"We don't know why we came," stammered one, "and he can't speak. But his signs are enough for us. It's, it's----" "It's something to do with the American," declared a second cuirassier. Dupin pounded back his half unsheathed blade. Brusquely he wheeled and faced the colonel of Dragoons. "Lopez," he roared, "what was that message?" "N-nothing, mi coronel, absolutely." "If it was from Maximilian, I'd know it to be a pardon, and not blame you. But I recognized the marshal's seal, and that's different." Lopez blanched, yet insisted again that the message was nothing. "Besides, senor," he added, "I do not take orders from His Excellency, the marshal." "But _I_ do," thundered Dupin. "And I see them obeyed too. Oh, you can protest to your Emperor afterwards, my royal guardsman, if you want to, but a marshal of France is the law when I am near." Grunting contemptuously, Dupin turned to the bedside. The cuirassiers had gathered cobwebs from the rafters, and were dressing the wound. Michel tossed and groaned in the beginning of delirium. Dupin muttered with vexation, but he took hold of the lad's wrist, and firmly closed his hand over it. "Listen," he said, very distinctly, putting into his tones every timbre of quiet, compelling will. "Listen, hear me!" Slowly the feverish man grew still. "Hear me," said Dupin. "There are two questions--two, only two. You are to answer them.--You will shake your head, 'Yes,' or 'No'--do you hear me?" The Chasseur's eyes opened wide, and they were calm. "Good, that's the brave gentleman! Now then, steady. The first question: Shall we shoot this American?" Slowly, painfully, the head rocked on the pillow, from one side to the other. "It's 'No'!" cried a score of men. "Silence!" roared the Tiger. "Now, the second question: Does this order come from Marshal Bazaine?" Michel's chin sank to his breast. He groaned, he could not lift it again. "Yes, thank----" Ney himself, his voice! Dupin swung round. "Colonel Lopez," he ordered savagely, "you will turn your prisoner over to Sergeant Ney, at once, sir! Open your mouth, you dog, and every Dragooning dandy of a Mexican among you----" The Tiger's pistols were drawn. His whelps looked hopeful. The cuirassiers bristled in sympathy. Cracking his finger nails, fawning to the marrow, Lopez agreed. "Unbind the prisoner," ordered Dupin. "Thank God!" came faintly from the bed. CHAPTER XXIX THE WHISPER OF THE SPHINX "La politique, premiere des sciences inexactes." --_Emile Augier._ Jacqueline had divined in Bazaine another obstacle to her mission. And yet it seemed preposterous that he should not be her staunchest ally, since Napoleon had found a marshal's baton for him in his knapsack, just as he had transformed his own policeman's club into a sceptre. Nevertheless Jacqueline had her doubts, and they were homage to her sex. In other words, she returned to Mexico to find that His Excellency had married again.