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

"Ay, indeed!" said the cavalier, laughing; "was Bernal of this mind, then? He asked thee this question? By my faith, have I not killed as many Indians as another? Have I not encountered as many risks, and endured as many knocks? Out upon the misbelieving caitiff! he asked thee this question? Thy reply now? pr'ythee, thy learned answer to this foolish interrogatory? What saidst thou, now, in good truth?"

"In good truth, then," replied Najara, with a sour gravity, "I told him, I had it, upon excellent authority, though I believed it not myself, that thou wert a cavalier, equal to any, in the virtues of a soldier, – bold, quick, and resolute, – cool and fiery, – a lover of peril, a relisher of blood; one that had won more gold than he could pocket, more slaves than he could make marketable, and more renown than he cared to boast of; a prudent captain, yet a better follower, because of the ardour of his temper, which was, indeed, upon occasion, so hot, that, sometimes, it was feared, he might take Cortes by the beard, for being too faint-hearted."

"Oh, thou rogue, thou merry thing of vinegar, thou hast belied me!" cried Guzman; "thou knowest, I would sooner eat my arms, – lance, buckler, and all, – than lift my hand against the General: I would, by my troth, for I love him. But come, now, – thou saidst all this, upon good authority? You jest, you rogue, – we are all jealous and envious. We have good words from none but Cortes. – What authority?"

"Marry, upon that of thine own lips," replied the hunchback; "for I know not who else could have invented so liberally."

"Out!" cried the cavalier, somewhat intemperately; "you presume – "

"Ha! ha! a truce, a truce, Don Francisco!" exclaimed Villafana; "a fair hit – no quarrelling; for captain though thou be, thou knowest I am sworn Alguazil, as well as head-turnkey, chief executioner, and the Lord knows what beside. No wrath among friends – A very justifiable, fair hit! Najara must have his ways. Thou wilt see, by and by, how he will lay me by the ears. Come, Corcobado, begin. – He who plays with colts, must look to be kicked. – Come now, be sharp, fear not; I am a dog, and love thee all the better for cudgelling."

"I know thou art, and I know thou dost," said Najara; "for I remember, that ever since Don Hernan had thee scourged, for abusing the Tlascalan woman, thou hast been a more loving hound than any other of the Velasquez faction."

"Fuego de dios! Pho, – Good! Ha! ha! very good!" exclaimed Villafana, laughing, though somewhat disconcerted. "I confess the beating; but then I have a back to endure it – Hah! A Roland for an Oliver, a kick for a buffet! Thou liest, though, as to the cause: 'twas for taking the old senator they call Maxiscatzin by the beard, when he had given me the first sop of the Maguey-liquor. I was drunk, sirrah, broke rules, disobeyed orders, and so deserved my guerdon. Wilt thou be satisfied? By this hand, I grumble not. I should trounce thee for the like misdemeanour, – that is, if I could find whereon to lay my scourge. Aha! wilt thou pull noses with me? Come, what saidst thou of me to Bernal? I bear thee no malice, man; – no, no more than the general. – Drunk indeed? He should have struck my head off!"

"I told him," said Najara, "that thou wert, in some sense, worthy to be chronicled."

"Many thanks for that," said Villafana, "were it only on account of the beating."

"For though thou wert as naturally given to grovelling as a football, yet wouldst thou as certainly mount, at every kick, as that same bag of wind."

"Bravo! bravo!" cried the Alguazil, with a roar of delight, in which he was joined by Guzman; "thou art as witty and unsavoury as ever, and thou dingest me about the ears as with a pine-tree. What else, cielo mio? what else saidst thou to Bernal?"

"Simply, that thou hadst more boldness than would be thought of thee, more dreams than would be reckoned of thy dull brain, and such skill at rising, notwithstanding the clog of thy folly, that it was manifest thou wouldst not be content, till thy feet were two fathoms from the earth, and thy crown as near to the oak-bough as the rope would."

"Oh, fu! fy!" said Villafana, "hast thou no better trope for hanging? Have you done? Am I despatched? Get thee to better game, then; and see thou art more metaphoric. Hast thou no verjuice for our good friend here, Camarga?"

