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

The result of this opposition to the humours of Alvarado, was a quarrel, so fierce and unappeasable, that, as has been said, all which the general could effect, was a postponement of conflict; and when Don Pedro surrendered the princess to her plebeian lover, it was with the assurance, that, as soon as the army had left the city and lake, he should reckon her ransom out of the life-blood of his companion.

The discovery of the unfaithfulness of his betrothed, (for, in this light did the cavaliers regard the captive princesses,) had been made the preceding evening; and the angry contest of the cavaliers, and the arrangements for combat, occurred at the moment while Don Amador was lamenting the backwardness of his friends to support him, when he became a captive.

To allay the heart-burnings of his officers, who had arrayed themselves, according to their friendships, on either side, the general caused his trumpets to sound, and bade all to prepare for an expedition of peril. He had, all along, eyed the great pyramid, frowning over his fortress, with peculiar anxiety. This was caused, in part, by his consciousness of the advantage it would give his enemies, as soon as they should dare to profane its sanctity, by making it the theatre of conflict. This very morning, it was made apparent, by the presence of many barbarians thronging up its sides, and by an occasional arrow or stone discharged from its top, that the Mexicans were aware of its usefulness. In addition to this cause for attempting to gain possession of it, the leader was moved by a vague hope, that, once master of the holiest of temples, he might obtain the same advantages, through the superstition of his foes, which he had lately possessed, in the person of Montezuma, through their reverence for the king. He meditated an assault, and resolved to attempt it, before the pyramid should be covered with Mexicans.

The strength of the army, both horse and foot, was straightway displayed upon the square; and the war-worn Christians once more marched against the triumphing infidel.

The knight of Calavar, sitting on his sable steed, with an air of more life than was ordinary, appeared in this band; and the three serving-men, with the secretary, followed at his back.

CHAPTER L

In his sleep, the wounded cavalier was no longer a captive. Memory and imagination, acting together, bore him to the shores of the Mediterranean; and as he trode the smooth beach, his eye wandered, with transport, to the blue Alpujarras, stretching dimly in the interior. But not long did he gaze on those mountains, which intercepted the view of his distant castle. He stepped joyously along over the sands, obeying the voices and gestures of his conductors; for, it seemed to him, that his hands were grasped, the one by the page Jacinto, the other by the priestess of Mexico, both of whom urged him on with smiles, while pointing to a group of palm-trees, under which reclined the long-lost maid of Almeria. The cross of rubies shone upon her breast, and her downcast eyes regarded it with a gaze of sadness; but, ever and anon, as the cavalier vainly strove to approach, and called to her with his voice, they were raised upon him in tears; and the hand of Leila was uplifted, with a melancholy gesture, towards heaven. With such a vision, repeated many times in his brain, varied only by changes of place, (for now the scene was transferred to the deserts of Barbary, now the fair vales of Rhodes, and now the verdant borders of Tezcuco,) he struggled through many hours of torture; and, at last, awoke, as a peal of thunder, bursting on the scene, drove, terrified away, as well his guides as the maid of his memory.

As he started from his couch, confused and bewildered, the thunder seemed still to roll, with distant murmurs, over the city. His practised ear detected, in these peals, the explosions of artillery, mingled with volleys of musketry; but for awhile, in his disorder, he was unable to account for them; and in a few moments they ceased. – Night had succeeded to day; no taper burned on the table, and scarcely enough light shone through the narrow casement into the apartment, to show him that he occupied it alone.

His lips were parched with thirst; he strode to the table, and finding nothing thereon to allay the burnings of fever, he called faintly on Jacinto. No answer was made to the call; he seemed to be the only tenant of the house; and yet he fancied that the deep silence, which succeeded his exclamation, was broken by distant and feeble lamentations. He listened attentively; the sounds were repeated, but yet with so low a tone, that they would have escaped him entirely, had not his senses been sharpened by fever.

Obeying his instincts of benevolence, rather than his reason, for this had not yet recovered from the disorder of slumber, he stepped from the chamber; and, following not so much the sounds, which had become nearly inaudible, as a light that gleamed at a little distance, he found himself soon at the door of an apartment, through the curtain of which streamed the radiance.

