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THE MISSOURIAN
[Illustration: "JACQUELINE"
"She was the spirit of the enigma, the very personification of the
Napoleonic sphinx"]
THE MISSOURIAN
by
EUGENE P. LYLE, Jr.
"In my predestin'd Plot of Dust and Soul."--Omar
Illustrated by Ernest Haskell
New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1905
Copyright, 1905, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
Published, August, 1905
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian
To
MY TWO BEST FRIENDS
My Father and my Mother
CONTENTS
PART I.
THE THORN IN THE LAND OF ROSES
I. A Wilful Maid Arrives 3
II. A Fra Diavolo in the Land of Roses 11
III. The Violent End of a Terrible Bandit 18
IV. _La Luz_, Blockade Runner 27
V. The Storm Centre 34
VI. A Bruising of Arms for Jacqueline 45
VII. Swordsmanship in the Dark 55
VIII. The Thoughts of Youth May Be
Prodigiously Long Thoughts 64
IX. Toll-Taking in the Huasteca 69
X. The Brigand Chief 80
XI. The Cossacks and Their Tiger Colonel 89
XII. Pastime Passing Excellent 98
XIII. Unregistered in Any Studbook 108
XIV. The Herald of the Fair God 114
XV. The Ritual 122
XVI. He of the Debonair Sceptre 131
XVII. Rather a Small Man 140
XVIII. Little Monarchs, Big Mistakes 149
XIX. A Tartar, _and_ a Tartar 156
XX. In the Wake of Princely Cavalcades 164
XXI. The Red Mongrel 173
XXII. "Equidad en la Justicia" 182
XXIII. A Curious Pagan Rite 188
XXIV. The Man Who Did Not Want to be Shot 193
XXV. The Person on the Other Horse 200
XXVI. The Strangest Avowal of Love 209
XXVII. Berthe 219
XXVIII. "Mike" 228
XXIX. The Whisper of the Sphinx 238
XXX. The Ambassador 242
XXXI. Carlota 253
XXXII. The Woman Who Did Not Hesitate 258
XXXIII. A Sponsor to the Fat Padre 266
PART II.
THE ROSE THAT WAS A THORN IN THE LAND OF ROSES
I. Meagre Shanks 273
II. The Black Decree 284
III. As Between Women 293
IV. The Lacking Coincidence 298
V. The Missourians 306
VI. If a Kiss Were All 315
VII. A Crop of Colonels 324
VIII. Royal Resolution 335
IX. Interpreter to the Almighty 344
X. Alone Among His Loving Subjects 351
XI. Fatality and the Missourian 359
XII. The Rendezvous of the Republic 369
XIII. A Buccaneer and a Battle 380
XIV. Blood and Noise--What Else? 391
XV. Of All News the Most Spiteful 406
XVI. Vendetta's Half Sister, Better Born 422
XVII. Under a Spanish Cloak 434
XVIII. El Chaparrito 443
XIX. In Articulo Mortis 459
XX. Knighthood's Belated Flower 465
XXI. The Title of Nobility 475
XXII. The Abbey of Mount Regret 484
XXIII. The Contrariness of Jacqueline 496
XXIV. The Journalistic Sagacity of a Daniel 506
THE PEOPLE OF THE STORY
THE MISSOURIAN, known in every fight as the Storm Centre. His
real name is John D. Driscoll, familiarly shortened to Din Driscoll. At
the close of the Civil War he finds himself a lieutenant-colonel in
General Joe Shelby's brigade of Confederate daredevils, sent by his
comrades as emissary to the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico.
JACQUELINE, who is the Marquise Jeanne d'Aumerle, on a mission
of high politics from Napoleon III. to the Court of Mexico.
BERTHE, her maid.
MAXIMILIAN, archduke of Austria, occupant of the New World
throne created for him.
CHARLOTTE OF ORLEANS, the Empress.
ANASTASIO MURGUIA, a Mexican hacendado, who acquires riches by
running Federal blockades into Southern ports. He is both a coward and a
miser.
MARIA DE LA LUZ, his daughter.
RODRIGO GALAN, brigand and guerrilla.
TIBURCIO, blackmailer of the highway, scout, and "loyal
Imperialist."
AUGUSTIN FISCHER, "the Fat Padre," a renegade priest of subtle
parts.
MICHEL NEY, grandson of the "Bravest of the Brave."
THE MARSHAL BAZAINE, commander-in-chief of the French Army of
Occupation in Mexico.
MADAME LA MARECHALE, his bride.
COLONEL DUPIN, the "Tiger of the Tropics," chief of the Contra
Guerrillas.
