The Infidel; or, the Fall of Mexico. Vol. II.

"Courage, friends, and quick!" cried Cortes. "The dogs are beset with fear, and will not face us. Ye shall hear other yells in a moment. Haste, valiant cavaliers! haste, men of Spain! and make room for the footmen, who are behind you."

The screams of the barbarians were loud and incessant; but in the midst of the din, as he turned to cheer his cavaliers over the broken passage, Don Hernan's ears were struck by the sound of a Christian voice, calling from the midst of the pagans, with thrilling vehemence,

"Beware! beware! Back to the causey! Beware!"

"Hark!" cried Alderete, who had already passed; "Our Saint calls to us! Let us return!"

"It is a trick of the fiend!" exclaimed Cortes, in evident perturbation of mind. "Come on, good friends, and let us seize vantage-ground; or the dogs will drive us, singly, into the ditches."

"Back! back!" shouted the cavaliers behind – "We are ambushed! We are surrounded!"

Their further exclamations were lost in a tempest of discordant shrieks, coming from the front and the rear, from the heavens above, and, as they almost fancied, from the earth beneath. They looked northward, towards the pyramid, – the whole broad street was filled with barbarians, rushing towards them with screams of anticipated triumph; they looked back to the lake, – the causeway was swarming with armed men, who seemed to have sprung from the waters; to either side, and beheld the canals of the intersecting streets lashed into foam by myriads of paddles; while, at the same moment, the few pagans, who had annoyed them from the housetops, appeared transformed, by the same spell of enchantment, into hosts innumerable, with spirits all of fury and flame.

"What says the king of Castile? What says the king of Castile now?" roared the exulting infidels.

"Santiago! and God be with us!" exclaimed Cortes, waving his hand, with a signal for retreat, that came too late: "Cross but this devil-trap again, and – "

Before he could conclude the vain and useless order, the drum of the emperor sounded upon the pyramid. It was an instrument of gigantic size and horrible note, and was held in no little fear, especially after the events of this day, by the Spaniards, who fabled that it was covered with the skins of serpents. It was a fit companion for the horn of Mexitli; which latter, however, being a sacred instrument, was sounded only on the most urgent and solemn occasions.

The first tap, – or rather peal, for the sound came from the temple more like the roll of thunder than of a drum, – was succeeded by yells still more stunning; and while the cavaliers, retreating, struggled, one by one, to recross the narrow pass, they were set upon with such fury as left them but little hope of escape.

If the rashness of Cortes had brought his friends into this fatal difficulty, he now seemed resolved to atone his fault, by securing their retreat, even although at the expense of his life. It was in vain that those few cavaliers who had succeeded in reaching him, before the onslaught began, besought him to take his chance among them, and recross, leaving them to cover his rear.

"Get ye over yourselves," he cried, with grim smiles, smiting away the headmost of the assailants from the street: "If I have brought ye among coals of fire, heaven forbid I should not broil a little in mine own person. Quick, fools! over and hasten! over and quick! and by and by I will follow you."

For a moment, it seemed as if the terror of his single arm would have kept the barbarians at bay. But, waxing bolder, as they saw his attendants dropping one by one away, they began to close upon him, and his situation became exceedingly critical. He looked over his shoulder, and perceived that his followers threaded their way along the broken dike with less difficulty than he at first feared. The very narrowness of the passage left but little foothold for the enemy; and their attacks, being made principally from canoes, were not such as wholly to dishearten a cavalier, whose steed was as strongly defended by mail as his own body. Encouraged by this assurance, the Captain-General still maintained his post, rushing ever and anon upon the closing herds, and mowing right and left with his trusty blade, while his gallant charger pawed down opposition with his hoofs. Thus he fought, with the mad valour that made his enemies so often deem him almost a demigod, until satisfied that his own attempt to cross the pass could no longer embarrass the efforts of his followers. Then, charging once more upon the pagans, and even with greater fury than before, he wheeled round with unexpected rapidity, and uttering his famous cry, "Santiago and at them!" dashed boldly at the passage.

Seven pagans sprang upon the path. They were armed like princes, and the red fillets of the House of Darts waved among their sable locks.

