The Missourian Part 27

"Softly there, amigo. Yes, I tied you."

"Another of your jokes----"

"Inspired of the Evil One? Oh no, it was--precaution. Yes, that was it, come to think; just precaution. You see, I and Dupin had scattered your guerrillas, and I was scouting ahead, to stir up any ambush waiting for us--which I did later, when we chased them, and burned Culebra. But going along, I heard snoring, and found you two, like two----Now sit still!"

"Why didn't you wake me? Then we could have roped the Frenchman."

"And have him identify me after we'd gotten the ransom? Oh, no, I'm a loyal Imperialist. Now listen a minute, will you?--Our Contras were following me not a half mile behind. That meant I had to work quick. You see, I wanted to find you both there when I could come back alone. And meantime, I didn't want you to hurt each other. If either got killed, there'd be no ransom. So I took your knife and his sabre. Then I tied you both with my lariat. I was going to get your lariat too, and tether the pair of you to a tree, hoping you'd hold each other there till I got back. _You_ would do it, for I meant to pin a note on your sleeve, explaining. But just that minute the Frenchman stirred, for the Cossacks were getting into his ears, so I had to run back and turn them into another path."

"So long as it wasn't any of your infernal farces?"

"Well, it _was_ worth a ransom, the way it turned out.--Sit still, will you? You _know_ I take you too seriously ever to think of any joke with _you_! Here's your artillery and cutlery. Quick now, clear out!"

Both rose to go, each to his respective deviltry, but not six steps ahead in the black night Tiburcio stumbled over a soft, inert ma.s.s. He recovered himself, half cursing, half laughing.

"One of your guards, Rodrigo," he muttered. "He must have got this far before the drug worked into his vitals."

"Your mescal probably killed him," said Rodrigo indifferently. "But a little knife slit will look more plausible in the morning, for you it will."

Getting to his knees on the stone walk the outlaw groped over the body for a place to strike, holding his knife ready. But all at once he stopped and got up hastily, without a word. He only rubbed his left hand mechanically on his jacket.

"Well, what ails you?" asked Tiburcio.

Rodrigo gave a short, apologetic laugh. "It--it's a woman!" He quit rubbing his hand, seeming to realize. "There's blood," he added.

"Here," said Tiburcio, "you keep back, and run if anybody comes. I'm going to strike a match."

By the flare they saw that it was a girl and that her head was crushed.

Kneeling on either side, they peered questioningly, horrified, at each other. Their great sombreros almost touched. Their hard faces were yellow in the flickering light between, and the face looking up with its quiet eyes and dark purplish cleft in the brow was white, white like milk. With one accord the two men turned and gazed upward at the tower, whose black outline lost itself far above in the blacker shadows of the universe. They understood.

Tiburcio shrugged his shoulders, a silent comment on the tragedy from its beginning to this, its end. He threw the match away and arose, but Rodrigo still knelt, leaning over her, holding the poor battered head in his hands, half lifting it, and trying to look again into those eyes through the darkness. He would touch the matted hair, as if to caress, not knowing what he did, and each time he would jerk back his hand at the uncanny, sticky feeling. Roving thus, his fingers touched an ivory cross, and closed over it. With no present consciousness of his act, he placed the symbol in his jacket, over his breast.

Tiburcio touched him on the shoulder. "I'll go now, and bring her father," he said.

"Yes," returned the other vaguely, stumbling to his feet.

"It's going to kill the old man," murmured Tiburcio, "or--G.o.d, if it should _not_ kill him! He is a coward, but once he slapped you, Rodrigo, for so much as looking at her. And now, the Virgin help--may the Virgin help whoever's concerned in this!--But here, you must go, do you hear?"

"Yes."

"Then go, go!"

"Yes," said Rodrigo again, moving slowly away.

"By the river, remember. You'll find your horse there."

"Captain Maurel's, the fine black one?"

"Yes, I slipped it out of the stables for you."

"The fine black one?"

"Yes, yes, hombre!"

"And--and she never--she never saw--how magnifico I look on--on that fine black horse."

He was still muttering as he reeled and staggered down the hill.

When he was gone, and no alarm of sentinels rang out, Tiburcio took off his serape and laid it over the dark blot on the stones. Then he too stole away, to tell her father.

CHAPTER XXI

THE RED MONGREL

"Be this the whetstone of your sword; let grief Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it."

--_Macbeth_.

"Where," inquired Din Driscoll, with a benevolent interest in their doing the thing right, "is the judge advocate?"

Colonel Miguel Lopez resented what he took for a patronizing concern. It festered his complacency, for his was the code of the bowed neck to those above and the boot-tip for those below. Luckily for him, he did not strike the helpless prisoner. He turned to his judge's bench instead, which was none other than the frayed and stately sofa of honor from the hacienda sala, deemed requisite to his dignity. The satin upholstery contrasted grotesquely with the adobe walls. Pungent tallow dips lighted the granary to a dull yellow, and mid the sluggish tobacco clouds were a shrinking prisoner in clerical black, and the mildly interested prisoner in gray, and red uniforms surrounding.

Lopez flung his sword across the empty box that was to serve as desk, and filled the crimson seat with pompous menace. Lopez was a Mexican, but did not look it. He had red hair and a florid skin, and he was large, with great feet and coa.r.s.e hands. Yet the high cheek bones of an Indian were his. The contrast of coloring and features unpleasantly suggested a mongrel breed. The eyes had red lids, out of which the lashes struck like rusted needles, and the eyes themselves, of a faded blue, seemed to fawn an excuse for Nature's maladjusting. But he had a goodly frame on which to hang the livery of a king's guardsman. And as the cross of the Legion of Honor ticketed his breast, he must have been a goodly man too, and his Maker's insignia only a libel. Once Maximilian had said, "What, Bebello, and art thou a better judge of men than I, thy master and the master of men?" For it seemed that Bebello, the simple hound, had read Nature's voucher instead of Napoleon's, and being thus deceived, would ever snarl at the Colonel of Dragoons. Maximilian of course knew better. What looked like toadying was only profound deference for himself. The royal favorite could discriminate. He could also be the thick-headed, intolerable martinet. The sandy lashes bristled as the American inquired a second time if he were to have counsel.

"Being president of this court," Lopez announced, "I am judge advocate."

In the tone of congratulation Driscoll blandly said, "Well, then, I challenge the president."

"Challenge?"

"Certainly, Your Honor. It's my right, either on the ground of inexperience, malice, or--but I reckon the first two will do."

"This is insolence!" cried the president, and glaring angrily, he maintained that it was a regular court martial for the field, and that as he was the ranking officer at hand, there could be no appeal beyond himself.

"A regular drum-head," Driscoll observed. "Well, let it go at that. I'm in a hurry."

Lopez called a lieutenant of Austrian cavalry to his right upon the sofa, and the Dragoon color sergeant to his left, and the three of them sat thenceforth in judgment. The charges were read, and next a deposition, gathered that day from Michel Ney. Therein appeared the American, reinforcing Rodrigo Galan at Tampico, and in so far aiding the abduction of Mademoiselle d'Aumerle.

"The complicity is evident," stated Lopez, and his colleagues, blinking at the candles on the box, nodded wisely.

"It's straight so far," Driscoll agreed, "but the story goes a little further. Does the ma'am'selle herself happen to have left any deposition?"

She had, admitted the president, but it merely corroborated the foregoing. Driscoll, in sole charge of his own defence, insisted that her deposition be read, but Lopez would permit no such waste of time. He was brooding on Monsieur eloin usurping his own place near the Emperor, and he wanted to finish the present business so as to overtake them both.