CHAPTER XIII
UNREGISTERED IN ANY STUDBOOK
"La belle chose que l'aristocratie quand on a le chance d'en etre." --_Voltaire._
That garish daub which was sopped up from the burning homes of men andbespattered over the forest's dark crest was already mellowing under thegentler touch of dawn, when the three travelers gained the open country.
"Poor, dirty, little Inditos," Jacqueline mused aloud. Berthe struck herpony in a tremor of fright. The American was riding ahead. "Fire andsword," Jacqueline went on, and her voice lowered to intense scorn,"they make the final tableau, but--it's gaudy, it's cheap."
The trail had broadened into a high road, and now it wound among thehills like a soiled white ribbon. Driscoll turned in his saddle. "Ishouldn't wonder," he observed in the full-toned drawl that was peculiarto him, "but what we'd better be projecting a change of venue. Thisroute is too public, and publicity around here strikes me as sort ofprejudiced. S'pose we just stir up an alibi?"
A certain stately old judge back in Missouri would have smiled thus tohear the scion of his house. But the marchioness, confident in hermastery of English, thought it was the veriest jargon. What was the boytrying to say? His next words grew fairly intelligible. "We are nowheaded for Valles. Well, we've decided not to go to Valles."
Perhaps they had, but she at least had ceased deciding anything, sincethe overruling of her veto in the matter of precedence when one ishoisted upon a burro.
A narrow pony path crossed the road. "First trail to the left, afterleaving the wood," Driscoll said aloud, "and this must be it."Campaigner in an unfamiliar country, he had informed himself, and it waswith confidence that he led his little party into the bridlepath. But helooked anxiously at the forest behind. He did not doubt but thatRodrigo, if it were he back there, would terrify Murguia into betrayingtheir destination, or their supposed destination, which was Valles.
"Can't you hurry 'em up a bit?" he called back.
"We do try," protested Jacqueline, holding aloft a broken switch, "butthey only smile at us."
Driscoll got down and undid the spurs from his boots. One of the immensesaw-like discs he adjusted to mademoiselle's high heel, passing thestrap twice around the silk-clad ankle. Jacqueline gazed down on theshort-cropped, curly head, and she saw that the back of his neck wassuddenly red. But the discovery awakened nothing of the coquette in her.Quite the contrary, there was something grateful, even gravely maternal,in the smile hovering on her lips for the rough trooper who took frightlike a girl over a revealed instep. Still, the interest was notaltogether maternal as she watched him doing the same service forBerthe. Perhaps he was too far away, or perhaps practice broughtindifference, but at any rate, his neck was no longer tinged in thatfiery way.
"Now dig 'em!" said he. "We want to make that clump of mesquite yonder,now pretty quick."
The trees he pointed to were two or three miles away, but the travelerscovered the distance at an easy lope. Driscoll kept an eye on the roadthey had just left, and once hidden by the mesquite he called a halt. Ashe expected, a number of horsemen appeared at a trot from the directionof the forest. They did not pause at the cross trail, however, but keptto the highway in the direction of Valles. The American and the twogirls could now safely continue their journey along the bridlepath.
"Monsieur," Jacqueline questioned demurely, and in her most treacherousway, "how much longer do we yet follow you up and down mountains?"
"W'y, uh--_I'm_ going to the City of Mexico."
"And we others, we may tag along, n'est-ce pas? But the city is far,far. And, to-night?"
"Of course," said Driscoll, "if you should happen to know of a goodhotel----" He paused and gazed inquiringly over hills covered withbanana and coffee to the frost line. He would not have tried a frailertemper so, but to provoke hers was incense to his own.
"You others, the Americans," she said tentatively, as though explaininghim to herself, "you are so greedy of this New World! You won't give usof it, no, not even a poor little answer of information. Alas,Monseigneur the American, I apologize for being on this side the oceanat all--in a tattered frock."
Driscoll looked, but he could see nothing wrong. She seemed as crisp anddainty as ever. If there were any disarray, it was a fetching sort, witha certain rakish effect.
"Oh that's all right," he assured her heartily, "_you_ can stay."
"Really, and after you've been writing us notes from Washington to--to'get out'? We French people do not think that was polite."
"I never wrote you any notes, and," he added in a lowered tone, "thedevil take Washington, since Lee didn't!"
Jacqueline's lips pursed suddenly like a cherry. "Oh pardon me," sheexclaimed. "I did not know. And so you are a--a Confederate? But," andthe gray eyes fastened upon him. She rode, too, so that she could seehis face, just ahead of her, "but your faction, the--yes, the South--sheis already vanquis--no!--whipped? I--I heard."
