te now. I don't know what's happened since I started down here
three weeks ago. Richmond was in danger then. And the Army of Northern
Virginia--General Lee----"

"Have surrendered," calmly interposed the Emperor.

Driscoll stiffened as he stood, his lips parted as his last word had
left them. He wondered why these foreign, unsympathetic beings of
Austria and France and Belgium and Germany and Mexico looked so blurred
to him. He never imagined that there were tears in his eyes.

"It is really true," continued Maximilian, addressing them all. "A
courier brought me the news this morning. Yes, my friends, the North is
free at last to attack our Empire. But," he added blandly, "let us not
fear, not while we are sustained by the unconquered legions of France."

"How he remembers us now!" thought Jacqueline.

She thought too of him who had sent the legions. The entire fabric of
Napoleon's dream of Mexican empire was builded on the dismemberment of
the American Union. But, as the Southerners began so well by themselves,
Napoleon had left them to do his work alone. He just failed of genius.

"Oh, mon petit, _bien_ petit Napoleon," she cried in her soul, "how
terribly you have miscalculated!"

The room had filled with murmurs, with awed whispering, with frightened
questioning looks at one's neighbor, with ambitions and hates gone
panic-stricken. Driscoll came forward. The fellow of homespun held the
Empire in his hand, if they but knew it. "Now let me deliver my
message," he said earnestly. "And, afterward, on with the drum-head,
I'll not complain."

"There, there," spoke the unseeing monarch, though affected by the
dignity of sorrow, "you shall have no cause. I came here, meaning to
pardon."

"Pardon?" came the Tiger's growl. "Your Majesty saves so many enemies,
does he fear that soon he will have none left?"

"Perhaps, Colonel Dupin, since my imperial brother, Napoleon, sends me
so efficient a bloodhound. But I thought the prisoners were already
tried and condemned. That must come first, of course. Yet We are
constrained to find another judge, one without preconceived notions of
guilt, to hold the court martial. Ah yes, as Monsieur Eloin here
suggests, I name Colonel Lopez.--Colonel Lopez, you will stay behind
with a company of your own men. Finish the trial to-night, if you can,
and overtake me before I reach the city.--Colonel Dupin, I have to
request yourself and men as escort, to replace the Dragoons left with
C