The Missourian Part 38

He began, with coy hesitancy, to beat his scruples around the bush, which was not a bad lead. Supposing he turned his offer from Maximilian to President Juarez, wouldn't it, well, look as though he did so to save his hide? Brown Johnny opened his eyes as at something unfamiliar.

Driscoll went on. If he were shot, how was he to go to Juarez? But if he, uh, happened to get loose, he might just possibly be influenced to think of the Juarez proposal. But actually buying his way out would look dishonorable. "Now," he concluded abruptly, "run along, and put it that way to whoever sent you."

The man protested, and in some genuine alarm, that he had no employers.

"Oh all right," said Driscoll easily, "then you're bound to help me.

Because if you don't, I'll sure tell Lopez what you've just been trying to hatch up here."

The trap worked beautifully, for the guard tried hard to quake. But his fright was not spontaneous enough. Driscoll smiled. Now he knew the real player in the game.

"Cheer up, Johnny," he spoke soothingly, "I'd not tell on you. But hadn't you better go and think it over by yourself a little?"

The Baptist would hasten straight to Lopez, and Lopez, Driscoll foresaw, would interpret his scruples into a disguised acceptance. The crookedness of the game left the American no other trump, and he played it--against immediate death. Lopez, of course, would send him under guard to Juarez, but Driscoll thought he could trust that staunch old Roman, when once informed, to call for a new deck and an honest deal.

Juan Bautista "thought it over" outside, and directly returned with an answer. But when he again left Driscoll, he did not bar the door behind him. Within ten minutes thereafter Driscoll was creeping past a sleeping sentinel, on between rows of maguey, toward the road. Around him hovered five or six shadows. They were to be his escort and take him to Juarez.

They would join him openly a safe distance away, at a place where their horses waited. But as he emerged upon the road, for the moment alone, a voice in French challenged sharply. "Halte-la!"

The shadows hesitated an instant, then showed themselves with energy.

They sprang out and closed on their "escaped" prisoner. They handled him more roughly than did the Contra Guerrillas, who had first cried "Halt,"

and who were now appearing as by magic. The blended anger and gratification of the shadows over the escape and recapture was vociferously sincere.

"Take them all, mes enfants," a huge tone of command filled the darkness. It was Colonel Dupin. He had that moment arrived. Jacqueline's message had reached him in the City not an hour before. The American had escaped, it said; he was at Tuxtla. The Tiger, knowing nothing of Lopez lying in wait for the same American at the same place, had dismounted his men, surrounded town and farms, and was closing in, when Driscoll himself fell among them.

The interview between Dupin and Lopez brewed stormy at first. The latter turned gray under his ruddy skin when Dupin walked in upon him in the front room of the farmhouse. But seeing that his own men were holding Driscoll, he nervously congratulated them upon the capture.

"How did he escape this second time?" demanded the Frenchman. "It seems to me, mon colonel, that the question would occur to you too."

Lopez was sufficiently alive to his peril. He quickly sent two Dragoons to the temporary guard house to investigate. Dupin curtly ordered two Cossacks to accompany them. Soon they brought back the sentinel who had been conveniently asleep when Driscoll slipped past. The sentinel rubbed his eyes as he faced Lopez. So far everything had pa.s.sed according to arrangement, and he looked for a severe mock examination. But the Tiger had been left out of the calculations, and the Tiger forthwith shouldered himself into the inquisition.

"Do you understand, Colonel Lopez, that your guard here was asleep? Si, senor, asleep! What now, mon colonel, is the little custom as to guards who sleep?"

Lopez glared at the sentinel. It was a fine simulation of outraged discipline, and so life-like that when he spoke of a court martial, the culprit weakened. He opened his mouth. At that Lopez's stern anger became real. He feared the sentinel would tell all he knew.

"Si senor," cried Lopez, "we don't have to be taught, we Mexicans. We shoot them. Here, six of you, out with him! Quick, before he can whine!"

"Go with them," added Dupin quietly to six of his Cossacks.

The sentinel was dragged out. His cries, whether for mercy or not, were smothered first by a sabre belt, and then for all time by musketry. The Cossacks returned and a.s.sured their chief that the execution was bona fide. This allayed Dupin's suspicions.

"Permit me to suggest, Colonel Lopez," he said courteously, "that you likewise honor our friend the American. I came from the City to do it myself, but it is a pleasure to give way before your superior vigilance."

It had already occurred to Lopez that Driscoll also might talk. "You are very amiable, Senor Dupin," he replied. "My court martial found him guilty, and as a matter of fact, he would have paid the penalty by now had Your Mercy not arrived. Between us, Colonel Dupin, he will hardly escape a third time."

At his command six of the crack Dragoons stood forth. They were brown, and Mexicans. Lopez bowed to Dupin, who called forth as many Contras.

