PASTIME PASSING EXCELLENT
"Il y a des offenses qui indignent les femmes sans les deplaire."
--_Emile Augier._
Like another Black Douglas, Din Driscoll rose among the crags, the dark
tufts curling stubbornly on his bared head. He looked a sinewy,
toughened Ajax. But he only spoiled it. For, raising his arms, he
stretched himself, stretched long and luxuriously. His very animal
revelling in the huge elongation of cramped limbs was exasperating. Next
he clapped the slouch on his head, and clambered down.
Jacqueline might have been surprised to see him. Her brows lifted. "Not
killed?" she exclaimed. "But no, of course not. You gave yourself air,
you ran away."
Driscoll made no answer. He was thinking of what to do next. She knew
that he had run because of her, and she was piqued because he would not
admit it. "So," she went on tauntingly, "monsieur counts his enemy by
numbers then?"
"Didn't count them at all," he murmured absently.
"But," and she tapped her foot, "a Frenchman, he would have done it--not
that way."
She was talking in English, and the quaintness of it began to create in
him a desire for more. "Done what, miss?" he asked.
"He would not have run--a Frenchman."
"Prob'bly not, 'less he was pretty quick about it."
She looked up angrily. Of course he must know that he had been splendid,
up there behind the rocks. And now to be unconscious of it! But that was
only a pose, she decided. Yet what made him so stupidly commonplace, and
so dense? She hated to be robbed of her enthusiasm for an artistic
bric-a-brac of emotion; and here he was, like some sordid mechanic who
would not talk shop with a girl.
"I wager one thing," she fretted, "and it is that when you bring men
down to earth you have not even at all--how do you say?--the martial
rage in your eyes?"
"W'y, uh, not's I know of. It might spoil good shooting."
"And your pipe"--her lip curled and smiled at the same time--"the pipe
does not, neither?"
His mouth twitched at the corners. "N-o," he decided soberly, "not in
close range."
She gave him up, he had no pose. Still, she was out of patience with
him. "Helas! monsieur, all may see you are Ameri-can. But there, you
have not to feel sorry. I forgive you, yes, because--it wasn't dull."
"Hadn't we better be----"
"Now what," she persisted, "kept you so long up there, for example?"
Driscoll reddened. He had lingered behind the screen of rock to bandage
his furrowed leg. "S'pose you don't ask," he said abruptly, "there's
plenty other things to be doing."
He turned and invited the little Breton maid to come from the shack. She
was white, and trembled a little yet. "I knew, I knew you would not
leave us, monsieur," she was trying to tell him. "But if you had--oh,
what would madame----"
"Now then," the practical American interrupted, "where's Murgie?"
Jacqueline pointed with the toe of her slipper. There were prostrate
bodies around them, with teeth bared, insolent, silent, horrible. One
couldn't be sorry they were dead, but one didn't like to see them.
Jacqueline's boot pointed to a man lying on his face. A silk hat was
near by in the dust. A rusty black wig was loosened from his head. The
girl invoked him solemnly. "Arise, Ancient Black Crow, and live another
thousand years."
Driscoll lifted the shrunken bundle of a man, held him at arm's length,
looked him over, and stood him on his feet. The withered face was more
than ever like a death's head, and the eyes were glassy, senseless. But
as to hurt or scratch, there was none. The beady orbs started slowly in
their sockets, rolling from side to side. The lips opened, and formed
words. "Killed? yes, I am killed. But I want--my cotton, my burros, my
peons--I want them. I am dead, give them to me."
"You're alive, you old maverick."
The gaze focused slowly on Driscoll, and slowly wakened to a crafty
leer. Believe this Gringo?--not he!
With an arm behind his shoulders Driscoll forced him down the trail to
his caravan. Most of the animals were lying down, dozing under their
packs. Murguia's eyes grew watery when he saw them, but he was still
dazed and his delusion was obstinate. The leer shot exultant gleams. "A
rich man _can_ enter heaven," he chuckled with unholy glee.
"Oh wake up, and give me two donkeys for the girls. Their horses got
hit, you know."
Then the stunned old miser began to perceive that he was not in heaven.
His tyrant's voice! "You get my horses killed," he whined, "and now you
take my burros."
Driscoll said no more, but picked out two beasts and bound some
cushioned sacking on their backs for saddles. Then with a brisk hearty
word, he swept Berthe up on the first one.
"Next," he said, turning to Jacqueline.
But the marchioness drew back. Next--after her maid! It nettled her that
this country boy, or any other, could not recognize in her that
indefinable something which is supposed to distinguish quality.
"What's the matter, now?" he asked. "Quick, please, I'm in a hurry."
"It's too preposterous. I'll not!"
"You will," he said quietly.
