Part 19 (1/2)

But the boy, with a cry that drew the commiseration of all present, threw himself into Abdalla's arms, and clasping him as if forever, wept on his bosom.

”Thy master waits thee, my child!” said Abdalla, disengaging his hands, and again leading him to Calavar. ”Be wise and faithful, and remember, if not always in thy presence, I shall not often be far from thy side.”

The stripling once more kissed the lips of the Morisco, and then checking his lamentations, as his father left him, wrapped his cloak round his head, as if to hide his tears, and stood by the knight in silence.

While this incident was pa.s.sing, the attention of Cortes was attracted by two Indians differing much in equipment from the warriors of Chinantla, but still of a soldier-like bearing, who, in company with two or three of his chief cavaliers, hastily approached him, and conferred with him through the medium of an interpreter. A cloud came over his countenance; he arose, and smote his hands together with fury.

”What, ho, cavaliers!” he cried; ”we must think of other matters than crying babes and jingling pages. I thank G.o.d for this victory, for never came one more opportunely; and ye, true friends, who have, this moment, protested your allegiance, prepare now to make it more manifest. Sharpen your swords, saddle your horses; for to-day we must march to Tenocht.i.tlan!”

A murmur of surprise ran through the mult.i.tude that thronged the pyramid; and Amador forgot both the boy, and the touch of indignation with which he had seen him transferred to another, though his kinsman, as he pressed towards the excited general.

”Know ye, friends and brothers!” continued Cortes, ”that the devil has, at last, waked up in the infidel city; blood has been shed,--the blood of Spaniards as well as of pagan Mexicans,--and, at this moment, Alvarado is besieged in the palace by the whole hordes of the valley; and he swears to me, by these Tlascalan messengers, that unless I render him speedy a.s.sistance, he must die of starvation, or perish under the sword of the barbarians. So G.o.d speed us to the Venice of the New World, the Babylon of the mountains! The gold shall not be s.n.a.t.c.hed out of our hands, nor the fame blotted from our histories: we have this good day numbers enow to chase the imps from the islands, and to tumble the G.o.ds from their temples; and so will we, in the name of G.o.d and St. Peter, Amen!--G.o.d speed us to Tenocht.i.tlan!”

The shout that answered this pious and valiant rhapsody from the pyramid and the square, gave note of the zeal with which his followers, both old and new, were prepared to second the resolution of their leader.

CHAPTER XXI.

A history of moral epidemics, drawn up by a philosophic pen, would add much to our knowledge of the mysteries of human character and human power, as well as of the probable contingencies of human destiny. In the prosecution of such a subject, besides tracing the development of those little causes which, in former days, have spread their effects from man to man, until whole communities have laboured under a disease resulting in revolutions of the most stupendous nature, we should, doubtless, perceive many of those points of susceptibility and chains of impulsion, which render men the creatures of change; and which, being definitely understood and wisely influenced, might at once put it in the power of philanthropists to govern the operations of reform in such manner as to avoid the evils of ill-considered innovation. Religion and liberty have both come to us as diseases; and the propagation of them throughout the lands of the heathen and the slave, is yet a measure of pain and peril, because we have not considered, or not yet learned, how to address ourselves to infirmity. What man will not say, that the enthusiasm which c.u.mbered the sands of Syria with the blood of the Crusaders, might not, if properly directed, have brought light and happiness to all Europe? or that the fever, which has left the revolution of France a horror on the page of history, might not, under the guidance of a less speculative philosophy, have covered her valleys and filled her cities with security and peace? Enthusiasm comes and goes; and because we know not enough of its weak and governable qualities to direct it in the paths of justice and virtue, it is allowed yet to fill the world with wrong and misery; and, misapplied to the purposes of glory, avarice, and fanaticism, the engine which G.o.d has given us to advance our civilization, is still the preserver of barbarism.

In the facility with which the aboriginal empires of America were subverted by a handful of hotheaded Spaniards, mankind has been willing to find a proof of the savage imperfection of their inst.i.tutions. In the case of Mexico, at least, this testimony is deceptive. If we remember that the tribes of Anahuac, like the other races of America, were struggling against obstacles which did not impede the advancement of other nations, we shall be surprised at the point of civilization they had reached. Heaven had denied all the useful domestic animals to America. The bison, which is perhaps not altogether untameable, roamed only over the prairies and the forest lands of the north, among tribes that were yet in the bottom cla.s.s of humanity. The horse and the a.s.s added not their strength to the labours of man, and the little llama, bearing the burden of its master over the icy Cordilleras of the south, was but a poor subst.i.tute for the camel of the desert, to which it has been compared. Accident, or the knowledge of a thousand years, can alone teach men the use of that metal which will bring him civilization, when gold will not buy it; but the discovery even of the properties of iron will soon follow the invention of an alphabet, however rude or hieroglyphic. The Mexicans could already record and perpetuate their discoveries. Without the aid of iron and domestic animals, they were advancing in refinement. Civilization had dawned, and was shedding a light, constantly augmenting, over their valleys; and, apart from these deficiencies, saving only, perhaps, additionally, in the article of religion, which was not yet purged of its abominations, (and which, _perhaps_, flung more annual victims on the altars than did, in after days, even the superst.i.tion of their conquerors, in Spain,) the Mexican empire was not far behind some of the monarchies of Europe in that method, purpose, and stability of inst.i.tutions, both political and domestic, which are esteemed the evidences of civilization.

