“You fools!” suddenly a half crazed wail arose. “Fools, he has escaped! He––”
“Oh dry up, Murgie,” said Driscoll, coming down the steps. “He’s gone back to his room, I reckon.”
475CHAPTER XXI
The Title of Nobility
“Hear, therefore, O ye kings, and understand.”
–Wisdom of Solomon.
One more sunset, one more sunrise! And then?...
Maximilian again confronted the ghostly enumeration. But this time his last day should be the day of a man’s work, in simple-hearted humility. He no more searched the skies to find a supernal finger there. He let Destiny alone, and did his best instead. For a man’s best is Destiny’s peer.
The fiery June sun was dying in its larger shell of bronze over the western sierras, and the self-same blue that vaults beautiful Tuscany was taking on its richer, darker hue, when a foreigner in the land, Din Driscoll, walked under the Alameda trees, his pipe cold in his mouth, he perplexed before his heavy spirits. For he no longer had war to distract, to engross.
Maximilian’s physician, an Austrian, found him in his reverie. Would the Herr Americano at once repair to His Highness attend? The señor’s presence would a favor be esteemed, in reason that a witness was greatly necessitated.