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

by Robert Montgomery Bird

  CHAPTER LXI.

  Meantime the reappearance of the barbarians seemed to cut off the lasthope of escape from Amador and his companion; but the magician,answering the cavalier's sullen look of despair with a laugh, andpointing to the little star, which still made its way up the cloudy archalong with the moon, said, dragging him at the same time towards theartillery,

  "What the spirits say, is true! All this said they, of De Morla.--May herest with God--Amen! Fear not; be of good heart:--while the star shines,there is hope,--and hope for both; for though I have not yet read thyfate in full, still, while thou art at my side, thou canst be in nogreat peril. At the worst, and when the worst comes, it is written, thateagles shall come down from heaven, and bear me away on theirbacks.--Hast thou never a flint and dry tinder, to light me a linstock?Here hath some knavish gunner left his piece charged, and the grains ofsulphur still heaped up from rimbase to cascable. A good roar now mightdo marvels.--Quick! they are upon us.--Fling thee under the wheels, andlook but as dead as thou didst erewhile, till the cut-throats bepassed.--Hah! 'fore God, dost thou hear?" he exclaimed, suddenly leapingup.--"Kalidon, soho, brave imp! and thou shalt be a-gallopingyet!--Hearest thou that shout, like the clang of a bugle on ahill-top?--'Tis Cortes! and he cometh!"

  It was even as the magician had said. From the moment that De Morla tookthe fatal leap, the rowers ceased paddling in their canoes, as ifcertain of his fate, or unwilling to follow so feeble a prey, andremained huddled together, as though they awaited the approach of a moretempting quarry. They had not perceived the two companions. Just asBotello was about to creep under a falconet, around whose wheels thecorses lay very thick, the strong voice of Cortes was heard rising overthe din, which, at some quarter or other of the causeway, was kept upincessantly during the whole conflict. It echoed again, sustained andstrengthened by the voices of a considerable party.

  "They approach!" said Botello. "They are a-horse too; I hear thetrampling. God quicken the rear! Methought there were many who followedme."

  "Hark!" cried the cavalier. "The foul knaves desert us! their voices areweaker; they fly again to the land!"

  "Here's that which shall fetch them back, if they be men!" exclaimedBotello, catching up a port-fuse not yet extinguished, striking it onhis arm to shake off the ashes, and whirling it in the air till itglowed and almost blazed. "It will show them, there be some living yet;and, with God's blessing, will scatter yon ambushed heathen likeplashing water-drops. _Ojala!_ and all ye fiends of air and water, ofearth and of hell, that are waiting for pagan souls, carry my hail-shottrue, and have at your prey!"

  So saying, the conjurer applied the match. The roar of the explosion wassucceeded not only by the yells of Mexicans, dying in their brokencanoes, or paddling away from so dangerous a vicinity, but by Spanishshouts, both on the rear and in front.

  "On, brave hearts!" cried Cortes; "there be bold knaves yet at theordnance!"

  The next moment the little band of horse that headed the relief, spranginto the lake, and swimming aside, so as to avoid the sunken bodies, andthe bales still floating in the ditch, crossed over to the cannon; whilea large body of men, arranged with such order, that they blocked up thewhole causeway from side to side, came marching up from the rear,fighting as they fled, and still valiantly resisting the multitudes thatpursued both on the dike and in the water.

  "Thanks be to God!" cried Don Hernan, rejoiced that so many lived, andyet appalled at the numbers and ferocious determination of the foes, whostill, like venomous insects following the persecuted herd, pursuedwhithersoever the Christians fled. "Art thou alive, De Leon?--Praised beSt. James, who listened to my prayer! Turn ye now, and let us succourthe rest."

  "They are in heaven," said De Leon, with a faint voice, for he wasseverely wounded, as indeed were all his crew. "Push on, in the name ofGod, all who can swim.--The others must perish."

  "Hold! stay!" exclaimed Cortes. "Fling the cannon into thesluice.--Think not of the enemy. Heave over my good falconets: they willmake a bridge for ye all."