He did not reply, but his expression disturbed her unaccountably. Shecould almost note the whimsical daredeviltry fade from his face, asthere came instead the grimmest and strangest locking of the jaws. Shetried to imagine the French beaten and her feelings then, but it wasdifficult, for her countrymen were "the bravest of the world, theunconquered." They had borne victory over four continents, into twohemispheres. But this American, what must he feel? He was thinking, intruth, of many things. Of his leave taking with his regiment, with thoselusty young savages of Missourians whom perhaps he was never to seeagain. He was thinking of his ride through the South to Mobile, of themisery in stubborn heroism, of the suffering everywhere, matching thatin the dreary fever camp of the Old Brigade. He was thinking of all thebeautiful Southland torn and ravaged and of the lowering cloud offinality. Of the Army of Northern Virginia so hard pressed; of the doomof Surrender, a knell already sounded, perhaps. Never had Jacquelineseen such bitterness on a human face. It was a man's bitterness. Andalmost a desperado's. At least there was the making of a desperado inthe youth of a moment before. She caught herself shuddering. There wassomething so like a lurking death astride the yellow horse in front ofher.
But over her also there came a change, and it grew as she saw andappreciated the man in him. Her caprices fell from her, and she was theshrewd woman of the world, a deft creature of courts, a cunning weaverof the delicate skeins of intrigue and politics. A glint of craft andpurpose struck from the gray eyes, as in preparation for battle. Hermischievous bantering had really been fraught with design, and by it shehad revealed to herself this man. But the change in her came when heproved an antagonist, as she now supposed him to be. For in theuncloaking he stood forth a Confederate. His cause was lost. He was inMexico. He was on a mission, no doubt. One question remained, what couldthe mission be?
Abrupt frankness, with its guileful calculation to surprise one intobetrayal, was the subtlest diplomacy. "Let us see," she mused aloud,"you, your comrades, monsieur, you have no country now? Bien, thataccounts for your interest in Maximilian?"
"And what is your interest, Miss--Jack-leen?"
She staggered before the riposte. The "Jack-leen" was innocentblundering, she knew that. He had heard Rodrigo address her so, and heused it in all respect. But there was her own question turned onherself. By "her interest" he of course meant the interest she wasshowing in himself; he was not referring it to Maximilian. And yet thedouble meaning was there, just the same. He had struck back, that wascertain, but because she could not tell where, nor even whether he hadwounded, she was afraid to parry, much more to venture another thrust.Those who had sent the rustic evidently knew what they were about. Hecould shoot well, which was exhilarating. To redeem one's country'sdiscredited bills, was quixotic. She rose to that, because she wasFrench. But to fence with herself--well, that was quality. Instinctive,inbred, unconscious, and unregistered in any studbook of Burke orGotha--but quality. And she recognized it, for there was deference inthe silence which her baffled diplomacy now counseled.
They passed many natives plodding on to Valles with market stuff, goingat the Inditos' tireless foxtrot, now a man in loincloth stooped under agreat bundle of straw or charcoal, or a family entire, including burroand dog. Of a gray-bearded patriarch with a chicken coop strapped to hisback, Driscoll inquired the distance to an hacienda of the region whichhad the name of Moctezuma. "Probablemente, it will be ten leaguesfarther on, senor," the Huastecan replied.
"We are going," Driscoll now informed his companions, "to drop in onMurgie--the hospitable old anaconda."
They acquired a pineapple by purchase, and stopped for their morningcoffee at a hut among numberless orange trees, and at another farther onfor their midday lunch, where they learned that the Hacienda deMoctezuma was only just beyond the first hill, and only just beyond thefirst hill they learned that they had six leagues more to go. Theycovered three of these leagues, and were rewarded with the informationthat it was fully seven leagues yet. Geography in Mexico was clearly anelastic quantity. But towards three o'clock a young fellow on a toweringstack of fagots waved his arm over the landscape, and said, "Why, senor,you are there now." Yes, it was the hacienda, but how far was it to thehacienda house? Oh, that was still a few little leagues.
In the end, after nightfall, they rode into a very wide valley, wheretwo broad, shallow rivers joined and flowed on as one through thelowland. Here, on the brow of a slope, they perceived the walls and thechurch tower of what seemed to be a small town. But after one lastinquiry, they learned that it was the seat of Anastasio Murguia'sbaronial domain.
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