Calavar Part 37

"By heaven, false friends! craven gentlemen! you have lost the bravest of your supporters!" cried Don Hernan. "On! for he may yet live: on! for we will avenge him!"

The band, resolute now in their wrath, plunged fiercely through the mob.

They struck down many enemies,--they trampled upon many corses; but, among them, they found not the body of De Leste.

CHAPTER XLV.

Whether it was that this attack was caused by an ebullition of popular fury, which yielded to some mysterious and religious revulsion of feeling, or whether, indeed, the leaders of the barbarians, persuaded of the madness of fighting the Christians hand to hand, and resolved to conquer them rather by famine than arms, had called off their forces,--was a secret the Spaniards could never penetrate. No sacred horn was sounded on the pyramid; but, in the very midst of what seemed their triumph, when the cavaliers were nearly exhausted and despairing, it became manifest that the Mexicans were giving way, and vanis.h.i.+ng, not one by one, but in great cl.u.s.ters, from the field.

The Christians had no longer the spirit to pursue. They found the street open; and, das.h.i.+ng through the few foemen that lingered on the field, they made their way good to the palace. Before they reached it, they were joined by a powerful detachment, sent out to their a.s.sistance. They returned together. At the gate of the court-yard, stood Baltasar, Lazaro, and the secretary, looking eagerly for the appearance of Don Amador. His horse was led by a cavalier, whose countenance was more dejected than the rest. It was De Morla; and as he flung the bridle to Lazaro, he said,--

"Hadst _thou_ been with thy master, this thing had not happened; for, though a serving-man, thou wouldst have remained behind him, when a cavalier deserted."

"Dost thou accuse _me_ of deserting the n.o.ble youth?" said Alvarado, fiercely. "G.o.d forbid, I should shed Christian blood! but, with my sword's point, I will prove upon thy body, that thou liest!"

"And upon thine," said De Morla, with calm indignation, "I will make good the charge I have uttered, that thou didst abandon in extremity, when he called upon thee for aid, the man who had just preserved thine own life."

"Are there not deaths enow among the infidels?" cried Cortes, angrily, "that ye must l.u.s.t after one another's blood?--Peace! and be ye friends, lamenting our valiant companion together; for, De Morla, thou doest a wrong to Alvarado; and, Don Pedro, thou art a fool, to quarrel with the peevishness of a mourning friend."

The secretary listened to the cavaliers with a face of horror; not a word said Lazaro, but as he wiped the foam from the steed, and, with it, the blood of his master, he eyed Don Pedro with a dark and vindictive scowl. As for Baltasar, his rugged features quivered, and he did not hesitate to stand in the way of the Tonatiuh, saying,--

"If any cavalier have, indeed, been false to my young lord, I, who am but a serving-man, will make bold to say, he has played false to a gentleman who would have perilled his life for any Christian in need; and the act, though it be answered to man, G.o.d will not forgive.--Who will tell this to my master, Don Gabriel?"

Alvarado, extremely enraged, had raised his spear to strike the old soldier; but he dropped his arm, at the last words, and said with great mildness,--

"Thou art a fool to say this.--I lament thy lord; I loved him, and I did not desert him----"

For the remainder of that day, the garrison were left in peace. No foes appeared on the square; but, twice or thrice, when parties were sent out to reconnoitre, they were met, at a distance from the palace, by herds of Mexicans, and driven back to their quarters.

The desperate situation of the army was now evident to the dullest comprehension. The barbarians had removed from the reach of the artillery, and drawn, with their bodies, a line of circ.u.mvallation round their victims, patiently waiting for the moment, when famine should bring them a secure vengeance. All day, there were seen, on the top of the pyramid, priests and n.o.bles, now engaged in some rite of devotion, and now looking down, on the besieged, like vultures on their prey; but without attempting any annoyance.

The murmurs of the garrison, exasperated by despair and want of food, were loud and stern; but Don Hernan received them only with biting sarcasms. He bade those who were most mutinous, to depart if they would; and laughed scornfully at their confessions of inability. To those who cried for food, he answered by pointing grimly to the stone walls, and the carca.s.ses that lay on the square; or he counselled them to seek it among their foes. In truth, the general knew their helplessness, and in the bitterness of his heart at being thus foiled and jeoparded, he did not scruple to punish their discontent, by disclosing the full misery of their situation. They were dependent upon him for life and hope, and he suffered this dependence to be made apparent. He revealed to them no scheme of relief or escape; for, in fact, he had framed none. He was, himself, as desperate as the rest, seeing nothing before him but destruction, and not knowing how to avoid it; and what measures he did take, during these sorrowful hours, were rather expedients to divert his thoughts, than plans to diminish the general distress.

