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

Techeechee gazed after them for a moment, and then handling his paddle, he directed the canoe round the point of Tlatelolco, and was soon lost among a multitude of similar vessels, all proceeding to the southwest, in the direction of the hill of Chapoltepec.

CHAPTER VI

The review, division, and minute organization of the vast army now at the disposal of the Captain-General, occupied nearly the whole day, which was unexpectedly propitious, as the rainy season might be said to have already commenced. Clouds, indeed, gathered over the sky, in the afternoon, giving a melancholy aspect to the hills and meadows; and a thick fog rose from the lake and spread around, until it had pervaded the lower grounds on its borders. Yet not a drop of rain fell during the whole day, and, by sunset, the clouds dispersed, without having disturbed the firmament with thunder; and the lake was left to glimmer in the light of a young moon, and the multitude of stars.

The whole native population of Tezcuco had been drawn to the meadows, to witness the glories of military parade, and the city was deserted and solitary. Nay, even the watchmen on the walls, forgetting the audacious assault of the past night, and anxious to share a spectacle from which their duties should have separated them, stole, one after another, from their posts, until the northern gates were left wholly unguarded. The vanity of the Commander-in-Chief could not permit the absence of a single effective Spaniard from the scene of display, and the walls had been left to Tlascalans.

Late in the afternoon, and when the mists were thickest, and the hues of the fields most mournful, a single individual passed from that gate at which Juan Lerma, eight or nine weeks before, had terminated the first chapter of his exile. A friar's cassock and cowl enveloped his whole form, yet the dullest eye would have detected in the vigour and impetuosity of his step, the presence of passions which could not belong to the holy profession. His eye was fixed upon a shadowy figure, almost lost among the mists, that went staggering along, as if upon a course not yet defined, or over paths difficult to be traced; and while he was obviously watching and pursuing the retreating shape, it seemed to be with a confidence that feared not the observation of the fugitive. Thus, when the figure paused, he arrested his steps, and resumed them only when they were resumed by the other; and, in this manner, he followed onwards, with little precaution, until Tezcuco was left far behind, hidden in the fog. As he moved, he muttered many expressions, indicative of a deeply disturbed and even remorseful mind.

"All this have I done," he exclaimed, bitterly, and almost wildly. "Mine own sin, though black as the soot of perdition, is stained a triple dye by the malefactions it has caused in others —Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! Cursed avarice! cursed ambition! There is a retribution that follows us even to the grave; sin is punished with sin, – the first fault lays fire to the train of our vices, and in their explosions we are further stained, – punished, destroyed. That sin! and what has come of it? Where is the gain to balance it? Cajoled by the demon that seduced me, cheated and flung aside – suspected, degraded, demoralized – a wanderer, a villain, a cur – the friend of rogues, and myself their fittest fellow – Heaven is strong, and justice oppressive. —Munda cor meum ac labia mea! for I blaspheme!"

Thus muttered the distracted Camarga, for it was he who gave vent to such troubled expressions. Some of these were uttered so loudly, that they seemed to reach the ear of the fugitive, who turned round, looked back for a moment, and then diving into a misty hollow, was for a short time concealed from his eyes.

"Ay, – fly, fly!" he muttered, gnashing his teeth; "fly, wretch, fly! But wert thou fleeter than the mountain-deer, thou couldst not escape the fiend that is already tearing at thy vitals. Fling thyself into the lake, too, and after death, open thine eyes upon a phantom of horror, that will sit before thee for ever!"

Then pursuing with greater activity, he again caught sight of the fugitive, who was ascending the little promontory of the cypress-tree, on which Juan Lerma had first beheld the faces of his countrymen.

"And Hernan Cortes will yet have me speak the story!" he murmured. "Be it so – live she or die she, he shall hear it, and curse the curiosity that compelled it. Ay! and his anguish will be some set-off to the joy of having triumphed over the poor wretch he persecuted. God rest thee, Juan Lerma! for thou at least hast died in ignorance; and but for this mischance, – this fatal mischance, – hadst been worthy of a better fate, and therefore saved from destruction."

As he uttered these broken words, he perceived La Monjonaza, – for it was this unhappy creature whom he followed, – steal over the mound to the right hand, as if turning her steps from the lake landward. But being aware that she had beheld him, and suspecting this to be merely a feint, designed to mislead him, he directed his course to the water-side, and stepping among the rocks and brambles at the base of the hill, passed it in time to behold Magdalena stalking, with a countenance of distraction, towards the lake, as if impelled by some terrible goadings of mind, to self-destruction.