The image of Leila, surveying the cross of rubies, had not yet departed from his imagination, when he pushed aside the flimsy arras, and stood in the room; and his feelings of amazement and rapture, of mingled joy and terror, may be imagined, when he beheld, at the first glance, what seemed the incarnation of his vision. – Before a little stool, which supported a taper of some vegetable substance, burning with odours and smoke, there knelt, or seemed to kneel, a maiden of exquisite beauty, whose Moorish character might have been imagined in her face, but not detected in her garments, for these were of Spanish fashion. The light of the taper streamed full upon her visage, from which it was not two feet removed, and showed it to be bathed in tears. Her eyes were fixed upon some jewel held in her hands, close to the light, which was attached, by a chain of gold, to her neck; and the same look which revealed to Don Amador the features of the maid of Almeria, showed him, in this jewel, the well-known and never to be forgotten cross of rubies. The cavalier stood petrified; a smothered ejaculation burst from his lips, and his gaze was fixed upon the vision as on a basilisk.

At his sudden exclamation, the maiden raised her eyes, gazed at him an instant, as he stood trembling with awe and delight; and the next moment, – whether it was that she struck the light out with her hand, or whether the taper and the figure were alike spectral, and snatched away by the same enchantment which had brought them into existence, – the chamber was left in darkness, and the pageant of loveliness and sorrow had vanished entirely away.

No sooner had this unlooked for termination been presented, than Don Amador recovered his strength, and, with a cry of grief, rushed towards the spot so lately occupied by the vision. The stool still stood on the floor, but no maiden knelt by it. A faint gleam of dusky light shone suddenly on the opposite wall, and then as suddenly disappeared. It had not been lost to the cavalier; he approached it; his outstretched hands struck upon a curtain hung before another door, which admitted him into a passage, where a pleasant breeze, burdened with many perfumes, as from a garden, puffed on his cheeks. The sound of steps, echoing at the end of the gallery, and the gleaming of a light, struck at once upon his ears and eyes; he rushed onwards, with a loud cry, gained the door, which, he doubted not, would again reveal to him the blessed vision, and the next moment found himself arrested by the Zegri.

Behind Abdalla stood the slave Ayub, bearing a torch, whose light shone equally on the indignant visage of the renegade Moor, and the troubled aspect of his captive.

"Hath the señor forgot that he made me a vow?" cried Abdalla, sternly: "and that, in this effort to escape, he covers himself with dishonour?"

To this reproach, Don Amador replied only by turning a bewildered and stupified stare on his host; and the Zegri, reading in this the evidence of returning delirium, relaxed the severity of his countenance, and spoke with a gentler voice.

"My lord does not well," he said, "to leave his chamber, while the fever still burns him."

He took the cavalier by the arm, and Don Amador suffered himself to be led to his apartment. There, seating himself on the couch, he surveyed the Moor with a steadfast and yet disturbed look, not at all regarding the words of sympathy pronounced by his jailer. At last, rousing himself, and muttering a sort of prayer, he said,

"Are ye all enchanters? or am I mad? for either this thing is the fabrication of lunacy, or the illusion of unearthly art!"

"Of what does my lord speak?" said the Moor, mildly, and soothingly. "He should not think of dreams."

"Dost thou say, dreams?" cried the cavalier, with a laugh. "Surely mine eyes are open, and I see thee. Dost thou not profess thyself flesh and blood?"

The Moor regarded his captive with uneasiness, thinking that his wits had fled.

"My noble patron does not ask me of his countrymen and friends," he said, willing to divert his prisoner's thoughts. "This day, did I behold his followers, and, in addition, his kinsman, the knight of Calavar."

At this name, the neophyte became more composed. He eyed the speaker more attentively, and now remarked, that, besides the leathern mail which he wore in the manner of the Mexicans, his chest was defended by an iron corslet, which, as well as the plumes of his tunic, was spotted with blood. As the Moor spoke, Don Amador perceived him to lay upon the table, along with the torch, which he had taken from Ayub, a sword dyed with the same gory ornament; and he started to his feet, with a feeling of fierce wrath, which entirely dispelled his stupefaction, when he recognized in this, his own vanished weapon.

"Knave of a Zegri!" he cried, "hast thou used my glave on Spaniards, my friends and brothers?".

"When I struck thee the blow which saved thy life," said Abdalla, calmly, "I was left without a weapon; for the steel shivered upon thy casque. I borrowed the sword, which, to thee, was useless, and I return it, not dishonoured, for it has drunk the blood of those who are, in the eyes of heaven, idolaters and assassins. I give it back to thee, and will not again use it, even in a just and righteous combat; for, thanks be to God! it has been the means of providing me a store, which I hope to increase into an armoury."

