have saved their
Emperor!"

Driscoll half snorted, and turned on his heel. But he stopped, his lips
pressed to a clean, hard line. "What of those townsmen in the trenches?"
he demanded. "It wasn't their fight."

Maximilian's eyes opened very wide, and slowly his expression changed.
The thick lower lip drooped and quivered. Suddenly he came nearer the
American, a trembling hand outstretched.

"I was saved that," he murmured earnestly.

"They were," the grim trooper corrected him.

"The townsmen, yes. But I--I was kept from murder. God in heaven, I
would have murdered them! Ah, senor, if I could put to my account a
night's work such as yours, that night, when you used the traitor! I
could almost thank Lopez. I do thank you."

Still Driscoll failed to notice the proffered hand. He might have, had
he seen his suppliant's face, and the tense anguish there.

"Those innocent non-combatants, then," Maximilian went on, "so they
counted more than a prince with you?"

"Of course, there were a thousand of 'em."

The other's haggard look gave way to a smile, half sad, half amused, and
taking the American by the shoulder in a grip almost affectionate, he
said, "Colonel, did you ever happen to know of one Don Quixote of La
Mancha? Well, lately I've begun to think that he was the truest of
gentlemen, though now I believe I could name another who----"

"And," interrupted Driscoll, "did you ever try to locate the most
dignified animal that walks, bipeds not excepted? Well, sir, it's the
donkey. Take him impartially, and you'll say so too."

The strain was over. Maximilian laughed. "If Don Quixote had only had
your sanity!" he began; "or rather," he added, charmed with the conceit,
"if knighthood had had it, then the poor don would never have been
needed to be born at all."

Ignoring the sincerity of the Hapsburg's new philosophy, and how
tragically it was grounded, Driscoll only smiled in a very peculiar way.
Knighthood? The word was supercilious cant, and irritated him. During
that very moment, while listening to Chivalry's devotee, the young
trooper thought of a little ivory cross in his pocket, a cross which was
stained with a girl's blood. Murguia had given it to him, to give to
Maximilian on the eve of execution. But Driscoll had not promised, and
yet Murguia had implored him to take it, even without promising. The old
man held faith in vengeance as a spring to drive all souls alike, and if
Maximilian's last earthly m