Late the same night there came a frantic pounding at Driscoll's door, where he was quartered in the sacristy of the old Capuchin church.

"Well?" he muttered, alert already.

"Hurry, mi coronel!" a cracked voice blended with the knocking. "Hurry, you are wanted!"

"Murgie!" Driscoll exclaimed, flinging wide the door. "Back from San Luis, and prowling round here as usual, eh? Well, what's the matter?"

"Quick, senor! Maximilian is sick. Go, go to him!"

Partly dressed, bootless, unarmed, Driscoll shoved the old man aside, and sped through the church, hopping over half awakened soldiers as he went. Once in the street, he glanced up at the tower room, which was Maximilian's, and thought it odd that no light streamed through the narrow slits there. The sentinels, too, were gone. But he ran up the steps and darted along the corridor, only to strike his head against a heavy wooden door that was ajar. He rushed inside the cell, and with arms outspread quickly covered the s.p.a.ce of it, in the utter dark smas.h.i.+ng a chair, cras.h.i.+ng over a table, cursing a mishap to his toe.

But he found no one.

"This here's a jail-break," he mumbled under his breath. "Dam' that Murgie, he's roped me in to stop 'em!" Whereat, all unconsciously, he smiled again at Fatality.

Groping his way back to the corridor, he felt rather than saw three dim figures steal past the door. Silently, swiftly, he gave pursuit. He heard a fervent whisper just ahead.

"Hasten, dear friends, and may G.o.d----"

The next second he was grappling with someone. But his unknown captive did not resist.

"There, senor, loosen your fingers. I am not escaping. I am returning to my cell. But I had to make the other two think that I was with them."

The voice was Maximilian's.

"Hark! Ah, poor souls, they have failed!"

The prince spoke truly. A fierce "Alto ahi!" sounded below. Then there were musket shots and the confusion of many scrambling feet. Murguia had routed out the church barracks. And when torches were brought, the soldiers discovered that they had hands on Miramon and Mejia. But the false sentinels were gone! In leaving the road clear they had used it themselves, already.

"You fools!" suddenly a half crazed wail arose. "Fools, _he_ has escaped! He----"

"Oh dry up, Murgie," said Driscoll, coming down the steps. "He's gone back to his room, I reckon."

CHAPTER XXI

THE t.i.tLE OF n.o.bILITY

"Hear, therefore, O ye kings, and understand."

--_Wisdom of Solomon._

One more sunset, one more sunrise! And then?...

Maximilian again confronted the ghostly enumeration. But this time his last day should be the day of a man's work, in simple-hearted humility.

He no more searched the skies to find a supernal finger there. He let Destiny alone, and did his best instead. For a man's best is Destiny's peer.

The fiery June sun was dying in its larger sh.e.l.l of bronze over the western sierras, and the self-same blue that vaults beautiful Tuscany was taking on its richer, darker hue, when a foreigner in the land, Din Driscoll, walked under the Alameda trees, his pipe cold in his mouth, he perplexed before his heavy spirits. For he no longer had war to distract, to engross.

Maximilian's physician, an Austrian, found him in his reverie. Would the Herr Americano at once repair to His Highness attend? The senor's presence would a favor be esteemed, in reason that a witness was greatly necessitated.

Wondering not a little, Driscoll hastened back into the town. As the physician did not follow, he arrived alone. But in the door of the archduke's cell he stopped, angry and embarra.s.sed. For his eyes encountered a second pair, which were no less angry, which moreover, were Jacqueline's. Maximilian and Padre Soria, the father confessor, were also there, but Driscoll at first saw no one but Jacqueline. As with him, she had been vaguely summoned, without knowing why. A last testament was to be signed, she imagined, but in his choice of witnesses she thought that Maximilian might at least have shown more delicacy. As to cruelty also, she would not confess, but cruelty it was, nevertheless. To see again this American was to know memory quickened into torture, and days afterward there would still be with her, vividly, hatefully, the beloved awkwardness of his strong frame, the splendid, roguish head, now so forbidding, and more than all, the way he smiled of late. It was a smile so cold, so cheerless, a something so changed in him since the old, piquant days of their first acquaintance. Despise herself as she might, Jacqueline knew how the sight of the man halted there would leave her whole woman's being athirst and panting.

Maximilian's thin white face lighted eagerly when he perceived that Driscoll had come. The haggard despair of two days before had given way to a serene calm, like that which soothes a dying man when the pain is no longer felt. In a gentleness of command that would not be denied, he rose and brought the American into the room.

"Colonel Driscoll," he began, "you know, of course, that a witness is the world's deputy. He is named to learn a certain truth, but afterward he must champion that truth, even against the world. So you find yourself here, but first I wish to thank----"

"Please don't mention it," Driscoll interposed. "I'm willing to do anything I can."

"Then remember," said Maximilian, "that you are a witness, and a witness only. Can you bear that in mind, senor, no matter what you may hear?"

Driscoll nodded, but the very first words all but made him a violent actor as well. Maximilian had turned to Jacqueline. For a moment he paused, then with a grave dignity spoke.

"Mademoiselle," he said, "reverently, prayerfully, I ask your hand in marriage."

She gasped, and so sharp and quick that certainly she was the most dumbfounded there. Her utter stupefaction amazed Driscoll as much again as the question itself. He stiffened as though struck. If this were a revelation? If it could be--if it could be that she really knew no reason why she should marry Maximilian?

The archduke observed them both, and his eyes shone with kindliness. But making a gesture for patience, he hurried on. "Father Soria here," he said, "will come in the morning, just before the--the execution, to perform the ceremony. A judge of the Republic will come too, for the civil marriage. As to the banns----"

"But why--_why_, parbleu?"

Jacqueline stood before him, stung from her speechless trance by fury.

Behind narrowed lids the gray eyes hardened as points of steel.

"You shall know, mademoiselle," he answered softly. "It is a boon I ask of you, the greatest, and the only one before I go----"

"Why? Tell me why!"

"Because it is _the_ boon a true knight may crave. It is to right before the world the n.o.blest woman a knight can ever know----"

"Sire!"

The word was rage and supplication both. It was a hurt cry, piteous to hear. Then the glint dying from her eyes blazed to tempestuous life in those of the Missourian. But the priest's hand touched his arm, and the priest's voice, low and gentle, stayed him.

Maximilian, though, had seen the outburst. "Ah yes, senor, I remember,"

he said, and smiled, "one may be slapped upon the mouth, yes, yes, for even breathing my lady's name when one talks of rumor."

Jacqueline darted at them a puzzled glance. She did not understand at first. Then she divined. And then, wide and gloriously, her eyes opened on Driscoll, her defender. But in the instant they sought a safer quarter. She could not, and would not, forgive him for being there at all.

"However," the obdurate prince continued, "our witness must bear with me this time, for I will--_will_, I tell each of you--speak plainly.

The false scandal does exist. Deny it, dear lady, if you can.--Nay, senor, _you_ believe it, or did. So, now, as the world's deputy here, you must be armed to foil those venomous tongues. But there is only one way. You shall tell them that they talk of Maximilian's widow----"

"But----"