he sentinels himself around La Cruz monastery."

"Oh, does he?" Driscoll whistled softly. "But what's your plan?" He put
the question sympathetically, which disturbed Don Anastasio vastly more
than the American's peremptory tone in the beginning. "What's your
plan?" he asked again, gently coaxing.

Murguia hesitated. This polite drawing-room interest was the most
ironical of encouragement for villainy. Driscoll frowned impatiently,
but at once he was smiling again. He placidly filled his corncob, and a
moment later, his gaze piercing the tobacco smoke, he said, "Then I'll
tell you. You're here to make a dicker, you and your tool between the
lines. The monastery of La Cruz on top of the bluff is the citadel of
Queretaro. Maximilian has his quarters there. The troops there are the
reserve brigade. This puppy, this mongrel, commands the reserve brigade.
He places the sentinels. And you are his orderly.--Oh, I haven't
forgotten how he let you off that time he condemned me!--So now you are
his orderly, for your own reasons and his. And here you are, talking
mysteriously about _capturing_ Maximilian. But you don't mean that,
snake. You are here to _sell_ him! Howsoever," and smiling a little
at the stilted phrasing, Driscoll paused and delicately rammed the
tobacco tighter in the bowl, "howsoever, Murgie, you've come to the
wrong market. No, there's no demand for Maximilians just now, not in
this booth. But why in blazes didn't you go to Escobedo? With his
Shylock beard, I reckon _he'd_ take a flyer in human flesh."

"I was going to him, but I came to you first, to take us there, to take
Lopez and myself, I--I thought you would manage it all, because
you--Your Mercy is the strongest, the most resourceful----"

"Resourceful enough, eh, to dodge the bullets you had fixed up for me
once? Thanks, Murgie, but I liked your attentions then better than your
slimy advances now. By the way, how are you going to get to Escobedo?"

The tone was honey itself.

Murguia gasped, yet not so much to find himself a prisoner, as to find
himself mistaken in the American.

"Now maybe," Driscoll suggested, "maybe you'll be wondering yourself why
you bring your dirty little affairs to me? Lopez may be an open book,
but you seem to've read _me_ wrong. Prob'bly the language is
foreign."

Murguia's jaw dropped, and he gaped as one who beholds the collapse of
high towering walls. It was his system of life, of motives calculated,
of humanity wei