The individual thus alluded to, though giving his attention to the conversation, had maintained a profound and unsympathetic silence during all. He stood leaning against the tree, folding over his breast, and even wrapping about his chin, the long cloak of striped cotton cloth – the product of the country, – the bright and gaudy colours of which contrasted unnaturally with the sickly hue of his visage. Throughout all, when not particularly noticed, his countenance wore an expression of as much mental as bodily pain; but when thus accosted by Villafana, it changed at once, and in a remarkable degree, from gloom to good-humour, and even to apparent gayety. It is true, that, at the moment when his name was pronounced, he started quickly with a sort of nervous agitation; and a sudden rush of blood into his face, mingling with its bilious stain, covered it with the swarthiest purple: but this immediately passed away – perhaps before any of his comrades had noted it.

"I cry you mercy, señor Villafana," he said; "I am as unworthy to be made the butt of wit as the subject of history. My ambition runs not beyond my conscience; the month that I have spent in this land, – and it is scarce a month, – has been wasted in disease and idleness. A year hence, I shall be more worthy your consideration. But tell me, good friends, is it true, as you say, that yonder worthy soldier hath been appointed the historian of your brave exploits? By mine honour, his head seems to me better fitted to receive blows than to remember them, and his hand to repay them rather than to record."

"He is, truly," said Villafana, "our Immortality, as we call him, or our Historian, as he denominates himself. As to his appointment, it comes of his own will, and not of our grace; but we quarrel not with his humours. He conceives himself called to be our chronicler. Who cares? He can do no harm. I am told, he doth greatly abuse Cortes, especially in the matter of the slaves, and the gold we fetched from Mexico in the Flight. By'r lady, I have heard some sharp things said about that."

"You said them yourself," muttered Najara. "It is well you are in favour."

"Ay, by my troth," cried Guzman; "Cuidado, Villafana! Don Hernan will be angry. Good luck to you! You are the lion's small dog: seize not his majesty by the nose."

"Pho, friends! here's a coil," said the Alguazil, stoutly: "Don Hernan knows me: I will say what I think. I have maintained to his face, that there was foul work with the gold, and that we have been cheated of our shares; I have told him what ill work was made of both Repartimientos, – the partition of the slaves, – at Segura-de-la-Frontera, and here at Tezcuco, – scurvy, knavish work, señores: One may fetch angels to the brand, but, ay de mi! the iron turns them into beldames!"

"Ay, there is some truth in that," said Guzman, a little thoughtfully. "No man honours Don Hernan more than myself; and yet did he suffer me to be choused out of the princess I fetched from Iztapalapan."

"Ay, the whole army witnessed it, and there was not a man who did not cry shame on you for taking it so – "

"Good-humouredly," interrupted the cavalier. "Rub me as thou wilt for a jest, Villafana; but touch me not in soberness."

"Pshaw! can I not abuse thee as a friend, without the apology of a grin? Thou hadst been used basely, had not Cortes made up the loss with Lerma's horse. I have heard thee complain as much as another; and even now, thou art as bitter as any against this mad scheme of the ships. Demonios! our general will have us rot in the lake, like our friends of the Noche Triste!"

"Thou errest," said the cavalier, gravely. "I have changed my mind, on this subject: I perceive we shall conquer this city."

"Wilt thou be sworn to that?" exclaimed the Alguazil, earnestly. "I tell thee, as a friend, we are all mad, and we are deluded to death. If we launch the brigantines, we are but gods' meat – food for idols and cannibals. We were fools to come from Tlascala. Would to Heaven we had departed with Duero! We are toiled on to our fate, to make Cortes famous: he will win his renown out of our corses. What sayst thou, Najara, mi Corcobado, mi Hacedor de Tropos?"

"Even that the will-o-th'-wisps, the Ignes-fatui, rising out of our decaying bodies, will forsake each honest man's corse, to gather, glory-wise, about the head of our leader. – Is that to thy liking?"

"Marvellously! Thy wit explains and gives tongue to my thoughts. Thou seest things clearly – I am glad thou art of my way of thinking. This is our destiny, if we continue our insane enterprise."

"A pest upon thee, clod!" cried the Hunchback; "I did but supply thee a simile, in pity of thine own barrenness. I of thy way of thinking? Dost imagine I will hang with thee? I see things clearly? Marry, I do. Give tongue to thy thoughts? Ratsbane!"

