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

CHAPTER XXXIII

The soldiers of Alvarado differed in no wise from those veterans whom Don Amador had found standing to their arms on the banks of the River of Canoes; only that they presented, notwithstanding their loudly vented delight, a care-worn and somewhat emaciated appearance, – the consequence of long watches, perpetual fears, and, in part, of famine. They broke their ranks, as has been said, as soon as they beheld their general, and surrounded him with every expression of affection; and, while stretching forth their hands with cries of gratitude and joy, invoked many execrations on their imperial prisoner, the helpless Montezuma, as the cause of all their sufferings. Among them, Don Amador took notice of one man, who, though armed and habited as a Spaniard, seemed, in most other respects, an Indian, and of a more savage race than any he had yet seen; for his face, hands, and neck were tattooed with the most fantastic figures, and his motions were those of a barbarian. This was Geronimo de Aguilar, a companion of Balboa, who, being wrecked on the coast of Yucatan, had been preserved as a slave, and finally, adopted as a warrior, among the hordes of that distant land; from which he was rescued by Don Hernan, – happily to serve as the means of communication, through the medium of another and more remarkable interpreter, with the races of Mexico. This other interpreter, who approached the general with the dignified gravity of an Indian princess, and was received with suitable respect, was no less a person than that maid of Painalla, sold by an unfeeling parent a slave to one of the chieftains of Tobasco, presented by him to Cortes, and baptized in the faith under the distinguished title of the señora Doña Marina; who, by interpreting to Aguilar, in the language of Yucatan, the communications that were made in her native tongue, thus gave to Cortes the means of conferring with her countrymen, until her speedy acquisition of the Castilian language removed the necessity of such tedious intervention. But at this period, many Spaniards had acquired a smattering of her tongue, and could play the part of interpreters; and, for this reason, Doña Marina will make no great figure in this history. Other annalists have sufficiently immortalized her beauty, her wisdom, and her fidelity; and it has been her good fortune, continued even to this day, to be distinguished with such honours as have fallen to the lot of none of her masters. Her Christian denomination, Marina, converted by her countrymen into

Malintzin

, (a title that was afterwards scornfully applied by them to Cortes himself,) and this again, in modern days, corrupted by the Creoles into

Malinche

, has had the singular fate to give name both to a mountain and a divinity: the sierra of Tlascala is now called the mountain of Malinche; and the descendants of Montezuma pay their adorations to the Virgin, under the title of Malintzin.

Don Amador de Leste, attended by De Morla, as well as his new acquaintance, Alvarado, was able to understand, as well as admire, many of the wonders of the city, as he now, for the first time, planted his foot on its imperial streets.

The retreat of the salt waters of Tezcuco has left the present republican city of Mexico a full league west of the lake. In the days of Montezuma, it stood upon an island two miles removed from the western shore, with which it communicated by the dike or

calzada

 of Tlacopan, – now called Tacuba. The causeway of Iztapalapan, coming from the South, seven miles in length, passed over the island and through the city, and was continued in a line three miles further to the northern shore, and to the city Tepejacac, where now stand the church and the miraculous picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Besides these three great causeways, constructed with inconceivable labour, there were two others, – that of Cojohuacan, which, as we have mentioned, terminated in the greater one of Iztapalapan, at the military point Xoloc, a half league from the city; and that, a little south-ward of the dike of Tacuba, which conveyed, in aqueducts of earthenware, the pure waters of Chapoltepec to the temples and squares of the imperial city. The island was circular, saving that a broad angle or peninsula ran out from the north-west, and a similar one from the opposite point of the compass: it was a league in diameter; but the necessities of the people, after covering this ample space with their dwellings, extended them far into the lake; and perhaps as many edifices stood, on piles, in the water as on the land. The causeways of Iztapalapan and Tacuba, intersecting each other in the heart of the island, divided the city into four convenient quarters, to which a fifth was added, some few generations before, when the little kingdom of Tlatelolco, occupying the north-western peninsula, was added to Tenochtitlan. On this peninsula and in this quarter of Tlatelolco, stood the palace of an ancient king, which the munificence of Montezuma had presented to Cortes for a dwelling, and which the invader, six days after the gift, by an act of as much treachery as daring, converted into the prison of his benefactor.

