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

The countenance of Montezuma was changed by suffering and the death-throe; and yet, from their hollow depths, his eyes shot forth beams of extraordinary lustre. As he struggled, he muttered; and his broken exclamations being interpreted, were found to be the lamentations of a crushed spirit and a broken heart.

"Bid the Teuctli depart," were some of the words which Don Amador caught, as rendered by the lips of Marina: "before he came, I was a king in Mexico. – But the son of the gods," he went on, with a hoarse and rattling laugh, "shall find that there are gods in Mexico, who shall devour the betrayer! They roar in the heavens, they thunder among the mountains," – (the continued peals of artillery, shaking the fabric of the palace, mingled with his dreams, and gave a colour to them) – "they speak under the earth, and it trembles at their shouting. Ometeuctli, that dwelleth in the city of heaven, Tlaloc, that swimmeth on the great dark waters, Tonatricli and Meztli, the kings of day and night, and Mictlanteuctli, the ruler of hell, – all of them speak to their people; they look upon the strangers that destroy in their lands, and they say to me, 'Thou art the king, and they shall perish!' – Wo! wo! wo!" he continued, with an abrupt transition to abasement and grief; "they look upon me and laugh, for I have no people! In the face of all, I was made a slave; and, when they had spit upon me, they struck me as they strike the slave; so struck my people. Come, then, thou that dwellest among the rivers of night; for, among the rivers, with those who die the death of shame, shall I inhabit. Did not Mexico strike me, and shout for joy? Wo, wo! for my people have deserted me! and, in their eyes, the king is a slave!"

"Put thy lips to this emblem of salvation," said the Spanish priest, extending his crucifix, eagerly; "curse thy false gods, which are devils; acknowledge Christ to be thy master; and part, – not to dwell among the rivers of hell, which are of fire, but in the seats of bliss, the heaven of the just and happy."

"I spit upon thy accursed image!" said the monarch, rousing, with indignation, into temporary sanity, and endeavouring to suit the action to the word; "I spit upon thy cross, for it is the god of liars and deceivers! of robbers and murderers! of betrayers and enslavers! I curse thy god, and I spit upon him!"

All the Spaniards present recoiled with horror at the impiety, which was too manifest in the act to need interpretation; and some, in the moment, half drew their swords, as if to punish it by despatching the dying man at once. But they looked again on the king, and knew that this sin was the sin of madness.

As they started back, the person of De Leste, whom, in their fixed attention to Montezuma, none of them had yet perceived, was brought into the view of the monarch. His glittering eye fell upon the penacho, which the cavalier had not yet thought to remove from his helmet, and which yet drooped, with its badges of rank, over his forehead. A laugh, that had in it much of the simple exultation of childhood, burst from the king's lips; and, raising himself on the couch, he pointed at the ruddy symbols of distinction. The cavaliers, following the gesture with their eyes, beheld, with great agitation, their liberated companion; and even Cortes, himself, started to his feet, with an invocation to his saint, when his eye fell upon the apparition.

The words of Amador, – "Fear me not, for I live," – though not lost, were unanswered; for, notwithstanding that many of the cavaliers immediately seized upon his hands, to express their joy, they instantly cast their regards again upon Montezuma, as not having the power to withdraw them for a moment from him.

"Say what they will," muttered the king, still eyeing the penacho with delight, "I, also, am of the House of Darts; and in Tlascala and Michoacan, and among the Otomies of the hills, have I won me the tassels of renown. Before I was a king, I was a soldier: so will I gather on me the armour of a general, and drive the Teuctli from my kingdom. Ho, then, what ho! Cuitlahuatzin! and thou, son of my brother, Quauhtimotzin! that are greater in war than the sons of my body, get ye forth your armies, and sound the horns of battle! Call upon the gods, and smite! on Mexitli the terrible, on Painalton the swift! call them, that they may see ye strike, and behold your valour! Call them, for Montezuma will fight at your side, and they shall know that he is valiant!"