  The wounded footmen seized upon the guns, with the energy of despair;and flinging over the ropes to that company of their fellow infantry whohad followed Don Hernan, and now stood on the opposite side, the pieceswere pushed and dragged into the water, and, together with the mass ofcorses already deposited in that fatal chasm, made such a footing forthe infantry as enabled many to pass in safety. Among these was DonAmador de Leste, his hand grasped by the faithful magician, whoperceived that he was sunk into such sluggishness of despair, that hemust have perished, if left to himself.

  It is not to be supposed that this passage was effected withoutopposition and loss. On the contrary, the barbarians redoubled theirexertions; and while many rested at a distance, shooting whole clouds ofarrows, others pushed their canoes boldly up to the gap, and there slewmany taken at such disadvantage.

  Nevertheless, the passage was at last effected, and the footmen, joiningthemselves to their fellows, and forming, as before, twenty deep,followed the horsemen towards the shore.

  "Hold!" shouted Botello, when the party was about to start. "Save yourcaptain, ye knaves of the rear!--Save De Leon! the valiant Velasquez!"

  A few, roused by this cry, and heedless of the shafts shot at them,rushed back to the brink, and beheld the wounded and forgotten captain,in the water, struggling in the arms of two brawny barbarians, whostrove to drag him into a canoe. While his followers stood hesitating,not knowing how to give him aid, the little vessel, agitated by hisstruggles, which were tremendous, suddenly overset, and captive andcapturers fell together into the water. The two warriors were presentlyseen swimming towards a neighbouring canoe; and De Leon, stranglingunder the flood, heaved not his last groan on the gory block ofsacrifice.

  The fugitives paused not to lament; they resumed their march, and gainedthe last ditch.

  The events of that march, and of the passage of that ditch, are, likethe others, a series of horrors. Enough has been narrated to picture outthe dreadful punishment of men who acknowledged no rights but those ofpower, and preferred to rob a weak and childish race with insult andmurder, rather than to subdue them, as could have been done, by the artsof peace. In the sole incident which remains to be mentioned, we recordthe fate of an individual whose influence had been felt through most ofthe events of the invasion, in many cases beneficially, but, in this,disastrously enough. This was the enchanter, Botello,--a man just shrewdenough to deceive himself; which is, in other words, to say, that hemingled in his own person so much cunning with so much credulity, thatthe former was ever the victim of the latter. The devoutness of his ownbelief in the efficacy of his arts, was enough to secure them therespect and reverence of the common herd, as well as of better men, inan age of superstition. How much confidence was given to them by Cortes,does not clearly appear in the older historians; but it is plain, heturned them to great advantage, and had the art sometimes to make thestars, as well as Kalidon of the Crystal, furnish revelations of his ownhinting; and, it is suspected, not without grounds, that this verynocturnal flight, projected originally under the impression that thebarbarians would not go into battle after night-fall, and, when thelater events of the siege had disproved this hope, still persisted infrom the persuasion that no Mexican would handle a weapon on the day ofan emperor's burial, was conceived in the brain of the general before itwas counselled by the lips of Botello.

  At all events, the enchanter did not, this night, manifest any doubt inhis own powers. With a strange and yet natural inconsistency, he seemedto rejoice over the slaughter of his countrymen, as over theconfirmation of his predictions. Twice or thrice, at least, he muttered,and once even in the thick of combat, to Don Amador, by whose side heever walked, at the head of the retreating party,--

  "I said, this night we should retreat--we have retreated: I said, thereshould be death for many, and safety for some--the many are at rest,(God receive their souls, and angels carry them to the seats ofbliss!)--and some of us are saved."

  "Be not over-quic
k in thy consummations," said Amador. "We are here nowat the third ditch, which is both wide and deep, and no bodies to bridgeit; and seest thou not how the yelling curs are paddling in to opposeus?"

