The Missourian

by Eugene P. Lyle

  CHAPTER XVI

  VENDETTA'S HALF SISTER, BETTER BORN

  "When private men shall act with original views, the lustre will be transferred from the actions of kings to those of gentlemen." --_Emerson_.

  Just outside Driscoll's tent, under the stars, a fragrant steak wasbroiling. The colonel's mozo had learned the magic of the forked stick,and he manipulated his wand with a conscious pride, so that the lowsizzling of flesh and flame was as the mystic voice in some witch'sbrew. There were many other tents on the plain, a blurred city ofwhitish shadows against the night, and there were many other glowingcoals to mark where the earth lay under the stars, and the witchingmurmur, the tantalizing charm of each was--supper. In this wise, andthinking themselves very patient, men were waiting for other men tostarve to death. The besieged had tried, but they had not again cutthrough to food.

  In Driscoll's tent there was a galaxy of woolen-shirted warriors, aconstellation of quiescent Berserkers. For they were Missouri colonels,except one, who being a Kansan, required no title. They weretobacco-chewing giants, famous for expectoration. Except Meagre Shanks,who tilted his inevitable black cigar now toward one eye, now toward theother. Except the Storm Centre, who fondly closed his palm over his cobmeerschaum and felt its warmth and seemed far away, a dangerous poet.Except Old Brothers and Sisters, most austere of Wesleyans, who hadneither pipe nor quid. He was cleaning his pistols. They were men hewnfor mighty deeds, but--cringe must we all before the irony that neitherlife nor romance may dodge--it was not a mighty deed which that nightwas to exact of them, which yet they were brave enough to do, thoughsorry the figures they thought they made.

  Politics was their theme, since men, though busy with war and death,must yet relieve their statesmen, especially after supper, and neatlyarrange the Tariff, Resumption, or whatever else. Like oracles theex-Confederates held forth that the Yankees had only driven out theFrench to march in themselves, and so tutor the Mexicans inself-government. To which the Kansan ventured a minority opinion, thoughbeing thus a judge of the bench, as it were, he had no need of the oathshe took.

  "Why God help me and to thunder with you, the United States ain't aimingat any protectorate. You unreconstructed Rebs simply cain't and won'tsee good faith in the Federal government!"

  "Carpet bags?" Driscoll murmured sweetly. It was the majority opinion.

  "Yes sir'ee," and Daniel took the cue as a bit in the mouth, "there'sblood on the face of the moon up there, _acerrima proximorum odia_,by God sir! Look at the troops at our elections! Look at the Drake TestOath! Look at----" Mr. Boone was fast getting vitriolic, in heavyeditorial fashion, when a famished face, a wolfish face, appearedbetween the flaps of the tent. "Look at--_that!_"

  Politics vanished, war and death resumed their own.

  The whole mess stared.

  "Sth-hunderation, it's an Imperialist!" lisped Crittenden of Nodaway. Hepointed at the newcomer's uniform, which was of the Batallon delEmperador.

  "Well, bring him on in," said Driscoll to the pickets gripping the manby either arm.

  "He was trying to pass through our lines," one explained. "And when westopped him, he begged hard to be brought to the Coronel Gringo, thatis, to you, senor."

  The mess turned curiously on Driscoll. Why a half dead soldier of theBatallon del Emperador should have a preference as to his jailer wasbeyond them. But they were yet more puzzled to hear Driscoll address theprisoner by name.

  "See here, Murgie," he said, "is this the occasion Rodrigo meant when hetalked about my meeting you soon? Is it? Come, crawl out of the grass.Show us what you're up to. No, wait, feed first. There's plenty left."

  But the old man had not once glanced toward the table. Whatever thepangs of hunger, another torment was uppermost.

  "What do you mean by this," Boone demanded, as though personallyoffended, "you've got the hospital color, dull lead on yellow? Here,take a drink. Yes, I know, it's mescal, out-and-out embalmed deviltrythat no self-respecting drunkard would touch, but Lord A'mighty, man,you need _something!_"

  Murguia shook his head irritably. Offers of what his body craved wereannoying hindrances before the craving of his soul. He twitched himselffree of the sentinels, and limped painfully to where Driscoll sat. Hewore no coat, but his green pantaloons with their crimson stripes wererolled to the knee, and the white calzoncillos beneath flapped againsthis skeleton ankles. His feet were bare, the better for an errand ofstealth in the night. He was a pitiful spectacle, yet a repulsive, andthe Americans despised themselves for the strange impulse they had tokick him out like a dog. They watched him wonderingly as he tried tospeak. He panted from his late rough handling by the sentry, and hishalf-closed wound gave excruciating pain. The muscles of his face jerkedhorribly, but his will was tremendous, merciless, and at last the cordsof the jaw knotted and hardened.

