But the paltry nine thousand were the best army of Mexicans ever yet gathered together. For weeks they kept more than thirty thousand Republicans out of an unwalled, almost an unfortified town. But while the Republicans were largely chinacos, or raw soldiery, they inside were trained men. There were the Cazadores, a Mexican edition of the Chasseurs, organized by Bazaine under French drill masters. There was Mendez’s seasoned brigade. There was Arellano’s artillery, though numbering only fifty pieces. There were the crack Dragoons of the Empress, the Austro-Mexican Hussars, and a squadron of the Municipal Guards. There were veterans who had fought at Cerro Gordo, and steadily ever since in the civil wars. There was the ancient Battalion de Celaya, mainstay of the Spanish viceroys, and later of the Emperor Iturbide, its colonel. There were the Battalion del Emperador, the Tiradores de la Frontera, a company of engineers, and several well-disciplined regiments of the line.

But the day came when they began to starve, and being hungry took the heart out of many things. It took the heart out of bombarding Escobedo in his hillside adobe; out of taunting “uncouth rebels.” The rebels were in trenches often not a street’s width distant, and for reply they pointed to certain dangling acorns who had been “traitors” caught slipping through the lines. Being hungry took the heart out 381of the quick-time diana, played after a brilliant sortie. Out of the embrace Maximilian gave Miramon. Out of Miramon’s call for vivas for His Majesty the Emperor. Out of standard decorating and promotions and thrilling words of praise. Out of the anniversary of Maximilian’s acceptance of the throne. Out of a medal presentation for military merit, which the generals bestowed on their Emperor in the name of the army. Out of being made a caballero of the Order of Guadalupe, especially as the monarch could give only a ribbon, since the cross must wait until his return to the capital. And being hungry certainly made pathetic his prediction that some among those present would one day wear the medal for twenty-five years of faithful service to the Empire. Being hungry took the poet-hero’s glow out of his wan cheek as he declared again that he, a Hapsburg, would never desert, for even then he heard Imperialist platoons shooting recaptured deserters. Or he thought of the wounded left to die on the grassy plain and lying there unburied. No, all the heart was being taken out of these things, for Marquez still did not come with the help he had gone to bring, and the noose was tightening day by day. Attempts were made to send some one through to depose Marquez, but each one failed. Splendid sallies resulted in prisoners taken, which were only so many more mouths to feed. The Roman aqueduct had long since been cut off, and now the wells were giving out. Mules and horses drank at the river, while sharpshooters picked them off. The feebler animals were butchered and distributed as rations. And still the sorry Marquez gave no sign. Even hope failed the empty stomachs.

But for those who waited outside as Vengeance enthroned, expectation began to take on a creepy quality. The besiegers were preparing against themselves a host, not of men, but of frightful spectres, of famished maniacs, of unearthly ghouls, who would clutch and tear with claws any man that stood between 382them and a morsel of food. And the fury of desperation sharpened with each succeeding irony of a dinner hour.

The siege had endured six weeks. Marquez had been gone a month. But the Republicans held ready for whatever force he might bring. Their key to the situation was the Cimatario, the highest hill on the south. Between it and the wooded Alameda stretched the grassy plain. Republican trenches from base to shoulder of the peak opposed Imperialist trenches under the Alameda trees. Republican troops flanked the Cimatario on either side, lying in wait for Marquez. On one side Driscoll’s Grays guarded the Celaya road.

So here they were sleeping encamped on the morning of April 27, when the bugle of a patrol cracked their slumbers. They lay booted and spurred. A moment later they were horsed as well, blinking across the plain in the pearly mist of dawn. They had heard hoofbeats, sharp and dry on the high tableland. Now they saw a wild, shadowy troop, which was hotly pursuing a spectral coach of gossamer wheels, with six plunging mules frantically lashed by outriders. At once, almost, the coach was lost among the dim strangers, who snatched at flying ends of harness, and with their prize raced on again.

The Grays stared. It was like some pictured hold-up, not real. But they knew better when from among themselves a colossal yellow horse and rider dashed toward the road. Then they awoke for certain, and tore after their colonel to solve this ashen mystery so early in the morning. Was it Marquez, perhaps? But the coach white with dust, and white curtains flapping, what was that?

