The Tiger heard, no doubt, but he did not stop. He kept on toward the door, Driscoll beside him, and his men around him. He meant to pass through the house. Some secluded corral in the back would do for the execution. Driscoll seemed as indifferent as ever, though there was a lithe, alert spring in his step. Behind him Murguia was moaning, praying to see his daughter. Berthe followed, bewildered, and silently wringing her hands. But the death march was so business-like, and every one else was so intent on the approach of a royally born person, that the crowds shoved aside by the little group never once suspected that they had just brushed elbows with tragedy in the making. Jacqueline caught her breath, sucked it in rather, in a pang of angry despair; and plucking up her skirts she ran ahead until she could oppose her slender figure squarely in front of the burly Frenchman. If he were to move on, he must trample her down. Her eyes, usually so big and round and shading to a depth of blue with their lively mischief, were all but closed, and through the narrowed lashes they gleamed like white steel. Her voice, though, was clear and even, of a studied courtesy. "Yes, I know, Monsieur le Coronel, suspicion with you is quite enough. But," she went on in contempt and feigned surprise at his dullness, "this rage of yours at being outwitted by Rodrigo Galan blinds you to something else.--Pardon, monsieur, a Frenchman does not jostle a woman.--Thank you." "But the jostling by a woman's tongue, mademoiselle.--Well, what is it? Have mercy, be brief, since I am not even to breathe while my lady talks." "I was thinking, dear monsieur, of the feelings of an artist, to which you are very, very blind." "Feelings, artist? Name of a name, mademoiselle!" "Precisely, Maximilian's feelings. You know how he abhors the sight of blood. Ma foi, and I agree with him." "Go it, Miss Jack-leen!" Driscoll abetted her. Never a word of their French did he understand, but he knew that she had a power of speech. Dupin evidently knew it better yet, for though he laughed, he did not laugh easily. "Never fear," he said, "His Majesty's delicate prejudices are safe. It will be all underground before he comes, and no muss at all." "But you forget," Jacqueline cried testily, "you forget the imagination of a poet." "And he will imagine----" "Yes, because I shall tell him." "Sacre----" "And possibly he would brace his feelings to a second aesthetic horror as a rebuke for the first. In a word, my colonel, there will be one more body to follow--underground. Now is this quite clear, or--do you require my promise on it?"