38

"COLONEL DUPIN" "The Tiger of the Tropics ... the chief of
Contra Guerrillas" 94

THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN 134

"MARIA DE LA LUZ" "The tapestry behind them parted and fell"
146

"BERTHE" "... brought down the ponderous knocker so
terrifically that it abashed her, for all her present
agitation" 220

PART FIRST

THE THORN IN THE LAND OF ROSES

"Array you, lordyngs, one and all,
For here begins no peace."
--_The Ballad of the Battle of Otterburn_

CHAPTER I

A WILFUL MAID ARRIVES FROM FRANCE

"I'll tell thee, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France,
full of ambition."--_As You Like It._

Jacqueline was a gentlewoman of France. But there was usually mischief
in her handsome head, for all its queenly poise. Just now, she was
running away from the ship. Captain and officers of the _Imperatrice
Eugenie_, Imperial red pantaloons, gilt Imperial eagles, such tokens
of awe were yet not awful enough to hold Jacqueline. So, with the
humility of limp things in that sticky air, the sailors shoved closer in
the small boat and made place for the adjustment of crisp skirts. With
the lady went her gentle little Breton maid, who trembled with the
trembling of every plank in those norther-rocked waters. The high sun,
just showing himself after the late gale, was sucking a gummy moisture
out upon all surfaces, and the perspiring men felt mean and base before
the starchy freshness of the two girls.

No one was pleased that Jacqueline was going, except Jacqueline herself.
But she was keen for it. She had been impervious to their flustered
anxiety, also to the tributes to her importance betrayed therein. In
vain they argued no fewer than two emperors to dissuade her. She meant
to have a walk on the shore and--a demure Parisian shrug settled it.

Jacqueline rested a high-heeled boot on a coil of rope and blithely
hummed an old song--"Mironton, mironton, mirontaine!" Oh, how she had
wearied of bumping, heaving, bumping! At first she had enjoyed the
storm. It was a new kind of play, and the mise-en-scene was quite
adequate. But ennui had surged in again long before danger had surged
out. And now she considered that some later sensation was due her, just
as supper after an evening of fastin