The Missourian Part 50

"Our mutual spy has told him that I have less than two hundred men. The brigand knows that I was forced to leave a garrison at Tampico."

"But how many have you, really?"

Dupin motioned her to the window. But she saw not a man, not a musket.

She saw only the wet fields of cane, and the black mist-shrouded mountains beyond.

"Just the same," the Frenchman a.s.sured her pleasantly, "they are there, full five hundred of my little tribe. Does mademoiselle approve?"

"It looks like the curtain on 'Fra Diavolo,'" she replied, shuddering.

CHAPTER V

THE MISSOURIANS

"Men sententious of speech and quick of pistol practice."

--_Major John N. Edwards._

An hour before nightfall the guerrillas attacked. Jacqueline was standing at the window, when she heard a jubilant din and saw a tawny troop charging through the fields toward the house. They yelled as they came, waving machetes and carbines. It was the usual theatrical dash of Mexicans. Like savages, they thought first to frighten their adversaries.

"Won't you come and see, Berthe? It's like a hippodrome."

She felt sorry for them. The dulcet cane grew thorns. Under the leaves the black soil was become clay red with leather jackets. The Cossacks had fixed sword-bayonets to their muskets, and were waiting on their knees.

Stung by the hidden barbs, the first horses reared in air, pawing and screeching frantically. Many sank down again, and they were limp as the life ebbed. Others crashed backward, their riders underneath, and those behind plunged over them, unable to stop. Soon it was a fearful jumble; men and beasts, hoofs and steel, curses and shrill neighing. Then the firing began, a woof of fine red threads through the warp of pale-green reeds. The guerrillas yet fought. The myth of their own heavier numbers kept them from panic. Ragged fellows with feet bare in the stirrups leaned over to slash at heads between the ta.s.selled stalks. They squirmed like snakes from under kicking horses, and fainting, got a carbine to the shoulder at aim, and someway, pulled the trigger. Then they were taken in the rear. One-half of the Contra forces, mounted, had waited under the sapling growth of the nearest foothill. Now they sprang from cover, bloodthirsty whelps trailing the Tiger. The guerrillas could not turn back. To retreat they must cleave the way in front, and they did, by sheer desperation. Falling in the mesh at every step, they at last gained the large open s.p.a.ce around the cabin.

Then it was that Jacqueline got a near view of Don Rodrigo. He was superbly mounted, and his long body made a heroic figure on the curveting charger. He frowned, and his mustachios bristled fiercely, and his shouts of command were heavily ominous. The wind turned the folds of his black cloak. It was faced with scarlet silk; and the charro elegance beneath was black and resplendent. All told, he was a very outburst of glitter; breeches, jacket, sombrero, saddle, stirrups, and bridle; not of silver, but of gold. Good carbines for his vagabond Inditos, magnificence for himself, these had come from that fabulous theft of the bullion convoy. And he had arrayed himself this rainy day to dazzle a princess of the Blood. So now he wielded his sword with a conscious flourish, glancing toward the window to see if he were seen.

"The poseur, never out of his role," murmured his audience there. "How will he enjoy running, I wonder?"

But to her astonishment he did not run, though Dupin was cutting closer and closer through tangled bodies, eager to grapple with his old-time slippery foe. Don Rodrigo raised in his saddle, and looked anxiously in all directions. Suddenly his dark face lighted, and wheeling round, he called to his men, and in his turn strove as furiously to reach the Tiger as the Tiger had striven to reach him. Jacqueline could not now tell which side to feel sorry for. But she exulted in the thrill of it, even as she wrung her hands at sight of the red agony.

Then something happened, which even the Tiger, who knew his warfare so well, had never known; which got into even his dried and toughened marrow. It was the Rebel yell. It rose over a sudden thunderous rush of hoof beats. And next, as a puff of air, a herd of hors.e.m.e.n, a wild mud-spattering streak, surged past the house. On across the open, and straight upon the fray, they merged everywhere, and made bigger and livelier the blotch of mad swarming. Some wore slouch hats, others straw sombreros, and all were ruddily burned. They fought with revolvers, and often one would pause between shots to spit tobacco. They brought to the battle one thing above all else, and that was vim, vim unbounded, vim that simply had to have vent.

Jacqueline caught her breath. What race of men were these? Exalted, quivering, she watched them doing as workmen what fell to their hands, yet ever with that whirlwind of vim.

"The Missourians--of course!" she cried.

Through powder smoke and misty rain the figure of one horseman slowly grew familiar. She caught fleeting glimpses of him, as he darted into a melee, as he spurred round to find a hotter field. Suddenly her eyes widened, and she pressed a hand hard against her breast.

"The coincidence!" she gasped, trembling from head to foot. "It is the coincidence!"

Her nose flattened against the wet pane. She remembered how that general of the Missourians had told Charlotte about this man, for the Empress had asked. And the general had related how the troop had dubbed him the Storm Centre.

"And no wonder!" she breathed. "Mon Dieu, how he _enjoys_ it!--But, oh--he will be killed--oh!"

Yet nothing of the kind happened. When she uncovered her eyes, his a.s.sailants were in flight. Every Cossack survivor was in flight. The Storm Centre wheeled and confronted Don Rodrigo, who raised his sombrero effusively.

"Rebellion makes strange comrades," thought Jacqueline. "But no, my--the--chevalier--does not take his hand."

Indeed Driscoll was looking the guerrilla over with little favor. "So,"

he exclaimed, "it was you I was to help here!"

"And what better patriot, senor----"

"Never mind that. Why didn't you wait till dark to attack? Weren't those the orders, or--that is, the suggestion?"

"But whose suggestion? Perhaps, senor, _you_ know who El Chaparrito is?"

"Haven't the least idea, nor anyone else. But it's certain, Rod, that this is your first experience of Shorty. Another time, and you'll have sense enough to take his hints. Now then, where's the emperor we were to catch?"

Fra Diavolo's smile was Satanic. "Your Chaparrito was either mistaken about the Emperor, or," and he glanced toward the window, "or he deceived you into helping me capture a beautiful young woman."

"How? What----"

"I mean that His Cautious Majesty did not come, however much El Chaparrito seems to want him. But--" and Rodrigo's tone lowered heavily, "but his August Spouse came instead. She is in that cabin now. It is well, senor, for vengeance in kind is just. It is righteous, it is biblical. Since fate has thrown----"

"E-a-s-y! Eas-y, boy. Of course, if we've gone and netted an empress, we'll ask 'em to please take her back. This ain't a woman's game."

"Give up a queen's ransom?"

Driscoll nodded cheerfully.

"I believe, caballero," said the brigand with awful dignity, "that I command here."

Driscoll looked at his Missourians returning from the chase. "Well," he laughed, "you might try it on, and see how they take it."

Behind Jacqueline the door opened. She almost jumped. Of the hundreds likely to enter there, her startled fancy pictured only one. But the new comer was a stranger.

"Oh-ho, come a-visiting, eh?"

The voice was cordial, robust, Western.

"Missour-_i_!" she exclaimed involuntarily.

"Yes'm, Cooper county."

She turned, won to friendliness, and beheld a man who, to use her mental e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, was "of a leanness!"

"Monsieur----" and she paused.

"Boone, ma'am. Daniel, your most obedient servant. If I'd known--Sho', we might of had things spruced up a bit. Are you the queen, maybe?"

The lady's laugh rang as clear as a bell. Taken aback, Boone sought to correct his mistake. He saw that Berthe was seated in the hammock. She, then, must be the Empress.