"Thou avowest this to me? and with exultation?" said the cavalier, passing at once, in the excitement of anger, from the effects, and even the remembrance, of the vision.

"If my lord will listen," replied Abdalla, not unrejoiced at the change, and willing to confirm the sanity of the prisoner, "he shall hear what good blows this rich and very excellent weapon hath this day struck. A better never smote infidel or Christian."

"I will hear what thou hast to say," said the novice, with a stern accent; "and, wondering what direful calamity shall befall thee, for having thus profaned and befouled the sword of a Christian soldier, I hope thou wilt tell me of such things as will prove to me that God has punished the same, if not upon thy head, yet, at least, upon the heads of divers of thy godless companions."

"There are many of the godless, both heathen and Christian, who have slept the sleep of death this day," said Abdalla, knitting his brows with the ardour of a soldier; "many shall die to-morrow, some the next day, but few on the last – for who shall remain to perish? Every day do I look down from the pyramid, and hearken to the groans of those who destroyed Granada; and every day, though the lamentings be wilder and louder, yet are they fewer. Heaven be thanked! a few days more, and not a bone shall be left to whiten on the square, that does not speak of vengeance for the Alpujarras!"

"Moor!" said the frowning Spaniard, "have a care that thy ferocious and very unnatural triumph do not cause me to forget that I am thy prisoner. It was, perhaps, proper, that thou shouldst fly from Don Hernan, seeing that the slanders of very base caitiffs had prejudiced thee, and left thy life in jeopardy; perhaps, also, the necessity to gain the favour of Mexicans for thyself and Jacinto, by fighting with them against their foes, may, in part, extenuate the sin of such impiety; but I warn thee, thou leapest wantonly into superfluous crime, when, instead of mourning thy cruel fate, thou rejoicest over the blood thou art shedding."

"Whose fault is it? and who shall account for my crime?" said the Zegri, with energy. "I came to these shores against my will; when I landed upon the sands of Ulua, my heart was in the peace of sorrow. I besought those who held me in unjust bondage, to discharge me with my boy: had they done so, then had I left them, and no Spaniard should have mourned for his oppression; the wrongs of Granada had not been repaid in Mexico. My prayers were met with mockery; the Zegri that hath sat in the seat of kings, was doomed to be the bearer of a match-stick; and the boy, whose blood runs redder and purer than that in the veins of the proudest cavalier of all, was degraded into the service of a menial, in the house of the bitterest enemy of his people! What was left for me? To choose between slavery and exile, contempt and revenge. – The señor thinks that the base Yacub belied me: Yacub spoke the truth. From the moment when I perceived I could not escape from the land, then did I know, that God had commissioned me to the work of revenge; and I resolved it should be mighty. I meditated the flight I have accomplished, the treason I have committed, the revenge I have obtained. I saw that I should remain in wo, with benighted barbarians; but I saw, also, that I should be afar from Spaniards. God be thanked! It was bitter to be parted, for ever, from the land of my birth, and the people of my love; but it is goodly and pleasant, to see the Castilian perish in misery, and remember Granada!"

Throughout the whole of this harangue, Don Amador de Leste preserved a countenance of inflexible gravity.

"Sir Zegri," said he, with a sigh, when it was concluded, "I perceive, that heaven hath erected a wall between us, to keep us for ever asunder. Whether thy bitter hatred of Spaniards be just or not, whether thy appetite for revenge be allowable or accurst, still is it apparent, that, while thou indulgest the one, and seekest to gratify the other, it is impossible I should remain with thee on any terms, except those of enmity and defiance; for those whom thou hatest, and dost so bloodily destroy, they are my countrymen. I love thy boy, but thee I detest. And now, having discovered that thou art of very noble blood, and being impelled to punish on thee the very grievous and unpardonable wrongs, which thou art doing to my country, I beg thou wilt release me from my parole, and fetch hither one of those swords which thou hast rifled from Spanish corses, I arming myself with my own weapon, here befouled with Spanish blood. We will discharge upon each other, the obligations we are under, thou to hate and slay Spaniards, and I to punish the haters and slayers of the same; for it is quite impossible I can live longer in peace, suffering thee to destroy my friends. Fetch hither, therefore, a sword, and let us end this quarrel with the life of one or the other; and, to ease thee of any anxiety thou mayest have, in regard to Jacinto, I solemnly assure thee, that, if thou fall, I will myself take thy place, and remain a father to him to the end of my days."

