The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins: A Tale of the Conquest of Mexico
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CHAPTER VII.
HOW THE HOLY MOTHER HELPS HER CHILDREN.
I doubt not my reader is gentle, good, and tender-hearted, easily movedby tales of suffering, and nothing delighting in them; and that, withsuch benignant qualities of heart and such commendable virtues of taste,he will excuse me if I turn from following the young Spaniard, who hasnow come to be temporarily a hero of my story, and leave to theimagination the details of the long round of misery he endured in hiswanderings through the interior of the old Cu.
Pathologists will admit they are never at fault or loss in the diagnosisof cases of hunger and thirst. Whether considered as disease oraccident, their marks are unmistakable, and their symptoms beforedissolution, like their effects afterwards, invariable. Both may besimply described as consumption of the body by its own organs; preciselyas if, to preserve life, one devoured his own flesh and drank his ownblood. Not without reason, therefore, the suicide, what time he thinksof his crime, always, when possible, chooses some mode easier and moreexpeditious. The gradations to the end are, an intense desire for foodand drink; a fever, accompanied by exquisite pain; then delirium;finally, death. It is in the second and third stages that thepeculiarities show most strangely; then the mind cheats the body withvisions of Tantalus. If the sufferer be thirst-stricken, he is permittedto see fountains and sparkling streams, and water in draughts andrivers; if he be starving, the same mocking fancy spreads Apician feastsbefore his eyes, and stimulates the intolerable misery by the sight andscent of all things delicious and appetizing. I have had personalexperience of the anguish and delusions of which I speak. I know whatthey are. I pray the dear Mother, who has us all in holy care, to keepthem far from my gentle friends.
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A day and night in the temple,--another day and night,--morning of thethird day, and we discover the page sitting upon the last of a flight ofsteps. No water, no food in all that time. He slept once; how long, hedid not know. A stone floor does not conduce to rest even where there issleep. All that time, too, the wearisome search for the door; gropingalong the wall, feeling the way ell by ell; always at fault and lostutterly. His condition can be understood almost without the aid ofdescription. He sits on the step in a kind of stupor; his cries for helphave become a dull, unmeaning moan; before him pass the fantasies offood and water; and could the light--the precious, beautiful light, solong sought, so earnestly prayed and struggled for--fall upon him, weshould have a sad picture of the gay youth who, in the market, sportedhis velvet cloak and feathered bonnet, and half disdainfully flashed theroyal signet in the faces of the wondering merchants,--the picture of adespairing creature whom much misery was rapidly bringing down to death.
And of his thoughts, or, rather, the vagaries that had taken the placeof thoughts,--ah, how well they can be divined! Awhile given to thefar-off native land, and the loved ones there,--land and loved onesnever again to be seen; then to the New World, full of all thingsstrange; but mostly to his situation, lost so hopelessly, suffering sodreadfully. There were yet ideas of escape, reawakenings of the energyof despair, but less frequent every hour; indeed, he was becomingsubmissive to the fate. He prayed, also; but his prayers had morerelation to the life to come than to this one. To die without Christianrite, to leave his bones in such unhallowed place! O, for one shrievingword from Father Bartolome!
In the midst of his wretchedness, and of the sighs and sobs and tearswhich were its actual expression, suddenly the ceiling overhead and allthe rugged sides of the passage above the line of the upper step of thestairway at the foot of which he was sitting were illumined by a faintred glow of light. He started to his feet. Could it be? Was it not adelusion? Were not his eyes deceiving him? In the darkness he had seenbanquets, and the chambers thereof, and had heard the gurgle of pouringwine and water. Was not this a similar trick of the imagination? or hadthe Blessed Mother at last heard his supplications?
He looked steadily; the glow deepened. O wondrous charm of life! To be,after dying so nearly, brought back with such strength, so quickly, andby such a trifle!
While he looked, his doubts gave way to certainty. Light therewas,--essential, revealing, beautiful light. He clasped his hands, andthe tears of despair became tears of joy; all the hopes of his being,which, in the dreary hours just passed, had gone out as stars go behinda spreading cloud, rose up whirring, like a flock of startled birds,and, filling all his heart, once more endued him with strength of mindand body. He passed his hands across his eyes: still the light remained.Surer than a fantasy, good as a miracle, there it was, growing brighter,and approaching, and that, too, by the very passage in which he wasstanding; whether borne by man or spirit, friend or foe, it wouldspeedily reach the head of the steps, and then--
Out of the very certainty of aid at hand, a reaction of feeling came. Asingular caution seized him. What if those bearing the light wereenemies? Through the glow dimly lighting the part of the passage belowthe stairway, he looked eagerly for a place of concealment. Actually,though starving, the prospect of relief filled him with all theinstincts of life renewed. A door caught his eye. He ran to the cell,and hid, but in position to see whomsoever might pass. He had nopurpose: he would wait and see,--that was all.
The light approached slowly,--in his suspense, how slowly! Gradually theglow in the passage became a fair illumination. There were no sounds offeet, no forerunning echoes; the coming was noiseless as that ofspirits. Out of the door, nevertheless, he thrust his head, in time tosee the figure of a man on the upper step, bareheaded, barefooted, halfwrapped in a cotton cloak, and carrying a broad wooden tray or waiter,covered with what seemed table-ware; the whole brought boldly into viewby the glare of a lamp fastened, like a miner's, to his forehead.
The man was alone; with that observation, Orteguilla drew back, andwaited, his hand upon his dagger. He trembled with excitement. Here wasan instrument of escape; what should he do? If he exposed himselfsuddenly, might not the stranger drop his burden, and run, and in therace extinguish the lamp? If he attacked, might he not have to kill? Yetthe chance must not be lost. Life depended upon it, and it was,therefore, precious as life.