  "Bodies enow!" cried the enchanter. "To-morrow, at midday, when the sunis hottest, ye shall see corses lying along on both sides of the causey,like the corks of a fisherman's net; and at the ditches, they will comeup like ants out of the earth, when a dead caterpillar falls at theirdoor. Yet say I, we shall be saved, and thou shalt see it; for Iremember how thou didst carve the back of that knave that lay on me inthe streets of Mexico; and I will carve a dozen for thee in like manner,ere dawn, on this causeway."

  "Boast no more: such confidence offends heaven; for thy life hangs hereas loosely as another's."

  "The star! the star!" cried Botello, "the dim little star! is it notshining? The morning comes after it, and the eagles are waking on thehills. They will snuff the battle, they will shriek to the vultures, tothe crows, and the gallinazas, and down will they come together to thelake-side and the lake. At eventide, ye will see dead men floating aboutin the wind, and on the breast of each a feeding raven; but devils shallbe perched on the corses of the heathen!"

  "Heaven quit me of thy wild words, for they sound to me unnatural anddamnable, as though spoken by one of those same demons thou thinkestof.--Speak no more.--Look to thy life; for it is in jeopardy."

  "Hast thou not seen me in the battle? and, lo you now, I have not ascratch!" said the enthusiast. "I have fought on the dike, when therewere twelve men of us, good men, bold and true: eleven were slain, buthere am I untouched by flint, unbruised by stone, unhurt by arrow. Ifought three screeching infidels in the water, hard by to where twovaliant cavaliers were pulled off their horses, and so smothered; andyet strangled I my heathens, without horse to help, or friend to say Godspeed me. The life that is charmed is invulnerable; the star shines, theeagle leaves her nest, and Kalidon-Sadabath laughs in thecrystal.--Viva! Lo now, how Sandoval, the valiant, will scatter me yonimps in the boats! He spurs into the water; Catalan the Left-handed,Juan of Salamanca, Torpo the Growler, Ferdinand of Bilboa, and De Olidthe Devil's Ketch, they spring after him!--There they go! Dance,Kalidon! thy brothers shall have souls, to be fetched up from the mud asone rakes up clams of a fish-day. Crowd hell with damnedheathens:--there be more to follow!"

  Never before had such life possessed the spirits of Botello. He stood onthe edge of the causey, shouting loud vivas, as the bold cavaliersrushed among the canoes that blocked up the sluice. The novice, thoughshocked at such untimely exultation, was not able to avoid it; for hewas enfeebled, and Botello held him with a fast and determined gripe.

  "Unhand me, conjurer," he cried, "and I will swim the ditch."

  "Tarry a little, till the path be made clear: thou wilt be murderedelse."

  "I shall be murdered, if I remain here; and so wilt thou.--Hah! did thatshaft hurt thee?"

  "Never a jot; how could it? There flies not the arrow this night, therewaves not the bludgeon, that can shed my blood."

  "Art thou besotted?--God forgive thee!--this is impiety."

  The magician held his peace; for about this time, the Mexicans, knowingthat this band, diminished, disordered, and divided by the ditch intotwo feeble parties, was the sole remaining fragment of oppression, anddetermined that no invader should escape alive, rushed upon the causewayon all sides with such savage violence as seemed irresistible. Those whohad not yet crossed, broke in affright, and flung themselves into thesluice with such speed, that, in a few moments, Don Amador began tothink that he and Botello were the only Christians left.

  "Why dost thou hold me, madman?" he cried. "Let me free."

  "Hark! dost thou not hear?--there are Christian men behind us," saidBotello.--"Courage! What if these devils be thicker than the thoughts ofsin in man's heart, fiercer than conscience, deadlier than remorse; yetshall we pass them unharmed.--Patience! 'Tis the voice of a Spaniard, Itell thee, and behind!"

  "It is in front:--hark! 'tis Don Hernan!"

  "It is behind, and it is the cry of Alvarado! Let us return, and givehim aid. Ho, ye that fly! return! the Tonatiuh is shouting behind us:will ye desert him?--Return, return!"