The Contras were of variously hued races, but they were all the Tiger's whelps. The file of Dragoons was jaunty crimson, the other corroded red.

Driscoll fell in meekly between them.

"Sacred name of a dog, you are honored, senor!" Dupin exclaimed reprovingly. It angered him when a victim quailed. The present one ought to appreciate, too, that he was answering for two besides himself, for Murguia and Rodrigo, whose escape had wrenched the old warrior's bowels.

The Storm Centre glanced at the picked hussars, at the famously infamous Cossacks, and a.s.sented modestly. So plain in gray, he did indeed look colorless among them. The Contra at his elbow was an American, whose brutish, swaggering scowl meant the world to know what a bad man he was.

The type gives the decent citizen a mad desire to be bad himself just once, only long enough to prove the tough a contemptible sham.

Driscoll's neighbor leered ferociously, that the prisoner flanked by sabres and muskets might respect him and be cowed. Driscoll kept him in mind, and in the tail of his eye.

There was one anxiety for the Storm Centre. If they should bind him! But they had not, he was so docile. And as they marched out the door, he exulted, and could hardly wait. Wouldn't it be a lovely row, though!

Just one good, last good time! He did not feel hard toward them, not when they had left off the ropes. He felt that he was to have value received, and all the while he figured out his desperate campaign.

As they pa.s.sed outside beyond the window's sphere of light, docility changed to whirlwind. A blow with his left, a jerk with his right, and he had the tough's carbine. He swung it between the two files, a grazing circle. He got blows in return, but not a man fired. That was because of the darkness, and a first shot would inspire a wild, general fusillade, endangering them all. As it was, the blows were impartial, except one, which came down with pointed favoritism on the tough's cranium. After that Driscoll helped one side or another, and when they were nicely mixed, he ran. He got as far as the road, but to find a troop of cavalry charging down upon him. Changing ends with the carbine, he fired from the waist at the leader of the new arrivals. This leader dropped his sabre, plunged heavily, and was dragged by the stirrup. Driscoll had not the time to change back to club musket, he used the barrel as such. But being for the instant alone, he was marked out, and Cossacks and Dragoons threw themselves upon him and brought him down.

"It _was_ lovely," he muttered under the heap.

They brought him back to the house, swathed in a mesh of lariats. Lopez awaited them, frothing oaths. Dupin was there too, and he looked an epicure's satisfaction as they stood his victim against the wall. He did not regret the incident, since it had turned porridge into so choice a morsel.

"'Tis you, monsieur," he confessed with rugged grace, "who have honored us."

"Oh, your grandmother!" said Driscoll.

"Well, be patient. It will be all over in a minute more."

The Tiger was, in fact, ordering the shooting squad, when through the open door glittering helmets and excited French and clanking sabres flooded the room. It was still another wondrous uniform for Driscoll, this of the cuira.s.siers, with so much of bra.s.s, and a queue of horse's hair, and loose pantaloons that merged into gigantic black boots. In they strode, an agitated host of bristling moustaches, while outside was the restless sound of many hard breathed horses. The cuira.s.siers bore their wounded leader, and laid him on the iron bed in the room. But the man struggled to his feet. He called loudly for "Monsieur le Colonel,"

and only by force, though gentle, could they hold him quiet.

"What is it?" responded both Dupin and Lopez.

"I, I mean the American Colonel. He--he----"

"h.e.l.lo, Mike!" cried Driscoll.

He could not see for the others, nor move, but he recognized the voice of Michel Ney. He knew, too, that Michel must be the cavalry leader he had just shot. "Darn it, Mike!" he exclaimed, "I'm sorry! But weren't there enough of 'em without you?"

"Monsieur Ney," the Tiger interrupted, "let your men tend you here, and we will be back at once to see what can be done for your hurt. But just now----"

He signed to Lopez, and Cossacks and Dragoons caught up the prisoner and started for the door.

"Wait!" Ney moaned feebly.

"Tonnerre, mon prince, your wound must be paid for, first. Hurry there, Messieurs les Imbeciles!"

"Wait!" Ney gasped. He half raised himself, but sank back with closing eyes. He made a gesture to his breast. All halted as in the presence of death.

"Help him, you there!" cried Driscoll. "Open his coat!"

The cuira.s.siers, eager, awkward nurses, fluttered round the bed, and tore away the sky-blue jacket, thinking to find the wound beneath.

Instead, they drew out a paper. One of them read the address on it.

"Al Senor Coronel Don Miguel Lopez."

Lopez broke the seal, frowned, and put the message in his pocket.

"Nothing--oh, nothing important," he volunteered. "Now, once for all, let us finish our work."

"Wait!" a faint whisper came from the bed.