"Thou wilt believe, now, that thou wert sent to the South Sea for no good?"
"Ay, I will believe anything," said Juan, in increasing excitement. "Andthistoo! scarce an hour returned from my sufferings, endured for him,—endured to regain his good-will! Ay, and before I had done speaking, he would have sent me to Mexico, to be sacrificed there!—before I had eaten and drunk! before I had rested my wearied body, before I had recruited my exhausted strength!—Tell me, Villafana! was it not by his design I was entrapped into giving shelter to—But, no! that could not be; in that, at least, he must be innocent. But, in the rest, it is oppression, grinding, intolerable oppression!"
"Well, I marvel he did not let thee off with a scourging," said Villafana, swallowing another draught from the neglected flask. "Come, drink, and we will discourse together."
"A scourging!" said Juan, seizing the Alguazil's arm with a grasp which showed that imprisonment and sorrow had not altogether robbed him of strength; "dare you talk to me of scourging?"
"Ay, marry," said Villafana, whose object seemed to be to excite the slumbering fury of the young man, and who now, in the effect of a word used for another purpose, discovered a point on which his equanimity was not impregnable; "ay, faith; for the whole army cries out upon his barbarity, saying that he is murdering you; so that he already talks of letting you off with a scourging.—He was as good with me."
"By the saints of heaven!" cried Juan, snatching up the dagger which Guatimozin had left, and striking it into the table with a fury which split the plank in twain, "were it his own, I would drive this steel into the breast of the man that designed me such dishonour. Scourge me! Thanks be to heaven, that sends this weapon!"
"Oho, señor!" said Villafana, with counterfeited indignation, "you will resist, will you! Hah! and you have a dagger, too! Come, señor, give it up."
"Fool," said the prisoner, "thy bitter words have unchained me at last, and driven me to desperation. I will not yield this weapon but with my life. Wo betide him that comes to me with a scourge, were it Don Hernan himself!"
"You will resist him then?—Why now you are a man again! Sit down; fear not: you shall have a better weapon. Come, let us drink a little: 'tis a raw night, and rainy. Here's success to our vengeance—a quart of blood apiece! Methinks, you are more wronged than myself—Therefore, you shall strike the first blow. I give you this privilege, out of friendship. The second is mine."
While Villafana held forth in these extraordinary terms, Juan, shocked into composure, became aware that the wine, which the Alguazil plied with characteristic infatuation, had already made serious inroads upon his brain. He ogled and smiled, with a stupid contortion of countenance, which was meant to be significant; his articulation was impeded, and his expressions coarser than usual; and without being positively drunk, he was reduced to that condition in which the natural propensities get the better of all artificial qualities. Hence, he became fierce and bloody-minded, without displaying any of the subtle cautiousness and cunning inquisitiveness, that were common to him in his sober hours. It was for this reason that he proceeded to unfold the secrets of his breast, without being in any degree abashed by the looks of horror, with which Juan heard him.
"Know then, brother Juan," said he, "that thou shalt lap the blood of Don Demonios to-morrow morning, at the banquet-table; and afterwards hang up Guzman with thine own hands. Thou art too white-livered, or thou shouldst have known of the matter earlier. Also, thou shalt have thy fair nun again, as before:—that is, upon condition she likes thee better than me; which may be, or may not, for who can tell whether the star will shoot into the marsh, or fall upon the mountain?—Bah! it is a pity I brought thee not another flagon. Busta! I will drink no more; for this is no time to be thick-witted.—Know then,Juanito querido, we have brought our conspiracy to a head; and out of the nine hundred Christians in this town there are two hundred and forty sworn on dirk, buckler, and crucifix, to our whole game,—three hundred, who will wink and stand by, till the play is over,—three hundred who will swear faith to the devil himself, when Don Demonios lies hid in his pocket,—and as for the rest, why we must e'en have some hanging and stabbing."
"In heaven's name," said Juan, "what dost thou mean? Art thou really mad? Bethink thee what thou art saying!"
"Hah!" cried Villafana, "wilt thou skulk backwards, after all? Dost thou pretend to oppose us? We had some thoughts of making thee one of the three chief captains. This Olea stands to; for he swears thou art the best leader in the camp."
"Is Gaspar sworn among you?" said Juan, with a faint voice, his detestation of the bloody scheme arousing him to the necessity of sifting it to the bottom—for he forgot his captivity, and thought only of arresting the progress of a treason so fearful.
"Ay," returned the Alguazil; "and better men than he. Come, clap thy name to the paper, and I swear thou shalt have a command among us, though I should kill thy rival-candidate Gil Gonzales, with my own hand. Dost thou not know these fellows? We have hidalgos among us."
As he spoke, he pulled from his bosom a paper, on which Juan read with affright the names of several men of rank, mingled with those of common soldiers, with many of which he was familiar. His first thought was to secure this dreadful list, and calling to the guards about the prison, arrest the Alguazil upon the spot. A moment's consideration determined him to take further advantage of the communicativeness of the traitor, until made acquainted with all the details of the conspiracy. He bridled his anger, therefore, and concealing his horror under an appearance of doubt and hesitation, to which his trembling agitation gave no little force, he said,
"How is this? Are these names good and true?"—
"See you not Barba Roxa's sign-manual, near the bottom of the list? He subscribed it last night. He draws the figure of a knife well, as one who knows how to use it. But as for thee,niño mio, thou art able to write thy signature in full."
"Stay," cried Juan. "What are you to do? You spoke of a banquet, and the morning. Assassination, hah?"
"Did I not tell thee before? Look," said the Alguazil, with a harsh laugh, displaying a letter, well secured with wax and fillet, on which was written the name of the Captain-General. "Know, that this letter, written carefully on the outside, by mine own hand, (for there is nothing within,) comes from the señor's sire, old Don Martin, whom the devil take to his rest, for fathering so ill-tempered a son. This letter, thou must know," he went on with a chuckle of self-approving craft, "came in the ship of Seville that brought this good wine, and was, by an evil accident, detained on the way. Know, sirrah, and this is my device: The general hath forgotten to invite me to his feast to-morrow, in honour of his saint-day, or some other thing—Quien sabe?It is very rude. But he has invited all my caballeros on this paper, and some four score soldiers, who are down likewise. The rest will take their ease in the vestibule, and on the square, to be ready. What do I then? Marry, this: I break in upon the revel with the letter in my hand, and a dagger in my sleeve; the others crowd round with congratulations, and I strike him under the ribs—Pho! I forgot; thou canst not have thefirstblow, as I promised thee; but thou shalt follow, cloaked up to the eyes, and be free to take the second.—What dost thou think of my plot, hah, dear devil? Hah!—"
"That it is the most damnable and dastardly ever devised by villain, and shall bring thee to a villain's death. Rogue! didst thou think thou couldst tell this tome, and live? I have thy treason in my hand, and will use it as it becomes an honourable man and Christian. What ho, guards! treason, treason!"