The struggles of the king, as he poured forth these wild exclamations, were like convulsions. But suddenly, and while the Spaniards thought he was about to expire in his fury, the contortions passed from his countenance, his lips fell, his eyes grew dim, and his voice was turned to a whisper of lamentation.

"I sold my people for the smile of the Teuctli; I bartered my crown for the favour of the Christian; I gave up my fame for the bonds of a stranger; and now what am I? I betrayed my children – and what are they? Let it not be written in the books of history, – blot the name of Montezuma from the list of kings; let it not be taught to them that are to follow. – Tlaloc, I come! – Let it be forgotten."

Suddenly, as he concluded, and as if the fiend of the world of waters he had invoked, had clutched upon him, he was seized with a dreadful convulsion, and as his limbs writhed about in the agony, his eyes, dilating with each struggle, were fixed with a stony and basilisk glare upon those of Cortes; and thus, – his gaze fixed to the last on his destroyer, – he expired.

When the neophyte beheld the last quiver cease in the body, and knew by the loud wail of the Mexicans, that Montezuma was no more, he looked round for Don Hernan; but the general had stolen from the apartment. – The visage of Cortes revealed not the workings of his mind; but his heart spoke to his conscience, and his soul recorded the confession; – "I have wronged thee, pagan king; – but thy vengeance cometh!"

Don Amador's arm was touched by his friend De Morla.

"In the chamber of death," said the cavalier, sadly, "thou mightest best hear of death: but I cannot discourse to thee, while Minnapotzin is mourning. Let us depart, brother."

Don Amador motioned to the page, and followed his friend out of the apartment.

CHAPTER LVI

On the following morning, it was known to all the garrison, that they were, at night, to depart from Tenochtitlan. The joy, however, that might have followed the announcement, was brief; for, at the same moment that the exhausted Christians were roused from slumber and bidden to prepare, the warders sent down word from the turrets, that their enemies were again approaching. The shrewdest of all could perceive no other mode of retreat than by cutting their way through the besiegers; and it required but little consideration in the dullest, to disclose the manifold dangers of such an expedient. They manned the walls and the court-yard, therefore, with but little alacrity, and awaited the Mexicans in sullen despair.

But Don Hernan, quick to perceive, and resolute to employ the subtle devices of another, had not forgotten the words of Botello, when that worthy counselled him to make such use of Montezuma and his children, as had been made of the golden apples, by Hippomenes, when contending in the race with the daughter of Schœneus.

The Mexicans advanced, as usual, with whistling and shouts, filling the square with uproar; and, as usual, the cannoniers stood to their pieces, and the Tlascalans to their spears; but before a dart had been yet discharged, those who looked down from the battlements, beheld a funeral procession issue from the court-yard.

A bier, constructed rudely of the handles of partisans, but its rudeness in a measure concealed by the rich robes of state flung over it, was borne on the shoulders of six native nobles, all of them of high degree in Tenochtitlan. It supported the body of the emperor, which was covered only by the tilmatli, leaving the countenance exposed to view. The royal sandals were on his feet, and the copilli, with the three sceptres, lay upon his breast. The pagan priest in his sable garment, his face covered by the cowl, and his head bending so low, that his hideous locks swept the earth, stepped upon the square, chanting a low and mournful requiem; and the bearers, stalking slowly and sorrowfully under their burden, followed after.

The murmurs were hushed in the palace; and the square, so lately filled with the savage shouts of the enemy, became suddenly as silent as the grave. The monotonous accents of the priest were alone heard, conveying to the Mexicans, in the hymn that ushered a spirit into the presence of the deities, the knowledge of the death of their king.

For awhile, the barbarians stood in stupid awe; but, at last, as the train approached them, and they perceived with their own eyes the swarthy features of their monarch fixed in death, they uttered a cry of grief, low indeed, and rather a moan than a lament, but which, being caught and continued by the voices of many thousand men, was heard in the remotest parts of the city. They parted before the corse of one, to whom, before the days of his degradation, they had been accustomed to look as to an incarnate divinity. They fell upon their knees, and bowed their faces to the earth, as he was carried through them; and again the Spaniards beheld the impressive spectacle, of a great multitude prostrate in the dust, as if in the act of adoration.

