The Missourian Part 28

Dupin's written evidence provided the rest of the abduction story, seemingly, and there remained only the other charge, that of a.s.sisting at the ambush of the murdered Captain Maurel. For this there was no evidence, and the accused himself was examined.

"Your name?" asked the court.

"Driscoll."

"Your full name, hombre?"

"John Dinwiddie Driscoll, Your Honor."

"Din--whatever it is--that's not a Christian name?"

"It was, when I got it. Maybe I've paganized it since."

"Devil take you, this is solemn!"

"Yes, this is solemn."

Lopez cracked his long nails irritably against each other.

"You came here via Tampico," he began anew. "What days were you in Tampico?"

"From about the twenty-third or twenty-fourth, till we left a few days ago."

All three judges bent over a memorandum which the president pointed out among his notes. Captain Maurel was killed about April 26th.

"How did you occupy yourself while in Tampico?"

"Mostly trying to persuade Murgie here that it was his move."

"But your horse needed exercise. Did you at any time ride across the river?"

"I didn't notice. Have you anyone who saw me cross?"

"Goot!" blurted out the Austrian who was one of the judges, so suddenly that everybody half jumped. "Ya, das iss die cosa, sabe! Who has him seen cross?"

The court floundered. The witness demanded by the accused was lacking.

Murguia, a restless, huddled form on a straw-bottomed chair, was watching hungrily every step in the examination. Now he s.h.i.+fted excitedly, and his sharp jaws worked with a grinding motion. Then his voice came, a raucous outburst.

"Search him, Your Mercy!"

Lopez browbeat the meddler, and--took his advice. Driscoll submitted tolerantly to their fumbling over him, and all the while Murguia looked on as a famished dog, especially when they pulled out the whiskey flask.

But when they tossed the thing aside, he sank deep into his black coat and gave vent to mumblings.

"Of course we find nothing," Lopez complained, "since his accomplice recommended the search."

It seemed, too, that the state's case must fall.

"The Captain Maurel charge cannot hold," announced the court.

"Ya, goot--mucha bueno!" exclaimed the Austrian with enthusiasm, while the color sergeant, who had a red nose, wet his lips hopefully. He believed that an acquitted outlaw, if a gentleman, would stand a bottle.

"And as to the first charge," continued the president, "here is the deposition of the Senorita d'Aumerle, which I have held till now for this purpose. Read it, and you will note that though the marquesa bears out the Senor Ney, she further testifies to the prisoner having later saved her from this very Rodrigo Galan at peril to himself. Bien, senores, have you any further questions?"

The Austrian crinkled his brow, and after a momentous pause, shook his head till his cheeks rattled. The Dragoon promptly replied, "No, mi coronel." Then the three withdrew, and when they came back, the Dragoon wiping his lips, they informed the accused that he was not guilty.

"Which isn't news," said Driscoll as he thanked them.

Murguia's turn came next. The proof of the old man's guilt blossomed almost of itself. Jacqueline, to clear her protector, had been forced to depose how Murguia had willingly betrayed her into Rodrigo's hands. But she described the old man's reluctance. He would have saved her, except for his terror of the outlaw. The sole case for the defence was Murguia's character for stinginess; such a miser could not be accused of aiding the guerrillas. But this very point seemed to heighten Lopez's prejudice against him. Driscoll, being held to testify, only talked sociably, and told nothing, and when under the quizzing he finally lost patience, he said, "Oh, let him go! What's the use?"

But they were so far from any such thing that they condemned him to be shot.

Then a voice was heard at the door. The sentinel there stumbled back, and Don Tiburcio brushed by him into the room.

"Old man," he called, "come with me! Your daughter----"

Murguia started up, weakly swaying. The senile eyeb.a.l.l.s, so lately parched by fear, swam in a moisture not of avarice. Someone was speaking to him of his daughter. He had not seen her yet. They would not let him.

And now he must think of her in this new connection, which was his death. And her misery to learn it, and her misery, afterward! On the morrow they would be taking him to the capital, his sentence would be confirmed, he would be shot. Nothing of this he doubted. And he would never see her again.

Murguia stretched out his arms toward the president of the court, "You will let me go to her, senor? Your Mercy will let me go to her?" He murmured her name over and over, "Maria de la Luz! Maria--Luzita mia!"

until the words became a kind of crooning. Then he would break forth again, entreating, commanding, "Your Mercy will let me see her? Senor, you _will_ let me see her!"

At the first note of intrusion Lopez had brought the pommel of his sword down upon the box in front of him. But the syllables of the girl's name seemed to get into his memory, and he began to stare with a puzzled frown at the half-crazed old man. Lifting his eyes, he met Tiburcio's, and Tiburcio himself nodded in some deep hidden significance. Lopez straightened abruptly, as at an astounding revelation.

"Tell me, Senor Murguia," he said, "your daughter--Yes, yes, man, you shall see her!--But listen, what is she like? Has she large black eyes?

Does she wear red sometimes? Come, senor, answer!"

The father gazed, wonderingly, jealously. How should an elegant officer from the City and the Court know aught of Maria de la Luz?

Tiburcio crept behind the sofa, and bending to Lopez's ear, he whispered, "Si, si, mi coronel, she is the one you have in mind, and she is his daughter."

Lopez swung round and searched the blackmailer's face. "And now----"

"You will let him come," said Tiburcio. "But bring two guards. And have four others with--well, with a stretcher."

Again Lopez searched the dark crescent that was Tiburcio's eye, and again Tiburcio nodded with deep significance. "Bring him," he repeated, "but tell him nothing. Seeing will be enough."

Murguia went, unknowing. He would see her, thanks to some freakish kindness in Don Tiburcio. He was torn between the joy of the meeting and the sharp grief of the parting that must follow. At the time he never noticed that they led him up the chapel walk instead of toward the hacienda house. Tiburcio was ahead with a lantern, but when near the top of the hill he turned back to them, yet not before the expectant Lopez had seen a black something on the pavement under the swinging light.

"You first, mi coronel," said Tiburcio.

"I, you mean!" cried Murguia, "I, senor!"

"But we wish to see first if she is here," said Lopez. "Don Tiburcio thought she might be at vespers."

"Vespers? There are no vespers to-night. Yet we come here! Why? Why do we come here?"

Tiburcio motioned to the guards. "Hold him until we return," he ordered.

A Dragoon reached out a hand indifferently to Murguia's collar, and that second the old man's ten fingers were at his throat. They overpowered him at last, but they would have fared better with a wildcat.