Thousands of infuriated and exulting savages had, in the meanwhile, landed from their canoes at the second ditch, raised their cries of triumph over the abandoned artillery, and struck, with a rage not to be appeased by death, the Christian corses which lay so thick among them. But, while living invaders remained, either in the front or rear, they tarried not long, to waste their malice on the dead.
The cavalier Don Amador, when he made the marvellous discovery, detailed in a preceding chapter, and perceived that the fair and lamented being of his dreams, heaven had permitted so long to walk by his side, in this new and strange world,—revealing her to his eyes only at the moment when destined to be snatched from them for ever,—felt, at that instant of discovery as if all the ties which bound him to existence, were at once dissevered. Rage at his blindness, furious compunctions of remorse for his negligence, and an agony of grief at the supposed dreadful fate of the maiden, were mingled with a sort of wild indignation against the providence which, by veiling his eyes, and shutting his ears to the suggestions of his heart, (for, surely, from the moment he looked upon the page, his affections were given him,) had robbed him of his mistress. It was not, therefore, wonderful, that such a conflict of mind, acting upon a body weakened by previous wounds and sickness, and exhausted by present exertions, should have thrown him across the body of Lazaro, himself, to all appearance, full as lifeless. And thus he lay, for half an hour, insensible to the battle, which was now drawing nigh to the ditch, and now leaving it to its charnel solitude.
He was recalled to life, by feeling some one tug forcibly at the sacred jewel, which he retained throughout his lethargy, with the same instinct which had preserved it in the death-grasp of the henchman. More lucky than Lazaro, yet scarce more happy, this violence woke up the sleeping energies of life; and he raised his head, though only to stare about him with a bewildered look of unconsciousness.
"God be thanked!" exclaimed a Christian voice in his ear, as a friendly hand seized him by the shoulder; "lead or gold, glass or precious stone, never was cross of Christ picked up on the wayside, but good fortune followed after it! What ho, señor! up and away! The things that I spoke of, have come to pass. Kalidon-Sadabath dances in the Crystal; he loves the smell of blood!—Up! arise and away, for thine hour is not come."
The cavalier arose, and stared at the friendly magician; which Botello seeing, and supposing he was now fully restored to his wits, this lunatic of another sort seized him by the arm, and, dragging him towards the water, said,—
"Fear not; if thou hast not the skill of a crocodile, know that I can bear thee across the channel; and that the more easily that it is already choked with corses, and no Mexicans nigh to oppose us."
The neophyte broke from his companion, and with wild cries ofLeila! Leila!ran towards the cannon.
"God save thee! art thou mad? Dost thou call upon woman or devil? This is no place for girls; and never heard I of imp called Leila."
"Thou knowest not my wretchedness, Botello," said Don Amador. "Let me look again, if her body be not here.—Hah!" he cried, struck with a sudden thought, and turning quickly to the conjurer. "Thou art a magician, and knowest of the dead as well as the living. I have decried thine art, but now I acknowledge thy wisdom. Behold this rubied cross—oh heaven! that I should hold it in my hand, and know, that, but a moment since, it was on the neck of Leila! Look, enchanter; this jewel came from the neck of a woman, whom but now I left standing on this brink. Call her from the dead, if she have perished; or show me what path she hath trodden, if she be living; and I will reward thee, though I give thee the half of my patrimony.—A woman, I tell thee! Wilt thou not believe me? Half my estate, but to look upon her!"
It was manifest, even to the unhappy novice himself, that Botello regarded him as a madman. But nevertheless he replied earnestly, "Here is no place for conjurations: there be devils enough about us already. Tarry not here; for this will neither benefit thee, nor her of whom thou speakest. Spring into the ditch,—rush with me to the main; and, then, what thou seekest, thou shalt know. Courage, courage! Dost thou not see yonder star, that creeps up by the dim moon, under the rack, dimmer even than the dim moon? Under that star, came I into earth: and while it shineth in that conjunction, the dart of a savage cannot wound me,—no, not though it strike me upon the naked brow!—Hark! dost thou not hear? The fragments of the rear-guard are approaching. Let us swim this abyss before they reach us, lest we be entangled among them. Hesitate not: we will go together, for I see thou art worn and feeble; and I remember that thou gavest me succour in the streets of Mexico."
The neophyte had yielded, with a sort of captive-like and despairing submission, to the will of Botello; and was descending with him moodily to the water, when suddenly the latter paused, listening to a Christian shout in the distance, as of one approaching them from the shore.
"Hark! it is repeated!—Viva! They come from the main: they have beaten the cubs of darkness—Viva! viva! Santiago, and quick, valiant friends!"
The joyous shouts of Botello were re-echoed, though only by a single voice. Yet this was evidently approaching, and with great rapidity.
During the whole time of the resuscitation of Don Amador, and of his dialogue with the enchanter, the causeway in the neighbourhood of the ditch had been free from foes, but only because it was free from Christians; and the lake in the vicinity was equally solitary. But now as they stood listening to the shouts, the two companions could perceive the lake, some distance in front, on both sides of the dike, boiling up in foam under canoes impelled towards them with extraordinary violence, seemingly upon the flank of the party from which proceeded the cry. But whatever was the speed of the canoes, it seemed to be unequal to that of the Christian; whose shouts wild and loud, and now almost incessantly repeated, grew shriller and nearer every moment.
"On, valiant friends! on!—heed not the pagans; on!" shouted Botello, as the canoes cut the water within an hundred paces of the ditch. "Thanks be to God! I see them! Hah! good! and here—Hark to his voice! how cheery!—here comes the valorous De Morla!"
As he spoke, the figure of De Morla, outstripping the wind, was seen running towards the ditch, while some of the arrows shot after him by the pursuers, and passing him, fell even at the feet of the expectant pair.
The sight of his friend kindled the ardour of Don Amador. He shouted aloud,
"On, valiant brother!—It is I! thy sworn friend of Cuenza!"
To this speech, De Morla answered with a yell, that chilled the heart of his townsman; and running without a moment's hesitation, and without slackening his speed, to the end of the broken beam, where it overhung the middle of the sluice, he sprang from it, as if assisted by its elasticity, to so great a height into the air, that, it was plain, he would clear the chasm in the bound. As he leaped, he waved his sword, and uttered a scream; a cloud of arrows at the same time whistled through the atmosphere; and when he reached the ground, twenty of these deadly missiles were sticking in his body.
The neophyte raised up his head; one arrow was in his brain:—it snapped off, as the head rolled on Amador's arm. A thrill and a gasp were the last and only manifestations of suffering. The next instant, the body of De Morla rolled down the shelving plane of the ditch, and sunk, with a few bubbles, among a hundred of his countrymen, already sepulchred therein.
Meantime the reappearance of the barbarians seemed to cut off the last hope of escape from Amador and his companion; but the magician, answering the cavalier's sullen look of despair with a laugh, and pointing to the little star, which still made its way up the cloudy arch along with the moon, said, dragging him at the same time towards the artillery,
"What the spirits say, is true! All this said they, of De Morla.—May he rest with God—Amen! Fear not; be of good heart:—while the star shines, there is hope,—and hope for both; for though I have not yet read thy fate in full, still, while thou art at my side, thou canst be in no great peril. At the worst, and when the worst comes, it is written, that eagles shall come down from heaven, and bear me away on their backs.—Hast thou never a flint and dry tinder, to light me a linstock? Here hath some knavish gunner left his piece charged, and the grains of sulphur still heaped up from rimbase to cascable. A good roar now might do marvels.—Quick! they are upon us.—Fling thee under the wheels, and look but as dead as thou didst erewhile, till the cut-throats be passed.—Hah! 'fore God, dost thou hear?" he exclaimed, suddenly leaping up.—"Kalidon, soho, brave imp! and thou shalt be a-galloping yet!—Hearest thou that shout, like the clang of a bugle on a hill-top?—'Tis Cortes! and he cometh!"