When the bearers and the body were alike concealed from their view, the Mexicans rose, and turning towards the palace, brandished their weapons with fierce gestures, and many exclamations of hatred, against the destroyers of their king. For a moment, Cortes doubted if his expedient had not served rather to increase, than to divert, the fury of his opponents; and he beckoned from his stand on the terrace, to the cannoniers, to prepare their matches. But an instant after, he revoked the command: the Mexicans were retiring; a great army was suddenly converted into a funeral train, and thus they departed from the square, after the body of their ruler, without striking a blow at the invader.

This circumstance reassured the garrison; and the prospect of speedy release from intolerable suffering and from destruction, wrought such a change over all, that visages, emaciated by famine, and haggard from despair, were lit up with smiles; and songs and laughter re-echoed through chambers, which, but the night before, had resounded with prayers, groans, and curses. Nothing was now thought of but the bread and fruits of Tlascala, the mines and fandangos of Cuba; and many a sedate and sullen veteran clapped his hands with a sudden joy, as he bethought him of the urchins sporting in the limpid Estero, or climbing the palm that grew at his cabin door. Escape from the miseries which had environed them, and the privilege to discourse for life of the marvels of Tenochtitlan, – of the beauty of its valleys, the magnificence of its cities, the wealth of its rulers, the ferocious valour of its citizens, – to wondering listeners, were the only offsets thought of to the many labours, sufferings, and risks of the campaign. The little property amassed by each – the share of Montezuma's presents, and the spoils stripped from the dead, were stored, along with such trifles as might add the interest of locality to legends of battle, in the sacks of the soldiers. All made their preparations, and all made them in hope.

The only melancholy men in the palace, that day, were Cortes and Don Amador de Leste. The latter remembered his knight, falling ingloriously and alone on the causeway; and the general pondered over the griefs of defeated ambition.

But whatever were the pangs of Don Hernan, he forgot not the duties of a general. Besides other precautions, he caused his carpenters to construct a portable bridge of sufficient strength to support the weight of his heaviest artillery, and yet, not so ponderous but that it might be carried on the shoulders of some half a hundred strong men. This he provided, fearing lest the barbarians had destroyed the bridges not only of the great dike of Iztapalapan, but of that of Tacuba, on which it was his determination to attempt his flight, and which, running westward from the island, was, as has been intimated, but two miles in length.

In accordance with the advice of the necromancer, the hour of departing was put off until midnight, – a period of time which had the double advantage of being recommended by Botello, and of ensuring the least molestation. Each individual, therefore, made his preparations, and looked forward to that hour.

The melancholy that oppressed the spirits of the neophyte, was so great, that he betrayed little curiosity either to acquaint himself with the events which had occurred during his captivity, or even to inquire further into the mysterious knowledge and acts of the page. But, however indisposed to conversation, he could not resist the attentions of De Morla. From him he learned the imputation he had cast on the valour and gratitude of Alvarado; a charge which the novice removed, by magnanimously confessing, that his own indiscretion had carried him beyond the reach of Don Pedro, who should be in no wise held accountable for his misfortune. He heard with more interest, and even smiled with good-natured approbation, at the story of Fabueno's fortune; but a frown darkened on his visage, when De Morla pictured the anger and domineering fury of the Tonatiuh; and this was not diminished, when his friend confessed himself the champion of the secretary, announced that Cortes had sanctioned the quarrel, and claimed of him the offices of a friend.

