BENITO JUAREZ, president of the Mexican Republic. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS "JACQUELINE" "She was the spirit of the enigma, the very personification of the Napoleonic sphinx" _Frontispiece_ Facing page "MURGUIA" "He had evidently passed through salty spray, had braved the deep, this shrinking old man in frayed black" 16 "RODRIGO GALAN" "The fierce stranger, however, seemed undecided. His brow furrowed, and for the moment he only stared" 18 "JOHN DINWIDDIE DRISCOLL, THE MISSOURIAN" "His cheeks were smooth, but they were tight and hard and brown from the weathering of sun and blizzard" 38 "COLONEL DUPIN" "The Tiger of the Tropics ... the chief of Contra Guerrillas" 94 THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN 134 "MARIA DE LA LUZ" "The tapestry behind them parted and fell" 146 "BERTHE" "... brought down the ponderous knocker so terrifically that it abashed her, for all her present agitation" 220 PART FIRST THE THORN IN THE LAND OF ROSES "Array you, lordyngs, one and all, For here begins no peace." --_The Ballad of the Battle of Otterburn_ CHAPTER I A WILFUL MAID ARRIVES FROM FRANCE "I'll tell thee, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France, full of ambition."--_As You Like It._ Jacqueline was a gentlewoman of France. But there was usually mischief in her handsome head, for all its queenly poise. Just now, she was running away from the ship. Captain and officers of the _Imperatrice Eugenie_, Imperial red pantaloons, gilt Imperial eagles, such tokens of awe were yet not awful enough to hold Jacqueline. So, with the humility of limp things in that sticky air, the sailors shoved closer in the small boat and made place for the adjustment of crisp skirts. With the lady went her gentle little Breton maid, who trembled with the trembling of every plank in those norther-rocked waters. The high sun, just showing himself after the late gale, was sucking a gummy moisture out upon all surfaces, and the perspiring men felt mean and base before the starchy freshness of the two girls. No one was pleased that Jacqueline was going, except Jacqueline herself. But she was keen for it. She had been impervious to their flustered anxiety, also to the tributes to her importance betrayed therein. In vain they argued no fewer than two emperors to dissuade her. She meant to have a walk on the shore and--a demure Parisian shrug settled it.