"General Miramon fairly begged to fight, but he has been defeated once, and now Marquez warns the Emperor against Miramon's 'imprudence.' Marquez is chief of staff, and crows over Miramon, who was once his president. He personally ordered Miramon off the field, yet it was Miramon who first made the insolent little whelp into a general." "This," said Driscoll, "does not explain why you desert to us?" For an instant the old malignant humor gleamed in the baleful crescent. "It's the fault of the fat padrecito," he replied. "Your Mercy perhaps does not know about the pretty servant he eloped with from the Bishop of Durango's to Murguia's hacienda? Well, but trouble started when I saw her, or rather, when she saw me, even me, senor, for then she perceived that the padrecito was not a handsome man. Presto, there was another eloping, and the holy Father Fischer felt bad, so very bad that when he got into favor with Maximilian, he had me condemned for certain toll-taking matters he knew of. But I vanished in time, and I've been serving under Mendez as a loyal and undiscouraged Imperialist until yesterday. But yesterday the padre recognized me at a review of the troops. Your Mercy figures to himself how long I waited after that? Your Mercy observed how fast I was riding?" The fellow's audacity saved him. The news he brought proved correct. Escobedo had not been attacked. Besides, Regules perhaps hoped to trap Mendez through the former Imperialist scout, though Driscoll derided the idea and even counseled the worthy deserter's execution. Don Tiburcio's lank jaw dropped. Driscoll's advice was too heavy a recoil on his own wits, for had he not once saved the Gringo's life, feeling that one day he might be a beneficiary of the Gringo's singular aversion to shooting people? And now here was the Gringo in quite another of his unexpected humors. But what bothered Don Tiburcio most was the acumen that tempered the American's mercy. The facts indeed stood as Driscoll casually laid them before General Regules. Tibby, for instance, had neglected to call himself a "loyal" Republican. Asked for a description of the new earthworks on the Cerro de las Campanas, he only told how peons and criminals were forced to carry adobes there though exposed to Escobedo's sharpshooters, which had in it for Tibby the subtle element of a jest. Or asked about the new powder mills, he described how Maximilian slept patriotically wrapped in a native serape, woven with the eagle and colors, or related how the Emperor won the hearts of soldiers and citizens by his princely and ever amiable bearing. "Now sing us the national hymn," said Driscoll, "and the betrayal of your former friends will be complete." But though Don Tiburcio had deserted for convenience and perhaps meant to be a spy in the dissident camp, yet Regules saved him, while Driscoll lifted his shoulders indifferently and at heart was not sorry.