Greatly astounded as Villafana was by this unexpected defection, the shock served rather to sober than affright him. He gave the prisoner a look of unspeakable malice, and whipping out his sword and calling for help as clamorously as Juan, he assaulted him with the utmost fury. At the same time, five or six of the guardsmen rushed in, and to Juan's utter dismay, instead of aiding him to secure the Alguazil, rushed upon him, some with their spears, to transfix him against the wall, while others, springing behind him, secured him in their arms, and hurled him upon the floor. In an instant, he had lost both the fatal list and the dagger of Guatimozin, and was at the mercy of Villafana, who knelt upon his breast, and shortened his sword, to despatch him with a thrust. But at the very moment when he had given up all hope, and was commending his soul to his Maker, the savage and exulting laugh with which the Alguazil aimed at his throat, was changed to an exclamation of alarm and pain. Up started the assassin, and Juan, springing also to his feet, he beheld, with surprise, the figure of La Monjonaza standing betwixt him and the assailants. The gray mantle had fallen from her head and shoulders, revealing a form of the finest symmetry, and a countenance convulsed into beauty, such as might have become a warring Bellona; to whom she might have been well compared, only that in place of the whip and torch which a moralizing mythology has put into the hands of the goddess, she held an emblem equally expressive, in a short dagger, gleaming with blood from the shoulder of Villafana.
"Villain!" she cried, after looking as if she would have repeated the blow, "art thou not yet requited? Begone!"
And the discomfited traitor, scowling and pointing at the blood trickling from his arm, and yet obviously quailing before her stern frown, left the prison, followed by the guards, who seemed even more terrified than himself.
Juan stood, for a moment, confounded in the presence of his preserver; and Magdalena, gradually exchanging her fierce expression for one more becoming her sex, appeared at last, as he had seen her before, pale, saddened, and subdued. As she sank into this softened temper, her eye fell upon the crimsoned blade; and it was curious to see with what feminine horror, disgust, and shame, she cast it from her, and to contrast this display of undissembled feelings with her late Amazonian bearing and act.
"Magdalena," said Juan, a thousand emotions at once contending in his bosom, "you have saved my life. Haste now and protect that of Cortes: for, be it dear to thee or not, yet it is not fitting he should be left to the knife of an assassin. Acquaint him from me—Nay, bear it not fromme; for I will not seem as if I sought to purchase my life with the confession—Acquaint him that a dreadful conspiracy, headed by the knave Villafana, is about to burst upon his head. If he seizes not the traitor to-night, let him beware who approaches the banquet to-morrow. Above all, let him be on his guard against any one who affects to bring letters from his father. Haste, maiden, haste! for perhaps Villafana, wrought upon by his fears, may discharge his train of horrors this very night."
"Dost thou thus seek to preserve him who has so basely compassed thine own life?" said Magdalena, less with surprise than sorrowing admiration. "Think not of Cortes, but of thyself: thou hast not many hours for thought."
"Alas, Magdalena," said Juan, impatiently, "you do not believe me. I swear to you, that what I say is true: Villafana is a traitor, and is now on the point of assassinating the Captain-General."
"If he were about assassinating thee, and the Captain-General knew it, what aid wouldst thou expect from the Captain-General?" rejoined La Monjonaza.
"Maiden!" said Juan, frowning severely, "in this coldness of purpose, now that thou art acquainted with the act, thou art conniving at murder!"
Apparently this reproof touched Magdalena to the quick. She started, shuddered, and turned as if to leave the prison; but changing her purpose, stepping up to the light, and assuming a boldness which she did not feel, she falteringly asked,
"Is there no case, in which such connivance might be excusable? But a moment since," (and here she bent her head upon her bosom,) "I was about tocommitmurder—Had I slain Villafana, wouldst thou then have thought the act criminal?"
"Surely not, surely not," said Juan; "for, in this case, thou wert arresting the blow of a cut-throat, to kill whom in the act, were but sheer justice, and according to law. And yet I would that the blow had been struck by another. It is not seemly for a woman to carry a dagger, and still more improper that she should use it."
"What if she be attacked by a villain, and no helper nigh?" demanded the forlorn girl. "Heaven has given me no protector—My father, my brother, and my friend—they all lie in this little steel;" and as she picked up the weapon from the floor, as if no longer ashamed to bear it, a ghastly smile beamed from her visage, like the flash of a Medusa amid the foam of a midnight billow.
"Speak no more of Cortes," she continued, observing that Juan was about to resume the subject of the conspiracy; "he is far better able to protect himself than thou. Were there twenty poniards in Villafana's hand, and were his arm as extended as his malice, yet could he not reach even to the heel of Don Hernan. His fate is written,—yes, more inevitably than thine; for thou hast yet one hope of deliverance, and Villafana has none.—Listen to me, Juan Lerma; it is perhaps the last time on earth that I shall speak to thee. If thou reject mine offer this night, I call heaven to witness that I will leave thee to thy fate."
"Magdalena," said Juan, firmly, "we have spoken of this before. God protect thee, for there is a wall of adamant between us."
"Be it so," said the lady; "and let it be higher than thy wishes, deeper than thy scorn, so thou wilt leave this land, and return to it no more."
"On the morrow, Magdalena, I die," said Lerma, with unabated resolution. "Hear then the counsel of a dying man, who can yet call himself your friend. Do what you have recommended to me: leave this land, and, in the gloom of a cloister, expiate—"
"Yet again?" exclaimed the maiden, with an eye of fire. "This is to distract me! Oh, if thou knew how unjustly thou hast planted daggers in my bosom—daggers to which this thing of steel is but as the thorn of a rosebud—thou wouldst kill thyself, rather than speak them again! But it matters not: whether thou livest or diest, still must thou know that I am wronged.—Listen to me—I will speak of Hilario.—"
"Let it not be so," said Juan; and then solemnly added, "Learn that, yesternight, the wretched Villafana, who, by some magical science, seems acquainted with the secrets of all in this camp, gave me to know what I did not before dream. Magdalena, when I plucked thee from the wreck, I dreamed, for a moment, that I loved thee—" The maiden trembled from head to foot, and Juan was himself greatly agitated; "I beheld one, in whom, from the act of giving her a life, I might fancy a tie, such as did not exist between me and any other human being, from the time of the death of my poor father up to that happy hour. But had that affection ripened even into such as Hilario avowed,"—(Here Magdalena waved her hand impatiently;) "nay, had I plighted with thee faith and troth, and did we stand this moment before the altar, my passion would be at once changed to awe and horror, to know that I was wedding the spouse of Heaven. Magdalena, a life of penitence can scarcely remove the sin of broken vows!"'
"Say not this," exclaimed the unhappy Magdalena, vehemently: "What knew I of earth or heaven, when, imprisoned in a cell from childhood upwards, I gave up the one for the other? Heaven broke the oath which oppressors exacted; else, wherefore was I saved of all the sisters, and thrown upon a land where cloisters were unknown? For these vows could I have procured a dispensation. Hast thou never heard of such being dissolved?"
"Surely I have," said Juan, mildly, desiring to allay the agitation of his visitor: "It was told to me, by Villafana, that the señor Camarga (an insane man, who made an attempt on my life,) was once a monk of St. Dominic and an Inquisitor, and permitted to revoke his vows for some worldly purpose, I know not what; and I have heard it also said, that the sister of Don Hernan was allowed to leave a nunnery, to wed some great nobleman of Andalusia."