"The Teuctli shall have the tribute of Mexico!" shouted one, flourishing a battle-axe that seemed of weight sufficient, in his brawny arm, to dash out the charger's brains at a blow. The words were not understood by Cortes; but he recognized at once the visage of the Lord of Death.

"I have thee, pagan!" he cried, striking at the bold barbarian. The blow failed; for one of the others, springing at the charger's head with unexampled audacity, seized him by the bridle, so that he reared backwards, and thus foiled the aim of his rider. The next moment, the Spanish steel fell upon the neck of the daring infidel, killing him on the spot; yet not so instantaneously as to avert a disaster, which it seemed the object of his fury to produce. His convulsive struggles, as he clung, dying, to the rein, drove the steed off the narrow ledge; and thus losing his foothold, the noble animal rolled over into the deep canal, burying the Captain-General in the flood.

"The general! save the general!" shrieked the only Christian, who, in this horrible melée, (for the battle was now universal,) beheld the condition of Cortes, and who, although on foot, and bristling with arrows that had stuck fast in his cotton-armour, and resisted by other weapons at every step, had yet the courage to run to the rescue. It was Gaspar Olea. His visage was yet wan, and expressive of the unusual horror preying upon his mind; yet he rushed forward, as if he had never known a fear. He exalted his voice, while crying for assistance, until it was heard far back upon the causeway; yet he reached the place of Don Hernan's mischance alone. The scene was dreadful: the nobles had flung themselves into the flood, and were dragging the stunned and strangling hero from the steed, which lay upon its side on the rugged and shelving edge of the dike, unable to rise, and perishing with the most fearful struggles; while, all the time, the elated infidels expressed their triumph with shouts of frantic joy.

"Courage, captain! be of good heart, señor!" exclaimed the Barba-Roxa, striking down one of the captors at a single blow: "Courage! for we have good help nigh," he continued, attacking a second with the same success: "Courage, señor, courage!"

No Mexican helm of dried skins, and no breast-plate of copper, could resist the machete of a man like Gaspar. Yet his first success was caused rather by the Mexicans being so intently occupied with their captive, that they thought of nothing else, than by any miraculous exertion of skill and prowess. He slew two, before they dreamed of attack, and he mortally wounded a third, ere the others could turn to drive him back. A fourth rushed upon him, before he could again lift up his weapon, and grasping him in his arms, with the embrace of a mountain bear, leaped with him into the canal.

There were now but two left in possession of Cortes; yet his resistance even against these was ineffectual. His sword had dropped from his hand; a violent blow had burst his helmet, and confounded his brain; and he had been lifted from the water, already half suffocated. Yet he struggled as he could, and catching one of his foes by the throat, he succeeded in overturning him into the water, and there grappled with him among the shallows. The remaining barbarian, yelling for assistance, flung himself upon the pair; and though twenty Spaniards, headed by Bernal Diaz and the hunchback, were now within half as many paces, Cortes would have perished where he lay, had not assistance arose from an unexpected quarter.

Among the vast numbers who came crowding from the city over the broken passage, were several who knew, by the cry of the seventh noble, that Malintzin was in his hands; and they rushed forward, to insure his capture. The foremost and fleetest of these was distinguished from the rest by a frame of towering height; and, had there been a Spaniard by to notice him, would have been still more remarkable from the fact, that he uttered all his cries in good, expressive Castilian. He bore a Spanish weapon, too, and his first act, as he flung himself into the ditch where Cortes was drowning, was to strike it through the neck of the uppermost noble. His next was to spurn the other from the breast of the general, whom he raised to his feet, murmuring in his ear,

"Be of good heart, señor! for you are saved."

What more he would have said and done can only be imagined; for, at that moment, the Barba-Roxa rushed out of the ditch, followed close at hand by the hunchback, Bernal Diaz, and others, and seeing his commander, as he thought, in the hands of a foeman, he lifted his good sword once again, and smote him over the head, crying,

"Down, infidel dog! and viva for Spain and our general!"

At this moment, there rushed up a crew of fresh combatants, Spaniards from the rear and infidels from the front. But before they closed upon him entirely, the Barba-Roxa caught sight of the man he had struck down, and beheld, in his pale and quivering aspect, the features of Juan Lerma.