As Najara spoke, he bent his sour and piercing looks on the Alguazil; who, much to the surprise of Camarga, grew pale, and snatched at his dagger, in an ecstasy of rage, greatly disproportioned to the offence, if such there could be in what seemed idle and unmeaning sarcasms. The wrath of Villafana, however, was checked by the mirth of the cavalier, Don Francisco, who exclaimed with the triumph of retaliation,

"A fair knock, by St. Dominic! Art thou laid by the heels, now? Sirrah Alguazil, if thou showest but an inch more of thy dudgeon, I will have thee in thine own stocks, – ay, faith, and on thine own block, into the bargain. Forgettest thou the decree? Death, man, very mortal death to any one who draws weapon upon a christian comrade: thy hidalgo blood, (if thou hast any, as thou art ever boasting,) will not save thee. Pho! thou art notoriously known to be a plotter. Why shouldst thou be angry?"

"Hombre! I am not angry now: but, methinks, Corcobado hath the art of inflaming whatever is combustible in man's body. A good friend were he for a poor man, in the winter. Why, thou bitter, misjudging, remorseless, male-shrew, here is my hand, in token I will not maul thee. Why dost thou ever persecute me with thy hints? By and by, men will come to believe thou art in earnest. What dost thou see, that I care not to have exposed? I am a plotter? I grant ye; so Cortes hath called me to my face a dozen times, or more. I am a grumbler? So he avers, and so I allow. I must speak what I think; ay, and I must growl, too. All this is apparent, but it harms me not with the general: he scolds me very oft; but who stands better in his favour?"

"Thou takest the matter too seriously," said Guzman. "Hast thou no suspicion that thy self-commendations are tedious?"

"In such case, hadst thou ever any thyself?" demanded the unrelenting Najara. "Pray, let him go on. Let him draw his dagger, if he will, too. What care I? I have a better fence than the decree."

"Pshaw, man," said Villafana, "why dost thou take a frown so bitterly? I will not quarrel with thee. But I would thou couldst be reasonable in thy fillips: call me a knave openly, if thou wilt; thy insinuations have the air of seriousness. But come; you have robbed the señor Camarga of his diversion with Bernal. Lo you now, if our wrangling have disturbed him a jot! He sits there, like an old horse of a summer's day, patient and uncomplaining; and, all the time, there are gadfly thoughts persecuting his imagination."

"Methinks, señores," said Camarga, "you should be curious to know in what manner the good man records your actions. For my part, I should be well content to be made better acquainted with them; especially with those later exploits, since the retreat from Mexico, of which I have heard only confused and contradictory accounts. Will he suffer us to examine his chronicles?"

"Suffer us!" cried Guzman; "if you do but give him a grain of encouragement, never believe me but he will requite you with pounds of his stupidity. What, have you any curiosity? – Harkee, Bernal, man! – You shall see how I will rouse him, – Bernal Diaz! Historian! Immortality! what ho, señor Del Castillo! Are you asleep? Zounds, sirrah, here are three or four dull fellows, who, for lack of better amusement, are willing to listen to your history."

CHAPTER II

At these words, the worthy thus appealed to, woke from his revery, and staring a moment in some little perplexity at his companions, took up a long copper-headed spear, which rested on the ground at his side, and advanced towards them. Viewed at a little distance, the gravity of his countenance gave him an appearance of age, which vanished on a nearer inspection. In reality, if his own recorded account can be believed, (and heaven forbid we should attach any doubt to the representations of our excellent prototype,) he did not number above twenty-six or twenty-seven years, and was thus, as he chose to call himself, 'a stripling.' Young as he was, however, there was not a man in the army of Cortes who had seen more, or more varied service than Bernal Diaz del Castillo. His exploits in the New World had commenced seven years before, among the burning and pestilential fens of Nombre de Dios, – a place made still more odious to an aspiring youth by the ferocious dissensions of its inhabitants, and that bloodthirsty jealousy of its ruler, which had rewarded with the block the man3 who disclosed to Spain the broad expanse of the Pacific, and led his subaltern, Pizarro, to the shores of Peru. With the two adventurers, Cordova and Grijalva, who had preceded Cortes in the attempt upon the lands of Montezuma, (discovered by the first,) Bernal Diaz shared the wounds and misadventures of both expeditions; and he was among the first to join the standard of Don Hernan, in the third and most successful of the Spanish descents.

