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 tasselled stalks. They squirmed like snakes from under kicking horses, and fainting, got a carbine to the shoulder at aim, and someway, pulled the trigger. 307Then 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 space 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 rÔle,” 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 308dried 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 horsemen, 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 mÊlÉe, 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 assailants were in flight. Every Cossack survivor was in flight. The Storm Centre wheeled and confronted Don Rodrigo, who raised his sombrero effusively.

309“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, seÑor––”

“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, seÑor, 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, seÑor, 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.”

310Behind 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 ejaculation, 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.

“I’m downright sorry we went and captured Your Majesty,” he began.

“Her Imperial Highness does not understand English,” Jacqueline explained.

Then to her surprise the man proceeded in French. He was evidently greatly disturbed because Missouri hospitality did not harmonize with war. “It was a blunder,” he apologized earnestly, “come of our deciding just this morning to make you Europeans vacate our continent. But don’t let that worry Your Majesty. Here, under my roof, the decision doesn’t hold, at all!”

Berthe lifted her head quickly. It was her second promotion in the social scale that day. She had trembled when the door opened, for she knew that Rodrigo’s side had triumphed. But this tall stranger brought relief to one’s nerves, and somehow she had watched him trustingly. He was of the same race as Monsieur Driscoll, to whom also she had once turned instinctively for help. But when the tremendous young fellow 311addressed her with reverence due a queen, she felt only the respectful admiration due a pretty young woman. It unexpectedly awakened in her the knowledge that she was a pretty young woman; and with a winsomeness that amazed and delighted Jacqueline, to say nothing of its effect on Daniel, she gently put him right as to her identity.

“It doesn’t matter,” Boone protested stoutly, “you ought to be one!”

The door opened again. It struck the wall with an insolent bang, and in strode Don Rodrigo. Jacqueline noted who it was and indifferently seated herself in the rocking chair, with her back toward him. The Mexican advanced to the centre of the room. The brief twilight had fallen, and the place was in half light except for the blazing logs. He stopped rigid and flung his scarlet-lined cloak back over his shoulder.

“Where,” he demanded in the huge tones of a victorious general, “is the tyrant’s empress?”

No one volunteered as to where the tyrant’s empress might be. The toe of Jacqueline’s boot was indolently busy with the embers on the hearth. The heads of both girls were in shadow.

Rodrigo’s furrowed brow creased more deeply. “Which of you is she?” The heavy syllables dropped one by one. He stepped tentatively toward Berthe. So did Boone.

“Stand aside, seÑor!”

“Can’t, dear brigand,” said Daniel.

Then Berthe spoke. “Please, messieurs,” she began, “Her Majesty is not––”

“It’s only a maidservant,” Rodrigo exclaimed in chagrin.

“Don’t make any difference,” said Boone, “she’s come a-visiting.”

“If, Seigneur Brigand,” spoke a clear voice, “you had not interrupted Mademoiselle Berthe, you would stand informed by now that Her Majesty is not here. Will you deign to close the door?”

312Rodrigo knew well those bell-like tones. Forgetting the question of an empress, he drew nearer to the lady of the rocker. She gave him no heed, but her profile against the red glow was very soft and beautiful. His chagrin vanished. Here was a more ravishing triumph.

“A vengeance in kind,” he muttered, wetting his lips. “Ha, he took nobody’s wife, as to that; and his wife may go. But in the matter of sweethearts–ah!”

Bending, he laid a hand caressingly on her neck, against the tendrils.

At the touch she sprang to her feet, and Boone leaped forward with fist drawn back. But both stopped. Her face changed from fury to pallor. Boone’s expressed approval.

The room had filled through the open door with men and torches, but the first man among them had come as far as Rodrigo’s shoulder even as the insult occurred. From behind, the man’s arm had straightened under Rodrigo’s chin, and twisting to a lever, was gradually forcing back his head. Rodrigo groped for a knife, but half way to his waist the fingers clutched vainly in a sharp spasm, and all involuntarily flew up and gripped at the vise under his chin. Yet another ounce of pressure, and it seemed his neck must snap like a dry twig. Suddenly his spine bent limp. Muscles relaxed. The whole body capitulated. Then the man behind stooped a little, and Rodrigo began to rise. Slowly at first, and next, as from a catapult, the brigand shot backward over the man’s shoulder and struck his length on the floor.

“No, not that, boys,” said the man. “Don’t kick him. Laugh at him, it hurts more.”

He spoke more particularly to one “Tall Mose” Bledsoe of Pike county who was purple with indignation that a “saddle-colored Greaser should dare lay hands on a white woman.”

But there were also “Rube” Marmaduke of Platte, “Mac” Crittenden of Nodaway, the “Doc” of Benton, “Cal” Grinders 313from the Ozarks, Clay of Carroll, and Carroll of Clay, besides a ruddy sprinkling from the county of Jackson. Among the latter was “Old Brothers and Sisters,” a plump little young man with cherubic eyes behind round brass spectacles. Clem Douglas had been ordained in the M. E. Church (South), and became thereupon the Rev. Mr. Douglas. “Old Brothers and Sisters” was a theological degree of later acquirement, lovingly bestowed by the Iron Brigade. But in his more recent gospel of pistol practice, Clem Douglas was not a backslider. He was simply all things Southern to all men. Like the others in the cabin, his hat was off, his muddy boots scraped; and like the others, he was not unaware of the two girls.

“Rather showery out,” he observed genially, wiping the mist off his glasses, and imagining weather a livelier topic than battle.

Jacqueline did not hear. Her eyes were still on the man who had disdained to strike Rodrigo from behind, who had flung him away instead, as one would a dog. She stood motionless, and her face was very white. She saw that he wore loose leather “chaps,” a woolen shirt, and an old coat, with only stained shoulder straps, green braid on dark blue, to indicate a uniform. His wet black hair was curly. His brown eyes flashed whimsical contempt on the resplendent guerrilla at his feet. He was the Coincidence; he was the Storm Centre. He turned, expecting to see the Empress, and he met her eyes. His own darkened with a new anger, and involuntarily, he swung round, himself to kick the Mexican who had insulted her. But a flood of memory swept over him, the memory of what he had seen at Cuernavaca. Not for her could he touch a fallen man.

“Take him into the back room, two of you.”

Red, red to the neck, he was turning to follow, when he saw Berthe.

“Miss Burt!” he exclaimed.

314Heartily he shook hands with her. “It’s my first chance, you know, to mention what you did for me over a year ago. But I sure appreciate having my life saved, you know that. There now, you’re not to worry over this present mess. We’ll have it straightened out, just in no time.”

He stammered as he spoke, and when he turned and left the room, his bearing was constrained. Jacqueline’s eyes followed him until the inner door closed behind him. Then, with a half shrug, she sat down and pensively resumed the building of fiery mounds on the hearth.