Calavar; or, The Knight of The Conquest, A Romance of Mexico

"Not very ancient, please my lord: it happened since the fall of Granada."

"It is strange that I never heard it, then; for I dwelt full two months in this same town; and 'tis not yet forty years since the siege."

"Perhaps it is not true," said the stripling, innocently; "and, at the best, 'tis not remarkable enough to have many repeaters. 'Tis a very foolish story."

"Nevertheless, I am impatient to hear it."

"There lived in that town," said Jacinto, "a Moorish orphan – "

"A girl?" demanded the neophyte.

"A Moorish maiden, – of so obscure a birth, that she knew not even the name that had been borne by her parents; but nevertheless, señor, her parents, as was afterwards found out, were of the noblest blood of Granada. She was protected and reared in the family of a benevolent lady, who, being descended of a Moorish parent, looked with pity on the poor orphan of the race of her mother. When this maiden was yet in her very early youth, there came a noble cavalier of Castile – "

"A Castilian!" demanded Don Amador, with extraordinary vivacity, – "Art thou a conjurer? – What was his name?"

"I know not," said Jacinto.

"Thou learnest thy stories, then, only by the half," said the neophyte, with a degree of displeasure that amazed the youth. "And, doubtless, thou wert forgetful also to acquire the name of the Moorish orphan?"

"Señor," said the page, discomposed at the heated manner of his patron, "the Moorish maiden was called Leila."

"Leila!" cried the neophyte, starting to his feet, and seizing Jacinto by the arm – "Canst thou tell me aught of Leila?"

"Señor!" murmured Jacinto, in affright.

"Leila, the Morisca, in the house of the señora Doña Maria de Montefuerte!" exclaimed Don Amador, wildly. "Dost thou know of her fate? Did she sleep under the surges of the bay? Was she ravished away by those exile dogs of the mountains? – Now, by heaven, if thou canst tell me any thing of that Moorish maid, I will make thee richer than the richest Moor of Granada!"

At this moment, while Jacinto, speechless with terror, gazed on his patron, as doubting if his senses had not deserted him, a step rung on the earth of the terrace, and De Morla stood at his side.

The voice of his friend recalled the bewildered wits of the neophyte; he stared at Jacinto, and at De Morla; a deep hue of shame and confusion flushed over his brow; and perceiving that his violence had again thrown the page into tears, he kissed him benevolently on the forehead, and said, as tranquilly as he could, —

"A word will make fools of the wisest! I think I was dreaming, while thou wert at thy story. Be not affrighted, Jacinto: I meant not to scold thee – I was disturbed. – Next – next," he added, with a grievous shudder, "I shall be as mad as my kinsman!"

"My brother! I am surprised to see thee in this emotion," said De Morla.

"It is nothing," responded Amador, hastily and gloomily: "I fear there is a natural infirmity in the brains of all my family. I was moved, by an idle story of Jacinto, into the recollection of a certain sorrowful event, which, one day, perhaps, I will relate to thee. – But let us return to our quarters. – The air comes down chilly from the mountains – It is time we were sleeping."

The friends retired from the temple, leaving the torch sticking in the platform; for the moon was now so high as to afford a better illumination. They parted at the quarters; but Don Amador, after satisfying himself that the knight of Rhodes was slumbering on his pallet, drew Jacinto aside to question him further of the orphan of Almeria. His solicitude was, however, doomed to a disappointment; the page was evidently impressed with the fear, that Don Amador was not without some of the weakness of Calavar; and adroitly, though with great embarrassment, avoided exciting him further.

"It is a foolish story, and I am sorry it displeased my lord," said he, when commanded to continue the narrative.

"It displeased me not – I knew a Moorish maid of that name in Almeria, who was also protected by a Christian lady; and, what was most remarkable, this Christian lady was of Moorish descent, like her of whom thou wert speaking; and, like the Leila of thy story, the Leila of my own memory vanished away from the town before – "

"Señor," cried Jacinto, "I did not say she vanished away from Almeria: that did not belong to the story."

"Ay, indeed! is it so? Heaven guard my wits! what made me think it? – And thy Leila lived in Almeria very recently?"

"Perhaps ten or fifteen years ago – "

"Pho! – Into what folly may not an ungoverned fancy lead us? – Ten or fifteen years ago! – And thou never heardst of the Leila that dwelt in that town within a twelve-month?"

"I, señor?" cried Jacinto, with surprise.

"True – how is it possible thou couldst? – Thou hast, this night, stirred me as by magic. I know not by what sorcery thou couldst hit upon that name!"

"It was the name of the lady," said Jacinto, innocently.

"Ay, to be sure! – There is one Mary in heaven, and a thousand on earth – why should there not be many Leilas? – Did I speak harshly to thee, Jacinto? Thou shouldst not kiss my hand, if I did; for no impatience or grief could excuse wrath to one so gentle and unoffending. Good night – get thee to thy bed, and forget not to say thy prayers."

So saying, and in such disorder of spirits as the page had never before witnessed in him, Don Amador retired.

