"And if I prevail over six of thy soldiers," again cried Guzman, as the attendants strapped upon one arm a light buckler of basket-work, and gave him also a short macana, "dost thou warrant me by thy gods, that I shall be sent back to Don Hernan?"
"Let the prisoner fight," said the king sternly: "Are the warriors of Mexico blades of grass, that they should be blown down by a man's breath, before the sword has struck them?"
"Thou shalt see," replied Guzman, with a grim smile. "What are six warriors to a man fighting for liberty? Give me a Spanish sword,—a weapon of iron,—and let my adversaries be doubled in number."
The boldness of this demand greatly excited the admiration of the warlike spectators, who rewarded it with cheers. But they checked their tumult to hear the words of the king.
"The white man talks with the lips of a boaster," he said. "Had he not a Spanish sword in the king's garden, among the women? How is this? He is a prisoner!"
"Ask thy warriors,—it was not broken off in my hand! How else should they have taken me?" replied Guzman, to the words of scorn; and then added, in Spanish, as if to himself, "So much for striking the accursed hound! I would he and his master were broiling in purgatory; for they have ever brought me bad luck."
Juan Lerma heard not these words, but he remembered the broken blade in Befo's body, and again his heart hardened against his foemen. But matters were now approaching to a crisis. The monarch, disdaining to hold further discourse with the prisoner, waved his hand, and a warrior, darting from the ground at the foot of the scaffold, leaped with a single bound upon the platform, and uttered the yell of battle, which was instantly re-echoed by the shouts of the multitude. He was a tall and powerful savage, though meager of frame, of great activity, as was proved by his ready leap, and of a spirit fully corresponding. His equipments were but little superior to those of the captive; his battle-axe was somewhat longer, his buckler a little broader, and he had some slight defence for his head, in a cap of alligator-skin, that crowned his matted hair.
No sound of trump and tymbal gave the signal for beginning the fight, as in a Christian tourney. The yell of the infidel, as he sprang upon the mound, and brandished his battle-axe, was all that was allowed or required, to put the prisoner on his guard; and Don Francisco seemed to understand enough of the nature of the ceremony, to look for no further warning.
The great superiority of the infidel consisted in his being entirely at liberty, able to begin the attack by leaping upon the stone at any point he chose, and to continue it thereon, by changing his position as often as he thought fit; while the prisoner, secured by a thong not above eighteen inches in length, to the centre of it, enjoyed no such facilities of motion. He might turn, indeed, and as rapidly as he pleased, but always with the danger, if he forgot himself for a moment, of tripping himself, and falling; in which case, his death was certain, for no forbearance was practised in the event of such an accident.
The infidel began the combat with the same agility he had displayed in leaping up to the platform. He uttered his yell, brandished his axe, and making a half circuit round the stone, suddenly darted upon it, and aimed a blow at Guzman. He was met by the Spaniard with an address and effect, that showed he had not overrated his skill. Rather meeting than avoiding the blow, he struck up, with his bucklered hand, not the macana, but the arm of the assailant, seemingly calculating that the shock of the rebuff would tumble him from the stone. It did more: it caused the Mexican to fling up his arms, in the instinctive effort to preserve his equilibrium. The next instant, Guzman drove his glassy axe deep into his uncovered side, and spurning him violently with the foot which was at liberty, the Mexican fell backwards upon the platform, writhing in the agonies of death. The whole combat was scarce the work of a minute. Those who drew in their breath as the Mexican sprang to the assault, had not taken a second inspiration, before their countryman was discomfited and dying.
The infidels set up a scream, as much of approbation as surprise. The spirit of the Roman amphitheatre was felt around the Temalacatl of Mexico; and plaudits were bestowed upon a victor, when pity was denied to the slain.
The vanquished and writhing combatant was dragged from the mound, and his place immediately occupied by a second, who leaped up with the same alacrity, and attacked with similar violence.
"Fool that thou art!" muttered Guzman, with scorn and lofty self-reliance, "were there twenty such grasshoppers at thy back, yet should it be but boy's play to despatch thee."
He caught the blow of the savage on his buckler, but greatly to his injury; for the sharp blades of the iztli severed it nearly in twain, and besides diminishing its already insufficient defence, inflicted a severe wound upon his arm. But it was the only blow struck by the barbarian. Infuriated by the wound, Guzman smote him over the head with his weapon, and with such rapidly continued blows as entirely confounded the Mexican, so that he made scarce any use of his shield. The first stroke tore the cayman-scales from his hair, and the next clove through his skull.
Guzman's victory was as complete as before, but he found that several of the separate blades, or teeth of obsidian, that edged his weapon, were broken off by the blows. He beheld this with alarm, for having held up the axe, to show its dilapidated condition, and demand another, he found himself answered only by the appearance of a third antagonist.
"Dogs and jugglers that ye are!" he cried, indignantly: "ye would cheat me then to death, by leaving me weaponless! St. Dominic, knaves! but I will sort your wit with a better wisdom.—Now, what a spectacle might I not make for my brother Christians on the dikes! Thou art playing quits with me, Cortes!—Hah, dog! art thou so ready?"
It was Guzman's determination, after killing the third assailant, which event he still looked forward to with unabated confidence, to possess himself of his weapon, which, though secured in the usual manner by a thong, he doubted not he could easily rend from his arm.
But his antagonist was by no means so easily mastered as the others. Taking caution from the fate of his predecessors, he changed the mode of attack; and though he rushed upon the block with as much resolution as either, he betrayed no such ambition to come to close quarters. On the contrary, taking advantage of the breadth of the Temalacatl, he confined himself to the very edge, now facing the Spaniard, as if about to make his spring, now darting behind him, as if to assault him in the rear, and, all the time, vexing Guzman's ears with the most terrific screams. Then, perceiving the Spaniard's wariness, he began to run around the stone with all his speed, flourishing his axe, as if to take advantage of the least opening offered by the weariness or dizziness of his foe. Guzman at once perceived the danger to which he was reduced by a system of attack so difficult to be guarded against. It was almost impossible, tied as he was, to preserve his face always against the pagan; twice or thrice he stumbled over the rope, and already his brain began to reel with the rapidity of his gyrations. At each stumble, the Mexican struck at him with his axe, and one blow had taken effect, though not dangerously, upon his shoulder. This incensed the Spaniard almost to madness, and he voluntarily exposed himself to another wound, in order to bring his opponent within his reach. Thus, as the infidel was still continuing to run round the stone, he flung himself round the other way very suddenly, yet not so quickly as wholly to escape the rapid attacks of his assailant. The macana inflicted another and deeper wound in his back, while his own broken weapon struck the savage on the hip. At the same moment he seized him by the throat, and employing a strength greatly superior to the Indian's, threw him under his feet, and crushed him with hand and knee, while despatching him with blows over the face and head. He then grasped at the macana; but before he could wrest it from the grasp of his dying foe, the Indian was plucked from under him by the attendant priests.
The feelings of Juan Lerma were throughout, strange, bewildering and overwhelming; and he gazed upon the three combats, each fought and finished in an inconceivably short space of time, in a species of trance or stupefaction. Great, and doubtless just, as was his detestation of Guzman, there was something both noble and afflicting in the courage with which the unfortunate man bore himself in the midst of savage foes, who, if they awarded him a shout of approbation for every valiant blow, yet screamed with a more cordial delight, at every wound inflicted by an antagonist. Even while Juan doubted not that Guzman's skill and fortitude would insure him a full triumph, and final liberation, he could not but be struck with horror, at beholding a Christian man bound to a stone, and baited like a muzzled bear. How much more overpowering, then, were his feelings, when he perceived, from the complexion given to events by the last contest, that it must end, and perhaps soon, in the destruction of the prisoner.