It was even as the magician had said. From the moment that De Morla took the fatal leap, the rowers ceased paddling in their canoes, as if certain of his fate, or unwilling to follow so feeble a prey, and remained huddled together, as though they awaited the approach of a more tempting quarry. They had not perceived the two companions. Just as Botello was about to creep under a falconet, around whose wheels the corses lay very thick, the strong voice of Cortes was heard rising over the din, which, at some quarter or other of the causeway, was kept up incessantly during the whole conflict. It echoed again, sustained and strengthened by the voices of a considerable party.
"They approach!" said Botello. "They are a-horse too; I hear the trampling. God quicken the rear! Methought there were many who followed me."
"Hark!" cried the cavalier. "The foul knaves desert us! their voices are weaker; they fly again to the land!"
"Here's that which shall fetch them back, if they be men!" exclaimed Botello, catching up a port-fuse not yet extinguished, striking it on his arm to shake off the ashes, and whirling it in the air till it glowed and almost blazed. "It will show them, there be some living yet; and, with God's blessing, will scatter yon ambushed heathen like plashing water-drops.Ojala!and all ye fiends of air and water, of earth and of hell, that are waiting for pagan souls, carry my hail-shot true, and have at your prey!"
So saying, the conjurer applied the match. The roar of the explosion was succeeded not only by the yells of Mexicans, dying in their broken canoes, or paddling away from so dangerous a vicinity, but by Spanish shouts, both on the rear and in front.
"On, brave hearts!" cried Cortes; "there be bold knaves yet at the ordnance!"
The next moment the little band of horse that headed the relief, sprang into the lake, and swimming aside, so as to avoid the sunken bodies, and the bales still floating in the ditch, crossed over to the cannon; while a large body of men, arranged with such order, that they blocked up the whole causeway from side to side, came marching up from the rear, fighting as they fled, and still valiantly resisting the multitudes that pursued both on the dike and in the water.
"Thanks be to God!" cried Don Hernan, rejoiced that so many lived, and yet appalled at the numbers and ferocious determination of the foes, who still, like venomous insects following the persecuted herd, pursued whithersoever the Christians fled. "Art thou alive, De Leon?—Praised be St. James, who listened to my prayer! Turn ye now, and let us succour the rest."
"They are in heaven," said De Leon, with a faint voice, for he was severely wounded, as indeed were all his crew. "Push on, in the name of God, all who can swim.—The others must perish."
"Hold! stay!" exclaimed Cortes. "Fling the cannon into the sluice.—Think not of the enemy. Heave over my good falconets: they will make a bridge for ye all."
The wounded footmen seized upon the guns, with the energy of despair; and flinging over the ropes to that company of their fellow infantry who had followed Don Hernan, and now stood on the opposite side, the pieces were pushed and dragged into the water, and, together with the mass of corses already deposited in that fatal chasm, made such a footing for the infantry as enabled many to pass in safety. Among these was Don Amador de Leste, his hand grasped by the faithful magician, who perceived that he was sunk into such sluggishness of despair, that he must have perished, if left to himself.
It is not to be supposed that this passage was effected without opposition and loss. On the contrary, the barbarians redoubled their exertions; and while many rested at a distance, shooting whole clouds of arrows, others pushed their canoes boldly up to the gap, and there slew many taken at such disadvantage.
Nevertheless, the passage was at last effected, and the footmen, joining themselves to their fellows, and forming, as before, twenty deep, followed the horsemen towards the shore.
"Hold!" shouted Botello, when the party was about to start. "Save your captain, ye knaves of the rear!—Save De Leon! the valiant Velasquez!"
A few, roused by this cry, and heedless of the shafts shot at them, rushed back to the brink, and beheld the wounded and forgotten captain, in the water, struggling in the arms of two brawny barbarians, who strove to drag him into a canoe. While his followers stood hesitating, not knowing how to give him aid, the little vessel, agitated by his struggles, which were tremendous, suddenly overset, and captive and capturers fell together into the water. The two warriors were presently seen swimming towards a neighbouring canoe; and De Leon, strangling under the flood, heaved not his last groan on the gory block of sacrifice.
The fugitives paused not to lament; they resumed their march, and gained the last ditch.
The events of that march, and of the passage of that ditch, are, like the others, a series of horrors. Enough has been narrated to picture out the dreadful punishment of men who acknowledged no rights but those of power, and preferred to rob a weak and childish race with insult and murder, rather than to subdue them, as could have been done, by the arts of peace. In the sole incident which remains to be mentioned, we record the fate of an individual whose influence had been felt through most of the events of the invasion, in many cases beneficially, but, in this, disastrously enough. This was the enchanter, Botello,—a man just shrewd enough to deceive himself; which is, in other words, to say, that he mingled in his own person so much cunning with so much credulity, that the former was ever the victim of the latter. The devoutness of his own belief in the efficacy of his arts, was enough to secure them the respect and reverence of the common herd, as well as of better men, in an age of superstition. How much confidence was given to them by Cortes, does not clearly appear in the older historians; but it is plain, he turned them to great advantage, and had the art sometimes to make the stars, as well as Kalidon of the Crystal, furnish revelations of his own hinting; and, it is suspected, not without grounds, that this very nocturnal flight, projected originally under the impression that the barbarians would not go into battle after night-fall, and, when the later events of the siege had disproved this hope, still persisted in from the persuasion that no Mexican would handle a weapon on the day of an emperor's burial, was conceived in the brain of the general before it was counselled by the lips of Botello.
At all events, the enchanter did not, this night, manifest any doubt in his own powers. With a strange and yet natural inconsistency, he seemed to rejoice over the slaughter of his countrymen, as over the confirmation of his predictions. Twice or thrice, at least, he muttered, and once even in the thick of combat, to Don Amador, by whose side he ever walked, at the head of the retreating party,—
"I said, this night we should retreat—we have retreated: I said, there should be death for many, and safety for some—the many are at rest, (God receive their souls, and angels carry them to the seats of bliss!)—and some of us are saved."
"Be not over-quick in thy consummations," said Amador. "We are here now at the third ditch, which is both wide and deep, and no bodies to bridge it; and seest thou not how the yelling curs are paddling in to oppose us?"
"Bodies enow!" cried the enchanter. "To-morrow, at midday, when the sun is hottest, ye shall see corses lying along on both sides of the causey, like the corks of a fisherman's net; and at the ditches, they will come up like ants out of the earth, when a dead caterpillar falls at their door. Yet say I, we shall be saved, and thou shalt see it; for I remember how thou didst carve the back of that knave that lay on me in the streets of Mexico; and I will carve a dozen for thee in like manner, ere dawn, on this causeway."
"Boast no more: such confidence offends heaven; for thy life hangs here as loosely as another's."