"Wretched creature!" he cried, springing forwards, and staying her frenzied steps, "what is this you do? Fling not away the grace that is in wait. —You, at least, may live and be forgiven."

To his great surprise, the unhappy girl, whose countenance had indicated all the iron determination of desperation, offered not the slightest resistance, while he drew her from the water-side; but turning towards him with the face of a maiden detected in some merry and harmless mischief, she began to laugh; but immediately afterwards, burst into tears.

"Good heavens!" said Camarga, with compassion, "are you indeed brought to this pass? What! the mind that even amazed Don Hernan – is it gone? wholly gone? Miserable Magdalena! this is the fruit of sin!"

At the sound of a name, so seldom pronounced in these lands, the lady rose from the rock, on which she had suffered herself to be seated, although it was observable that she showed no symptoms of surprise. She gazed fixedly at Camarga for an instant, and a dark frown gathering on her brows, she turned to depart, without reply. Camarga, however, detained her, and would have spoken; but no sooner did she feel his hand laid upon her mantle than she turned suddenly round, with a look of inexpressible fierceness, saying, with the sternest accents of a voice always strikingly expressive,

"Who art thou, that comest between me and my purpose? If a priest or an angel, fly, – for here thou art with contamination; if a man, and a bad man, still fly, lest thou be struck dead with the breath of one deeper plunged in guilt than thyself. – If a devil, then remain, and claim thy prey from the apostate and murderess. Dost thou forbid me even to die?"

"Ay – I do," replied Camarga, trembling, yet less at her terrible countenance than her fearful expressions: "I am one who, in the name of heaven, – a name which is alike polluted: in thy mouth and in mine – command thee to recall thy senses, if they have not utterly fled, and bid thee, thinking of self-slaughter no longer, leave this land of wretchedness, and, in a cloister, and with a life of penitence, obtain the pardon which heaven will not perhaps withhold."

"Pardon comes not without punishment," said Magdalena, sternly; "and I would not that it should: and for penitence, – the moaning regret that exists without torture and suffering, – know that it is but a mockery. Kill thy friend, and repent, – yet dream not of paradise. Scourge thyself, die on the rack or gibbet, and await thy fate in the grave. Begone; or rest where thou art, and follow me no more."

"Till thou die, or till thou art lodged within the walls of a convent," said Camarga, grasping her arm with a strength and determination she could not resist: "thus far will I follow thee, rave thou never so much. Oh, wretched creature! and wert thou about to rush into the presence of thy Maker, unshriven, unrepenting, unprepared?"

Magdalena surveyed him with a look that changed gradually from anger to wistful emotion; and then again shedding tears, she dropped on her knees, saying, with a tone and manner that went to his heart,

"I will shrive me then, and then let me go, for thy presence persecutes me. – Well, and perhaps it is better; for it is long since I have looked upon a man of God – long since I have spoken with any just Christian but one, – and him I have given up to the murderers. Hear me then, and then absolve or condemn as thou wilt, for I judge myself; and I confess to thee, only that my words may drive thee away, as would the moans of a coming pestilence. Hear me then, friar, and then begone from me."

"Arise," said Camarga, "I seek not thy confession, at least not now: I have that will draw it from thee, at a fitter time and place. In this distant spot, thou art exposed to danger from the infidels."

"If thou fearest them, away! Why dost thou trouble me? If thou stayest, listen to my words; for though they come too late, yet will they cause thee to do justice to the name, and say masses for the soul, of Juan Lerma."

"Speak of Juan Lerma," said Camarga, with a trembling voice, "and I will indeed listen to thee. In nomine Dei Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, speak and speak truly. Cursed be thou, even by my lips, if thou speakest that which is false, or concealest aught that is true!"

"Truth, though I die, – and let me die when it is spoken," said Magdalena, placing her lips with the instinctive reverence of habit to the cross which Camarga extended. As she kissed it, her heart seemed to soften, and she shed many bitter tears, while pouring forth her broken and melancholy story.

"Know, father," she said, not once doubting that she had a true father of the church before her, "that it was my misfortune never to have known the kindness and care of a parent."