His emotions became indeed irresistible, when he looked up at the third shout of the multitude,—for he had closed his eyes with dread, while Guzman despatched his third foe,—and saw him, bleeding at three different wounds, and staggering with dizziness, extend his macana, now almost reduced by the fracture of the blades, to a mere bludgeon, towards the king, and exclaim, bitterly and despairingly,
"King of Mexico, if thou knowest either honour or God, give me a fresh sword!"
His words ran through Juan's spirit like sharp knives, and he was seized with a faintiness, so that he could scarce maintain himself on his feet. But while his brain whirled and his eyes swam, he beheld a fourth warrior spring upon the mound, and, yelling as he rose, dart, without a moment's pause, against the captive.
It was now apparent to all, and to none more than the miserable victim himself, that his situation was become wholly desperate. His skill could avail him nothing, while he was so insufficiently armed; his strength was wasting away with his blood; his courage could not long maintain itself against all hope; and even the pride that uplifted him so far above his barbarous antagonists, only exasperated him into frenzy, when he perceived, that, despised as they were, he was in their power, and must soon expire under their blows. His rage was like that of the gallant puma, knotted in thelazoof a hunter, and torn to pieces by dogs, which, were he at liberty, would be but as grass and dust under the might of his talons.
Hopeless of any relief from the king, and maddened by the exulting shouts with which the infidels hailed every symptom of his defeat, he turned furiously upon his new opponent; but not until the Mexican, more skilful or more lucky than his predecessors, had struck him a violent blow upon the side, which he followed up, at intervals, with others, while running round the stone, in imitation of his less fortunate countryman. His success was rewarded by the spectators with screams of delight, which he re-echoed with his own wild outcries.
Yet Guzman was not altogether subdued. Wretched as was his weapon, he handled it with some effect, and struck his assailant two or three such blows as would have ended the combat, had they been inflicted by a better. With one, he staggered the pagan; with a second, he struck him down to his knee; and with a third, he snapped off the last blade of obsidian, upon the scales of the Indian helmet, and now brandished a harmless wooden wand.
At that moment, a Spanish sword, thrown by an unseen hand; fell at his feet,—but fell in vain. Badly aimed, it struck short upon the stone, and rolled back to the mound; and the infidel, recovering his feet, though still staggering, uttered his war-cry, and raised his macana, to strike down the defenceless Christian.
Human nature could withstand the scene of butchery no longer. Juan Lerma forgot that the captive was his foe and destroyer, and the unprincipled oppressor of all he held dear. He saw a man of his own country and faith cruelly assassinated before his eyes, among thousands of pitiless and rejoicing barbarians. He thought not of the impossibility of affording him any real relief, nor of the fate to himself that must follow an attempt so full of folly. His brain burned, his eyes flamed as if in sockets of fire; and obeying an impulse that converted him for a moment into a madman, he rushed through the few nobles who separated him from the mound, and in an instant was at the side of the victim.
To snatch up the weapon he had so vainly cast, to spurn the exhausted warrior from his prey, and to cut the thong that bound Guzman to the stone, were all the work of a second. Almost before the idea had entered the mind of the Mexicans, that the combat was interrupted, so lightning-like were his motions, he had leaped with Guzman from the platform, and, grasping his hand, made his way over the narrow and unoccupied portion of the square, which led to the garden. Even then, the Mexicans stood for awhile dumb with surprise and consternation; for the act was so unexpected, so entirely inexplicable upon any of their principles of action, that they scarce knew if it might not be their Mexitli himself, who thus snatched a victim from the stone of battle.
It has been already mentioned, that the garden wall had, in this quarter, fallen down, and that its place was supplied only by a fence of shrubs and brambles. Its ruins choked the ditch, and gave a passage, which had been formerly effected by a wooden bridge, now buried under the heavy fragments. A single plank spanned over the only gap that was too wide to be passed, except by a bold leap. It was a knowledge of these circumstances, that, in the very tempest of his impulses, determined the course of Juan Lerma, and decided every step he now took to secure life to his wretched companion. He had breathed but a word into Guzman's ear, but it was enough to communicate strength to his heart, and agility to his limbs; and wonderfully adapting his resolutions and movements to those of his guide, he ran with him over the square and across the canal, with such speed, that he rather aided than retarded the steps of his preserver.—They had crossed the plank before the yells of pursuit burst from the astounded assembly, and Juan, striking it now into the ditch with his foot, dragged Guzman through the brambles, exclaiming,
"Quick! quick! If we can but reach the palace, we are saved."
"Is itthou, indeed, Juan Lerma?" cried Guzman, with a voice singularly wild and piteous, but struggling onward.—"Now then thou canst kill me thyself, since thou wouldst not be avenged by infidels."
"Quick! quick! they are following us! they are crossing the ditch!—But fifty paces more!"
"Ten will serve me—and ten words will make up my reckoning—that is,here: the rest hereafter. Stop, fool,—I am dying."
"Courage! courage!" exclaimed Juan, endeavouring, but in vain, to drag further the wretch, for whom his rash humanity seemed to have purchased only the right of expiring in a Christian's arms. "Courage, and move on,—we are close followed."
"Hark,—listen, and speak not," said Guzman, sinking to the earth, for his wounds were mortal, and the exertions of flight caused them to throw out blood with tenfold violence—He was indeed upon the verge of dissolution: "Listen, listen!" he cried, gasping for breath, yet struggling to speak with such extraordinary eagerness, that it seemed as if he held life and salvation to depend upon his giving utterance to what was in his mind. "Listen, Juan Lerma, for I am a snake and a devil. I hated thee for—But, brief, brief, brief! First, Cortes—Hah! they come!—Drag me into a bush, that I may speak and die. No—here—There is no time—Listen. Saints, give me powers of speech! or devils—either! A little reparation—Why not? I belied thee to Cortes—Hark! hark!" he almost screamed, in the fear that he might not be understood, for he was conscious of the incoherency of his expressions; "hark! hark!—Bleeding to death—Concerning—Cortes—his wife—Doña Catalina—jealousy,jealousy!—Poisoned his ear. Understand me! understand me!"
Wild as were his words and confused as was the mind of Juan, yet with these broken expressions, the dying cavalier threw a sudden and terrific light upon the understanding of the outcast.
"Good heaven!" he cried, "my benefactress! my noble lady! Oh villain, how couldst thou?—"
"More—more!" murmured Guzman, with impatient, yet vain ardour. "I know all—Thy father—thy sister—Camarga—killed—Aha! Magdalena—the princess—"
"Ay! the princess?" echoed Juan, imploringly: "the princess? the princess?"
But all he could hear in reply to his frantic demand, was "Garci, Garci—" and this name was immediately lost in the roaring shouts of the infidels, who now surrounded the pair.
Had Guzman been able to continue the flight at half the speed with which he had begun it, it is certain they would have reached the palace, considerably in advance of the pursuers; though it is not certain, that would have proved a city of refuge. But his strength failed almost immediately after entering the garden, of which as soon as he became sensible, he began to make his disclosures; and perhaps the haste into which he was driven by the almost instant appearance of the Mexicans, thronging over the broken wall, served as much as the distractions and agonies of death, to make them confused and insufficient. The first word—the name of the lady Catalina,—revealing at once the dreadful delusion, which had converted his best friend into his deadliest enemy, so excited and unsettled Juan's mind, that, in his eagerness to learn still more of the fatal secret, he almost forgot the presence of so many Mexicans, rushing upon him with yells of fury. It was in vain, when they had reached him, that he brandished his sword, and assumed an attitude of defence, calling loudly upon the king. He was thrown down and overpowered,—nay, he was severely wounded, and handled altogether so roughly, that it seemed as if the enraged Mexicans were resolved to drag him to the sacrifice, from which he had rescued Guzman, if not to murder him on the spot; some calling out to kill him, and others roaring, 'The Temalacatl! the Temalacatl!' Their cries were not even stilled when the nobles who waited about the person of the king, drove them away with rods, and Guatimozin himself stalked up to the prisoner. The frown which Juan's rash, and, as he esteemed it, impious act, had brought upon his visage, darkened into one still sterner, when having laid his hand upon the Christian's shoulder, to signify that his person was sacred, the expression of protection was answered only by cries of the most mutinous character.
