"Not baptized!" Maximilian exclaimed. "And this, is this fulfilling your sacred obligations?"
The curate bowed his head. He had found them thus, when he first came, a few weeks ago.
"From Durango, sire, where as secretary I served His Señoría Ilustrísimo, the Bishop of the state." But, as he meekly explained, he had sought the Lord's service among the Huastecans. Pastors were said to be needed, yet never had he imagined----He stopped short, in naïve embarrassment.
Maximilian appreciated his delicacy in not wishing to reflect on the Huasteca bishop. But from others he learned that neither baptism nor other spiritual office had been performed in the community for years and years, and that the bishop resided in the capitol, because among his flock he had neither comforts nor a befitting state.
"But why," Maximilian demanded sternly, "have you not put to use the few weeks you have been here?"
The curate's small eyes leaped to adventure. But he lowered them hastily, and folded his hands over his rounded soutane. He had heard that His Majesty might come, he said, and he had presumed so far as to hope that His Majesty might deign to act as godfather for the poor Indians, and so he had waited.
Nothing could have pleased Maximilian more, and he looked at the good priest with an awakening favor. "Then let it be this afternoon," he commanded. "I will stand their sponsor."
"----Before God, who will bless Your Majesty," murmured the priest.
And to be brief, let it be recorded that they were baptized by the hundred, with hurried pomp--"pompes à incendie," as the godfather himself described it.
"Besides the queene, he dearly loved a fair and comely dame." --_The Ballad of Fair Rosamond._
Jacqueline was protesting to a worried personage in Grand Uniform. The personage was the Cerberus of the Emperor's antechamber, and he barred her way. He was newly a personage, and did not know Jacqueline.
"But, Señor Oficial de Ordenes," she insisted, "don't you see that if I put my name in your old register there, the man will be shot while your Dignitaries are deciding to grant my audience!"
"Shot?" vaguely repeated the monarchial flunkey. He was a Mexican, and took his unfamiliar responsibilities seriously. He turned to the Book of Court Etiquette on the centre table.