ped his mind and held it from the brink.

"Go, out of here, all of you!" he burst on them. "Go, I have more to
tell--more, more, more, do you understand?--but I'll tell it to no one,
to no one, unless to Mister Dreescol."

A raving maniac or not, canards or not, there might be in all this what
was vital. The Americans stirred uneasily, in a kind of awe, and at a
nod from Driscoll they left the tent.

Murguia grew quieter at once. His faculties tightened on the effort
before him. He was alone with the man who would understand, so he
thought; who had the same reason to understand, so he thought.

Driscoll had shared nothing of the late emotions. He had smoked
impassively. His interest was of the coldest. Only his eyes, narrowed
fixedly on the Mexican, betrayed the heed he gave. When the others were
gone, he uncrossed his legs, and crossed them the other way, and thrust
the corncob into his pocket.

"Sit down!"

Murguia dropped to the nearest camp stool.

"Now then, you with your dirty little affairs, why do you come to me?"

Murguia leaned forward over the table between them, his bony arms among
candles and a litter of earthen plates. The odor of meat assailed his
nostrils. But the hunger in his leer had no scent for food.

"This _is_ the time I meant, senor, when Rodrigo told you that you
would see me."

"About the ivory cross? But I gave you that a month ago."

"A month ago--a month, wasted! How much sooner I would have come, only
another had to be--persuaded--first."

"Oh, had he? Then it's not about the cross? And this other? Suppose I
guess? He was--he was the red-haired puppy, my old friend the Dragoon,
who carried you off wounded that day? Humph, the very first guess, too!"

Murguia darted at him a look of uneasy admiration.

"I would have told Your Mercy, anyway," he said, half cringing. "Yes, he
is Colonel Lopez."

"And you 'persuaded' him?"

"Events did. Since the siege began I've tried, I've worked, to convince
him that these same events would happen. Ugh, the dull fool, he had to
wait for them."

"I can almost guess again," said Driscoll, as though it were some
curious game, "but if you'd just as soon explain----"

"Listen! You remember two years ago at my hacienda, when Lopez sentenced
you to death? But why did he sentence you to death, why, senor?"

"That's an easy one. It was because he didn't want my offer of
Confederate aid to reach Maximilian."

"But why not? I will tell you. It