"If blood must be shed in this quarrel," he said, "it must be apparent to you, my very noble and generous friend, (for, surely, your kindness to Lorenzo merits this distinction,) – it must be apparent, I say, that I am he who is called upon to shed it. The youth is my own follower; for which reason, I am bound to give him protection, and support him in all his just rights, whereof one, I think, is to love any woman who may think fit to give him her affections, whether she be a princess or peasant. I must, therefore, after repeating to thee my thanks for thy very distinguished generosity, require thee to yield up thy right to do battle with Don Pedro, if battle must, indeed, be done, – though I have hopes that his good sense will enforce him to surrender the maid, without the necessity of bloodshed."

"I cannot yield to thee, hermano mio," said De Morla, quickly; "for there is deadly feud betwixt the Tonatiuh and myself; and were he to fight thee a dozen times over, still should he, of a necessity, measure weapons with me."

"It doth not appear to me, how this difference can call for more than one combat; and, as I have told thee, I think it can be composed, provided thou allowest me to assume thy place, entirely without conflict."

"Know thou, my friend," said De Morla, "that I have already, in the matter of thy fall and capture, at the fight of the manta, charged Alvarado with many terms of opprobrium and insult; for which reason, a duello has become very inevitable."

"Having already heard from myself," said Don Amador, with gravity, "that Don Pedro cannot justly incur reproach for my mishap, thou canst do nothing else, as a true cavalier, but instantly withdraw thy charges, and make him the reparation of apology; after which, there will remain no need of enmity."

"Thou speakest the truth!" said De Morla, impetuously; "and I am but a knave, to have said, or even thought, except at the moment when I was grieved and imbittered by thy supposed death, that Don Pedro could demean himself, in any battle, like a craven. I freely avow, and will justly bear witness, that he is a most unexceptionable cavalier. So far, I am impelled to pronounce by simple veracity. But yet is there mortal, though concealed, feud betwixt us."

The neophyte looked on his friend with surprise; seeing which, De Morla took him by the arm, and said, with great heat, —

"I have come to hear, by an accident, that Don Pedro did once, ('tis now many months ago,) in the wantonness of his merriment, fling certain aspersions upon the innocence of Benita; a crime that I could not have forgiven even in thee, amigo querido, hadst thou been capable of such baseness. I now confess to thee, without having divulged the same to any one else, that this circumstance did greatly inflame my anger, and that, from that moment, I have sought out some means to quarrel with Alvarado, and so slay him, without involving the fame of Minnapotzin: for it is clear to me, as it must be to any lover, who doth truly reverence his mistress, that to associate her name with a quarrel, would be at once to darken it with the shadow of suspicion. If I should say to Alvarado, 'Thou hast maligned my mistress, thou cur, and therefore I will fight thee,' then should he, for the credit of his honour, aver that he spoke the truth; and whether he lived or died, the maiden should still be the sufferer. I have, therefore, resolved, that my cause of vengeance shall be concealed; and thou wilt see that the present pretext is the honourable cloak I have been so long seeking. This I confess to thee; but I adjure thee to keep my counsel."

There was a degree of lofty delicacy and disinterestedness in this revealment, which chimed so harmoniously with the refined honour of Don Amador, that he grasped De Morla's hand, and, instead of opposing further remonstrance, assured him, both of his approval and his determination to aid him, as a true brother in arms, in the conflict.

"But how comes it, my friend," he demanded, with a faint smile, "thou darest look so far into futurity, for such employment? Hast thou forgot the prophecy of Botello? Methinks, to be fulfilled at all, the consummation should come shortly; for, with this night, we finish the war in Mexico."

"For a time, señor mio," said De Morla. "Though the griefs of Montezuma be over, (heaven rest his soul, for he was the father of Minnapotzin!) the pangs of his race are not yet all written. I will abide with Don Hernan; and if Botello do not lie, thou shalt yet see me sleep on the pyramid."

"Heaven forbid!" cried Amador. "I would rather thou wouldst follow mine own resolutions, and, for once, show Botello that he hath cast a wrong figure."

"Dost thou mean to desert us?"

