The Infidel; or, the Fall of Mexico. Vol. II.

"These things are vanities," said Gregorio, gloomily. "Let my brother's children be first plucked from the nest of infidels, if it be not too late."

"Heaven will not now forsake them, after protecting them through so many and greater perils," said Cortes, kissing the little cross and restoring it to his bosom. "The best men in the army, cavaliers and all, have sworn they will fetch them from the palace, in which they are now surrounded. And hark thee, Gregorio: The only daughter of the Count of Castillejo is too noble a prize for a nunnery. – We will have another dispensation."

The further disclosures of these two men, both villains, and both penitents, after their ways, were arrested by the commencement of the attack upon the palace; and Cortes calling some of his attendants to support his companion's steps, they descended from the terrace.

CHAPTER XX

Juan Lerma, or Castillejo – for such we must now call him – yet lay in confinement. His cell was in a quarter of the palace remote from the royal apartments; and without being altogether exposed to the cannon-shots, with which the attack was begun, was yet so nigh the garden-wall as to make its luckless inhabitant an auditor of all the fearful yells and outcries, with which the besieged and assailants contended for possession of the breaches. He was still bound, and some dozen or more dark-browed pagans kept watch at his doors, one of which led into a broad passage, and the other he knew not whither. They were designed rather to protect him from the fury of the warriors, now concentrated in the garden and palace, than to guard against escape, which the wounds he had received in the defence of Guzman, had but ill fitted him to attempt. All that Guatimozin could do to prolong an existence, now almost insufferably wretched, he did; and at the very moment of the assault, while taking measures to effect his own retreat from an empire now utterly demolished, and a post no longer tenable, he gave hasty instructions to the Ottomi, Techeechee, to secure the escape of his friend. It will be presently seen in what manner fortune defeated this plan, as well as all others now devised by the fallen monarch.

It was with a listlessness amounting almost to apathy, that Juan listened to the first discharges of the cannon and the roar of hostile voices. Such sounds had been awakened for several days in succession, and each day they were nearer and louder. If they promised him deliverance, they promised little else; for, having reflected upon the eventful enterprise of the causeway, and digested at leisure and in gloom, many of those details which had almost escaped his notice, in the heat and hurry of contention, he saw but little reason to anticipate from his countrymen, any other reception than such as might be vouchsafed to a condemned criminal and avowed renegade. He remembered, that he had been struck down by a Spaniard, while in the very act of giving life to the Captain-General; and he had a vague suspicion, that the blow was struck by the Barba-Roxa. If Gaspar (of whose death he was entirely ignorant), had met him with such vindictive ferocity, what else could be expected from men who had never looked upon him with friendship? Yet fear for himself made the lightest weight in his load of suffering: his thoughts dwelt upon the captive princess, and not less often, though with perhaps less gnawing anxiety, upon his equally captive sister.

Such were the reflections that darkened his mind during the first hours of conflict, and made him almost indifferent to his fate. Yet, notwithstanding his gloom, there arose a circumstance at last, which gave such an appalling character to his confinement, as prevented his remaining any longer indifferent to his situation. He became suddenly aware that volleys of smoke were beginning to roll into the apartment, and perceived, at the same time, that his guards, driven away by fear, or by an uncontrollable desire to mingle in the conflict, as was more probable, had fled from the doors, after satisfying themselves that he was secured in such a manner as to prevent his flying in their absence. He was indeed bound, or rather swathed, hand and foot, with robes of cotton, so as to be incapable of rising from the couch on which he lay: and it was his consciousness of the miserable helplessness of his condition, left to perish, as it seemed, in a burning palace, without the power of raising a finger in self-preservation, that stung him out of his lethargy.

The smoke was now rolling into the room, in denser masses than before, accompanied by the stifling odour of burning feathers, which entered so largely into the decorations of the palace; and he began to apprehend lest he should be suffocated outright, even before the flames had extended to his prison. He called aloud for relief; but his voice was unheeded in the din that shook the palace walls; he struggled to release his limbs, or to rise to his feet, but in vain; and even the poor expedient of rolling over the floor, availed him but little, so much were his muscles cramped by the barbarous bonds. To crown the horror of the scene, a gush of heated air shook the curtains of the door opposite to that which communicated with the passage, and was almost instantly followed by another, whirling smoke and flames.

