"And similarly with permission, señor, who are you?"
"Anastasio Murguía, the servant of Your Mercy."
"Ah, the poor little crow? Perhaps you will tell me, sir, why neither the Señor Ney nor Fra--nor Captain Morel is here?"
The young French caballero had visited the fort last evening, he replied. Her Mercy knew that? Yes, precisamente. Yes, the caballero had spent the night up there with his compatriots of the garrison. Her Mercy did not know that? No? But it was quite exact, yes, because he, Don Anastasio, had been so informed. But the Señor Ney would meet them out of Tampico--yes, precisamente, with a detachment of cavalry from the fort."
"That poor Michel!" said Jacqueline. "He's determined that I am to have a French escort. But Captain Morel, señor?"
Murguía would not answer. He repeated the question to the Mexican woman, who took up explanations with a glib readiness. "Si, niña, I saw the capitan, not more than an hour ago. He was riding by the café, to meet his--Contra Guerrillas. But he stopped and woke me. He said that I was to bring Your Mercies here to the mesón, and to say that he would meet Your Mercies--yes, surely, before you had gone very far, niña." Her tone was a sugared whine, and more than once she peered around at Murguía; while he, for his part, stood by as though overseeing a task. But Jacqueline only allowed herself a little inconsequential sniff, and went back to the really serious business that did worry her. She demanded her trunk.
"How, the señorita does not know?" asked Murguía.
"That the sailors did not come back from the ship?"
"Not come back! Eh bien, I will not go a step."
At first Don Anastasio's pinched face lighted with relief. But at once a conflicting anxiety, lest she might _not_ go, seemed to possess him. "But señorita," he protested, "what will Your Mercy do? The ship, yes, señorita, the ship has sailed already. It left last night for Vera Cruz."
"And here am I," Jacqueline exclaimed, tapping her foot, "with only one dress!"
A long bubbling whistle sounded near a gendarme's lantern in the middle of the street. A block away another sounded, then another, and another, and others yet, each thinly shrill and distant. It was the challenge to slumber and the answer of wakefulness from the watches of the night over the silent city.