Striking their flank at an angle, Driscoll drove hard into the fleeing horde. The Grays saw his hand raise as a signal, whereat they did not close in, but swerved and galloped parallel, some fifty paces distant. Driscoll struggled alone against the heaving sea about him. But no cut-throat of that pirate mass 383so much as drew a knife. By force of brawn, he wedged his way toward the coach, reached it, leaned forward, and caught up the curtain. And what he saw was a poke bonnet. The bonnet was a bower of lace and roses, held by a filmy saucy knot under a lady’s chin. He saw a face framed within, of a skin creamy white, of lips blood-red, of hair like copper, and he saw a pair of eyes. They were gray eyes, and as they opened suddenly and wider upon him whom she thought must be her captor, the lady started violently, her cheeks aflame. But at once the eyes snapped as in mockery, and her lips moved.

“Monsieur permits himself––” she began, but no one heard except her terrified companion within the coach. Driscoll had already dropped the curtain as a thing that burned, and was raging on again with the turbulent stream. He got to the leader of the band, and jerked the fellow’s bridle. He raised his voice, and louder than the pounding of hoofs he cursed in wrathful disgust.

“Dam’ you Rod, this here’s getting monotonous!”

The man swung in his saddle. His eyes were black-browed and savage. He was Rodrigo GalÁn, the terrible Don Rodrigo. But shabby, how very shabby he looked for the thief of million dollar convoys! Yet that bonanza coup of the bullion train had happened two years ago. Since then the outlaw had visited the capital. Boldly, audaciously, he had gone as a rich hacendado, and after the manner of rich hacendados he had “seen the City.” Mozos with gorged canvas bags on their shoulders had followed his stately stride into the gambling casinos. He had played with regal nerve, and on the last occasion, had flung the emptied sacks away as nonchalantly as on the first. Only, the last time, he had felt remorse that the “bank” had profited instead of Tiburcio. In that matter of the bullion convoy he had not treated Don Tiburcio as one caballero should another.

384Their horses–Rodrigo’s and Driscoll’s–were racing by bounds shoulder to shoulder. This endured for possibly the space of a second. Then Demijohn felt his rein tighten, and he took more time. Next his bit suddenly pinched, and down the old fellow came upon his front feet together, firmly planted, and sank to his haunches. Driscoll still held Rodrigo’s bridle, and Rodrigo and horse, being in air, lunged backward.

“We stop here,” Driscoll announced.

Don Rodrigo plumped down heavily in his saddle. His bristling moustache lifted over his cruel white teeth. Two hundred swarthy little demons reining in around them looked expectantly for a signal. But their chief frowned at the twelve hundred Gringo Grays hovering on his flank. They too wanted only a sign, and they outnumbered the Brigand’s six to one. But Rodrigo believed he held the advantage. First he obediently halted himself and his minions.

“Now then seÑor,” said he in pompous and heavy syllables, “I am at your disposition. Will your people commence the battle, or shall we?”

Driscoll appreciated the dilemma. The carriage would be in the line of fire. He had had an intuition of its occupants, and for that reason had kept back his men.

“Where was she going?” he demanded.

Rodrigo feigned surprise. “And where,” he asked, “or rather, to whom, should Your Mercy imagine?”

To QuerÉtero! To Maximilian, of course! This, too, Driscoll had divined already.

“No matter,” he retorted shortly, “but how did you run across her this time?”

The outlaw filled his chest, “You Americans, seÑor, do not understand the feelings of a man bowed under a heavy wrong. You––”

385“We’ll let it go at that,” said Driscoll, with a little wave of the hand, “but–how in––”

“You scoff already, seÑor? But will you, at these stains of blood? Then let me say to you, seÑor mio, they make me remember one shameless deed for which the tyrant Maximilian must pay.”

The stains Rodrigo meant were on a little ivory cross which he had taken from his jacket. The emblem served him to lash his emotions, to goad his precious sense of wrong. He studied the cross intently; then, by a vast and excruciating effort, thrust it into Driscoll’s hand.

