CHAPTER XI
THE COSSACKS AND THEIR TIGER COLONEL
"Ah, Captain, here goes for a fine-drawn bead; There's music around when my barrel's in tune." --_Song of the Fallen Dragoon._
Din Driscoll tumbled himself over among the rocks. "There, I'm fixed,"he grunted, as he squatted down behind his earthworks. "Plenty ofmaterial here"--he meant the cartridges which he poured from his coatpockets into his hat--"and plenty out there too"--indicating the Hydraheads--"and my pipe--I'll have a nice time." He got to work busily.
In the door of the shack Jacqueline saw the campaign for her possessionbegin. Don Rodrigo had fled to the corner of the shack, taking his horsewith him. The hut of bamboo and thatch was no protection againstDriscoll's fire, but the two girls, though inside the hut, were betweenand afforded a better screen. Jacqueline did not, however, hold thatagainst her Fra Diavolo. To save himself behind a woman was quite inkeeping with his sinister role. And she, as an artist, could notreproach him, and as a woman she did not care. But the American'srunning away--now that was out of character, and it disappointed her.
She heard Rodrigo bellowing forth an order, and she saw five or sixguerrillas rise out of the cacti and spring toward her. But the constantshadow of self-introspection haunted her even then. In her despair, andworse, in her disgust, feeling already those filthy hands upon her, sheyet appraised this jewel among ecstatic shudders, and she knew in herheart that she would not have had it otherwise.
"Oh, am I ever to _live_!" she moaned in startled wonderment atherself. "Always a spectator, always, even of myself!--God, dost thouknow? It is a robbery of living!" And the vagabonds were twenty pacesaway!
Something hurt her hand, she opened her clenched palm; it was the hornhandle of Driscoll's knife. Had she really thought to defend herselfwith that inadequate thing? "Poof!" She tossed it from her, vexed at herown unconscious heroics. Then two dark arms reached out, nearer andnearer, and ten hooked fingers blurred her vision. But the arms shotupward, the fingers stiffened, and a body splashed across the doorway ather feet with the sound of a board dropped on water.
"Ai, poor man!"
She was on her knees, bending over him. But a second of the verminlurched against her, and he too lay still. A pistol report from thecliff was simultaneous with each man's fall. Both were dead. A thirdsank in the trail with a shattered hip, and another behind knew theagony of a broken leg. The marksman's mercy was evidently temperedaccording to distance. For, having the matter now under control, henonchalantly cracked only shin bones. Fra Diavolo from his shelterroared commands and curses, but not another imp would show himself.Crouched jealously, they chose rather to besiege their lone enemy on thecliff.
"Must have howitzers," muttered Driscoll. The soft lead, bigger thanmarbles, went "Splut! Splut!" against the rock on all sides of him,flattening with the windy puff of mud on a wall. But he was wellintrenched, and as the guerrillas were also, he lighted his pipe andsmoked reflectively. But after awhile he perceived a slight movement,supplemented by a carabine. One of the besiegers was working fromboulder to boulder, parallel with the trail. He did it with infinitecraft. At first the fellow crawled; then, when out of pistol range, hegot to his feet and ran. Still running, he crossed the trail at a safedistance beyond the hut, and began working back again, this time alongthe cliff, and toward Driscoll. When about a hundred yards away, hedisappeared; which is to say, he lowered himself into a little ravinethat thousands of rainy seasons had worn through from the foothills. Butalmost at once his head and shoulders rose from the nearer bank, andDriscoll promptly fired. The shot fell short. A pistol would not carryso far; which was a tremendously important little fact, since the otherfellow was aiming a rifle. The bullet from that rifle neatly clipped aprickly pear over Driscoll's head. The strategist certainly knew hisbusiness. There was a familiar shimmer of silver about his high peakedhat. Yes surely, he was Don Tiburcio, the loyal Imperialist of thebaleful eye. No doubt the malignant twinkle gleamed in that eye now,even as the blackmailer bit a cartridge for the next shot. A victim whohad only pistols, and at rifle range, and with not a pebble for shelterfrom the flank bombardment--it was assuredly a situation to tickle DonTiburcio.
Now Driscoll's point of view was less amusing. To change his position,he must expose himself to a fusilade from across the way. And if hetried to rush his friend of the gully, the brigands meantime would carryoff the two girls. A gentleman's part, therefore, was to stay where hewas and be made a target of. But he varied it a little. At DonTiburcio's second shot, he lunged partly to his feet and fell forward asthough mortally wounded. He lay quite still, and soon Don Tiburcio camecreeping toward him. Don Tiburcio was thinking of his lost toll-moneysthat should be on the corpse. Driscoll waited, his nerves alert, hispistols ready. But just beyond range, the blackmailer paused.
"Go for the women, you idiots," he yelled. "The Gringo's dead."