The appearance of this vast and remarkable city so occupied the mind of the neophyte, that, as he rode staring along, he gave but few thoughts, and fewer words, either to his kinsman or the page. It was sunset, and in the increasing obscurity, he gazed, as if on a scene of magic, on streets often having canals in the midst, covered alike with bridges and empty canoes; on stone houses, low indeed, but of a strong and imposing structure, over the terraces of which waved shrubs and flowers; and on high turrets, which, at every vista, disclosed their distant pinnacles. But he remarked also, and it was mentioned by the cavaliers at his side as a bad omen, that neither the streets, the canals, nor the house-tops presented the appearance of citizens coming forth to gaze upon them. A few Indians were now and then seen skulking at a distance in the streets, raising their heads from a half-concealed canoe, or peering from a terrace among the shrubs. He would have thought the city uninhabited, but that he knew it contained as many living creatures, hidden among its retreats, as some of the proudest capitals of Christendom. Even the great square, the centre of life and of devotion, was deserted; and the principal pyramid, a huge and mountainous mass, consecrated to the most sanguinary of deities, though its sanctuaries were lighted by the ever-blazing urns, and though the

town

 of temples circumscribed by the great Coatepantli, or

Wall of Serpents

, which surrounded this Mexican Olympus, sent up the glare of many a devotional torch, – yet did it seem, nevertheless, to be inhabited by beings as inanimate as those monstrous reptiles which writhed in stone along the infernal wall. In this light, and in that which still played in the west, Don Amador marvelled at the structure of the pyramid, and cursed it as he marvelled. It consisted of five enormous platforms, faced with hewn stone, and mounted by steps so singularly planned, that, upon climbing the first story, it was necessary to walk entirely round the mass, before arriving at the staircase which conducted to the second. The reader may conceive of the vast size of this pagan temple by being apprised, that, to ascend it, the votaries were compelled, in their perambulations, to walk a distance of full ten furlongs, as well as to climb a hundred and fourteen different steps. He may also comprehend the manner in which the stairways were contrived, by knowing that the first, ascending

laterally

 from the corner, was just as broad as the first platform was wider than the second; leaving thus a sheer and continuous wall from the ground to the top of the second terrace, from the bottom of the second to the top of the third, and so on, in like manner, to the top.

But the pyramid, crowned with altars and censers, the innumerable temples erected in honour of nameless deities at its foot, and the strange and most hideous Coatepantli, were not the only objects which excited the abhorrence of the cavalier. Without the wall, and a few paces in advance of the great gate which it covered as a curtain, rose a rampart of earth or stone, oblong and pyramidal, but truncated, twenty-five fathoms in length at the base, and perhaps thirty feet in height. At either end of this tumulus, was a tower of goodly altitude, built, as it seemed at a distance and in the dim light, of some singularly rude and uncouth material; and between them, occupying the whole remaining space of the terrace, was a sort of frame-work or cage of slender poles, on all of which were strung thickly together, certain little globes, the character of which Don Amador could not penetrate, until fully abreast of them. Then, indeed, he perceived, with horror, that these globes were the skulls of human beings, the trophies of ages of superstition; and beheld, in like manner, that the towers which crowned the Golgotha, (or

Huitzompan

, as it was called in the Mexican tongue,) were constructed of the same dreadful materials, cemented together with lime. The malediction which he invoked upon the builders of the ghastly temple, was unheard; for the spectacle froze his blood and paralyzed his tongue.

