The Missourian

by Eugene P. Lyle

  CHAPTER IX

  INTERPRETER TO THE ALMIGHTY

  "... and could make the worse appear The better reason."--_Paradise Lost._

  After half an hour's sharp canter, Maximilian dismounted at La Teja, hissuburban hacienda. He had come quickly from Jacqueline's, for his heartwas light. The stress and storm of wavering were ended at last. Soon nowhe would be at Miramar, at beautiful Miramar, overlooking the sea, whereCharlotte awaited him, but knew it not. And by love and tender care hewould coax her back to sanity. Ah, no, the pure joy of living was notdone for them yet!

  "Desire Father Augustin to attend me in my private cabinet," he said tothe first lackey.

  The huge priest came on the instant. He bore a candle in one fat,freckled hand, and above its light the dull flesh of his face shoneyellow. His head was as ever pear-shaped with its heavy, flabby jowls,and in the apex the two little beads of eyes leaped adventurously atsight of the prince.

  "I am here, sire," he said purringly. "Your Majesty, then, wishes me toprepare for his return to the imperial palace to-morrow?"

  "No, father," His Majesty answered stoutly, though not without an uneasyglance. "To-morrow I set out for the coast. The _Dandolo_ is stillthere at anchor. You will give the necessary orders to my Hungarians,who will be my escort."

  Fischer opened his lips, to close them. The involuntary creasing of hisbrow smoothed at once. Maximilian, who had dreaded argument from thisman, breathed easier. But of course any man would give way when aHapsburg had irrevocably made up his mind. The padre laid down thecandle, and interlaced his bloated fingers over his paunch in anattitude of sleek calmness. He was smiling and fawned meek anxiety tosecond his patron's least wish.

  "Your Imperial Majesty's wisdom, I see, is not a thing to be turned bythe fraeulein?"

  "On the contrary, Mademoiselle la Marquise d'Aumerle counseled mydeparture, not my remaining."

  The fingers tightened slightly over the bulge of the sutane. "She thenpresumed to differ from Her Serene Highness, Your Majesty's mother?"

  "My mother would counsel the same, were she in Mexico. I thank you,padre, that I went to see the only one who could so take my mother'splace, because now, at last, I know what I must do."

  The priest took a long breath, and drew back, mentally, to some vantagepoint whence he could survey the field and plan his campaign anew. Henodded humble acquiescence, but the small bright eyes seemed to gorgethemselves on the prince. Maximilian stirred restively. One has seen alion watch the trainer's whip, as though he wondered that a creaturewith only a whip should yet, in some way, compel him to do this or that.Before an obscure adventurer the monarch hastened to justify hisabdication. But it did not make him easier because the padre listened soobsequiously, with never a quiver before the horror and misery pictured.He only listened, this man of God, noting it all deferentially, item byitem, with a smiling gesture that he heard and understood, and was quiteready for the next. Maximilian became aware at last of his own lowstooping. And that moment he stopped abruptly.

  "The Lord reward Your Majesty's tender heart," now spoke the priest,"and may the reward be such as a ruler should expect from his God!"

  "What do you mean?" demanded Maximilian in impatient anger. "Have allthe barbarities of civil war no power to move you? Do I not know thatthe savagery has already begun?"

  The curate crossed himself. In humility he would bear the charge ofhardness of heart. "Power to stir me?" he repeated. "If Your Majestywould think on his power to bring this same savagery to an end! That ishis reward offered by Heaven, the reward of bringing holy peace to astricken land."

  "Did I not come for that? You only remind me how I have failed."

  "And why, sire? Because your instruments were not blessed. The Frenchoppressed the Church as well as the people. But now the French areleaving. It is the hand of Providence."

  "She _said_ he would interpret the will of Heaven!" Maximilianexclaimed.

  The priest heard, stammered, and went to wreck miserably, as a hypocriteunmasked knows that his next word must sound like hypocrisy. How slylyshe had checkmated him! Forseeing his thrust, she had countered hisevery shift of cunning through this feeble fencer before him. And themistake he had made, in sending Maximilian to her! For a moment theexpression of the apostate Lutheran was very ugly in its baffled rage.But he was too wise a trainer to lose patience utterly. He realizedinstead that the struggle was harder than any he had yet had with hisroyal dupe, since now his real antagonist was the young Frenchwoman.

  "I? I interpret the word of God?" He said it very humbly, with bowedhead. "Alas, Your Majesty knows I am the last to presume to that. Butthere are those who can. There is the Holy Father in Rome, who isinfallible. I only know that _he_ told Your Majesty's servant,myself, that a ruler blessed by the Church is an instrument of God. Butif the ruler turns his back ere his work is done----"

  Maximilian's nostrils were dilating strangely, and the consummatetempter hurried on. He exalted the grandeur of the Emperor's task, yetcraftily made success appear simple and easy. The forces of "thearch-rebel Benito Juarez" were concentrated in "a horde of impiousthieves calling themselves the Army of the North." But Miramon, HisMajesty's own general, was hastening to meet them. One decisive battle,and there would be no more rebels. The nation must then recognize thatthe Empire had sustained itself without French aid.