"Let that be passed," said Camarga, hurriedly. "Speak not of the sins of thy youth, a thousand times confessed, and a thousand times absolved. Speak of thy coming to the island, – of thy broken vows, – thy – " But here perceiving that Magdalena started with a sort of affright, at finding how far his knowledge had anticipated her divulgements, he continued, with better discretion, "Thus much do I know —how I know, ask not; and yet thou mayst be told, too, that much of thy fate was interwoven with that of Villafana."

"My fate, and that of Villafana!" cried Magdalena, with a withering look of contempt. But instantly changing to a more submissive air, she exclaimed, "My story, indeed, father, but not my fate. If he have confessed to you, then do you know enough, – perhaps all. He told you, then, that his avarice, gratified at the expense of a horrible crime, – the destruction of the ship, and the lives of all within it, abbess, nuns, sailors, and all, – was the cause of all my calamities, since it was my hard fate not to perish with the rest. He robbed the ship of the golden and silver church-vessels, when we were near to the port, and made his escape to the shore, leaving us to sink in the midst of a storm then rising. Our pilot having no hope but in running upon the shore, then within sight, ran the vessel among certain rocks, where it was beaten to pieces. Father, it chanced to be my fate, and mine alone, to be plucked out of that roaring sea, by one to whom, when lying in a gulf ten times more hideous, I refused to stretch out my hand. Father! last night a word from my lips would have saved the life of Juan Lerma, and I did not speak it!"

"Dwell not on this," said Camarga, sternly. "Rather thank heaven that thou wert rendered unable by any exercise of criminal love, to preserve on the earth's surface a wretch, at whose footstep it shuddered."

"Hah!" cried Magdalena, starting up in a transport of indignation, and sending daggers from her eyes, "who art thou, that speakest so falsely and foully of Juan Lerma? Wert thou, instead of a pattering friar, a canonized saint in heaven, still wert thou but a thing of dross and earth, compared with him thou malignest!"

Before Camarga could rebuke this burst of passion, she sank, as before, to the earth, weeping afresh; for she was in that pitiable state of mental feebleness, in which life seems only to continue in impulses, – a chain of convulsions and exhaustions. "Alas, father," she continued, with sobs, "you have been taught, like the rest, to misconceive and belie the best and most unfortunate of men; – for such is Juan Lerma; – and you have perhaps joined with the rest to compass his destruction. Has he wronged you? no – you have imagined a wrong. Has he wronged Cortes? no – he has wronged no one; but the ear of Cortes was open to his enemies. Hear me, father, and while you condemn me, listen to the refutation of slander. Father, when I opened mine eyes to the light, and in the presence of him who had saved me, I forgot my vows; nay, I thought that heaven had absolved them in the wreck, and ordained that I should be happy in a new existence. Never before had I looked upon the world, and the people of the world, – never before had I looked upon Juan Lerma. When had I seen one smile upon me with affection? Father, for a second such smile, I would have moaned again on the wreck, seeing my companions swept from me one by one. I grew cunning and deceitful, and when they asked me of the ship and people, I told them falsehoods, lest they should bring me the veil and the priest, and carry me from his presence. Alas! and my deceit availed not; he smiled no more; and when Hilario spoke of affection – affection for me, – Juan Lerma withdrew without a sigh, without a struggle."

"Saints of heaven!" cried Camarga, starting with horror, gasping for breath, and, in the sense of suffocation, forgetting his assumed character so much as to fling back the cowl that had concealed his features. "Dost thou speak me the truth? On thy life, – on thy hopes of heaven's forgiveness, – on thy love even for this lost, perhaps this dead, youth, – I charge thee speak me the truth. Went there no more than this between you? And Juan Lerma loved you not? and Villafana belied ye both? And you are not – "

He paused in agitation, unable to utter another word; and Magdalena, surprised as much at his extraordinary interest in her story, as well as confounded by the absence of the tonsure, and the glittering of an iron gorget about his throat, seemed for a moment unable to answer his questions. But summoning her spirits at last, she said,

"Thou art not a priest, but a layman, a stranger, and a man of sin! But be who thou wilt, friend or foe, thou knowest now enough of my history to be entitled to know all. Never did man couple my name with shame, and think of any but him who died under the dagger of Villafana. As for Juan Lerma, not even Cortes, his bitterest enemy, would dare accuse him of a deed of dishonour. Stranger, if thou art interested in the betrayed and murdered Juan, know at least that he died innocent of any wrong to Magdalena."

