THE VIOLENT END OF A TERRIBLE BANDIT
"Come listen to me, you gallants so free,
All you that love mirth for to hear,
And I will tell you of a bold outlaw."
--_Robin Hood._
"Oh, oh, now he's coming to eat _us_!" Jacqueline gasped.
The fierce stranger, however, seemed undecided. His brow furrowed, and
for the moment he only stared. Jacqueline peeped through the lashes
curtaining her eyes. She wanted to see his face, and she saw one of bold
lines. The chin was a hard right angle. The mouth was a cruel line
between heavily sensuous lips. The nose was a splendid line, and a very
assertive and insolent nose altogether. The forehead was rugged, with a
free curving sweep. Here there would have been a certain nobility, only
its slope was just a hint too low. The skin was tawny. The moustache was
black and bristling, as was also the thick hair, which lay back like
grass before a breeze. The shaggy eyebrows were parted by deep clefts,
the dark corrugations of frowning. One wondered if the man did not turn
the foreboding scowl on and off by design. But all these were matters
that fitted in with the other striking "properties," and Jacqueline was
fairly well satisfied with her Fra Diavolo. As she declared to herself,
here was the very dramatic presence to mount upon a war charger!
[Illustration: "RODRIGO GALAN"
"The fierce stranger, however, seemed undecided. His brow furrowed,
and for the moment he only stared"]
Now when Jacqueline peeped--there was something irresistible about
it--the furrows in the black-beetled brow smoothed themselves out,
whether the stranger meant them to or not. And a vague resolve took hold
on him, and quickened his breath. Her glance might have been
invitation--Tampico was not a drawing room--but still he hesitated.
There was a certain hauteur in the set of the demoiselle's head, which
outbalanced the mischief in her eyes. He felt an indefinable severity in
her tempting beauty, and this was new to his philosophy of woman. But as
he drank in further details, his resolve stiffened. That Grecian bend to
her crisp skirt was evidently an extreme from the Rue de la Paix,
foretelling the end of stupendous flounces. Then there was the tilt to
the large hat, and the veil falling to the level of the eyes, and the
disquieting charm of both. The wine-red lips had a way of smiling and
curling at the same time. And still again there was that line of the
neck, from the shoulder up to where it hid under the soft, old-gold
tendrils, and that line was a thing of beauty and seductive mystery. The
dreadful ranchero went down in humility before the splendor of the
tantalizing Parisienne.
Michel Ney leaned nearer over the table. "In all conscience,
mademoiselle, your Fra Diavolo is bizarre enough," he said, "but please
don't let us stir him up. Think, if anything should happen to you, why
Mexico, why France would----"
"You flatter!" she mocked him. "Only two empires to keep me out of a
flirtation? It's not enough, Michel."
A shadow fell over them. "My apologies," spoke a deep voice, "but the
senorita, she is going to the City, to the Capital, perhaps?"
The syllables fell one by one, distinct and heavy. The Spanish was
elaborately cermonious, but the accent was Mexican and almost gutteral.
"L'impertinent!" cried Ney, bounding to his feet. No diffidence cloyed
his manner now. He was on familiar ground at last, for the first time
since fighting Arabs in Algeria. He was supremely happy too, and as mad
as a Gaul can be. "L'impertinent!" he repeated, coaxingly.
"Now don't be ridiculous, Michel," said Jacqueline. "He can't understand
you."
Moreover, the fame of the Chasseurs, of those colossal heroes with their
terrible sabres, of their legendary prowess in the Crimea, in China, in
Italy, in Africa, none of it seemed to daunt the Mexican in the least.
"How, little Soldier-Boy Blue?" he inquired with cumbrous pleasantry.
"Alas, senor," said Jacqueline, "he's quite a little brother to
dragons."
"What are you talking about?" Michel demanded.
"I am keeping you from being eaten up, young sire, but," and
Jacqueline's tone changed, "pray give yourself the trouble to be calm.
He only means a kindly offer of service, no doubt, however strange that
may seem to your delicacy of breeding, Monsieur the Duke."
Michel heaved a sigh and--sat down. He was no longer on familiar ground.
Then Fra Diavolo proceeded to verify mademoiselle's judgment of him.
Sombrero in hand and with a pompous courtliness, he repeated his natural
supposition that the senorita was on her way to the City (meaning the
City of Mexico), and perhaps to the court of His Glorious Majesty,
Maximiliano. He offered himself, therefore, in case he might have the
felicity to be of use. This she need not consider as personal, if it in
any way offended, but as an official courtesy, since she saw in him an
officer--an officer of His Most Peace-loving Majesty's Contra
Guerrillas. And thus to a conclusion, impressively, laboriously.
Jacqueline was less delighted than at first. The dash and daredeviltry
was somehow not quite sustained. But she replied that he had surmised
correctly, and added that she was Mademoiselle d'Aumerle.
