But as Rodrigo wrested in the dark, Ney found that the brigand’s stumblings corresponded with the tightening about himself. He clutched at his waist, and discovered a rope.
Both men groped vengefully forward with the line, and 162lurched into one another’s arms. Each had thought to come on a tree, only to discover himself tied to the other. In the first start of suspicion, and in no good humor from splitting headaches, one reached for his knife, the other for his sabre. But the knife was gone, the sabre was gone. Forthwith they grappled and strained and breathed by jerks and tumbled and rolled and wound themselves in the lariat, until at last they lay exhausted on their backs and blinked up at the beautiful innocent morn peeping through the trees.
“Now don’t you untie yourself till I get untied,” ordered Ney.
“Or you yourself,” retorted the other.
“Let us both untie at the same time.”
“But one might finish first,” objected Rodrigo. The brigand had grown amiable again. He saw advantages in the rope. It was well to have his prospective ransom never more than a few feet away.
They discussed the problem at length, but were not equal to it. So the modus vivendi was stretched a rope’s length, and the treachery clause expanded to include any untying or attempted untying before their arrival at Murguía’s. Scrupulously simultaneous, they arose, found their pistols, and mounted their horses. To guard against any sudden varying in rapidity of travel and its consequences, each wrapped the lariat once about his saddle-horn. Where necessary, the brigand rode in front, since Ney insisted that the other way would reverse their rôles of prisoner and captor. Rodrigo got some tortillas from a charcoal burner, and they lunched and rested within the forest’s edge till dark. But they traveled all that night in the open country, and approached Murguía’s before noon of the next day. Hoping to find friends about the hacienda’s stables, Rodrigo suggested that they race up the highway into the pasture. He was thinking that then the Frenchmen might be overpowered the more easily. Ney fell into the trap. He 163accepted the challenge and was keen for the sport. Thus it happened that they all but ran down the Emperor of Mexico himself, and instead of guerrillas, Rodrigo saw Cossacks and Dragoons. But the mystery of the rope, added to that of the unloaded pistols, rested unexplained.
Jacqueline was delighted. “If it were just conventional heroism,” she exclaimed, “one might talk of lieutenancies. But sire, this––”
“Never fear,” replied Maximilian. “I cannot make him captain, but he shall have his reward.–Monsieur le Prince, I will leave you a half company of my Austrians, if, though a Chasseur, you will deign to command them. In a word, I desire you to have the honor of escorting mademoiselle to the City.”
“And I thank you, sire. Parbleu, the sergeant is happier with such an order than–than the captain without it.”