For the moment, Colonel Dupin had established headquarters in the granary, which was a long, low adobe among the stables, with a pasture between it and the House. The pasture opened on the highway through a wide gap in the hacienda wall, and the coaches and steeds of the imperial party which had passed in that morning gave the old cow lot a gala air. The colonel was seated before a box, improvised into a desk, and his rusty jacketed Cossacks lounged everywhere. Tiburcio and other scouts were reporting on the dead and wounded of yesterday’s raid. A maimed enemy brought a chuckle deep in the Tiger’s throat, but any mishap to one of his own darlings got the recognition of a low-growled oath. He was busy over this inventory of profit and loss when Jacqueline appeared with the Emperor.

Dupin arose and saluted after the grim manner of an old soldier. The half-dozen of obsequious courtiers he did not see at all, but to Jacqueline he bent from the waist with a duellist’s punctilio. His countrywoman was the one adversary whom he never thought of cursing.

There was an opening innuendo. “No, Colonel Dupin,” Maximilian reproved him sternly, “I have not come to interfere with justice. I merely desire to see what prisoners you have here.”

150Driscoll and MurguÍa were brought in. Maximilian stared dumfounded at his new magistrate in the rÔle of criminal. Don Anastasio looked apologetic. They had locked him up in his own stable, bronze medal and all. Dupin explained. This MurguÍa, like many another hacendado, had long been suspected of aiding the guerrillas, and yesterday morning he had actually set him, Dupin, on a false trail. The Contras were tracking one of Rodrigo GalÁn’s accomplices in the abduction of Mademoiselle d’Aumerle. The accomplice was the other prisoner, the American, whom they had found at last taking refuge at MurguÍa’s own hacienda. Here he had had the effrontery to welcome them as mademoiselle’s rightful escort, had even seemed surprised when a dozen Contras pounced upon him from behind and disarmed him. Dupin added that mademoiselle herself was deceived by the American’s cunning, and he did not doubt but that she still persisted in his innocence. He might speak further of the fellow’s part in the ambush and murder of Captain Maurel near Tampico, but he confessed that that required further investigation.

No one could say that Maximilian had so much as listened. Such tangles had long since become irksome, though he never ceased plunging into the mesh. To unravel details, and incidentally confuse them more, was a notorious mania with the poet-prince. But his thoughts now were all for a girl who had fainted. MurguÍa he would leave to a court martial. If guilty, the medal should be torn from his breast. Don Anastasio’s terrors, however, ran on the other penalties of court martial.

“Now you,” Maximilian turned to the American, “I understand that you wish to see me. But you must know that law prevails in Mexico at last, and that even the Emperor may not keep a man from trial.”

Driscoll’s chin lifted eagerly. “Certainly not, but my business with you, sir––”

151“Not ‘sir,’” whispered Jacqueline. “You must call him ‘sire.’” Little she cared for etiquette, but she did not propose that Driscoll should broach his errand.

Maximilian overheard and smiled. “Yes,” he said, “one tiny letter added, and you change a man into a sovereign.”

Now Jacqueline, for her purposes, had thought to disconcert the man unused to courts. But it struck her at once that nothing of the kind would happen. His easy naturalness was too much a part of him, was the man himself. And she was glad of it. She was glad of the something distinguished which his earnestness gave to the clean-cut stamp of jaw and forehead. He had stopped and looked at them inquiringly, as an eager speaker will when interrupted. Then his brown eyes deepened, and there was a tugging at the corners of his mouth. He seemed to comprehend. If this was their humor, he would play to it. A diplomat must be all things to the people he is after.

“‘Sire?’ W’y,” and his drawl was exquisite, “that’s what we call the daddy of a horse.”

Jacqueline turned quickly, clapping her hand over her mouth. Maximilian was always uneasy when Jacqueline did that.

“To be sure,” he observed affably, “our American friend is not so far wrong. Listen, am I not the father of my people?”

The entourage buzzed admiringly at the imperial cleverness; all except Jacqueline, who now that she should laugh and relieve the situation, obstinately pulled a long, blank face.

Maximilian’s tone changed. He meant to wound now, and did. “So,” he added, with chilling stress, “it’s ‘sire,’ if you will be so good as to remember.”

Driscoll flushed as though struck. He became aware that it was all some patronizing rebuke.

“There is one,” he answered gently, “who taught me manners at her knee, or tried to, and she never hurt a mortal human being by a word in her life, but that, that, sir, seems 152 to be where you have missed it. Now look here,” he went on, kindling in spite of himself, “I respect any man who has grounds–discoverable grounds–for respecting himself, and if you are a man, then ‘sir’ won’t overtop you any.”

Colonel Lopez of the Dragoons nudged him anxiously. “Don’t say ‘you’; say ‘Your Majesty.’”

“Better let him alone,” Maximilian interposed wearily. “He recognizes in me a man, and–it’s not unpleasant. But which,” he added, “gives me leave to hope that as a man himself he will not cringe before the drum-head.”

“May I,” said Driscoll quietly, “have one minute with you alone? It’s not about myself, I promise you that. But for you, sir, it’s of the very greatest importance.”