"It is enough," said Magdalena, calmly, "the vow was suspended, not broken; it will be resumed, when the purpose for which I now live, is accomplished, and would have been before, but for the accident which brought me to this land.—Juan Lerma, I will not ask thee why thou refusest life at my hands: but it is offered thee by one wronged and defamed, not degraded. If thou live, it is well thou shouldst know the truth, and remember me without contempt; if thou die, the grave shall not cover thee in ignorance. Hilario—Start not, frown not, tremble not, for the truth must be spoken—Hilario abused thy belief, that he might break my heart, and perhaps, also, thine; for he hated me, because I repelled his love with contempt, and thee, because he knew—because he suspected,—that thou wert the cause. You fought; he fell,—and, with what seemed his dying lips, (for, even in death, his spite was not diminished,) repeated the demoniacal falsehood; boasting of the degradation of one whose only shame was that she did not requite his presumption with a dagger!"
Again the figure of the unhappy girl was elevated by passion into the port of a destroying deity. But she perceived that Juan was shocked by a display of fire so unwomanly and, indeed, so fearful; and this instantly transformed her into another being:
"This too,thistoo," she cried, shedding tears of humiliation, "this, too, is a consequence of his malice, for it has converted me into the thing I am not,—into what seems a fury or a demon. Dost thou believe I am—dost thou believe Iwasa creature formed of passions, that should belong only to men? No! oh heaven, oh no! it is the madness that comes from the viper's tooth. Stung, vilified, robbed of respect and happiness, how even can a woman sit down in peace, unless she can die? unless she can die? She will have her vengeance, believe it; and well is it for her, when it is won by the hands of a brother or sire.—Yet, believe this, if thou wilt, for I am not what I was; believe aught,—anything, save the lies of Hilario. With his dying lips he defamed me—with his dying hand he revoked the slander, and avowed himself a villain. Behold the refutation of calumny."
As she spoke, she drew from her bosom, with a trembling grasp, and put into Juan's, a scrap of paper, on which he read, with extreme surprise, the following words, traced with a hand feeble and agitated, yet well known to him,—
"What I have said of Magdalena del Naufragio," (or Magdalena of the Wreck, for by this name she was known at Isabela,) "is false. In malice and folly I have laid perjury on my soul; and, as I now speak the truth, I pray heaven to forgive me.—Amen."Antonio del Milagro."
"What I have said of Magdalena del Naufragio," (or Magdalena of the Wreck, for by this name she was known at Isabela,) "is false. In malice and folly I have laid perjury on my soul; and, as I now speak the truth, I pray heaven to forgive me.—Amen.
"Antonio del Milagro."
"Good heaven!" said Juan, "is it possible Antonio could commit this dastardly crime? Alas, Magdalena, Ihavedone you a grievous wrong, and I beseech you, pardon me.—This thing was not only wicked, but marvellous. The paper is stained with blood—The saints acquit me of his death, for it was I who shed it! I am glad he died penitent—What brought him to this justice? I held my dagger to his throat, yet he cried, with a devilish malice and courage, 'Strike, for—' But I will not repeat his sinful and exulting falsehoods.—Alas, that his blood should be upon my soul! the blood of his father's son!"
Magdalena surveyed the self-accusing looks of the prisoner, with much emotion; and twice or thrice she opened her lips, to give him comfort, or to continue her dark and singular story, and yet failed, as many times, to speak. At last, she clasped her hands upon her bosom, as if, by an effort of physical strength, to give support and resolution to her heart, and said, with low and interrupted accents,
"Lament no more for a sin thou hast not committed. Thou wert deceived—Hilario died not by thy hands."
"Hah!" exclaimed Juan, "dost thou tell me the truth? Is Hilario yet living? God be thanked! God be thanked! for I am not a murderer!"
He fell upon his knees, and looking up to heaven with joy, beheld not the grief and trepidation with which his companion surveyed his raptures.
"I told thee, not that he lived, but that thou didst not slay him," said the nun, with an effort.—"Had my father come to my side, and looked upon this paper, after hearing the story of Hilario's baseness, what think you he should have done?"
"Killed him, I must allow," said Juan, rising to his feet; "for even his deep penitence could scarcely be permitted to stand as the sole penalty of such an offence.—Alas, Magdalena, my mind is beset with sore misgivings. How was that paper obtained? How did Hilario die? Thou growest pale! Heaven shield me! didst thou, didstthou—?"
He paused with terror. The maiden replied instantly, and almost with firmness:
"Hear the truth, even to the last syllable; for eventhygood opinion I will not purchase by subterfuge. To Villafana,—a wretch, whose manifold villanies thou couldst not dream, (for know, that, being a sailor in the ship that bore the unlucky sisters, he devised and accomplished its destruction, that he might impiously obtain the holy vessels of silver and gold—Ay, it was Villafana, and not the tempest, that drove us upon the rocks of Alonso—) to Villafana, from whom I learned the cause of the duel and of thy flight, I committed the charge of obtaining this recantation.—Was this wrong?" she exclaimed, giving way to affright, for Juan's looks of horror could not be mistaken: "they were two fiends together,—the villain struck the villain,—the—"
"Murderess! murderess!" cried Juan aloud, recoiling from her.
A ghastly smile passed over her countenance, and it grew into a faint laugh, which, to Juan's mistaken eye, (for he thought it the merriment of satisfaction or indifference,) seemed unnatural and dreadful, while she replied, her voice hysterically belying her feelings, as much as did her countenance,
"Thou dost not think I employed him to do murder? I appeal to heaven, I did not dream he would do aught but compel the recantation from the wounded man.—What! bid him kill one so defenceless! Had he been strong and well armed, then perhaps, indeed,—then perhaps, I might have thought it. I sought but for the paper; the rest was the deed of Villafana."
"Oh heaven! oh holy heaven!" cried Juan; "speak not another word: rather let me die than hear more. Away! avaunt! thou art not a woman, but a fiend! and all is now as it was, and worse.—What, blood-stained! blood-stained!"—
Magdalena strode towards him, striving to speak, but could only utter the words, 'Injustice! injustice!' mingled with the charge, 'Leave Mexico,' that still made a part of her perturbed thoughts. Had not Juan been entirely overwhelmed by his horror, he must have observed, that her mind was, at this moment, convulsed beyond the degree of any former agitation; that she was, in fact, in a condition both alarming and pitiable. Her countenance was most deathlike, her accents wholly unnatural, and there was something of delirium or idiotcy in the manner with which, while still muttering the broken reproof, 'Injustice,' and the charge, 'Leave Mexico,' she, all the while, extended the blood-stained paper, as if entreating him again to receive and peruse it.
As it was, he gave utterance to his horror in the words,—
"Miserable woman! the denial forced from the lips of the murdered man, is of a piece with the spirit that compelled it—False, false, all!"
At these words, the paper dropped from her hands, another vacant smile distorted her visage, and she turned to depart; but before she had taken two steps, she tottered, and fell to the floor, with a dreadful scream, that instantly brought the guards into the prison.
The absorbing nature of their conversation had, for the last two or three moments, rendered both incapable of observing that some scene of altercation had suddenly arisen at the dungeon door. High voices might be heard, as of one alternately entreating and demanding admittance, which was gruffly denied by others. The shriek of Magdalena, ringing in their ears like a cry of death, brought the contention to an end; and all rushing in together, they beheld Juan endeavouring to raise the figure of his unhappy and lifeless guest from the floor.