"We will have the blood of the Spaniard," they screamed. "What said Azcamatzin? It is true—this is a bear we have, that embraces us, and tears open our hearts. He struck the Lord of Death—he takes the victim from Mexitli: he shall be a victim himself—he shall die on the stone!"
It was in vain that Guatimozin employed threats, menaces, and entreaties to allay their passions. Sufferings of a nature and extent so horrible that we have scarce dared to hint at them, had already made them sullen and refractory; and misery and wrath are no observers of allegiance or decorum. The unhappy monarch, now such less in power than in name, feigned to yield to their clamour, for he perceived he could no longer openly save. He commanded Juan to be bound with cords, and carried into a remote corner of the palace, promising, that, when he had recovered a little of his strength and spirits, he should be given up to them, to die on the Temalacatl.
It was perhaps fortunate for Juan, that he was dragged away too suddenly to behold the fate of his rival, who was now in the hands of the priests, apparently reviving—a circumstance hailed with such shouts of joy, that Juan was himself almost forgotten. The infidels carried Don Francisco again from the garden, and hurried him towards the little temple. But before they had passed the square, he expired in their arms—happy only in this, that he fell not by the knives of the priests.
Before the day was over, the citizens were called upon again to resist the Spaniards who had now resumed the offensive, and who continued their approaches with such fierce, determined, and incessant efforts, that they employed the whole time, as well as the whole thoughts, of the besieged.
The fate of Mexico approached to its consummation. The great streets leading from the causeways, were in the power of the Spaniards. It might be said, indeed, that they had gained possession of the whole island, except the extreme point of the neck of Tlatelolco; for though they did not extend their ravages any great distance from the streets, into the three quarters to the east and south, it was because these were occupied only by women and children—the wounded, the sick, and the dying,—and could be, at any moment, taken possession of. The warriors who yet remained, were concentrated upon the little peninsula, around their monarch, who, obstinate to the last, still resisted, even when resistance was hopeless, refusing the offers of peace and friendship, which Cortes, rendered magnanimous by success, and softened by compassion, now daily sent him. His obstinacy was indeed surprising; for the point was surrounded by brigantines and piraguas, prepared to intercept his flight; and escape, unless by death, seemed evidently impossible. The work of carnage therefore went on, though with mitigated severity; for there were but few left to suffer. The market-place of Tlatelolco was secured and occupied, and upon the day of St. Hippolytus, (the 13th of August,) the Spaniards concluded the labours of the long and bloody siege, by storming, with all their forces, the palace of Guatimozin—the last stronghold of the Mexicans. The garden walls were beaten down by the artillery, and soon after midday, the Spaniards rushed, with tremendous vivas, upon the palace, to which fire had been previously communicated by flaming arrows, shot into the windows by the confederates.
The preparations for the assault, and long before it began, were surveyed by the Captain-General from the terrace of the palace of Axajacatl, the famous scene of his sufferings, when besieged therein by the Mexicans, a year before. It was in the quarter of Tlatelolco, midway between the great pyramid and the market-place, and commanded, from its turrets, not only a view of the palace of Guatimozin, but of the whole surrounding city and lake.
Deeply as his mind was engaged with the approaching climax of his mighty enterprise,—for now he could almost count the minutes that intervened betwixt his hopes and his success,—he was not without thoughts and feelings of another character. The singular disappearance of Magdalena, of which nothing more was known, or even conjectured, than was disclosed in the midnight conversation of the hunchback and Bernal Diaz; the fate of Camarga, over which events not yet narrated, had cast a peculiarly exciting mystery; and the situation of Juan Lerma, upon whose character and unhappy history certain events had shed a new light, as well as what had now become a painful interest; all, by turns, occupied his mind, and sometimes even withdrew it from the contemplation of the scene before him. The few cavaliers in attendance, who enjoyed their immunity from combat only because they were disabled by severe wounds, referred his unusual gloom to the same cause; for he had not yet recovered from the many injuries, the penalty of his rashness on the causeway.
"Thou knowest, Quinones," said one, in a whisper to the captain of his body guard, (for the conspiracy of Villafana had been made, as is usual in such catastrophes of ambition, an excuse for investing his dignity with another engine of power;)—"Thou knowest, the renegade struck him upon the head; and it is a marvel of providence he was not slain; for Lerma strikes with an arm like the wing of a windmill. These blows on the skull, though one may seem to recover from them, have a perilous after-effect on the brain."
"Fy!" muttered Quinones, with a shake of the head; "there is a new word about Lerma, especially since Garci Holguin brought in the princess. Didst thou not hear that Alvarado, who heads the assault, called this morning upon all soldiers who had seen Juan Lerma in the melée, and asked them a thousand questions? I tell thee, there is a new thing in the wind. I did myself last night over-hear Cortes charge Sandoval to watch well for every piragua and canoe, that might leave Tlatelolco, and see that no one taken be harmed.—But this we will see. Talking of canoes, methought I beheld one some half hour since paddling from Tezcuco?"
"Ay," said another; "it landed in the north-eastern quarter.—No more complaints of Guzman now? He will never harry infidels more. Garci's sailors say, he was taken alive!"
"Hist!" whispered Quinones, with a warning gesture. "This thing troubles Cortes. It was his anger, and Guzman's desire to recover favour, which drove him upon the mad feat, that brought him to the block of sacrifice. It weighs upon the general's mind.—And besides, as it is now apparent that Camarga is alive, there is deeper cause for remorse: It was perhaps his wrongful belief in the charge of murder, rather than any other cause, that made him proceed with such rigour against Guzman."
"But is this rumour true?" demanded the other.
"Ay, certain; and I wage ye my life, the very canoe we were looking after, brings the dead-alive to Mexico. Methought I could trace the cut of his sacerdotal maskings, even afar off. They say, after all, the man is a true brother of St. Dominic, under some dispensation.—Ay, faith! you may see now—Alive and shorn into the bargain! They are bringing him up the stairway.—By Santiago, it makes the general's eye flash fire!"
The eye of Cortes, up to this moment peculiarly gloomy and troubled, did indeed flash with lustre, as soon as it fell upon the figure of Camarga; for it was he, who now made his appearance on the terrace, led forward by Indians. He was greatly altered, and seemed indeed like the ghost of his former self, so wan and emaciated was his countenance, and so broken and feeble his step; he looked as if in almost the last stage of atrophy. He was otherwise changed; the hair was shorn from his crown, on which was a ghastly scar, left by the macana of the Lord of Death; his feet were bare; and from the cord that girded on his friar's frock, was suspended a knotted scourge, crusted over with blood. His whole appearance was that of some suicidal ascetic, who mourns with the severest maceration of the body, a sin not to be expiated by mere penitence of spirit.
"Heaven be thanked for thy resurrection!" cried Cortes, grasping him by the hand, and leading him to the seat he had himself occupied. "There is a wolf in my bosom, and now I know that thou canst remove it!"
"Have I come too late?" cried Camarga, eagerly, though with a voice no longer sonorous. "Agnus Dei, dona nobis pacem!The victim of our madness, driven among the infidels,—the poor wretch whom misery cast into the same hands—What of them, señor? what of them?"
"Nothing," replied Cortes, "unless thou canst speak it: Nothing, at least, except that both are still in captivity. Yet know, if it will relieve thee, that what I could do by embassies and goodly offers, that I have done to recover them; and I have given such orders, that, if they be not murdered by the Indians, we may see them living this day."
"God be thanked!" cried Camarga, dropping on his knees, and praying with such fervour, though in inaudible accents, as to excite no little curiosity among the attendant cavaliers, whom Cortes had already waved away. He turned upon them again, and sternly bade them descend from the terrace, which they did, followed by the Indians.