“Yes, yes,” he cried, “you must take it! He said so.”

“He?”

“Si, seÑor, he who shares my wrong, Don Anastasio MurguÍa.”

“Murgie!” exclaimed the bewildered American. “But–why, hombre, I haven’t seen the old skinflint since–since he and I both were court-martialled by Lopez!”

“Still I promised him to send the cross to you, because you will have a chance to give it to him. He said so.”

“Oh, he did?” But Driscoll put the trinket in his pocket, not unwilling to see more of this foolish drama in Latin-American sentiment. “Now then, Rod,” he went on impatiently, “you haven’t explained yet how you happen to find her again.”

“That,” replied the outlaw, “was his part of the bargain.”

“Whose?”

“Anastasio MurguÍa’s.”

“Rod, you talk like a––”

“But no, seÑor, it’s because you Americans cannot understand. MurguÍa also believes in vengeance. I haven’t seen him either, not since he sold his hacienda over a year ago. But I do know that he or some spy of his is in the capital, for a messenger from him came to me in the mountains. The 386messenger said that the Marquesa d’Aumerle was leaving for QuerÉtero. If I captured her, it would be vengeance in kind. But MurguÍa wanted pay for his information. He wanted that cross–it was his daughter’s–and I was to send it to him through you. Dios mio, but I had to hurry! A little more, and the Marquesa would have been inside your lines.”

“She is already,” Driscoll corrected him, “and so are you. Will you fight it out, or surrender?”

He pointed to the Grays as he spoke. They had dismounted, and each man had a rifle at aim across his saddle. It was a reminiscence out of Driscoll’s boyhood of Indians and the Santa FÉ trail. But Don Rodrigo only smiled.

“You want the coach first?” he said.

“No!” Driscoll retorted. “You’re the one that’s wanted, and you can either wait for your trial, or be shot now, fighting. The coach will have to take its chances. But see here, if the firing once starts, not a thief among you will be left standing––”

It was a perilous “bluff,” and none might say if it would have broken the deadlock. But the outlaw interrupted.

“Listen! What’s that?”

“Oh, nothing. We’re only throwing a few bombs into QuerÉtero.”

“Only!” The brigand’s eyes flashed, and his voice was filled with envy. Throwing bombs among the traitors?–and magnificence like that had grown common! Yet he, whose patriotism was a passion that fed and thrived upon itself, must be barred from such exquisite satiety.

Driscoll understood, and thought it droll. First there was that loyal Imperialist, Don Tiburcio, frothing chagrin because he had had to desert. And now here was this rabid Republican, heart broken over being outlawed from the ranks of his country’s avengers.

Again Rodrigo interrupted, more excitedly yet. “SeÑor, 387seÑor, you don’t shoot them that way every day? What does it mean?”

Both gazed across the plain to the city of domes under the green hills. Driscoll’s chin raised, and he listened intently. What had commenced like indolent target practice against a beleaguered town had suddenly burst into a terrific cannonading chorus. More, there was musketry, vicious and sustained. There were troops deploying over the plain. Something critical was happening. If it were the supreme rally of the famishing Empire!

Driscoll stirred uneasily. He glanced at his outlaw. He thought of the coach. To leave her with these ruffians? To miss a fight? Here was a quandary!

“You are not going?” Rodrigo cried at him furiously. “Now, now,” he raged, “is the hour of triumph for the incarnation of popular sovereignty. Go, I say, go, the Republic needs you!”

Until those words Rodrigo had held the situation. With them he lost it, and Driscoll was master. And Driscoll grew serene, and very sweet of manner. He began filling a cob pipe. A nod of his head indicated the coach as a condition of his going.

“Look, look!” Rodrigo shouted. “Oh, que viva–they’re running! We’ve smoked them out! We’ve smoked them out!”