"Dios mio! y peccavi!I will kill him where he stands," exclaimed one, rushing forward.
"Not so fast, señor Camarga," cried the hunchback, who was at the head of all, snatching the weapon from the hands of this individual, who seemed peculiarly to thirst for the blood of the young islander. "Here's work for the bastinado! Where's Villafana, ye treacherous dogs, that let women into the prison? He shall pay for it.—Harkee, señor Camarga; if you have any interest in this fair lady, you may help bear her to the palace. Poor fool! these women love as arquebuses shoot: if you make them any obstruction, they burst in your hands—and this is truer still of a musket, if you thrust it into the earth. In mine own opinion, the young hound has scorned her."
While Najara gave vent to these growling observations, Magdalena was carried out of the prison. The hunchback had reached the door, before Juan, in the confusion of the moment, thought of calling him back, to impart to him the secret of the treachery. But Najara replied only with a malediction, and departed with the lantern; so that Juan was again left to night and solitude.
Meanwhile, a scene of still more tragical character was on the point of being represented within the walls of the palace.
It was a tempestuous night. The clouds, which had all day enveloped the pagan metropolis, were, at last, gathered over Tezcuco. The wind blew in gusts, with frequent rain; and as the distant thunderbolts rolled with a rumbling cadence over Mexico, vast sheets of lightning shot up in the west, illuminating sky, lake, and mountain, with a cadaverous glare.
Some five or six of the principal cavaliers were assembled with Cortes, in the great Hall of Audience, engaged in earnest and anxious debate. It happened, by accident, that the huge curtain, which, at night, was usually drawn over the window of alabaster, had been, this evening, neglected by the attendants; so that it remained, drooping in gigantic festoons from the great beam, carved into a serpent's head, which held it at the top, down to the lesser ornaments that supported it on the sides, of the casement. The strong cords, by which it could be dragged into its place, hung over the central beam, flapping occasionally against the alabaster wall, as the gust, puffing in through the great door, whirled the smoke and flame of the lamps and torches, from the walls and pillars, to which they were attached.
Thus, though the alabaster slabs were too thick to transmit any ordinary ray, the brighter flashes of lightning made their way through, and added, at times, a ghastly glare to the light of the lamps; in which the countenances of the cavaliers, perturbed as they were, assumed such an unnatural hue as might have beseemed the ghosts of dead heroes, rising to earth, to meddle again in the sport of slaughter.
The visage of the Captain-General betrayed greater anxiety, mingled with sterner wrath, than appeared on any other; and when he spoke, it was in accents brief and low, and exceedingly emphatic.
"I tell you, cavaliers," he cried, "the mystery that shrouds this treason is more frightful than the treason itself. We are at fault, señores, we are at fault. We behold enough to show us that the devils are at work about us, but not to discover in what mode they are toiling. It is clear enough that Villafana is a dog, and one day he shall hang; but I know not, in what manner, nor at what time, he will bite. This is certain: he has suffered one of the Mexicans to leave his cell, and communicate with Xicotencal: it is certain, also, that this cur of Tlascala will leave the camp before day-dawn; and how many of his warriors will follow after him, that I leave you to conjecture. This I have from a true mouth. He is incensed, first, on account of Juan Lerma; and, secondly, I doubt not, the Mexican has made the most of his growling temper and present discontent. What sayst thou, Sandoval? What hinders thee to lie in wait, and, following at his heels, so do with him, that his Tlascalans who desert afterwards, may be frightened on the path, and so return to us? There are good trees on the wayside!"
"Ay," replied Don Gonzalo, grimly, "when there is any executioner's work towards, I am sure to play jack-ketch. I am loath to deal with a man that hath been so valiant; but if he be a traitor, it is right he should die. What if I give him the bastinado, Turk-wise? Methinks that would bring him into a sounder temper."
"It would but inflame the choler of his proud people," said the shrewder general; "whereas his sudden death, dealt upon him in the act of desertion, will strike them with fear. Take thou a rope with thee, my son, and fear not to use it."
The young cavalier nodded assent; and the general went on:
"Concerning the ambassadors, thus secretly treating with a traitor, methinks they have forfeited all claim to protection?"
"Ay," said Alvarado; "and the bastinado, of which Sandoval spake, may serve the good purpose of opening their lips, and thereby revealing, not only the depth of the Tlascalan defection, but the length to which Villafana and his curs have gone with them. Let us send for them, and try the experiment. Or stay—here are cords enough on the curtain. One of these, twisted round the brow with a sword-hilt, I have known to bring out a man's tongue as far as his eyes."
The cavaliers turned to the window; and the bitter smile of the Captain-General was made deathlike, by a flash, brighter than usual, shooting through the wall.
"A good thought," he said; "but we will not be precipitate. We have them secured; and however Villafana may permit them to speak with others, he is somewhat too wise to set them free. We will have this thing considered in the morning."
At this moment, Don Francisco de Guzman made his appearance in the chamber, his visage disfigured by a black patch, and somewhat pale. But this, as it was soon discovered, was caused rather by care than sickness.
"Señor," he exclaimed, "I have been to seek the ambassadors—They have escaped!"
"Escaped!" echoed Cortes. "Thou art beside thyself! And the villain Alguazil, has he fled with them? I will tear his flesh with pincers! What! release the infidels, under my eye?"
"So please you," said Guzman, "this, I think, was no resolved treachery, but an effect of infatuation. The wine that came to us to-day, was too strong for the watchmen: where they got it, I know not; but I found them sound asleep at the open door."
"They shall be scourged, till they drop more blood than they have drunk wine," said Don Hernan, furiously. "And the prison-guards also? Hah? The prisoner has escaped?"
"Not so," said the cavalier: "all's well there, save—"
"And Villafana? Speak me the word—Has he fled?"
"Señor mio, no: he is in the prison, carousing with Juan Lerma, as the guards say. I heard his voice through the door."
"Carousing? does Juan Lerma take his death so merrily? By'r lady, devil as he is, it is a sin to slay him!"
"As to the prisoner," said Guzman, "I know not whether he be merry or not; but I myself (for I had mine ear to the door,) heard Villafana smack his lips, and vow he 'would drink no more, this being no time to be thick-witted.' But every one knows Villafana: his bibbing once brought him to the strappado."
"Ay; and it shall bring him to the gallows.—It is the fate of the can-clinker—all spoken in three words—drunk, whipped, and gibbeted!—Didst thou worm naught from the guards? They were of his own appointing."
"Not a syllable," replied Guzman: "I do believe they have been too much frightened, and are now penitent men."
"It may be," said Cortes, "it may be; but I would I could look into the dreams of Villafana. If I punish him for the flight of the ambassadors, it may be that I disperse an imposthume before it comes to a head; or it may prove, that I drive the matter into the more vital organs of this body politic, till all be corrupted and consumed. What say ye to a little torture inflicted on Villafana himself? Yet he is a bold dog, and may not speak. They say he winced not under the lash. I swear to you, my friends, I am in a strait."
While Cortes thus admitted the difficulty in which he felt himself pressed, and the cavaliers were divided in their counsels, they perceived a common soldier intrude himself into the chamber, and boldly approach them.
"Hah!" cried Alvarado, ever hot of temper, "who art thou, Sir Gallows-bird, that bringest thy knave's pate among cavaliers in council?"