He started at the name, and her eyes sparkled to note the effect. "The
Marquesa Juana de Aumerle!" he repeated.
"Jeanne d'Aumerle, no other, sir," she assured him, but she watched him
quizzically, for she knew that another name was hovering on his lips.
"Surely not----" he began.
"Si senor," and she smiled good humoredly, "I am--'Jacqueline.'"
It was a name that had sifted from the court down into distant plebeian
corners of the Mexican Empire, and it was tinged--let us say so at
once--with the unpleasing hue of notoriety.
"His Ever Considerate Majesty Maximiliano would be furious if any harm
should befall Your Ladyship," Fra Diavolo observed, "though," he added
to himself, "the empress would possibly survive it."
Jacqueline looked at him sharply. But in his deferential manner she
could detect no hint of a second meaning. Yet he had laid bare the
kernel of the whole business that bore the name of Jacqueline. She
betrayed no vexation. If this were her cross, she was at least too
haughtily proud to evade it. For a passing instant only she looked as
she had in the small boat, when she had said that about the mission of a
woman being to give. The next moment, and the mood was gone.
With knowledge of her identity, the project that was building in the
stranger's dark mind loomed more and more dangerously venturesome. But
as he gazed and saw how pretty she was, audacity marched strong and he
wavered no longer. And when she thanked him, and added that the ship was
only waiting until she finished her coffee, he roused himself and drove
with hard will to his purpose.
"Going on by water?" he protested. "But Senorita de Aumerle, we are in
the season for northers. Look, those mean another storm," and he pointed
overhead, to harmless little cotton bunches of clouds scurrying away to
the horizon.
"Eh bien," returned the senorita, "what would you?"
He would, it appeared, that she go by land. He hoped that she did not
consider his offer an empty politeness, tendered only in the expectation
of its being refused. He so contrived, however, that that was precisely
the way his offer might be interpreted, and in that he was deeper than
she imagined. She grew interested in the possibility of finishing her
journey overland. He informed her that one could travel a day westward
on horseback to a place called Valles, then take the City of Mexico and
Monterey stage, and reach the City in two days, which was much shorter
than by way of the sea and Vera Cruz. He spoke as dispassionately as a
time table. But he noted that she clothed his skeleton data with a
personal interest. And Ney also, who had caught the drift of things, saw
new mischief brewing in her gray eyes.
"You really are not thinking, mademoiselle----" he interrupted.
"And why not, pray?"
"Why not? Why--uh--the bandits, of course."
Jacqueline turned to the stranger who served as itinerary folder. Would
he dispose of the childish objection? He would. But he wondered why the
senor had not mentioned one who was the most to be feared of all
bandits; in fact, the most implacable of the rebels still battling
against His Truly Mexican Majesty. The stranger paused expectantly, but
as Ney seemed to recognize no particular outlaw from the description, he
went on with a deepening frown, "----and who is none other than the
Capitan Don Rodrigo Galan."
"Who's he?" Ney inquired, willing enough to have any scarecrow whatever
for Jacqueline.
"Is it possible?--Your Mercy does not know?"
Ney pleaded that he had never been in the country before.
"But surely," the Mexican objected, "Don Rodrigo is a household word
throughout Europe?"
"He has certainly been heard of in Mexico," said Jacqueline, whereat Fra
Diavolo turned to her gratefully. "But," she added, "Monsieur Ney will
now find in him another objection to my journeying overland."
The ardor of the bandit's eulogist faltered. "The senor might indeed,"
he confessed, "only," and here he hesitated like a man contemplating
suicide, "only, Don Rodrigo has been--yes, he's been shot, from ambush;
and his band--yes, his band is scattered forever."
Having achieved the painful massacre, Fra Diavolo traveled on more
easily to assure the senorita that since then the country had been
entirely pacified. Ney, however, was not. How did they know the story
was true? And if it was, he was sorry. He would enjoy meeting the
terrible and provokingly deceased Monsieur Rodrigue, if only to teach
him that being terrible is not good manners. But, did they know for
certain that the bandit was dead?
"We do," said the Mexican, again like a reluctant suicide, "because I
killed him myself."
"But how are we to know, sir," Ney persisted, "that you are so terrible
on your own account?"
"My identification, you mean? Bueno, it is only just. Here, this may
do," and the ranchero drew a paper from his money belt and handed it to
Jacqueline. The paper was an order addressed to one Captain Maurel, who
was to proceed with his company to the district of Tampico, and there to
take and to shoot the guerrilla thief, Rodrigo Galan, and all his band,
who infested the district aforesaid, known as the Huasteca. The Captain
Maurel would take note that this Rodrigo Galan frequented the very city
of Tampico itself, with an impudence to be punished at all hazards.