But even in this extremity, hope was brought to his ears, in the sound of a voice not heard for many days, but not yet forgotten. From among the very flames that came flashing into the chamber, consuming the door-curtains, and darting upon the little canopy that surmounted his couch, he could distinguish the eager and clamorous howlings of Befo; as if this faithful friend were seeking him in his imprisonment. He answered with a shout, which was responded to not only by the joyful bark of the dog, but by the wild cry of a woman; and in the next instant, Magdalena, preceded by Befo, rushed through the flames into his dungeon.

"I have come to save you, my brother!" she cried, with accents wildly vehement and incoherent. "We will fly where never man shall see us more. Kiss me, Juan; and then look upon me no more, for I have made a vow to my soul. – Oh, my brother! my brother!" And she flung herself upon his body, and strove, but in vain, to raise him from the floor.

Had the agitation of his mind permitted, Juan must have noticed, and been shocked by, the alteration in her appearance. Her whole figure was miserably wasted, and she grasped him with a strength feebler than a child's. Her countenance was hollow, ghastly pale, and mottled only by such touches of colour as indicate a spirit consuming equally with the body. Add to this, that her garments were scorched, and even in parts burned, by the flames through which she had made her way; and we may understand how much she differed from the beautiful and majestic creature, that had been deemed at Tezcuco, almost a being of another world.

"Cut my bonds, Magdalena," said Juan, eagerly, "or I must die in thine arms."

"Let it be so, Juan – We will die together," cried Magdalena, with a voice of transport, as if the prospect of such a climax to an unhappy fate filled her mind with actual delight. "Oh yes, Juan, so we will die, so we will die!" And she flung her arms about his neck, with tremulous fervour, smothering his voice of remonstrance and entreaty, until recalled to her wits by a loud howl from Befo. This faithful animal, limping yet with pain, but acting as if he understood the inability of Magdalena to give his master relief, now lifted up his voice, whining for further assistance; and in a few seconds the cry of another human being was heard, approaching with answering shouts, through the passage. But before they were yet heard, Magdalena sprang to her feet, and wrung her hands wildly, staring upon Juan as if upon a basilisk.

"Sister! sister! will you see me perish?" cried Juan. "Slip me but these knotted robes from my hands and feet, and I will save thy life. Befo! what Befo! canst thou not rive them to tatters with thy fangs?"

"I will free you, Juan, – yes, I will free you," said Magdalena, flinging herself upon her knees, and essaying with better zeal than wisdom to loose the knotted folds; "Yes, Juan, I will free you, and then bid you farewell – Yes, farewell, farewell – a lasting farewell."

But while she was muttering thus, and striving confusedly with the knots, a better assistance arrived in the person of the old Ottomi, who rushed in, yelling, "Fly! fly! The king waits for his brother," and cut the garments asunder with his macana.

Juan rose to his feet; but so long had he endured this benumbing bondage, that he was scarce able either to stand or move. There was no time, however, for hesitation. The flames were already devouring his couch, and darting over the cedar rafters of the ceiling. Befo whined and ran to the door, as if inviting his master to follow; and Techeechee did not cease to exhort him to hasten. Besides all this, there were now heard the cries of men and clashing of arms, as if the battle were raging even in the palace, and approaching the place of imprisonment.

"Magdalena, dear Magdalena – "

She flung herself into his arms, and embracing him, as if never to part from him more, she yet uttered, with wild sobbings,

"Farewell, Juan, farewell; farewell, my brother – we will never see each other more!"

"What meanest thou, my sister? Hold me by the arm – Tarry not, or we shall perish."

"I cannot go, Juan – I will remain, Juan – I must die, Juan, I must die. Weep for me, pray for me, remember me – Now go, now go! Go, Juan, go!"