  "Of course a few lives will be lost," he quietly sneered, "and we who donot understand may grieve for them, but the ways of Heaven, for its ownends, are inscrutable. Your Majesty knows that others before him, hisancestors, have had to wade through the blood of God's enemies. But YourMajesty's glorious ancestors were fulfilling their destiny. And whyshould not you, also, sire, you who are the child of destiny?"

  It was a magic word. Fischer knew his man devilishly well.

  "But how can I tell," Maximilian demanded petulantly, "that my destinyreally lies in Mexico?"

  "Then your destiny, sire, must lie in Europe, in Austria," was thepriest's astounding concession. "After all, a prince's intuitions, beinggiven him by divine revelation, can alone be his guide."

  Maximilian's eyes flashed.

  "Then I abdicate--herewith!"

  Fischer meekly assented.

  "There are rumors, nay, more than rumors," he mused aloud, "that astrong hand is needed in Austria. I repeat only what all Europe saysboldly, that Franz Josef cannot long hold his throne. Yes, yes, sire,but do not stare so!--Yet the crown prince is a child. Who then shall beregent? Who but----"

  "Enough, enough, I say! Now look to my orders. We start to-morrow."

  The secretary beamed unctious joy that his master had so decided, andwas bowing himself out, when abruptly he paused, "Oh, I forgot, a packetfor Your Majesty."

  Maximilian took the missive. It was not heavy. It did not seem as heavyas Fate, not as heavy as a coffin.

  "This is an old date," he said in a puzzled way. "See, the postmark,'Brussels, Sept. 17.'"

  "It just came by courier from Vera Cruz, being sent via New York nodoubt accounts for the delay."

  Maximilian sighed. Even the post no longer considered royalty. Packetshad taken on leisurely habits since the Empire's crumbling--or since thesecretary's ascendancy. He broke the seal with tremulous fingers. Thething must tell him of Charlotte.

  "From Monsieur Eloin," he said.

  "But he--he does not send bad news, nothing, sire, of Her ImperialHighness?"

  Well enough did that soul of mud know the letter's contents. Well enoughhe knew that Eloin and himself could waste no time on an insane woman.Their chances of future position were in too critical a state. And thepacket was designed for just such a crisis as the present.

  Maximilian frowned, read excitedly. He was swept along as by a torrent.Fixed on him were the small bead eyes of the priest, darting a light,like a flame on oil. And when the Emperor gasped quickly and sprang tohis feet with hands clenched in the manner of a strong man, the priestwas ready.

  "Good news, then?" he cried. "What fortune! Now Yo
ur Majesty will hurrythe faster to Vienna?"

  Maximilian gave him a glance, as though he were dense to think so.

  "Here, read, read it!"

  M. Eloin, sycophant, courtier, had never sung for his royal patron aroundelay more pleasing than his prose of the moment. It caused tovibrate the very heart chords of the susceptible prince. There weresubtle appeals to spite ungratified, to wounded pride, to ambition, tohonor. The letter ran:

  ... Nevertheless, I am convinced that to abandon the throne now, before the return of the French army, would be interpreted as an act of weakness.... If this appeal (to the Mexican people) is not heard, then Your Majesty, having accomplished his noble mission to the end, will return to Europe with all the prestige that accompanied his departure; and mid important events that are certain to happen, he will be able to play the role that belongs to him in every way....

  And then the supreme refrain:

  In passing through Austria, I was able to bear witness to the general discontent that reigns there. Yet nothing is done yet. The Emperor is discouraged; the people fret and publicly demand his abdication; the sympathies for Your Majesty are spreading visibly throughout the entire Empire; in Venetia a whole population wishes to acclaim its former governor....

  Thus it was that Eloin pilfered Jacqueline's lever, and thus he usedanother fulcrum, as he had promised Charlotte he would. By pandering toMaximilian's Austrian ambitions, he showed the weak prince how theycould yet never be realized if prestige were lost in Mexico. To keepthis prestige, to increase it, Maximilian must prove to Austria that hecould hold the empire he already had, and that without foreign bayonets.He had only to stay a short time after the French should evacuate. Andthen, within a few months, a few weeks, he might lay down the sceptrevoluntarily, to take up the one awaiting him across the ocean.

  "We will leave here in the morning," cried Maximilian--"no, to-night, atonce!"

  "For Vera Cruz, sire?" queried the padre.

  "No, for my capital, for my palace! And father, allow no one to mentionabdication to me again. My decision to stay is irrevocable."

  The padre promised faithfully that he should not be disturbed, and thiswas one promise that the good padre kept.