"The star! the star!" cried Botello, "the dim little star! is it not shining? The morning comes after it, and the eagles are waking on the hills. They will snuff the battle, they will shriek to the vultures, to the crows, and the gallinazas, and down will they come together to the lake-side and the lake. At eventide, ye will see dead men floating about in the wind, and on the breast of each a feeding raven; but devils shall be perched on the corses of the heathen!"
"Heaven quit me of thy wild words, for they sound to me unnatural and damnable, as though spoken by one of those same demons thou thinkest of.—Speak no more.—Look to thy life; for it is in jeopardy."
"Hast thou not seen me in the battle? and, lo you now, I have not a scratch!" said the enthusiast. "I have fought on the dike, when there were twelve men of us, good men, bold and true: eleven were slain, but here am I untouched by flint, unbruised by stone, unhurt by arrow. I fought three screeching infidels in the water, hard by to where two valiant cavaliers were pulled off their horses, and so smothered; and yet strangled I my heathens, without horse to help, or friend to say God speed me. The life that is charmed is invulnerable; the star shines, the eagle leaves her nest, and Kalidon-Sadabath laughs in the crystal.—Viva! Lo now, how Sandoval, the valiant, will scatter me yon imps in the boats! He spurs into the water; Catalan the Left-handed, Juan of Salamanca, Torpo the Growler, Ferdinand of Bilboa, and De Olid the Devil's Ketch, they spring after him!—There they go! Dance, Kalidon! thy brothers shall have souls, to be fetched up from the mud as one rakes up clams of a fish-day. Crowd hell with damned heathens:—there be more to follow!"
Never before had such life possessed the spirits of Botello. He stood on the edge of the causey, shouting loud vivas, as the bold cavaliers rushed among the canoes that blocked up the sluice. The novice, though shocked at such untimely exultation, was not able to avoid it; for he was enfeebled, and Botello held him with a fast and determined gripe.
"Unhand me, conjurer," he cried, "and I will swim the ditch."
"Tarry a little, till the path be made clear: thou wilt be murdered else."
"I shall be murdered, if I remain here; and so wilt thou.—Hah! did that shaft hurt thee?"
"Never a jot; how could it? There flies not the arrow this night, there waves not the bludgeon, that can shed my blood."
"Art thou besotted?—God forgive thee!—this is impiety."
The magician held his peace; for about this time, the Mexicans, knowing that this band, diminished, disordered, and divided by the ditch into two feeble parties, was the sole remaining fragment of oppression, and determined that no invader should escape alive, rushed upon the causeway on all sides with such savage violence as seemed irresistible. Those who had not yet crossed, broke in affright, and flung themselves into the sluice with such speed, that, in a few moments, Don Amador began to think that he and Botello were the only Christians left.
"Why dost thou hold me, madman?" he cried. "Let me free."
"Hark! dost thou not hear?—there are Christian men behind us," said Botello.—"Courage! What if these devils be thicker than the thoughts of sin in man's heart, fiercer than conscience, deadlier than remorse; yet shall we pass them unharmed.—Patience! 'Tis the voice of a Spaniard, I tell thee, and behind!"
"It is in front:—hark! 'tis Don Hernan!"
"It is behind, and it is the cry of Alvarado! Let us return, and give him aid. Ho, ye that fly! return! the Tonatiuh is shouting behind us: will ye desert him?—Return, return!"
Before Amador could remonstrate, the lunatic, for at this moment, more than any other, Botello seemed to deserve the name, had dragged him to the top of the dike, where he stood exposed to the view and the shots of the foe. A thousand arrows were aimed at the pair.
"Thou art a dead man!" said Amador.
"Dost thou not see the star?" cried the magician, impatiently. "Not a bird hath yet flapped her wing, not an eagle hath fled from her cliff; and my star, my star——"
As he spoke, he let go his hold of the cavalier, to point exultingly at the diminutive luminary. At that very instant, an arrow, aimed close at hand, struck the neophyte on the breast, entering the mail at a place rent by blows of a previous day, and, without wounding him, forced its way out through links hitherto uninjured.
"Hah!" said the cavalier, as the arm of Botello fell heavily on his shoulder.—"Art thou taught wisdom and humility, at last? Let us descend, and swim."
As he moved, he became sensible that the shaft was still sticking in his hauberk. He grasped the feathered notch—the head was in the astrologer's heart. The stout wood snapped, as Botello fell. It struck him in the moment of his greatest hope. He dropped down a dead man.
While Amador stood confounded and struck with horror, he was seized, he knew not by whom, and suddenly found himself dragged through the water. Before he could well commend his soul to heaven, for he thought himself in the hands of the enemy, he beheld himself on firm land, while the voice of Cortes shouted in his ear,—
"Rouse thee, and die not like a sleeper! Hold me by the hand, and my good horse shall drag thee through the melée—I would sooner that my arm were hacked off than that thou shouldst sleep in the accursed lake: enough of thy blood rests in it, with Don Gabriel."
"Ay," thought the unhappy cavalier, "enough of my blood, and all of my heart. Don Gabriel, De Morlar, Lazaro, Lorenzo, and—ay, and Leila! Better that I were with them!"
A sudden cry from beyond the ditch interrupted his griefs.
"Pause, pause!" cried the voice. "Leave me not!—I am nigh!—I am Alvarado!"
The cavaliers looked back at these words, and beheld a man come flying, as it were, through the air over the ditch, perched on the top of a long Chinantlan spear, the bottom of which was hidden in the water. He fell quite clear of the sluice, after making a leap which even his comrades, who had not individually seen it, held impossible for mortal man, and which, even to this day, has preserved to the spot the name of the Salto, or leap, of Alvarado.
The appearance of the Tonatiuh was hailed with shouts of joy; and the Spaniards, receiving it as a good omen, closed their ranks, and slowly, for every inch was contested, fought their way to the shore. When they trode upon the firm ground, the little star had vanished in the gray beams of morning; and a thick mist rising up from the water like a curtain, concealed from the eyes of the fugitives, along with the accursed signal-fire, the fatal towers and temples of Mexico.
Thus closed a night of horror and wo, memorable as theNoche Triste, or Melancholy Night, of Mexican history, and paralleled perhaps, in modern days, if we consider the loss of the retreating army as compared with its numbers, only by the famous and most lamentable passage of the Berezina. More than four thousand Tlascalans, and five hundred Spaniards, were left dead on the causeway, or in the lake. Of the prisoners, but two or three escaped; two sons and as many daughters of Montezuma, with five tributary kings, as well as many princes and nobles, perished. All the cannon were utterly lost, left to rust and rot in the salt flood that had so often resounded to their roar; and of more than an hundred proud war-steeds that champed the bit so fiercely at midnight, scarce twenty jaded hacks snuffed the breath of morning.
With this broken and lamenting force, with foes still hanging on his rear, and ever flying from his front, Cortes set out to seek a path, by new and unknown mountains, to the distant Tlascala. He turned his eyes but once towards the lake,—the pagan city was hidden among the mists, and the shouts of victorious Mexicans came but faintly to the ear. He beat his breast, and shedding such tears as belong to defeated hopes and the memory of the dead, resumed his post at the head of the fugitives.
