The Missourian Part 68

"Listen! You remember two years ago at my hacienda, when Lopez sentenced you to death? But why did he sentence you to death, why, senor?"

"That's an easy one. It was because he didn't want my offer of Confederate aid to reach Maximilian."

"But why not? I will tell you. It was because he was trying even then to buy the Republic's good will, in case--in case anything should happen.

But he was _afraid_ to change, the coward! He must first _know_ which side would win. I am his orderly--_he_ knows why I am--and I've tried to drive it into his thick wits that the Empire is d.a.m.ned and has been, but he still doubted, even when we were starving again, even when every crumb was gathered into the common store, even when it was useless to shoot men for not declaring hidden corn, even when forced loans were vain, since money could no longer buy. No senor, even with proofs like these, Miguel Lopez was stubborn."

"I'd prob'bly guess he was a loyal scoundrel, after all."

"More yet, he has fought bravely, making himself a marked man in the Republic's eyes."

"Then why----"

"Because so long as the Empire had a chance, or he thought it had, he hoped for more coddling. You see, senor, he thought Marquez was coming back with relief. There was that--that Frenchwoman you know of--who brought news from the capital. But Maximilian dared not make the news public. He forged a letter instead, a letter from Marquez, and he had its contents proclaimed. Marquez had been delayed, so all Queretaro read, but he had at last destroyed the Liberals in his path, and was then hurrying here with his victorious army. This false hope blinded Lopez with the others in there. But when Marquez did not come, when utter demoralization set in, when we were a starving town against thirty-five thousand outside, when there were scores of deserters every day, when any man who talked of surrender was executed, and still no Marquez, then Lopez began----"

"I see, he began to be persuaded?"

"Still, he wanted to be a general. But the other generals forced Maximilian not to promote him."

"So he was disappointed?"

"And persuaded, senor. The sally was already planned for this morning, but Lopez argued obstacles, and so got it postponed until to-morrow morning. He wanted to--to act on his--persuasion. And that is why,"

Murguia got to his feet and limped around the table to Driscoll, "and that is why," he ended in a croaking whisper, "why I am here!"

"And the red puppy, how near here did _he_ come with you?"

Again Murguia darted at his questioner that uneasy glance of admiration.

"Lopez is waiting between the lines," he replied. "As to our own lines, we pa.s.sed them easily, since Lopez commands the reserve brigade and places the sentinels himself around La Cruz monastery."

"Oh, does he?" Driscoll whistled softly. "But what's your plan?" He put the question sympathetically, which disturbed Don Anastasio vastly more than the American's peremptory tone in the beginning. "What's your plan?" he asked again, gently coaxing.

Murguia hesitated. This polite drawing-room interest was the most ironical of encouragement for villainy. Driscoll frowned impatiently, but at once he was smiling again. He placidly filled his corncob, and a moment later, his gaze piercing the tobacco smoke, he said, "Then I'll tell you. You're here to make a d.i.c.ker, you and your tool between the lines. The monastery of La Cruz on top of the bluff is the citadel of Queretaro. Maximilian has his quarters there. The troops there are the reserve brigade. This puppy, this mongrel, commands the reserve brigade.

He places the sentinels. And you are his orderly.--Oh, I haven't forgotten how he let you off that time he condemned me!--So now you are his orderly, for your own reasons and his. And here you are, talking mysteriously about _capturing_ Maximilian. But you don't mean that, snake. You are here to _sell_ him! Howsoever," and smiling a little at the stilted phrasing, Driscoll paused and delicately rammed the tobacco tighter in the bowl, "howsoever, Murgie, you've come to the wrong market. No, there's no demand for Maximilians just now, not in this booth. But why in blazes didn't you go to Escobedo? With his Shylock beard, I reckon _he'd_ take a flyer in human flesh."

"I was going to him, but I came to you first, to take us there, to take Lopez and myself, I--I thought you would manage it all, because you--Your Mercy is the strongest, the most resourceful----"

"Resourceful enough, eh, to dodge the bullets you had fixed up for me once? Thanks, Murgie, but I liked your attentions then better than your slimy advances now. By the way, how are you going to get to Escobedo?"

The tone was honey itself.

Murguia gasped, yet not so much to find himself a prisoner, as to find himself mistaken in the American.