As soon as they were alone, Cortes, scarce pausing until Camarga had ceased his devotions, exclaimed,
"Speak, and delay not, either to mourn or to pray: Thou canst do these things hereafter. Enough evil has already come of thy silence. Speak me in a word—What art thou? and what is thy interest in these wretches? What is thine? and what—yes, what ismine?"
The last word was uttered with vehement emphasis, that seemed to recall Camarga to his self-possession. He rolled his eyes upon Cortes with a ghastly smile, and replied,
"Thou shalt know; for thou hast a sin to answer as well as I; and answer it thou must, both to God and thy conscience. Moderate thy impatience: what I have to say, cannot be spoken in a word, but yet it shall be spoken briefly. In thy boyish days, thou hast heard of the Counts of Castillejo—"
The Captain-General bent upon the speaker a look that seemed designed to slay, it was so frowningly fixed and penetrating. He then smote his hands together upon his breast, as if to beat down some dreadful thought, and immediately exclaimed,
"What thou hast to say, speak in God's name, and without further preface. Were I but a dog of the house of Cortes, instead of its son and sole representative, the name of a Castillejo of Merida would be hateful to my ear. Ay, by heaven! be thou layman or monk, my friend or the friend of my enemy, yet know that my rage burns with undiminished fire, though the proud scutcheons of the Castillejos have been turned into funeral hatchments, and the mosses of twenty years have gathered on their graves.—But it is enough. The first word of thy story harmonizes with mine own conceit. A strange accident opened my eyes upon a remembrance of dishonour; which let us rake up no further.—I have heard enough. Keep thine own secret, too," he continued, with a gleaming eye; "for I would not take the life of one, upon whom heaven has itself set the seal of vengeance."
"Yet must thou listen, and I speak," said Camarga, disregarding the menacing words and glance; "for there is a story to be told, of which thou and thy kindred have not dreamed—nay, nor have others, except one—except one! My secret will not throw thee into the frenzy thou fearest; he of whom you think, is beyond the reach of human vengeance. Listen to me, Hernan Cortes, and forbear your rage, until I have done.—Of the Count Sebastian's three brothers; the next in age, Julian, was a slave in Barbary, yet supposed to be dead; the youngest Gregorio, was a monk of St. Dominic; and the third, Juan, was a wild and unhappy profligate."
"Ay, by heaven," said Cortes, with angry emotion; "may he remember his deeds in torment—Amen! Had not Gregorio been an inquisitor as well as a monk, I should have seen him burn at a stake, as was his due."
"Reserve your curses for the true criminal," said Camarga, drawing the cowl over his visage, as if no longer able to endure the fierce looks of Don Hernan: "Among others who had inflamed his wild and fiery affections, was one whom heaven had seemingly placed beyond his reach,—one whose name I need not pronounce to Hernan Cortes."
"I will tell thee who she was," said the general, laying his hand upon Camarga's shoulder, and speaking with a passionate energy;—"the daughter of a family, ancient and noble as his own, though without its wealth,—a novice about to take the vows, (for to this had the poverty of her house and her own religious fervour destined her;) and thus uplifted both by rank and profession above the aims of a seducer. But what thought the young cub of Castillejo of these impediments, when he feared not God, and saw no one left to punish his villany, save an impoverished old man and a rambling schoolboy? Dwell not on this—Speak not her name neither: let it be forgotten. May her soul rest in peace! for her own act of distraction avenged the dishonour of her fall."
He paused in strong emotion, and Camarga, drawing the mantle closer round his head, continued:
"Know, (and I speak thee a truth never before divulged to mortal man,) that the sin of this act,—the abduction of a devotee, whose novitiate was already accomplished,—belongs not to Juan, the debauchee, but to Gregorio, the Dominican."
"These are the words of a madman," said Cortes, sternly; but he was interrupted by Camarga hastily exclaiming,
"Misunderstand me not. The lover and the convent-robber was indeed Juan; but it was Gregorio who provoked him to the outrage, and gave him the means of success. The sacrilege had not been otherwise attempted, and the fickle-minded Juan would have soon forgotten the object of a passion both criminal and dangerous."
"If you speak the truth," said Cortes, "you have exposed an atrocity, of which, as you said, truly no man ever dreamed. On what improbable ground do you make Gregorio a villain so monstrous?"
"On that ofknowledge," replied Camarga, with a voice firmer than he had yet displayed. "Dost thou think ambition lies not as often under a cowl as a corslet? or that guilt can only be meditated by a soldier? When the young monk Gregorio beheld the two sons of his brother, the Count Sebastian, taken up dead from the river, into which an evil accident had plunged them, and knew that the Count was dying—surely dying—of a broken heart, the fiend of darkness put a thought into his brain, which had never before dishonoured it. Yet it slumbered again, until his evil fate showed him his brother Juan, meditating a crime, which, if attempted, must bring him under the ban of the church, and into the dungeons of the Inquisition. Then he said, in his heart, 'If Sebastian die of grief, childless, and if Juan destroy himself by an act of impiety, where shall men look for the Count of Castillejo, except in the cell of Gregorio?' It was this thought of darkness that brought the thunderbolt upon his house, and upon thine."
"Ay! thou sayst it now," said Cortes with a smothered voice. "But this monk, this devil, this Gregorio! Let me know more of the wretch, whose flagitious ambition, not satisfied with destroying his father's house and his brother's soul, must end by bringing to a dishonourable grave a daughter—I speak itnow—a daughter of Martin Cortes of Medellin!"
"It is spoken in a word; but let the iniquitous details be forgotten. The power of Gregorio, unknown even to Juan, (for the connivance was concealed and unsuspected,) opened the doors of the convent, and the lovers fled, were united in marriage, and then parted for ever."
"United? married? Now by heavens, thou mockest me! Even this had been some mitigation of our shame. But it is not true. Why dost thou say it?"
"Thou wert deceived—all were deceived," said Camarga; "nay, even the scheming Gregorio was deceived; for before he had dreamed that such a fatal blow could be given to his ambition, the knot was tied, and the children of Juan became the heirs of Sebastian. Behold how treachery overshoots its mark! Gregorio opened a path, that the lovers might meet, not that they might escape. This was reserved until the time when the vows should be taken; after which the crime of abduction and flight could not be pardoned. They fled a day too early, and it was within the power of Sebastian to obtain both a pardon and dispensation; for Juan was now his heir, in the place of his children."
"Good heavens!" cried Cortes, "was this indeed possible? But no; thou deceivest me. Had the offence been so venial, Juan Castillejo had not perished among the vaults of the Inquisition."
"Canst thou compass thine own vindictive purposes, and attribute no similar power to others?" cried Camarga, with a laugh, that sounded hollow and unnatural under the mantle. "Did a venial offence, or a malignant and perfidious stratagem, drive Juan Lerma among the pagans of Mexico?—Listen:—Juan Castillejo was dragged from his hiding-place, and that perhaps the earlier, that Gregorio knew of their marriage. The crime of carrying off a novice was not indeed inexpiable, but it demanded a deep cell in the office of the Brotherhood; and such Juan obtained. Now, Cortes, ask not for reasons to explain the acts of Gregorio. The dying Sebastian exerted his powers to save his brother, and would have succeeded, had not Gregorio, visiting the dungeons, in virtue of his office, subtly attacked the prisoner's mind with the fear of torture and final condemnation; until, in a fit of distraction, he laid violent hands upon himself, and so ended a tragedy, for which Gregorio designed another catastrophe. Ay, believe me! Think not that even Gregorio planned out a climax so cruel. He desired only to work upon Juan's terrors, in order to banish him from the land for ever; for it was his purpose to provide him with the means of escape, when this was accomplished. He foresaw not the consequences of the desperation he had produced. Upon the morrow, Sebastian came with an indulgence—almost a pardon. The shock of the spectacle of Juan's dead body, broke away the last feeble cords that bound him to life; and Gregorio, absolved from his vows by the papal dispensation, easily obtained, was now the Count of Castillejo."