MIGUEL LOPEZ, colonel of Dragoons, a favorite of the Emperor.
MONSIEUR ELOIN, the Emperor's secretary.
MARQUEZ, MIRAMON, MEJIA, MENDEZ,
Imperialist officers.
REGULES, ESCOBEDO, Republican officers.
DANIEL BOONE, first scout among the Missourians, one-time
editor and editor yet to be.
"OLD BROTHERS AND SISTERS," "TALL MOSE" BLEDSOE,
OF THE COUNTY OF PIKE, and yet more of the Missouri colonels.
BENITO JUAREZ, president of the Mexican Republic.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"JACQUELINE" "She was the spirit of the enigma, the
very personification of the Napoleonic sphinx" _Frontispiece_
Facing page
"MURGUIA" "He had evidently passed through salty spray, had
braved the deep, this shrinking old man in frayed black" 16
"RODRIGO GALAN" "The fierce stranger, however, seemed
undecided. His brow furrowed, and for the moment he only
stared" 18
"JOHN DINWIDDIE DRISCOLL, THE MISSOURIAN" "His cheeks were
smooth, but they were tight and hard and brown from the
weathering of sun and blizzard" 38
"COLONEL DUPIN" "The Tiger of the Tropics ... the chief of
Contra Guerrillas" 94
THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN 134
"MARIA DE LA LUZ" "The tapestry behind them parted and fell"
146
"BERTHE" "... brought down the ponderous knocker so
terrifically that it abashed her, for all her present
agitation" 220
PART FIRST
THE THORN IN THE LAND OF ROSES
"Array you, lordyngs, one and all,
For here begins no peace."
--_The Ballad of the Battle of Otterburn_
CHAPTER I
A WILFUL MAID ARRIVES FROM FRANCE
"I'll tell thee, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France,
full of ambition."--_As You Like It._
Jacqueline was a gentlewoman of France. But there was usually mischief
in her handsome head, for all its queenly poise. Just now, she was
running away from the ship. Captain and officers of the _Imperatrice
Eugenie_, Imperial red pantaloons, gilt Imperial eagles, such tokens
of awe were yet not awful enough to hold Jacqueline. So, with the
humility of limp things in that sticky air, the sailors shoved closer in
the small boat and made place for the adjustment of crisp skirts. With
the lady went her gentle little Breton maid, who trembled with the
trembling of every plank in those norther-rocked waters. The high sun,
just showing himself after the late gale, was sucking a gummy moisture
out upon all surfaces, and the perspiring men felt mean and base before
the starchy freshness of the two girls.
No one was pleased that Jacqueline was going, except Jacqueline herself.
But she was keen for it. She had been impervious to their flustered
anxiety, also to the tributes to her importance betrayed therein. In
vain they argued no fewer than two emperors to dissuade her. She meant
to have a walk on the shore and--a demure Parisian shrug settled it.
Jacqueline rested a high-heeled boot on a coil of rope and blithely
hummed an old song--"Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!" Oh, how she had
wearied of bumping, heaving, bumping! At first she had enjoyed the
storm. It was a new kind of play, and the mise-en-scene was quite
adequate. But ennui had surged in again long before danger had surged
out. And now she considered that some later sensation was due her, just
as supper after an evening of fasting. In such a way, her life long,
Jacqueline had sustained existence. Her nourishment was ever the latest
"frisson," to use her own word. She craved thrills of emotion, ecstatic
thrills. Naturally, then, three weeks of ocean had fretted the restless
lass as intolerable, tyrannical.
During the norther's blinding fury, the liner of the Compagnie
Trans-Atlantique had groped widely out of her course, to find herself
off Tampico when the storm abated. But the skipper saw in his ill-luck a
chance for fresh meat, and he decided to communicate with the port
before going on to Vera Cruz. And when Jacqueline found that out, she
decided to communicate with the port too.
Little enough harm in that, truly; if only it were any one else but
Jacqueline. In her case, though, all concerned would have felt easier to
keep her on board. Then, when the ship sailed, they were sure to have
her there. Otherwise, they assuredly were not. For they knew well her
startling capacity for whims. But never, never, could they know the
startling next way a whim of hers might jump. Yet did she give herself
the small pains of wheedling? Not she. The mystery of her august
guardianship, of no less than two emperors, and the responsibility
falling on captain, crew, red trousers, and gilt eagles--He bien, what
then? Neither were they cunning with their dark warnings of outlawry and
violence. Dreadfulest horrors might lurk in the motley Gulf town held by
force against bloodthirsty Mexicans. But croaking like that only gave
brighter promise of the ecstatic shiver. So, parbleu, she went!
