The Missourian Part 9

The old man's voice sounded at her elbow, faltering, placating. "With permission, senorita, we must be starting."

"And similarly with permission, senor, who are you?"

"Anastasio Murguia, the servant of Your Mercy."

"Ah, the poor little crow? Perhaps you will tell me, sir, why neither the Senor Ney nor Fra--nor Captain Morel is here?"

The young French caballero had visited the fort last evening, he replied. Her Mercy knew that? Yes, precisamente. Yes, the caballero had spent the night up there with his compatriots of the garrison. Her Mercy did not know that? No? But it was quite exact, yes, because he, Don Anastasio, had been so informed. But the Senor Ney would meet them out of Tampico--yes, precisamente, with a detachment of cavalry from the fort."

"That poor Michel!" said Jacqueline. "He's determined that I am to have a French escort. But Captain Morel, senor?"

Murguia would not answer. He repeated the question to the Mexican woman, who took up explanations with a glib readiness. "Si, nina, I saw the capitan, not more than an hour ago. He was riding by the cafe, to meet his--Contra Guerrillas. But he stopped and woke me. He said that I was to bring Your Mercies here to the meson, and to say that he would meet Your Mercies--yes, surely, before you had gone very far, nina." Her tone was a sugared whine, and more than once she peered around at Murguia; while he, for his part, stood by as though overseeing a task. But Jacqueline only allowed herself a little inconsequential sniff, and went back to the really serious business that did worry her. She demanded her trunk.

"How, the senorita does not know?" asked Murguia.

"Know what?"

"That the sailors did not come back from the s.h.i.+p?"

"Not come back! Eh bien, I will not go a step."

At first Don Anastasio's pinched face lighted with relief. But at once a conflicting anxiety, lest she might _not_ go, seemed to possess him. "But senorita," he protested, "what will Your Mercy do? The s.h.i.+p, yes, senorita, the s.h.i.+p has sailed already. It left last night for Vera Cruz."

"And here am I," Jacqueline exclaimed, tapping her foot, "with only one dress!"

A long bubbling whistle sounded near a gendarme's lantern in the middle of the street. A block away another sounded, then another, and another, and others yet, each thinly shrill and distant. It was the challenge to slumber and the answer of wakefulness from the watches of the night over the silent city.

"Another quarter gone by!" Murguia exclaimed nervously. "Come, senoritas, if we are to reach the Valles stage by nightfall, we have no time to lose. There are your horses, I will----"

A tremor cut short his words. Someone had just emerged from the meson.

"Gracious, Murgie, off so early?" the newcomer observed cheerily.

Murguia scowled. He knew that tone.

"If I'm late, I apologize," the other drawled gently, from behind the flare of a match over his pipe. "Howsoever, all my eyes weren't shut, and you wouldn't of left me. Pretty quiet about striking camp, though!

Didn't want to disturb me, maybe? Well, well, who made you so thoughtful? Not Captain Morel? Now I wonder!"

"I uh, why _should_ I wake you, Mis-ter Driscoll? Have I asked you even to go?"

"N-o, but you evidently asked old Demijohn there." And Driscoll pointed to his horse, all saddled. "But cheer up, Convoluting Squirmer, of course I know you aren't a horse thief. No, I just come out to say you forgot the blanket. I was sleeping on it."

Then he turned to the two girls. They were going also. But why try to leave him behind, even without a horse? He knew, for all his whimsical cheerfulness, that something serious was afoot. It was hardly likely that the girls themselves had interfered. Still, he must make sure. To provoke a reply elsewhere, he asked Murguia if it were the senoritas, perhaps, and not Captain Morel, who preferred his absence? A surprised "Ma foi!" from Jacqueline answered him. As he supposed, she had not thought of him one way or another.

But she deigned to say, that since the American _gentleman_--there was a lingering on the word, which opened wide the Storm Centre's eyes with antic.i.p.ation of battle--that since the American gentleman had broached the subject of his going (as no doubt interesting him, being about himself), then she would permit herself to inquire why, indeed, he should be going with them at all. She had not observed any cordiality in the requests for his society.