"And never sat in the castle-hall a fiend more truculent and diabolic!" cried Cortes, with terrific emphasis. "Hark thee, man, demon, or whatsoever thou art—I did think thee, at first, the very wretched Juan of whom thou hast spoken, escaped by some miracle, and finding the fiercest retribution for his villany, in the misery of his children. I remembered thy words at Tezcuco, and was thus deluded. But I know thee at last, and words cannot express how much I abhor thee."
"We are alike worthy of detestation," said Camarga, rising and flinging back his cowl, "for we are alike villains,—with but this difference between us, that I have preceded thee in the path of remorse, and must perhaps tread it more bitterly, because in all things, self-deluded and baffled. I am what thou thinkest,—the wretched Gregorio—and yet less wretched than when I first discovered the twin children of my brother in thy house at Tezcuco.—Hearken yet a moment, and I have done. All supposed that the unhappy Olivia had cast herself into the river, and so perished. It was not so. Pity, remorse, or some other feeling—perhaps, policy—induced me to preserve her from her distraction. She lived in concealment, until she had given birth to twin children—these very wretches whom we have persecuted. Let me speak their fate in a word. The boy I sent by a creature whose name he bears, to Colon's settlement in Española; the girl I devoted from her infancy to the altar; and in both cases, dreamed that I had provided for their welfare, as well as against the possibility of discovery. When I had thus arranged everything for my own security, heaven sent me the first sting of retribution in the person of my brother Julian, returned in safety from the dungeons of Fez, and, in right of seniority, the heir of the honours I had so vainly usurped. It was a fitting reward, but it was not all. Dishonour, other crimes, and awakened suspicions, followed my downfall; and I became an exile and outcast. What life I have lived, it needs not I should speak. A strange accident acquainted me with the stranger truth, that Magdalena had followed her unknown brother to the islands. I had amassed wealth; and an impulse, combining both pity and foreboding terror, drove me to pursue them. It was easy to trace out their respective fates. The wreck of the ship which carried Magdalena, with the supposed loss of all on board, satisfied me that she was with her mother, in heaven. An unexpected event had invested Juan with new interest. This was the death of Julian, without heirs. It was in my power to repair, at least, the wrongs I had done him, by restoring him to his inheritance; the knowledge and proofs of his legitimacy were in my hands, and I resolved to employ them. This I could not do in mine own person, but I discovered—and know, señor, it filled me with joy,—thatthouhadst befriended him. I came then to Mexico, to seek the young man, and to enable thee to do justice to the memory, and to the child of thy sister."
Gregorio, for so we must now call him, paused a moment, while Cortes strode to and fro, in great agitation. He then resumed:
"The first thing I heard was the supposed death of Juan,—his expedition, and the cause of it—thine own bitter and unrelenting hatred."
"It is true," said Cortes, with a vain effort at composed utterance. "I confessed my folly to thee before. I have persecuted the son of my sister almost to death, and for an imaginary crime. There were villains about me—I will tell thee, by and by, my delusion."
"Señor," continued Gregorio, "I found in thy camp a villain, whose subtle and malicious nature was in harmony with my own. This was Villafana, whose representations of thy cruelty in the matter of Juan, stirred up my evil passions; and until the day when Juan returned, I was very eager to avenge his wrongs. Upon that day, I discovered that Magdalena was living. Now," he exclaimed, with vehemence, "thou mayst understand the cause of my seeming madness: now thou mayst know that the vengeance of heaven was punishing my old sin with lashes of horror. Thou knowest the evil slanders cast by the ribald soldiers upon thee, in relation to Magdalena. That dreadful suspicion was soon at an end; but there remained the other, the persuasion, supported by strong circumstances and by the malign averments of Villafana,—the dreadful, damning belief, that a horrible and unnatural sin, the direct consequence of my own, had plunged the brother and sister into a never-ending wretchedness. Ask not my feelings, when I made this supposed discovery. They caused me to seek the life of the unhappy brother, to attempt it with my own hands, and finally through thine; and all in a distraction, that mingled a thirst of vengeance with the precautions of pity. Thou knowest the rest: he was snatched out of our hands; and from Magdalena I discovered the blessed—the blissful truth, that heaven had not punished them formysin! A course of extraordinary calamities, while it covered them with misery, yet kept them asunder.—But why should I trifle thus? The girl also was taken from me, and by the pagans, who left me on the lake-side weltering in blood. When I recovered speech and sense, I besought Guzman to send for you; nay, in my distracted impatience, being myself incapable of any effort beyond mere speech, I confided to him the secret of their birth—"
"Villain that he was, a double-dyed villain!" exclaimed Cortes, "this then accounts for his attempt upon your life, of which I had something more than mere suspicion to bring against him. I see it all now: exposure of a long series of malignant deceptions, must have followed the revealment, if it found the young Lerma—the young Castillejo, shall I say?—yet living. Is it not true? did he do you violence?"
"Not with his own hands," replied Gregorio; "nor can I say he really designed my death, not being able to communicate with the Indians, who dragged me by night from Tezcuco, carried me to the mountains, and finally took me back again, when Guzman was no longer the governor. But I doubt not, his intentions were evil."
"He has suffered for his crimes," said Cortes.—He strode to and fro for an instant, with hands clasped together, and a working visage. Then returning, and casting around a glance of suspicion, he said,
"Hark thee, Gregorio—If we save these unhappy creatures from death, thou shalt be forgiven,—ay, man, and honoured, too. I understand the motives that made thee mine ally in wickedness: now understand mine,—the persuasions of belief that converted me into a persecutor—the base and devilish persecutor, for such I was—of my sister's son—of my own flesh and blood. By heaven! I loved him dearly; nature spoke in my heart,—the instinct of consanguinity was alive within me; and even the lies of Guzman could not wholly destroy it. Velasquez the governor," he went on, "has fought me with all weapons, and with all in vain. Yet did he at last fall upon one, that was made to wound me to the quick, though it could not make me falter in this emprise of conquest. My lady, Gregorio, my lady!" he continued, struggling in vain against the feelings of humiliation, with which he confessed a weakness so unworthy;—"my lady Catalina is fair and merry, and, God wot, somewhat over fond of the gingling galliards that ruffle it at Santiago; and I,—by my conscience, I will be as honest as thou,—I have had the devil of suspicion sometimes enter my mind; but, I swear to thee, to mine own dishonour only. Upon this ground, Velasquez has thrust at me with hints, innuendos, sarcasms, jests, rumours, accusations, time without end. There has never a ship arrived, that it has not brought some petard to be shot off on my bosom; and sometimes, I think, I have been half mad with my dreams. Know, then, that one of these damnable devices was made to play in the person of my adopted son,—for such he was,—and my lady's favourite, Juan Lerma. My lady won him out of prison, and she harboured him during the sickness that followed. Out of this was constructed a story that tormented me. Yet it was naught, until Guzman penetrated the weakness, and wrought it, by I know not what means, into a fierce and fiendish jealousy. The young man was melancholy, too—he had killed his friend Hilario: but (heaven save me such madness again!) I deemed it the workings of his conscience, his sense of ingratitude, operating upon a temper, which, I knew, was naturally noble and virtuous. Thou canst not think how many little events were turned, by Guzman's malignant address, into proof and confirmation of my detestable suspicion. There came for him certain horses and arms, sent, as I quickly believed, by my wife, now bold in infidelity—"
"Alas!" said Gregorio; "I learned from Villafana, that these were the gifts of Magdalena, who, poor wretch, would have sent him her life, could that have been made an acceptable present."