"Now God be praised for this good word!" said Camarga, dropping on his knees, and speaking with what seemed a distraction of fervour and delight: "God be praised that I may not think, at my death-hour, that my sins have caused among my children the crime of incest! God be praised! God be praised!"

"Incest! Thy children!" exclaimed Magdalena, wildly. "What art thou? What is this thou sayst?"

"What do I say I and why need I say it?" cried Camarga, springing up and wringing his hands – "have we not slain him among us? Oh, wretched Magdalena, if, by thine influence, he was brought to this pass, know that thou hast slain thine own brother!"

At this strange and exciting revelation, Magdalena, who had, in the ecstacy of expectation, seized upon Camarga's hands with a convulsive grasp, uttered a scream, wild, loud, and thrilling, and yet how unlike to that which rose from her breaking heart in the prison! It was some such cry as might be supposed to come from a despairing Christian, who finds that the gates, which he thinks are conducting him to hell, have suddenly ushered him into the walks of paradise. It mingled fear and astonishment with joy, but joy predominant over the others; and though it sounded as if coming from a bursting heart, it was as if from one bursting in the over-bound and expansion of a breast released from a mountain of oppression. It echoed over the lake, and seemed to have called up the spirits thereof; for before its last hysterical echo had vibrated on the ear, there sprang up, as if they had risen from the earth or the waters, six or seven athletic barbarians, flourishing heavy macanas, who rushed at once upon the pair.

At the sight of such unexpected and formidable antagonists, though taken entirely by surprise, Camarga snatched his concealed sword from the scabbard, leaped with great intrepidity betwixt Magdalena and the nearest savage, who seemed the leader of the party, and made a blow at him, while calling to her,

"Fly! fly! and tell Cortes that thy brother – " But his lips finished not the sentence. Whether it was that he was rendered helpless by long continued disease, was embarrassed by the friar's cassock, or was really unskilful in the use of weapons, it is certain that his blade dropped harmless on the macana of the warrior. Before he could recover his guard, the battle-axe of the Mexican fell upon his head with deadly violence, and he rolled, to all appearance a dying man, on the ground.

At the same instant, another warrior clutched upon Magdalena, who, though pale as death, and agitated by a long succession of passions, yet drew the dagger she always carried at her girdle, and aimed it at the breast of the infidel. Before it could do him any harm, it was snatched out of her hand, and she herself caught up as by the grasp of a giant, in the arms of the leader, and hurried to the water. In an instant more, she was placed in a piragua, which her capturers drew from a reed-brake hard by, and secured, though not rudely, beyond the possibility of further resistance, among the infidels. They caught up their paddles, uttered a wild yell, and the next moment dashed from the shore, and were hidden among the mists of the lake.

CHAPTER VII

Are the refinements and delicate sensibilities of the spirit confined to the highborn and polished? They are undoubtedly the offspring of nature: Education supplies their place only by the substitutes of affectation. Though poverty may crush, though wretchedness and evil habits may corrupt and extinguish them, yet they throb in the breasts of the lowly, during the days of youth, and are not always banished even by the rigours of manhood. They dwell under the painted lodge of the barbarian, and they burn even in the heart of the benighted heathen.

Let us fancy the moonlight streaming over the lake of Tezcuco. The moon is in her first quarter, and the evening-star, almost her rival in lustre and magnitude, precedes her in the blue paths of the west. The golden radiance of sunset trembles no more on the mountain peaks; but the thin vapours floating through the zenith, are yet gleaming faintly with the last expiring glories of day. The birds are at rest in the garden of Mexico, – all save the little madrugadores, that yet chirp merrily in the trees, and the centzontli, who leaves her ravishing melody, to mock them with their own music, made yet more musical. The breeze sleeps among the boughs, or it stirs only through the poplar leaves, and its rustling sound is mingled with the hum of a thousand nocturnal insects. In such a night, one forgets that man is not an angel. We see not the frown of malevolence in the sky; we hear not the step of the betrayer on the grass; nor does the dew-drop, falling from the leaf, admonish us of the tears that are streaming, hard by, in sorrow. In such a night, the feelings of the kind are kindest, the thoughts of the pure, purest; youth gathers about it the mantle of hope, and hope whispers in the voice of affection. At such a time, it is good to look into the hearts of the youthful, and forget the excitements of years. A draught from the waters of Clitorius was fabled to extinguish the thirst for wine.[10 - Clitorio quicunque sitim de fonte levâritVina fugit.Metam. Lib. XV.] He who can creep into the bosoms of the young, and drink of the fountain of innocent affections, will turn with loathing from the impure and maddening currents, that convert the human family into a race of moral Bacchanals.