We draw a curtain over the events of the first five days of flight, wherein the miserable fugitives, contending, at once, with fatigue, famine, and unrelenting foes, stole by night, and through darkling by-ways, along the northern borders of the fair valley, from which they were thus ignominiously, and, as it seemed, for ever, expelled. Of the twenty mounted men, each, like a Red-Cross Knight, in the ancient days of the order, bore a wounded companion on his crupper; and Don Amador, himself, on a jaded beast that had belonged to Marco,—for Fogoso had been lost or killed in the melée,—thus carried the only remaining servant of himself and his knight,—the ancient Baltasar. Other mangled wretches were borne on the backs of Tlascalans, in rudely constructed litters.
In this manner, the ruined and melancholy band pursued its way, by lake-side and hill, over morass and river, ever pursued and insulted by bodies of barbarians, and frequently attacked; till, on the evening of the fifth day, they flung their weary forms to sleep in the City (as it may be called) of Pyramids, among those mouldering and cactus-covered mounds, which the idolatry of a forgotten age reared to the divinity of the greater and lesser luminaries of heaven, on the field Micoatl, that is to say, the Plain of Death. The visitor of San Juan de Teotihuacan still perceives these gigantic barriers, rising among the hundreds of smaller mounds—the Houses of the Stars—which strew the consecrated haunts, and, perhaps, conceal the sepulchres, of a holozoic people.
At sunrise, the Spaniards arose, ascended the mountain of Aztaquemacan, at the north-eastern border of the valley, and prepared, with a joyous expectation, which had not been diminished even by the significant and constantly-repeated threats of the pursuers, to descend into the friendly land of the Tlascalans, by way of the vale of Otumba. For the last two days, the name of this valley had been continually on the lips of the Mexicans, following on the rear; and their cries, as interpreted by Marina, who survived the horrors of the Melancholy Night, intimated, plainly enough, that the work of revenge, so dreadfully commenced upon the lake, was to be consummated in the gorges of the mountains. Nevertheless, the Spaniards, in the alacrity of spirit, which the prospect of soon ending their sufferings in the Land of Bread, produced, forgot these menaces, or regarded them as the idle bravados of impotent fury; and clambered upwards, with increasing hope, until they reached the crest of a ridge, and looked down the slope to the wished-for valley. The sight which they beheld, will be described in another place. It remains, now, to return to an individual, whose fate has long been wrapped in mystery.
At the moment when the Spaniards approached the highest part of the ravine, by which, alone, they could pass, in that quarter, from the vale of Tenochtitlan, there lay, in a wild and savage nook of the mountain, which went shelving upwards on the right hand, and at so short a distance, that had a bugle been winded in the army, it must have reached his ears,—one who had been a companion in many of their battles and sufferings. A number of huge rocks fallen ages ago, and rolled from some distant pinnacle, were heaped together on a broad and inclined shelf, and enclosed a space of ground so regular in form, and yet so rudely bounded by those sprawling barriers, that it looked to the imagination not unlike the interior of some stupendous temple, built by a barbaric people, and overwhelmed, many ages before, by some great convulsion. One side was formed by a cliff, in whose shivered side yawned the entrance of a black and dismal cavern, while the broken masses of rock themselves formed the others. Among, and over these, where they lay in contact with the cliff, there rushed a torrent, which, in the times of drought, might have been a meager and chattering rivulet, making its way, merrily, through gap and hollow, but which, now, swollen by the summer rains, came raving and roaring over the rocks, broken by them into a series of foaming cascades; and, then, shooting over a corner of the enclosure, and, darting through the opposite wall, it went, thundering, down the mountain. A few stunted trees stretched their withered limbs among these savage masses; and the noontide sun, peeping down into the nook, and lighting up a part of the cliff, fell pleasantly on the mosses and Alpine flowers, which ornamented its shelving floor, tinting, with momentary rainbows, the mists that hung over the fall. A sable steed, without bridle or halter, and much the worse for such primitive stabling, but yet, to all appearance, the relic of a once noble war-horse, wandered, at liberty, through the enclosure, cropping the few plants which bedecked it, or drinking from the little pools, at the side of the torrent; while, at the mouth of the cave, at the foot of a wooden crucifix of the rudest description, lay sleeping the figure of his master. A stained and tattered garment of leather, investing his limbs, was not altogether hidden under a black mantle, which partly covered his body. The head of the sleeper lay on his right arm, and this embraced the foot of the cross, so that the grizzly locks, which fell from his forehead, rested against, and almost twined around, the holy wood.
The sunbeam played, unregarded, on his withered cheeks, and flickered over a heap of rusted armour, both of man and horse, which lay hard by, shining, also, with a fierce lustre, upon what appeared a scarlet surcoat, hung, like a banner, on the point of a knightly lance, which rested against the side of the cliff.
Disease, as well as age, had furrowed the cheeks, and wasted the form of the slumberer; famine seemed to have been at work, as well as all other privations incident to a habitation in the desert; and there was, in his whole appearance, such an air of extreme and utter misery, as would have moved the pity of any beholder. Nevertheless, he slept on, regardless of the roaring fall, and heedless of the fierce sunbeam, in such tranquillity as augured, at least, a momentary suspension of suffering.
As the sun stole up to the meridian, another human creature was suddenly added to the scene. The browsing war-horse pricked his ears, and snorted, as if to do the duty of a faithful sentinel, and convey to his master a note of alarm, as certain dried branches crackled among the rocks of the wall, and a stone, loosened as by a footstep, fell, rattling, down their sides, and buried itself in the pool, at the base of the fall. But the anchorite, for such the solitude of his dwelling, the poverty of his raiment, and, more than all, the little rugged cross which he embraced, caused him to appear, heard not these sounds; he slept on, lulled by the accustomed roar of the water-fall; and the steed was left alone, to watch the approach of the stranger.
Presently, he was seen dragging himself up the rocks, by the aid of a drooping bough; and when he had reached their top, he rested for a moment, still clinging to the branch, as if worn out with toil, as was, indeed, made apparent by the youth and feebleness of his appearance. He cast a haggard and uninterested eye on the romantic torrent leaping and foaming at his feet, and seemed to hesitate whether he should descend into the prison-like enclosure, or retrace his steps, and retreat as he had come. But, suddenly, his gaze fell upon the steed, and he started with surprise at a sight so unexpected. The sagacious animal whinnied loudly, as if with recognition; and the youth, devoutly crossing himself, looked, with an agitation that denoted terror, on the red garment, the cross, and the human figure that still lay sleeping, or, perhaps, as he thought, dead, under its holy shadow. Then, as if resolved, he hastened to descend from the rugged fragments, and seeking where he might safely cross the brook, over the stones that obstructed its bed, he at last stood at the side of the good steed, which snuffed at him a moment with joy, and, then, gambolling about a little, fell to cropping the plants again, satisfied that the comer was a friend.
The youth stole up tremblingly to the side of the sleeper, and seemed shocked at his emaciated and neglected appearance. He stooped as if to awake him, and then started back, wringing his hands, in fear and grief. He bent over him again;—a smile passed like a beam over the countenance of the recluse, and a murmur escaped his lips, of which the youth caught only a few broken syllables:
"Though I shed thy blood," were the words he distinguished, "yet did I not aim at thee; and, therefore, hast thou forgiven me, for the sin was the sin of frenzy. Thou pardonest me, too, Alharef, for thou art, also, of the angels. It is good to walk with thee through the seats of bliss."
A tear fell upon the cheek of the knight Calavar,—for it was, indeed, he; but it fell like the spray-drop, or the gentle dew; and it was not until the hand of the youth touched his shoulder, that he awoke and rose feebly to his feet.