"Thou makest my heart still lighter," said Cortes, "for this was the only matter I could not myself explain away, so soon as certain passages with Guzman had opened my eyes to his baseness. His oppressions forced me to withdraw him from Tezcuco; and, quarrelling with him upon that subject, as well as in regard to thine own fate, he let fall, in the heat of contention, certain unguarded expressions, which convinced me that he had made me his tool,—by heaven, Gregorio, his instrument! Suspicion once awake, my judgment once informed how much he had to gain, both of favour and revenge, by destroying my poor cornet, it needed but mine own reflections, to show me how ruthlessly I had been cajoled. And to crown all, a new light was shot into my soul, by the recovery, from an Indian princess, now a captive in my hands, of this trinket; which thou mayest know, if thou hast indeed ever looked upon the face of my sister."
He drew from his bosom the cross and rosary which Juan had flung round the neck of the Indian princess.
"I placed it," said Gregorio, "with mine own own hands upon the bosom of the infant Magdalena—But, good heaven, how came it on the neck of a savage, unless they have murdered her?'
"Fear not," said Cortes: "It was given to the princess by Juan Lerma—by Juan of Castillejo; and was doubtless presented to him by Magdalena, in the island. From this princess, I learned the first news of Magdalena, who was kindly treated by the young king, in his palace, for Juan's sake. Thou must know how this cross wrought upon my heart and brain; for I did myself give it to my sister, when they took me, but a boy, to see her in the convent. And as for this princess, Gregorio," continued Cortes, with an air of pride, "know that she is a daughter of Montezuma, the descendant of a thousand kings; and the Count of Castillejo will carry with him to his castle, a bride more noble than ever entered it before."
"These things are vanities," said Gregorio, gloomily. "Let my brother's children be first plucked from the nest of infidels, if it be not too late."
"Heaven will notnowforsake them, after protecting them through so many and greater perils," said Cortes, kissing the little cross and restoring it to his bosom. "The best men in the army, cavaliers and all, have sworn they will fetch them from the palace, in which they are now surrounded. And hark thee, Gregorio: The only daughter of the Count of Castillejo is too noble a prize for a nunnery.—We will have another dispensation."
The further disclosures of these two men, both villains, and both penitents, after their ways, were arrested by the commencement of the attack upon the palace; and Cortes calling some of his attendants to support his companion's steps, they descended from the terrace.
Juan Lerma, or Castillejo—for such we must now call him—yet lay in confinement. His cell was in a quarter of the palace remote from the royal apartments; and without being altogether exposed to the cannon-shots, with which the attack was begun, was yet so nigh the garden-wall as to make its luckless inhabitant an auditor of all the fearful yells and outcries, with which the besieged and assailants contended for possession of the breaches. He was still bound, and some dozen or more dark-browed pagans kept watch at his doors, one of which led into a broad passage, and the other he knew not whither. They were designed rather to protect him from the fury of the warriors, now concentrated in the garden and palace, than to guard against escape, which the wounds he had received in the defence of Guzman, had but ill fitted him to attempt. All that Guatimozin could do to prolong an existence, now almost insufferably wretched, he did; and at the very moment of the assault, while taking measures to effect his own retreat from an empire now utterly demolished, and a post no longer tenable, he gave hasty instructions to the Ottomi, Techeechee, to secure the escape of his friend. It will be presently seen in what manner fortune defeated this plan, as well as all others now devised by the fallen monarch.
It was with a listlessness amounting almost to apathy, that Juan listened to the first discharges of the cannon and the roar of hostile voices. Such sounds had been awakened for several days in succession, and each day they were nearer and louder. If they promised him deliverance, they promised little else; for, having reflected upon the eventful enterprise of the causeway, and digested at leisure and in gloom, many of those details which had almost escaped his notice, in the heat and hurry of contention, he saw but little reason to anticipate from his countrymen, any other reception than such as might be vouchsafed to a condemned criminal and avowed renegade. He remembered, that he had been struck down by a Spaniard, while in the very act of giving life to the Captain-General; and he had a vague suspicion, that the blow was struck by the Barba-Roxa. If Gaspar (of whose death he was entirely ignorant), had met him with such vindictive ferocity, what else could be expected from men who had never looked upon him with friendship? Yet fear for himself made the lightest weight in his load of suffering: his thoughts dwelt upon the captive princess, and not less often, though with perhaps less gnawing anxiety, upon his equally captive sister.
Such were the reflections that darkened his mind during the first hours of conflict, and made him almost indifferent to his fate. Yet, notwithstanding his gloom, there arose a circumstance at last, which gave such an appalling character to his confinement, as prevented his remaining any longer indifferent to his situation. He became suddenly aware that volleys of smoke were beginning to roll into the apartment, and perceived, at the same time, that his guards, driven away by fear, or by an uncontrollable desire to mingle in the conflict, as was more probable, had fled from the doors, after satisfying themselves that he was secured in such a manner as to prevent his flying in their absence. He was indeed bound, or rather swathed, hand and foot, with robes of cotton, so as to be incapable of rising from the couch on which he lay: and it was his consciousness of the miserable helplessness of his condition, left to perish, as it seemed, in a burning palace, without the power of raising a finger in self-preservation, that stung him out of his lethargy.
The smoke was now rolling into the room, in denser masses than before, accompanied by the stifling odour of burning feathers, which entered so largely into the decorations of the palace; and he began to apprehend lest he should be suffocated outright, even before the flames had extended to his prison. He called aloud for relief; but his voice was unheeded in the din that shook the palace walls; he struggled to release his limbs, or to rise to his feet, but in vain; and even the poor expedient of rolling over the floor, availed him but little, so much were his muscles cramped by the barbarous bonds. To crown the horror of the scene, a gush of heated air shook the curtains of the door opposite to that which communicated with the passage, and was almost instantly followed by another, whirling smoke and flames.
But even in this extremity, hope was brought to his ears, in the sound of a voice not heard for many days, but not yet forgotten. From among the very flames that came flashing into the chamber, consuming the door-curtains, and darting upon the little canopy that surmounted his couch, he could distinguish the eager and clamorous howlings of Befo; as if this faithful friend were seeking him in his imprisonment. He answered with a shout, which was responded to not only by the joyful bark of the dog, but by the wild cry of a woman; and in the next instant, Magdalena, preceded by Befo, rushed through the flames into his dungeon.
"I have come to save you, my brother!" she cried, with accents wildly vehement and incoherent. "We will fly where never man shall see us more. Kiss me, Juan; and then look upon me no more, for I have made a vow to my soul.—Oh, my brother! my brother!" And she flung herself upon his body, and strove, but in vain, to raise him from the floor.
Had the agitation of his mind permitted, Juan must have noticed, and been shocked by, the alteration in her appearance. Her whole figure was miserably wasted, and she grasped him with a strength feebler than a child's. Her countenance was hollow, ghastly pale, and mottled only by such touches of colour as indicate a spirit consuming equally with the body. Add to this, that her garments were scorched, and even in parts burned, by the flames through which she had made her way; and we may understand how much she differed from the beautiful and majestic creature, that had been deemed at Tezcuco, almost a being of another world.
"Cut my bonds, Magdalena," said Juan, eagerly, "or I must die in thine arms."
"Let it be so, Juan—We will die together," cried Magdalena, with a voice of transport, as if the prospect of such a climax to an unhappy fate filled her mind with actual delight. "Oh yes, Juan, so we will die, so we will die!" And she flung her arms about his neck, with tremulous fervour, smothering his voice of remonstrance and entreaty, until recalled to her wits by a loud howl from Befo. This faithful animal, limping yet with pain, but acting as if he understood the inability of Magdalena to give his master relief, now lifted up his voice, whining for further assistance; and in a few seconds the cry of another human being was heard, approaching with answering shouts, through the passage. But before they were yet heard, Magdalena sprang to her feet, and wrung her hands wildly, staring upon Juan as if upon a basilisk.