Can we think that among the worshippers of the ferocious Mexitli, and the fierce invaders of his people, there were none with natures worthy of a better belief, and a nobler cause? Destiny had thrown together two, at least, whose spirits were but little tainted with the evil of their place and their day, – in whom, perhaps, feeling rather than reason, had set a talisman that left them incorruptible. A good heart is to man what the galvanic bar of the philosopher was to the ship's copper-sheathing. It gives this protection, at least, that, through the whole voyage of life, it preserves the integrity of the vessel. The barnacle and the remora will indeed deaden its course, but the metal remains clean and bright: the billows of the world waste their corrosive powers only on the protector. Morality itself is two-fold; it is of the head, and of the heart. The first belongs to the philosopher, the second to the poet. The one is an abstraction of reason; the other an exhortation of passion. The morality of the head is the only one that is just; but it is loveliest and best when the heart enforces its precepts. With good hearts, Juan Lerma and the princess of Mexico, moved among the corruptions of superstition, uncorrupted; and preserved to themselves, unabated and unsullied, the pure and gentle feelings, which nature had showered upon them at their birth.

The moon, falling aslant upon the garden, lighted the countenances of the young Spanish exile and the orphan child of Montezuma, as they rested upon the summit of a little artificial mound, ornamented with carved stone seats and rude statuary, constructed for the purpose of overlooking the walls. The visage of the Christian was illumined by pensive smiles, and his lips breathed gently and fervently the accents that were sweetest to the ears of the Indian maiden. But did he discourse of worldly affection and passion to one so ignorant and artless? A nobler spirit animated the youth. He spoke of the faith of Christians, and laboured with more than the zeal, though not perhaps with the wisdom of the missionary, to impress its divine truths upon the mind of his hearer. If his arguments were somewhat less cogent and logical than might have been spoken, it must be remembered that his religion was like that which will perhaps belong to the majority of Christians to the end of the world, – a faith of the heart, which the head has not been accustomed to canvass.

He directed her eyes to the moon, to the evening star, and to those other celestial wanderers, by which the heart of man was 'secretly enticed,' even before the days of the perfect man of Uz.

"They are the little bright heroes that hang down from the house of Ometeuctli, king of the city of heaven," said the poor infidel, – "all save Meztli," (the moon) "who is the king of night, brother of Tonatricli," (the sun) "god of the burning day. This is what they say of the two gods: There were men on the earth, but wicked: the ancient gods, the sons of Ipalnemoani killed them. Then Ometeuctli sent forth from the city of heaven his sons, who descended to Mictlan, – the dark hell, – by the road that leads between the Fighting Mountains, and the Eight Deserts, – and stole the bones of men, that Mictlanteuctli had heaped up in his cavern. The sons of Ometeuctli sprinkled the bones with their blood; and these men lived again, and the sons of Ometeuctli were their rulers and fathers. But the earth was dark, – it was night over the world, and the only light was the fire which they kindled and kept burning in the vale of Teotihuacan. The sons of Ometeuctli pitied the men they had revived; and, to give them light, they burned themselves in the fire. Ometeuctli, their father, then placed them in the sky, – Tonatricli the first born, to be the sun, Meztli to be the moon, and the others to be stars. So they hang in heaven, turned to fire: and men built pyramids to them, on the place of burning, Micoatl, the Field of Death.[11 - The vale of San Juan de Teotihuacan, where stand the great pyramids of the Sun and Moon, and the smaller mounds erected to the Stars.] They are very good gods, for they shine upon us."

"Forget these idle fables," said Juan, with a gentleness much more judicious than any zeal could have been. "Forget, too, Mexitli, Painalton, Quetzalcoatl, Centeotl, and the thousand vain beings of imagination, with which your priests have peopled the world. Think only of the great Teotl, whom you have called Ipalnemoani, – the great God, the only God, – for there is no other than He, and the rest are but fables. Yonder moon and stars are not divinities, but great globes like this on which we live; and to worship them is a sin – it angers Ipalnemoani, who is the only God, – the Creator, – whom all men worship, though under different names. Worship but Ipalnemoani, and in mode as I will tell thee, and thou art already almost a Christian."

"But is not Christ another god of the Spaniards?" said the maiden, doubtfully.