The Missourian

by Eugene P. Lyle

  CHAPTER XV

  THE RITUAL

  "... a bearded man, Pamper'd with rank luxuriousness and ease." --_Dante._

  The Emperor was coming--elaborately, by august degrees.

  First, and far in advance, arrived a haughty pack liveried in the royalgreen of ancient Aztec dynasties. New tenants might have been moving onthis bright May day, for the flunkies attended a small caravan ofhousehold stuff, which they crammed through the gaping doorway as nutsinto a goose's maw. The stuff was all royal, of royalty's absolutenecessities. There were soft rugs, and finely spun tapestries, andportieres to smother a whisper. There was a high-backed chair, and avelvet-covered dais for the high-backed chair. There were brushes, whosestroke caressed gently and purringly the Hapsburg whisker. There was aRoman poet, fastidiously bound, and then--there was the Ritual.

  The Ritual was a massive tome, of glazed, gilt-edged paper, of print asbig for the proclaiming of truth as the Family Bible, of weight toburden a strong man, of contents to stagger a giant brain, unless thegiant brain had in it the convolution of a smile. Maximilian andCharlotte had reigned a year, and so far the Ritual was the suprememonument to the glory and usefulness of their Empire. It decreed, byImperial dictation and signature, the etiquette that must and should beobserved in the courtly circle. But alas, you can't codifygenuflections, nor yet a handshake.

  The next degree in the imperial advent was the imperial courier, whoproclaimed from a curveting steed what everybody suspected. "Our AugustSovereign" was approaching.

  Several hundred peons stared with open mouths. Gathered before thehouse, they prattled to one another in childlike expectancy of the SenorEmperador. Most of them were learning for the first time that they hadan emperor. Still, it sufficed to know this was an occasion forauto-inspiring vivas, like once when the Ilustrisimo Bishop came. Theytook new hold on the green boughs they were to wave. A handkerchief hereand there fluttered from a bamboo pole. Down in an adobe village by theriver junction, every gala scrap of calico print, whether shirt orskirt, pended from cords stretched across the street; and cottoncurtains, some of crude drawn work, hung outside the windows. All thepoor finery of the Indians was on exhibition to do honor to a gorgeousOld World court. But the fiesta air had already gotten into thesusceptible native lungs, and that alone, with only a trumpet's blare,would make for a hurrah in genuine fervor.

  The roomy porch of the old mansion was crowded with the chief people ofthe hacienda, clerks, foremen, house servants, besides the administradorand the chaplain. Behind a remote column were the three wanderers in thewilderness; the Storm Centre, the Marchioness, and the Maid. They wereto have been gone by now, and yet it was not the coming of the emperorthat had stopped them. The cause was nearer at hand. Smoking a longblack cigar, "grizzled and fierce, as ornate in braid and decorations asa bullfighter," Colonel Dupin had delayed them.

  His Cossacks thronged the colonnade. The brick-red of their raw leatherjackets splotched every other color with rust. The Contra Guerrillaswere many things. They were Frenchmen and Mexicans. They were Americans,Confederate deserters, Union deserters. They were Negroes and Arabs.They were the ruined of fortune, now soldiers of fortune. They werepirates and highwaymen. They were gold hunters, gamblers, swindlers.They were fugitives from the noose, from the garrote, from theguillotine. But they were all right willing desperadoes. And there wasnot a softened feature on a man of the troop. Only a tigerish ferocitycould lead them, could hold them.

  They surrounded the Missourian on the hacienda portico. If only for hisdebonnaire indifference, they knew him for a "bad man" such as none ofthem might ever hope to be. And they watched him like lynxes, though hewas unarmed. Yet he did not look "bad." He merely looked bored. He was aprisoner, but not the only one. Anastasio Murguia fidgetted among theCossacks on his own porch. His restless eyes roved incessantly over thecrowd, seeking his daughter, but they were steadily baffled.

  Down in the valley, where the Rio Moctezuma joined its course with thePanuco, a dusty mist moved nearer along the old Spanish highway, andfaintly there came the sound of clarions. An eager murmuring arose fromthe throng on the hillside. It swelled more confidently to a buzz as thefar-away dust lifted at the ford and revealed the beaded stringing of anumerous company. The distant bugles rang clearer on the pure air. "Yes,he comes," the people cried, "There! Seest thou, hombre?--_There!_Viva el Senor Emperador!"

  For Colonel Dupin the cloud of dust would shortly evolve into a stayinghand of mercy, into the exasperating stupidity of mercy. He had capturedthe American not ten minutes before, and here was interference in agauzy haze of dust. He signed to one of his men to follow with Murguia,and he himself placed a gauntleted hand on Driscoll's shoulder. "Now,"he said.