Jacinto was left standing in a narrow passage, or corridor, on which opened a long row of chambers with curtained doors, wherein slept the soldiers, crowded thickly together. In the gallery, also, at a distance, lay several dusky lumps, which, by the gleaming of armour about them, were seen to be the bodies of soldiers stretched fast asleep. As the boy turned to retire in the direction of the open portal, it was darkened by the figure of a man, entering with a cautious and most stealthy step. He approached, and by his voice, (for there was not light enough yielded by the few flambeaux stuck against the wall, to distinguish features,) Jacinto recognised his father.

"I sought thee, my child!" he whispered, "and saw thee returning with the hidalgos. – The watchmen sleep as well as the cannoniers. – It is as I told thee – art thou ready?"

"Dear father!" – stammered the page.

"Speak not above thy breath! – The curs, that are hungering after the blood of the betrayed Mexicans, would not scorn to blunt their appetites on the flesh of the Moor. Have thyself in readiness at a moment's warning: Our destinies are written – God will not always frown upon us!"

"Dear father!" muttered Jacinto, "we are of the Spaniards' faith, and we will go back to our country."

"It cannot be! – never can it be!" said Abdalla, in tones that were not the less impressive for being uttered in a whisper. "The hills of thy childhood, the rivers of thy love – they are passed away from thee; – think of them no more; – never more shalt thou see them! In the land of barbarians, heaven has willed that we should live and die; and be thou reconciled to thy fate, for it shall be glorious! We live not for ourselves; God brings us hither, and for great ends! To night, did I – Hah!" – (One of the sleepers stirred in the passage.) – "Seek some occasion to speak with me, to-morrow, on the march," whispered Abdalla in the page's ear; and then, with a gesture for silence, he immediately retired.

"Fuego! Quien pasea alli?" grumbled the voice of Lazaro, as he raised his head from the floor. "Fu! el muchacho!– I am ever dreaming of that cursed Turk, that was at my weasand, when Baltasar brained him with the boll of his cross-bow. Laus tibi, Christe!– I have a throat left for snoring." And comforting himself with this assurance, before Jacinto had yet vanished from the passage, the man-at-arms again slumbered on his mat.

CHAPTER XXV

In the prosecution of his purpose, our historian, the worthy Don Cristobal Ixtlilxochitl, though ever adhering to his 'neglected cavaliers' with a generous constancy, is sometimes seduced into the description of events and scenes of a more general character, not very necessarily connected with his main object, and which those very authors whom he censures, have made the themes of much prolix writing. The difficulties that beset an historian are ever very great; nor is the least of them found in the necessity of determinating how much, or how little, he is called upon to record; for though it seems but reasonable he should take it for granted that his readers are entirely unacquainted with the matters he is narrating, and therefore that he should say all that can be said, this is a point in which all readers will not entirely agree with him. Those who have acquired a smattering of his subject, will be offended, if he presume to reinstruct them. For our own part, not recognizing the right of the ignorant to be gratified at the expense of the more learned, we have studied as much as is possible, so to curtail the exuberances of our original as to present his readers chiefly with what they cannot know; for which reason, it will be found, we have eschewed many of the memorable incidents of this famous campaign, in which none of the neglected conquerors bore a considerable part; as well as all those minute descriptions which retard the progress of the history. We therefore despatch in a word the glories of the morning that dawned over Tlascala, the gathering together of the Spaniards, who, upon review, were found to muster full thirteen hundred men, and their savage allies, two thousand in number, commanded, as had been anticipated, by Talmeccahua of the tribe Tizatlan.

Amid the roar of trumpets and drums, and the shouts of a vast people, the glittering and feathered army departed from Tlascala, and pursuing its way through those rich savannas covered with the smiling corn and the juicy aloe, which had gained for this valley its name of the Land of Bread, proceeded onwards towards the holy city, Cholula.

What rocky plains were crossed and what rough sierras surmounted, it needs not to detail: before night-fall, the whole army moved over the meadows that environ Cholula; and there, where now the traveller sees naught but a few wretched natives squatting among their earthen cabins, the adventurers beheld a city of great size, with more than four hundred lofty white towers shining over its spacious dwellings. The magnificent mountains that surrounded it – the sublime Popocatepetl, still breathing forth its lurid vapours, – the forbidding Iztaccihuatl, or the White Woman, looking like the shattered ruins of some fallen planet, vainly concealing their deformities under a vestment of snow, – the sharp and serrated Malinche, – and last (and seen with not the less interest that it intercepted the view towards home,) – the kingly Orizaba, looking peaceful and grand in the east, – made up such a wall of beauty and splendour as does not often confine the valleys of men. But there is one mountain in that singular scene, which human beings will regard with even more interest than those peaks which soar so many weary fathoms above it: the stupendous Teocalli – the Monte hecho á manos, (for it was piled up by the hands of human beings,) – reared its huge bulk over the plain; and, while looking on the stately cypresses that shadowed its gloomy summit, men dreamed, as they dream yet, of the nations who raised so astonishing an evidence of their power, without leaving any revealment of their fate. Whence came they? whither went they? From the shadows – back to the shadows. – The farce of ambition, the tragedy of war, so many thousand times repeated in the three great theatres that divided the old world, were performed with the same ceremonies of guilt and misery, with the same glory and the same shame, in a fourth, of which knowledge had not dreamed. The same superstitions which heaped up the pyramids and the Parthenon, were at work on the Teocallis of America; and the same pride which built a Babylon to defy the assaults of time, gave to his mouldering grasp the tombs and the palaces of Palenque. The people of Tenochtitlan and Cholula worshipped their ancient gods among the ruined altars of an older superstition.