Notwithstanding the memorable fate of the burro, and the disinclination of the soldiers to die the death of its garrison, he obstinately commanded those which were unfinished to be completed, with some additional contrivances to increase their strength and mobility. He sent out parties to ransack the deserted houses in the vicinity, for provisions, though hopeless of obtaining any; and he set the idlers to mending their armour of escaupil, and the smiths to making arrow-heads, as if still determined rather to fight than fly. He held no councils with his officers, for he knew they had no projects to advise; and the desperate resort over which he pondered, of sallying out with his whole force, and cutting his way through the opposing foe, was too full of horror to be yet spoken. Moreover, while Montezuma yet lived, he could not think his situation entirely hopeless. The surgeon, upon a re-examination of the king's wounds, had formed a more favourable prognostic; and this was strengthened, when Montezuma at last awoke from stupor, and recovered the possession of his intellects. It was told him, indeed, that the royal Indian, as if resuming his wits only to cast them away again, had no sooner become sensible of his condition, and remembered that his wounds had been inflicted by his people, than he fell into a frenzy of grief and despair, tearing away the bandages from his body, and calling upon his G.o.ds to receive him into Tlacopan, the place of caverns and rivers, where wandered those who died the death of the miserable. Don Hernan imagined that these transports would soon rave themselves away, and persuaded himself that his captive, yielding at last to the natural love of life, would yet remain in his hands, the hostage of safety, and perhaps the instrument of authority.

Sorrow dwelt in the palace of Axajacatl; but her presence was more deeply acknowledged in the chamber of Calavar. From the lips of Baltasar,--and the rude veteran wept, when he narrated the fall of the young cavalier, whom he had himself first taught the knowledge of arms,--Don Gabriel learned the fate of his kinsman. But he neither wept like Baltasar, nor joined in the loud lamentations of Marco. His eyes dilated with a wild expression, his lip fell, he drooped his head on his breast, and clasping his hands over his heart, muttered an unintelligible prayer,--perhaps the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n which so often, and so piteously, expressed his desolation. Then falling down upon his couch, and turning his face to the wall, he remained for the whole day and night without speaking a word.

CHAPTER XLVI.

The fate of Don Amador de Leste, though so darkly written in the hearts of his companions, was not yet brought to a close. Some of his late friends deemed only that he had been overpowered and slain; but others, better acquainted with the customs of the foe, shuddered over the a.s.surance of a death yet more awful. They knew that the pride of the Mexican warrior was, not to slay, but to capture; as if, indeed, these demi-barbarians made war less for the glory of taking life, than for the honour of offering it in sacrifice to the G.o.ds. Such, in truth, was the case; and to this circ.u.mstance was it owing that the Christians were not utterly destroyed, in any one encounter in the streets of Tenocht.i.tlan.

The fury of their foes was such as may be imagined in a people goaded to desperation by atrocious tyranny and insult, and fighting with foreign oppressors at their very firesides; yet, notwithstanding the deadly feeling of vengeance at their hearts, they never forgot their duties to their faith; and they forbore to kill, in the effort to take prisoner.

Twice or thrice, at least, in the course of the war that followed after these events, the life of Cortes, himself, was in their hands; and the thrust of a javelin, or the stroke of a bludgeon, would have freed them from the destroyer. But they neither struck nor thrust; they strove to bear him off alive, as the most acceptable offering they could carry to the temple; thus always giving his followers an opportunity to rescue him out of their grasp. Every captive thus seized and retained, died a death too terrible for description; and high or low,--the base boor, and the n.o.ble hidalgo, alike,--expiated, on the stone of sacrifice, the wrongs done to the religion of Mexitli.

Knowing so much of the customs of Anahuac, and not having discovered his body, the more experienced cavaliers were convinced that Don Amador de Leste had not yet enjoyed the happiness of death; they persuaded themselves that he had been taken alive, and was preserved for sacrifice. Many a Castilian eye, that afternoon, was cast upon the pyramid, watching the steps, and eagerly examining the persons of all who ascended.--But no victim was seen borne upon their shoulders----

When the cavalier of Cuenza opened his eyes, after the stunning effects of the blow were over, it was in a confusion of mind, which the objects about him, or, perhaps, the accession of a hot fever,--the result of many severe wounds and contusions,--soon converted into delirium. He lay,--his armour removed,--on a couch in a s.p.a.cious apartment, but so darkened, that he could not distinguish the countenances of two or three dusky figures which seemed to bend over him. His thoughts were still in the battle; and, in these persons, he perceived nothing less than Mexican warriors still clutching at his body. He started up, and calling out, "Ho, Fogoso! one leap more for thy master," caught fiercely at the nearest of the individuals. But he had overrated his strength; and, almost before a hand was laid upon him, he fell back, fainting, on the bed.

"Dost _thou_ strike me, too, false villain?" he again exclaimed, as his distempered eyes pictured, in one silent visage, the features of Abdalla. "Be thou accursed for thy ingrat.i.tude, and live in h.e.l.l for ever!"

A murmur of voices, followed by the sound of retreating steps, was heard; and in the silence which ensued, his fancy became more disordered, presenting him phantasms still more peculiar.