The idiots verified the title straightway, for up they popped frombehind their boulders and started for the shack.
"'Possuming's no use," Driscoll muttered, then fired. The guerrillas gotback to cover quickly enough, and so did Don Tiburcio, grinning over hisstratagem. In his arroyo again, he proposed to make the Gringo as asieve. Each bullet from his carabine twanged lower and lower. "Ouch!"ejaculated Driscoll. One had furrowed his leg, and it hurt. He lookedanxiously, to see if the Mexican were lowering his aim yet more. An inchmeant such a great deal just then. But a tremendous surprise met him.For Don Tiburcio had changed his mind. The rascal was firing in anotherdirection entirely, firing rapturously, firing at his very allies, atthe little imps themselves among the boulders and nettles. And thelittle imps were positively leaping up to be shot. They ran frantically,but straight toward the traitor, and on past him up the trail. The StormCentre could not shoot lunatics any more than he could babies. He onlystared at them open mouthed.
"Los Cosacos!--El Tigre! Los Cosacos!" they yelled, scrambling out uponthe road, bleeding, falling, praying, and kissing whatever greasy amuletor virgin's picture they owned.
Then there beat into Driscoll's ears the furious clatter of hoofs. Itdeafened him, the familiar, glorious din of it. The blood raged in hisveins like fiery needle points. To see them--the cavalry, the cavalry!Then they were gone--a flashing streak of centaurs, a streamer of red ina blur of dust, maniac oaths, and pistol shots, and sweeping sabres.Hacked bodies were sucked beneath the swarm as saplings under anavalanche. Driscoll sprang up and gazed. Through eddying swirls he stillcould see red sleeved arms reach out, and lightning rays of steel, andhalf-naked fleeting creatures go down, and never a jot of the curse'sspeed abate.
"Lordy, but Old Joe should 'a seen it!" he fairly shouted. He wasthinking of Shelby, of the Old Brigade back in Missouri; daredevils,every one of them.
Don Tiburcio had sighted the vengeful horde from afar, and hadrecognized them, since he was, in fact, one of their scouts. They werethe Contra Guerrillas, the Cossacks, the scourge wielded by the FrenchIntervention and the Empire. And they were Don Tiburcio's cue toloyalty. For seeing them, he began firing on his late friends, thebrigands. Yet he spared their Capitan. At the first alarm Fra Diavolohad vaulted astride his black horse, and Tiburcio darting out, hadcaught his bridle, and turned him into the dry bed of the arroyo. Othersof the fugitives tried to escape by this same route, but Tiburcio foughtthem off with clubbed rifle, and in such occupation was observed by himwho led the Cossacks, who was a terrible old man, and a horseman to givethe eye joy. At the gully he swerved to one side, and let the hurricanepass on by.
"Sacred name of thunder," he cursed roundly, "a minute later and----"
"Si, mi coronel," the faithful Tiburcio acknowledged gratefully, "YourExcellency came just in time."
The colonel of Contra Guerrillas frowned a grim approval for his scout'shandiwork of battered skulls. He was a man of frosted visage, a grislyWoden. The hard features were more stern for being ruggedly venerable.His beard was wiry, hoary gray, through whose billowy depth a long blackcigar
struck from clenched teeth. If eyes are windows of the soul, hiswere narrow, menacing slits, loopholes spiked by bristling brows. Twodeep creases between the eyes furrowed their way up and were lost underan enormously wide sombrero. This sombrero was low crowned, like thoseworn farther to the south, and ornately flowered in silver. His chestwas crossed with braid, cords of gold hung from the right shoulder tothe collar, and the sleeves were as glorious as a bugler's. Hisbrick-red jacket fell open from the neck, exposing the whitest of linen.His boots were yellow, his spurs big Mexican discs. Altogether the blendin him of the precise military and the easy ranchero was curiouslypicturesque. But Colonel Dupin, the Tiger of the Tropics, was a curiousand picturesque man. His medals were more than he could wear, and eachwas for splendid daring. But on a time they had been stripped from him.It happened in China. He had made a gallant assault on the ImperialPalace, but he had also satiated his barbarian soul in carnage andloaded his shoulders with buccaneering loot. And though he wondered athis own moderation, a court martial followed. However, Louis Napoleongave him back his medals, and sent him to Mexico to stamp out savageryby counter savagery.
"There were two accomplices in this business," the Tiger was saying,"one a trader, Murguia----"
"Killed him my very first shot," lied Tiburcio. He would save his goldengoose of the golden eggs.
"And the other, an American?"
"Got away with the others, senor." Again Tiburcio's reason was obvious.The American, if taken, might tell things.
"And"--Dupin gripped his cigar hungrily--"and Rodrigo?"
For answer the scout waved a hand vaguely up the trail.
"None went that way?" and the Colonel jerked his head toward the ravine.
"No, none. Your Mercy saw me driving them back."