"Now maybe," Driscoll suggested, "maybe you'll be wondering yourself why you bring your dirty little affairs to me? Lopez may be an open book, but you seem to've read _me_ wrong. Prob'bly the language is foreign."

Murguia's jaw dropped, and he gaped as one who beholds the collapse of high towering walls. It was his system of life, of motives calculated, of humanity weighed. It was the whole fabric of hate and pa.s.sions which quivered and crashed and flattened in a chaos of dust before his wildly staring eyes.

"You mean, senor, you mean you do not want--as well, as _I!_--to bring to his end this libertine, this thief of girlhood, this prince who scatters death, who scatters shame, this--this----"

"Man alive, you're screaming! Stop it!"

With his nails the old man combed the froth from his lips.

"But you too have cause," he cried, "cause not so heavy, but cause enough, as well as I! There was my daughter, my little girl! With you there is that French wo----"

He stopped, for he thought he heard the sharp click of teeth. But Driscoll was only grave.

"Well, go on," he said. "But--speak for your daughter only."

"I can't go on. I won't go on," Murguia burst out desperately, and flung up his arms. "If you don't understand already, then I can't make you.

It's useless. A book? You're a stone! But any other, who had a heart for suffering, in your place would----"

"Oh shut up, Murgie!" cried Driscoll wearily, but in something akin to supplication.

With the serpent's wisdom, the tempter struck no more on that side. His fangs were not for the blighted lover. What, though, of the soldier?

"No one doubts, senor," he whined unctuously, "that Your Mercy is loyal to the Republic. So it cannot be that Y'r Mercy knows----"

"See here, Murgie, I'm getting sleepy. But I'll find you a comfortable tent, with plenty to eat, and a polite guard----"

"Senor," stormed the old man, "I tell you you don't know what this means to the Republic. Maximilian will escape, no matter the cost. At daybreak there is to be a concentrated attack on some point in your lines; but where, n.o.body knows except Miramon. Then Maximilian will cut through with the cavalry. The infantry will follow, if it can. And after them, the artillery. You Republicans may not even know it until too late, because meantime you will be fighting the townspeople, thinking you are fighting the whole army."

Driscoll roused himself suddenly. "The townspeople?"

"Si senor, they are to be a decoy. Some volunteered, the rest were drafted. They have been armed, but they are only to be killed, they are only to draw the Republican strength, while the Emperor and the army escape."

Driscoll sprang from his seat, in an agitation that was Murguia's first hope.

"Do you mean to tell me," he demanded, "that this Maximilian who makes speeches about not deserting intends now to sacrifice these poor helpless devils? Prove it!"

Murguia had touched neither lover nor soldier. But what man was here, in boots and woolen shirt, puffing angrily at a corncob, yet sitting in judgment supreme on the proud Hapsburg himself? Blindly stumbling, Murguia had touched the inexplicable man who was of stone, and the baffled fiend that was in him leaped up with a cry of glee.

"To prove it?" he cried, "Ai, then Lopez shall walk with you in our outer trenches. For in them you shall see the doomed townsmen themselves, a thousand townsmen, sleeping there until the dawn.

Afterward, when Maximilian is safe, they who are still alive will be free to surrender."

"And then----" But Driscoll knew the temper of the siege. What with the chief prize lost, there would be scant mercy for surrendered townsmen.

"G.o.d in heaven," he muttered fervently, "if there's any to suffer, it might as well be the guilty one, and a thousand times better one than one thousand! A man's a man, or alleged to be!--Murgie, you wait here, I'm going to call the others."

The others came, and heard. It was the court en banc, five Missourians and a Kansan. And the culprit was a Caesar. But they hewed forth their Justice as rugged and huge, and as true, as would the outlaw, Michel Angelo. Like him, they were their own law. Nor were they nice gentlemen, these Homeric men who spat tobacco. Finding their G.o.ddess pandered to by those who were nice gentlemen, and finding the gift of these a pretty scarf over her eye, they roughly tore it away. For them she was not that kind of a woman.

"W'y, this prince is no Christian," Crittenden announced in querulous discovery.

"One thousand loyally dying for their sovereign," Daniel mused, his romantic soul wavering. "Sho!" he cried the instant after, "that thing's out-dated!"

"And the prince there----" began the Kansan angrily.

"May just go--to--the--devil!"