  But a white figure of Mexican rebosa and silken instep moved swiftlyfrom behind a column and touched the Tiger's arm. Both Jacqueline andBerthe had been watching the Cossack chief rather than the spectacle inthe valley. And as he turned on his prisoner, Berthe half screamed andclutched at the bosom of her dress. It was Jacqueline who gained hisside. She addressed him sharply as one who hates to reopen a tediousargument.

  "Monsieur Dupin," she cried, "have I not already permitted myself totell you--yes, I repeat, you are mistaken. He is in no sense whatever anaccomplice of Rodrigo Galan."

  The Tiger heard, no doubt, but he did not stop. He kept on toward thedoor, Driscoll beside him, and his men around him. He meant to passthrough the house. Some secluded corral in the back would do for theexecution. Driscoll seemed as indifferent as ever, though there was alithe, alert spring in his step. Behind him Murguia was moaning, prayingto see his daughter. Berthe followed, bewildered, and silently wringingher hands. But the death march was so business-like, and every one elsewas so intent on the approach of a royally born person, that the crowdsshoved aside by the little group never once suspected that they had justbrushed elbows with tragedy in the making.

  Jacqueline caught her breath, sucked it in rather, in a pang of angrydespair; and plucking up her skirts she ran ahead until she could opposeher slender figure squarely in front of the burly Frenchman. If he wereto move on, he must trample her down. Her eyes, usually so big and roundand shading to a depth of blue with their lively mischief, were all butclosed, and through the narrowed lashes they gleamed like white steel.Her voice, though, was clear and even, of a studied courtesy.

  "Yes, I know, Monsieur le Coronel, suspicion with you is quite enough.But," she went on in contempt and feigned surprise at his dullness,"this rage of yours at being outwitted by Rodrigo Galan blinds you tosomething else.--Pardon, monsieur, a Frenchman does not jostle awoman.--Thank you."

  "But the jostling by a woman's tongue, mademoiselle.--Well, what is it?Have mercy, be brief, since I am not even to breathe while my ladytalks."

  "I was thinking, dear monsieur, of the feelings of an artist, to whichyou are very, very blind."

  "Feelings, artist? Name of a name, mademoiselle!"

  "Precisely, Maximilian's feelings. You know how he abhors the sight ofblood. Ma foi, and I agree with him."

  "Go it, Miss Jack-leen!" Driscoll abetted her. Never a word of theirFrench did he understand, but he knew that she had a power of speech.Dupin evidently knew it better yet, for though he laughed, he did notlaugh easily.

  "Never fear," he said, "His Majesty's delicate prejudices are safe. Itwill be all underground before he comes, and no muss at all."

  "But you forget," Jacqueline cried testily, "you forget the imaginationof a poet."

  "And he will imagine----"

  "Yes, because I shall tell him."

  "Sacre----"

  "And possibly he would brace his feelings to a second aesthetic horror asa rebuke for the first. In a word, my colonel, there will be one morebody to follow--underground. Now is this quite clear, or--do you requiremy promise on it?"

  The savage old brow manifested the desire to make her a victim as well,but in this extra blood-thirst she knew that Driscoll was safe. "Iunderstand, Ma
demoiselle la Marquise," he said, laying on heavily thesuave gallantry of a Frenchman. "Yes, I understand. Prince Max valuesYour Ladyship's good taste so highly---- Pardi, I believe he wouldcertainly shoot me if you told him to."

  "Exactly," Jacqueline coldly assented.

  "And Monsieur l'Americain may congratulate himself on the influence ofmademoiselle, the arbiter elegantiarum--with His Majesty."

  "As Monsieur le Tigre may congratulate himself that the American doesnot understand this insult, sir."

  Behind her rose a dry hysterical cackle of renewed hope. "The LittleBlack Crow!" she exclaimed. "See, my colonel, he is not worth anexecution all to himself, so do we all go back to contemplate PrinceMax's loving ovation."

  "The Emperor arrives!" she cried gayly, returning to the porch. With theothers she was once more behind the remote column, an end of the rebosahanging over her arm ready to be flung across her face. "Butwhat--Helas, I haven't my Ritual with me."--The Ritual classified everymovement, every breath of the Court, as rigidly and with as littleconsciousness of humor as Linnaeus did his flowers.--"It can't be a MinorPalace Luncheon of the Third Class," she mused, "and it isn't GrandCourt Mourning of the First Degree. Ha, I have it, He--that 'H' is acapital, please, not as a sacrilege, but to be Ritualistic--He is out ona voyage of the Minor Class, Small Service of Honor, Lesser Cortege. Nowthen, all's comfortable; no room for plebeian misconceptions."

