Huasteca, at the bidding of this man! "No, no, no!" he cried, and
shuddered too.

Trying to read a meaning behind the capitan's dark scowl, he knew only
too well the meaning that was there. He moaned at the thought.
Maximiliano would have him shot, or burned, or tortured. He would lose
his ranch, his cotton mill. He would be poor. It was vague, what would
happen, but it was horrible, horrible!

"Hush, you fool!" growled Fra Diavolo. "The entire meson will hear you,
including that Gringo."

"That Gringo? He, he is one of your friends?"

"Friend! For Dios, he nearly ruined my little plans for Jacqueline.
Listen, he has business of some kind with Maximiliano."

"Yes, yes. And there's a--a mystery in his business."

"What do you mean?"

"If I knew, would it be a mystery?"

"Who is he?"

"He won't tell. I only know that he is a Confederate officer."

"A Confederate officer?" The capitan whistled low and softly. "Come to
the Plaza, there you can tell me what you think."

And in the solitude of the Plaza they planned according to their
suspicions.

CHAPTER VII

SWORDSMANSHIP IN THE DARK

"Cry 'holla' to thy tongue, I prithee; it curvets unseasonably."
--_As You Like It._

"Strange there's no motion," thought Jacqueline the next morning,
rubbing her eyes. "Why, what ails the old boat, I wonder?" Then she
remembered. She was in the Tampico hotel which called itself a cafe, and
the landlord's wife was knocking on her door and calling "Nin-a, nin-a"
with a plaintive stress on the first syllable. The word means girl, and
oddly enough, is often used by a Mexican servant to address her
mistress.

"I'm not a n-e-e-n-ya," Jacqueline assured her drowsily, "and if I were,
madame, why make a fete out of it this way in the middle of the night?"

"Nin-a," the unctuous nasal rose higher, "if Your Mercy goes with Don
Anastasio, she must hurry. It is late. It is four o'clock, nina."

"Four o'clock--late?" gasped the luxurious little marquise. "And how
much difference, exactly, would your four o'clocks make on the planet
Mars, my good woman?"

"But nina, there is Don Anastasio, he is ready to start."

"And who is Don Anastasio, pray?"

"The trader, nina, at the meson. He is to take Your Mercy to Valles, as
Don--as the Capitan Morel told Your Mercy yesterday."

"The Capitan Morel, _pardi!_ Faith, if any man had told me it meant
rising at any such unholy hour