450“Would suffice for his escape?”
Jacqueline reddened guiltily. “No, to prepare for his end,” she said.
The Presidente smiled tolerantly. “Never fear,” he answered first her confusion, “our justice stands committed, and to wink at escape now would be cowardly. Yet, whether you meant it or not, you are right, and the execution stands postponed until the nineteenth. A doomed man may learn much in three days to comfort him–on his way. But the criminal of all is lacking.”
“Marquez, you mean?”
“U’m, him also. But I was thinking of Louis Napoleon, and his wife.”
The order of postponement, being openly telegraphed to Escobedo at Querétaro, was known at once in San Luis, and caused a fury of excitement. For none doubted but that it meant eventual pardon. The tender hearted rejoiced. The rabid ones muttered. The wise shook dubious heads. And even as Jacqueline and Berthe were hurrying back to Querétaro in the canvas-covered coach, another caller was admitted roundly on the president’s privacy, without so much as being announced. Juarez wondered if his orderly had gone crazy, for the newcomer thus obsequiously presented looked to be a species of ancient vagabond.
“Well, what is it?” the President asked, frowning heavily. He was curiously irritated. “Stay,” he interposed, “those dusty, muddy rags you have on, that green and red, that’s not a Republican uniform?”
“It’s of the Batallon del Emperador,” replied the stranger, unabashed.
“Bless me the saints! Well, well, well, I suppose you, too, want to save your Maximilian. But how does it happen that you’re not under guard yourself?”
For answer the old man came nearer. He limped feebly, 451and the while he unbuttoned his coarse red jacket. Juarez watched him sluggishly, but with a hand upon a revolver under the papers on his desk. The stranger, however, drew forth nothing more sensational than five or six square bits of parchment. Yet these aroused the President more than a weapon could have done. They were blank, except at the bottom, and there the President read his own signature, “Benito Juarez, Libertad y Reforma.”