treasure and our dead," sighed Jacqueline bitterly, "we cannot
take _them_ back. No, nor our hopes, though they weigh little
enough now, for that matter. Oh dear, and _I_ am one of those
hopes!--Help me Heaven, else I shall hate my own country. Oh, I must be
true!--Now, _why_ couldn't those Missourians have sent--someone
else?"

That evening she held a pen, but it would not move, not while her
thoughts were upon it. So, by sheer will, she nerved herself not to
think, and wrote mechanically. She wrote a message to Lopez, and another
to Dupin, and yet a third. The third brought the tears long before it
was finished. An Austrian took the first two, and rode all that night.
She kept the other one herself.

This was the fifth day of their journey since leaving Murguia's
hacienda. They had taken pains to keep behind Lopez. Their pursuer,
ahead of them, had not made twenty miles the first day, for he had
delayed in order to search here and there. But the second day, he had
evidently accepted failure, and hastened on to overtake the Emperor. The
Emperor himself, after traveling constantly for a night and a day, had
rested a night and half a day to reflect on his late energy, and
thereafter he was proceeding as roadside ovations would permit.
Accordingly on this, the fifth night, Lopez was close behind the
Emperor, and both were within a day of the capital, and less than a day
ahead of Driscoll, Jacqueline and Ney.

All the next day Jacqueline kept to her coach. She was cross or
nervously excited or melancholy, and by erratic turns in every mood that
was hopelessly downcast, until her maid became well nigh frantic. At
first Ney would hover near in helpless concern, but she ordered him away
angrily. However, the storm broke at last when Driscoll reined in and
waited at the roadside. She could see him through the little front pane
of glass as the carriage drew nearer, and she watched with a fierce
hunger in her eyes. All the time she stirred in greater agitation, and
her breath came more and more quickly. At the very last moment, when a
second later he might have seen her, she sprang to the window, looked
once again, then in a fury snatched at the shade and jerked it down.
Driscoll paused uncertain, but wheeled and galloped back to the head of
the column. Berthe turned to her mistress. She was lying weakly against
the cushions, staring at nothing and panting for air.

Toward dusk they reached Tuxtla, a little pueblo on the hi