CHAPTER XX
KNIGHTHOOD'S BELATED FLOWER
"Trusting to shew, in wordes few, That men have an ill use (To their own shame) women to blame, And causeless them accuse." --_The Nut-Brown Maid._
Later the same morning there sounded the ineffable swish of silkenpetticoats along the corridor and the clinking of high heels on thetiles. La Senorita Marquesa d'Aumerle had obtained permission to visitHis Most Serene Highness. The sentinel of the evening before was againon duty, and his evil crossed eye seemed to lighten with vast humor ashe presented arms for the lady to pass. She met his insolence with asearching, level gaze.
Maximilian hastened to the door of his bare cell, and took both herhands in his. "I am beginning to recognize my friends," he said simply."I know, I know," he added, "you come to tell me that you failed to getthe pardon. But you do bring reprieve."
He would have her believe that he valued that.
Jacqueline regarded steadily the tall, slight figure in black, with thepinioned sheep of the Golden Fleece about his neck, and she sighed. Shewas disappointed in him. She had thought that pride of race, if nothingmore, would give him character during these last moments. She allowed,too, for the grief, and the remorse, in the blow of Charlotte's death.But she was not prepared for the roving eyes, the disordered mind, thefeverish unrest of the condemned prince. Had his soul, then, been acringing one throughout the night just past? It was the first time shehad seen him, except at a distance, since the day she arrived inQueretaro, for she had chosen, and perhaps maliciously, to disconcertthe tongue of slander. Hence she could not picture the ravages ofsickness and anxiety, until now when she beheld his haggard face. It wasone to bring a pang. The cheeks were hollow, the lines sharply drawn,and the skin was white, so very white, with never a fleck of pinkremaining. And staring from the wasted flesh were the eyes, large andround and faded blue, and in them an appealing, a haunted look. But theysoftened at sight of her, as though comforted already.
"A reprieve is best," he said. "You cannot think that I want a pardon,now that, that _she_ is dead!"
"But sire----"
"'Sire'? Ah, my lady, you are a little late, by something like a fewhundred years. You see our American was right after all; a letter nolonger makes a king."
It was a bon mot that Maximilian had always enjoyed, it being his own,but this time he was most zealously in earnest.
"Monsieur, then," she said, in no mood for reforms of etiquette. "Only,let me talk! We have three days, three days which are to be used. YourHighness must escape!"
But now she understood him less than before, for he only smiled wearily.It was, then, something else than fear that had broken him so.
Escape? And that guard in the corridor? Passing, ever passing, thediabolical humorist seemed to chuckle inwardly, as though to standdeath-watch were the most exquisite of jokes.
"That man?" whispered Jacqueline. "Why, that's Don Tiburcio. He wasdriven out of the Imperialist ranks by Father Fischer. But from hislips, this very night, Your Highness will hear that the road is open toVera Cruz. Ah sire--monsieur--we have been working, we others. Therewill be horses ready, there will be a long ride, and then, you willsafely board an Austrian ship waiting for you."
Maximilian slowly shook his head. "No," he said, "I am ready to die,as--as ready as I shall ever be."
"But the remaining years of your natural life, Your Highness counts themas nothing! Yet you might live twice your present age!"
"My life--over again," he murmured dreamily.
"Of course, why not?"
"One year to redeem each year that has gone."
"Years of Destiny!" she cried, thinking to touch him there.
"No!" he exclaimed, so harshly and quick that it startled her. "But forme they will be years of dearest mercy. Wait, tell me first, Miramon andMejia----"
"Yes, yes, we will save them too. Only, the risk is greater."
"Bien!" He had almost accepted, but he smothered the word, and startingup, began to pace the room. At last he stopped. "The risk must belessened, for them," he said. "_I_ will remain."
"H'm'n," the girl ejaculated, "Hamlet declines? Then there will be noplay at all, at all."
Maximilian knew how stubborn she could be; and so, reluctantly, hejoined the plot.
"I have deserved Marquez and Fischer and Lopez," he sighed. "But whythere should be friends, even now, that I cannot understand."
Yet she told him bluntly why she wanted his safety. It was on France'saccount. Still, his gratitude was no less profound. She who would givelife to others, what was her life to be henceforth? The mellowingsorrow, which her vivacity could not hide, smote him again, as it hadthat evening in Mexico when he came to her for counsel. He remembered.Out of a useless ambition for her country she had squandered her name,blighted her future. He remembered how, looking on her saddened face, hehad been exalted to a pure devotion, and had burned with knightly fervorto do her some impossible service. But what was the service? There hismemory failed, and he despised the chivalrous ardor which could bequenched with feeding on itself. After the fearful vigil of the nightbefore, he had found a suit of armor beside him. In a word, he hadforgotten self. Simple compassion was enough. That service? thatservice? If he could only remember. But he must. And in hot anger hestrode back and forth, while Jacqueline sat and gazed in wonder. Once,turning from the corridor window, he paused. The guard had stopped aman, who now was evidently waiting until the prisoner should beunoccupied. Unseen himself, Maximilian recognized in the man theAmerican named Driscoll. And then he remembered. He rememberedJacqueline's secret, betrayed to him that evening in Mexico. Heremembered that her happiness was lost in the loss of this man'srespect. Here, at last, lay the impossible service!