  "To-morrow morn--morning," he began, "the Emperor will fight. It isarranged for--for daybreak, senores. To to fight--to breakthrough--to--to ESCAPE!"

  "W'y then," exclaimed Harry Collins, the Kansan, "_good_ for him!"

  The parson snatched off his brass-bowed spectacles, and his brow loweredfiercely over his cherubic eyes.

  "And so _you_ had to come and tell us?" he demanded.

  But the traitorous old man had not the smallest thought of his shame,nor could have.

  "You--you will let him _escape?_" he challenged them in franticanger.

  The mess stole abashed glances at one another. They would, they knewwell enough, have to act on this information. But they were men for afair fight, and they had no stomach to rob the besieged of a lastdesperate chance. For a moment they were enraged against the informer.

  "We'll just keep him here," said one.

  "Yes, till morning. Then he'll tell no one else, and _we_ won't.Poor old Maxie!"

  "Sure," ejaculated Collins, "give Golden Whiskers a show!"

  The wolfish light in the sunken eyes quickened to a flash. Lust forMaximilian's capture turned to chagrin.

  "Senores, senores mios," he whined, "you do not know yet, you do notknow, that if Maximilian is not taken----"

  "Ah, here now," growled Clay of Carroll, "you needn't worry so much.He'll be driven back into the town all right, I reckon."

  "And what then, senor? No, you do not know. Your general,senores--General Escobedo--has orders to--to raise the siege."

  "_What?_"

  "Si senor, to _raise_ the siege! The orders are from San Luis, fromthe Senor Presidente there. He--he thinks the siege has lasted longenough."

  "Great Scot!"

  "Precisamente. Yes, it would look like--defeat. It would, if--you don'tcapture Maximilian by daybreak."

  Meagre Shanks brought his boot soles wrathfully to the ground, kickingthe stool back of him. His whole mien exuded a newspaper man's contemptfor faking. "Now then, young fellow," and he shook a long finger at theancient Mexican, "here you know all that Maximilian knows. And hereagain you know all that the Presidente knows. All right, s'pose you justtell us now more or less about how mighty little you _do_ know?"

  "It's--it's like a message from El Chaparrito," the parson demurred.

  "From Shorty?" Daniel almost roared. "Oh come, Clem, don't you go tomixing up the unseen and all-seeing guardian of the Republica with thisdried-up, wild-eyed specimen of a dried-up--of, of an old rascal. No oneever hears from El Chaparrito 'less there's a crisis on, and is thereone on now? You know there ain't. If there was, someone would be hearingfrom Shorty--Driscoll there, prob'bly. But there ain't. Shucks, this oldcodger is only plum' daft. Aren't you now"--he appealed querulously toMurguia, "aren't you just crazy--_say?_"

  But even as the Americans breathed easier, they stared aghast at the oldman.

  "Crazy?" he repeated. "Crazy?" he fairly shrieked, clutching Boone bythe sleeve. "No, I am not! Senor, say that I am not! No, no, no, I amnot crazy, not yet--not--not before it is done, not--before----"

  "God!" Boone half whispered. "Look at his eyes now!"<
br />
  The old man checked himself in trembling. No help for him lay in humantestimony. But there was his own will, which had driven his frail body.Now as a demon it gripped his mind and held it from the brink.

  "Go, out of here, all of you!" he burst on them. "Go, I have more totell--more, more, more, do you understand?--but I'll tell it to no one,to no one, unless to Mister Dreescol."

  A raving maniac or not, canards or not, there might be in all this whatwas vital. The Americans stirred uneasily, in a kind of awe, and at anod from Driscoll they left the tent.

  Murguia grew quieter at once. His faculties tightened on the effortbefore him. He was alone with the man who would understand, so hethought; who had the same reason to understand, so he thought.

  Driscoll had shared nothing of the late emotions. He had smokedimpassively. His interest was of the coldest. Only his eyes, narrowedfixedly on the Mexican, betrayed the heed he gave. When the others weregone, he uncrossed his legs, and crossed them the other way, and thrustthe corncob into his pocket.

  "Sit down!"

  Murguia dropped to the nearest camp stool.

  "Now then, you with your dirty little affairs, why do you come to me?"

  Murguia leaned forward over the table between them, his bony arms amongcandles and a litter of earthen plates. The odor of meat assailed hisnostrils. But the hunger in his leer had no scent for food.

  "This _is_ the time I meant, senor, when Rodrigo told you that youwould see me."

  "About the ivory cross? But I gave you that a month ago."

  "A month ago--a month, wasted! How much sooner I would have come, onlyanother had to be--persuaded--first."