Signed: Dupin, Colonel of His Majesty's Contra Guerrillas.
"Colonel Dupin?" Jacqueline repeated with a wry mouth. Dupin, the
Contra-Guerrilla chief, was a brave Frenchman. But the quality of his
mercy had made his name a shudder on the lips of all men, his own
countrymen included.
"Yes," said Fra Diavolo between his teeth, "Mi Coronel Dupin--the
Tiger."
"So he is called, I know," said Jacqueline. "And you, it appears, are
Captain Maurel--Maurel, but that is French?"
"The way it is spelled on the paper, yes. But my Coronel, being French,
made a mistake. He should have written it 'Morel.'"
"No matter," said Jacqueline, "for you are only a trite, conventional
officer, after all. But how much merrier it would be if you
were--were----" and suddenly she leaned over the paper and placed an
impetuous finger on the bandit's name. "So," she continued wistfully,
"there is no danger. We ride, we take a stage. It is tame. I say it is
tame, monsieur!"
Captain Maurel, or Morel, desired to add that there was a trader who
owned an hacienda in the interior, and that this trader was starting for
his plantation the very next morning; all of which was very convenient,
because the trader had extra horses, and he, Captain Morel, had a
certain influence with the trader. The senorita's party could travel
with his friend's caravan as far as the stage.
"Voila!" cried Jacqueline. "It is arranged!"
"Diable, it is not!" Michel was on his feet again.
His wayward charge looked him over reflectively. "Our Mars in his baby
clothes again," said she, as a fond, despairing mother with an
incorrigible child.
The Mexican had shown himself hostile and ready. But seeing Jacqueline's
coolness he melted out of his somewhat theatrical bristling, lest her
sarcasm veer toward himself.
The tempestuous Mars, however, was beyond the range of scorn. He kept
one stubborn purpose before him. "We go back to the ship, or"--he took
breath where he meant to put a handsome oath--"or--it's a fight!"
"There, there," said Jacqueline gently. "Besides, are you not to go with
me just the same?"
Ney turned to the stranger. "I ask you to withdraw, sir, both yourself
and your offers, because you're only meddling here."
The intruder grew rigid straightway. "_I_ am not one to take back
an offer," he stated loftily. His voice was weighted to a heavier
guttural, and in the deep staccatos harshly chopped off, and each
falling with a thud, there was a quality so ominous and deadly that even
Jacqueline had her doubts. But she would not admit them, to herself
least of all. "And I, Monsieur Ney," she said, "have decided to accept,"
though she had not really, until that very moment.
Ney turned to the one sailor with him. "Run like fury!" he whispered.
"Bring the others!"
"Oh, very well," said the Mexican.
As he doubtless intended, Fra Diavolo's words sounded like the low growl
of an awakening lion, and at the same time he brought forth the reed
whistle and put it to his lips. The note that came was faint, like that
of a distant bird in the forest.
Ney smiled. It seemed inadequate, silly. Lately he had become familiar
with the sonorous foghorn, and besides, he was not a woodsman and knew
nothing of the penetration of the thin, vibrant signal. When the sailors
should come, he would take the troublesome fellow to the commander of
the garrison on the hill. But then a weight fell on him from behind, and
uncleanliness and garlic and the sweating of flesh filled his nostrils.
Bare arms around his neck jerked up his chin, according to the stroke of
Pere Francois. Other writhing arms twined about his waist, his legs, his
ankles; and hands clutched after his sabre and pistol. But at last he
stood free, and glared about him, disarmed and helpless. Jacqueline's
infernal Fra Diavolo was surveying him from the closed door of the Cafe,
behind which he had swept the two women. His stiff pose had relaxed, and
he was even smiling. He waved his hand apologetically over his
followers. "His Exceeding Christian Majesty's most valiant contra
guerrillas," he explained.
The so-called contra guerrillas were villainous wretches, at the
gentlest estimate. Their scanty, ragged and stained cotton manta flapped
loosely over their skin, which was scaly and as tough as old leather.
Most of them had knives. A few carried muskets, long, rusty,
muzzle-loading weapons that threw a slug of marble size.
Almost at once the burly French sailors appeared, but Fra Diavolo's
little demons closed in behind them and around them and so kept them
from reaching Ney. Thus both sides circled about and moved cautiously,
waiting for the trouble to begin in earnest. Michel only panted, until
at last he bethought himself that there was such a thing as strategy.
"One of you out there," he shouted in French, "quick, go to the fort.
Bring the soldiers!"
The Mexicans did not understand, and before they could prevent, a sailor
had taken to his heels.
Then Fra Diavolo comprehended. "You idiots!" he bellowed. "You--Pedro!
Catch him! Faster!--Catch him, I say!"
A little demon darted away in pursuit of the sailor. Obviously, the
situation hung on the swifter in the race.