THE BRIGAND CHIEF
"Don Rodrigo de Vivar,
Rapaz, orgulloso, y vano."
--_El Cid._
Imagine an abnormally virtuous urchin and an abnormally kindly farmer.
The urchin resolutely turns his back on the farmer's melon patch, though
there is no end of opportunity. But the farmer catches him, brings him
in by the ear, makes him choose a big one, and leaves him there, the
sole judge of his own capacity. Driscoll had tried to dodge a fight, but
Fate was his kindly farmer.
"Better fall back a little, Murgie," he said. "You'd only scare 'em, you
know."
He himself passed on ahead. But it was mid-afternoon before anything
happened. Jacqueline meantime had shown some pettish ill-humor. Those
who had fought to be her escort were now singularly indifferent.
Driscoll was idly curious and quietly contemptuous, but he detected no
fright in her manner. "Fretting for her silver-braided Greaser," he said
to himself. "A pretty scrape she's got herself into, too! Now I wonder
why a girl can't have any sense." But as the answer was going to take
too long to find, he swerved back to the simpler matter of a possible
fracas.
"Well, well," he exclaimed at last, rising in his stirrups, "if there
isn't her nickel-plated hero now!"
A quarter of a mile ahead, mounted, waiting stock-still across the
trail, was Fra Diavolo. The American put away his pipe and barely moved
his spurred boot, yet the good buckskin's ears pointed forward and he
trotted ahead briskly. From old guerrilla habit, the cavalryman noted
all things as he rode. To his left the blue of the mountain line, being
nearer now, had deepened to black, and the Sierra seemed to hang over
him, ominously. But the dark summits were still without detail, and
midway down, where the solid color broke into deep green verdure and was
mottled by patches of dry slabs of rock, there was yet that massive blur
which told of distance. Foothills had rolled from the towering slide,
and mounds had tumbled from the hills, and a tide of giant pebbles had
swept down from the mounds. These rugged boulders had turned the trail,
so that the American was riding beneath a kind of cliff. To his right,
on the east of the trail, the boulders were smaller and scattered, like
a handful of great marbles flung across the cactus plain. He may have
glanced toward this side especially, at the clumps of spiny growth over
the pradera, and caught glimpses behind the strewn rocks, but his look
was casual, unstartled. He breathed deeply, though. The old familiar
elation set him vaguely quivering and tingling, with nervous, subtle
desire. The young animal's excess of life surged into a pain, almost.
Even the buckskin, knowing him, took his mood, and held high his
nostrils.
Fra Diavolo's peaked beaver, his jacket, his breeches, his high pommeled
saddle, his great box stirrups, the carabine case strapped behind, all
be-scrolled with silver, danced hazily to the magic of rays slanting
down from the lofty Sierra line. Like himself, his horse was a thing of
spirited flesh, for glorious display. The glossy mane flowed
luxuriantly. The tail curved to the ground. A mountain lion's skin
covered his flanks. He was large and sleek and black, with the metal and
pride of an English strain. He was a carved war-charger. The man astride
was rigid, stately. Man and horse had a heroic statue's promise of
instant, furious life.
"Oh, la beaute d'un homme!" cried Jacqueline, perceiving the majestic
outline silhouetted against the rocks. "Why, why--it's Fra Diavolo!"
"It--it is!" confessed Murguia. There was dread, not surprise, in his
exclamation. The waiting horseman, and a lonely hut there behind
him--none other than a brigand "toll-station"--these were but too
significant of an old and hated rendezvous. Don Anastasio got to his
feet and nervously hurried his caravan back a short distance. Then he
ran ahead again and overtook the two Frenchwomen. "Senoritas, wait!
Neither of you need go. But I will--I must, but I can go alone, while
you----"
"Why, what ails the man?"
"Back, senorita, back, before he sees you!"
Jacqueline looked at the imploring eyes, at the palsied hand on her
bridle. "Berthe," she said, "here's your little monsieur getting
constitutional again."
"You _will_ go, senorita?"
"Parbleu!" said the girl, and lashed her mustang.
"Dios, Dios," gasped the little monsieur, hurrying after them, "when
Maximiliano hears of this----"
"You should see Maximilian when he is angry," Jacqueline called over her
shoulder. "It is very droll."
Din Driscoll had vaulted to the ground in the instant of halting.
