dainty allied mysteries lay spread over the upholstery.
They were vanishing into cavernous trunks, with crushing indifference if
Jacqueline seized on a garment, but gently when Berthe rescued it, which
she always did. Through the double glass doors of the balcony the street
sounds below rose to their ears, clarion notes and vivas, hurrying feet
and prancing hoofs, and the National hymn a few blocks away in the
Zocalo.

Suddenly a grim apparition loomed before the glass doors on the balcony.
Berthe half screamed, in dismay clutching at ruffles and laces to hide
them, when into the sweet-scented confusion strode Mr. Daniel Boone. He
was the grim apparition. Jacqueline withheld her opinion, but she had
one. The intruder's spurs were iconoclastic of carpeting, his abrupt
presence of feminine sensibilities. But the lean, perspiring face drove
away all thought of the conventions. Jacqueline snatched up a fleecy
bank of petticoats, making room for him on the sofa. Daniel stared
vacantly. The two girls looked very pretty. They were just flurried
enough, and they wore white lawn, with sleeves short to the elbow. His
fingers groped, and soon they closed over a small, instinctive hand. He
kept hold upon that hand for strength, at the same time collapsing on
the sofa.

"Now, if you please," said Jacqueline calmly, "what----"

"O Lawd!" Boone gulped, fighting for breath. "It don't matter
much--maybe--to you all, but--O Lawd, I got to tell somebody!"

"Tell us, tell us!" cried she of the captured hand.

Daniel had sufficient presence of mind to retain it.

"You know that--that poor devil Tiburcio?" he gasped.

"Yes, yes!" But what anti-climax was here?

"Well, he--he's dead. I saw him.--Lawd!"

"Oh!" It was a little cry of relief.

"But some were--were killed--taking him." Boone noted Jacqueline's
intake of breath, her first tremor of alarm. "He fought like a--a
wildcat. He had a knife--and a machete--and a pistol--and----"

"_Who_ was killed? Monsieur--Oh, mon Dieu, what _can_ you have
to tell me?"

Daniel almost repented, there was that in her gray eyes.

"Among them was my--" He nerved himself to it, some way--"my best
friend, that peerless----"

"Who?" Her command was imperious, her white teeth were set.

"Din Driscoll!"

The man blurted it out like a whipped schoolboy. He could not look up.
He could only feel that she stood there, stricken, suffering.

"Where is he?"

He could not believe that this was he