The unhappy wretch, thus beholding the beloved youth, with his own eyes, a leaguer and helpmate of the infidel, and punished to death, as it seemed, by his hand, set up a scream wildly vehement, and broke from the group of Spaniards, who now surrounded Cortes, endeavouring to drag him in safety over the pass. The exile had been seen by others as well as Gaspar, and many a ferocious cry of exultation burst from their lips, as they saw him fall.

Meanwhile, Gaspar, distracted in mind, and dripping with blood, for he had not escaped from the ditch and the fierce embrace of his fourth antagonist, without many severe wounds, endeavoured to retrace his steps to the spot where Juan had fallen. It was occupied by infidels, who drove him into the ditch, where his legs were grasped by a drowning Mexican, who raised himself a little from the water, and displayed, between his neck and shoulder, a yawning chasm, rather than a wound, from which the blood, at every panting expiration of breath, rolled out hideously in froth and foam. It was the Lord of Death, thus struck by Juan Lerma, as he lay upon the breast of Cortes, and now perishing, but still like a warrior of the race of America. He clambered up the body of Gaspar, for it could hardly be said, that he rose upon his feet; and seeing that he grasped a Christian soldier, he strove to utter once more a cry of battle. The blood foamed from his lips, as from his wound; and his voice was lost in a suffocating murmur. Yet, with his last expiring strength, he locked his arms round the neck of the Spaniard, now almost as much spent as himself, and falling backwards, and writhing together as they fell, they rolled off into the deep water, where the salt and troubled flood wrapped them in a winding-sheet, already spread over the bosoms of thousands.

CHAPTER XVI

If it be indeed permitted to disembodied spirits to look back to the world they have left, and to read the hearts they have, in life, mistaken, then should that of Gaspar Olea have seen, that his unlucky blow fell not upon the head of an apostate, and that it had not slain his friend and companion of the wilderness. Even Gaspar's strength failed to pierce entirely through a morion composed of tiger-skins and thickly-padded escaupil; and though the violence of the blow forced Juan to the earth, and left him for a time almost insensible, it had done him no serious injury. It robbed him, to be sure, of the dearly coveted opportunity of escape, which the lucky service he had done the Captain-General would have rendered of still more inestimable value; but it yet served the good purpose, since he did not escape, of removing from the minds of the Mexicans many fierce doubts and suspicions, with which they beheld him rush into the melée.

He was dragged back upon the causeway, and soon found himself in the arms of the king.

"My brother is brave and true," said the young monarch, tearing from his own hair the symbols of military renown, and fastening them to Juan's. "The people have seen his bravery, and now they know him well. Did he not lay his hands upon Malintzin? and was not Malintzin his prisoner, until the red lion with the white and bloody face, struck my brother with his sword? Is this a good deed, men of Mexico?"

"The king's brother is valiant!" exclaimed many nobles, who surrounded the monarch with a guard of honour, eyeing the outcast with reverence.

Their words stung Juan to the soul; for he abhorred his deception, though still urged, by his desire of escaping, to carry it on.

"Why do we stand here idle?" he cried, with affected zeal: "Is not Malintzin yet upon the causeway? My heart is very strong; I will look him in the face again."

At this proof of courage and apparent devotion to their cause, the infidels shouted with approbation. But the king took him by the arm, and withdrawing him a little, said,

"My brother will go now to the palace. – What is this that Azcamatzin says of my brother? He says that my brother pierced the Lord of Death with a sword, and pulled Malintzin out of his hands! This foolish thing of Azcamatzin has made many angry, and they say, 'Let us know; for perhaps the Great Eagle is for Malintzin.' Therefore my brother shall not go from the king, till Azcamatzin thinks better things; for many hurts have made him mad."

"Think not of this," said Juan, eagerly, for every moment the shouts of the Christians were at a greater distance, and he feared that every step of their retreat was one more link taken from his chain of hope.

"My brother," said Guatimozin, interrupting him, "may yet fight the battles of the king, and be the king's friend. It is said to me, by a messenger, that the ships have broken the wall of my garden, and that Spaniards are slaying the women."