Immediately he led his horse behind the solitary hut, which was a
_jacal_ of bamboo and thatch built under the cliff, and left him
there. Demijohn was a seasoned campaigner, and he would not move until
his trooper came for him. When Driscoll emerged again, his coat was over
his left arm, and the pockets were bulging. Fra Diavolo had already
saluted him, but gazed down the trail at the two women approaching.
"How are you, captain?" Driscoll began cordially.
Fra Diavolo looked down from his mighty seat. "Ai, mi coronel, I was
expecting Your Mercy."
"Honest, now? Or weren't you worrying lest I'd got left back in
Tampico?"
One of the ranchero's hands rose, palm out, deprecatingly.
"But someone might have told you I didn't get left at all," Driscoll
pursued. "Segundino maybe? Or was it Juan?"
"Or Don Tiburcio?" suggested the captain. He dismounted and doffed his
big sombrero. "Good, I see you brought Her Ladyship safely."
"Or I myself, rather," said Jacqueline, reining in her pony at the
moment, "Ah, the Senor Capitan as an escort knows how to make himself
prized by much anticipation."
"Senorita!" The Mexican bent in heavy ceremony, the sombrero covering
his breast. "I am honored, even in Your Mercy's censure. Those who
deserve it could not appreciate it more."
"Forward then, captain. On with the excuses, I promise to believe them."
"Those sailors, my lady, who fight with kicks. Ugh!--they attacked some
of my men this morning in Tampico. I had to call at the fort for aid."
"Oh, but Maximilian shall hear of this!"
"I think he will," and Fra Diavolo bowed again, hiding the gleam of a
smile. "But I forget, your compatriot----"
"Monsieur Ney?--Yes?"
"He meant to help the sailors----"
"But he was not hurt?"
"Oh, no, no! But he had to be held in the fort."
"That poor Michel!"
"So," the syllable fell weightily, as if to crush Ney out of her
thoughts, "here I am at last, to claim the distinguished pleasure of
seeing Your Ladyship to the stage at Valles."
Din Driscoll had been gazing far away at the mountains, his thumbs
tucked in his belt. He stood so that the Mexican was between him and the
scattered boulders on the right of the trail. Now he addressed the
mountains. "The stage at Valles? There is no stage at Valles---- And,
captain," he dropped Nature abruptly, and turned on the man, "who are
you, hombre? Come, tell us!"
If Fra Diavolo were a humbug, he was not nearly so dismayed as one might
expect. For that matter, neither was Jacqueline. She inquired of
Driscoll how he knew more about stage lines than the natives themselves.
Because the natives themselves were not of one mind, he replied. For
instance, Murgie's muleteers had assured him fervidly that there was
such a stage, whereas passing wayfarers had told him quite simply that
there was not, nor ever had been.
Jacqueline's gray eyes, wide open and full lashed, turned on Fra
Diavolo. "You are," she exclaimed, noiselessly clapping her hands as at
a play, "then you are--Oh, _who_ are you?"
The Mexican straightened pompously. "Who?" he repeated deep in his
chest, "who, but one at Your Mercy's feet! Who, but--Rodrigo Galan
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, senor," thundered the robber, "you don't----" He stopped,
catching sight of the timorous Murguia 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 mean," 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 paean of Americans! But how came she
by it, and by what right?
"'And we won't go home till morning,'" he joined in, inquisitively.
The girl paused, as explorers singing it have paused when savages never
before seen by white men joined in with barbarian words. But she went
on, letting the miracle be as it might.
"'The news I bear, fair lady----'"
she sang, and nodded at the bandit, to indicate that here was _his_
line,
"'The news I bear, fair lady, Will cause your eyes to weep.'"
"'----Till daylight doth appear,'" Driscoll finished it with her. Then
both looked up like two children, to the awful presence on horseback.
Don Rodrigo was at some pains to recover himself. A helpless girl and
one lone trooper were practising a duet under his very frown. Only a
glance toward the boulders and cacti reassured him.
"Well, what next?" Jacqueline demanded sweetly. "Is it to be the--the
'game' at last?"