It was not yet dark, when, having left these haunts of idolatry, Don Amador found himself entering into the court-yard of a vast, and yet not a very lofty, building, – the palace of Axajacatl; wherein, with drums beating, and trumpets answering joyously to the salute of their friends, stood those individuals of the garrison who had remained to watch over their prisoners and treasures. The weary and the curious, thronging together impatiently at the gate, mingling with the garrison and some two thousand faithful Tlascalans, who had been left by Cortes as their allies, and who now rushed forward to salute the viceroy of their gods, as some had denominated Don Hernan, made such a scene of confusion, that, for a moment, the neophyte was unable to ride into the yard. In that moment, and while struggling both to appease the unquiet of Fogoso, and to drive away the feathered herd that obstructed him, his arm was touched, and, looking down, he beheld Jacinto at his side, greatly agitated, and seemingly striving to disengage himself from the throng.

"Give me thy hand," cried Don Amador, "and I will pull thee out of this rabble to the back of Fogoso."

But the page, though he seized upon the hand of his patron, and covered it with kisses, held back, greatly to the surprise of Don Amador, who was made sensible that hot tears were falling with the kisses.

"I swear to thee, my boy! that I will discover thy father for thee, if it be possible for man to find him," said the cavalier, diving at once, as he thought, to the cause of this emotion.

But before he had well done speaking, the press thickening around him, drew the boy from his side; and when he had, a moment after, disengaged himself, Jacinto was no longer to be seen. Not doubting, however, that he was entangled in the mass, and would immediately appear, he called out to him to follow; and riding slowly up to Cortes, he had his whole attention immediately absorbed by the spectacle of the Indian emperor.

Issuing from the door of the palace, surrounded as well by Spanish cavaliers as by the nobles, both male and female, of his own household, who stood by him, – the latter, at least, – with countenances of the deepest veneration, – he advanced a step to do honour to the dismounting general.

In the light of many torches, held by the people about him, Don Amador, as he flung himself from his horse, could plainly perceive the person and habiliments of the pagan king. He was of good stature, clad in white robes, over which was a huge mantle of crimson, studded with emeralds and drops of gold, knotted on his breast, or rather on his shoulder, so as to fall, when he raised his arm, in careless but very graceful folds; his legs were buskined with gilded leather; his head covered with the

copilli

, or crown, (a sort of mitre of plate-gold, graved and chased with certain idolatrous devices,) from beneath which fell to his shoulders long and thick locks of the blackest hair. He did not yet seem to have passed beyond the autumn of life. His countenance, though of the darkest hue known among his people, was good, somewhat long and hollow, but the features well sculptured; and a gentle melancholy, a characteristic expression of his race, deepened, perhaps, in gloom, by a sense of his degradation, gave it a something that interested the beholder.

In the abruptness with which he was introduced to the regal barbarian, Don Amador had no leisure to take notice of his attendants, all princely in rank, and, two or three of them, the kings of neighbouring cities: he only observed that their decorations were far from being costly and ostentatious; – a circumstance, which, he did not then know, marked the greatness of their respect. In the absurd grandeur which attached to the person of their monarch, no distinction of inferior ranks was allowed to be traced, during the time of an audience; and in his majestic presence, a vassal king wore the coarse garments of a slave. So important was esteemed the observance of this courtly etiquette, that, at the first visit made him, in his palace, by the Spaniards, the renowned Cortes and his proud officers did not refuse to throw off their shoes, and cover their armour with such humble apparel as was offered them. But those days were passed; the king of kings was himself the vassal of a king's vassal. Yet notwithstanding this, it had been, up to this time, the policy of Don Hernan to soften the captivity, and engage the affections, of the monarch, by such marks of reverence as might still allow him to dream he possessed the grandeur, along with the state, of a king. Before this day, Cortes had never been known to pass his prisoner, without removing his cap or helmet; and indeed, such had been so long the habit of his cavaliers, that all, as they now dismounted, fell to doffing their casques without delay, until the action of their leader taught them a new and unexpected mode of salutation.