A moral epidemic nerved the arm of the invaders, another paralyzed the strength of the invaded. Superst.i.tion covered the Spaniard with armour stronger than his iron mail, and left the Mexican naked and defenceless; and, in addition, the disease of disaffection, creeping from the extremities to the centre of the empire, added its weight to the lethargy of religious fear. When Hernan Cortes set out on his march, the second time, against Tenocht.i.tlan, believing that G.o.d had chosen him to be a scourge to the misbeliever, he knew well that thousands and tens of thousands of malecontents were burning to join his standard. Mexico was the Rome of the New World,--a compound of hostile elements, an union of tribes and states subdued and conjoined by the ambition of a single city, but not yet so closely cemented as to defy the shocks of a Gothic irruption. What might have been the condition of the empire of Montezuma, if the divine ray which conducted the Genoese pilot over the Atlantic, had been reserved for an adventurer of the present day, it is impossible to determine; but, it is quite clear, its condition was such at the time of the invasion, that, had not the indecision of its monarch, founded on such a conjuncture of coincidences as might have confounded a more enlightened prince, entirely repressed its powers of resistance, no armies, raised by the Spanish colonists, or even by their European master, could have penetrated beyond the sh.o.r.es; and the destiny of Cortes would have been written in letters as few and as obscure as those which have recorded the fate of Valdivia among the less refined, but better united Araucanians of Chili.

The heart of the leader was bold, the spirits of his confederates full of resolution and hope; and notwithstanding the evil intelligence that their victims were wakening to a knowledge of their strength, and confirming their audacity in the blood they had already shed, the united followers of Narvaez and Hernan Cortes began their march over the mountains with alacrity and joy.

The novelties and wonders that were each day disclosed, were remarked by no one with more satisfaction than by Don Amador de Leste. He rejoiced when, ascending among the mountains, the fens and sand-hills of the coast were exchanged for picturesque lakes and romantic crags; when the oak woods and pine forests began to stretch their verdant carpets over the hill-sides; when, standing among the colossal ruins of some s.h.i.+vered peak, he cast his eye over glen and valley, glittering with verdure and fertility, far away to the majestic ridges over whose hazy sides tumbled the foamy fall, or crept the lazy cloud, while among their gorges glistened the distant cones of snow. Now he admired the ferns, lifting their arborescent heads, like palms, among other strange trees; now, as he exchanged the luxuriant slopes for those volcanic deserts which strew the base of Perote with lava and cinders, he beheld the broad nopal, and the gigantic maguey, rearing their ma.s.sive leaves over the fissures, while a scorched forest withered and rotted above. Sometimes, while pursuing his weary way over these mountain _paramos_, or deserts, he advanced bewildered, as what seemed a fair and s.p.a.cious lake withdrew its vapoury waters from before him, and revealed a parched and barren expanse of sand. The journey was an alternation of mountain and valley, forest and plain, with sometimes a pleasant little Indian village, and, twice or thrice, a town of no mean magnitude and splendour, rising in pleasant nooks among the horrors of the waste.

Over this rugged region it was not possible to drag the ordnance and heavy stores, with which Cortes was now abundantly provided, without much labour and delay; and it was not until about the time of the summer solstice, more than a month after the fall of Zempoala, that, at the close of a pleasant day, the new invaders laid their eyes, for the first time, on Tlascala,--the capital of that warlike republic, which, for the singular object, as certain historians have conjectured, of preserving an enemy to exercise their armies, as well as to furnish victims for their G.o.ds, the Mexican monarchs permitted to subsist in the heart of their empire.

