CHAPTER III
AS BETWEEN WOMEN
"A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market."--_Lamb._
Jacqueline had wrought close to success during that May twilight on theedge of the Cuernavaca pond. She had won a promise of abdication. Yet inthe end it was not the Emperor that left Mexico, but the Empress. AndJacqueline was to accompany her, to leave despite herself the scene ofher labors. Such was the case precisely, and it all came to pass in thiswise.
Maddened by the distance which his temptress kept, also goaded to it bythe sorry state of his empire, Maximilian thought only of abdication.Napoleon responded to Jacqueline's cipher dispatch with orders toBazaine. But Bazaine, urged thereto by Empress and marechale, ignoredthe orders, and advanced Maximilian more money. And Maximilian, havingno longer his excuse to quit, stayed on to spend the money. Jacquelinesighed, and--began all over again. Consequently Bazaine, hearing oncemore from Napoleon, found himself a defaulter, and virtually recalled.Consequently, Napoleon set dates for evacuation. Consequently therebellion sprang into new life, and the Empire lost armies and cities,and thousands of men by desertion. But the darkest cloud was formed byone hundred thousand Yankees massed along the Rio Grande. Napoleon tookheed. He ordered that the French troops should leave at once, unlesshalf the Mexican customs were turned over to the French administrator.This was during the summer of 1866, only six months after the brighthopes embodied in the Black Decree of general amnesty. Utterly appalled,Maximilian took up his pen again to sign his abdication.
But there was Charlotte. Even yet she pettishly clung to her crown. TheMexican agents in Paris had availed nothing with Napoleon. Bien, shewould herself go to Paris. She would get the ultimatum recalled, andBazaine as well, because Bazaine no longer advanced money. The imperialfavorites, among them the sleek-jowled padre recommended by Eloin,seconded her intention. And as they all talked so well, Maximilianquaffed of hope. With a spite hardly noble though entirely royal, hepredicted that soon the marshal would find himself in a sadder fix thanhimself, the Emperor.
Suddenly, secretly, a little after midnight, Charlotte left the capital.Maximilian bade her good-bye with a solemn promise to rejoin her inEurope if she failed. Three days later Dupin and his Contra Guerrillasmet her in the Tierra Caliente, and offered to join her French cavalryescort. The Empress took his presence as an affront. Of late smallthings excited her to a feverish agitation which she was unable tocontrol. The Tiger bowed over his saddle, and kept his gray hair baredto a torrential downpour while her carriage passed on. It was thetropical rainy season. The clouds hung low around the mountain base andtruncated the more distant peaks, while the valley below was a brightcontrast in wet, tender green. The wheels sank deep, and mired in theblack, soggy earth. Men tugged constantly at the spokes, and thesteaming mules reared and plunged under the angry crack of whips.
The Tiger of the Tropics waited as carriage after carriage toiled pasthim and creaked and was forced on its way. Behind the drippingwindowpane of the very last he saw a face he knew, a beautiful, saddenedface, puckered just now by some immediate ill-humor. She frowned onrecognizing the French barbarian, but unlike Charlotte, she did not jerkdown the shutter. Instead, she lowered the glass by the length of herpretty nose.
"Is it dotage already, monsieur? Then put on your hat!"
"Name of a name, yet another petulant grande dame!" But the Frenchmanturned his horse and rode beside her coach.
"Did Her Majesty pout, then?" inquired the lady within.
"Almost as superbly as Mademoiselle la Marquise."
"Thank you well, but I have a superb reason for it."
"Because you return to Paris, surely not? Yet, if that is the reason,you need not quite despair."
"Why, what--what do you mean?"
"Only brigands, mademoiselle. When everyone is looking for abdication, acortege mysteriously leaving the City must be the Emperor who goes backto Austria. The news travels like wildfire. The Indito runners go asfast as when they brought Moctezuma fresh fish from the Gulf. I ratherthink they have carried the news to an old friend of ours. It's mychance to catch him."
"Not my Fra Diavolo--Rodrigo Galan?"
"None other. But Rodrigo is stirred by more than patriotism these days.Upon it he has grafted a deep wrong, and he swears lofty vengeance by alittle ivory cross such as these Mexican girls wear. The conceitedcut-throat imagines there is a blood feud between himself and HisMajesty. So if he hears that Prince Max comes this way----"
"He will find Charlotte instead? But he must not detain her."
"Tonnerre!" exclaimed the Cossack chief. "Why not? She goes to Europe tosustain the Empire, while we French----"
"All the same, let her go. She will gain nothing there. Listen to me,monsieur. She leaves that he may _not_ abdicate, while if I stay,she fears that----"
"He _will_ abdicate?"
"Your wits, mon colonel, are entirely satisfactory. And so she invitedme to go with her, and as first lady of her household, I could notrefuse. I wonder, now, if Fra Diavolo would deign to capture just me,alone!"
The sharp look which Dupin gave her from behind the streams tumbling offhis sombrero was the sixth of a half-dozen. But it was this last onethat seemed to satisfy him.
"Put up the window, mademoiselle," he said, "you're getting wet."
Ten minutes later Jacqueline felt the coach lurch heavily and sink tothe hub on one side.
"Go on with your nap, Berthe," she said to her one companion. "They'llpull us out, as usual."
The customary yelling and straining began, and men grunted as theyheaved against an axle. After a long seance of such effort there came asharp exclamation, like an oath, and the confusion fell to a murmur ofdismay. Someone jerked open the door, and Dupin's grizzled headappeared.
"Mademoiselle, I regret to have to announce that a wheel is dished in."
Jacqueline's gray eyes regarded him quizzically. The sardonic old facespread to a grin, but deftly readjusted itself to the requisite despair.
Not a carriage except the wrecked one was in sight. Only the Tiger'swhelps, by the hundred, surrounded her.
"And the others? Her Majesty?"
"The others did the sensible thing. They know that you will catch upwith them when they themselves are mired. Her Majesty, being ahead, isprobably still in ignorance of your accident."
"But the wheel?"
"If mademoiselle wishes it mended?"
"Is it so bad?"
Dupin caught her expression. "It will take six hours," he saidmercilessly.
"Oh dear!" said Jacqueline.
"There's a settler's cabin a mile from here. If you will accept myhorse, and Mademoiselle Berthe can mount behind----"
"Poor Berthe," sighed Jacqueline. But she nodded eagerly.
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