“I can almost guess again,” said Driscoll, as though it were some curious game, “but if you’d just as soon explain––”
“Listen! You remember two years ago at my hacienda, when Lopez sentenced you to death? But why did he sentence you to death, why, señor?”
“That’s an easy one. It was because he didn’t want my offer of Confederate aid to reach Maximilian.”
“But why not? I will tell you. It was because he was trying even then to buy the Republic’s good will, in case–in case anything should happen. But he was afraid to change, the coward! He must first know which side would win. I am his orderly–he knows why I am–and I’ve tried to drive it into his thick wits that the Empire is damned and has been, but he still doubted, even when we were starving again, even when every crumb was gathered into the common store, even when it was useless to shoot men for not declaring hidden corn, even when forced loans were vain, since money could no longer buy. No señor, even with proofs like these, Miguel Lopez was stubborn.”
“I’d prob’bly guess he was a loyal scoundrel, after all.”
“More yet, he has fought bravely, making himself a marked man in the Republic’s eyes.”
“Then why––”
“Because so long as the Empire had a chance, or he thought it had, he hoped for more coddling. You see, señor, he thought Marquez was coming back with relief. There was that–that Frenchwoman you know of–who brought news from the 429capital. But Maximilian dared not make the news public. He forged a letter instead, a letter from Marquez, and he had its contents proclaimed. Marquez had been delayed, so all Querétaro read, but he had at last destroyed the Liberals in his path, and was then hurrying here with his victorious army. This false hope blinded Lopez with the others in there. But when Marquez did not come, when utter demoralization set in, when we were a starving town against thirty-five thousand outside, when there were scores of deserters every day, when any man who talked of surrender was executed, and still no Marquez, then Lopez began––”
“I see, he began to be persuaded?”
“Still, he wanted to be a general. But the other generals forced Maximilian not to promote him.”