The hardships he had endured, the constant and unmitigated suffering to which he had been exposed for seven years, had given him much of the weatherbeaten look of a veteran, which, added to the sombre gravity of his visage, caused him to present, at the first sight, the appearance of a man of forty years or more. His garments were of a dusky red cloth, padded into escaupil, with back and breast-pieces of iron, over which was a long cloak of a chocolate colour, well embroidered, and, though much worn and tarnished, obviously a holiday suit. To these were added a black velvet hat, ornamented with three flamingo feathers, striking up like the points of a trident, with the medal of a saint, rudely wrought in gold, hanging beneath them. His person was brawny, his face full and inexpressive; his dull grey eyes indicated nothing but simplicity and absence of mind, or rather inattentiveness; and it required the presence of many scars of several wounds on his countenance, to convince a stranger that Bernal actually possessed the fortitude to encounter such badges of honour.

He approached the group with a heavy and indolent tread, bearing in his hand a bundle of leaves of maguey paper, such as served the purposes of the native painters and chroniclers of Anahuac, and with which he was fain to supply the want of a better material.

"Dost thou hear, señor Inmortalidad?" cried Don Francisco de Guzman, as the martial annalist took his seat serenely among the Castilians; "art thou deaf, dumb, or still wrapt in thy seventh heaven, that thou answerest not a word to my salutations? Zounds, man, I will not ask thee a second time."

"What is your will?" said Bernal Diaz, "what will you have of me, señores?" he repeated, surveying each member of the group, one after the other. "I did think that this being a day of license and rejoicing to so many of us, I might have an opportunity, not often in my power, of putting down some things in my journal which it will be well to do, before setting out on the circuit of the lake, wherein there may happen some passages to drive from my memory those which are not yet recorded. But, by my faith, you have talked loud and much, and so disturbed my mind, that I have entirely lost some things I intended to say. I would to heaven you would find some other place to your liking, and leave me alone for a few hours."

"Why, thou infidel!" said Guzman, "if thou likest not our company, why dost thou not leave it? Dost thou forget thou hast the power of locomotion? Wilt thou wait for us to depart before thou bethinkest thee of thine own legs? By'r lady! thou art not yet in thy senses!"

"By my faith, so I can!" said the historian, abruptly, as if the idea had just entered his mind: "I will go down to the lake shore, where the sound of the waves will drown your voices. There is something encouraging to contemplation in the dashing of water; but as for men's voices, I could never think well, when they were within hearing. I beg your pardon, all, señores: I will go down."

"What! when here are four fools, who are in the humour of listening to thee for some seven minutes, or so? ay, man, to thy crazy chronicles! When wilt thou expect such another audience? Lo you, the señor Camarga has desired to be made acquainted with your learned lucubrations. Come, stir; open thy lips, exalt thyself, while thou art alive; for after death, there is no saying how short a time thou wilt sleep in cobwebs."

"You jeer me, señor Guzman; you laugh at me, gentlemen," said the soldier, gravely; "and thereby you do yourselves, as well as me, much wrong. Is it so great a thing for a soldier to write a history? The valiant Julius Cæsar of Rome recorded, with his own hand, his great actions in France, Britain, and our own Castile, as I know full well; for when I was a boy at school, I saw the very book; and sorry I am that the poverty of my parents denied me such instruction, as might have enabled me to read it. Then, there was Josephus, the Jewish Captain, who wrote a history of the fall of Jerusalem, as I have heard from a learned priest. Besides, there were many Greek soldiers, who did the same thing, as I have been told; but I never knew much concerning them."

"And hast thou the vanity to talk of Julius Cæsar?" cried Guzman, laughing.