"Quick, then, on your horse! We're losing time."
Don Tiburcio was reluctant. He had not yet recovered his moneyfrom the American. "But the women, mi coronel? They are there, in thatshack. Hadn't I better stay----?"
"Jacqueline, you mean? Of course the little minx is in trouble, thesecond she touches land. But you come with me. She shall have anotherprotector."
Tiburcio knew the Cossack chief. He obeyed, and both men galloped awayafter the chase.
"COLONEL DUPIN""The Tiger of the Tropics ... the chief of Contra Guerrillas"]
They had not gone far when they passed Michel Ney swiftly returning. Hewas the protector Dupin had in mind. He had seen Jacqueline in thedoorway of the hut as he stormed past with the Contra Guerrillas, but hehad been too enthusiastic to stop just then. He was a Chasseurd'Afrique, and to be a Chasseur d'Afrique was to ride in a halo ofmighty sabre sweeps. And Michel had fought Arabs too--but the goodsimplicity of his countenance was woefully ruffled as he turned backfrom that charge of the Cossacks.
"Michel!" cried Jacqueline, stepping over the forms of men before thehut, and forgetting them. The natty youth was torn, rumpled, grimy. Thesky-blue of his uniform was gray with dust. But to see him at all provedthat he had escaped Fra Diavolo's web in Tampico. And the relief! Itmade her almost gay. "Ah, Michel--le beau sabreur!--and did you enjoyit, mon ami?"
He alighted at her feet, and raised her hand to his lips.
"Monsieur," she demanded quick as thought, "my trunk?"
"Mon Dieu, mademoiselle, I did well to bring myself."
"You should have brought my trunk, sir, first of all. Deign to look atthis frock! No, no, don't, please don't. But tell me everything. Whatcould have happened to you last night? Why did you not meet me thismorning?"
His story was brief. Of his contemplated strategy at Tampico, there hadbeen a most lugubrious botching. The night before, when he started tothe fort for aid, Fra Diavolo's little Mexicans had waylaid him, boundhim, and dragged him back to the cafe, where Jacqueline that very momentreposed in slumber. And there, in a back room without a window, he hadgritted his teeth until morning. As for the sailors, who were to returnto the ship for her trunk; well, more little Mexicans had fired on themfrom the river bank. The small boat, riddled with shot, had sunk, andthe sailors, splashing frantically to keep off the sharks, had gainedthe shore opposite. But they could neither get word to the ship, norcross back to Tampico.
"Yet," demanded Jacqueline, "how could you know all this, there in yourprison room?"
"Am I saying I did, name of a name? Well, those poor sailors wanderedabout all night in the swamps across the river, and this morning theyran into Colonel Dupin and his Contras, and the colonel was frothingmad. He had only just stumbled on the bodies of Captain Maurel and someof his men, who had been ambushed and murdered. Poor Maurel was danglingfrom a tree among the vultures. Others were mutilated. Some had evenbeen tortured. And all were stripped, and rotting naked. Mon Dieu, mondieu, but it's an inferno, this country!"
"Yes, yes, but how did they find you?"
"Colonel Dupin simply brought the sailors back to Tampico and searchedthat cafe, and got me out. The proprietor wasn't thought to be any toogood an Imperialist, anyway. They shot him, and then we came right alonghere."
"Very nice of you, I am sure."
"Not at all. Dupin isn't thinking of anybody but your Fra Diavolo, whomust have killed Captain Maurel.--Was he here?"
"Who? Don Rodrigo?"
"Don Rodrigo?"
"Of course. He's the same as Fra Diavolo."
"You mean that bandit," cried Ney, "that terrible Rodrigue? But he isdead, don't you remember, Fra Diavolo said so?"
"Stupid! Fra Diavolo is Don Rodrigo himself."
"Not dead then? And I'll meet him yet! But," and his sudden hope assuddenly collapsed, "Dupin will get him first."
"I think not, because Rodrigo did not take the trail."
"Then which way did he go? Quick, please, mademoiselle, which way?"
"He turned off into that arroyo."
"Oh, what chance, what luck!" But the boy stopped with his foot in thestirrup. "No, mademoiselle, I can't leave you!"
"Oh yes you can. I daresay there's another champion about." She glancedup at the cliff. "And besides, all danger is past. The donkey caravan isstill here, and for company, I have Berthe, of course."
"Really, mademoiselle?"
"Yes, Michel, really."
"Good, I'm off! But we will meet you at--Dupin just told me--at the nextvillage on this same trail. Now I'm off!" He was indeed. "I say,mademoiselle," he called back, "I'm glad we left the ship, aren't you?"
Jacqueline turned hastily her gaze from the cliff. He startled her,expressing her own secret thought.
Chasseur and steed vanished in the ravine, and she smiled. "The God ofpleasant fools go with him," she murmured.
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