The Missourian Part 29

Tiburcio and Lopez went alone. They stopped before the covered thing near the church door.

"So," mused the colonel, "she ended it _this_ way."

"From the tower," Tiburcio grimly added.

"His----"

"Well, say it. You mean His Majesty?"

"His Majesty need know nothing of the--of the finale."

"Who is there to tell him, por Dios? I won't. You won't."

"But you forget a third, Don Tiburcio. I mean the man who was with you several evenings ago, when you----"

"When I was carrying off the padre's sweetheart?"

"When somehow you two happened in this desolate neighborhood. Since you took his name out of my mouth just now, you must have recognized that it was His Majesty whom you saw talking to her almost where she now lies. I was near by, guarding his privacy, but you both escaped before I could stop you. Now then, who was that other intruder?"

The other was Rodrigo Galan, but Tiburcio replied, "The other will not have much to say. Poor Captain Maurel!"

"Bueno, bueno!"

"Not yet, mi coronel. Only we two know of Maximilian's part in this, but we must keep it from her father above all others. I am a loyal Imperialist, Don Miguel."

"What difference does that make?"

"The Empire faces a crisis."

The royal favorite started guiltily. Since the news of the Confederacy's surrender, Lopez's ambitions were clouded by a growing fear of the fugitive Mexican republic. The Republic would have a good memory for royal favorites, and he had been thinking on it. "Will Lee's surrender make such--such a difference?" he faltered.

"So much," retorted Tiburcio, "that to-morrow we will have more rebels yet. So much, that what with freeing peons and confiscating nationalized church lands and giving them back to the church--well, a very little more might decide between Empire and Republic."

"A little more? What do you mean?"

"I mean money for the rebels. Luz's father is rich. If he knew that Maximilian----"

"Hombre, hombre, he's a miser!"

"Just the same, I'm a loyal Imperialist, and if you are, too, you will take good care to tell nothing to Don Anastasio."

"You forget, senor, that I am the one to say that to you."

"Then don't forget, Colonel Lopez. Do not forget that she fell, that it was a simple accident."

"Yes, a simple accident. Wait here, I am going to bring her father."

On returning Lopez sent the guards away, and he and Murguia were alone together. The old man stood dazed, unresisting.

"One minute more," said Lopez. "First, I must tell you something. And afterward, you will remember. Yes, you will remember--afterward. You know who I am, that I command the Dragoons of the Empress.--Are you listening? But do you know that, in a way, I am Maximilian's confidant?

Whenever he walks or rides, incognito, dressed as a ranchero, I alone go with him, as I did during the past ten days while we stopped at Las Palmas, three leagues from here. The very first evening there, we two rode out, with our cloaks about us. He likes to commune with nature, and gather curious flowers which he pastes in a book and labels with Latin names. But this time he was interested in peons, yet as he had a delicacy about prying into his host's business, we rode until we left Las Palmas behind us. His Majesty would gaze on the hills and look at the sunset, and he talked to me of a poetic calm about them which made him long for he knew not what. And Murguia----"

Here the speaker paused abruptly, and his faded eyes s.h.i.+fted and hardened.

"And Murguia, we came here, and--he met your child. He met her here, at this chapel, where she had been to pray for her aunt. Old man, do you hear me, the Emperor met your daughter! Then, next day, instead of going on with his journey, he complained of a cough, and stayed at Las Palmas.

But every evening he rode here, he and I. Once I found a chance to ask her her name, but she would only tell her given name.--There, you will remember? Yes, you will--after you have seen her. Come, she is not far away."

CHAPTER XXII

EQUIDAD EN LA JUSTICIA

"... and I think I shall begin to take pleasure in being at home and minding my business. I pray G.o.d I may, for I finde a great need thereof." --_Pepys's Diary_.

An hour later the candles were still guttering in the court room, and here Colonel Lopez a.s.sembled his minions of justice a second time. In his manner now there was nothing of the uncertainty, nor the feigning of penetration, which had before marked his handling of the trials. He pounded the box with his sword.

"In the light of new evidence," he announced shortly, "the two cases of a while ago are reopened."

Din Driscoll strolled in. "I've come for my belt and pistols. Dupin took them," he said.

Lopez signed to the Dragoons to close round him. Then he gave vent. Did the Senor Gringo laugh so much at Mexican justice, since instead of escaping while he had the chance, he came back, coolly demanding his property? It was insolence!

"_Gra_-cious," exclaimed Driscoll in his counterfeit of a startled old lady, "what's the matter?"

But Lopez put on a mien of dark cunning, and replied that he would find out later.

Murguia's case came first. The stricken father was there, dragged from his dead by the petty concerns of this world which cannot bide for grief. He was as a sleep-walker. He had come into another universe. The hacienda sala, where his child lay mid tapers, where mumbled prayers arose, or this adobe, where uniformed men fouled the air with cigarettes and looked after the Empire's business--the one or the other, both places were of that other universe, dark and silent, in which his dazed being groped alone.

The new element in the court martial was Tiburcio, and Tiburcio had in mind one golden goose to save and one meddling Gringo to lose. He riddled the foregoing evidence with refres.h.i.+ng originality. He testified to the brigand attack for possession of the marquise. Had he not found Don Anastasio stretched upon the ground? Had not the dauntless anciano, the self-same Don Anastasio, fallen in defence of the two French senoritas? And yet, did he not keep Rodrigo at bay? Si, senores, he had indeed, until Colonel Dupin and the Contras arrived. He, the witness, was with them. He had seen these things. Now, let anyone say that the loyal Senor Murguia was an accomplice of that cut-throat without shame, Rodrigo Galan; whom he, the witness, loathed from the innermost recesses of his being; whom he, the witness, should be greatly pleased to strike dead. But let anyone again besmirch the character of Don Anastasio!

"No, no," vociferously growled the Austrian.

Lopez opposed nothing. He had a clear notion this time as to what he wanted. Driscoll marveled, and enjoyed it. Pigheadedness had made Don Anastasio guilty, why shouldn't perjury make him innocent? And it did.

The mountain of suspicion and some few pebbles of evidence melted away as lard in a skillet. The verdict was acquittal.

Driscoll knew well enough that the presence of the loyal Imperialist with the baleful eye meant a reversal in his own case too. But the recent and very definite animus of Lopez against him he could in no way fathom. The blackmailer testified again. The prisoner, this Americano, had waylaid him in the wood two days before, and had robbed him of his last cent.

"Which you stole from Murgie," suggested the prisoner.

"I? I steal from Murguia?" cried Tiburcio indignantly. "Ask him! Ask him!"

Murguia was asked. Had the witness ever, on any occasion, robbed him?

They repeated the question several times, and at last the rusty black wig, which was bowed over a chair, slowly shook in the negative. Perhaps he had settled a debt with the witness? The wig changed to an affirmative.