The light was not good, and she did not see his lips pucker as for a long whistle. But he did not whistle. He replied very humbly; and so sweetly that Murguia quailed for the little shrew.

"W'y miss," he said, "it all comes of feeling my responsibility. I'm the cause of your going, and that's why I'm going too."

His very earnestness gave her to understand that he had forgotten her entirely. The finesse of the Tuileries could not have struck home more delicately, and more keenly. "I've often heard," she thought to herself, "that an awkward swordsman is dangerous." But she made no cry of "touchee!" Instead she caught at the point to turn the blade aside.

"Responsibility? Truly sir, you _are_ considerate. But permit me--my safety on this trip, what concern can that have for Your Mercy?"

"None at all," replied Driscoll, heartily.

His brow, none the less, was crinkled, and he watched dubiously as Murguia helped the two girls into great armchair-like saddles. There was not a woman's saddle in Tampico, but Jeanne d'Aumerle did not mind that.

She, the marchioness, enjoyed the oddity of a pommel in lieu of horn.

And the lady's maid might have been on a dromedary, for all the consciousness the poor child had of it.

"Say," Driscoll interrupted with cool obstinacy, "where's our friend the captain and that sky-blue Frenchman?"

Murguia pretended not to heed him. Jacqueline really did not. But Berthe spoke up eagerly. She said that the two gentlemen were to meet them later in the day. At least she hoped so, but--no, no, there could be no doubt of it! Yet her words faltered, and there was an appeal in them.

But if she placed any hope in the strange American, she was quickly disappointed.

"All right," he said, as if the matter were of no further consequence.

"Then I can make a nice comfortable report to Maximilian."

"Report to Maximiliano?" exclaimed Murguia.

Driscoll nodded indifferently.

"But Senor Coronel, when you do, you--you will remember that I said nothing to--that is, to persuade the senoritas to take this journey."

"Nor not to take it, Wriggler."

"Yet you will say to His Majesty that I did suggest--yes, I do now--that they had better not----"

His utterance drivelled to incoherency. The Mexican woman, she of the cafe, stood before him. There was a warning on her stolid countenance.

Murguia wet his lips. "But," he stammered, "there--oh what danger can there be in their going?"

Driscoll shoved him aside and placed himself at the head of Jacqueline's horse. "You had better risk the water, miss," he said quietly.

"My good sir," she replied, clear and cold, "I commend your prudence, in making certain, before you dared touch my bridle-rein, that neither of the two gentlemen were here."

Din Driscoll swung on his heel. "d.a.m.ned!" he murmured, and he p.r.o.nounced the "n" and the "d" thoroughly, to make the word adequate if possible.

"Lord, I believe I feel like a closed incident! And to think, Demijohn,"

he went on as he busied himself about his horse, "to think that it's the first and only time we've ever seen trouble coming and tried to keep out of it."

But the trouble might appear now, he had done what he could. The thought brightened him, and he patted his short ribs musingly. There was a friendly protuberance there on either side. His belt sagged comfortingly. He opened the pack which he was tying with his blanket behind his saddle, and from it he filled with cartridges the pockets of his rough cape coat.

By now the caravan was pa.s.sing him. The burros, like square-sh.e.l.led monstrosities with ears, were settling into a steady trot. Their blanketed arrieros ran beside them and prodded, and were in turn prodded by the fretful Murguia. Then Jacqueline rode by on an ambling little mountain-climber. She had forgotten his presence. This was not a pose with the Marquise d'Aumerle; she had, really. But her little Breton maid coming behind timidly drew rein. Driscoll looked and saw in the moving yellow torchlights that her face was white. A thing like that somehow alters a man's att.i.tude. "W'y, child," he exclaimed, "what's----"

"Monsi--senor," she said hastily, in pathetic and pretty broken Spanish, "you, oh, you will not leave us! In the mercy of heaven, tell me that you will not! Ah, seigneur," she sobbed, "mademoiselle will yet lead us to our death!"

"Berthe," mademoiselle at that instant called, "oh you little ninny, are you coming ever?"

The maid obeyed. "Just the same," she sighed, "G.o.d bless her!"