Well, in a word, the three accused were straightway sentenced to death; and Escobedo, approving, named Sunday, June 16th, for the execution. It might be mentioned of this Escobedo that on two former occasions, when the circumstances were exactly reversed, Mejía had each time saved his life. Since Querétaro, there have been comments on the vigor of Escobedo’s memory.
“Poor pliant Prince Max,” sighed Jacqueline, “he is still being influenced to stay in Mexico! Come, Berthe, we must make all speed to San Luis and see the Presidente.”
In the long hall of the Palacio Munícipal at San Luis Potosi, before the old-fashioned desk there, sat an Indian. He was low and squat and pock-marked, and there was an ugly scar, livid against yellow, across the upper lip. He had a large mouth, high cheek-bones, and swarthy skin with a copperish tinge. He was a pure-blooded Indian. At twelve he did not know a word of Spanish. His race, the Zapotecas of Oaxaca, had all but been extinguished by the Conquest. Except for the ungainly black he wore–excepting, too, his character–he might have been a peon, or still the servant he once had been. But the homely, heavy features of his round head did not, in any sense, repel. On the contrary, the countenance was frank, though yet inscrutable. The piercing black eyes were good eyes, and indomitable, like his muscled jaw. The flat, square forehead made one aware of intellect, and of force. So short and thick, he looked a sluggish man, but it was the phlegm of a rock, the calm of strength, and 447whatever the peril, almost inanimate. His country called him Benemérito de América, a title the noblest and rarest in its Spartan hint of civic virtue.
The Indian’s desk was littered with messages from the princes of the earth. Like his expiring race, he had fought their order, and they had made of him a wandering fugitive. But now they were imploring him for one of their number, whose surrendered sword that moment lay across their petitions. Two of the letters, but not from princes, he had read with deep consideration. One was from the President of the United States, the other from Victor Hugo. But these also he shoved from him, though regretfully, and now he was gazing out over the Plaza, the line of his jaw as inflexible as ever.
But they were not many, the moments this man had to himself, and it was not long before a gendarme in coarse blue, serving as an orderly, disturbed him.
“Well, show her in then,” he said, frowning at the card laid on his desk, nor did he rise when an unusually beautiful but very grave young woman entered the room.
“At your orders, Señorita de–d’Aumerle. You come, I suppose, to save him?–But,” he added with the austerity of a parent, “it is not difficult to imagine why you are interested.”
“No, Señor Presidente,” he heard himself quietly contradicted, “Your Excellency can not imagine.”
He looked up, into a pair of honest gray eyes. But her tone had already told him enough. He rose to his feet in rugged courtesy. The Indian was a wise man, and he knew now that other men had whispered falsely about one exquisite Parisienne.