The weak spirit of Montezuma had yielded to the arts of the Spaniard; and forgetting the insults of past days, the loss of his empire, and the shame of his imprisonment, he had already conceived a species of affection for his wronger. Cortes had no sooner, therefore, leaped from his horse, than the emperor, with outstretched arms, and with his sadness yielding to a smile, advanced to meet him.

"Dog of a king!" said the invader, with a ferocious frown, "dost thou starve and murder my people, and then offer me the hand of friendship? away with thee! I defy thee, and thou shalt see that I can punish!" Thus saying, and thrusting the king rudely aside, he stepped into the palace.

A wild cry of lamentation, at this insult (it needed no interpretation) to their king, burst from the lips of all the Mexicans; and the Spaniards themselves were not less panic-struck. The gentle manners of Montezuma, and his munificence, (for he was in the daily habit of enriching them with costly presents,) had endeared him to most of his enemies; and even the soldiers of the garrison, who had so lately accused him of endeavouring to famish them, had no belief in the justice of their charges. Many of them therefore, both soldiers and hidalgos, indignant and grieved at the wanton insult, had their sympathies strongly excited, when they beheld the monarch roll his eyes upon them with a haggard smile, in which pride was struggling vainly with a bitter sense of humiliation. De Morla and several others rushed forwards to atone, by caresses, for the crime of their general. But it was too late; the king threw his mantle over his head, and without the utterance of any complaint, passed, with his attendants, into his apartments. His countenance was never more, from that day, seen to wear a smile.

Don Amador de Leste was greatly amazed and shocked by this rudeness; and it was one of many other circumstances, which, by lessening his respect for the general, contributed to weaken his friendship and undermine his gratitude. But he had no time to indulge his indignation. He was startled by a loud cry, or rather a shriek, from the lips of the knight Calavar; and running to the gate, beheld, in the midst of a confused mass of men, rushing to and fro, and calling out as if to secure an assassin, his kinsman lying, to all appearance dead, in the arms of his attendants.

CHAPTER XXXIV

The first thought of the young cavalier was, that Don Gabriel had been basely and murderously struck by some felon hand; an apprehension of which he was, in part, immediately relieved by the protestations of Baltasar, but which was not entirely removed until he had assisted to carry the knight into a chamber of the palace, and beheld him open his eyes and roll them wildly round him, like one awaking from a dream of night-mare.

"I say," muttered Baltasar, as he raised the head of the distracted man, and beckoned to clear the room of many idle personages who had thrust themselves in, "he was hurt by no mortal man, for I stood close at his side, and there is not a drop of blood on his body. 'Twas one of the accursed ghosts, whom may St. John sink down to hell; for they are ever persecuting us."

"Mortal man, or immortal fiend," whispered Lazaro, knitting his brows, but looking greatly frighted, "I saw him running away, the moment the knight screeched; and, I will take my oath, he had such a damnable appearance as belongs to nothing but the devil, or one of these pagan gods, who are all devils. Had he been a man, I should have slain him, for I struck at him with my spear!"

"Miserere mei!" groaned the knight, rising to his feet, "they are all unearthed, – Zayda at the temple, and

he

 in the palace!"

Don Amador trembled, when he heard his kinsman pronounce the name of Zayda, for he remembered the words of Jacinto. Nevertheless he said, "be not disturbed, my father; for we are none here but thy servants."

"Ay!" said the knight, looking gloomily but sanely to his friend; "I afflict thee with my folly; but I know

now

 that it will end. – Let the boy Jacinto sing to me the song of the Virgin; I will pray and sleep."