"Ha!" cried Juan, his own agitation at this information, contrasting strongly with the frigid placidity of the king.

"Why should the king think of his women – of his wife and his little boy, – when he is taking the Spaniards, like birds in a net? Let my brother think for the king, for the king thinks for his people. My brother's arm is yet strong – he will fight for Zelahualla, and for her sister, the queen."

A thousand contrary emotions tore the breast of Juan, yet his thoughts were fixed upon the garden. He remembered what counsel he had given to the maidens, to sally forth, at any moment, when a trumpet should be heard among the trees; and he conceived the danger in which they would be involved, among a troop of enraged and merciless soldiers. He needed no second exhortation to run to their assistance; and following Techeechee, who remained at his side, he made his way through the multitudes that thronged all the great streets, with a rapidity that, at any other period, would have even surprised himself. He passed the great square of the pyramid, the Wall of Serpents, and the House of Skulls, from which, had he been so minded, he might have looked, at the same moment, upon the three battles raging upon the three several causeways, (for it was here the dikes terminated;) he passed the house of Axajacatl, in which the Spaniards, a year since, had endured those assaults which terminated only in their expulsion from Tenochtitlan; and he trod again upon the vast market square of Tlatelolco, the northern side of which was bounded by the walls of Guatimozin's palace and garden. Upon this square he beheld many infidels, shouting at once with wrath and triumph, a party of whom bore in their arms a Christian prisoner, bound hand and foot, over whom the others seemed to exult, piercing the very heavens with their clamorous cries.

Heart-sick, for well he knew the fate in store for the captive, and struck with foreboding fear, he rushed over the fosse that laved the garden wall, and was now choked up by the falling of a portion of its extent, washed and undermined by the heavy rains, and passed into the pleasant wilderness within. It was a theatre of wild disorder and affright: men were seen rushing to and fro in great numbers, and their cries were re-echoed by the yells of a thousand beasts of prey, famished with hunger, or alarmed by the tumult.

He perceived that the water-wall was rent at one of the chief sally-ports, as if battered by cannon; and he had no doubt, if it were not yet over, that some terrific combat had but lately taken place in the garden.

He came too late to share in it, but as he ran down to the water-side, he beheld four brigantines making their way with oars, for the atmosphere was breathless, towards the dike of Tepejacac, which was itself a scene of furious conflict. The vessels were surrounded by countless canoes and piraguas, some of which seemed to be manned by Tlascalans; for while the brigantines were seen contending with this aquatic army, it was equally manifest that a battle was raging also among the canoes themselves.

He gave but little heed to this spectacle, nor did he scarcely note that among the many human corses which strewed the lower part of the garden, there were several with the visages of Spaniards.

His attention was arrested by a yelping cry; and looking round, he beheld the dog Befo lying upon the ground, with an iron sword-blade, broken off near the hilt, sticking quite through his body. But this painful sight was forgotten, when, having approached, he beheld three or four barbarians raising from the earth what seemed the dead body of Magdalena. There were indeed blood-drops upon her hollow and ghastly cheeks; and when he rushed up among the Indians, they exclaimed,

"The Teuctlis killed her, the men of Malintzin with beards, – they killed the bright-eyed lady, and they killed the daughter of Montezuma!" And then they added their wild lamentations to the mourning cries of Juan.

Distracted himself, as indeed were all the infidels, he could learn nothing but that the Teuctlis, or Spaniards, had suddenly burst into the garden, and besides slaughtering all that opposed them, in their attempt to reach the palace, had killed, or carried off, as seemed much more probable, the princess Zelahualla.

The misery that took possession of his heart at these evil tidings, he smothered within its secret recesses, or strove to forget it in the contemplation of his sister – for so his heart acknowledged her. He bore her to the palace, and gave her in charge to the maidens, who, whatever was their fright, were not unmindful of the duties of humanity. He then, in much of that sullen despair that had oppressed him in the prison of Tezcuco, returned to the garden and to Befo, whom he had left in suffering, and drawing the sword-blade from his body, he examined it with stern curiosity, as if hoping to penetrate the mystery of the whole unhappy transaction, from such records as it might furnish. His scrutiny was vain: it was a blade without any name, by which he might be enabled to guess at its owner. He snapped it under his foot, and muttered a malediction upon the unknown foe:

"Cursed be he that did this deed," he cried; "for he slew the only protector of a feeble and wretched woman."

