CHAPTER XXV
THE PERSON ON THE OTHER HORSE
"Yet am I sure of one pleasure, And shortly, it is this: That, where ye be, me seemeth, parde, I could not fare amiss." --_Ballad of the Nut Brown Maid._
Din Driscoll had never remotely imagined that there could be suchintoxication in a horseback ride. The person on the other horse made forthe difference. How the joy of her filled him that instant of hisbursting through the black prison wall into the bright morning of theworld! She, the splendid first thing to gladden his eyes! Could libertybe really so glorious? Ravishing horsewoman, she was coming to save him.He had supposed her on her way to Mexico, and 'twas she whom he sawfirst of all.
And now, she rode beside him. They two, they were riding together,alone. The smell of the wild free air of the universe thrilled them bothwith an exquisite recklessness. Vague, limitless, subtle in mystery, theseduction of it was ineffable. Out of the corner of his eye he peeped ather. But wasn't she perched entrancingly on that dragoon saddle, wasn'tshe, though? The richly heavy coils of burnished copper had loosened,and they were very disconcerting in their suggestion of flowing wealth.If they _would_ but fall about her shoulders! And the lace from theslanting hat brim, and the velvet patch near the dimple--the velvetpatch called an assassin. And--what dress was that? Flowered calico?Yes, and light blue. His cheeks burned as of one surprised in crime, butthe self-possessed young woman herself was oblivious. So was it this, ablue flowered gown, that made her so suddenly tangible, so tangible andmaddening? The haughty Parisienne of imperial courts was gone. In fact,she had become so distractingly tangible that--well, he didn't know. Buta lump got into his throat. She might be a Missouri girl, this moment.And there came to him the vision of one, of a Missouri girl moldingbiscuits, patting them, and her arms were bared, in a simple piquancyjust like Jacqueline's now. He even saw the pickaninnies in the shade ofthe porch outside, worshiping the real Missouri girl from the verywhites of their eyes. How he had loved to tease her! He could not helpit; she was so daintily prim. That he should thus think of his sister,the while gazing on the one-time gilded butterfly--to say the least, itwas a pertinent comment on the transmuting magic that lurks in blueflowered percale.
They slowed to a trot.
"Monsieur is my prisoner, yes," said she in her wonderful English.
He took the other meaning. "I don't know--_yet_," he returnedsoberly.
She laughed, and he realized that he had spoken aloud.
He turned on himself in dismay. "What's the matter with me?" hemuttered.
"I think, monsieur," said Jacqueline demurely, "that I have the guess."
"You haven't--you can't guess either! I don't know myself."
"Just the same, I wish I knew so well my chances for heaven."
"But you're mistaken, I tell you. I'm not!"
"Not what, monsieur?"
"In, in--w'y, in love."
Jacqueline's laughter was the merriest peal. In the end he half grinned.Little use trying to convince the little witch! He had much to doconvincing himself.
On the farther slope of a hill where coffee grew and the giantsheltering banana hid the road, they paused at a trail that crossed thehighway and wound on down toward the Panuco river, where tropical stufffor Tampico was transferred from burros to dugout barges. Jacquelinelistened. There were no sounds of pursuit as yet, nor was there any onein sight. Making up her mind, she changed to the path. Driscollfollowed, with a delight in this new leadership over him.
When they gained the river, she stopped again, and he did too.
"But you must go, on, on!" she protested. "They may not be deceived, no.They may have you to overtake here." She held out her hand. "There, thispath, you follow it to Tampico. Good bye. Yes, yes, you have not oneminute!"
Driscoll took the little gauntleted hand readily enough. He saw that thelines of her face were drawn, but her manner was inexorable.
"How do you like your dress?" he inquired.
Had she been on her feet, she would have stamped one of them."Monsieur," she cried, "here is no time to observe the replenishment ofa lady's wardrobe. Do you go? I insist. I wish you bon voyage to yourown country, monsieur."
"But it's so far away. I reckon I'd better rest a spell first. A monthor so, prob'bly."
She watched him clamber down and tie Demijohn to the low branch of alive oak on the river's bank.
"There you are, getting stubborn again," she said. But the lines in herface had vanished.
"Of course I mean to see you back to your friends," he explained.
"Merci bien. But you will not. You will have this river straight toTampico. I say yes!"
She turned her horse as she spoke, whereat he started to remount hisown.
"I think, sir----" she began haughtily.
"The road is free."