  On they came, each rigidly after his kind, a Noah's procession ofDignitaries with the August Sovereign first of all. To bring on themajestic climax so early was illogical, of course, but dust havinghappened to be created before precedence, the Cortege was changed theother way round for a voyage, so that the First Category people breathedwhat the August Sovereign kicked up and kicked up some additional forthe Second Category, and the Second did the same for the Third, and soon down to the Ninth, or "And all others," who breathed the best theycould and paid the bill.

  Nothing preceded the royal coach except the royal escort, and that byexactly two hundred paces, in which interval a canonical obligation waslaid on the dust to settle. It was a particularly gallant royal escort.The Empress's Own, or the Dragoons, or Lancers, or Guardsmen, orHussars, or whatever they were, were picked Mexicans; and they werefrankly proud of their rich crimson tunics; also, perhaps, of theirheavily fringed standard worked by Carlota herself. A cavalry detachmentin fur caps with a feather completed the body guard. Mexico is a hotcountry, but that was no reason why an Austrian regiment shouldsacrifice its furry identity.

  "Belgians too!" exclaimed Jacqueline. "And the Mexican emigres! Theycame back when we made it safe for them. But where, oh where, are theFrench?"

  "Everywhere," growled the Tiger, "in mountains and swamps, dyingeverywhere, fighting for this Austrian archduke. But he doesn't like tobe seen with them."

  Behind eight white mules of Spain, four abreast, rolled the coach of theEmperor, solitary and marked as majesty itself. There were postilionsand outriders and footmen arrayed in the Imperial livery with theImperial crown. And on the coach door flashed Maximilian's escutcheon,his archducal arms grafted on the torso of his new imperial estate.There were the winged griffins with absurd scrolls for tails. They hadvoracious claws, had these droll beasts of prey, and they clutched at anoval frame ruthlessly, as though to shatter it and get at a certain birdwithin. Poor bird, his shelter looked very fragile, and he about to besmothered under an enormous diadem as under an extinguisher. He was noneother than the Mexican eagle perched on his own native cactus, and hedesired only peace and quiet while he throttled the snake of ignorancein his talons, which snake had been his worry ever since the Aztechordes from the north had first caged him in. Beneath the Imperial armswas the motto, "Equidad en la Justicia," but it seemed an idle promise.

  In the huge traveling coach, with a greyhound at his feet, sat one loneman. He had a soft skin, rosy like a baby's, and blue eyes, and whatsome called a beautiful golden beard. The huzzas swelled and surged fromall sides, and he smiled on the people. But he gazed beyond them, andinto the blue eyes came the light of exaltation such as is inspired bymusic that starts a heartstring in vague trembling.

  The Cortege followed in carriages one hundred paces apart. The firstheld the First Grand Dignitary, the only Dignitary of Third Categoryrank, and hence the only one who could stand near the throne afterHighnesses, Grand Collars, and Ambassadors. He was the Grand Marshal ofthe Court and Minister of the Imperial Household. His privilegesconsisted of seeing "His Majesty when called for," and of "communicatingwith Him in writing." But he could not see Him when not called for. Inreality the Grand Marshal was a quiet old Mexican gentleman who seemedill at ease. He was General Almonte, one of those conservatives who hadsought their country's tranquillity in foreign intervention. ButMaximilian had bespangled him into a Dignidad, and thus lost to himselfan able politician's usefulness. The real man of affairs was an obscureBelgian who openly and insolently despised everything Mexican. He alsosang chansonettes. He was the sour-browed Monsieur Eloin alreadymentioned.

  Dignidades enough to make up the Lesser Cortege were not lacking. Ridingalone was the Chief of the Military Household, who could return nosalutes when near His Majesty except from First and Second Categorypersonages. Under the circumstances, recognition of his own father wouldhave been rank heresy. Then there was the Grand Physician, the GrandChaplain, and Honorary Physicians and Chaplains, who could wear GrandUniforms and a Cordon and eat at the Grand Marshal's table; and therewere Chamberlains and Secretaries of Ceremony and Aides. Manysurreptitiously peeped into a monster volume as they rode. It was not amass book nor a materia medica. It was the Ritual.

  The Sixth Grand Dignitary of Cabellerizo Mayor helped His Majesty todescend from His coach. He did it mid vociferous cheering and waving ofboughs and agitation of handkerchiefs on bamboo poles. Aides and DeputyDignitaries worked industriously driving back the simple Inditos.

  "'The General Aide de Camp,'" Jacqueline quoted reverently, "'will keepthe people from the Imperial coach, but without maiming them.'"