"Whoever thou art," said the unfortunate devotee, "thou breakest the only dream of happiness that hath visited my slumbers, for long and many years, and callest me from the paradise that filled me with bliss, to the earth which is the wheel whereon I am broken—Miserere mei, Deus!"
"Alas, my lord!"
"Art thou sent back to bid me prepare?" cried Don Gabriel, starting wildly, at the voice of the intruder. "Lo! I have flung me off the harness of war, and devoted me to penance in the wilderness, giving my body to sleep on the earth and in caves, drinking of the wild floods, and eating of the tough roots, with the earth-worm; while I sleep, my heart is scourged within me; whilst I wake, I pray,—and I pray that I may sleep for ever. Know, therefore, Jacinto! thou that dwellest in paradise! that I am ready, and that I thank heaven, I am called, at last; for weary has been my life, and long my repentance."
"Alas, my lord, I live like thyself; and I call upon thee, that thou mayest continue to live. I thought, indeed, that thou wert dead, and so thought, and yet think, thy friends,—who are now in great peril."
"God snatched me from the hands of the heathen," said the knight, "and brought me to this place, that I might seek for peace. For, oh! my heart was but filled with scorpions, that stung me day and night, and my head strewn with coals, ever burning and tormenting, whilst I sat in the infidel city, and remembered how he that hath been my son, was slain by murderers in the streets, because he loved me! All that loved me have perished, and (wo betide the hand that struck, and is not yet withered!) two under mine own steel. Yea, Alharef, thou art remembered! and, Zayda, thou art not forgotten! Then came the blow to thee, dear seraph! and thou wert carried off by the angry spirit of Alharef, who defied me at the palace-gate, and, in the temple-yard, raised me to my feet, and bade me think of Zayda. Verily, I remember her, and my heart is black with recollection! Then fell the bolt upon my boy,—he that was matchless in honour and love, peerless in war, incomparable in truth!—Would that the barbarous knives had struck my bosom, instead of thine, Amador! would that thou wert now upon thy gallant bay, shaking thy lance, and shouting the cry of the Hospital, and I in thy place, mouldering in the streets of Mexico! I lay on my couch, whilst thou wert calling to me for aid; I slept while thou wert dying.—Cursed be thy foundations, pagan city! ruin fall upon thy towers, havoc ride howling through thy palaces, and lamentations come up from thy lakes and gardens! for he that was the last and first, the loving and beloved, rots like a dog upon thy pavement!"
"Noble and dear master," said Jacinto, "in this, at least, thou art mistaken. My dear lord, thy kinsman, perished not that day in the streets; for I myself did watch by his sick couch, and see him, after thou hadst departed, return in safety to the palace."
"Dost thou say so?—He died not in the streets? Praised be God, for this his goodness!" cried Don Gabriel, falling on his knees. "My sin, then, hath not been visited on the guileless and true! My son Amador yet liveth!"
He looked to the page, and now, for the first time, observed, as far as this could be seen through his thickly padded garments, that the form of Jacinto was greatly attenuated; his cheeks were hollow and colourless, and his countenance altered, as by some such grief as had been at work in his own bosom. He seemed, too, to be very feeble. But, if such were the appearances of sorrow on his visage, they assumed a yet more striking character of agony and despair, when the knight's words of joy fell on his ear. His face grew paler than death, he trembled like a linden leaf, and his lips scarcely obeyed their function, when he replied, with a faint and fruitless effort at calmness,—
"I will not deceive my lord; no, heaven be my stay! I will not deceive my lord. Though my friend,—my patron,—my protector,—the noble Amador,—fell not in the streets, but returned to his people, yet is his fate wrapped in mystery,—in darkness and in fear. That night, that dreadful night!—O heaven! the causey covered with men, shrieking and cursing, stabbing and rending! the lake choked with corses, and with dying men still contending, and suffocating, each in the grasp of a drowning foe!—But I think not of that, I think not of that!—Who lived? who died? We searched for the body of my lord, but found it not: he was not with those they led to the pyramid; his corse floated not among the hundreds, which befouled the lake: yet did they discover his goodly war-horse on the water-side,—his surcoat was dragged from a ditch, among cannon, under whose heavy bulk lay many bodies, which the Indians strove to push up with poles—but my lord's body rose not among them. And yet, he sleeps in the lake,—yes, he sleeps in the lake! for how could he escape that night, and I no more by his side?"
As Jacinto spoke, he wept and sobbed bitterly, giving himself up to despair. But not so the knight: he listened, somewhat bewildered, to the confused narration of an event, in which he had shared no part; but catching the idea, at last, and mingling it with another, the fruit of his very distempered mind, he said, quickly, and almost joyously,—
"Dry thy tears; for now I perceive that my son is not dead, but liveth; and straightway we will go forth, and seek him!" Jacinto regarded the knight with a melancholy look. He noticed the incredulity, and resumed, with much devout emphasis,—"But a moment since, before thou camest into this den, mine eyes were opened upon paradise; it was vouchsafed to me, who must never hope to enjoy such spectacle again,—no,desdichado de mi! never again, never again,—to look upon the golden city of God; wherein I walked, with all those whom, in my life, I had loved, and who were dead. There saw I, among the saints and seraphim, my father, who fell in arms at the sack of Alhama; my mother, who died giving me birth; together with all the friends of my childhood, who perished early: there, also, I beheld Alharef and Zayda, the murdered and the blest,—with all others that were truly dead. Now thou wilt see, how God opened mine eyes in this trance; for, though I wept thee, dear child, as truly believing thou wert deceased, yet thee I saw not among the blissful, where thou must have been, hadst thou been discarded from earth, as I thought thee. And I remember me, too, and great joy it is to remember, that my son Amador was not among those saints; for which reason, heaven makes it manifest to us, that he lives. Now, therefore, let us go forth from this desert, and seek him. Though mine eyes are sealed among these hills, and my feet stumble upon the rocks, yet will heaven point us out a path to Mexico!"
"Alas! my lord need not seek so far," said the page. "The pagans are now alone in the city, having driven out their enemies, with terrible slaughter.—Never more will the Spaniards return to it!"
"Ay, now, I remember me!" said the knight, catching up some of his battered armour, as he spoke. "This defence, that I had thought for ever rejected, must I again buckle on. I remember me, thou spokest of a night of retreat by the causeway, very dreadful and bloody. Ay! and thou saidst thou wert at Amador's side!—How was it, that thou wert taken from him, and didst yet live?"
"My father Abdalla," said Jacinto, sorrowfully, "my father, by chance, heard me cry at the ditch, when my lord, Don Amador, was gone; and he saved me in his canoe."
"Thy father? thy father, Abdalla?—I remember me of Abdalla," said the knight, touching his brow. "There is a strange mystery in Abdalla. I am told—that is, I heard from my poor Marco—that Abdalla, the Moor, did greatly abhor me, even to the seeking of my life."
"He wronged him!" said the page: "whatever was my father's hatred of my lord, he never sought to do him a wrong!"
"Strange!" muttered Don Gabriel; "thou acknowledgest he hated me, then? Wherefore should he, whom I have not injured, hate me? And wherefore, after confiding thyself to my good keeping?"
