“Alone?–N-o, parting isn’t the sweet sorrow it’s cracked up to be. Besides, I don’t know the roads, but of course that’s nothing to losing a jovial old mate like you, Murgie.”
Don Anastasio smirked at the pleasantry. “But I can’t go to-night, señor. I–I have to see–someone–first.”
The trooper betrayed the least impatience. “Now look here–usurer, viper, blanketed thief, honorable sir, you know I’m in a hurry!”
That his haste could be any concern of Murguía’s was preposterous, and Murguía would have liked nothing better than 30to tell him so. But he did not, and suffered inwardly because somehow he could not. He harbored a dim but dreadful picture of what might happen should the amiable cavalryman actually lose his temper. Loss of patience had menace enough, though the Southerner had not stirred from his lazy posture in the doorway nor overlooked a single contented puff from the Missouri meerschaum.
“I’m sorry,” Don Anastasio paid out the hard-found words through his teeth, “but possibly we can leave to-morrow. Will, will that suit Your Mercy, Señor Coronel?”
“Oh perhaps. Anyhow, don’t go to forgetting, now, that I’m in a hurry.”
Don Anastasio breathed easier, and he even grew so bold as to recall a certain suspicion he had entertained. “Your errand down here must be of considerable importance, Señor Coronel?” he ventured.
“There you are again–crawling again.” It was evident that the trooper’s normal condition was a great, hearty, calm good humor.
But the Mexican’s shriveled features grew sharper and his moist eyes more prying. His suspicion had tormented him ever since fate had thrown the Confederate in his way. This had happened one stormy night at Mobile. The night in question was pitch dark. The tide was favorable, too, but a norther was blowing, the very same norther that had turned the Impératrice Eugénie off her course. Murguía’s skipper had chosen the hour of midnight for running the Federal blockade outside, and he had already given the order to cast off, when a horseman in a cape overcoat rode to the edge of the wharf.
“Wait there!” the horseman trumpeted through his hand.