Driscoll swept the country with his glasses. Thousands of men were running like frightened rabbits down the Cimatario slope, and spreading as a fan over the grassy plain. Mountain pieces boomed farewell behind them, until in abject panic they cast away carbines and scrambled the faster. But other troops were pushing up the slope opposite the town, and these were ordered ranks of infantry. Up and up they climbed, to trench after trench, and the howitzers one by one stopped short their roar. When 388Driscoll laid down the glasses, his face was white. Rodrigo’s glee turned to uncertainty.

“What–what––”

“Smoked out, you fool? We’re the ones smoked out!”

“But those runaways?”

“Are our own men, ten thousand of ’em, raw conscripts to support our batteries on the Cimatario.”

“But the Cimitario?” Rodrigo knew by instinct the crucial importance of the black cone.

“The Cimitario is taken by the Imperialists!”

Driscoll did not forget, however, the nearer contest, and as the Mexican grew frantic, he was the more coolly indifferent.

“Max has everything his own way now,” he added soothingly. “He can either evacuate, or go around on the north side and thrash Escobedo.”

But the Grays were clamoring for action. “By cracken, Din, hurry up there!” yelled Cal Grinders.

Driscoll raised his palm, waving the fingers for patience. He scanned the plain again. The Imperialist ranks were breaking. Hungry men rushed on the besiegers’ camps, snatching untouched breakfasts. The townsmen poured out among the uniforms, and darted greedily in every direction. The llano was alive with scurrying human beings. Driscoll could well wait for the psychology of Republican defeat on Don Rodrigo, since at the same time he awaited the effects of victory on a starving army. The Grays fretted, but they knew their colonel was never more to be depended upon than when his blood grew cold like this.

“If,” Driscoll observed pleasantly to the Mexican, “Escobedo isn’t already making tracks for San Luis––”

It was the last straw. The patriot brigand jerked off his sombrero and flung it to the ground. He gestured wildly over the plain, and he gestured in the American’s face. He choked on words that boiled up too fast.

389“You–you–traitor!” he spluttered. There was actually froth on his lips.

“We haven’t,” Driscoll reminded him with exceeding gentleness, “settled this other yet,” and again he nodded to the coach.

“That–that is why you wait?” Rodrigo had forgotten his prize entirely. “Take her, then, take her! Only go, go, kill all the traitors!”

“After you, caballero,” Driscoll returned with Mexican politeness. He wanted to be sure of the outlaw’s departure, since holding him prisoner was now out of the question. But Rodrigo chafed only to be gone. With a reed whistle he signaled his little demon centaurs, then at a touch of the spurs his horse leaped forward and all the band clattered close on his heels.

“Sure anxious to escape,” thought Driscoll. But he stared after them in wonder. Instead of turning to the safety of the mountains, they charged straight ahead on the town, straight against the Empire, and in any case, straight into the maw of justice. Behind, the coach and mules stood high and dry in the road. Driscoll was at once all action.

“Shanks,” he called.

Mr. Boone hurried to him from the Grays.

“Shanks, will you stay here with six men––”

“Jack Driscoll!”

“To watch that coach, Dan. There’s two girls in it.”

“Jack! Miss that there fight!”

“But Dan, these girls are friends of yours, you met them once.”

Mr. Boone started violently.

“Never mind, I’ll ask Rube Marmaduke or the Parson.”

A pitiful struggle racked Mr. Boone.

“You, you’re not fooling me, Din?” he pleaded.

390“Sure not. It’s your empress all right. It’s Miss Burt all right.”

“Then, Lawd help me, I’ll stay!–But you’d best be hustling and get to work.”

“Just a minute, Shanks, there’s the other one in the coach. She wants to go to QuerÉtero. If she gives her word of honor–never mind, she knows honor from a man’s standpoint–if she gives her word that she brings nothing that will help ’em inside, then you can escort the coach into the town after things quiet down some. All right? Good. Then we’re off!”

Demijohn’s hoofs pelted dust balls with each impact. The Grays were ready. They surged behind. The sound of them was a swishing roar. In the apex of the blinding tempest, Driscoll sat his saddle as unmoved as an engineer in his cab. He looked ahead placidly. Empire and a prince had just triumphed. So he was going to readjust fatality. The smile touched his lips as it never had before, and hovered there in the midst of battle.