is?" she apostrophized his back.
"But I shall not tell you. And she--no, she is not the kind that would,
knowing who _you_ are."

CHAPTER XVIII

LITTLE MONARCHS, BIG MISTAKES

"How now, good fellow? wouldst thou speak with us?"
"Yea, forsooth, an your mistership be emperial."
--_Titus Andronicus._

For the moment, Colonel Dupin had established headquarters in the
granary, which was a long, low adobe among the stables, with a pasture
between it and the House. The pasture opened on the highway through a
wide gap in the hacienda wall, and the coaches and steeds of the
imperial party which had passed in that morning gave the old cow lot a
gala air. The colonel was seated before a box, improvised into a desk,
and his rusty jacketed Cossacks lounged everywhere. Tiburcio and other
scouts were reporting on the dead and wounded of yesterday's raid. A
maimed enemy brought a chuckle deep in the Tiger's throat, but any
mishap to one of his own darlings got the recognition of a low-growled
oath. He was busy over this inventory of profit and loss when Jacqueline
appeared with the Emperor.

Dupin arose and saluted after the grim manner of an old soldier. The
half-dozen of obsequious courtiers he did not see at all, but to
Jacqueline he bent from the waist with a duellist's punctilio. His
countrywoman was the one adversary whom he never thought of cursing.

There was an opening innuendo. "No, Colonel Dupin," Maximilian reproved
him sternly, "I have not come to interfere with justice. I merely desire
to see what prisoners you have here."

Driscoll and Murguia were brought in. Maximilian stared dumfounded at
his new magistrate in the role of criminal. Don Anastasio looked
apologetic. They had locked him up in his own stable, bronze medal and
all. Dupin explained. This Murguia, like many another hacendado, had
long been suspected of aiding the guerrillas, and yesterday morning he
had actually set him, Dupin, on a false trail. The Contras were tracking
one of Rodrigo Galan's accomplices in the abduction of Mademoiselle
d'Aumerle. The accomplice was the other prisoner, the American, whom
they had found at last taking refuge at Murguia's own hacienda. Here he
had had the effrontery to welcome them as mademoiselle's rightful
escort, had even seemed surprised when a dozen Contras pounced upon him
from behind and disarmed him. Dupin added that mademoiselle herself was
deceived by the Ameri