Maximilian glanced toward her stealthily. No, from where she sat shecould not see the corridor, could not see the waiting American. A momentlater Maximilian stood behind her; and when he spoke, she thought it oddthat he should change from French to halting English.
"Miss d'Aumerle," he began, in distinct if nervous phrasing, "yes, itwas for France, all, all of which you haf done. Therefore is it that youhaf come to this country, and here to Queretaro, whatever is to thecontrary said."
"De grace," she laughed, rising abruptly, "there's enough to do to-daywithout discussing----"
But he intercepted her even as she opened the door.
"Will Your Highness kindly let me pass?"
"And I know, I alone, that nefer haf you toward myself once felt, onceshown, that which----"
A sharp, indignant cry escaped her. Following her gaze he saw theAmerican pass on down the corridor and out of hearing.
"Now who," exclaimed the chagrined prince, "would ever have imaginedsuch delicacy of breeding!"
"And don't ever again," cried Jacqueline furiously, "imagine that_I_ stand in need of being righted!" Wherewith she too was gone,leaving her clumsy knight staring blankly after her.
A few moments later Driscoll knocked.
It was the first meeting of these two men since the memorable afternoonat Cuernavaca, when Driscoll had surprised Jacqueline listening toroyalty's shameless suit. Now he beheld Fatality's retribution for thatday's bitterness. Retribution, yes. But it was not restitution. The girlhe loved had just passed him in the corridor with a slight casual nod,and he would not, could not, stretch forth a hand to stop her. Instead,the smile so ironical of Fate had touched his lips.
"I was sent by Senor Juarez, sir," he addressed the archduke in the toneof military business. "The President is afraid your three days ofreprieve will be misunderstood. He sent for me as I was leaving San Luisyesterday, and I--I was to tell you----"
"You need not hesitate, colonel."
"Well, that you must not hope for pardon, for the sentence willpositively be carried out day after to-morrow. That--I believe that isall."
"But--" Maximilian called, staying him. "Dios mio, such news merits alonger telling. It seems to me too, Senor Americano, that you shouldenjoy it the
more, since it was partly you who brought me to this."
"I don't know as I'd thought of that. How?"
"You ask how? Do you forget how you took the traitor Lopez to Escobedo,the night I was betrayed?"
Driscoll swung bluntly round on his questioner. "No I don't," hereplied. "But you see, there was such a lot of bloodshed scheduled forthe next day?"
"Isn't that rather a curious reproof from a soldier? Loyal hearts wouldhave bled, yes, and gladly. Noble fellows, they would have saved theirEmperor!"
Driscoll half snorted, and turned on his heel. But he stopped, his lipspressed to a clean, hard line. "What of those townsmen in the trenches?"he demanded. "It wasn't their fight."
Maximilian's eyes opened very wide, and slowly his expression changed.The thick lower lip drooped and quivered. Suddenly he came nearer theAmerican, a trembling hand outstretched.
"I was saved that," he murmured earnestly.
"They were," the grim trooper corrected him.
"The townsmen, yes. But I--I was kept from murder. God in heaven, Iwould have murdered them! Ah, senor, if I could put to my account anight's work such as yours, that night, when you used the traitor! Icould almost thank Lopez. I do thank you."
Still Driscoll failed to notice the proffered hand. He might have, hadhe seen his suppliant's face, and the tense anguish there.
"Those innocent non-combatants, then," Maximilian went on, "so theycounted more than a prince with you?"
"Of course, there were a thousand of 'em."
The other's haggard look gave way to a smile, half sad, half amused, andtaking the American by the shoulder in a grip almost affectionate, hesaid, "Colonel, did you ever happen to know of one Don Quixote of LaMancha? Well, lately I've begun to think that he was the truest ofgentlemen, though now I believe I could name another who----"
"And," interrupted Driscoll, "did you ever try to locate the mostdignified animal that walks, bipeds not excepted? Well, sir, it's thedonkey. Take him impartially, and you'll say so too."
The strain was over. Maximilian laughed. "If Don Quixote had only hadyour sanity!" he began; "or rather," he added, charmed with the conceit,"if knighthood had had it, then the poor don would never have beenneeded to be born at all."
