"He was trying to pa.s.s through our lines," one explained. "And when we stopped him, he begged hard to be brought to the Coronel Gringo, that is, to you, senor."

The mess turned curiously on Driscoll. Why a half dead soldier of the Batallon del Emperador should have a preference as to his jailer was beyond them. But they were yet more puzzled to hear Driscoll address the prisoner by name.

"See here, Murgie," he said, "is this the occasion Rodrigo meant when he talked about my meeting you soon? Is it? Come, crawl out of the gra.s.s.

Show us what you're up to. No, wait, feed first. There's plenty left."

But the old man had not once glanced toward the table. Whatever the pangs of hunger, another torment was uppermost.

"What do you mean by this," Boone demanded, as though personally offended, "you've got the hospital color, dull lead on yellow? Here, take a drink. Yes, I know, it's mescal, out-and-out embalmed deviltry that no self-respecting drunkard would touch, but Lord A'mighty, man, you need _something!_"

Murguia shook his head irritably. Offers of what his body craved were annoying hindrances before the craving of his soul. He twitched himself free of the sentinels, and limped painfully to where Driscoll sat. He wore no coat, but his green pantaloons with their crimson stripes were rolled to the knee, and the white calzoncillos beneath flapped against his skeleton ankles. His feet were bare, the better for an errand of stealth in the night. He was a pitiful spectacle, yet a repulsive, and the Americans despised themselves for the strange impulse they had to kick him out like a dog. They watched him wonderingly as he tried to speak. He panted from his late rough handling by the sentry, and his half-closed wound gave excruciating pain. The muscles of his face jerked horribly, but his will was tremendous, merciless, and at last the cords of the jaw knotted and hardened.

"To-morrow morn--morning," he began, "the Emperor will fight. It is arranged for--for daybreak, senores. To to fight--to break through--to--to ESCAPE!"

"W'y then," exclaimed Harry Collins, the Kansan, "_good_ for him!"

The parson s.n.a.t.c.hed off his bra.s.s-bowed spectacles, and his brow lowered fiercely over his cherubic eyes.

"And so _you_ had to come and tell us?" he demanded.

But the traitorous old man had not the smallest thought of his shame, nor could have.

"You--you will let him _escape?_" he challenged them in frantic anger.

The mess stole abashed glances at one another. They would, they knew well enough, have to act on this information. But they were men for a fair fight, and they had no stomach to rob the besieged of a last desperate chance. For a moment they were enraged against the informer.

"We'll just keep him here," said one.

"Yes, till morning. Then he'll tell no one else, and _we_ won't.

Poor old Maxie!"

"Sure," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Collins, "give Golden Whiskers a show!"

The wolfish light in the sunken eyes quickened to a flash. l.u.s.t for Maximilian's capture turned to chagrin.

"Senores, senores mios," he whined, "you do not know yet, you do not know, that if Maximilian is not taken----"

"Ah, here now," growled Clay of Carroll, "you needn't worry so much.

He'll be driven back into the town all right, I reckon."

"And what then, senor? No, you do not know. Your general, senores--General Escobedo--has orders to--to raise the siege."

"_What?_"

"Si senor, to _raise_ the siege! The orders are from San Luis, from the Senor Presidente there. He--he thinks the siege has lasted long enough."

"Great Scot!"

"Precisamente. Yes, it would look like--defeat. It would, if--you don't capture Maximilian by daybreak."

Meagre Shanks brought his boot soles wrathfully to the ground, kicking the stool back of him. His whole mien exuded a newspaper man's contempt for faking. "Now then, young fellow," and he shook a long finger at the ancient Mexican, "here you know all that Maximilian knows. And here again you know all that the Presidente knows. All right, s'pose you just tell us now more or less about how mighty little you _do_ know?"

"It's--it's like a message from El Chaparrito," the parson demurred.

"From Shorty?" Daniel almost roared. "Oh come, Clem, don't you go to mixing up the unseen and all-seeing guardian of the Republica with this dried-up, wild-eyed specimen of a dried-up--of, of an old rascal. No one ever hears from El Chaparrito 'less there's a crisis on, and is there one on now? You know there ain't. If there was, someone would be hearing from Shorty--Driscoll there, prob'bly. But there ain't. Shucks, this old codger is only plum' daft. Aren't you now"--he appealed querulously to Murguia, "aren't you just crazy--_say?_"

But even as the Americans breathed easier, they stared aghast at the old man.

"Crazy?" he repeated. "Crazy?" he fairly shrieked, clutching Boone by the sleeve. "No, I am not! Senor, say that I am not! No, no, no, I am not crazy, not yet--not--not before it is done, not--before----"

"G.o.d!" Boone half whispered. "Look at his eyes now!"

The old man checked himself in trembling. No help for him lay in human testimony. But there was his own will, which had driven his frail body.

Now as a demon it gripped his mind and held it from the brink.

"Go, out of here, all of you!" he burst on them. "Go, I have more to tell--more, more, more, do you understand?--but I'll tell it to no one, to no one, unless to Mister Dreescol."

A raving maniac or not, canards or not, there might be in all this what was vital. The Americans stirred uneasily, in a kind of awe, and at a nod from Driscoll they left the tent.

Murguia grew quieter at once. His faculties tightened on the effort before him. He was alone with the man who would understand, so he thought; who had the same reason to understand, so he thought.

Driscoll had shared nothing of the late emotions. He had smoked impa.s.sively. His interest was of the coldest. Only his eyes, narrowed fixedly on the Mexican, betrayed the heed he gave. When the others were gone, he uncrossed his legs, and crossed them the other way, and thrust the corncob into his pocket.

"Sit down!"

Murguia dropped to the nearest camp stool.

"Now then, you with your dirty little affairs, why do you come to me?"

Murguia leaned forward over the table between them, his bony arms among candles and a litter of earthen plates. The odor of meat a.s.sailed his nostrils. But the hunger in his leer had no scent for food.

"This _is_ the time I meant, senor, when Rodrigo told you that you would see me."

"About the ivory cross? But I gave you that a month ago."

"A month ago--a month, wasted! How much sooner I would have come, only another had to be--persuaded--first."

"Oh, had he? Then it's not about the cross? And this other? Suppose I guess? He was--he was the red-haired puppy, my old friend the Dragoon, who carried you off wounded that day? Humph, the very first guess, too!"

Murguia darted at him a look of uneasy admiration.

"I would have told Your Mercy, anyway," he said, half cringing. "Yes, he is Colonel Lopez."

"And you 'persuaded' him?"

"Events did. Since the siege began I've tried, I've worked, to convince him that these same events would happen. Ugh, the dull fool, he had to wait for them."

"I can almost guess again," said Driscoll, as though it were some curious game, "but if you'd just as soon explain----"