A Dream of Empire Part 28

"You are infernal particular, Mex. I never heard of another woman of your pedigree who was opposed to polygamy."

She did not understand all the words he used, but gathered the chief import, and replied with impetuous wrath:

"No Mex--not Choctaw--me Castiliano--me Senora Palafox." The desperado sat still several minutes, drank again from a bowl which Mex had mixed.

"You're all right, senora--I couldn't keep house without you. Look ye here, bring all those papers and I'll put 'em safe back in the pocket book." The papers were folded up and enclosed carefully into the leathern wallet. Palafox, with trembling hand, thrust the package in his pocket, and then staggered to his feet.

"There's a queer pain in the back of my neck and in my chest, Mex; I can't stand up--help me." He leaned on the bar, and the woman hastily drew to the middle of the floor the great buffalo robe which was her usual bed. She also brought a panther's hide rolled up to serve as a pillow. The horribly staring eyes of Palafox followed her motions.

"There's something ails my heart, I tell you."

He stumbled upon the bed of pelts and lay sprawling.

"More drink! water! brandy! quick!"

With difficulty Mex turned the man upon his back. A while he lay still. His breathing was labored and he twitched convulsively. The entire nervous system was suddenly depressed. Mex stood motionless beside the pallet, her eyes riveted upon him. Presently his livid lips opened, and he spoke gaspingly, "I'm done for."

His hand fumbled about his heart. He was falling into syncope. He did not feel the sweep and tickle of downfalling hair which, for a moment, enmeshed and covered his face, when Mex knelt at his side and took from his bosom the pocket-book he had told her contained a fortune.

Having secured this treasure, the slighted mistress of a dying robber slid noiseless as a shadow to her accustomed covert behind the bar.

When she came thence her feet and ankles were encased in high buckskin moccasins adorned in bright colors. About her shoulders she drew an Indian blanket decorated in richest style of barbaric elegance. She paused to bestow a parting look on the distorted face of him she had loved and poisoned. A feeble moan came from his lips. She knew it meant death, for wolf's-bane was mixed with the last draughts he had taken.

Like a shadow Mex pa.s.sed from the cabin into the darkness of the woods. She had prevented the man from pursuing any other woman.

The hours of night wore slowly away, and Cacosotte, returning to consciousness after his anaesthetic sleep, felt renewed pain in his disabled arm. As soon as he realized his condition, he sat up in bed and shouted for his nurse. "Mex!" No answer.

"Mex, for G.o.d's sake come and fix my arm."

No answer. No sound whatever was to be heard in the lonely cabin.

"Mex, O Mex!"

No response. Cacosotte waited half an hour and again called out.

Finally he got up, and in the gray light of a cloudy November dawn made his way from his remote couch in "Heaven" to the glimmering twilight of "h.e.l.l." Mex was not in her lair, nor was the couch itself in the usual place.

Cacosotte bent over Palafox and saw a corpse.

XXI. PRO AND CON.

"No, sir, no, sir! I deny the statement. Burr is not getting justice.

Daviess is a persecutor, not a prosecutor. He hates Burr as he hates every Republican. He rakes up all the filthy lies of the past, concerning Burr and Wilkinson, and peddles them round in that dung-cart, _The Western World_, which his man Friday, John Wood, drives."

"You'd best not talk too loud, Hadley; Wood is at the door."

"Who wants John Wood?" bawled the bearer of that name. "Hadley, you?"

"No; I avoid you and your paper. You ought to be sued for libel. I say to you as I just now said to Ogden, that Jo Hamilton Daviess is making this fuss, not for furtherance of law and justice, but to blacken the name of Burr."

"Burr blackened it himself," retorted Wood, "with the blood of Hamilton."

"Black blood it was, from a black heart. Don't say anything against that duel here in Kentucky!" said Hadley.

The wrangle, of which the foregoing speeches were a part, took place in Frankfort, Kentucky, on the morning of December 2, 1806. The town was thronged with zealous partisans, Federalists and Republicans, from near and far. Scores of st.u.r.dy ploughmen and cavalcades of stock-raisers had ridden from their Blue Gra.s.s farms to the State capital, on horses of a breed and beauty unsurpa.s.sed in the world.