"Let me not deceive my lord," said Jacinto, sadly, but firmly: "My father entrusted his child to him he hated, because he knew him just and honourable; and my father did receive great wrong, as well as other unhappy Moors, of my lord, in the Alpujarras——"
The knight dropped the dinted cuishes which he had snatched up, and, clasping his hands wildly, exclaimed,—
"Miserere mei, Deus! my sin is inexpiable, and my torment endless; for, in the Alpujarras, did I slay him whom I had sworn to love, and deface, with a murderous sword, the loveliest of thine images!"
"Dear my lord," said Jacinto, shocked and grieved at his agitation; "forget this, for thy sin is not what thou thinkest, and it has been already forgiven thee. Zayda hath seen, from heaven, the greatness of thy grief, and she intercedes for thee with our Holy Mother."
"She follows me on earth, she comes to me in visions!" cried Don Gabriel, vehemently. "Rememberest thou not the night of Cholula? Then stood she before me, as thou dost; and, with face of snow and finger of wrath, she reminded me of my malefaction."
"My lord is deceived—this was no spectre, but a living woman," said Jacinto, hurriedly.
The knight stared, aghast.
"If I make it appear to my lord," continued the page, "that this was, indeed, no phantom sent to reproach, but a living creature, haply resembling her of whom he speaks, and, therefore, easily mistaken, in the gloom, for one of whom my lord thought, in his delirious moment,—will it not satisfy my lord, that he is not persecuted, but forgiven?"
"If thou canst speak aught to remove one atom and grain from this mountain of misery, which weighs upon my heart," said Calavar, earnestly, "I adjure thee that thou speak it. Many times have I thought that she whom I slew, stood at my side; but yet had I hopes, and a partial belief, that these were the visions of my disease; for my mind is sometimes very sorely distracted. What I saw at Cholula, was beyond such explication,—very clearly and vividly represented, and seen by me when my thoughts were not disordered."
"Let my lord be content, and know that this was a living creature, as I have said, and no apparition: let him do on his armour; and, by-and-by, all shall be revealed to him."
"Speak to me now," said the knight.
"Not now! not now!" interrupted Jacinto; "for, at this moment, the myriads of vengeful fiends who seek for the blood of my lord, Don Amador, if he be yet living, are rushing upon the poor fugitives. Doth not my lord hear?—Hark!"
"'Tis a trumpet! it blasteth for a charge of horse!" cried Calavar, as the distant sound came echoing up the mountain, even over the roar of the fall.—The ancient war-horse heard the remembered note, and pricking his ears, neighed loudly and fiercely, running to a gap in the wall, as if to seek the contest, till recalled by the voice of his master.
"The infidels are then at hand, and they do battle with Christians?" exclaimed Don Gabriel, the fire of chivalry again flashing from his eye, and almost driving away the thought of Zayda. "Buckle me these straps, and see that thou art speedy; for this brooks not delay. God hath called me to this mountain, that I should be ready to do battle with the heathen, in defence of the holy cross, which is my sworn vow; and in the fulfilment of the same, I pray God that I may die.—Sound again, brave heart! smite me the godless fast and well; for presently I shall be with ye, striking for the faith!—Why, how thou loiterest, young knave! Be speedy, for my son Amador is with the Christian host; and, this day, heaven wills that I shall bring him succour."
"Alas! my lord," cried the page, "I would that I could give my life to aid him; but my fingers are skilless and feeble."
"Thou art a godly boy, and well do I love thee. Buckle me as thou canst, and care not to buckle well; for, in this fight, God will be my armour. Buckle me, therefore, as thou canst; and, while thou art thus engaged, give me to know, what good angel brought thee to be my messenger."
"I followed my sire," said the trembling Jacinto, "with the forces of Mexico, that were sent to join the mountain bands, and cut off the fugitives; and, being commanded to rest me on the hill till the battle was over, I lost myself; which, with my great grief of heart, caused me to seek some nook wherein I might die. For truly, now, unless my lord Amador be living, I care not myself for life."
"The forces of Mexico! be they many? and these dogs of the hills, are they in numbers?"
"Countless as the drops of spray which the breeze flings over us," said Jacinto, with much perturbation, "so that nothing, but the goodness of God, can rescue the Spaniards out of their hands, and conduct them forth on the path so blocked up by their bodies. The Mexicans are many thousands in number, and triumphing still in the thought of their horrid victory on the lake. They swear that no Spaniard shall escape them, this day."
"I swear, myself," said Calavar, fiercely, "and heaven will listen to the vow of a Christian, though one sinful and miserable, that, this day, even they themselves, the godless pagans, shall be scattered as dust under our footsteps!—Quick—my war-coat! and now, my good lance, that hath drunk the blood of the heathen!Santa Madre de Dios! Señora beatificada!the infidel shall fall under the cross, and the true believer rejoice in his slaughter!"
With such exclamations of fervour, the spirit of youthful days returning, at each blast of the trumpet, which was still winded at intervals, the knight ceased doing on his armour, and then, with Jacinto's feeble assistance, caparisoned his impatient steed. When this was done, he bade the page to follow him; and, riding through one of the many gaps in the colossal wall, began to descend the mountain.
The midday sun was illuminating the peaks, and darting its beams into the narrowest and darkest ravines of these mountains, when Don Hernan, at the head of his little army, rode to the crest of a hill, and looked down upon the narrow, but beautiful valley of Tonan, opening on the fields of Otompan,—or, as the name has been more euphonically rendered by Spaniards, Otumba. The level vale itself, as well as the hills on both sides, as far up, at least, as the gentleness of their slope allowed such cultivation, was sprinkled with maize fields, which, being now at their utmost point of luxuriance, covered such places with intense verdure; while the green forests, that here and there overshadowed the upper ridges, with flowery cliffs protruding from their waving tops, added the charm of solitude to the pleasant prospect of human habitation. But there was one accidental beauty at present revealed, which, however disagreeable and even terrible to the leader, he could not but acknowledge, in his heart, to surpass all the others.
At the cry with which the general beheld this phenomenon, his followers rushed up to his side, and perceived the whole valley, as it seemed,—beginning at the bottom of the ridge they now stood upon, and extending not only from hill to hill, but as far as the eye could see,—filled, and indeed blocked up, with enemies. The white and scarlet hues of their garments, the plumes of divers colours waving on their heads like a sea of feathers, over whose surging surface there passed here a bright sunbeam and there the shadow of a cloud,—the glittering of copper spears, of volcanic falchions, and of jewels, (for this day, the pagans decorated themselves, as for a triumph, in their richest array,) produced a scene which was indeed both glorious and terrific. Through this human flood, Don Hernan knew he must conduct his weary and despairing people; but without daring to hope that the hand which had parted the Sea of the Desert from before the steps of the Israelites, would open, for him, a path through this equally fearful obstruction.
The Christians gathered round their leader in silence. The loud roar of shouts, sounding from below, as if a whole world shrieked at once, shook the mountain under their feet; but they replied not.—Every man was, at that moment, commending his soul to his Maker; for each knew there was no path of escape, except though that valley, and felt in addition, that, perhaps, not even the whole army, fresh, well-appointed, full of spirits and resolution, as when, on St. John's day, it entered the city of the lake, could have made any impression on such a multitude, displayed in such a position. The very extremity of the case was the best counsel to meet it with fortitude; every man considered his life already doomed beyond respite, and, with such consciousness, looked forward to his fate, with tranquillity. Their sufferings by famine and fatigue on the road, though the mutinous and lamenting fugitives did not then know it, had better prepared them to encounter such a battle-field, than a series of victories, with spoils of gold and bread; for these torments having already rendered their lives burdensome, they were not greatly frighted at the prospect of ending them. These causes, then, added to the fury of fanaticism, never entirely at rest in the bosom of the invaders, will account for their resolution, and even impatience, to attack an army, rated by many of the conquerors, at two hundred thousand men. Had they been happier men, they would not have rushed upon such manifest destruction.
