CHAPTER LV.
As the cavalier sprang among his countrymen almost fainting withexhaustion, he loosened, with as much discretion as dexterity, the knotof the tilmatli, and dropped it to the earth, so that he might not bemistaken for a foe. The sudden gleam of his armour, and the sight of hiswan visage, struck all those who had rushed against him with horror.Among the foremost of all, was the man-at-arms Lazaro, who no soonerperceived that he had raised his trusty espada against what he doubtednot was the spectre of the novice, than he fell upon his knees, yellingaloud,
"Jesu Maria! my master! my master's ghost!" with other such exclamationsof terror.
At this moment, the page revived in the arms of his patron, but only toadd to the cry of Lazaro a shriek so wild and heart-piercing, that itdrove all other sounds from the ears of Don Amador. The cavalierobserved the cause of this cry, and again his eye lighted up with thefires of passion. A group of soldiers, agitated by some tumult, whichhad no part in the conflict around, stood against the palace wall, undera casement, from which was projected a bundle of partisans. Round thisextempore gibbet was fixed a rope, one end of which being pulled at bythose below, the cavalier beheld, shooting up above the heads of themass, a human being, to all appearance, bound hand and foot; and in theblackened and horribly convulsed countenance of the sufferer, heperceived the features of Abdalla, the Wali.
With a bound, that carried him at once into their midst, and with arapidity that prevented opposition he rushed up to the wall, and beforethe Morisco was elevated above his reach, struck the halter with hisweapon. The Zegri fell to the earth;--the executioners looked upon thevisage of his bold preserver, and being persuaded, like Lazaro, that thevery ghastly apparition before them was nothing less than the ghost ofan hidalgo, universally reckoned dead, they recoiled in affright. Beforethey had recovered from their confusion, the culprit rose to his feet,glared a moment on the cavalier, and then springing away, was instantlylost among the combatants. A wild and exulting cry of "Moro! Moro!Tlatoani Moro!" rose among the barbarians; and the Spaniards knew thattheir prey was beyond pursuit.
"Santos santisimos! Holy Mother of heaven! grace upon all, and Amen! ifthou beest a living creature, speak,--or I will smite thee for a devil!"
These words came from the lips of Alvarado, who had himself commandedthe body of hangmen, and who now, though his teeth chattered withterror, advanced his rapier towards the bosom of his late companion. Ashe gazed and menaced, Don Amador, yielding, at last, to the consequencesof labours altogether above his enfeebled powers, sunk swooning to theearth; and Jacinto, rushing from the crowd, flung himself upon his body.
"Viva! praise God, and let the cry go round; for we have saved the nobleDe Leste!" shouted Don Pedro, with a voice of joy, raising the senselesscavalier. "Now shall ye hear from his own mouth, ye caitiffs that havebelied me, that I played not the foul companion. Viva! I swear itrejoices me to behold thee!--Why, thou little rascal traitor, art thouhere, too! It was God's will thy vagabond father should purchase me mybrother; for which reason, I am not incensed he has escaped me. One dayis as good as another for hanging.--How now, my noble friend! art thouhurt beyond speaking! God's lid! but I would hug thee, if thou didst notlook so dismal!"
All this time, the neophyte surveyed the astounded visages around himwith a bewildered eye; and, doubtless, his obtuse senses could not, atthat moment of clamour, detect the accents of Don Pedro.
"Tetragrammaton! did I not tell thee the truth?" cried the harsh voiceof Botello.
"Master! dear master!" exclaimed Lazaro, as he embraced the knees of thenovice.
"Thanks be to God! the noble senor has escaped!" shouted the secretary.
"God be praised! but would it had been yesterday! for then might it havebeen better for Don Gabriel."
The name of his kinsman, spoken by the well-known voice of Baltasar,dispelled at once the dreamy trance of the cavalier.
"How fares my noble kinsman?" he cried.
The head of Baltasar fell on his breast, and a loud groan came from hisfellow-servitor. Don Amador looked to the Tonatiuh, and witnessed thechange from blithe joy to gloomy hesitation, which instantly marked hishandsome aspect; the face of Fabueno darkened; and the magician strodeaway.
"Clear for me, if ye will not speak!" said the cavalier, with suddensternness; "for there is no sight of wo I cannot now look upon."
He grasped the arm of Jacinto, and pushing into the palace, made his waytoward the chamber of the knight.--The hand of devastation had been uponthe walls of the passage; beams and planks had been torn away to supplythe materials for the mantas and other martial engines; and Don Amadorno longer knew the apartment of his kinsman. A dim light, and a lowsound of wailing, came from a curtained door. Before the secretary andthe other attendants who followed, could intercept him, he stepped intothe room.
The sight that awaited him instantly fastened his attention. He was inthe chamber of Montezuma, and the captive monarch lay on the bed ofdeath. Around the low couch knelt his children, and behind were theprinces of the empire, gazing with looks of awe on the king. In frontwere several Spanish cavaliers, unhelmed and silent; and Cortes himself,bare-headed and kneeling, gazed with a countenance of remorse on hisvictim; while the priest Olmedo stood hard by, vainly offering, throughthe medium of Dona Marina and the cavalier De Morla, the consolationsof religion.
The king struggled in a kind of low delirium, in the arms of a man ofsingular and most barbarous appearance. This was a Mexican of giganticstature, robed in a hooded mantle of black; but the cowl had fallen fromhis head, and his hair, many feet in length, plaited and twisted withthick cords, fell like cables over his person and that of the dyingking. This was the high-priest of Mexico, taken prisoner at the battleof the temple.