The brunt of anxiety fell on poor Sergeant Ney. Here was a young soldier
whom a month before Louis Napoleon had summoned to the Tuileries, to
charge him with the lady's safe return to Maximilian's court in the City
of Mexico, where she was First Dame of Honor about the Empress
Charlotte. The order was not a military one, else it must have fallen to
an officer of rank. It was not even official. But no doubt it enfolded
more of weight for that very reason. Napoleon III. believed that in the
unofficial, in littleness and dark gliding, lay the way to govern a
state. Michel Ney regarded his task as a complete enigma. He had only to
see a girl to the end of her journey. He was a slow-thinking, even a
non-thinking agent, but in a contingency he could fight, still without
thinking.
The girl under his escort, however, was another sort of agent entirely.
She was the spirit of the enigma, the very personification of the
Napoleonic sphinx. She was the Imperial Secret flung a thousand leagues,
there to work itself out alone in a new land of empire. Two months ago
Louis Napoleon had recalled her from the Mexican court to her old
circle, to the Tuileries, to St. Cloud, to Compiegne, and almost at once
he had sent her back again. This time she came with the sphinx's
purpose.
Getting himself into the small boat, Ney stole a glance at the gray eyes
opposite him--for the moment they were gray, as well as treacherously
innocent and pensive--and he reflected woefully that she had quite too
much spirit altogether for an Egyptian dame of stone. She was making it
very hard for him. What caprice might not possess her while on shore,
and the ship to sail within a few hours? It was not a predicament for
sabre play. And he made the mistake of trying to wield his wits a
little.
"I should take it as an honor, mademoiselle," he faltered, "I should,
truly, if you'd only believe that I would impose my escort for the
pleasure it gives me, as well as--as well as----"
But she did not seem to notice that he stumbled. Her eyes were intent on
the green water, which the oars transmuted into eddying crystals. He
would go on, she knew, and lay more exposed the place where she meant to
strike. She had coquetted with him, old play fellow that he was, for
just a little during the voyage, as with others too, for that matter.
But she had tired of it, as she had also of the chagrin of wives and
sweethearts on board, or as she had of Hugo's "Napoleon le Petit," which
she read purely out of contrariness to the censorship laid on the exiled
poet. Michel Ney, however, and this she noted carefully, now kept close
within his soldier's shell. He had that unofficial duty to think on,
which was enough and over.
"----as well as," he finished desperately, "as a duty to an authority
over us both. If you would believe that, mademoiselle?"
Then she struck. A word sufficed. "Oh, Monsieur the Sergeant!" she
exclaimed. Her tone was deprecating, but she lingered wickedly on the
title. The young Frenchman looked down on his natty uniform. No other
cut or cloth in the whole imperial army of France was more dashing than
the sky-blue of a Chasseur d'Afrique, but none of that filled Michel's
eyes. For him there were only the worsted stripes. He colored and
winced.
"Forgive me," she said meekly, "I should have said, 'Monsieur the
Duke.'"
The Chasseur flushed like a boy. "Why _will_ you harp on what a
grandfather made me?" he blurted out. "And what's a duke----?"
"And a prince?--the Prince of Moskowa!" She courtesied from her slender
waist.
"Alas for my blunders," she sighed, "for it _was_ more delicate
after all to call you sergeant. In that I congratulate you yourself,
Michel, and never a grandfather."
Ney frowned unhappily. "The first prince of Moskowa was once a
sergeant," he murmured, "and why shouldn't I, in this new country----"
"Mironton, mironton, mirontaine," she sang, and smiled on him.
His eyes flashed, and because of the voice his heart quickened. He had
heard of "this new country." It was "a gold mine in a bed of roses," but
with a thorn, to say nothing of a bayonet, for every bud, and like many
another young Frenchman he hoped to win renown in the romantic Mexican
Empire, sprung like Minerva from the brain of his own emperor. And now
here was a girl humming the war song of his fathers and of his race, and
flaunting his warrior's ambition in it.
"My Sergeant has gone to the wars,
Far off to war in Flanders.
He's a bold prince of commanders,
With a fame like Alexander's--
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!
"Mon Sergot s'en va t-en guerre--
Ne sais quand reviendra.
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!"
Having thus ousted the crusading hero of the song, and put the slang for
"sergeant" in his stead, Jacqueline leaned back on the gunwale quite
contented. She fell to gazing on the transparent emerald of the inshore,
and plunged in her hand. The soft, plump wrist turned baby pink under
the riffles. Of a sudden Berthe her maid half screamed, whereat with a
delighted little gasp of fright, she jerked out the hand. But she put it
back again, to tempt the watchful shark out there.