It is impossible to express the mingled tenderness and vehemence with which she uttered these words. Poignant grief darkened in her eyes, in which glimmered the light of the most passionate love; and all the while she shed floods of tears. Unable to comprehend an agitation so extraordinary, and valedictions which he thought little short of insanity, he grasped her by the hand, and endeavoured to draw her after him. She resisted even with screams, until, utterly confounded, and somewhat incensed by opposition so unreasonable and inopportune, he turned again to remonstrate, and perhaps rebuke. But the reproach was banished from his lips, before they had given it utterance. She again flung her arms around his neck, and muttered with tones that went to his heart,

"I cannot go with you, Juan – Oh my brother! pardon me, my brother, and do not curse me. Bid me farewell, Juan, bid me farewell for ever – I love you Juan, I love you too much! – Now I can live no more, Juan, I can live no more – Farewell! farewell! farewell!" And flinging from his arms, as if from a serpent that had suddenly stung her to the heart, she uttered another shriek, and fled through the burning door by which she had entered.

Juan remained fixed to the spot, as if struck by a thunderbolt; and before he could banish the words of the thrice-unhappy victim of passion from his ears, there rushed into the chamber, with furious shouts, a rabble of Spanish soldiers, blood-stained, and begrimed with smoke and cinders, the leader of whom struck the Ottomi dead with a single thrust of his spear, while the others rushed upon Juan, some crying out to kill, and others to spare him.

"Hands off!" cried Najara, throwing himself betwixt them and Juan. "Remember orders, – the general's orders! – The king, señor Juan? Where is the king?"

"Unhand me, villains!" cried Juan, endeavouring to shake off the soldiers who held him fast, while Befo attempted vainly to give him assistance: – "Kill me, if you will, but save my sister, my poor sister – Quick! for the love of heaven, quick!" he cried, observing some dart towards the door through which she had vanished: "Cortes will reward you – save her! save her!"

"Follow them, Bernal, man," cried Najara to the historian, who had just plucked his spear from the body of Techeechee – "What dost thou with slaying gray-headed Indians? Follow La Monjonaza, – five-hundred crowns, – ay, by my troth, and call them five thousand – to him that recovers her alive! Ah, señor Juan! your dog has more brains than yourself. But for his howling, you must e'en have roasted, man. Come along, come along – Be of good heart; there is no fear now of either axe or rope."

With such words as these, he drew Juan from the chamber, and supporting his tottering steps between himself and another, and bidding the rest of the party to surround them, so as to guard against any outbursting of rage from their excited companions, he bore him from the scene of bloodshed and conflagration.

CHAPTER XXI

The assault upon the garden and palace of Guatimozin, though the last blow given to his power, it has not been thought needful to describe in any of its details. It is well known, that the occasion was used by the few nobles of the empire who yet survived, to withdraw their monarch with his family from the island, in the vain hope of reaching the main land, through a line of brigantines and armed piraguas. It is also well known, that, notwithstanding the stratagem with which these faithful barbarians essayed to protect the last of their native lords, by exposing their own defenceless gondolas to destruction, he was captured, in consequence of his magnanimous self-devotion, and transferred with his trembling family, from his royal piragua to the galley of Garci Holguin.

Drums, trumpets, falconets, fire-arms, and human voices at once proclaimed the importance of the capture, and the triumph of the victors; and with all the speed of sails and oars, the fortunate cavalier bore his prize towards the nearest landing in possession of the Spaniards, deriding and even defying the claim set up by Sandoval, as the superior officer, to the honour of presenting the prisoner to the Captain-General. Long before he had reached the palace of Axajacatl, it was known throughout the whole city that Guatimozin was in the hands of the besiegers. The warriors who still fought in the garden, beheld the surrender on the lake, instantly threw down their arms, and submitted with sullen indifference to the fate they had long anticipated. With the interview betwixt the king and the conqueror all readers are familiar. The Captain-General, sumptuously dressed, and in the midst of such state as could be prepared for an occasion so imposing, received the prisoner, (in whose wasted figure and dejected countenance it was not possible to recognize the half-forgotten Olin,) in the hall of the palace of Axajacatl, where his ancestors had been kings and princes, but into which he now entered a captive and vassal. The Captain-General received him not only with respect, but with an appearance of sympathy and kindness. In truth, he could not but admire the fortitude of his youthful foe; and he reflected, not without exultation, that if his desperate resistance had increased the pains and perils of conquest, and frequently dashed all hopes of success, it had made his own triumph a thousand times more glorious. He descended from his chair of state, and raising the dejected captive from the floor, upon which he had flung himself in token of submission, he embraced him with many expressions of respect and encouragement.