"Oh, why have you to be so, so quarrelsome?"
"The temptation, I reckon."
"You really will go back with me?"
"I might be going back along about the same time. It's a public trail."
"Then _I_ will stay, and you _must_! I will not permit you togo back there now. I will see that you do wait here so long until Lopezhas the time to start to Mexico after you. Then you will be behind him.Have the goodness to hold my bridle. I think I shall take me a rest alittle also."
Together they sat on a huge live-oak root and watched the sluggishPanuco flow by.
"No hurry now," Driscoll observed comfortably. "Our scarlet upholsteredcolonel won't get away for years yet."
Years, at least, were in his wishes, years in which to provoke herquaintly inflected English, and its quaint little slips. She had learnedit in London long before, playing with wee Honorable toddlers while herfather played France's diplomacy with grown-ups. That accent of hers,then, was as broad as Mayfair, and to the Missourian doubly foreign, anddoubly alluring.
"I cannot understand," she said, "why it is the Dragoons have notfollowed you immediately?"
"Tibby's the reason, I reckon. That Tibby is a deep one."
She made him explain, and he told her. The blackmailing humorist,Tiburcio, had paid him a visit at his dungeon window during the night.Being chief witness for the prosecution, Tiburcio could pass the sentryunchallenged.
"Come for your money?" Driscoll had inquired, and Tiburcio seemed hurt.
"What is the matter," Tiburcio demanded, "with pointing a revolver atthe Senor Americano right now, and making him deliver?"
Driscoll had not figured out what the objections might be, but hereckoned some would materialize.
"But," said Tiburcio, "I'm not doing it, and why? Simply because I wantto know if you care to escape?"
"W'y," returned Driscoll, "I'll think it over, and let you know in themorning," at which lack of confidence Tiburcio was more hurt than ever.
"What's the use," Driscoll objected, "they'd catch me again?"
"Not if I fixed their horses, and if I do, will you promise to get out?"
And thus the bargain had stood, and thus it was fulfilled, though at thelast the anxious Tiburcio had called in Jacqueline to help.
"Now," said the marchioness, settling herself for a treat, "I_must_ know. Tame for me the miracle, explain it. I cannot longerhold my curiosity. But it was fine--exquis--however you have done it!"
"Weren't they a surprised lot, though?"
"But the miracle, monsieur! The miracle!"
"Well, it was this way. Being on the yawning brink--as old MeagreShanks, friend of mine, would say--I figured it out that lacking ingodliness, I'd try to get the next best thing."
"Please, monsieur!"
"That I'd try to get a bath."
"Of dust and mud, for example?"
At that Driscoll ceased all miracle taming and brushed himself off. But,putting him back into his dungeon, one will recall how he plotted toobtain two jars of water. This water he used simply to soften the hard,sun-baked adobes. First he hung his coat over the window. A suspiciousguard naturally wanted to know why
, and Driscoll appeared at the barsstripped to the waist. To keep out the cold air while he bathed, hesaid, and his teeth chattered. Then he went back to work. He handled hisprecious water with desperate economy. He began at the exposed end ofone adobe brick, soaking it as needed and digging it out with a chip ofearthenware knocked off one of the jars. The wall was two adobe lengthsin thickness, but after he had gotten out his first brick, it was easy,by tugging and kicking, to tear out the others of the inside tier, sinceluckily they did not dovetail in with the outer ones. Soon he had anarch-shaped niche in the wall almost as high as his head when mounted onDemijohn. The really tedious part remained, and it was an all night job.
To deepen the niche without breaking through, he had to scrape it outpiecemeal, wetting the dried mud as he toiled. He measured carefullyjust how much of the thickness to leave, because the weed stalks in theadobe could not be trusted to hold too thin a crust, and also he had totake care that the water did not soak entirely through and make atell-tale blot on the outside when daylight should come. It was aninfinitely laborious task, and even with completion at last, there wasyet the question--which would break first, bone or masonry?
But he would learn when he should dash his horse's skull and his ownagainst the shell that remained. He saddled Demijohn, filled an emptyjar with the soft earth of his excavations, and waited. His dramaticappearance at the instant of the door's opening was not a coincidence.It was minute calculation. Already mounted, he faced the wall, with theheavy jar poised over his head in both hands, his spurs drawn back tostrike. He waited until sentinels and shooting squad had gathered at thedoor. He waited to draw their fire, to empty their muskets. But he didnot wait until the door should open enough to give them unimpeded aim.In the second of its opening he drove back the spurs, hurled the jaragainst the wall, and--crashed through his dungeon as easily as breakinga sucked egg.