"Hold! touch him not; 'tis the Barba-Roxa!" exclaimed Don Hernan. "What impertinence is this, sirrah? Who bade thee hitherward?"
"God and my good saint," said Gaspar, flinging himself on his knees, and adding, with the greatest impetuosity, "Pardon, señor! pardon for two unhappy men! Or if that cannot be, why pardon then forone; and I care not how soon you hang up the others."
"What means the fool? Art thou distracted?"
"Señor!" cried the soldier, wringing his hands, "I am a knave and traitor. Grant me the life of Juan Lerma, who meant you no wrong, and I will give you, for the rope and sword, two hundred and forty such traitors as the world never saw, and myself among them; for I have signed my name with knife and arrow, and sworn myself to brotherhood, under the pains of hell, which I care not how soon may came upon me."
"Let some one of you look to the door," said Cortes, quickly: "and see that the sentinels keep their eyes open.—How now, Gaspar! what is this thou sayst? Art thou indeed a villain? I should have struck on the mouth any soldier that had said it of thee."
"I am what I said," replied Gaspar; "your excellency refused to listen to me, when I pleaded for Juan Lerma; and I was incensed. I said to myself, señor, 'I have saved your life, and yet you deny me the life of my friend, who, in ignorance, broke a decree, yet knew no malice.' Besides, señor, you called me a dog,—'an officious, presuming dog;' whereas I was not a dogthen, butnow. Well, señor, while I was in a passion, the devil came to me, and tempted me, and I signed my name to my perdition."
"What!" said Alvarado, recoiling with devout horror, "hast thou really signed over thy soul to Satan? We will burn thee, thou devil's penitent, in a hot fire!"
"Speak on," said Cortes. "What meanest thou by this mummery? What devil is this? for, though Satan be walking now among us, yet, I think, it could not be he."
"It was Villafana," replied Gaspar; "and heaven pardon me, for I think it must be Apollyon in his likeness!"
At this communication, the cavaliers all stared at one another, and Cortes exclaimed,
"Two hundred and forty men! What! are there so many knaves of his party?"
"Ay, and many more, who will help, but will not put down their names upon paper," replied Gaspar. "But your excellency says nothing of Juan Lerma. If you will pardon him, your excellency shall hear all."
"How, sirrah!" cried Cortes, sternly, "Do you avow yourself a sworn traitor, and yet dictate to me terms of mercy? Speak, or you shall have that to your brows, which will bring out words with screams."
Gaspar sprang to his feet,—boldly, fearlessly, and even insolently, returning the look of the Captain-General:
"Your excellency has no heart, and I have," he cried. "Do your will upon us both; and reckon my death to your conscience, as you do that of Juan Lerma. You shall not have a word more. Here are my arms.—What cavalier will demean himself to tie them? I will meet your excellency at the judgment-seat."
"Thou art but a fool," said Cortes, moderating his anger,—or, at least, mollifying the severity of his accents; for his countenance yet gleamed with wrath. "Thou knowest, that, having saved my life at Xochimilco, I can, in no case, take thine."
"But I leave that to the laws, without asking any mercy," said the Red Beard, obstinately: "I ask the life of Juan Lerma, condemned without law."
"Dost thou impugn my justice, fellow?" cried the ferocious De Olid. "I swear to thee, when thou art brought to be judged, I will give thee a double quantity, for this very reason."
While the cavalier gave utterance to so excellent a proof of his equity, Alvarado, with whom Gaspar had been a favourite, whispered in his ear,
"Speak out, and fear not. It stands not with the captain's honour to barter men's lives for knave's confessions; yet he shall pardon the young man, thy friend, as I am thy guarantee."
"What say ye, cavaliers?" cried Cortes: "does it become me, to remit a sentence of death, at such mutinous intercession?"
Before any of the officers could reply, Gaspar, confiding in the promise of Alvarado, threw himself again at the general's feet, crying,
"Señor, I am not a mutineer, but a penitent. I am mad to think that one,—so good a friend, so valiant a soldier, so true a follower, (for there is no falsehood in Juan Lerma,) should die for a small matter,—saving Don Francisco's presence,—when there are so many rogues about us, that go unpunished. But I leave him to your excellency's mercy, trusting that your excellency will reconsider the judgment, and release him. Therefore I will speak, in this trust; and I pray heaven to remember the act, be it merciful or be it cruel.—This is what I have to say: In my passion, I betook me to Villafana; who, promising to save Lerma's life, I signed with him; though the first act of guilt was to take your excellency's life. Holy mother of heaven! pardon me; but I was very much incensed. Well, señor, I found on the paper the names of two hundred and forty men, and I will tell you such as I remember; but if you will send to the prison, and suddenly seize the Alguazil, you will find the list in his bosom.—"
"Quinones, see thou to this," said Cortes, turning to the master of the armory, who made one of the council. "Take with thee none but hidalgos, and be sudden, making no noise and shedding no blood—Yet stay: this will not do, neither. Hark thee, Gaspar, man, when shall this precious earthquake rumble into the upper air?"
"To-morrow," replied the soldier; and then, to the horror and astonishment of all present, he divulged the whole scheme of assassination, as Villafana had himself spoken it in the prison.
"With a letter from my father, too!" cried Cortes, apparently more struck with the heartless barbarity of the stratagem, than with anything else in Gaspar's communication: "This is indeed the Judas-kiss, the—Faugh! these were the words of Magdalena!"
While he muttered these words to himself, he was roused by a sudden voice at the great door, and heard distinctly the unexpected voice of Villafana, saying, as he wrangled with the guards,
"Oh, 'slid, you take upon you too much. I come at the order of the general."
"Admit Villafana," said Cortes, in tones that penetrated loudly to the farthest limits of the room, for the cavaliers were stricken into a boding silence at the accents of the Alguazil: "Admit my trusty Villafana." And Villafana entered.
He was evidently flushed with wine, and it was for that reason, doubtless, that he did not seem to observe the presence of his forsworn associate, nor the suspicious act of two cavaliers, who stole from the group, and took possession of the door by which he had entered. He approached with a reckless and confident, though somewhat stupid, air, exclaiming, after divers humble scrapes and salaams,
"I come at your excellency's bidding, according to appointment. This was the hour, please your excellency—But 'tis a scurvy night, with much thunder and lightning."
"Ay, truly," said Cortes, with a mild voice, while all the rest stood in the silence of death; "but, being so observant, Villafana, how comes it you have not remarked that you are here without the Indian Techeechee, whom I commanded you to bring hither at this hour?"
"Señor," said the Alguazil, a little confused, "that old Ottomi is a sly dog, and, I doubt me, not over-honest."
"I doubt me so, too," said Cortes, in the same encouraging tones; "yet, honest or false, sly or simple, methinks thou shouldst not have suffered him to escape."
"Escape! what, Techeechee escape!" cried Villafana with unaffected surprise: "Ho, no! I did but give the gray infidel a sop of wine, and straightway he hid himself in a corner, to sleep off his drunkenness. And,—and,—" continued he, with instinctive though clumsy cunning,—"and I thought it would be unbeseemly to bring him to your excellency, in that condition. I beg your excellency's pardon for making him acquainted with such Christian liquor; but it was out of pity, together with some little hope of converting him to the faith; and, besides, I knew not his head was so weak. I will fetch him to your excellency in the morning."
