"Si senor," he went on in a different tone, when Driscoll had left him alone with the trader, "you set out to-morrow, and you are to have two extra horses ready. But for whom, do you suppose? Bien, they are for La Senorita Jacqueline and her maid." Murguia's countenance changed strangely, a most inexplicable contortion. His little rat eyes focused on the ranchero, and he drew back in a sort of fear. Convoy her whom people called Jacqueline through the lawless 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. Oh well, I suppose it is the hour for larks, too."