The Mexican straightened pompously. “Who?” he repeated deep in his chest, “who, but one at Your Mercy’s feet! Who, but–Rodrigo Galán himself!”
“The terrible Rodrigo?” She wanted complete identification.
He looked at her quickly. The first darkening of a frown creased his brow. But still she was not alarmed. Berthe, however, proved more satisfying. “Oh, my dear lady!” she cried, reining in her horse closer to her mistress.
“And who,” drawled the American at a quizzical pitch of inquiry, “may Don Rodrigo be?”
“What, señor,” thundered the robber, “you don’t––” He stopped, catching sight of the timorous Murguía hovering near. “Then, look at that old man, for he at least knows that he is in the presence of Don Rodrigo. He is trembling.”
But Jacqueline was–whistling. The bristling highwayman swung round full of anger. Driscoll stared at her amazed. Then he laughed outright. “Well, well, Honorable Mr. Buccaneer of the Sierras, now maybe–– Yes, that’s what I 85mean,” he added approvingly as Fra Diavolo leaped astride his charger and jerked forth two pistols from their holsters, “that’s it, get the game started!”
Jacqueline’s red lips were again pursed to whistle, but she changed and hummed the refrain instead:
“Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!”
Driscoll stared at her harder. The words were strange and meant nothing. But there was a familiarity to the tune. That at least needed no interpreter. The old ballad of troubadours, the French war song of old, the song of raillery, the song of Revolution, this that had been a folk song of the Crusader, a Basque rhyme of fairy lore, the air known in the desert tents of Happy Arabia, known to the Jews coming out of Egypt, known to the tribes in the days without history or fifes–why, if this wasn’t the rollicking, the defiant pæan of Americans! But how came she by it, and by what right?
“‘And we won’t go home till morning,’” he joined in, inquisitively.