The man descended the steps carefully, and drew near the cell door.Orteguilla held his breath. The stepping of bare feet became distinct. Agleam of light, almost blinding, flashed through the doorway, and,narrow at first but rapidly widening, began to wheel across the floor.At length the cell filled with brightness; the stranger was passing thedoor, not a yard away.
The young Spaniard beheld an old man, half naked, and bearing a tray.That he was a servant was clear; that there was no danger to beapprehended from him was equally clear: he was too old. These were theobservations of a glance. From the unshorn, unshaven head and face, theeyes of the lad dropped to the tray; at the same instant, the smell ofmeat, fresh from the coals, saluted him, mixed with the aroma ofchocolate, still smoking, and sweeter to the starving fugitive thanincense to a devotee. Another note: the servant was carrying a meal tosomebody, his master or mistress. Still another note: the temple wasinhabited, and the inhabitants were near by. The impulse to rush out andsnatch the tray, and eat and drink, was almost irresistible. The urgencythere is in a parched throat, and in a stomach three days empty, cannotbe imagined. Yet he restrained himself.
The lamp, the food, the human being--the three things mostdesirable--had come, and were going, and the page still undeterminedwhat to do. Instinct and hunger and thirst, and a dread of the darkness,and of the death so lately imminent, moved him to follow, and he obeyed.He had cunning enough left to take off his boots. That done, he steppedinto the passage, and, moving a few paces behind, put himself in theguidance of the servant, sustained by a hope that daylight and libertywere but a short way off.
For a hundred steps or more the man went his way, when he came to agreat flat rock or flag cumbering the passage; there he stopped, and setdown the tray; and taking the lamp from the fastening on his head, heknelt by the side
of a trap, or doorway, in the floor. Orteguillastopped at the same time, drawing, as a precaution, close to the leftwall. Immediately he heard the tinkling of a bell, which he took to be asignal to some one in a chamber below. His eyes fixed hungrily upon thesavory viands. He saw the slave fasten a rope to the tray, and begin tolower it through the trap; he heard the noise of the contact with thefloor beneath: still he was unresolved. The man arose, lamp in hand, andwithout more ado, as if a familiar task were finished, started inreturn. And now the two must come within reach of each other; now thepage must discover himself or be discovered. Should he remain? Was notretreat merely going back into the terrible labyrinth? He debated; andwhile he debated, chance came along and took control. The servant,relieved of his load, walked swiftly, trying, while in motion, toreplace the lamp over his forehead; failing in that, he stopped; and asfortune ordered, stopped within two steps of the fugitive. Amoment,--and the old man's eyes, dull as they were, became transfixed;then the lamp fell from his hand and rolled upon the floor, and with ascream, he darted forward in a flight which the object of his fear couldnot hope to outstrip. The lamp went out, and darkness dropped from theceiling, and leaped from the walls, reclaiming everything.
Orteguilla stood overwhelmed by the misfortune. All the former horrorsreturned to plague him. He upbraided himself for irresolution. Whyallow the man to escape? Why not seize, or, at least, speak to him? Thechance had been sent, he could now see, by the Holy Mother; would shesend another? If not, and he died there, who would be to blame buthimself? He wrung his hands, and gave way to bitter tears.
Eventually the unintermitting craving of hunger aroused him by a livelysuggestion. The smell of the meat and chocolate haunted him. What hadbecome of them? Then he remembered the ringing of the bell, and theirdisappearance through the trap. There they were; and more,--somebody wasthere enjoying them! Why not have his share? Ay, though he fought forit! Should an infidel feed while a Christian starved? The thought lenthim new strength. Such could not be God's will. Then, as often happens,indignation begat a certain shrewdness to discern points, and put themtogether. The temple was not vacant, as he at first feared. Indeed, itstenants were thereabouts. Neither was he alone; on the floor below, hehad neighbors. "Ave Maria!" he cried, and crossed himself.
His neighbors, he thought,--advancing to another conclusion,--hisneighbors, whoever they were, had communication with the world;otherwise, they would perish, as he was perishing. Moreover, the oldservant was the medium of the communication, and would certainly comeagain. Courage, courage!
A sense of comfort, derived from the bare idea of neighborship withsomething human, for the time at least, lulled him into forgetfulness ofmisery.
Upon his hands and knees, he went to the great stone, and to the edge ofthe trap.
"_Salvado! Soy salvado!_ I am saved!" And with tears of joy herapturously repeated the sweet salutation of the angels to the Virgin._The space below was lighted!_
The light, as he discovered upon a second look, came through curtainsstretched across a passage similar to the one he was in, and was faint,but enough to disclose two objects, the sight of which touched him witha fierce delight,--the tray on the floor, its contents untouched, and arope ladder by which to descend.
He lost no time now. Placing his dagger between his teeth, he swung off,though with some trouble, and landed safely. At his feet, then, lay arepast to satisfy the daintiest appetite,--fish, white bread, chocolate,in silver cups and beaten into honeyed foam, and fruits from vine andtree. He clasped his hands and looked to Heaven, and, as became a piousSpaniard, restrained the maladies that afflicted him, while he said theold Paternoster,--dear, hallowed utterance taught him in childhood bythe mother who, but for this godsend, would have lost him forever. Thenhe stooped to help himself, and while his hand was upon the bread thecurtain parted, and he saw, amidst a flood of light pouring in over herhead and shoulders, a girl, very young and very beautiful.