"Fear not – neither for thy life nor crown," he said. "Thou perceivest, the king of Spain, my master, is invincible. Reign still in Mexico; but reign as his vassal."

He would have replaced on the captive's head the copilli of gold, which had been brought from the gondola and put into his hand; but Guatimozin rejected it with a melancholy gesture, saying,

"It is the Teuctli's – I am no more the king. Malintzin! be merciful to the people of Mexico: they are now slaves. Have pity also on the women and children, that come from the palace; for they are of the household of Montezuma. As for myself, Malintzin, hearken to what I say. The kings of Mexico have all died; when they gave their breath to heaven, the crown was on their front, and the sceptres on their bosom. Why then should I live, who am no longer a king? Malintzin, I have fought for Mexico, I have shed blood for my country, and now I shed tears; I can do no more for my people – It is fitting, therefore, that I should die – But I should die like a king." – He extended his hand, and touched the jewelled dagger that glittered in the baldric of his foe. The action was without any sign of hostility, and his countenance, now uplifted upon Cortes, was bathed with tears. "Let Malintzin do the work – Plunge this dagger into my bosom, and let me depart."

There was something affecting even to the iron-hearted conqueror in the situation and demeanour of the poor infidel, thus beseeching, and evidently with as much sincerity as simplicity, a death of honour after a life of patriotism; and Cortes would have renewed his caresses and assurances of friendship, had not his ears been that moment struck by voices without, pronouncing the name of Juan Lerma, with brutal execrations. He signed to those cavaliers who had conducted the monarch to his presence, to lead him away; and a moment after, Juan Lerma was conducted up to his footstool. Dejected, spiritless, overcome perhaps by the ferocious calls for vengeance which had heralded his steps to the palace, as well as by the exhaustion of long bodily suffering, he did not raise his eyes from the floor, until he heard the voice of Cortes pronounce the faltering words, —

"Juan of Castillejo, I have done you a great wrong. – Yes," he continued, with a louder voice, when Juan looked up, surprised not more by his altered tones than by a name so unexpected and unknown, "Yes, and let all bear witness to my confession; – I have done thee, not one wrong only, but many; for which I heartily repent me, and, before all this assemblage, do beseech thy forgiveness."

"My forgiveness, señor!" stammered Juan, while all the rest looked on in amazement.

"Thy forgiveness," repeated the conqueror, with double emphasis. "Thou hast been belied to me, bitterly maligned; but heaven has punished the slanderer, who slew mine own peace of mind, that he might compass thy death."

"Alas, señor," said Juan; "in his death-gasp, Guzman confessed to me – "

"Speak not of Guzman – forget him. – Have ye heard, my masters! and well taken note of what is spoken? Now begone, all, and leave me alone with my recovered prodigal. – Juan – Juan Lerma, – Juan of Castillejo," he cried, as soon as the wondering audience had vanished; "if Guzman have confessed to you, you must know why I have been maddened into wrath and injustice. – But thy sister, Juan, where is thy sister? my poor Magdalena? Ah, Juan! it was but a fiendish aberration, that set me against the child of my sister!"

With these words, he threw himself upon Juan's neck, and embraced him with a fervour that indicated the return of all his old affections, uttering a thousand exclamations, in which he mingled recurrences to the past with many a reference to the present and future. "This will be a glad day to Catalina, for she ever loved thee – Dolt that I was, to think that her love could be aught but a mother's! My father, Juan, my father, too! his gray hairs will yet be laid in a grave of joy; for he shall behold the son of his daughter seated in the inheritance of a noble father. And thy sister – she shall shine with the proudest and noblest. – I knew thee upon the causeway, too, though I was left in a coma, and half expiring. We have full proof of thy claims. – And thy princess, too – dost thou remember the silver cross?" taking it from his bosom – "Were there a duke's son demanded her, she should be thine. – What ho! some one bring me – But, nay – Thy sister, Juan! does she not live?"