"Sister! sister! will you see me perish?" cried Juan. "Slip me but these knotted robes from my hands and feet, and I will save thy life. Befo! what Befo! canst thou not rive them to tatters with thy fangs?"
"I will free you, Juan,—yes, I will free you," said Magdalena, flinging herself upon her knees, and essaying with better zeal than wisdom to loose the knotted folds; "Yes, Juan, I will free you, and then bid you farewell—Yes, farewell, farewell—a lasting farewell."
But while she was muttering thus, and striving confusedly with the knots, a better assistance arrived in the person of the old Ottomi, who rushed in, yelling, "Fly! fly! The king waits for his brother," and cut the garments asunder with his macana.
Juan rose to his feet; but so long had he endured this benumbing bondage, that he was scarce able either to stand or move. There was no time, however, for hesitation. The flames were already devouring his couch, and darting over the cedar rafters of the ceiling. Befo whined and ran to the door, as if inviting his master to follow; and Techeechee did not cease to exhort him to hasten. Besides all this, there were now heard the cries of men and clashing of arms, as if the battle were raging even in the palace, and approaching the place of imprisonment.
"Magdalena, dear Magdalena—"
She flung herself into his arms, and embracing him, as if never to part from him more, she yet uttered, with wild sobbings,
"Farewell, Juan, farewell; farewell, my brother—we will never see each other more!"
"What meanest thou, my sister? Hold me by the arm—Tarry not, or we shall perish."
"I cannot go, Juan—I will remain, Juan—I must die, Juan, I must die. Weep for me, pray for me, remember me—Now go, now go! Go, Juan, go!"
It is impossible to express the mingled tenderness and vehemence with which she uttered these words. Poignant grief darkened in her eyes, in which glimmered the light of the most passionate love; and all the while she shed floods of tears. Unable to comprehend an agitation so extraordinary, and valedictions which he thought little short of insanity, he grasped her by the hand, and endeavoured to draw her after him. She resisted even with screams, until, utterly confounded, and somewhat incensed by opposition so unreasonable and inopportune, he turned again to remonstrate, and perhaps rebuke. But the reproach was banished from his lips, before they had given it utterance. She again flung her arms around his neck, and muttered with tones that went to his heart,
"I cannot go with you, Juan—Oh my brother! pardon me, my brother, and do not curse me. Bid me farewell, Juan, bid me farewell for ever—I love you Juan, I love you too much!—Now I can live no more, Juan, I can live no more—Farewell! farewell! farewell!" And flinging from his arms, as if from a serpent that had suddenly stung her to the heart, she uttered another shriek, and fled through the burning door by which she had entered.
Juan remained fixed to the spot, as if struck by a thunderbolt; and before he could banish the words of the thrice-unhappy victim of passion from his ears, there rushed into the chamber, with furious shouts, a rabble of Spanish soldiers, blood-stained, and begrimed with smoke and cinders, the leader of whom struck the Ottomi dead with a single thrust of his spear, while the others rushed upon Juan, some crying out to kill, and others to spare him.
"Hands off!" cried Najara, throwing himself betwixt them and Juan. "Remember orders,—the general's orders!—The king, señor Juan? Where is the king?"
"Unhand me, villains!" cried Juan, endeavouring to shake off the soldiers who held him fast, while Befo attempted vainly to give him assistance:—"Kill me, if you will, but save my sister, my poor sister—Quick! for the love of heaven, quick!" he cried, observing some dart towards the door through which she had vanished: "Cortes will reward you—save her! save her!"
"Follow them, Bernal, man," cried Najara to the historian, who had just plucked his spear from the body of Techeechee—"What dost thou with slaying gray-headed Indians? Follow La Monjonaza,—five-hundred crowns,—ay, by my troth, and call them five thousand—to him that recovers her alive! Ah, señor Juan! your dog has more brains than yourself. But for his howling, you must e'en have roasted, man. Come along, come along—Be of good heart; there is no fear now of either axe or rope."
With such words as these, he drew Juan from the chamber, and supporting his tottering steps between himself and another, and bidding the rest of the party to surround them, so as to guard against any outbursting of rage from their excited companions, he bore him from the scene of bloodshed and conflagration.
The assault upon the garden and palace of Guatimozin, though the last blow given to his power, it has not been thought needful to describe in any of its details. It is well known, that the occasion was used by the few nobles of the empire who yet survived, to withdraw their monarch with his family from the island, in the vain hope of reaching the main land, through a line of brigantines and armed piraguas. It is also well known, that, notwithstanding the stratagem with which these faithful barbarians essayed to protect the last of their native lords, by exposing their own defenceless gondolas to destruction, he was captured, in consequence of his magnanimous self-devotion, and transferred with his trembling family, from his royal piragua to the galley of Garci Holguin.
Drums, trumpets, falconets, fire-arms, and human voices at once proclaimed the importance of the capture, and the triumph of the victors; and with all the speed of sails and oars, the fortunate cavalier bore his prize towards the nearest landing in possession of the Spaniards, deriding and even defying the claim set up by Sandoval, as the superior officer, to the honour of presenting the prisoner to the Captain-General. Long before he had reached the palace of Axajacatl, it was known throughout the whole city that Guatimozin was in the hands of the besiegers. The warriors who still fought in the garden, beheld the surrender on the lake, instantly threw down their arms, and submitted with sullen indifference to the fate they had long anticipated. With the interview betwixt the king and the conqueror all readers are familiar. The Captain-General, sumptuously dressed, and in the midst of such state as could be prepared for an occasion so imposing, received the prisoner, (in whose wasted figure and dejected countenance it was not possible to recognize the half-forgotten Olin,) in the hall of the palace of Axajacatl, where his ancestors had been kings and princes, but into which he now entered a captive and vassal. The Captain-General received him not only with respect, but with an appearance of sympathy and kindness. In truth, he could not but admire the fortitude of his youthful foe; and he reflected, not without exultation, that if his desperate resistance had increased the pains and perils of conquest, and frequently dashed all hopes of success, it had made his own triumph a thousand times more glorious. He descended from his chair of state, and raising the dejected captive from the floor, upon which he had flung himself in token of submission, he embraced him with many expressions of respect and encouragement.
"Fear not—neither for thy life nor crown," he said. "Thou perceivest, the king of Spain, my master, is invincible. Reign still in Mexico; but reign as his vassal."
He would have replaced on the captive's head the copilli of gold, which had been brought from the gondola and put into his hand; but Guatimozin rejected it with a melancholy gesture, saying,
"It is the Teuctli's—I am no more the king. Malintzin! be merciful to the people of Mexico: they are now slaves. Have pity also on the women and children, that come from the palace; for they are of the household of Montezuma. As for myself, Malintzin, hearken to what I say. The kings of Mexico have all died; when they gave their breath to heaven, the crown was on their front, and the sceptres on their bosom. Why then should I live, who am no longer a king? Malintzin, I have fought for Mexico, I have shed blood for my country, and now I shed tears; I can do no more for my people—It is fitting, therefore, that I should die—But I should die like a king."—He extended his hand, and touched the jewelled dagger that glittered in the baldric of his foe. The action was without any sign of hostility, and his countenance, now uplifted upon Cortes, was bathed with tears. "Let Malintzin do the work—Plunge this dagger into my bosom, and let me depart."
There was something affecting even to the iron-hearted conqueror in the situation and demeanour of the poor infidel, thus beseeching, and evidently with as much sincerity as simplicity, a death of honour after a life of patriotism; and Cortes would have renewed his caresses and assurances of friendship, had not his ears been that moment struck by voices without, pronouncing the name of Juan Lerma, with brutal execrations. He signed to those cavaliers who had conducted the monarch to his presence, to lead him away; and a moment after, Juan Lerma was conducted up to his footstool. Dejected, spiritless, overcome perhaps by the ferocious calls for vengeance which had heralded his steps to the palace, as well as by the exhaustion of long bodily suffering, he did not raise his eyes from the floor, until he heard the voice of Cortes pronounce the faltering words,—
"Juan of Castillejo, I have done you a great wrong.—Yes," he continued, with a louder voice, when Juan looked up, surprised not more by his altered tones than by a name so unexpected and unknown, "Yes, and let all bear witness to my confession;—I have done thee, not one wrong only, but many; for which I heartily repent me, and, before all this assemblage, do beseech thy forgiveness."