Every tavern, blacksmith-shop, and grocery drew its crowd, for the weather was cold, and the country folks were glad of a chance to warm themselves while they boisterously discussed the latest phases of the legal proceeding then in progress, involving the reputation of Aaron Burr, and threatening his personal liberty.

Daviess, a staunch Federalist, controlled a political newspaper, the avowed purpose of which was "to drag to light the men who had been concerned with Miro in the Spanish conspiracy of 1787." Daviess had written to Jefferson accusing General Wilkinson of having been in Spanish pay, and later had charged both Wilkinson and Burr with the grossest disloyalty. These two men were openly and repeatedly attacked in the paper, a copy of which Wood held in hand when he confronted Hadley.

"You can't s.m.u.tch the character of Daviess," said Wood. "His name is above suspicion. He performs his duty as United States District Attorney without fear or favor."

"You are not competent to give an unbiased opinion; your bread-and-b.u.t.ter depends upon the man who set you up in business."

The sneer drew applause from a majority of those in the store. Burr had won the heart of the populace. Wood returned a sharp rejoinder.

"What a pity that some good man has not set Hadley up in a better business than pettifogging. Apply to your patron, Judge Innes. Lick his foot. There's an immaculate judge for you! Talk of corruption!

I've been present at every session of the court whenever the case of Burr came up. Away back as early as the beginning of November Daviess moved for a process to compel the attendance of Burr in court to answer charges of treason. Daviess made affidavit that he had positive evidence of Burr's plotting to wage war against Spain, invade Mexico, and break up the Union. What was the action of Judge Hary Innes? He overruled the motion--denied the course of justice."

"No," broke in the other, "he denied the motion because there were no grounds for the charge."

"Hold on, Mr. Hadley, till I am through. I want these young men from the Blue Gra.s.s and from Lexington to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

"Fust time truth ever come from the editor of _The Western World_!"

growled a backwoodsman in buckskin breeches. "I'll bet my money on Burr. Burr ought to be President 'stid of Jefferson. He was cheated out of the Presidency."

"That's the talk!" put in a squeaky-voiced old man, wiping his lips with the back of his hand, after having taken a drink of cheap whiskey, for a dram went gratis with every purchase, and old Jim Sweet had bought a long woollen "comfort" for his scrawny neck. "That's the talk, gen'l'men. I say, hurrah for Wilkinson and Burr and Harry Clay!

I wisht Clay had popped a hole in Daviess, jest like Burr did in Hamilton. Why didn't they fight? They say Daviess sent a challenge.

Wonder why that dool 'tween Jo and Harry never come off?"

Hadley shrugged his shoulders.

"That gits me," continued Jim. "Reckon it were a case of one askeert and an' t'other da'sn't, eh, Hen?"

"Skeert nothin'!" mumbled the backwoodsman. "Clay's a dead shot."

The man of the newspaper here put in. "Daviess sent Clay a challenge; that's certain."

"Yes! an' there's another fack what's durn certain, my friend, or I'm a liar!" The backwoodsman roused himself from his stooping posture and sat glaring at the editor. "Harry Clay done accepted Daviess's challenge; an' if matters was arranged satisfactory to both parties without no pluggin', I reckon there ain't no need of comments from outsiders."

Editor Wood, aware that the public sentiment was against him, prudently withdrew, leaving the floor to Hadley, which zealous Democrat, addressing sympathetic auditors, voiced their feelings and his own.

"I was in the court room, and I saw some of you there when first Daviess tried to calumniate Burr; and I was there when Innes overruled the motion. That was a great day. The judge had scarcely finished speaking when Burr himself, just from Lexington, entered the court-house. He made the neatest speech ever I heard--perfectly calm and dignified--and he asked for a full and free investigation--the sooner the better, he said--_now_, if possible. You heard that speech, Jim, didn't you?"

Old Jim, who, with trembling hands, was in the act of adjusting his new comfort, swore he had heard all the great preachers and lawyers of his day, but Burr knocked the persimmons.

"Do you recamember, Hen," said he, familiarly addressing Hadley. "Do you recamember how Daviess hopped up and snarled out, 'You shall have all the _investigation_ you want!' He said it in jest that tantulatin'