The slowness of their march was productive of many advantages to those particular individuals, whose adventures it is the object of this history to record. It gave to Don Amador an opportunity to make the acquaintance of many of his new companions, among whom were some not unworthy his friends.h.i.+p. The services of the senor Duero were remembered not without grat.i.tude; and although he reflected, at times, with some unreasonable disgust, that these denoted as much treachery to a friend as humanity to a stranger, the attentions of that cavalier were so sedulously continued, that he could not well refuse him his regard. The taciturn but ever-resolute Sandoval,--the lofty and savage, but not the less courteous De Leon,--the fiery De Olid,--the daring De Ordaz, who, thirsting to accomplish exploits not dreamed of by his confederates, had clambered among the snowy pinnacles and burning caverns of the great Volcan, and had thereby won the right, confirmed to him afterwards by the Spanish king, to carry a fire-mountain for his arms;--these, as well as divers others of no mean renown, so recommended themselves to the esteem of the neophyte, that he dismissed much of his preconceived contempt, and began to consider himself among honourable and estimable cavaliers. But to none of them did his spirit turn with so much confidence and affection as to Don Francisco de Morla, a young hidalgo of his own native town, greatly beloved throughout the army, as a man of honour and tried courage. In this cavalier a modest carriage was united to great gayety of disposition, and a warm heart, governed by gentleness of temper. A milder enthusiasm than that which beset his comrades, softened him to the barbarians, in whose land he was more desirous to consider himself a guest than an enemy; and without lacking any sincerity of devotion to his own faith, he seemed to regard the ferocious superst.i.tions of the natives with less abhorrence than pity.

He had followed at the side of Cortes from Tobasco to Zempoala; and, being as observant as brave, was not only able to acquaint Don Amador with the marvellous events of the invasion,--its perils, sufferings, and triumphs,--but could also instruct him in many of the remarkable characteristics of the land and the people.

The effects of this delay on the knight of Rhodes were equally beneficial, though differently wrought. The paroxysms of lethargy, as well as the fits of distraction, which, as Don Amador learned from the faithful Marco, had been many and ungovernable, whenever the excitement of battle was over, began to vanish under the interest of the society, and the influence of the careful government of the neophyte; who, from long acquaintance with his kinsman's eccentricities, had acquired a power to soothe them. But if such was the influence of Don Amador, the power of the little Moorish page over his moody moments was still more remarkable. The sorrows of Jacinto vanished with the capriciousness of childhood; and perceiving that, in the long and toilsome march, he was never so far separated from his father that he might not look to see him at night-fall, he quickly recovered his spirits. Then, as if to express his grat.i.tude to the good knight who protected him, he studied, with wonderful diligence and address, how best to please and divert him. With a thousand pretty stories, chosen with such discretion and prattled with such eloquence, as often surprised the neophyte;--with countless songs, which no one could sing with more sweetness, or accompany with more skill on the lute,--he would seduce the knight from his gloom, and cheat him out of his melancholy. No dagger shone so brightly as that polished by the hand of Jacinto; no plume of feathers waved with more grace than that set by the young Moor on the casque of Don Gabriel. If a tiger-flower glittered on the path, if a chirimoya put forth its fruit by the wayside, before the knight could turn his eyes upon them, they were in his hand; and Jacinto smiled with delight, as he received the thanks of his patron. The benevolence of Don Gabriel soon changed to affection; he almost smiled--not so much with joy as with love--when, sometimes, the boy sat at his feet at evening, and sang with fervour a hymn to the Virgin; he was troubled if, by chance, Jacinto strayed from his sight; and Don Amador sometimes found himself beset by a sort of jealousy, when he perceived, or thought he perceived, this stripling robbing him of the heart of his kinsman. But to do Don Amador justice, it needed not many suggestions of his honour or pride to rid him of such envious emotions. The zeal of the boy in the service of Calavar, as he confessed, deserved much of his own grat.i.tude; to which should be added many acknowledgements of the satisfaction with which he himself listened to his instrument and voice. If the boy sang with alacrity at the wish of Calavar, he was not less ready to obey the command of the neophyte.

Nevertheless, Don Amador fancied this obedience was rendered less from love than duty: he thought the stripling looked on him with fear, sometimes with dislike; and he was persuaded that (though on occasions of difficulty,--when a thunderstorm met them on a hill, or a torrent roared over the path,--Jacinto chose rather to fly to him for protection, than to remain by the side of the knight,) he was oftener disposed to shrink from his kindness. This troubled Don Amador, for he loved the boy well; and often he said to himself, ”I have saved this urchin from a beating, and, as I may add, from the imminent danger of being speared like a frog;--I have given him gentle words, as also praises for his singing, which is indeed very excellent; I have helped him over divers rivers, and a thousand times offered him a seat on Fogoso's crupper, which it was his own fault, or his own cowardice, he did not accept; in short, I have helped him out of countless troubles, and was, besides, the first to befriend him in these lands--without reckoning what protection I have given to his father, Sidi Abdalla;--and yet the lad loves me not. It is a pity he was not born of Christian parents;--ingrat.i.tude runs in Moorish blood!”