Ignoring the sincerity of the Hapsburg's new philosophy, and howtragically it was grounded, Driscoll only smiled in a very peculiar way.Knighthood? The word was supercilious cant, and irritated him. Duringthat very moment, while listening to Chivalry's devotee, the youngtrooper thought of a little ivory cross in his pocket, a cross which wasstained with a girl's blood. Murguia had given it to him, to give toMaximilian on the eve of execution. But Driscoll had not promised, andyet Murguia had implored him to take it, even without promising. The oldman held faith in vengeance as a spring to drive all souls alike, and ifMaximilian's last earthly moment could be embittered with sight of across, then, he firmly believed, the American needed only to be temptedwith the means to do it. Moreover, in a sudden impulse, Driscoll hadtaken the holy symbol, "to do with as he chose." There was no message,Murguia had explained. The Senor Emperador would read the graven name,"Maria de la Luz," and that would suffice.
Looking now on the cultured gentleman caressing his beard, Driscollthought again how hellishly distorted was the sign of salvation then inhis pocket. But he left it there. He, too, had a king's pride, incapableof low spite. Charity alone, though, would have held him, if he had butknown that Maximilian was ignorant of the dead girl's fate.
The archduke for his part had been amiable and conciliatory, becausethere was a certain delicate question he wished to ask.
"Oh by the way, mi coronel," he said abruptly, "I must extend my excusesfor keeping you waiting in the corridor just now. But there was anothervisitor here. And as we happened to be talking of--well, of a ratherpersonal matter, not intended for outside ears----"
"Do not worry. When you raised your voice, I turned and left."
"But perhaps," said Maximilian slowly, "it would have been better if youhad overheard, either you or another knowing the cruel rumorswhich--which link my recent visitor's name with my own. Then the truthwould have been made known. That truth, senor," he hastened to add,despite a hardening frown between the American's eyes, "means first thatI have been honored, indeed, in my visitor's----"
He got no further. A broad hand closed over his mouth.
"Another word of that, and I'll--I'll----"
The threat was left unfinished. Gasping in the chair where he hadfallen, Maximilian found himself alone. He was vaguely nonplussed. Therehad been so many revelations of late that he thought this one simply afurther re-adjusting of himself to the modern world of men. The presentinstance had to do with the critical juncture where the woman enters.But he had learned something else, too. The American loved her, and thatwas important. Yet lovers were very contrary beings, he musedlugubriously.
"Still, I shall try again," he decided. "One humble success against mycareer of distinguished failures should not be too much to expect."
The night that followed, a black, favorable night, was the time plannedfor escape. Horses ready saddled waited outside the town under theaqueduct. Certain guards were bribed, among them Don Tiburcio. Thehumorous rascal had driven a hard bargain, but only because the moneywas to be had. He would have sold himself as briskly for the cream ofthe jest.
Late the same night there came a frantic pounding at Driscoll's door,where he was quartered in the sacristy of the old Capuchin church."Well?" he muttered, alert already.
"Hurry, mi coronel!" a cracked voice blended with the knocking. "Hurry,you are wanted!"
"Murgie!" Driscoll exclaimed, flinging wide the door. "Back from SanLuis, and prowling round here as usual, eh? Well, what's the matter?"
"Quick, senor! Maximilian is sick. Go, go to him!"
Partly dressed, bootless, unarmed, Driscoll shoved the old man aside,and sped through the church, hopping over half awakened soldiers as hewent. Once in the street, he glanced up at the tower room, which wasMaximilian's, and thought it odd that no light streamed through thenarrow slits there. The sentinels, too, were gone. But he ran up thesteps and darted along the corridor, only to strike his head against aheavy wooden door that was ajar. He rushed inside the cell, and witharms outspread quickly covered the space of it, in the utter darksmashing a chair, crashing over a table, cursing a mishap to his toe.But he found no one.
"This here's a jail-break," he mumbled under his breath. "Dam' thatMurgie, he's roped me in to stop 'em!" Whereat, all unconsciously, hesmiled again at Fatality.
Groping his way back to the corridor, he felt rather than saw three dimfigures steal past the door. Silently, swiftly, he gave pursuit. Heheard a fervent whisper just ahead.
"Hasten, dear friends, and may God----"
The next second he was grappling with someone. But his unknown captivedid not resist.
"There, senor, loosen your fingers. I am not escaping. I am returning tomy cell. But I had to make the other two think that I was with them."
The voice was Maximilian's.
"Hark! Ah, poor souls, they have failed!"
The prince spoke truly. A fierce "Alto ahi!" sounded below. Then therewere musket shots and the confusion of many scrambling feet. Murguia hadrouted out the church barracks. And when torches were brought, thesoldiers discovered that they had hands on Miramon and Mejia. But thefalse sentinels were gone! In leaving the road clear they had used itthemselves, already.
"You fools!" suddenly a half crazed wail arose. "Fools, _he_ hasescaped! He----"
"Oh dry up, Murgie," said Driscoll, coming down the steps. "He's goneback to his room, I reckon."
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