"My forgiveness, señor!" stammered Juan, while all the rest looked on in amazement.
"Thy forgiveness," repeated the conqueror, with double emphasis. "Thou hast been belied to me, bitterly maligned; but heaven has punished the slanderer, who slew mine own peace of mind, that he might compass thy death."
"Alas, señor," said Juan; "in his death-gasp, Guzman confessed to me—"
"Speak not of Guzman—forget him.—Have ye heard, my masters! and well taken note of what is spoken? Now begone, all, and leave me alone with my recovered prodigal.—Juan—Juan Lerma,—Juan of Castillejo," he cried, as soon as the wondering audience had vanished; "if Guzman have confessed to you, you must know why I have been maddened into wrath and injustice.—But thy sister, Juan, where is thy sister? my poor Magdalena? Ah, Juan! it was but a fiendish aberration, that set me against the child of my sister!"
With these words, he threw himself upon Juan's neck, and embraced him with a fervour that indicated the return of all his old affections, uttering a thousand exclamations, in which he mingled recurrences to the past with many a reference to the present and future. "This will be a glad day to Catalina, for she ever loved thee—Dolt that I was, to think that her love could be aught but a mother's! My father, Juan, my father, too! his gray hairs will yet be laid in a grave of joy; for he shall behold the son of his daughter seated in the inheritance of a noble father. And thy sister—she shall shine with the proudest and noblest.—I knew thee upon the causeway, too, though I was left in a coma, and half expiring. We have full proof of thy claims.—And thy princess, too—dost thou remember the silver cross?" taking it from his bosom—"Were there a duke's son demanded her, she should be thine.—What ho! some one bring me—But, nay—Thy sister, Juan! does she not live?"
Juan was stunned, stupified, bewildered, by a transformation in his own character and in the feelings of the general, so sudden and so marvellous. Yet he strove to reply to the last question, and was in the act of uttering a broken and hasty explanation, when a loud cry came from the passage, and rushing out, they beheld a party of soldiers bearing, in a litter of robes torn from the burning palace, the body, or the living frame, they knew not which, of the unhappy nun, over whom the penitent Gregorio was bitterly lamenting.
It was indeed Magdalena, her garments scorched, her face like the face of the dying. Yet she did not seem to have suffered from the flames. The soldiers had found her in a part of the palace not touched by the fire, and scarce invaded by the smoke; and perhaps a subtle physician would have traced her dreadful condition rather to some overpowering convulsion of spirit than to any physical, injury. She was indeed dying, the victim of contending passions, with which the education of a cloister had so ill fitted her to contend.
We will not speak of the meeting of Juan and his dark-eyed proselyte. It took place beside the couch of the dying girl, who, for love of him, had given up the vows of religion and the fame of woman, and perished with frenzy, when she discovered that that love was more than the love of a sister.
At nightfall, and while she still lay insensible, save that a faint moan occasionally trembled from her lips, there arose a tempest of lightning, thunder, and rain, far exceeding in violence any that had before burst over the heads of the Spaniards, and which Bernal Diaz has recorded in his history, as having been the most dreadful that ever confounded his mind and senses. It seemed as if the warlike divinities of Mexico were now taking leave of their broken altars and subjugated people, with a display of strength and fury, never more to be exercised. It ceased not until midnight, and then only when it had discharged a bolt that shook the island to its foundation, and tumbled many a ruined cabin and dilapidated palace, upon the heads of their unhappy inmates.
It was in the midst of this conflict of the elements, that the broken spirit passed from its weary prison; and what had been beauty and affection, genius and passion, became a clod, to claim kindred with its fellow of the valley. It was better indeed that she should thus perish; for her nature was above that of earth, and even the passion that destroyed her, pure, enthusiastic, and devoted as it was, was unworthy the spirit it had subdued. It was such as is the molewarp to the rose-bush, or the myrtle-tree, which he can destroy by burrowing at their roots, even when the winter's blast can scarce rive away a branch.
The remains of this ill-fated being were interred upon a sequestered hill, west of Mexico, where Gregorio Castillejo built a hermitage, and mourned over her for the few years he survived her. He left the odour of sanctity behind him, and the hermitage is now forgotten in the chapel built upon its site, and dedicated to Our Lady de los Remedios. To this place Cortes withdrew, with his whole army, in order that the ruined city might be purified of corses and rubbish, that rendered it horrible even to a soldier, no longer inflamed by the fire of battle. He soon, however, removed to Xochimilco, the Field of Flowers, where the time of the purification was devoted to solemn rejoicings and profane festivities.
To all those who may yet be disposed to consider our account of the strength and splendour of the empire of Montezuma as fabulous, we recommend no better study than the honest, worthy, and single-minded historian, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who lived to complete hisHistoria Verdadera, fifty years afterwards, in the loyal city of Guatimala, in which he held the honourable post of Regidor, the venerable, and, at that period, almost the sole survivor of the followers of Cortes. He has recorded one striking proof of the vast multitudes of pagans that had been concentrated within the island of Mexico. After averring, with a solemn oath, that, after the fall of the city, the streets, houses, squares, courts, and canals, were so covered with dead bodies, that it was impossible to move without treading upon them, he relates, that, Cortes having ordered all who survived, principally women and children, and the wounded, to evacuate the city, preparatory to its purification, 'forthree days and three nights, all the causeways were full of the wretched fugitives, who were so weak and sickly, so squalid and pestilential, that it was misery to behold them.' Three broad highways, covered, for the space of three days and nights, by a moving mass of widows and orphans, the trophies of a gallant achievement! the first fruits of the ambition of a single individual!
As Bernal Diaz retained, to the last, a jealous regard for the honour of his leader, this friendly weakness, taken into consideration along with the infirmities of memory incident to his advanced age, may perhaps account for his failure to complete the story of Juan Lerma. He may have recollected, as is often the case with an old man, the earliest facts of the story, while the later ones slipped entirely from his mind.
Of Cortes himself, it is scarce necessary to apprize the reader, that he lived to subdue other empires, and experience the ingratitude of a monarch, whose favour he had so amply merited. He fought for renown, for his king, and for heaven. Heaven alone can judge the merit of his acts, for men are yet unwilling to sit in judgment upon the brave; his king requited him with insults and positive oppression; and fame has placed him among those who have trodden out the wine-press of human desolation, and live in marble.
As for the young Count of Castillejo, his claims to the inheritance of his father were too well substantiated to be resisted; and the crimes of Gregorio had left none to oppose. As a subordinate in the work of conquest, there was nothing in him to be feared; and when he bore from a land he could only remember with sorrow, a bride whose father had borne the witching name of king, he was received with as much favour, and distinguished by as many honours, as any otherConquistador, who transplanted among the dames of Castile, a wife wooed within the palaces of Montezuma.
The fate of Guatimozin is well known. The crown he was still enforced to wear did not protect him from the torture of fire; nor could his noble character and unhappy fall secure him from a death of degradation. Four years after the fall of his empire, and at a distance of several hundred leagues from his native valley, he expiated upon a gibbet, a crime that existed only in the gloomy and remorseful imagination of the Conqueror. And thus, with two royal kinsmen, kings and feudatories of Anahuac, he was left to swing in the winds, and feed the vultures, of a distant and desert land. He merited a higher distinction, a loftier respect, and a profounder compassion, than men will willingly accord to a barbarian and INFIDEL.