"Is this death?" he muttered, "and lie I now in the world of shadows?

G.o.d be merciful to me a sinner! Pity and pardon me, O Christ, for I have fought for thy faith. Take me from this place of blackness, and let me look on the light of bliss!"

A gentle hand was laid upon his forehead, a low sigh breathed on his cheek; and suddenly a light, flas.h.i.+ng up as from some expiring cresset, revealed to his wondering eyes the face and figure of the mysterious prophetess.

"O G.o.d! art thou indeed a fiend? and dost thou lead me, from the land of infidels, to the prison-house of devils?" he cried, again starting up, clasping his hands, and gazing wildly on the vision. "Speak to me, thou that livest not; for I know, thou art Leila!"

As he uttered these incoherent words, the figure, bending a little away, and fastening upon his own, eyes of strange meaning, in which pity struggled with terror, seemed, gradually, to fade into the air; until, as suddenly as it had flashed into brightness, the light vanished, and all was left in darkness.

From this moment, the thoughts of the cavalier wandered with tenfold wildness; and he fell into a delirium, which presented, as long as it lasted, a succession of exciting images. Now he struggled, in the hall of his own castle of Alcornoque, or the Cork-tree, with the false Abdalla, the knee of the Almogavar on his breast, and the Arab poniard at his throat--while all the time, the perfidious Jacinto stood by, exhorting his father to strike; now he stood among burning sands, fighting with enraged fiends, over the dead body of his knight, Calavar, to protect the beloved corse from their fiery fingers; now the vanished Leila sat weeping by his side, dropping upon his fevered lips the juice of pleasant fruits, or now she came to him in the likeness of the pagan Sibyl, beckoning him away, with melancholy smiles, to a distant bay; while, ever, when he strove to rise and follow, the page Jacinto, converted into a giant, and brandis.h.i.+ng a huge dagger, held him back with a lion's strength and ferocity.

With such chimeras, and a thousand others, equally extravagant, disturbing his brain, he pa.s.sed through many hours; and then, as a torpor like that of death gradually stole over him, benumbing his deranged faculties, the same gentle hand, the same low suspiration, which had soothed him before, but without the countenance which had maddened, returned to him, and made pleasant the path to annihilation.

CHAPTER XLVII.

From a deep slumber, that seemed, indeed, death, for it was dreamless, the cavalier, at last, awoke, somewhat confused, but no longer delirious; and, though greatly enfeebled, entirely free from fever. A yellow sunbeam,--the first or the last glimmering of day, he knew not which,--played through a narrow cas.e.m.e.nt, faintly illuminating the apartment, and falling especially upon a low table at his side, whereon, among painted and gilded vessels of strange form, he perceived his helmet, and other pieces of armour as well as a lute, of not less remembered workmans.h.i.+p. He raised his eyes to the attendant, who sat musing, hard by, and, with a thrill and exclamation of joy, beheld the Moorish page, Jacinto.

"Is it thou, indeed, my dear knave Jacinto! whom I thought in the maws of infidels?" he cried, starting up. "And how art thou; and how is thy lord, Don Gabriel, to-day? Tell me, where hast thou been, these two troubled days? and how didst thou return? By my faith, this last bout was somewhat hard, and I have slept long!"

"Leave not thy couch, and speak not too loud, n.o.ble master," said the page, kneeling, and kissing his hand,--"for thou art sick and wounded, and here only art thou safe."

"Ay, now indeed!" said Don Amador, with a sudden and painful consciousness of his situation, "I remember me. I was struck down, and made a prisoner. What good angel brought me into thy company? Thanks be to heaven! for my hurts are not much; and I will rescue thee from captivity."

"I am not a captive, senor," said the boy, gently.

"Are we, then, in the palace?--Where are our friends?--Am I not a prisoner?"

"Senor, we are far from the palace of Axajacatl. But grieve not; for here thou art with thy servants."

"Thou speakest to me in riddles," said the novice, with a disturbed and bewildered countenance. "Have I been dreaming? Am I enchanted? Am I living, and in my senses?"

"The saints be praised, thou art indeed," said the page, fervently; "though, both nights, and all day, till the blessed potion set thee asleep, I had no hopes thou wouldst ever recover."

"Both nights!" echoed Don Amador, fixing his eyes inquiringly on the boy; "Has a night--have two nights pa.s.sed over me, and wert thou, then, with me, during it all?--Ha! Was it thine acts of sorcery, which brought me those strange and melancholy visions? Didst _thou_ conjure up to me the image of Leila?--That priestess, that very supernatural prophetess--By heaven! as I see thee, so saw I her standing at my bed-side, in some magical light, which straightway turned to darkness.

Didst thou not see her? Tell me boy, art thou indeed an enchanter?

Prepare me thy spells again, reveal me her fate, and let me look on the face of Leila!"