Her gray eyes deepened to blue with amazement. She stood stock still,
haughtily daring him. She even lifted her arms a little, leaving the
girlish waist defenseless. Her slender figure was temptation, the pretty
ducal fury was only added zest. Up among the rocks Driscoll had found
himself whispering, "She's game, that little girl!" But at the same time
he had remembered Rodrigo's innuendo, the linking of her name with
Maximilian's. She was so brave, and so headstrong, so lovably
headstrong, and her beauty was so fresh and soft! Yet he could not but
think of that taint in what nature had made so pure. Of a sudden there
was a something wrong, something ugly and hideously wrong in life. And
the country boy, the trooper, the man of blood-letting, what you will,
was filled with helpless rage against it; and next against himself,
because the girlish waist could thrill him so. "A silly little
butterfly," he argued inwardly. Before, he had been unaware of his own
indifference. But now he angrily tried to summon it back. He set his
mind on their situation, on what it exacted. It exacted haste, simple,
impersonal haste. And keeping his mind on just that, he caught her up.
"Oh, you boor!" she cried, pushing at him.
His jaw hardened. His will was well nigh superhuman, for he battled
against two furious little hands, against the dimple and the patch so
near his lips, against the fragrance of her hair, against the subtle
warmth of his burden.
"No, no!" she panted. "Monsieur, do you hear me? I am not to be
carried!"
"Maybe not," said he, carrying her.
A moment later she discovered herself planted squarely on the burro.
"Bonte divine!" she gasped. But she took care not to fall off.
He drew a long breath.
"Now whip 'em up," he commanded.
* * * * *
The first village beyond, where Dupin had promised to meet Jacqueline,
was a squatting group of thatched cones in a dense forest of Cyprus and
eucalyptus. Its denizens were Huasteca Indians, living as they had
before the Conquest, among themselves still talking their native
dialect. The name of the hamlet was Culebra.
The coy twilight waned quickly, and the caravan was still pushing on
through the thick darkness of the wood, when a high tensioned yelping
made the vast silence insignificant, ugly. But as the travelers filed
into the clearing where the village was, the curs slunk away with coyote
humility, their yellow points of eyes glowing back on the intruders.
With a forager's direct method, Driscoll roused the early slumbering
village. He would not take alfafa, he declined rastrojo. It was human
food, corn, that he bought for his horse. He housed his dumb friend
under a human roof too. After which he prepared a habitation for the
women. He swept the likeliest hut clean of ashes, brazier, and bits of
pots and jars. He carpeted the earth floor in Spanish moss, as King
Arthur's knights once strewed their halls with rushes. It was luxury for
a coroneted lass, if one went back a dozen centuries. There were chinks
between the sooty saplings that formed the wall, but over these he hung
matting, and he drove a stake for a candle.
Supper followed. The trooper chose to change Don Anastasio from host to
guest, and he exacted what he needed from the Inditos. They, for their
part, were alert before his commands. None of them had been overlooked
in his preliminary largesse of copper tlacos and they made the teaming
wilderness contribute to his spread. Kneeling, with sleeves rolled from
his hard forearms, he broiled a steak over hickory forks. The torches of
gum tree knots lighted his banquet, and the faces of the two girls, rosy
in the blaze and mysterious in the shadow, were piquant inspiration.
Even the sharp features of Don Anastasio stirred him into a phase of
whimsical benevolence. He knocked two chickens from their perch in a
tree and baked them in a mould of clay. There was an armadilla too,
which a Culebra boy and the dogs had run down during the day. Its dark
flesh was rich and luscious, and the Missourian fondly called it
'possum. Crisply toasted tortillas, or corn cakes, served for bread, and
for spoons as well. But to Driscoll's mind the real feast was
coffee--actual coffee, which he made black, so very good and black, a
riotous orgie of blackness and strength and fragrance. Here was a feast
indeed for the poor trooper. He thought of the chickory, of the parched
corn, of all those pitiful aggravations that Shelby's Brigade had tried
so hard to imagine into coffee during the late months of privation along
the Arkansas line.
And the Marquise d'Aumerle? Learning to eat roasting ears, which somehow
just would leave a grain on her cheek with every bite, the dainty
Marquise thought how much finer was this than the tedious bumping ship.
How much more tempting than the ultra-belabored viands on white china
that had to be latticed down! Here was angel's bread in the wilderness.
And the appetite that drove her to ask for more, that was the only
sauce--an appetite that was a frisson. A new sensation, in itself!
And later, sleep too became a passion, a passion new and sweet in its
incantation out of the lost cravings of childhood. When the nearer
freshness of the woods filled her nostrils, there from the live-oak moss
in her night's abode, she smiled on the grave young fellow who had left
her at the door. And both girls laughing together over the masculine
notions for their comfort, knew a certain happy tenderness in their
gaiety.
"Eh, but it's deep, madame," said one.
"It's the politeness of the heart," the other explained.
Outside Driscoll spread his blanket across the doorway where his horse
was sheltered, and wrapped in his great cape-coat, he stretched himself
for a smoke. But Murguia came with cigars, of the Huasteca, gray and
musty. Driscoll accepted one, waving aside the old man's apologies. He
puffed and waited. Conviviality in Don Anastasio meant something.
"Ah, amigo," the thin voice cracked in a spasm of forced heartiness,
"ah, it was a banquet! Si, si, a banquet! Only, if there were but a
liqueur, a liqueur to give the after-cigar that last added relish,
verdad, senor?"
Driscoll tapped his "after-cigar" till the ashes fell. "Well? he asked.