He then carried Befo, almost with as much tenderness as he had bestowed upon Magdalena, into the palace, and stanching his wounds as he could, deposited him upon his own couch.

CHAPTER XVII

The effects of this battle upon the Spaniards were disastrous in the extreme. The assault, as has been mentioned, and as was anticipated, was made upon all the causeways at once; and, on all, successfully repelled, though an ambuscade was only attempted upon the dike of Iztapalapan. It seemed as if the Mexicans, thinned as their numbers had been, by so many conflicts, and now the remainder absolutely perishing under want and pestilence, had collected all their energies for one final blow. It was first successful in the quarter attacked by the Captain-General, in consequence of his surprising infatuation; and victory soon after followed in the others. The Spaniards fled, so completely broken and so utterly defeated, that the priests, in the wild hope of completing their destruction at once, even drew the sacred horn from the tabernacle of Mexitli, and added its dreadful uproar to the thunder of the great tymbal. This was always regarded by the Mexicans as the voice of the god himself, and was never sounded without filling them with a delirium of fury, utterly inconceivable. It was not more maddening to the infidels than frightful to the Spaniards; who remembered the horrors of the Noche Triste, augmented, if not altogether caused by its unearthly roar. The Spaniards were driven back to their strong and defensible stations at the gates; the dikes were lost; and had not famine now fought for them, they must have given up the siege in despair. Nearly an hundred Spaniards, and many thousand Indian allies, were killed; the fleets of canoes and piraguas were destroyed, and several brigantines wholly ruined.

But the miseries of the besiegers were not confined to the events of the day. Night opened to them a scene of grief and horror. The whole mass of the pyramid, always a striking object, was suddenly illuminated by a myriad of flambeaux, so that it blazed like a mountain of solid fire. The night was clear, and the peculiarly rarified and transparent atmosphere of Mexico rendering objects distinct at a much greater distance than in other lands, the Spaniards, looking from the towers at the gates, could plainly perceive some of their late fellow-soldiers, stripped naked and their hands bound behind them, driven up the stairs from platform to platform, by the blows and other indignities of their cruel captors. On the summit of the pyramid, they were unbound, their heads adorned with plumes, and great waving penachos placed in their hands, with which they were forced to dance round the ever-burning censers of the gods, in the midst of shouting pagans, until dragged away by the priests and immolated, at a signal blasted from the sacred horn, upon the stone of sacrifice. The station of Alvarado on the dike of Tacuba, was nearer than either of the others; and his men, while they wept and prayed over a spectacle so appalling, even fancied they could distinguish the figures and faces of particular individuals, and hear their cries to heaven. Many were the wretches who had yielded themselves alive into the hands of the foe; and for ten nights in succession, the blazing temple echoed to their groans, and their garrisoned friends were compelled to be the witnesses of their torments.

But this triumph was the last of the pagans. All supplies of corn from the lake-sides were cut off, and they were known to be famishing; and besides, as if heaven were willing to assist even the arms of rapacity, to subdue a race, all whose institutions were more or less infected by the spirit of blood that brutalized their religion, the rainy season was brought to a close preternaturally early, and they were left without water. The Spaniards recovered their spirits, and collecting again vast bands of confederates, recommenced the siege, advancing with prudence, and destroying every thing as they advanced, and not only regaining all they had lost, but even effecting, despite all resistance, a secure lodgment upon the island, from their several points of attack. The Mexicans still fought; but it was with bodies emaciated and enfeebled, and with hearts subdued by despair. The three divisions of besiegers met upon the great square, blew up the Huitzompan, and all the temples within the circuit of the Wall of Serpents, which they fortified and preserved; and then, still demolishing houses as they advanced, they pushed on until they reached the great market-place of Tlatelolco; and thus hemmed in upon the narrow peninsula the unfortunate king of Mexico, and the few shattered remnants of his army.