"One word," said the Mexican solemnly. Straight in his saddle, he fixed
them with keen eyes, keen, black eyes under shaggy brows. The syllables
fell portentously. His voice deepened as far away thunder. "One word
first," growled the awakening lion. "You know now that I am Don Rodrigo
Galan. Yes, I am he, the capitan of guerrillas, the rebel, the brigand,
the hunted fugitive. Such names of ignominy a true patriot must bear
because he dares to defy his poor country's oppressors." Here Fra
Diavolo scowled; he was getting into form. "But to His Majesty in our
own Mexican capital, to His Glorious Resplendent Most Christian, Most
Catholic, priest-ridden, bloodthirsty, foppish, imbecile decree-making
fool of a canting majesty--to this Austrian archduke who drove forth the
incarnation of popular sovereignty by the brutal hand of the foreign
invader--to him I will yet make it known that the love of liberty, that
the loyalty to Liberal Reforms, to the Constitution, to Law and Order,
to--uh--are not yet dead in these swamps and mountains of our Patria.
And he will know it when he--when he hears my demand for your ransom,
Senorita Marquesa. He will know it, too, when he learns that Captain
Maurel--a Frenchman, senorita, not a Mexican--now lies stark in death in
the brush near Tampico, where he came to take and to hang the steadfast
patriot, Rodrigo Galan. But his Tender-Hearted Majesty will grieve less
for that than for the loss of you, Senorita--Jacqueline. For is it not
known that you, the first lady of honor to the Empress, that you are
also His Majesty's----"
"My faith," said Jacqueline, "he speaks Spanish well!"
Thus she stopped the insult. Also she stopped an unforeseen champion at
her side. Driscoll, with pistol half drawn, was willing to be checked. A
shot just then, placed as they were, would mean a bad ending to the
game. That he knew. So he was thankful for Jacqueline's hand on his
wrist.
Forked eloquence was silenced by now. Yet the patriot had been in
earnest, under the spell of his own ardor. Don Anastasio, with head
bowed, had listened in sullen sympathy. But both Mexicans started as
though stung at Jacqueline's applauding comment. Don Rodrigo purpled
with rage. She only looked back at him, so provokingly demure, that
something besides the ransom got into his veins. He wet his lips, baring
the unpleasant gleam of teeth.
"Come!" he said thickly. "You and your maid go with me."
Driscoll's jaw dropped. "Diablos," he exclaimed, bewildered, "you don't
mean---- Look, Don Roddy, you're crazy! Such things----"
"Come!"
"But I tell you it's foolish. Such things do not happen, unless in
melodrama."
For reply the guerrilla chief wheeled his charger and caught the bridles
of the two horses that the girls rode. He pulled, so as to leave exposed
the troublesome American behind them.
"Grands dieux," exclaimed Jacqueline, "have the men in this country
nothing to do except catch my bridle! But really, sir, this situation is
forced. It is not artistic. As--as Monsieur the Chevalier says, it's
quite impossible."
She looked around for Monsieur the Chevalier to make it so, but to her
dismay, to her disgust, he had taken to his heels. He was running away,
as fast as he could go. Then her horse reared, for musket firing had
suddenly, mysteriously begun on all sides of her. Many fierce pairs of
eyes were bobbing up from behind the boulders on the right of the trail;
yellow-brown faces, like a many-headed Hydra coiled in the cacti. They
were shooting, not at her, but at the fleeing American. She felt an
object in her hand, which Driscoll had thrust there, and she remembered
that he had whispered something, though she had forgotten what.
Her captor was straining at the bridle. In his frenzy he leaned over, to
lift her from the saddle, and then she struck him across the face with
her whip. And then, with what the American had put in her other hand,
she struck again. The weapon was Driscoll's short hunting knife. The
blade grazed Rodrigo's shoulder. He loosed his hold, and before he could
prevent, both she and Berthe were in the shack under the cliff. The maid
sank to the floor. The mistress stood in the doorway. There was a glint
in the gray eyes not lovable in man or woman, but in her it was superb.
Fifty feet back up the trail she saw Driscoll scaling the cliff. That
demon yelling, which is the first spasm of Mexican warfare, had not
ceased, and each demon was shooting as fast as he could reload. She saw
the white dust spurt out from the bullet peppered rock. But either the
sun slanting down from the mountain line was in their eyes, or they were
disconcerted at the American's change in their plans; at any rate their
laboriously ascending target did not drop. Up he climbed. Jacqueline
wondered why he still clung to the jacket over his arm, as people will
cling to absurd things in time of panic.
"To go through that peril, and yet a coward!" she murmured. "It's a
waste----"
The runaway gained the top of the embankment, and fell behind a rock.
And now a half dozen of the little demons were coming across the trail
to the shack--to take her.
"Oh, the frisson, the ecstasy!" she cried. There was a certain poignant
sense of enjoyment in it.