"But," demanded Jacqueline eagerly, "how is it you did feel?" She wasdisappointed that the personal equation had had so little prominence.
"I don't recollect," said Driscoll, puzzled, "there was nothing hurtingespecially."
"No, no! Your sensations facing death, then escaping?"
He brightened. "W'y yes," he replied, happy to catch her meaning. "Ifelt toler'ble busy."
She sighed despairingly. Yet there was plenty left her for wonderment,and in it she revelled.
"Ingenuity!" she mused. "I declare, I believe the first human being tostand up on his hind legs must have been an American. It simply occurredto him one day that he didn't need all fours for walking, and that hemight as well use his before-feet for something else."
"And a Frenchman, Miss Jack-leen?"
She flung up her hands.
"_He!_" she exclaimed. "If ever a compatriot of mine had gottenthat idea into his--how you say?--pate, would he not carry it out to theidiotic limit, yes? He? _He_ would try to walk without any feetwhatever, and use _all_ of them for other things. Already you haveseen him doing the, the pugilat--the box--with every one of his fours.Voila!"
But time was passing. Lopez had certainly repaired his girths by thistime. Driscoll arose. "There's a shorter way back," he announced. "Theriver junction can't be far down stream, and I'll wait for you there,Miss Jack-leen, while you scout on ahead to the hacienda house. If all'sclear, you signal and I will advance with the heavy cavalry."
"C'est bien, mon colonel."
"Whatever that means, I hope it ain't mutiny."
At best it was only mock compliance. Jacqueline also knew that time waspassing, but she had not mentioned the fact. Now the reason transpired.She harked back on their separation, with a grave earnestness and asaddened air of finality. He was to leave her here, she said. He was togo back to his own country. How badly had his reception fared so far?Why not, then, leave Mexico to ingratitude, and have done? The romanticland of roses was notoriously a blight to hopes. Why should he seek tothrive despite the mysterious curse that seemed to hover over all thingslike a deadly miasma?
Driscoll shook his head. "You know I have come to see Maximilian."
"But you are under sentence. You will lose your life."
"Miss Jack-leen, you said a while back that I was your prisoner. Youhave the Austrian escort. All right. You will deliver me to theEmperor," and he waved his hand as though the matter was arranged.
"But monsieur," she cried, "may not others have plans as vital as yours?And, perhaps--yes, you interfere."
He did interfere, in grimmest truth. Leaving the Sphinx of theTuileries, she had come with her mission, and with an idea, too, of theobstacles that must be vanquished. But here, almost at landing, sheencountered a barrier left out of her calculations, and which alone,unaided, she had to surmount. It was the surrender of the Confederacy,and what this upsetting complication meant against her own errand wasembodied in the man before her. For in him lay the results of theSurrender as affecting the Mexican empire. In a word, he brought aid forMaximilian at the moment when Maximilian might be discouraged enough togive way to France; when the forgetful prince might gladly leave all tothe generous nation which had placed him on his throne and which by himwas cheated of the reward of its costly empire building. Should theFrench threaten to withdraw, should they in reality withdraw, still hewould not abdicate, not with Confederate veterans to replace thepantalons rouges. Like the dog of the fable, Maximilian would cling tothe manger.
"Oui, oui, monsieur," she repeated sharply, "you interfere!"
"In that case," said Driscoll quietly, "I will leave you at the riverjunction. When I see that you are safely at the hacienda----"
"You will go back to America?"
"That need not worry you."
"Then you are _not_ going back, back to your own country?" He wouldkeep on to the City alone. She would have no chance to intercept him.After all Fate had been good to her--no, cruel!--to cast him in herpath. "You might find the Austrian escort safer than going alone," shesaid enticingly.
He hesitated. What all this was about, he could not imagine. He knewnothing, naturally, of the dark intrigues of an enigmatical adventurerfar away in the Tuileries, nor how they could affect him. And so he putaway as absurd the fancy that she in her turn might interfere with him.Besides, he was tempted.
"It's a go!" he said.
She for her part was thinking, hoping, rather, that perhaps she wasmistaken. Perhaps he only bore the offer of a paltry few hundred, ahandful of homeseekers from his regiment. She hoped so. She would haveprayed for it, had praying occurred to her.
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