The priest Olmedo stretched forth his arm, holding a crucifix: Christian and Tlascalan knelt down upon the flinty ridge, and mingled together sullen prayers.
As they rose, the ever-composed Sandoval cried out, emphatically,—
"Now, my merry men all, gentlemen hidalgos and gentlemen commoners, God hath, this day, given us a great opportunity to signalize our valour;"—which was all the oration it occurred to his imagination to make. The soldiers looked upon him with a gloomy indifference. Then out spoke the hotheaded Alvarado:
"There be, to my reckoning, in yonder plain," he said, with a grin of desperation, "some five hundred thousand men; we have, of our own body, some four hundred and fifty Christian soldiers, and we may count the two thousand Tlascalans, here at our heels, for fifty more; which just leaves us a thousand dogs apiece to fight in yonder vale. If we gain the victory over such odds, never believe me, if we be not clapped down in books by that German enchanter Faust, who hath invented a way of making them in such numbers, as being more heroical men than either Don Alejandro, the great emperor of Egypt, or some other country,—or Don Rodrigo himself, who was much greater than any such dog of a heathen king. This much I will say, that never before had starving men such a chance of dying like knights of renown; and as, doubtless, God will send us some fifty or an hundred thousand angels, to fight on our side, we may chance stumble on a victory: in hope of which, or in the certainty, on the other hand, of going to heaven, I say, Santiago, and at them! for their bodies are covered with gold and jewels!"
"God will help us!" cried Cortes; "and my friend Alvarado hath very justly said, that there is a rich spoil, in that valley, for victors. Though there be here, perhaps, fifty thousand men, or more, yet are they infidels, and, therefore, but as sparrows and gnats before the face of God's soldiers. There are, also, acres of very sweet corn in the valley; and, beyond yon yelling herds, are the gates of Tlascala. But let it not be thought, I will, this day, compel the sword of any Christian. Yonder are the hill-tops;—there are dens enow, wherein one may give his bones to wild-cats, and there be tall cliffs from which they who prefer such end, may throw themselves, and straightway be beyond the reach of battle. For myself, though but one man follow me, yet will I descend to that plain, walk through that multitude, and marshalling an hundred thousand Tlascalans, after I have rested me a little, return, by the same path we are now treading, to the gates of Mexico, to revenge upon such as yonder scum, the death of my brothers, who are in heaven, as well as to lay claim to those rich lands and mines of gold, which are our right, and which it is yet our destiny to overmaster. If ye be minded to disperse and starve among the hills, let me be acquainted with your resolution; if ye will fight like soldiers and Christians, speak out your good thoughts, and, in God's name, let us begin!"
"We will fight!" muttered the desperate men.
At this moment, some strong clear voice from the company began to pronounce the words of the chant,Kyrie Eleison, and the rest joining in, Cortes gave the signal to descend; and thus they went slowly down towards the host, invoking mercy and singing the praises of God, and waxing in boldness and fanaticism as they sang, until the neighbouring rocks rang with the loud and solemn echoes of devotion.
Whatever was the piety of Don Hernan, it did not, however, prevent his taking all the steps which could be expected of a general in such a situation; and one while joining, loudly, with others in the chant, and at another, pausing to give deliberate instructions to his officers, he arranged the order and expedients of battle, before the wild anthem was concluded. His instructions were simple, and related but to one point. He counselled no one to be valiant, for he knew the veriest coward in the ranks would be compelled to deeds of heroism that day. He only commanded, that the little troop of horse should form five deep, and follow him whithersoever he might lead, and that the footmen should keep their ranks close, and follow after the horse. He knew, as, indeed, did most of his followers, that the orders conveyed to a Mexican army by a Mexican general, instead of being transmitted, from division to division, by messengers, were directly communicated to all by the general himself, through the medium of the great banner, which he bore in his own hands, and, from the lofty litter on which he was carried, kept ever displayed to the eyes of his warriors. A few simple motions of this royal telegraph, sufficed to convey all the directions which a barbarous commander was required to bestow upon a barbarous army. Among these, the vailing or dropping the standard, was the well-known signal of retreat; and whether it might be lowered by the general himself, or struck from his hands by some fortunate foe, still it was equally certain, that, in either case, his followers would immediately, upon seeing it fall, betake themselves to flight.—When Cortes eyed this immense multitude, he calculated the chances of victory, not by the probabilities of routing it, but by those of making his way to the great banner.
The imperial standard, which, in the tongue of Mexico, bore the horribly uncouth title ofTlahunmatlaxopilli, was conspicuously visible, even from the mountain Aztaquemacan, which the Spaniards were now descending. In the centre of the pagan army was a group of warriors, made remarkable by the height and splendour of their penachos, the glittering of their jewelled decorations, and the sheen of their copper lances, the blades of which, like some that had been seen in Mexico, were full a yard in length, and polished so that they shone like gold. These were the guards,—a body of young nobles,—which surrounded the person of the general, to protect the banner from violence. In the centre of this group, upon a litter of almost imperial gorgeousness, stood the stately barbarian, bearing on a long pike-staff the standard, which was a sort of net-work, made of chains of gold,—and, therefore, a more significant emblem of the object of conquest, and the fate of subjugation, than any banner of a Christian nation, even at this day. A few white feathers, waving amongst the links, kept it ever conspicuous.
As Don Hernan descended, he explained to the horsemen his design to merge every other object in that of seizing the Mexican standard; a project which met the concurrence of each.
"All that I have now to say to you," he added, when approaching the base of the hill, "is, to charge with me at half-speed, and take no thought of slaying. Those of you, who have ever endured the bastinado of a pedagogue, will remember, that Julius Cæsar, or some such knave of a paynim, it matters not who, being opposed in some civil war, to certain cohorts of young gallants and hidalgos of Rome, directed his archers to spare the lives, but to let fly at the faces, of these lady-puppets;—a counsel of infinite wisdom; for, I remember, that in my youth, until I got this gash o' the chin from a gentleman of Saragossa, which somewhat spoils the beauty of my beard, I had a mortal aversion to fight with any man much given to striking at the face. What I have to advise, therefore, is, that you will imitate the wisdom of that same Roman hound, and lance your spears full at the eyes of all who may oppose you. I have given charge to the footmen to finish our work: while they are slaughtering such curs as are not satisfied with scratched faces, we will make free with yon same knave of the gold net. Let it be reckoned—and 'tis worth a king's ransom—the prize of him who overthrows the general.—Hark! hear ye how the infidels shout!—Are ye ready? In the name of God, the Virgin, and Santiago, have at them now like men! Amen!—Santiago! Santiago!"
Thus shouting his war-cry, for now the horsemen had reached the bottom of the hill, Don Hernan couched his spear, with four cavaliers at his side, of whom Don Amador de Leste was one, and, followed by all the others, dashed furiously at the first ranks of the Mexicans, who were already rushing against him.