Juan was stunned, stupified, bewildered, by a transformation in his own character and in the feelings of the general, so sudden and so marvellous. Yet he strove to reply to the last question, and was in the act of uttering a broken and hasty explanation, when a loud cry came from the passage, and rushing out, they beheld a party of soldiers bearing, in a litter of robes torn from the burning palace, the body, or the living frame, they knew not which, of the unhappy nun, over whom the penitent Gregorio was bitterly lamenting.

It was indeed Magdalena, her garments scorched, her face like the face of the dying. Yet she did not seem to have suffered from the flames. The soldiers had found her in a part of the palace not touched by the fire, and scarce invaded by the smoke; and perhaps a subtle physician would have traced her dreadful condition rather to some overpowering convulsion of spirit than to any physical, injury. She was indeed dying, the victim of contending passions, with which the education of a cloister had so ill fitted her to contend.

We will not speak of the meeting of Juan and his dark-eyed proselyte. It took place beside the couch of the dying girl, who, for love of him, had given up the vows of religion and the fame of woman, and perished with frenzy, when she discovered that that love was more than the love of a sister.

At nightfall, and while she still lay insensible, save that a faint moan occasionally trembled from her lips, there arose a tempest of lightning, thunder, and rain, far exceeding in violence any that had before burst over the heads of the Spaniards, and which Bernal Diaz has recorded in his history, as having been the most dreadful that ever confounded his mind and senses. It seemed as if the warlike divinities of Mexico were now taking leave of their broken altars and subjugated people, with a display of strength and fury, never more to be exercised. It ceased not until midnight, and then only when it had discharged a bolt that shook the island to its foundation, and tumbled many a ruined cabin and dilapidated palace, upon the heads of their unhappy inmates.

It was in the midst of this conflict of the elements, that the broken spirit passed from its weary prison; and what had been beauty and affection, genius and passion, became a clod, to claim kindred with its fellow of the valley. It was better indeed that she should thus perish; for her nature was above that of earth, and even the passion that destroyed her, pure, enthusiastic, and devoted as it was, was unworthy the spirit it had subdued. It was such as is the molewarp to the rose-bush, or the myrtle-tree, which he can destroy by burrowing at their roots, even when the winter's blast can scarce rive away a branch.

The remains of this ill-fated being were interred upon a sequestered hill, west of Mexico, where Gregorio Castillejo built a hermitage, and mourned over her for the few years he survived her. He left the odour of sanctity behind him, and the hermitage is now forgotten in the chapel built upon its site, and dedicated to Our Lady de los Remedios. To this place Cortes withdrew, with his whole army, in order that the ruined city might be purified of corses and rubbish, that rendered it horrible even to a soldier, no longer inflamed by the fire of battle. He soon, however, removed to Xochimilco, the Field of Flowers, where the time of the purification was devoted to solemn rejoicings and profane festivities.

To all those who may yet be disposed to consider our account of the strength and splendour of the empire of Montezuma as fabulous, we recommend no better study than the honest, worthy, and single-minded historian, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who lived to complete his Historia Verdadera, fifty years afterwards, in the loyal city of Guatimala, in which he held the honourable post of Regidor, the venerable, and, at that period, almost the sole survivor of the followers of Cortes. He has recorded one striking proof of the vast multitudes of pagans that had been concentrated within the island of Mexico. After averring, with a solemn oath, that, after the fall of the city, the streets, houses, squares, courts, and canals, were so covered with dead bodies, that it was impossible to move without treading upon them, he relates, that, Cortes having ordered all who survived, principally women and children, and the wounded, to evacuate the city, preparatory to its purification, 'for three days and three nights, all the causeways were full of the wretched fugitives, who were so weak and sickly, so squalid and pestilential, that it was misery to behold them.' Three broad highways, covered, for the space of three days and nights, by a moving mass of widows and orphans, the trophies of a gallant achievement! the first fruits of the ambition of a single individual!

As Bernal Diaz retained, to the last, a jealous regard for the honour of his leader, this friendly weakness, taken into consideration along with the infirmities of memory incident to his advanced age, may perhaps account for his failure to complete the story of Juan Lerma. He may have recollected, as is often the case with an old man, the earliest facts of the story, while the later ones slipped entirely from his mind.