"Why, this is well," said the Captain-General, with such insinuating gentleness as characterizes the snake, when closing softly on his prey; "and I doubt not thou canst give me as good an account of the ambassadors. It is said to me, that they also have escaped."
"Good God!" cried Villafana, startled not only out of his confidence, but, in great measure, out of his intoxication, by such an announcement; "the ambassadors escaped? It cannot be!"
"Pho, they have hurt thee more than I thought,—even to the point of destroying thy memory," rejoined the Captain-General, with the blandishment of a smile. "There is blood upon thy shoulder: I doubt not, thou wert severely hurt, while attempting to prevent their flight. No one ever questioned the courage of Villafana."
"Yes, señor, yes—no—yes; that is,—I mean to say—Saints of heaven!"—And here the Alguazil paused, completely sobered,—that is, restored to his senses, but not to his wits; for he perceived himself in a difficulty, and his invention pointed out no means of escape. He rolled his eyes, haggard at once with debauch and alarm, over the cavaliers, and, though the lofty figure of Alvarado concealed Gaspar from his view, he beheld enough in the extraordinary sedateness of all present, to fill him with the most racking suspicions. He turned again to Cortes, and commanding his fears as much as he could, went on, with an appearance of boldness,
"Alas, noble señor, if the ambassadorsbeescaped, I am a lost man,—for I trusted too much to the vigilance of others, and I should not have done so. Alas, señor," he continued with more energy, as his mind began to work more clearly, "I have committed a great offence in this negligence; but I vow to heaven, it was owing to my fears of Juan Lerma, who made many efforts to escape, and had strong friends to help him. Your excellency may see the necessity I was under, to give all my thoughts to him; for, some one having furnished him with a dagger, he foully attacked me, not on my guard, giving me this wound; and had it not been for the sudden rushing in of the guard, I should certainly have been killed."
Thus spoke the Alguazil, with returning craft, mingling together fiction and fact with an address which astonished even himself:
"Yes, señor," he continued, satisfied with the strength of his argument, and now elated with a prospect of providing against the effects of his imprudent disclosures in the prison; "yes, señor, and the young man, besides thus wounding me, swore he would have me hanged for a conspiracy; stating roundly, as the guards will witness, (I am certain that Esteban, the Left-Handed, heard him,) that, being a notorious grumbler, any such fiction would be believed of me. As if this would make me a conspirator! whereas, your excellency knows, according to the proverb, Barking dogs are no biters." And the audacious ruffian, relapsing into security, attested his innocence by a gentle laugh and the sweetest of his smiles.
"Again I say, thou speakest well," said Cortes, carelessly descending from the platform, on which he had mounted at the approach of Villafana. "Thine arguments have even satisfied me of the folly of certain charges, brought against thee by this mad fellow, here, at thy elbow."
As he spoke, Alvarado, taking his instructions rather from a consentaneous feeling of propriety than from any hint of Don Hernan's, moved aside, and Villafana's eyes fell upon the figure of Gaspar.
"Think of it, good fellow," said Cortes, laying his hand upon Villafana's shoulder, as if to support himself a little; "the things he said of thee are innumerable, and excessively preposterous. He averred, for instance, that thou wert peevishly offended, because I had not invited thy presence to the festivities of the morning banquet, and wert resolved to come, whether I would or not, and that with a letter from my father in one hand, and a dagger in the other. Eh! is not this outrageous? He said, besides,—But, o' my life, thou hast bled too much from this wound! Juan Lerma strikes deep, when the fit is on him. I hope thou art not faint, man!"
To these benevolent expressions, the Alguazil replied by turning upon the general a countenance so bloodless, and an eye filled with such ecstacy of despair, (for if the poniards of all had been at his throat, he could not have been more perfectly apprized of his coming fate,) that Cortes must have been struck with some feeling of commiseration, had not his nature been somewhat akin to that of a cat, which delights less to kill than to sport with the agonies of a dying victim. As it was, he continued to torment the abandoned wretch, by adding, pleasantly,
"And what thinkest thou of this, too, my Villafana? Two hundred and forty conspirators, to rush in when the blow was struck!—doubtless to carve their dinners from the ribs of my cavaliers!—Ah, Villafana, Villafana! thou shouldst have a care of thy friends. Our enemies are harmless, but our friends are always dangerous.—What dost thou say to all this, Villafana?—Knave! hadst thou twenty daggers in thy jerkin, thou wert still but an unfanged reptile!"
While he spoke, in this jestful mood, he was sensible that Villafana, (doubtless with an instinctive motion, of which he was himself unconscious, being apparently turned to stone,) was stealing his hand up towards his bosom, as if to grasp a weapon. The moment the member had reached the opening of his garment, Cortes caught him by the throat, and giving utterance to his last words with a voice of thunder, and employing a strength irresistible by such a man as Villafana, he hurled him to the floor, at the same instant placing his foot on his throat. Then stooping down, and thrusting his hand into the traitor's bosom, he plucked out, at a single grasp, a poniard, a letter, and the fatal list of conspirators. He pushed the first aside, read the superscription of the second with a laugh, and casting his eye upon the third, devoured its contents with an avidity that left him unconscious of the murmurs of the fierce cavaliers, and the groans of the wretched Alguazil, strangling under his foot.
"What, señor! will you rob the gallows of its prey?" cried Alvarado, pointing his sword at the prostrate traitor, as, indeed, did all the rest, (having drawn them at the moment when Cortes seized him by the throat:) "His crime is manifest to all: what need of trial? Every man his steel through the dog!"
"Hold!" cried the Captain-General; "this were a death for an hidalgo. Up, cur! up, and meet thy fate! Up!" And he spurned the wretch with his foot.
The Alguazil rose up, his face black with blood, which, not perfectly dispersing even at release from strangulation, remained in leopard-like blotches over his visage, ghastfully contrasted with the ashy hues that gathered between them. As he rose, his arms were seized by two or three cavaliers; and Sandoval, as quick in action as he was sluggish in speech, snatching the rich sword-sash of samite from his own shoulders, instantly secured them behind his back.
"For the love of God, señores!" cried Villafana, finding speech at last, "what do you mean? what do you design? You will not kill an innocent man? Will you judge me at the charge of a liar? Gaspar is my sworn foe. I will make all clear.—Señor, I have been drinking, and my mind is confused: take me not at this disadvantage. Oh, for God's sake, what do you mean?—The list? what, the list? 'Tis for a merry-making—a rejoicing for my birthday. I will explain all to your excellencies.—I am an innocent man.—Gaspar is a forsworn caitiff—a caitiff, señores, a caitiff!—I claim trial by the civil judges."—
"Gag him," cried one.
"Strike him on the mouth," said another. And Villafana, gasping for breath, uttered, for a moment, nothing but inarticulate murmurs.
"De Olid, Marin, De Ircio," cried Cortes, rapidly, and with inexpressible decision, "ye are judges of life and death; Sandoval and Alvarado, by right of office, ye can sit in judgment; Quinones, Guzman, and the rest, I make you, in the king's name, special associates of the others.—Why, here is a court, not martial, but civil; and the dog shall have judgment to his content! He stands charged of treason.—Guilty, señores? or not guilty?"