  Before Amador could remonstrate, the lunatic, for at this moment, morethan any other, Botello seemed to deserve the name, had dragged him tothe top of the dike, where he stood exposed to the view and the shotsof the foe. A thousand arrows were aimed at the pair.

  "Thou art a dead man!" said Amador.

  "Dost thou not see the star?" cried the magician, impatiently. "Not abird hath yet flapped her wing, not an eagle hath fled from her cliff;and my star, my star----"

  As he spoke, he let go his hold of the cavalier, to point exultingly atthe diminutive luminary. At that very instant, an arrow, aimed close athand, struck the neophyte on the breast, entering the mail at a placerent by blows of a previous day, and, without wounding him, forced itsway out through links hitherto uninjured.

  "Hah!" said the cavalier, as the arm of Botello fell heavily on hisshoulder.--"Art thou taught wisdom and humility, at last? Let usdescend, and swim."

  As he moved, he became sensible that the shaft was still sticking in hishauberk. He grasped the feathered notch--the head was in theastrologer's heart. The stout wood snapped, as Botello fell. It struckhim in the moment of his greatest hope. He dropped down a dead man.

  While Amador stood confounded and struck with horror, he was seized, heknew not by whom, and suddenly found himself dragged through the water.Before he could well commend his soul to heaven, for he thought himselfin the hands of the enemy, he beheld himself on firm land, while thevoice of Cortes shouted in his ear,--

  "Rouse thee, and die not like a sleeper! Hold me by the hand, and mygood horse shall drag thee through the melee--I would sooner that my armwere hacked off than that thou shouldst sleep in the accursed lake:enough of thy blood rests in it, with Don Gabriel."

  "Ay," thought the unhappy cavalier, "enough of my blood, and all of myheart. Don Gabriel, De Morlar, Lazaro, Lorenzo, and--ay, and Leila!Better that I were with them!"

  A sudden cry from beyond the ditch interrupted his griefs.

  "Pause, pause!" cried the voice. "Leave me not!--I am nigh!--I amAlvarado!"

  The cavaliers looked back at these words, and beheld a man come flying,as it were, through the air over the ditch, perched on the top of a longChinantlan spear, the bottom of which was hidden in the water. He fellquite clear of the sluice, after making a leap which even his comrades,who had not individually seen it, held impossible for mortal man, andwhich, even to this day, has preserved to the spot the name of theSalto, or leap, of Alvarado.

  The appearance of the Tonatiuh was hailed with shouts of joy; and theSpaniards, receiving it as a good omen, closed their ranks, and slowly,for every inch was contested, fought their way to the shore. When theytrode upon the firm ground, the little star had vanished in the graybeams of morning; and a thick mist rising up from the water like acurtain, concealed from the eyes of the fugitives, along with theaccursed signal-fire, the fatal towers and temples of Mexico.

  Thus closed a night of horror and wo, memorable as the _Noche Triste_,or Melancholy Night, of Mexican history, and paralleled perhaps, inmodern days, if we consider the loss of the retreating army as comparedwith its numbers, only by the famous and most lamentable passage of theBerezina. More than four thousand Tlascalans, and five hundredSpaniards, were left dead on the causeway, or in the lake. Of theprisoners, but two or three escaped; two sons and as many daughters ofMontezuma, with five tributary kings, as well as many princes andnobles, perished. All the cannon were utterly lost, left to rust and rotin the salt flood that had so often resounded to their roar; and of morethan an hundred proud war-steeds that champed the bit so fiercely atmidnight, scarce twenty jaded hacks snuffed the breath of morning.

  With this broken and lamenting force, with foes still hanging on hisrear, and ever flying from his front, Cortes set out to seek a path, bynew and unknown mountains, to the dis
tant Tlascala. He turned his eyesbut once towards the lake,--the pagan city was hidden among the mists,and the shouts of victorious Mexicans came but faintly to the ear. Hebeat his breast, and shedding such tears as belong to defeated hopes andthe memory of the dead, resumed his post at the head of the fugitives.