tered round the bed, and
tore away the sky-blue jacket, thinking to find the wound beneath.
Instead, they drew out a paper. One of them read the address on it.

"Al Senor Coronel Don Miguel Lopez."

Lopez broke the seal, frowned, and put the message in his pocket.
"Nothing--oh, nothing important," he volunteered. "Now, once for all,
let us finish our work."

"Wait!" a faint whisper came from the bed.

"He says to wait," doggedly repeated a cuirassier.

"Yes, wait," Driscoll pleaded suddenly. "Just a minute, before I go,
before we both go, perhaps,"--he thought in a flash that it might be a
last word from Jacqueline--"perhaps, gentlemen, he, he has something to
tell me."

But Ney's head, moving weakly on the pillow, was a negative.

The prisoner's voice grew firm again.

"Then hurry up!" he ordered in the old querulous drawl. "Don't you know
I'm in a hurry?"

Ney opened his eyes as he heard the shuffling of feet. Men were carrying
out the prisoner. With feeble anger he brushed aside the hand of a
cuirassier who was trying to staunch the blood at his groin.

"I--I----" His lips barely moved.

The cuirassier sprang to his feet. He looked to his fellows, spoke to
them. Puzzled, mystified, they rushed to the door and barred the way.

"We don't know why we came," stammered one, "and he can't speak. But his
signs are enough for us. It's, it's----"

"It's something to do with the American," declared a second cuirassier.

Dupin pounded back his half unsheathed blade. Brusquely he wheeled and
faced the colonel of Dragoons. "Lopez," he roared, "what was that
message?"

"N-nothing, mi coronel, absolutely."

"If it was from Maximilian, I'd know it to be a pardon, and not blame
you. But I recognized the marshal's seal, and that's different."

Lopez blanched, yet insisted again that the message was nothing.
"Besides, senor," he added, "I do not take orders from His Excellency,
the marshal."

"But _I_ do," thundered Dupin. "And I see them obeyed too. Oh, you
can protest to your Emperor afterwards, my royal guardsman, if you want
to, but a marshal of France is the law when I am near."

Grunting contemptuously, Dupin turned to the bedside. The cuirassiers
had gathered cobwebs from the rafters, and were dressing the wound.
Michel tossed and groaned in the beginning of delirium. Dupin muttered
with vexation, but he took hold of the lad's wrist, and firmly closed
his hand over it.

"Listen," he said, very distinctl