"Guilty!" cried all with one voice: and De Olid added, "Let us take him into the garden, and hang him to the cedar-tree."
"To the window," said Cortes, pointing with his sword to the stout cords, hanging so invitingly from the serpent's-head; and in an instant the victim was dragged upon the platform.
Up to this moment, his fears had been uttered rather in vehement complaints than in outcries; but now, when he perceived that he was condemned by a mockery of trial, doomed without the respite of a minute's space to pray, the rope dangling before his eyes, and already in the hands of a cavalier, who was bending it into a noose, he uttered a piercing scream, and endeavoured to throw himself on his knees.
"Mercy!" he cried, "mercy! mercy! I will confess—I can save all your lives—Mercy! mercy!"
Of all the sights of horror and disgust, villany, transformed at the death-hour, into its natural character and original of cowardice, is among the most appalling. Villafana was as brave as a ruffian could be; but when imagination is linked in the same spirit with vice, courage expires almost at the same moment with hope. With a weapon in his hand, and that at liberty, Villafana, perhaps, would have manifested all the valour in which despair perceives the only hope, and died like a man. As it was, bound and grasped in the arms of strong men, entirely helpless and equally without hope, his death staring him in the face, he gave himself up at once to unmanly fears, and wept, screamed, and prayed, until the guards, at watch in the vestibule, sank upon their knees and conned over their beads, to divert their senses from cries so agonized and so horrible.
As he strove to prostrate himself before his inexorable judges, he was pulled up by the cavaliers, and among others by Don Francisco de Guzman, whose countenance he recognized.
"Save me, Guzman! save me!" he cried; "for thou wert once of the party—Save me!"
"Peace, wolf—"
"Mercy! mercy! noble señor!" he continued, turning to Cortes: "I am but one of many. Guzman is as false as I; I charge him with treason: he has abused your excellency's ear!—Listen, señores, and spare me my life: give me a day—give me but to-night, to pray and confess, and you shall have all. There are cavaliers among us—Mercy, for the love of heaven!—Camarga, the Dominican,—Don Palmerino de Castro,—Muertazo of Toledo, Carabo of Seville,—Artiaga, Santa-Rosa, Bravo, Aljaraz, and an hundred more—"
"Peace, lying villain!" cried the Captain-General—"What ho, the rope! quick, the rope!"
"A moment to repent! a moment to repent!" shrieked the victim, struggling so violently to bring his hands before him, as if to clasp them in prayer, that the silken band crackled behind him, and his hands turned black with congested blood; "a moment to repent! for I am a sinner. What! would you condemn my soul, too? Saints, hear me! angels, plead for me! A priest, for the love of heaven! I killed Artiaga of Cadiz; I scuttled the ship at Alonso, drowned the nuns, and stole the church-plate—Call Magdalena—Where's Magdalena?—You are murdering me! Mercy! mercy! I killed Hilario, too—I poniarded him in the old wounds, inflicted by Juan Lerma—I have much to repent—A priest, for the love of God! A priest, oh, a priest!"
Thus raved the villain, stained with a thousand crimes; and if aught had been wanting to steel the hearts of his executioners, enough was divulged in the unavailing abandonment with which he accused himself of misdeeds, so many and so atrocious. While his neck was yet free from the rope, he struggled violently, but without any attempt to do a mischief to his unrelenting murderers; his resistance was, indeed, like that of a cur, under the chastisement of a cruel and brutal master, which howls and contends, and yet fears to employ its fangs against the tyrant. But when he found, at last, that the cavaliers were actually putting the hasty halter about his neck, his struggles were not greater to escape than to inflict injury. He shook and tossed his head in distraction, and Don Francisco de Guzman, endeavouring to seize him by the beard, he caught the hand of the cavalier betwixt his teeth, and held it with the gripe of a tiger.
"Hell confound thee, wolf!" cried Guzman, groaning with pain, and striking him over the face with the hilt of his sword, but in vain: "Help me, cavaliers, or he will have my hand off!—Villain, unlock thy teeth.—"
"Stand aside—This will unloose thee," said one, thrusting his rapier into the thigh of the vindictive wretch; who no sooner felt the cold steel penetrate his flesh, than he opened his mouth to utter a yell. "Whip him upnow.—So much for traitors!"
It was the last scream of the assassin. His lips uttered one more cry to heaven; the name of Magdalena was cut short, as the noose closed upon his throat, and ended in a hoarse, rattling, gulphing whine, that did not itself prevail beyond the space of a second. As he shot up to the top of the window, an intense glare of lightning flashed through the alabaster, and his figure, traced upon that lustrous and ghastly medium, was seen dangling and writhing in the death-agony. The next moment, the huge curtain was drawn over the dreadful spectacle: but those who paused a moment, to look back, could behold the convulsions of the dying miscreant giving motion, and sometimes protrusion, to the dark folds of the drapery.—When all was silent, in the darkness of the night, the watchmen in the vestibule could yet hear the pattering of blood-drops falling from his mangled limb, upon the sonorous wood of the platform.
But there were other scenes now occurring, which, for a time, drove from their thoughts the memory of Villafana.
The scene of death in which they were engaged, had so employed the thoughts of the cavaliers, that they were, for a time, insensible to many tumultuous noises in the city, which, beginning at the moment when the struggles and outcries of Villafana were fiercest and loudest, increased every instant, until all was uproar.
At first, as they rushed in disorder to the doors, they thought the din was caused by a renewal of the storm, or rather the sudden outbursting of a tornado; which, overwhelming the houses of some of the poorer citizens, and burying them among the ruins, might account for the screams and yells, that were mingled with other noises. But they soon exchanged this fear for one more stirring, when, as they rushed into the air, they heard an alarum ringing from the chapel-bell on the top of the pyramid, drums beating to arms, arquebuses firing in several different quarters, and were made sensible that a conflict was raging in the town.
"Dios!" cried one; "the conspirators are upon us! Let us back to the hall and defend ourselves!"
"My life upon it," said Gaspar, "the conspirators will not stir till Villafana opens his lips to them.—Heaven rest his soul!—Hark! these are the yells of Indians."
"On, friends!" exclaimed Cortes, perceiving the garden full of soldiers, rushing from various parts of the palace, as if to seek the fray. "This is Tlascalan work—a knavery of Xicotencal. Hah! hark! see! 'tis an assault upon the prison! Ho, Castilians! ho, Christians! cavaliers and soldiers, to arms! haste, to arms!"
While the soldiers, collecting together at the well-known voice of the Captain-General, began to rush with him towards the prison, over which, besides hearing the shouting of the watchmen at the doors, they beheld three blazing arrows shot up into the air, their alarm was directed to another quarter, by a violent cannonade from the squadron, moored yet at the entrance of the little river; and looking that way, they perceived to their astonishment and fear, no less than four of the brigantines suddenly enveloped in flames.
"Guzman and Quinones!" cried Cortes, with instant determination, "to the prison, with what force ye can pick up on the way. Shoot all fugitives, as well as all assailants. The rest follow me to the river; for I would mine arms should be burned, rather than my vessels."