The savages sprang aside, flinging their javelins and swords at the hot Christians, and raining arrows on their armed bodies; but ever, though thus expressing their hostility, yielding rank after rank before the irresistible charge; until it became apparent to the most doubting, that they might succeed, at last, in reaching the banner. They, therefore, redoubled their exertions, shouted the names of their saints, and aiming continually at the eyes of the foe, made such progress, that they were already almost, as it seemed, within reach of the prize, when a yell of the Indians of more than ordinary loudness, echoed by the infantry with exclamations of alarm, brought them to a sudden stand.
They had penetrated deeply into the mass; but it was as a noble ship ploughs her way through billows, which yield and divide, only to unite again in her wake, and roar after in pursuit. From their lofty seats, they could overlook the multitude, and behold how quickly the path they had carved, was filled up by screaming barbarians, rushing turbulently after them; while others dashed in like numbers, and with equal ferocity, upon the footmen, now left far behind.
As they looked thus over their shoulders, they paused with surprise, and even perturbation; for they perceived, furiously descending the slope of the hill on the left hand, against the infantry which was already sorely beset, what seemed a Christian cavalier in black armour, mounted on a noble bay horse, and couching a lance like a trained soldier, only that, behind him, there followed, with savage yells, a band of several thousand Indians, bearing the well-known colours of Tenochtitlan itself.
"God be our stay!" cried the general, looking aghast at this astonishing apparition; "have we here an infidel god, in very deed, risen up against us, and riding a-horse like a Christian man? Avoid thee, Satan! and all good saints spurn thee again to the pit, from which thou comest!"
"'Tis Mexitli himself!" cried one.
"'Tis the devil!" said another.
"Look!" exclaimed Don Pedro, "he rushes down upon the footmen, like a rock, tumbled from the hill-top; and hark! heard ever man such horrible voice? 'Tis Mahound! 'tis Satan!—Now all good angels befriend us!"
"For my part," said Don Amador de Leste—
But before his words had yet been heard by any of his companions, they were cut short by such loud and thrilling cries of joy from the infantry as equally confounded the cavaliers.
"Elo! Santiago! elo! nuestro buen amigo, el valoroso Santiago!"—that is to say, "Lo, St. James! behold, our good friend, the valiant St. James!"—burst from the lips of the footmen, in a frenzy of triumph.
The cavaliers looked again, but to the opposite mountain, and beheld upon that, as upon the other, an armed and mounted cavalier descending with lance in rest, and with the speed of thunder, as if rushing to a tournay with him of the black armour, but without being followed by any one, excepting a single youth, who staggered far behind.
At this sight, the cavaliers uttered loud cries of joy, not doubting that St. James had indeed come to rescue them from the claws of the accursed Mexitli, as they began to consider the black phantom.
"Our saint fights for us!" cried Cortes; "On! leave the black fiend to him!—On, and let him behold our valour. The standard, ho!—Santiago is nigh! The standard, the standard!"
The sight of the second apparition seemed to have smitten the pagans with as much terror as the view of their own champion had infused into the Spaniards. The young nobles who surrounded the banner, looked to the vision with awe; and ere they had yet recovered from their confusion, the Christian cavaliers, elated and invigorated, fell upon them with such violence as left the long copper lances useless in their hands.
"On, and quick!" shouted Don Hernan, "or the knavish colour-man will spring from his perch, and so rob ye of the gold. On, ho! on!—Hah, infidel! art thou not mine own?"
As he uttered these last words, he rose on his stirrups, stretched over his horse's neck, and handling his heavy spear as one would an ordinary javelin, launched it with all his force at the chief. There was never a better mark; for the barbarian, instead of showing, as Cortes had hinted, any desire to desert his litter, advanced to its very verge; and while he balanced the staff and its weighty crest with his left hand, whirled manfully a short dart round his head, looking all the while at the great Teuctli. There never was a better mark,—for his breast, covered with a flimsy hauberk of skins, on which were sewed thin plates of gilded copper, was fully exposed;—there never was a better aim. Before the dart had left his grasp, the spear of Don Hernan smote him on the chest, and piercing copper and bone alike, hurled him backwards, with the standard, out of the litter.
The cavaliers shouted victory, and trampling down the litter-bearers, and the young nobles, as these began to fly, looked eagerly for the prize.
"Have the knaves robbed us?—Hah! mad John of Salamanca,thoupickest my pocket of these crowns, dost thou?"
These words of Don Hernan were addressed to a young hidalgo, who, the moment he had perceived the spear of Cortes take effect, had flung himself from his pied steed, rushed upon the downfallen infidel, and striking his sword into his throat, tore from him the badges of authority.
"He who strikes the quarry," said the elated youth, flinging both plume and golden net over the neck of his general's horse, "has the true claim to the trophy."
"Keep them thyself, for thou hast won them; and if Don Carlos be of mind, brave Juan, thou shalt mount them for thy coat of arms. Soho, De Leste! where art thou?—I thought this prize should have been thine!"
"De Leste has gone mad," said Alvarado.—"Shall we chase the runagates? See how they scamper!"
The words of Alvarado were true. No sooner had the golden banner fallen from its height, and been lost among the combatants, than there rose a dismal yell over the whole valley, and the vast multitudes, those near at hand, and those afar, alike, began to fly, and in the utmost confusion.
"Victory! praise be to God! to God and our noble St. James!" cried Cortes, with a shout, that thrilled to the hearts of the flying pagans. "Follow not the knaves: leave them to the foot—to the allies and our mighty champion, the Saint!—Soho, De Leste! return. Follow not after the knaves."
"'Tis De Olid," cried Don Pedro, "that halloos the hunt's-up. I tell thee, De Leste is mad!"
"Back to our Champion!" said Cortes.—"Hah! what saidst thou of De Leste?"
"That he is gone mad,—raving, besottishly, and very blasphemously mad; and that he deserted us, the moment he saw thee fling thy spear."
"God forbid the youth should prove to be as was his kinsman, before his death-day," said Cortes; "for a more gallant and sufficient soldier, though somewhat self-willed, have I never beheld.—Mad, sayst thou?"
"He swore to me, first," said Alvarado, with a devout shrug, "that that paynim god, Mexitli, descending the hill yonder, was mounted on his own good horse, Fogoso; which seems to me not unreasonable; for Fogoso was, in some sense, the best charger lost that night, (which God punish to the heathen for ever!) and, doubtless, Huitzilopochtli, if determined to go out a pricking, like a Christian knight-errant, would be wise enough to pick up the best ghost of Christian horse. And, secondly," continued Don Pedro, crossing himself, "he swore that his most holy valour, Santiago, who came down from the hill-top to help us, was no more than the ghost of his kinsman, the knight Calavar, who was drowned, horse and all, in the salt lake, near to Iztapalapan!—But ho! halon! let us follow the hunt!"
"Ha, my masters!" cried Don Hernan; "let us return, and fathom this marvel, for it may bode us much to know. But stay—I will not rob ye of pastime. As many of ye as will, spur after the hounds, and aid the Tlascalans."
So saying, and the foes now being scattered in flight over the neighbouring hills, the general returned towards the infantry; while the cavaliers, shouting, as if in a boar-chase, urged their steeds up the hills, in pursuit of the fugitives.
Thus was fought, and thus won, a battle, in which four hundred and fifty Spaniards, aided by a handfull of Tlascalans, contended with a host of such incredible numbers, that, to this day, men remember it with wonder, and would reject it as a fable, were it not that the testimony of a thousand facts has placed it beyond the reach of question.