Don Amador looked round, and Jacinto not being present, began to remember that the page had been separated from him in the crowd, and that he had not seen him since the moment of separation. None of the attendants had noticed him enter the court-yard; and a superstitious fear was mingled with his anxiety, when Don Gabriel, casting his eyes to heaven, said, with a deep groan, —

"The time beginneth, the flower is broken, and now I see how each branch shall fall, and the trunk that is blasted, shall be left, naked, to perish! Seek no more for the boy," he went on to Amador, with a grave placidity, which, coupled with the extravagance of his words, gave the youth reason to fear that his mind, wavering under a thousand shocks, had at last settled down for ever in the calm of insanity, – "seek for the good child no more, for he is now in heaven. And lament not thou, my son Amador, that thou shalt speedily follow him; for thy heart is yet pure, thy soul unstained, and grace shall not be denied thee!"

"Jacinto is not dead, my father," said the neophyte earnestly; "and if thou wilt suffer Baltasar to remove thy corslet, and make thee a couch under yonder canopy, I will fetch him to thee presently, and he shall sing thee to sleep."

"Remove the armour indeed," muttered Don Gabriel, submitting passively, "for now there is no more need of aught but the crucifix, prayers, and the grave. Poor children! that shall die before the day of canker, what matters it? I lament ye not, – ye shall sleep in peace!"

Thus murmuring out his distractions, in which his servants perceived nothing but the influence of some supernatural warning that boded them calamity, the knight allowed himself to be disarmed and laid upon a couch on a raised platform at the side of the chamber, over which the voluminous arras that covered the walls, were festooned into a sort of not inelegant tester.

Meanwhile, the neophyte, beckoning Lazaro with him, and charging him to make good search throughout the palace for the page, began to address himself to the same duty. And first, attracted by the lights and by the sounds of many voices coming from a neighbouring apartment, he advanced to the door, where he was suddenly arrested by the appearance of a Mexican of very majestic stature, though clad in the same humble robes which had covered the attendants of Montezuma, issuing from the chamber, followed by a throng of cavaliers, among whom was the general himself. At the side of Cortes stood a boy, in stature resembling Jacinto; and in whom, for a moment, Don Amador thought he had discovered the object of his desires. But this agreeable delusion was instantly put to flight, when he heard Don Hernan address him by the name of Orteguilla, and saw that he exercised the functions of an interpreter.

"Tell me this knave, my merry

muchacho

," said the general, – "tell me this knave, (that is to say, this royal prince,) Cuitlahuatzin, that I discharge him from captivity, under the assurance that he shall, very faithfully, and without delay, command his runagate people to bring me corn to the market; of which it is not fitting we should be kept in want longer than to-morrow. And give him to understand, that I hold, as the hostage of his good faith and compliance, the dog Montezuma; (translate

that

, the king his brother:) who shall be made to suffer the penalty of any neglect, on his part, to furnish me with the afore-mentioned necessary provision."

The little Orteguilla, in part acquainted with the Mexican tongue, did as he was directed; and the prince Cuitlahuatzin, (or, as it should be pronounced in English speech, Quitlawátzin,) receiving and understanding the direction, bowed his head to Cortes with stately humility, and immediately withdrew.

Not discovering or hearing aught of Jacinto in this throng, Don Amador continued his search in other parts of the palace, the court-yard, and even the neighbouring street; but with such indifferent success, that, when stumbling upon Lazaro, and made acquainted that he had been equally unfortunate, he began to entertain the most serious fears for the fate of the boy.

"Perhaps he was carried off by the spectre," muttered Lazaro, superstitiously, "as his worship Don Gabriel as much as hinted."

"Or perhaps," said the neophyte, with a thrill of horror, "by some of those bloody cannibals, to be devoured! And I remember now, that there were many savages about me at the time; though I thought them Tlascalans. I would to heaven, I had speared the knaves that came between us; but I swear to St. John of the Desert, if they have truly robbed me of the boy, and for that diabolical purpose, I will pursue their whole race with a most unrelenting vengeance."

