"One moment, mademoiselle, I wish to say that I still do not know who she is." Then, with a last sorrowful look, he turned back to his apartment of state. Jacqueline's lip curled as she watched him go. "And you wish me to find out who she is?" she apostrophized his back. "But I shall not tell you. And she--no, she is not the kind that would, knowing who _you_ are." CHAPTER XVIII LITTLE MONARCHS, BIG MISTAKES "How now, good fellow? wouldst thou speak with us?" "Yea, forsooth, an your mistership be emperial." --_Titus Andronicus._ For the moment, Colonel Dupin had established headquarters in the granary, which was a long, low adobe among the stables, with a pasture between it and the House. The pasture opened on the highway through a wide gap in the hacienda wall, and the coaches and steeds of the imperial party which had passed in that morning gave the old cow lot a gala air. The colonel was seated before a box, improvised into a desk, and his rusty jacketed Cossacks lounged everywhere. Tiburcio and other scouts were reporting on the dead and wounded of yesterday's raid. A maimed enemy brought a chuckle deep in the Tiger's throat, but any mishap to one of his own darlings got the recognition of a low-growled oath. He was busy over this inventory of profit and loss when Jacqueline appeared with the Emperor. Dupin arose and saluted after the grim manner of an old soldier. The half-dozen of obsequious courtiers he did not see at all, but to Jacqueline he bent from the waist with a duellist's punctilio. His countrywoman was the one adversary whom he never thought of cursing. There was an opening innuendo. "No, Colonel Dupin," Maximilian reproved him sternly, "I have not come to interfere with justice. I merely desire to see what prisoners you have here." Driscoll and Murguia were brought in. Maximilian stared dumfounded at his new magistrate in the role of criminal. Don Anastasio looked apologetic. They had locked him up in his own stable, bronze medal and all. Dupin explained. This Murguia, like many another hacendado, had long been suspected of aiding the guerrillas, and yesterday morning he had actually set him, Dupin, on a false trail. The Contras were tracking one of Rodrigo Galan's accomplices in the abduction of Mademoiselle d'Aumerle. The accomplice was the other prisoner, the American, whom they had found at last taking refuge at Murguia's own hacienda. Here he had had the effrontery to welcome them as mademoiselle's rightful escort, had even seemed surprised when a dozen Contras pounced upon him from behind and disarmed him. Dupin added that mademoiselle herself was deceived by the American's cunning, and he did not doubt but that she still persisted in his innocence. He might speak further of the fellow's part in the ambush and murder of Captain Maurel near Tampico, but he confessed that that required further investigation.