By this time, all the Spaniards who were capable of bearing arms, were in the open air, and following not less the shouts of Cortes than the crash of the falconets, ran hastily towards the fleet, which, it was now evident, was furiously beset by multitudes of Indians in canoes. The flash of the explosions and the flames bursting ruddily out from sails and cordage, revealed them clustering with impetuosity around the devoted vessels, whose crews, it was equally apparent, were making a gallant resistance. In this light, the houses bordering upon the water were seen covered with citizens, looking on with a tranquillity, which showed that their share in the unexpected hostilities, if indeed they had any, was entirely passive. A more agreeable sight was disclosed to Cortes, as he ran onwards, in the appearance of many thousand Tlascalans, rushing down the narrow meadows which bordered the canal, with such alacrity of speed and such furious cries of 'Tlascala!' and 'Castilla!' as convinced him of their fidelity and affection.
"It is a Mexican device, after all," he muttered; "a plan of the ambassadors. Well done for thee, Villafana!—Bold varlets, these! What! down with your demi-culverins and sakers, Orozca! Where is my good cannonier, Juan Catalan? We will aid the vessels from the shore."
The mariners, however hotly engaged, replied to the cries of their friends with shouts of courage; and redoubling their exertions, they succeeded not only in repelling the assailants, whose obvious aim was to fire the whole fleet, from those ships not yet ignited, but even in extinguishing the flames in the less fortunate four. In this, they were doubtless materially assisted by the condition of the planks and timbers, which being of green wood, the flames would perhaps have confined their ravages to the more combustible sails and cordage, and soon expired for want of fuel. They weighed anchor also, and taking advantage of the gusts which still blew over the lake, six of the largest and strongest set sail, and boldly plunged among the canoes, overturning and sinking many, while the others, receiving assistance from the shore, betook themselves to the little harbour, dragging with them their disabled consorts.
In this manner, it soon became evident that the danger in this quarter was over; and Cortes, directing that the position of the brigantines should be strengthened by a temporary battery at the mouth of the river, returned to inspect the condition of the city in the neighbourhood of the palace.
The sounds of contention were over; and one passing through the garden, and listening to the moaning of the winds through the trees, could scarce have believed that half an hour before it had been a scene of such warlike bustle. The bell rang no longer, the drums, trumpets, and arquebuses were silent, and the sentinels paced to and fro at their stations, as if nothing unusual had happened. The only sounds indeed that now vexed the calm of the night, were the occasional explosion of a falconet from some brigantine, afar among the shadows of the lake, still pursuing the retreating canoes. The attack was perhaps unpremeditated; or, perhaps, its only object was to taunt and defy. At all events, it was now over; and in less than an hour from the time of the first alarm, the cry of all's-well could be heard through the different quarters of the city.
Before this satisfactory conclusion of an evening so eventful, the Captain-General was doomed to have his equanimity put to the proof by a new trial. A double line of guards surrounded the prison, and Guzman, Quinones, and Gaspar Olea were among them, the last wringing his hands, and bewailing; but the prison-door was open, a thin smoke issued from it, and he could see, at a glance, that the only persons in the apartment were a few soldiers, dashing water over its partly consumed floor. Under the very threshold lay the bodies of two soldiers, fearfully mangled; another was writhing, gasping, and dying in the arms of his comrades; and a fourth, severely wounded, was narrating to Quinones the particulars of an assault, made, as he averred, by ten thousand devils, or Mexicans, who sprang suddenly out of the earth, killed or dispersed the whole guard, carried off the prisoner, or burned him, he knew not which, (for he lay upon the ground, counterfeiting death,) and then, setting fire to the building, vanished quite as suddenly as they came.
"Were these men Mexicans or Tlascalans?" demanded Cortes, without betraying any sign of feeling.
The soldier started at the sound of his leader's voice, and hastily replied,
"In good faith, señor, I know not, for I was somewhat overcome with fear."
"And with wine, sirrah!" exclaimed the General. "But it matters not—thou art too stupid to answer now. Have this fellow into the den, Quinones, and let him be brought to me to-morrow.—Señor Don Francisco, we will walk to the palace."
He put his arm into Guzman's, and dragging him to a little distance, where no beam of torch or cresset illuminated his visage, exclaimed, eagerly,
"Tell me the truth, Francisco:—has he perished by fire in the prison, or has he escaped me?"
"Señor," replied Guzman, "his star, or his devil, has helped him."
"Why then the fiends seize thee, and all false friends, who plague me!" cried Cortes, giving way to passion. "Is it thus I am to be cheated?"
"Señor," said Guzman, moderately, but without fear; "I have mine own cause of distress, for my hand is horribly mangled, and I have heard that the bite of a dying man causes mortification. So, with this pain of body and mind, I may not speak good counsel or good defence.—When I reached the prison, it was empty and on fire. Had not your excellency interfered with the execution this day—"
"Ay, there again!" muttered the Captain-General; "mine own hand is made to befool me; it pulls out of the pit faster than my foot tramples in. Hark thee, Guzman, dost thou not think this young man is protected by some special providence?"
"I, señor?"
"Why, look you, what could have carried him through the tribes of the West, to the South Sea, and back again?—(a device of thy scheming, too!) And, didst thou not see, I was about to run him through, in the very act of mutinous resistance, when a brute and insensate dog seized my sword-blade in his mouth? And now, for the third time, what but his angel could have brought to his prison-door yonder infidels of Mexico—his only friends, I think?"
"Let your excellency question if this circumstance will not, without removing him from punishment, give a still stronger excuse for it? The scribe visited him in the dungeon; a paction with the enemy, sealed by the act of flight with them to their stronghold, has confirmed him thrice over a traitor."
"Ay, by heaven! it is true!" said Cortes, smiting his hands together; "and, by and by, I will take him out of his hiding-place, and crown the day of victory with a double triumph!"
"And who can affirm," quoth Don Francisco, "that the misbelievers have not taken him for a sacrifice? It is said, the coronation of Guatimozin is deferred only until he can provide a Castilian victim to do honour to the ceremony. By my faith, señor, there is a pleasant twitch in my cheek,—ay, in the scar of the rapier-wound—at the very thought of this retribution!"
"Now, by heaven," said Cortes, with an altered voice, "villain as he is, I cannot rejoice that such a dismal fate should befall him. Death, indeed, but not a death of horror! Dost thou think this, then, can be his doom? Alas, poor youth! had he but some one to lament him or to avenge, I were better satisfied with what I have done. I swear to thee, Francisco, we are e'en as base knaves as himself; for we have employed our strength—our cunning and our strength—against a creature that is utterly friendless. Alas, I say; for I remember me of the days of old; and surely I loved him once as my own soul."
This outbreaking of feeling did not at all surprise Guzman, who had been familiar from the beginning with the ebbings and flowings of Don Hernan's hate, and who had several times seen him, when the destiny of Juan seemed already closed, affected so much that he shed tears, as he did at the present moment. But Guzman was acquainted with a spell which never failed to banish all compunction from the General's breast; and he did not scruple to employ it now.
"It is enough!" muttered Cortes, through his clenched teeth. "Heaven and my conscience acquit me, and I will think of it no more."
With these words, he seemed to discharge from his mind all thoughts of the youth so deeply detested, and addressing himself to the task of inspecting in person the condition of all assailable points in the city, betook himself at last, and at the day-dawn, to his repose.