"Ai de mi, caballero, but I am heavy with regrets. I can offer nothing.
My poor cognac--no, not after such a feast. But whiskey--ah, whiskey is
magnifico. It is American."
He stopped, with a genial rubbing of his bony hands. But his sad
good-fellowship was transparent enough, and in the darkness his eyes
were beads of malice. Driscoll half grunted. A long way round for a
drink, he thought. "Here," he said, getting out his flask, "have a pull
at this."
Murguia took it greedily. He had seen the flask before. The covering of
leather was battered and peeled. "Perhaps a little--water?" he faltered.
Driscoll nodded, and off the old Mexican ambled with the flask. When he
returned, he had a glass, into which he had poured some of the liquor.
The canteen he handed back to the trooper, who without a word replaced
it in his pocket. Murguia lingered. He sipped his toddy absently.
"I, I wonder why the friends of the senoritas do not come?" he ventured.
"Want to get rid of them, eh, Murgie?"
The old man shrugged his shoulders. "And why not? You may not believe
me, senor, but should I not feel easier if they were--well, out of the
reach of Don Rodrigo?"
"Out of----Look here, where's the danger now?"
"Ai, senor, don't be too sure. Colonel Dupin still does not come, and it
might be--because the guerrillas have stopped him."
"Man alive, he had 'em running!"
"H'm, yes, but there's plenty more. This very village breeds them, feeds
them, welcomes them home. Don Rodrigo can gather ten times what he had
to-day. And if he does, and if, if he is looking for the senoritas
again----"
Driscoll shifted on his blanket. "I see," he drawled. "F'r instance, if
the senoritas vanish before he gets here, he won't blame you? Oh no, you
were asleep, you couldn't know that I had up and carried 'em off.
Anyhow, you'd rather risk Rodrigo than Colonel Dupin----Yes, I see." He
tucked his saddle under his head, and lay flat, blinking at the stars.
"This trail go on to Valles?" he inquired drowsily.
Murguia's small eyes brightened over him. "Yes," he said, eagerly.
"Correct," yawned the American, "I've already made sure."
"And if----" But a snore floated up from the blanket.
When Murguia was gone, the sleeper awoke. He carefully poured out all
the remaining whiskey. "It may be what they call 'fine Italian,'" he
muttered, with a disgusted shake of the head, but he neglected to throw
the flask away as well. Next he saddled Demijohn and two of the pack
horses, then lay down and slept in earnest, as an old campaigner
snatches at rest.
The night was black, an hour before the dawn, when his eyes opened wide,
and he sat up, listening. He heard it again, faint and far away, a
feeble "pop-pop!" Then there were more, a sudden pigmy chorus of battle.
He got to his feet, and ran to call the two women.
"So," said Jacqueline, appearing under the stars, "monsieur does not
wish to be relieved of us? He will not wait for his friends?"
"Get on these horses! Here, I'll help you."
Soon they three were riding through the forest, in the trail toward
Valles. Behind them the fairy popping swelled louder, yet louder, and
the man glanced resentfully at his two companions. He was missing the
game.
Back in the village of Culebra a demon uproar hounded Don Anastasio out
of serape and slumber. All about him were fleeing feet. They were
shadows, bounding like frightened deer from the wood, across the
clearing, and into the wood again. Some turned and fired as they ran.
Screaming women and children hurried out of the _jacales_, and
darted here and there. Dogs howled everywhere. A storm of crashing brush
and a wild troop of horsemen, each among them a free lance of butchery,
burst on the village. A second crashing storm, and they were in the
forest again. They left quivering blots in their wake, and a moaning
gave a lower and dreadfuller note to the wailing of women. Only the
leader of the pursuers, with a few others, drew rein.
"Death of an ox!" the French oath rang out, "We're in their very nest.
Quick, you loafers, the torch, the torch!"
Flames began to crackle, and in the glare Murguia was seen frantically
driving burros and peons to safety. The leader of the troop leaned over
in his saddle and had him by the collar.
"Who the name of a name are you?"
Don Anastasio looked up. His captor was a great bearded man. "Colonel
Dupin!" he groaned.
"Who are you?--But I should know. It's the trader, the accomplice of
Rodrigo. Sacre nom, tell me, where is she? We can't find her here. Where
is she?"
"How can I know, senor? She--perhaps she is gone."
"With Rodrigo--ha! But he'll have no ransom--no, not if it breaks
Maximilian's heart.--Now, Senor Trader----"
He stopped and called to him his nearest men. Murguia sank limp.
"But he hasn't got her! Rodrigo hasn't got her!"
"Who has then?"
"The other one, the American."
"Which way did they go?"
"If Your Mercy will not----"
"Shoot him!" thundered the Tiger.
"But if he will tell us?" someone interposed.
It was Don Tiburcio, still the guardian angel of the golden goose.
"Bien," growled the Tiger, "let him live then until we find the
American."
"Which way did they go?" Tiburcio whispered in Murguia's ear.
"To, to Valles," came the reply.
The blazing huts revealed a ghoulish joy on the miser's face. The
Gringo, not he, would now have to explain to the Tiger.