Instantly all stirred with curiosity, except Maximilian. All there were keenly affected by the stranger’s mysterious business with the Emperor, except the Emperor himself. And each man’s wits were straightway alert, according to the hates and ambitions of each. Even Miguel Lopez, dense of understanding, had his suspicions. MurguÍa’s yellow features darkened malevolently. The hacienda priest whispered to M. Éloin, and M. Éloin, brushing the man of God aside as though he had been thinking of the very same thing himself, tried to get a word with Maximilian. But Jacqueline spoke first to the Emperor. She knew the susceptibility of the royal ear. Maximilian nodded at what she said, and Éloin bit his lip. Maximilian glanced at the American’s clothes. Homespun did not correspond with pressing business of state, to his mind.

“My good man,” he said, caressing his beard, “it’s not regular, you know. Another time, perhaps, when you can have yourself inscribed by Our Grand Chamberlain and when your application for an audience––”

“But if these seÑores shoot me before then?”

Maximilian shrugged his shoulders. In any case, the Ritual would suffer no outrage.

153“But I tell you,” cried the exasperated Missourian, “this thing is serious. And it can’t wait either, not if it’s to help you any. I may be too late now. I don’t know what’s happened since I started down here three weeks ago. Richmond was in danger then. And the Army of Northern Virginia–General Lee––”

“Have surrendered,” calmly interposed the Emperor.

Driscoll stiffened as he stood, his lips parted as his last word had left them. He wondered why these foreign, unsympathetic beings of Austria and France and Belgium and Germany and Mexico looked so blurred to him. He never imagined that there were tears in his eyes.

“It is really true,” continued Maximilian, addressing them all. “A courier brought me the news this morning. Yes, my friends, the North is free at last to attack our Empire. But,” he added blandly, “let us not fear, not while we are sustained by the unconquered legions of France.”

“How he remembers us now!” thought Jacqueline.

She thought too of him who had sent the legions. The entire fabric of Napoleon’s dream of Mexican empire was builded on the dismemberment of the American Union. But, as the Southerners began so well by themselves, Napoleon had left them to do his work alone. He just failed of genius.

“Oh, mon petit, bien petit Napoleon,” she cried in her soul, “how terribly you have miscalculated!”

The room had filled with murmurs, with awed whispering, with frightened questioning looks at one’s neighbor, with ambitions and hates gone panic-stricken. Driscoll came forward. The fellow of homespun held the Empire in his hand, if they but knew it. “Now let me deliver my message,” he said earnestly. “And, afterward, on with the drum-head, I’ll not complain.”

“There, there,” spoke the unseeing monarch, though affected 154by the dignity of sorrow, “you shall have no cause. I came here, meaning to pardon.”

“Pardon?” came the Tiger’s growl. “Your Majesty saves so many enemies, does he fear that soon he will have none left?”

“Perhaps, Colonel Dupin, since my imperial brother, Napoleon, sends me so efficient a bloodhound. But I thought the prisoners were already tried and condemned. That must come first, of course. Yet We are constrained to find another judge, one without preconceived notions of guilt, to hold the court martial. Ah yes, as Monsieur Éloin here suggests, I name Colonel Lopez.–Colonel Lopez, you will stay behind with a company of your own men. Finish the trial to-night, if you can, and overtake me before I reach the city.–Colonel Dupin, I have to request yourself and men as escort, to replace the Dragoons left with Colonel Lopez. And you, Mademoiselle d’Aumerle, shall have a carriage. We start this afternoon. You will be ready, mademoiselle?”

“Is Your Majesty quite resolved,” Jacqueline asked in French, “that the American must be tried? He can easily be found guilty, I warn Your Majesty.”

“And is that not reason enough?”

“Reason enough that he should not be tried, since he is not guilty. But perhaps Your Majesty has thought of sending him under guard to the frontier, back to his own country, where he would not longer be an annoyance?”

“My dear young lady,” returned the Emperor, “it seems that you expect me to blot out the processes of law simply because even I cannot make them infallible. But you do not answer my question. I offer you protection to the City?”

“He must stand trial then?”

“Yes–but will you be ready to start this afternoon?”

“Your Majesty should know that I cannot accept.”

“Does this trial interest you so much, mademoiselle?”

155“Thanking Your Majesty,” said Jacqueline coldly, “I should rather not accompany him.”

Maximilian swung on his heel and called Lopez aside. “Mi coronel,” he said, “when you follow to-morrow, you will offer to bring the SeÑorita d’Aumerle, if she desires it.–And Lopez, you remember the young Mexican girl we used to meet near here, during the last few evenings?”

“When you and I, sire, would ride over from Las Palmas incognito?”

“Yes. She was able to–to tell me much about the peon life, and I should like to reward her in–in some way. Do you know, Miguel, I suspect she lives on this very ranch. It was at the church here that we would meet her, you know? And now, since I must leave, I wish you to find her. Induce her to come with mademoiselle to the City under your escort. Assure her that she shall have an honored place at court.–Jove, there’s my new order of San Carlos for women! She shall have that for–for aiding my researches among the peons. Now, Miguel mio, do your best!”

With which words Maximilian turned back alone, and as he went, he thought how as a simple man he had won a maiden’s heart. He had been learning that a prince may miss one or two very dear things in life. “It’s ended, the little ranchero idyl,” he murmured. “But there’s been no harm. She shall not regret it.”