The Missourian Part 15

"Yes, yes, but how did they find you?"

"Colonel Dupin simply brought the sailors back to Tampico and searched that cafe, and got me out. The proprietor wasn't thought to be any too good an Imperialist, anyway. They shot him, and then we came right along here."

"Very nice of you, I am sure."

"Not at all. Dupin isn't thinking of anybody but your Fra Diavolo, who must have killed Captain Maurel.--Was he here?"

"Who? Don Rodrigo?"

"Don Rodrigo?"

"Of course. He's the same as Fra Diavolo."

"You mean that bandit," cried Ney, "that terrible Rodrigue? But he is dead, don't you remember, Fra Diavolo said so?"

"Stupid! Fra Diavolo is Don Rodrigo himself."

"Not dead then? And I'll meet him yet! But," and his sudden hope as suddenly collapsed, "Dupin will get him first."

"I think not, because Rodrigo did not take the trail."

"Then which way did he go? Quick, please, mademoiselle, which way?"

"He turned off into that arroyo."

"Oh, what chance, what luck!" But the boy stopped with his foot in the stirrup. "No, mademoiselle, I can't leave you!"

"Oh yes you can. I daresay there's another champion about." She glanced up at the cliff. "And besides, all danger is past. The donkey caravan is still here, and for company, I have Berthe, of course."

"Really, mademoiselle?"

"Yes, Michel, really."

"Good, I'm off! But we will meet you at--Dupin just told me--at the next village on this same trail. Now I'm off!" He was indeed. "I say, mademoiselle," he called back, "I'm glad we left the s.h.i.+p, aren't you?"

Jacqueline turned hastily her gaze from the cliff. He startled her, expressing her own secret thought.

Cha.s.seur and steed vanished in the ravine, and she smiled. "The G.o.d of pleasant fools go with him," she murmured.

CHAPTER XII

PASTIME Pa.s.sING EXCELLENT

"Il y a des offenses qui indignent les femmes sans les deplaire."

--_Emile Augier._

Like another Black Douglas, Din Driscoll rose among the crags, the dark tufts curling stubbornly on his bared head. He looked a sinewy, toughened Ajax. But he only spoiled it. For, raising his arms, he stretched himself, stretched long and luxuriously. His very animal revelling in the huge elongation of cramped limbs was exasperating. Next he clapped the slouch on his head, and clambered down.

Jacqueline might have been surprised to see him. Her brows lifted. "Not killed?" she exclaimed. "But no, of course not. You gave yourself air, you ran away."

Driscoll made no answer. He was thinking of what to do next. She knew that he had run because of her, and she was piqued because he would not admit it. "So," she went on tauntingly, "monsieur counts his enemy by numbers then?"

"Didn't count them at all," he murmured absently.

"But," and she tapped her foot, "a Frenchman, he would have done it--not that way."

She was talking in English, and the quaintness of it began to create in him a desire for more. "Done what, miss?" he asked.

"He would not have run--a Frenchman."

"Prob'bly not, 'less he was pretty quick about it."

She looked up angrily. Of course he must know that he had been splendid, up there behind the rocks. And now to be unconscious of it! But that was only a pose, she decided. Yet what made him so stupidly commonplace, and so dense? She hated to be robbed of her enthusiasm for an artistic bric-a-brac of emotion; and here he was, like some sordid mechanic who would not talk shop with a girl.

"I wager one thing," she fretted, "and it is that when you bring men down to earth you have not even at all--how do you say?--the martial rage in your eyes?"

"W'y, uh, not's I know of. It might spoil good shooting."

"And your pipe"--her lip curled and smiled at the same time--"the pipe does not, neither?"

His mouth twitched at the corners. "N-o," he decided soberly, "not in close range."

She gave him up, he had no pose. Still, she was out of patience with him. "Helas! monsieur, all may see you are Ameri-can. But there, you have not to feel sorry. I forgive you, yes, because--it wasn't dull."

"Hadn't we better be----"

"Now what," she persisted, "kept you so long up there, for example?"

Driscoll reddened. He had lingered behind the screen of rock to bandage his furrowed leg. "S'pose you don't ask," he said abruptly, "there's plenty other things to be doing."

He turned and invited the little Breton maid to come from the shack. She was white, and trembled a little yet. "I knew, I knew you would not leave us, monsieur," she was trying to tell him. "But if you had--oh, what would madame----"

"Now then," the practical American interrupted, "where's Murgie?"

Jacqueline pointed with the toe of her slipper. There were prostrate bodies around them, with teeth bared, insolent, silent, horrible. One couldn't be sorry they were dead, but one didn't like to see them.

Jacqueline's boot pointed to a man lying on his face. A silk hat was near by in the dust. A rusty black wig was loosened from his head. The girl invoked him solemnly. "Arise, Ancient Black Crow, and live another thousand years."

Driscoll lifted the shrunken bundle of a man, held him at arm's length, looked him over, and stood him on his feet. The withered face was more than ever like a death's head, and the eyes were gla.s.sy, senseless. But as to hurt or scratch, there was none. The beady orbs started slowly in their sockets, rolling from side to side. The lips opened, and formed words. "Killed? yes, I am killed. But I want--my cotton, my burros, my peons--I want them. I am dead, give them to me."

"You're alive, you old maverick."

The gaze focused slowly on Driscoll, and slowly wakened to a crafty leer. Believe this Gringo?--not he!