hesitated. They were brave enough for death, but before
the certainty of death for at least one among them and the uncertainty
of which one, they paused. Driscoll had not touched the black
six-shooters under his ribs. That would have snapped the psychological
fetter. As he expected, Mendez sprang first. This put an unarmed man
between himself and the others. In the instant he wheeled, was in the
saddle, and clattering down the street.

Back in the room Mendez saw his blunder and made way. Ney passed him
first, reached the door, aimed and fired. But someone behind him touched
his arm, and the ball sped high. Ney turned, and saw Tiburcio filling
the door against the others, and regarding him with evil challenge in
his eye.

"Oh, don't think that I hold it against you," Ney cried gratefully.

Tiburcio half laughed.

"A man who don't want prisoners shot is better with the enemy than
dead," he said.

Tiburcio's chuckle was prophetic. The enemy invariably executed
Exploradores, and would certainly do as much for Don Tiburcio if they
caught him.

Ney heard the hoof beats, already far away.

"May the god of fools look after him too," he murmured heavily.

The fugitive swept round the first corner of the street and on through
the town. None thought to stop him. Soldiers and townsmen supposed him
on the Empire's urgent business, and when they knew better, there was no
longer hope for their ponies against the great Missouri buckskin, now a
diminishing dusty speck mid cacti and maguey.

"The devil of it is," Driscoll muttered ruefully, "I don't know where
there's anybody to desert _to_!"

However, he was feeling much better.

CHAPTER III

AS BETWEEN WOMEN

"A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market."--_Lamb._

Jacqueline had wrought close to success during that May twilight on the
edge of the Cuernavaca pond. She had won a promise of abdication. Yet in
the end it was not the Emperor that left Mexico, but the Empress. And
Jacqueline was to accompany her, to leave despite herself the scene of
her labors. Such was the case precisely, and it all came to pass in this
wise.

Maddened by the distance which his temptress kept, also goaded to it by
the sorry state of his empire, Maximilian thought only of abdication.
Napoleon responded to Jacqueline's cipher dispatch with orders to
Bazaine. But Bazaine, urged thereto by Empress and marechale, ignored
the orders, and advanced Maximilian more money. And M