The slur on Mexican justice only emphasized his scorn of the Confederate notes.
“Give ’em here!” Driscoll snatched them from the yellow, desecrating fingers. “These here are promises,” he muttered, “and we’ve been fighting for four years to make them good. For four years, even the children and old men, and–yes, and the women folks back of us!”
The impulsive mood carried him further. He counted and pocketed the despised notes. Then from an humble tobacco pouch he sorted out a number of British sovereigns, and flung them into Murguía’s hat.
“Prob’bly my last blow for them promises,” he murmured to himself.
Meantime a burro back of them had become possessed of an idea, which for some reason necessitated his halting stock still directly across the trail to think it over. The caravan behind stopped also, while the arrieros snorted “Ar-re!” and “Bur-ro!” through their noses, and prodded the beast. Jacqueline lost patience. She touched her horse, which bounded out of the trail and galloped past the outfit almost to Driscoll 76and Murguía. So she had seen the exchange of money and she had heard. She looked thoughtfully at the trooper’s straight line of back and shoulder.
“Monsieur the Chevalier,” she murmured softly, as though trying the sound of the words for the fast time. She would have supposed that none but a Frenchman could have done that.
As to Don Anastasio, the Quixotic redemption in specie was beyond him entirely. He gave it up. The counting of discs was more tangible to his philosophy. His rusty black tile, so wondrously become a cornucopia of wealth, had by that same magic upset the old fellow into a kind of hysterical gaiety, which was most elfish and uncanny. He motioned Driscoll to ride faster.
“Ai, ai, mi coronel,” he cackled, when they were gone out of hearing, “you talk of bandits! Ai, ai, Dios mio, you have robbed them!”
“What the devil––”
“Si señor, robbed them! A-di-o-dio-dios! here’s more than they took from me!”