  "Oh, had he? Then it's not about the cross? And this other? Suppose Iguess? He was--he was the red-haired puppy, my old friend the Dragoon,who carried you off wounded that day? Humph, the very first guess, too!"

  Murguia darted at him a look of uneasy admiration.

  "I would have told Your Mercy, anyway," he said, half cringing. "Yes, heis Colonel Lopez."

  "And you 'persuaded' him?"

  "Events did. Since the siege began I've tried, I've worked, to convincehim that these same events would happen. Ugh, the dull fool, he had towait for them."

  "I can almost guess again," said Driscoll, as though it were somecurious game, "but if you'd just as soon explain----"

  "Listen! You remember two years ago at my hacienda, when Lopez sentencedyou to death? But why did he sentence you to death, why, senor?"

  "That's an easy one. It was because he didn't want my offer ofConfederate aid to reach Maximilian."

  "But why not? I will tell you. It was because he was trying even then tobuy the Republic's good will, in case--in case anything should happen.But he was _afraid_ to change, the coward! He must first_know_ which side would win. I am his orderly--_he_ knows whyI am--and I've tried to drive it into his thick wits that the Empire isdamned and has been, but he still doubted, even when we were starvingagain, even when every crumb was gathered into the common store, evenwhen it was useless to shoot men for not declaring hidden corn, evenwhen forced loans were vain, since money could no longer buy. No senor,even with proofs like these, Miguel Lopez was stubborn."

  "I'd prob'bly guess he was a loyal scoundrel, after all."

  "More yet, he has fought bravely, making himself a marked man in theRepublic's eyes."

  "Then why----"

  "Because so long as the Empire had a chance, or he thought it had, hehoped for more coddling. You see, senor, he thought Marquez was comingback with relief. There was that--that Frenchwoman you know of--whobrought news from the capital. But Maximilian dared not make the newspublic. He forged a letter instead, a letter from Marquez, and he hadits contents proclaimed. Marquez had been delayed, so all Queretaroread, but he had at last destroyed the Liberals in his path, and wasthen hurrying here with his victorious army. This false hope blindedLopez with the others in there. But when Marquez did not come, whenutter demoralization set in, when we were a starving town againstthirty-five thousand outside, when there were scores of deserters everyday, when any man who talked of surrender was executed, and still noMarquez, then Lopez began----"

  "I see, he began to be persuaded?"

  "Still, he wanted to be a general. But the other generals forcedMaximilian not to promote him."

  "So he was disappointed?"

  "And persuaded, senor. The sally was already planned for this morning,but Lopez argued obstacles, and so got it postponed until to-morrowmorning. He wanted to--to act on his--persuasion. And that is why,"Murguia got to his feet and limped around the table to Driscoll, "andthat is why," he ended in a croaking whisper, "why I am here!"

  "And the red puppy, how near here did _he_ come with you?"

  Again Murguia darted at his questioner that uneasy glance of admiration.

  "Lopez is waiting between the lines," he replied. "As to our own lines,we passed them easily, since Lopez commands the reserve brigade andplaces the sentinels himself around La Cruz monastery."

  "Oh, does he?" Driscoll whistled softly. "But what's your plan?" He putthe question sympathetically, which disturbed Don Anastasio vastly morethan the American's peremptory tone in the beginning. "What's yourplan?" he asked again, gently coaxing.

  Murguia hesitated. This polite drawing-room interest was the mostironical of encouragement for villainy. Driscoll frowned impatiently,but at once he was smiling again. He placidly filled his corncob, and amoment later, his gaze piercing the tobacco smoke, he said, "Then I'lltell you. You're here to make a dicker, you and your tool between thelines. The monastery of La Cruz on top of the bluff is the citadel ofQueretaro. Maximilian has his quarters there. The troops there are thereserve brigade. This puppy, this mongrel, commands the reserve brigade.He places the sentinels. And you are his orderly.--Oh, I haven'tforgotten how he let you off that time he condemned me!--So now you arehis orderly, for your own reasons and his. And here you are, talkingmysteriously about _capturing_ Maximilian. But you don't mean that,snake. You are here to _sell_ him! Howsoever," and smiling a littleat the stilted phrasing, Driscoll paused and delicately rammed thetobacco tighter in the bowl, "howsoever, Murgie, you've come to thewrong market. No, there's no demand for Maximilians just now, not inthis booth. But why in blazes didn't you go to Escobedo? With hisShylock beard, I reckon _he'd_ take a flyer in human flesh."

  "I was going to him, but I came to you first, to take us there, to takeLopez and myself, I--I thought you would manage it all, becauseyou--Your Mercy is the strongest, the most resourceful----"

  "Resourceful enough, eh, to dodge the bullets you had fixed up for meonce? Thanks, Murgie, but I liked your attentions then better than yourslimy advances now. By the way, how are you going to get to Escobedo?"