So thought Don Amador, a thousand times; but a thousand times, as his displeasure waxed hot at the unthankfulness of the lad, it was dissipated by some little circ.u.mstance or another. Once, when he was in a talkative mood, and desirous to have Jacinto at his side, he was so displeased at his evident wish to escape, as to vent his displeasure in a reprimand. The boy ran to his side, kissed his hand, and raised his eyes, suffused with tears, to the countenance of his preserver.--The cavalier never rebuked him again. On two or three occasions, also, greatly to his surprise, he caught the stripling weeping; which was the more wonderful, since he seemed not only reconciled, but greatly pleased with his state of easy servitude. On all such occasions, he excused himself with such persuasive simplicity, as not only to remove all suspicions of discontent, but greatly to increase the affection of the neophyte. He was a favourite as well with the men-at-arms, as with their masters; and Don Amador often reflected with wonder, how quickly he had wound himself into the hearts of all. ”If I could persuade myself into a belief of magic,” he pondered, ”I should think him a truer conjurer than Botello. What Botello prophesied concerning Narvaez, is very remarkable; yet, when a man is prognosticating all his life, it is hard if he do not sometimes blunder upon the truth. Truly he blundered wrong about Lorenzo's arm, which is not yet well healed; and I vow to St. John, I thought, one time, it would have gangrened. But as to Jacinto, he has enchanted my knight's heart. I have ever thought _he_ abhorred the Moors, and surely he slew great numbers in the war of the Alpujarras. As for myself, I was born with a natural detestation of the Moorish race; and I never before knew but one that I did not hate at first sight.”

Here he sighed dolefully. ”But this boy I love; yet loves he not me.--I have heard of philters and love-medicines; and surely, as many drugs attack the stomach, brain, and other parts, there is no reason some should not be found to affect the heart!”

But while the neophyte thus marvelled and reasoned, Jacinto stole still deeper into his favour; and at the end of a day's march, Don Amador was oftener found sitting at the door of some Indian cabin, or under the shade of its flower-garden, listening with Calavar to the lays of the young musician, than sharing the martial sports of his companions, or even superintending the warlike exercises of his ward, Fabueno.

CHAPTER XXII.

To those invaders who had not yet witnessed with their own eyes the peculiar wonders of the interior, the approach to Tlascala was full of surprise and interest. As the sun sank, the four hills on which lay the republican city, and the pyramids and towers that crowned them, sent their long shadows over the plain to the feet of the cavaliers; and in the gloom, they beheld a vast mult.i.tude,--the armies of the four tribes which composed the nation, under their several banners, glittering with feathers, and marching in regular divisions to the sound of wild music, as well as a host of women and children waving knots of flowers, and uttering cries of welcome,--advancing to do them honour. Don Amador forgot the valiant appearance of the warriors of Chinantla, while gazing on the superior splendour of the armed Tlascalans. These warlike people, in imitation of their Christian confederates, had learned to divide their confused throngs into squadrons and companies, ranked under separate leaders, and now approached in what seemed well-ordered columns. Bunches of red and white feathers waved among their long locks, and ornamented their wickered s.h.i.+elds; the short tunic of _nequen_, a coa.r.s.e white cloth of the maguey, left their muscular and well-sculptured limbs free for action; and as they strode along, brandis.h.i.+ng their swords of obsidian, (the _maquahuitl_,--a heavy bludgeon, armed on either side with blades of volcanic gla.s.s,) or whirling in their slings those missiles of hardened copper armed with sharp horns, which were capable of piercing the toughest armour,--and ever and anon, mingling their fierce cries with the savage sound of drum and flute, they made a show not more remarkable than glorious. At the head of each division, under his peculiar standard, (the image of some bird of prey, or wild beast, very gorgeously decorated,) marched each chieftain, with the great plume of distinction, or _penacho_, as it was called, rising full two feet above his head, and nodding with a more than barbarous magnificence. Thus appareled and thus displayed, they advanced to the head of the Christian army, and dividing on either side, so as to surround the Spanish host with a guard of honour, each individual, from the naked slinger to the feather-crowned chief, did homage to the Christian general, by touching the earth with his hand, and then kissing the humbled member; while at the same moment, a number of priests with black robes and hair trailing almost to the ground, waved certain pots of incense before him, as if to a demiG.o.d; a mark of distinction which they afterwards extended to the cavaliers that surrounded him. The religious ire of Don Amador de Leste was inflamed, when it became his turn to receive this fragrant compliment; and looking down fiercely upon the innocent censer-bearer, and somewhat forgetting that Castilian was not the language of the realm, he cried;--

”What dost thou mean, thou pagan dog! to smoke me in this idolatrous manner, who am neither a G.o.d nor a saint?”