"Why not?" said the soldier, stoutly; "I have fought almost as many battles, and I warrant me, my heart is as strong; and were it my fate to be a general and commander, instead of a poor soldier of fortune in the ranks, I could myself, as well as another, lead you through these mischievous Mexicans; who, I will be sworn, are much more valiant heathens than ever Cæsar found among the French. As far as he was a soldier, then, I boast to be as good a man as he; ay, by mine honour, and better too! for I am a Christian man, whereas he was a poor benighted infidel. As for my history, I will not make bold to compare it in excellence with his; for it has been told me, that Cæsar was a scholar, and possessed of the graces and elegancies of style; whereas, I have myself none of these graces, being ignorant of both Latin and Greek, and knowing nothing of any tongues, except the Castilian, and some smattering of this Indian jargon, which I have picked up with much pains, and, as I may say, at the expense of more beating than one gets from the schoolmaster. Nevertheless, I flatter myself, that what I write will be good, because it will be true; for this which I am writing, is not a history of distant nations or of past events, nor is it composed of vain reveries and conjectures, such as fill the pages of one who writes of former ages. I relate those things of which I am an eye-witness, and not idle reports and hearsay. Truth is sacred and very valuable. In future days, when men come to make histories of our acts in this land, their histories will be good, because they will draw them from me, and not from those vain historiographers who stay at home, and write down all the lies that people at a distance may say of us. This is a good thing, and will make my book, when finished, a treasury to men; but what is better, and what should make it noticeable to yourselves, it will not, like other histories, say, 'The great hero Cortes did this,' and 'the mighty commander did that,' giving all the glory to one man alone; but it will record our achievements in such a way as to show who performed them, relating that 'this thing was done by the Señor Don Francisco de Guzman, and this by the valiant soldier Najara, and this by myself, Bernal Diaz del Castillo,' and so on, each of us according to our acts."4

"What the worthy Del Castillo says, is just," said Camarga; "and whether his history be elegant or unpolished, he should be encouraged to continue it. For my own part, I shall be glad when I have performed anything worthy to be preserved, to know, we have with us a man who will see that the credit of the act is not bestowed upon another. And, in this frame of mind, I will stand much indebted to the good señor, if he will permit me at once, to be made acquainted with the true relation of certain events, with which I am not yet familiar."

"What will you have?" said Bernal Diaz, much gratified by this proof of approbation. "You shall hear the truth, and no vain fabrication; for I call heaven to witness, and I say Amen to it, that I have related nothing which, being an eye-witness, I do not know to be true; or which, having the testimony of many others, actors and lookers-on, to the same, I have not good reason to believe, is true. What, then, will you have, señor Camarga? Is there any particular battle you choose to be informed of? Perhaps, I had better begin with the first chapter, which I have here, written out in full, and which – "

"Fire!" cried Guzman, starting up, "will you drive us away? Zounds! do you think we will swallow all?"

"Read that chapter," said Najara, "in which you celebrate the exploits of the señor Guzman."

"I have not," said Diaz, with much simplicity, "I have not yet had occasion to come to Don Francisco."

"Hear!" cried Villafana, clapping his hands with admiration, in which the cavalier, after looking a little indignant, thought fit to join.

"Unless indeed," continued the historian, "I should have resolved to relate the quarrel betwixt his favour, and the young cornet Lerma, (whom may heaven take to its rest; for there were some good things in the young man.) But as to this feud, I thought it better for the honour of both, as well as of another, whom I do not desire to mention with dispraise, that the matter should be forgotten."

"Put it down, if thou wilt," said Guzman, with a stern aspect. "What I have done, I have done; and I shame not to have it spoken. If I did not kill the youth, never believe me if it was not out of pity for his years; and out of regard to Cortes, with whom he was a favourite."

At these words, which were delivered with the greatest gravity, the historian raised his eyes to Don Francisco, and regarded him, for a moment, with surprise. Then shaking his head, and muttering the word 'favourite,' with a voice of incredulity, and even wonder, he held his peace, with the air of one who locks up in his breast a mystery, which he has been on the point of imprudently revealing.

"A favourite – I repeat the word," exclaimed Don Francisco, with angry emphasis; "a favourite, at least, until his folly and baseness were made apparent to Cortes, and so brought him to disgrace."

"Strong words, Don Francisco!" said Villafana, with a bold tone of rebuke; "and somewhat too strong to be spoken of a dead enemy. And besides, without referring to your share in the matter, there are those in this army, who have other thoughts in relation to the lad. It has been whispered, – and the honour of Cortes has suffered thereby, – it has been whispered – "

"By Villafana," exclaimed the hunchback, abruptly and sharply; "by thyself, certainly, Sir Alguazil, if there be anything in it against the credit of the general."

"Pshaw! wilt thou buffet me again?" cried Villafana, springing up and stamping on the earth, though not in anger. "Dost thou know now what thou art like?"

"Like a thorn in the foot, which, the more you stamp, the more it will hurt."

"Rather like a stupid ball tied to my leg," said the Alguazil, "which, without any merit of its own, serves but the dead-weight purpose of giving me a jerk, turn whichsoever way I will."

"Right!" cried Najara, with a sneer; "you have clapped the ball to the right leg. We do not so shot honest men."