Great crowds issued from this city – the Mecca of Anahuac – to witness the approach of the Spaniards; but although they bore the same features, and the same decorations, though perhaps of a better material, with the Tlascalans, it was observed by Don Amador, that they displayed none of the joy and triumph, with which his countrymen had been ushered into Tlascala. In place of these, their countenances expressed a dull curiosity; and though they kissed the earth and flung the incense, as usual, in their manner of salutation, they seemed impelled to these ceremonies more by fear than affection. He remarked also with some surprise, that when they came to extend their compliments to the allies, – the Tlascalans, from their chief down to the meanest warrior, requited them only with frowns. All these peculiarities were explained to him by De Morla:

"In ancient days," said the cavalier, "the Cholulans were a nation of republicans, like the Tlascalans, and united with them in a fraternal league against their common enemies, the Mexicans. In course of time, however, the people of the holy city were gained over by the bribes or promises of the foe; and entering into a secret treaty, they obeyed its provisions so well, as to throw off the mask on the occasion of a great battle, wherein they perfidiously turned against their friends, and, aided by the Mexicans, defeated them with great slaughter. From that day, they have remained the true vassals of Mexico; and, from that day, the Tlascalans have not ceased to regard them with the most deadly and unrelenting hatred."

"The hatred is just; and I marvel they do not fall upon these base knaves forthwith!" said Amador.

"It is the command of Don Hernan, that Tlascala shall now preserve her wrath for Tenochtitlan; and such is his influence, that, though he cannot allay the heart-burnings, yet can he, with a word, restrain the hands of his allies. Concerning the gloomy indifference of these people," continued De Morla, "as now manifested, it needs only to inform you how we discovered, or, rather, (for I will not afflict you with the details,) how we punished a similar treachery, wherein they meditated our own destruction, more than half a year ago, when we entered their town, on our march to Mexico. Having discovered their plot to destroy us, we met them with a perfidious craft which might have been rendered excusable by their own, had we, like them, been demi-barbarians; but which, as we are really civilized and Christian men, I cannot help esteeming both dishonest and atrocious. We assembled their nobles and priests in the court of the building we occupied; and having closed the gates, and charged them once or twice with their guilt, we fell upon them; and some of them having escaped and roused the citizens, we carried the war into the streets, and up to the temples: and so well did we prosper that day, and the day that followed, (for we fought them during two entire days,) that, with the assistance of our Tlascalans, of whom we had an army with us, we slaughtered full six thousand of them, and that without losing the life of a single Spaniard."

"Dios mio!" cried Don Amador, "we had not so many killed in all the siege of Rhodes! Six thousand men! I am not certain that even treachery could excuse the destruction of so many lives."

"It was a bloody and most awful spectacle," said De Morla, with feeling. "We drove the naked wretches (I say naked, señor, for we gave them no time to arm;) to the pyramids, especially to that which holds the altar of their chief god, – the god of the air; and here, señor, it was melancholy, to see the miserable desperation with which they died; for, having, at first, refused them quarter, they declined to receive it, when pity moved us afterwards to grant it. About the court of this pyramid there were many wooden buildings, as well as tabernacles of the like material among the towers, on the top. These we fired; and thus attacked them with arms and flames. What ruin the fire failed to inflict on the temple, they accomplished with their own hands; for, señor, having a superstitious belief, that, the moment a sacrilegious hand should tear away the foundations of their great temple, floods should burst out from the earth to whelm the impious violator, they began to raze it with their own hands; willing, in their madness, to perish by the wrath of their god, so that their enemies should perish with them. I cannot express to you the horrible howls, with which they beheld the fragments fall from the walls of the pyramid, without calling up the watery earthquake; then, indeed, with these howls, they ran to the summit, and crazily pitched themselves into the burning towers, or flung themselves from the dizzy top, – as if, in their despair, thinking that even their gods had deserted them!"

"It was an awful chastisement, and, I fear me, more awful than just," said Amador. "After this, it is not wonderful the men of Cholula should not receive us with joy."

Many evidences of the horrors of that dreadful day were yet revealed, as Don Amador entered into the city. The marks of fire were left on various houses of stone, and, here and there, were vacuities, covered with blackened wrecks, where, doubtless, had stood more humble and combustible fabrics.