"My kinsman sleeps in the lake," said the novice, sadly; "the tie that bound me to this fair new world is therefore broken. In mine own heart, I have no desires to fight longer with these infidels, who cannot injure the faith of Christ, nor invade the churches of Christendom. The Turks are a better enemy for a true believer; and, if I put not up my sword altogether, it shall be drawn, hereafter, on them. The little page, whom I have, by a miracle, recovered, I will convey with me to Cuenza, after having, in like manner, recovered his father, (a very noble Morisco,) or been otherwise assured of his death. I would greatly persuade thee, having made the princess thy wife, to follow with me to thy native land. 'My castle lies on Morena's top,' – " continued the cavalier, insensibly falling upon the melody of the Knight and the Page, and beginning to muse on the singer, and to mutter, "Surely Jacinto is the most wonderful of boys!"

"My patrimony is worn out," said De Morla, without regarding the sudden revery of his friend; "and I give it to my younger brothers. By peace or war, somehow or other, this land of Mexico will be, one day, conquered; and, then, a principality in Anahuac will count full as nobly as a sheep-hill in Castile. I abide by Don Hernan. But let us be gone to the treasury: I hear the ingots chinking, and thou hast not yet looked upon our spoils."

The exchequer thus alluded to, and to which De Morla speedily conducted his friend, was the sleeping apartment of the general. Of the wealth that was there displayed, – the stores of golden vessels and of precious stones, as well as of ingots melted from the tribute-dust long since wrung from the unhappy Montezuma, – it needs not to speak. The whole treasury of an avaricious king, a predecessor of the late captive, walled up in former days, and discovered by a happy chance, was there displayed among the meaner gleanings of conquest. An hundred men, as Don Amador entered, were grasping at the glittering heaps, while the voice of Don Hernan was heard gravely saying, —

"The king's fifth, here partitioned and committed to the trust of his true officers, we must defend with our lives; but while granting to all Christian men in this army, free permission to help themselves here as they like, I solemnly warn them of the consequences, should we, as mayhap my fear may prove true, be attacked this night, while making our way through the city. The richest man shall thereby purchase the quickest death. – The wise soldier will leave these baubles, till we come back again to reclaim them. This night, I will insure the life of none who carries too rich a freight in his pockets."

He spoke with a serious emphasis, and some of the older veterans, raising their heads, and eyeing his countenance steadfastly for a moment, flung down the riches they had grasped, and silently retired from the apartment. But many others bore about their persons a prince's ransom.

CHAPTER LVII

At midnight, the Mexican spy, looking over the broken wall, beheld in the court-yard which it environed, a scene of singular devotion; – or rather he caught with his ears – for the grave was not blacker than that midnight – the smothered accents of supplication. The Christians were upon their knees, listening, with a silence broken only by the fretful champing of steeds, and the suppressed moans of wounded men, to a prayer, pronounced in a whispering voice, wherein the father Olmedo implored of Heaven to regard them in pity, to stupify the senses of their enemies, and surround his servants with the shields of mercy, so that, this night, they might walk out of the city which was their prison-house, and from the island which had been their charnel, oppressed no more by the weight of His anger.

The prostrate soldiers, to that moment, full of confident hope, and not anticipating the danger of any opposition, hearkened with solicitude to the humble and earnest supplication; and when the padre besought the deity to endow their arms with strength, and their hearts with courage, to sustain the toils, and perhaps the perils, of retreat, they were struck with a vague but racking fear. The petition which was meant to embolden, deprived them of hope; and they rose from their vain devotions, in unexpected horror.

The gloom that invested the ruinous palace, prevailed equally over the pagan city. No torch shone from the casements or house-tops, no taper flickered in the streets; and the urns of fire on the neighbouring pyramid, the only light visible, – save, now and then, a ghastly gleam of lightning bursting up from the south, – burned with a dull and sickened glare, as if neglected by their watchers. A silence, in character with the obscurity, reigned over the slumbering city; and when, at last, the steps of those who bore the ponderous bridge, and the creaking of artillery wheels, were-heard ringing and rolling over the square, the sounds smote on the hearts of all like the tolling of distant funeral bells.