At this moment, the cavalier was startled by a sudden "Hark!" from Lazaro, and heard, at a distance in the street, though objects were lost in the darkness, a great tumult as of men in affray, and plainly distinguished a voice crying aloud, "Arma! arma! and Christian men, for the love of God, to the rescue of Christians beset by infidels!"

"Draw thy sword, Lazaro, and follow!" cried the cavalier, "for these are other victims; and, with God's favour, we

will

 rescue them!"

Thus exclaiming, and without a moment thinking of the unknown perils among which he was rushing, he ran rapidly in the direction of the cries, and straightway beheld, a little in advance of a great crowd of people, a group consisting of four or five persons, several of them women in strange attire, who stood shrieking with terror, while at their feet rolled three or four on the ground in close and murderous combat. The cries of one of these prostrate figures bespoke him a Spaniard, and while one sinewy pagan seemed to hold him upon the earth, another stood with his uplifted weapon, in the very act of despatching him. At this moment, Don Amador rushed forwards, and shouting his war-cry,

Dios, y buena esperanza!

 (that is, 'God and good cheer!') struck the menacing savage a blow that sent him yelling away, and seized upon the other by the shoulder to stab him; when, suddenly, the Spaniard rose to his feet, with a leap that tumbled the infidel to the earth, and showed him to be already dead, cried aloud, in the well-remembered voice of the magician, —

"Tetragrammaton! thou wert a good shield, though a bloody one, sir carcass! – Save the princesses, and fly, or we are all dead men! – Arma! arma! to the rescue!"

Thus shouting, and seizing upon one of the women, while Don Amador snatched the arm of the other, (for he perceived, they were like to be cut off by the approaching crowd,) the sorcerer, with his rescuers, ran towards the palace. His cries had reached the quarters; and presently they were surrounded by a hundred soldiers and cavaliers bearing lights, in the glare of which Don Amador had scarce time to note the countenance of his new ward, before she was locked in the arms of De Morla.

"Minnapotzin! Benita!" cried the joyous cavalier. "Amigo mio! thou hast saved my princess!"

"Stop not to prate and be happy; for the storm comes!" exclaimed Botello. "To the palace, all of ye! and to the cannon! for were you five hundred men, there are wolves enow at your heels to devour you!"

Thus admonished, and perceiving, in fact, that a vast, though silent multitude was approaching, all were fain to fly, and in an instant they were crowding into the gates of the court-yard.

"This comes of insulting the king!" cried a voice from the melée, as Cortes, shouting out to clear the gates, was seen himself assisting to draw a piece of artillery to the opening.

"I see naught, – I hear nothing," cried the general, affecting not to remark this reproach, (which was indeed just; for it was this over-refinement of policy, spread with wonderful celerity throughout the city, which dashed the last scale from the eyes of the Mexicans, convinced them that their monarch was indeed a slave, and let loose the long-imprisoned current of fury.) "I see nought, I hear nought; and my brave Rolands have been flying from shadows!"

"Say not so; the town is alive," cried the magician. "The hounds set on me, as I was bringing, at your excellency's command, these princesses from Tacuba; and it was only through the mercy of God, my good star, an Indian that I killed for a buckler, and the help of this true cavalier, (whose fate, out of gratitude, I will reveal to him to-morrow,) that we were not all killed by the way: – for small reverence did the false traitors show to the maidens."

"Clear the way, then. Discharge me the piece, Catalan, true cannonier!" said Cortes, "and we will see what our foes look like, so near to midnight."

The match was applied, the palace shook to the roar, – and the blaze, illumining the street to a great distance, disclosed it, to the surprise of all, entirely deserted.

"I will aver upon mine oath," said Don Amador, "that the street was but now full of people; but where they have hidden, or whither they have fled, wholly passes my comprehension."

"Hidden, surely, in their beds," cried the general, loudly and cheerfully, for he perceived the crowds about him were panic-struck. "They set on Botello, doubtless, because they thought he was haling away the princesses with violence; and, convinced of their error, they have