303“Why,” cried Jacqueline, “what an animal disputans it is!” She perceived an ink bottle, and exclaimed, “Ah, more milk from the black cow!” Taking up a wad of copy paper, on which a future editorial was already begun, she read, and quickly her amusement changed to a livelier interest.
“Rumor goes,” she read under the caption, Ardentia Verba, “that Father Augustine, political manager for the administration, vice Éloin, is soon to leave for Europe. He goes to have a pourparler with the Pope. He will concede everything, since the Empire no longer hopes to win over the moderate Mexicans. But the obstinate though Holy Father will negotiate a concordat on one basis only, and that is the return to the Mexican church of all nationalized church lands.
“Men of the colony, attention now! We each own something like three hundred acres apiece of these lands. And we are paying for them, we are cultivating them, and we have to defend them against both guerrillas and contra-guerrillas. And now they are to be confiscated! Our new homes are to be taken from us!! Alas, we who are peaceful settlers, to think that we were Trojans on a time!!! Fellow citizens, with us it’s a severe case of e pluribus unum. Oh, for a leader! But our incomparable chief of yore will not stir. Yet there was one, gallant cavalier of the South, peerless captain, just the dauntless heart for any forlorn hope under the starry vault of heaven, if he were only here! If he, John D. Driscoll, were only––”
The matter stopped abruptly. More than that, by force of habit the scribe had ringed the figures “30” underneath. They meant “finis.” The editor had known, then, that he would not return to end his harangue.
“A flea bite,” mused Jacqueline, “would interrupt the penning of an Alexandrian line. Now, I wonder who or what the flea could have been, and what––”
304But there, she would ask herself no question concerning the editorially mentioned “John D. Driscoll.”
It was mid afternoon when Colonel Dupin, like a shaggy, dripping bear, returned to the house and begged leave to dry himself. Standing before the fire, he reloaded his holster pistols. They were tremendous, elegant utensils of French make, with a nine-chambered cylinder, and a second barrel underneath that carried a rifle ball. Where no prisoners were taken on either side, the owner of such a weapon usually reserved the murderous slug for himself, and the loading of that lower barrel became a sort of ghastly rite. Jacqueline shuddered as she watched him fix on the cap.
“How do you explain your desertion of Her Majesty?” she asked. “Our Fra Diavolo should thank me for drawing you off.”
The Tiger adjusted the double hammer so that it would play on the cylinder first. A rumbling chuckle came from the depths of his throat.
“I should be honored with mademoiselle’s approval,” he said, “for at court mademoiselle is a guileful warrior. The casualties there may not be so sanguinary, but the strategic principle is the same. Know, then, that Rodrigo Galán employs a spy whom I own, body and soul. By now Rodrigo has learned from this spy that the Imperial coach broke down, and that to-night Her Majesty rests–here. So you see that she is not likely to be attacked––”