“Oh shut up, Murgie!” cried Driscoll wearily, but in something akin to supplication.
With the serpent’s wisdom, the tempter struck no more on that side. His fangs were not for the blighted lover. What, though, of the soldier?
“No one doubts, señor,” he whined unctuously, “that Your Mercy is loyal to the Republic. So it cannot be that Y’r Mercy knows––”
“See here, Murgie, I’m getting sleepy. But I’ll find you a comfortable tent, with plenty to eat, and a polite guard––”
432“Señor,” stormed the old man, “I tell you you don’t know what this means to the Republic. Maximilian will escape, no matter the cost. At daybreak there is to be a concentrated attack on some point in your lines; but where, nobody knows except Miramon. Then Maximilian will cut through with the cavalry. The infantry will follow, if it can. And after them, the artillery. You Republicans may not even know it until too late, because meantime you will be fighting the townspeople, thinking you are fighting the whole army.”
Driscoll roused himself suddenly. “The townspeople?”
“Si señor, they are to be a decoy. Some volunteered, the rest were drafted. They have been armed, but they are only to be killed, they are only to draw the Republican strength, while the Emperor and the army escape.”
Driscoll sprang from his seat, in an agitation that was Murguía’s first hope.
“Do you mean to tell me,” he demanded, “that this Maximilian who makes speeches about not deserting intends now to sacrifice these poor helpless devils? Prove it!”
Murguía had touched neither lover nor soldier. But what man was here, in boots and woolen shirt, puffing angrily at a corncob, yet sitting in judgment supreme on the proud Hapsburg himself? Blindly stumbling, Murguía had touched the inexplicable man who was of stone, and the baffled fiend that was in him leaped up with a cry of glee.