"_My_ grandfather was only a duke," she mused aloud, very humbly.
But she peeped up at Ney in the most exasperating manner. He could just
see the gray eyes behind the edge of lace that fell from the slanting
brim of her hat. He would not, though, meet the challenge. He kept to
sincerity as the safer ground.
"Like mine, mademoiselle, yours made himself one, under Napoleon."
"The _great_ Napoleon," she corrected him gently.
Michel assented with a sad little nod. Then he raised his head bravely.
"And why not do things _without_ a _great_ Napoleon, and,
after all, isn't he _a_ Napoleon, and one who----"
"Is lucky enough to bear a name that means seven million votes. _I_
should rather be a 'sergeant' and congratulate none but myself on it,
Monsieur the--Duke."
Again, with the wisdom of a slow intelligence, the Chasseur held back
from her subtleties. If only he might betray her into frankness--a
compliment she paid to few men and to a woman never--then, just
possibly, he might make her tractable as to their prompt return to the
ship.
"Still, it _is_ a name to rally to," he persisted, acknowledging in
spite of himself the magic that had swayed the Old Guard.
For once she left the poor shark in peace.
"A name, a name?" she repeated.
"Isn't 'France' enough of a name for your rallying, monsieur?"
But the honest mood could not last. In the same breath she hastened on,
"Yes, yes, France, the beloved of us proud grandchildren of original
dukes. Of myself, sir, with a chateau in the Bourbonnais, whose floors
are as well watered as the vineyards outside. And your France too,
Michel, giving you only your clean linen to disguise the sergeant and
remind us of the marshal of the First Empire. Of course," she added
kindly, "there is the bravery. I had forgotten that, O grandson of the
'brave des braves.' But then?--Bonte divine, there's no rank in courage,
mon ami! It's not the epaulette of a French uniform--it's the merest
lining."
"And that," the youth cried doggedly, "is still enough to----"
"To do things for France, eh petit piou-piou?"
"Helas! our France can't expect much from me. But you, mademoiselle, you
will do things for her!" It was a spontaneous tribute, just that,
without thought of prying into the secret of her mission, "While I," he
ended dismally, "can only fight."
"But you forget," she answered gravely, "that after all a woman can only
give."
That cynicism of life which had become a part of the young girl was yet
gaiety itself. Youth and health and beauty would not have even cynicism
otherwise. But now, as she spoke, the irony was bitter, and worn, as of
age. And behind it was a woman's reluctance before some abhorred
sacrifice, a sacrifice which would entail the woman's power to give.
Ney stared at her uncomprehendingly. Here lay a clue to her mysterious
errand in Mexico. But he was not thinking of her as the Napoleonic
enigma personified. It was of herself he thought, an enigma apart. She
was a flower of France. Yet many, many flowers blossom there. She might
be a grande dame, of nobility of womanhood as well as of family. Or
again, she might be only an alluring, heartless witch, that helped to
make tempting, and damnable, the brilliant Second Empire. But in any
case, Jacqueline was truly as dainty as a flower.
"It has already cost us enough to gain this New World," ventured the
Chasseur, waving a hand toward the desolate shore, "and we made
Maximilian emperor, but now they say that, that he would--they say so in
Paris, mademoiselle--that he would rob us of it."
"Indeed, monsieur?" There was warning in the look she gave him.
"But," he plunged on boldly, "our soldiers still hold it, that is,
until, until someone shall win it for us for our very own, absolutely.
Ducal grandfathers never did more than that for France."
"Where _are_ you leading, Michel? Please take me with you."
"To a question. Don't you think 'someone' is risking a great deal for a
little walk on shore?"
Before she answered he knew that she had seen through all his blundering
wiles.
"Are there guerrillas there?" she asked pensively.
"_You_ should know. But they say, that out of Tampico
especially----"
She was gazing toward the land, sandy and flat. Once she looked back
with lively distaste at the rocking ship. Now she interrupted.
"It would be fun traveling overland--and _such_ excitement!"
Ney's shoulders went up in despair.
"Oh, my poor guardian!" she exclaimed contritely. "But why aren't you a
reader of the poets? Then you would find something to say to make me
feel--sorry."
"_You_ say it then."
"Why, for example, you might call all the stored vengeance of heaven
right down on my ungrateful top."
The soldier gazed at the ungrateful top. It was of burnished copper. A
rebellious lock was then blowing in the wind, and there was a wide,
rakish crown of rice-white straw. There was also a soft skin of creamy
satin, lips blood red, a velvet patch near a dimple, and two gray eyes
that danced behind the hat's filmy curtain. An ungrateful top, out of
all mercy!