  The tone was honey itself.

  Murguia gasped, yet not so much to find himself a prisoner, as to findhimself mistaken in the American.

  "Now maybe," Driscoll suggested, "maybe you'll be wondering yourself whyyou bring your dirty little affairs to me? Lopez may be an open book,but you seem to've read _me_ wrong. Prob'bly the language isforeign."

  Murguia's jaw dropped, and he gaped as one who beholds the collapse ofhigh towering walls. It was his system of life, of motives calculated,of humanity weighed. It was the whole fabric of hate and passions whichquivered and crashed and flattened in a chaos of dust before his wildlystaring eyes.

  "You mean, senor, you mean you do not want--as well, as _I!_--tobring to his end this libertine, this thief of girlhood, this prince whoscatters death, who scatters shame, this--this----"

  "Man alive, you're screaming! Stop it!"

  With his nails the old man combed the froth from his lips.

  "But you too have cause," he cried, "cause not so heavy, but causeenough, as well as I! There was my daughter, my little girl! With youthere is that French wo----"

  He stopped, for he thought he heard the sharp click of teeth. ButDriscoll was only grave.

  "Well, go on," he said. "But--speak for your daughter only."


  "I can't go on. I won't go on," Murguia burst out desperately, and flungup his arms. "If you don't understand already, then I can't make you.It's useless. A book? You're a stone! But any other, who had a heart forsuffering, in your place would----"

  "Oh shut up, Murgie!" cried Driscoll wearily, but in something akin tosupplication.

  With the serpent's wisdom, the tempter struck no more on that side. Hisfangs were not for the blighted lover. What, though, of the soldier?

  "No one doubts, senor," he whined unctuously, "that Your Mercy is loyalto the Republic. So it cannot be that Y'r Mercy knows----"

  "See here, Murgie, I'm getting sleepy. But I'll find you a comfortabletent, with plenty to eat, and a polite guard----"

  "Senor," stormed the old man, "I tell you you don't know what this meansto the Republic. Maximilian will escape, no matter the cost. At daybreakthere is to be a concentrated attack on some point in your lines; butwhere, nobody knows except Miramon. Then Maximilian will cut throughwith the cavalry. The infantry will follow, if it can. And after them,the artillery. You Republicans may not even know it until too late,because meantime you will be fighting the townspeople, thinking you arefighting the whole army."

  Driscoll roused himself suddenly. "The townspeople?"

  "Si senor, they are to be a decoy. Some volunteered, the rest weredrafted. They have been armed, but they are only to be killed, they areonly to draw the Republican strength, while the Emperor and the armyescape."

  Driscoll sprang from his seat, in an agitation that was Murguia's firsthope.

  "Do you mean to tell me," he demanded, "that this Maximilian who makesspeeches about not deserting intends now to sacrifice these poorhelpless devils? Prove it!"

  Murguia had touched neither lover nor soldier. But what man was here, inboots and woolen shirt, puffing angrily at a corncob, yet sitting injudgment supreme on the proud Hapsburg himself? Blindly stumbling,Murguia had touched the inexplicable man who was of stone, and thebaffled fiend that was in him leaped up with a cry of glee.

  "To prove it?" he cried, "Ai, then Lopez shall walk with you in ourouter trenches. For in them you shall see the doomed townsmenthemselves, a thousand townsmen, sleeping there until the dawn.Afterward, when Maximilian is safe, they who are still alive will befree to surrender."

  "And then----" But Driscoll knew the temper of the siege. What with thechief prize lost, there would be scant mercy for surrendered townsmen.

  "God in heaven," he muttered fervently, "if there's any to suffer, itmight as well be the guilty one, and a thousand times better one thanone thousand! A man's a man, or alleged to be!--Murgie, you wait here,I'm going to call the others."

  The others came, and heard. It was the court en banc, five Missouriansand a Kansan. And the culprit was a Caesar. But they hewed forth theirJustice as rugged and huge, and as true, as would the outlaw, MichelAngelo. Like him, they were their own law. Nor were they nice gentlemen,these Homeric men who spat tobacco. Finding their goddess pandered to bythose who were nice gentlemen, and finding the gift of these a prettyscarf over her eye, they roughly tore it away. For them she was not thatkind of a woman.

  "W'y, this prince is no Christian," Crittenden announced in querulousdiscovery.

  "One thousand loyally dying for their sovereign," Daniel mused, hisromantic soul wavering. "Sho!" he cried the instant after, "that thing'sout-dated!"

  "And the prince there----" began the Kansan angrily.

  "May just go--to--the--devil!"

  All swung round on one of their number. It was the parson himself whohad pronounced sentence.

  Then they set out under the stars to attend to it.