Lopez flung his sword across the empty box that was to serve as desk, and filled the crimson seat with pompous menace. Lopez was a Mexican, but did not look it. He had red hair and a florid skin, and he was large, with great feet and coarse hands. Yet the high cheek bones of an Indian were his. The contrast of coloring and features unpleasantly suggested a mongrel breed. The eyes had red lids, out of which the lashes struck like rusted needles, and the eyes themselves, of a faded blue, seemed to fawn an excuse for Nature's maladjusting. But he had a goodly frame on which to hang the livery of a king's guardsman. And as the cross of the Legion of Honor ticketed his breast, he must have been a goodly man too, and his Maker's insignia only a libel. Once Maximilian had said, "What, Bebello, and art thou a better judge of men than I, thy master and the master of men?" For it seemed that Bebello, the simple hound, had read Nature's voucher instead of Napoleon's, and being thus deceived, would ever snarl at the Colonel of Dragoons. Maximilian of course knew better. What looked like toadying was only profound deference for himself. The royal favorite could discriminate. He could also be the thick-headed, intolerable martinet. The sandy lashes bristled as the American inquired a second time if he were to have counsel. "Being president of this court," Lopez announced, "I am judge advocate." In the tone of congratulation Driscoll blandly said, "Well, then, I challenge the president." "Challenge?" "Certainly, Your Honor. It's my right, either on the ground of inexperience, malice, or--but I reckon the first two will do." "This is insolence!" cried the president, and glaring angrily, he maintained that it was a regular court martial for the field, and that as he was the ranking officer at hand, there could be no appeal beyond himself. "A regular drum-head," Driscoll observed. "Well, let it go at that. I'm in a hurry." Lopez called a lieutenant of Austrian cavalry to his right upon the sofa, and the Dragoon color sergeant to his left, and the three of them sat thenceforth in judgment. The charges were read, and next a deposition, gathered that day from Michel Ney. Therein appeared the American, reinforcing Rodrigo Galan at Tampico, and in so far aiding the abduction of Mademoiselle d'Aumerle. "The complicity is evident," stated Lopez, and his colleagues, blinking at the candles on the box, nodded wisely. "It's straight so far," Driscoll agreed, "but the story goes a little further. Does the ma'am'selle herself happen to have left any deposition?" She had, admitted the president, but it merely corroborated the foregoing. Driscoll, in sole charge of his own defence, insisted that her deposition be read, but Lopez would permit no such waste of time. He was brooding on Monsieur Eloin usurping his own place near the Emperor, and he wanted to finish the present business so as to overtake them both.