EQUIDAD EN LA JUSTICIA
"... and I think I shall begin to take pleasure in being at home
and minding my business. I pray God I may, for I finde a great
need thereof." --_Pepys's Diary_.
An hour later the candles were still guttering in the court room, and
here Colonel Lopez assembled his minions of justice a second time. In
his manner now there was nothing of the uncertainty, nor the feigning of
penetration, which had before marked his handling of the trials. He
pounded the box with his sword.
"In the light of new evidence," he announced shortly, "the two cases of
a while ago are reopened."
Din Driscoll strolled in. "I've come for my belt and pistols. Dupin took
them," he said.
Lopez signed to the Dragoons to close round him. Then he gave vent. Did
the Senor Gringo laugh so much at Mexican justice, since instead of
escaping while he had the chance, he came back, coolly demanding his
property? It was insolence!
"_Gra_-cious," exclaimed Driscoll in his counterfeit of a startled
old lady, "what's the matter?"
But Lopez put on a mien of dark cunning, and replied that he would find
out later.
Murguia's case came first. The stricken father was there, dragged from
his dead by the petty concerns of this world which cannot bide for
grief. He was as a sleep-walker. He had come into another universe. The
hacienda sala, where his child lay mid tapers, where mumbled prayers
arose, or this adobe, where uniformed men fouled the air with cigarettes
and looked after the Empire's business--the one or the other, both
places were of that other universe, dark and silent, in which his dazed
being groped alone.
The new element in the court martial was Tiburcio, and Tiburcio had in
mind one golden goose to save and one meddling Gringo to lose. He
riddled the foregoing evidence with refreshing originality. He testified
to the brigand attack for possession of the marquise. Had he not found
Don Anastasio stretched upon the ground? Had not the dauntless anciano,
the self-same Don Anastasio, fallen in defence of the two French
senoritas? And yet, did he not keep Rodrigo at bay? Si, senores, he had
indeed, until Colonel Dupin and the Contras arrived. He, the witness,
was with them. He had seen these things. Now, let anyone say that the
loyal Senor Murguia was an accomplice of that cut-throat without shame,
Rodrigo Galan; whom he, the witness, loathed from the innermost recesses
of his being; whom he, the witness, should be greatly pleased to strike
dead. But let anyone again besmirch the character of Don Anastasio!
"No, no," vociferously growled the Austrian.
Lopez opposed nothing. He had a clear notion this time as to what he
wanted. Driscoll marveled, and enjoyed it. Pigheadedness had made Don
Anastasio guilty, why shouldn't perjury make him innocent? And it did.
The mountain of suspicion and some few pebbles of evidence melted away
as lard in a skillet. The verdict was acquittal.
Driscoll knew well enough that the presence of the loyal Imperialist
with the baleful eye meant a reversal in his own case too. But the
recent and very definite animus of Lopez against him he could in no way
fathom. The blackmailer testified again. The prisoner, this Americano,
had waylaid him in the wood two days before, and had robbed him of his
last cent.
"Which you stole from Murgie," suggested the prisoner.
"I? I steal from Murguia?" cried Tiburcio indignantly. "Ask him! Ask
him!"
Murguia was asked. Had the witness ever, on any occasion, robbed him?
They repeated the question several times, and at last the rusty black
wig, which was bowed over a chair, slowly shook in the negative. Perhaps
he had settled a debt with the witness? The wig changed to an
affirmative.
Tiburcio gleamed triumphantly. "An audacious defence!" he exclaimed.
"But luckily for me, Don Anastasio is here."
"Oh, hurry up!" protested Driscoll.
Asked if he knew anything more of the prisoner, witness could not swear
for certain, except that he recognized in the American one of the
guerrillas who had ambushed and slain Captain Maurel near Tampico. Yes,
witness was scouting for the murdered captain at the time. Naturally,
witness was present.
"You wanted proof, Senor Americano, that you crossed the river?" said
Lopez. "Well, are you content now?"
"Go on," Driscoll returned. He was bored. "Some people on earth are
alive yet, but while Tibby is on the stand maybe I killed them too. I
wouldn't swear I didn't."
Murguia was called next, but he did not seem to hear. His body was bent
over his knees, silently trembling. A Dragoon pressed a hand on his
shoulder, but a sobbing groan racked his frame, as of a very sick man
who will not be awakened to his pain. The pause that followed was
uncanny--a syncope in the affairs of men like a gaping grave under
midnight clouds. Lopez spoke again. He regretted that they must intrude
on a fresh and poignant sorrow, but the case in hand was a matter of
state, before which the individual had to give way. It was very logical
and convincing. But the feeble old shoulders made no sign.
Tiburcio leaned over and shook him gently, and whispered in his ear.
Still Murguia did not move. Tiburcio gripped his arm. "You and Rodrigo,"
he said, so low that none could hear, "there was something arranged
between you. What was it? Tell me! Tell me, I say, if you want the
Gringo shot!"
