"Johnny the Baptist!" he exclaimed. "Well, well, how goes it itself to
Your Mercy this evening?"

"Pues bien, senor," returned the Baptist, grinning sheepishly. "Would,
would Y'r Mercy like another bath?" The grimace was not unamiable. It
betokened that this time he, and not the prisoner, might have a game to
play.

"A thousand thanks," replied Driscoll, "but I'll try to make that other
bath answer."

"But senor, you wasted it."

"Well, perhaps so. You see, Johnny, it was this way. I had only one bath
coming, and on the other hand there were two things to save. Do you
know, Johnny, I've been mortified ever since, to think how I squandered
my one bath in saving just my life, and how I left my soul to bustle
along for itself."

The Baptist drew nearer. "But suppose, senor," he whispered, "suppose
the need of absolution was again postponed, even now?"

Driscoll's fork stopped half way to his mouth. There was no superstition
in the affair this time. The once gullible Dragoon, moreover, was
playing all the leads. "Of course," Driscoll agreed heartily, "I'd
certainly like it right well," and he went on eating. But his wits were
in a receptive state, alert for the meaning when it should come. The
opening innuendoes exasperated him, for the guard was a clumsy agent.
The man must needs feign a great dread of discovery, and tremble lest
his colonel, Don Miguel Lopez, should find him out. As though supper,
instead of a shooting squad, did not belie it all?

"Still your move, Johnny," Driscoll had to remind him.

In the end it was to be gathered that Don Benito Juarez, the fugitive
Senor Presidente of the fugitive Republic, might welcome an offer of
Confederate aid, and 'twas a pity that the condemned senor should have
no chance to escape. But if he did escape, he might find his way to the
Senor Presidente far off in the state of Chihuahua.

So, the cards were dealt at last. Driscoll looked over his hand. He
recognized a crooked game, a game of treachery and dark dealing; but
even so he perceived that a trump or two had fallen to him, perhaps
unwittingly, and he decided to "sit in for a spell."

He began, with coy hesitancy, to beat his scruples around the bush,
which was not a bad lead. Supposing he turned his offer from Maximilian
to President Juarez, wouldn't it, well, look as though he did so to save
his hide? Brown Johnny opened his eyes as at something unfamiliar.
Driscoll went on. If he were shot, how was he t