The countenance of Montezuma was changed by suffering and thedeath-throe; and yet, from their hollow depths, his eyes shot forthbeams of extraordinary lustre. As he struggled, he muttered; and hisbroken exclamations being interpreted, were found to be the lamentationsof a crushed spirit and a broken heart.
"Bid the Teuctli depart," were some of the words which Don Amadorcaught, as rendered by the lips of Marina: "before he came, I was a kingin Mexico.--But the son of the gods," he went on, with a hoarse andrattling laugh, "shall find that there are gods in Mexico, who shalldevour the betrayer! They roar in the heavens, they thunder among themountains,"--(the continued peals of artillery, shaking the fabric ofthe palace, mingled with his dreams, and gave a colour to them)--"theyspeak under the earth, and it trembles at their shouting. Ometeuctli,that dwelleth in the city of heaven, Tlaloc, that swimmeth on the greatdark waters, Tonatricli and Meztli, the kings of day and night, andMictlanteuctli, the ruler of hell,--all of them speak to their people;they look upon the strangers that destroy in their lands, and they sayto me, 'Thou art the king, and they shall perish!'--Wo! wo! wo!" hecontinued, with an abrupt transition to abasement and grief; "they lookupon me and laugh, for I have no people! In the face of all, I was madea slave; and, when they had spit upon me, they struck me as they strikethe slave; so struck my people. Come, then, thou that dwellest amongthe rivers of night; for, among the rivers, with those who die the deathof shame, shall I inhabit. Did not Mexico strike me, and shout for joy?Wo, wo! for my people have deserted me! and, in their eyes, the king isa slave!"
"Put thy lips to this emblem of salvation," said the Spanish priest,extending his crucifix, eagerly; "curse thy false gods, which aredevils; acknowledge Christ to be thy master; and part,--not to dwellamong the rivers of hell, which are of fire, but in the seats of bliss,the heaven of the just and happy."
"I spit upon thy accursed image!" said the monarch, rousing, withindignation, into temporary sanity, and endeavouring to suit the actionto the word; "I spit upon thy cross, for it is the god of liars anddeceivers! of robbers and murderers! of betrayers and enslavers! I cursethy god, and I spit upon him!"
All the Spaniards present recoiled with horror at the impiety, which wastoo manifest in the act to need interpretation; an
d some, in the moment,half drew their swords, as if to punish it by despatching the dying manat once. But they looked again on the king, and knew that this sin wasthe sin of madness.
As they started back, the person of De Leste, whom, in their fixedattention to Montezuma, none of them had yet perceived, was brought intothe view of the monarch. His glittering eye fell upon the penacho, whichthe cavalier had not yet thought to remove from his helmet, and whichyet drooped, with its badges of rank, over his forehead. A laugh, thathad in it much of the simple exultation of childhood, burst from theking's lips; and, raising himself on the couch, he pointed at the ruddysymbols of distinction. The cavaliers, following the gesture with theireyes, beheld, with great agitation, their liberated companion; and evenCortes, himself, started to his feet, with an invocation to his saint,when his eye fell upon the apparition.
The words of Amador,--"Fear me not, for I live,"--though not lost, wereunanswered; for, notwithstanding that many of the cavaliers immediatelyseized upon his hands, to express their joy, they instantly cast theirregards again upon Montezuma, as not having the power to withdraw themfor a moment from him.
"Say what they will," muttered the king, still eyeing the penacho withdelight, "I, also, am of the House of Darts; and in Tlascala andMichoacan, and among the Otomies of the hills, have I won me the tasselsof renown. Before I was a king, I was a soldier: so will I gather on methe armour of a general, and drive the Teuctli from my kingdom. Ho,then, what ho! Cuitlahuatzin! and thou, son of my brother,Quauhtimotzin! that are greater in war than the sons of my body, get yeforth your armies, and sound the horns of battle! Call upon the gods,and smite! on Mexitli the terrible, on Painalton the swift! call them,that they may see ye strike, and behold your valour! Call them, forMontezuma will fight at your side, and they shall know that he isvaliant!"
The struggles of the king, as he poured forth these wild exclamations,were like convulsions. But suddenly, and while the Spaniards thought hewas about to expire in his fury, the contortions passed from hiscountenance, his lips fell, his eyes grew dim, and his voice was turnedto a whisper of lamentation.
"I sold my people for the smile of the Teuctli; I bartered my crown forthe favour of the Christian; I gave up my fame for the bonds of astranger; and now what am I? I betrayed my children--and what are they?Let it not be written in the books of history,--blot the name ofMontezuma from the list of kings; let it not be taught to them that areto follow.--Tlaloc, I come!--Let it be forgotten."
Suddenly, as he concluded, and as if the fiend of the world of waters hehad invoked, had clutched upon him, he was seized with a dreadfulconvulsion, and as his limbs writhed about in the agony, his eyes,dilating with each struggle, were fixed with a stony and basilisk glareupon those of Cortes; and thus,--his gaze fixed to the last on hisdestroyer,--he expired.
When the neophyte beheld the last quiver cease in the body, and knew bythe loud wail of the Mexicans, that Montezuma was no more, he lookedround for Don Hernan; but the general had stolen from theapartment.--The visage of Cortes revealed not the workings of his mind;but his heart spoke to his conscience, and his soul recorded theconfession;--"I have wronged thee, pagan king;--but thy vengeancecometh!"
Don Amador's arm was touched by his friend De Morla.
"In the chamber of death," said the cavalier, sadly, "thou mightest besthear of death: but I cannot discourse to thee, while Minnapotzin ismourning. Let us depart, brother."
Don Amador motioned to the page, and followed his friend out of theapartment.
Calavar; or, The Knight of The Conquest, A Romance of Mexico Page 57