He bent nearer, and against his ear came a muffled sound of lips. When
he straightened, it was to address the court.
If he might ask a question, had they searched the prisoner? They had.
But thoroughly? Thoroughly. But not enough to find anything? No. Then he
would suggest that they had not searched thoroughly. The court seemed
impressed, and Driscoll was fumbled over again. Still they found
nothing.
"Whose flask is that?" Tiburcio demanded, pointing to where it had been
tossed and forgotten. The prisoner's. "Look that over again," Tiburcio
insisted. A guard handed it to Lopez, who squinted inside. "There is
nothing," he said. It was only an old canteen whose leather covering was
dropping apart from rot.
Murguia's head raised, and his eyes fixed themselves on the judge, and
in their intense fixity glittered a quick, keen lust. It was hideous,
loathsome, fascinating. The eyes were swimming in tears, but their
hungered, metal-like sheen made the sorrow monstrous, and was the more
foul and ghastly because it distorted so pure a thing as sorrow.
Driscoll felt queerly that he must, must remove from the world this
decrepit old man who bemoaned a dead child. The itch for murder
terrified him, and he turned away angrily from the horrid face that
aroused it. But Murguia's stare never relaxed while Lopez toyed with the
canteen. And when Lopez, as though accidentally, thrust a finger under
the torn leather and brought out a folded paper, the bright points of
Murguia's eyes leaped to flame. But the head went down again, as once
more his grief swept over him, and another sob caught at the
heartstrings of every man there.
Lopez spread out the paper, and as he read, he started violently. He
passed it on to the Austrian and the color sergeant, and they also
started. But the most amazed was Driscoll, when he too had a chance to
read.
"Ha, you recognize it?" exclaimed the president.
"Sure I do. It's an order from Colonel Dupin to Captain Maurel. Rodrigo
had it in Tampico, making people think that _he_ was Captain
Maurel."
But the court was not so simple. "How came you by it?" demanded Lopez.
"Have occasion to be Maurel yourself sometime, eh?"
With wrath, with admiration, Driscoll faced round on Don Anastasio. "Oh
you pesky, shriveled-up gorilla!" he breathed. He was no longer amazed.
This accounted for Murguia's borrowing his flask the night they were in
the forest. It accounted for Murguia and Rodrigo plotting together in
Tampico. But why tell such things to the court? The Missourian was not a
fool like King Canute, who ordered back the waves. "Hurry up," he said
wearily to the waves instead. Since he could not hold the tide,
anticipation chilled more than the drowning bath itself.
The tide assuredly did not wait. It rolled right on, nearer and nearer.
Murguia was lifted to his feet. He was remembering already what Lopez
had told him, about his daughter and Maximilian, as Lopez had said he
would. The American's easy, stalwart form in gray filled his blurred
eyes. Here was a Confederate emissary come with an offer of aid for that
same Maximilian. Such had been Murguia's suspicion from the first, and
now it moved him with venomous hate. Yes, he would testify. Yes, yes,
the prisoner had ridden out alone at Tampico. Yes, yes, yes, the
prisoner was with Rodrigo there.
"But why, Don Anastasio," asked Tiburcio purely in fantastic mischief,
"did you bring such a disturbing man to our happy country?"
"That will do," Lopez interposed. "The Senor Murguia could not know at
the time that this fellow was Rodrigo's agent."
"And," Murguia added eagerly, "I was helpless, there at Mobile. The
Confederates could have sunk my boat, and he held an order from
Jefferson Davis."
"What's that?" cried Tiburcio, his humor suddenly vanished. "What's
that, an order from Jefferson Davis?"
Tiburcio's was a new interest, now. He possessed a mind as crooked as
his vision, and being crooked, it followed unerringly the devious paths
of other minds. So, they had made a tool of him! Rodrigo and Murguia
wanted the Gringo shot to help the rebel cause. And he, Tiburcio of the
cunning wits, had just sworn away, not only the Gringo's life, but the
possible salvation of the Empire. Coming from Jefferson Davis, the
Gringo with his mission could mean nothing else. Then there was Lopez.
Tiburcio did not love this changeling Mexican who had red hair. But what
could be the mongrel's game? Why had he freed Murguia, if not to unleash
a small terrier at Maximilian's heel? Why was he trying the American
over again, if not to poison a friendly mastiff? And why either, if Don
Miguel Lopez were not seeking to make friends with the Republic? Or
perhaps he was at heart a Republican. Thus Don Tiburcio, a loyal
Imperialist, read the finger posts as he ambled down the crooked path.
Yes, and here was Lopez putting on the final touch. Here he was, the
traitor, pronouncing the death sentence, and poor impotent Don Tiburcio
gnawing his baffled rage, as one would say of a villain. The execution
was to take place the very next morning. His Majesty the Emperor would
be asked to approve, afterward.