As the cavalier made this extraordinary proposal, Abdalla surveyed him, first with surprise, then with gloomy regret; and when he had finished, with a glistening eye. Before Don Amador had yet done speaking, the Zegri unbuckled his corslet, and, flinging it on the floor, at the last word, said, with mild and reproachful dignity, —

"Behold! thy sword is within reach, and my breast is naked. What hinders that thou shouldst not strike me at once? Thou speakest of Jacinto – It is enough that thy hand saved him from the blow of thy countryman: at that moment, I said, in my heart, though I spoke it not, 'Thou hast bought my life.' If thou wilt have it, it is thine. If thou hadst killed my father, I could not aim at thine!"

"Of a truth," said the cavalier, moodily, "I should not slay thee out of mere anger, but duty: yet I would that thou mightest be prevailed upon to assault me, so as to enforce me into rage; for, I say to thee again, so long as thy hostile acts continue, I must very violently abhor thee."

"They will not continue long," said Abdalla. "After a few days, there will remain in my bosom no feeling but gratitude; and, then, my lord shall see, that the fury which has slain all others, has been his own security."

"Of this," said Don Amador, "I will have a word to speak with thee anon. At present, I am desirous, that thou shouldst relate to me the fate of this day's battle, which I am the more anxious to know, since thou hast spoken the name of Calavar."

"I am loath to obey thee," said the Zegri, struggling with the fierce satisfaction that beset him at the thought, "for it may again excite thee to anger."

"Nevertheless, I will listen to thy story, with such composure as I can, as to a thing, it may be needful for me to know; after which, I have myself a matter of which it is quite essential I should acquaint thee."

Thus commanded, the Moor obeyed; and his eyes sparkled, as he conned over in his mind the events of a day so dreadful to the Spaniards.

CHAPTER LI

"Yesterday, when thou wert sleeping," said the Zegri, "or lay as one that slept – "

"That day, then," muttered Amador, "is a blank in my existence! and very grievous it is, to think that so great a space of so short a period as life, should be lost in a stony lethargy. – It seems to me, that that blow thou gavest me, was somewhat rounder than was needful. – Nevertheless, I am not angry, but grateful."

"Yesterday was a day of comparative peace," continued the Zegri. "The Spaniards shut themselves in their citadel, preparing for the greater exploit of to-day. It was evident to the dullest of the nobles, that Don Hernan had cast an evil eye on the temple."

"Did he so?" cried the cavalier. "It was the thought of a good Christian: and, methinks, my countrymen had not been judged with so many of these present torments, if they had sooner torn down that strong-hold of the devil, which is detestable in the eye of heaven."

"To-day, they marched against it," said Abdalla, "with all their force, both of Spaniards and Tlascalans; and, I will say for them, that they marched well, fought boldly, and revenged their own heavy losses, in the blood of many barbarians, as well on the pyramid as in the temple-yard and the streets. They came against us, with four such turrets, moving on wheels – "

"Is it possible," cried Amador, "that the general was not sufficiently warned of the inefficacy of those engines, by the doleful fate of the manta, that day, when it was my mishap to be vanquished? – I shall remember the death of the ship-master, Gomez, to the end of my life. – Twice or thrice, did I long to be with him among the fire-worshippers, who must be a very strange people. But the Mexicans are very valiant."

"Of a truth, they are," said the Zegri. "I will not detain my lord with the account of the battle in the streets, wherein the mantas were again, in great part, destroyed; nor will I relate, with what suffering the Castilians won their way to the Wall of Serpents, and the temple-yard. It was here, that I beheld my lord's kinsman, the knight of Calavar, unhorsed, and in the hands of the infidel – "

"Accursed assassin!" cried the neophyte, springing to his feet, "and hast thou kept me in bonds, that my knight should perish thus, without succour?"

"The foe of Granada did not perish, and he was not without succour," said the Zegri, loftily. "When his steed, slipping on the polished stones, with which that yard is paved, fell to the earth, and many savage hands were fastened on his body, there was a friend hard by, who raised both the knight and charger, and preserved them from destruction."

"Give me the name of that most noble friend," cried Don Amador, ardently, – "for, I swear, I will reckon this act to him, in my gratitude, as the salvation of my own life. Tell me, what true Christian was he?"

"One," said Abdalla, calmly, "who hated him as the slayer of his people, but remembered that he repented his evil acts with misery and distraction, – one, who abhorred him for these deeds of sin, and yet loved him, because he was, like his kinsman, the protector of childhood and feebleness."

"I doubt not, that thou wert the man," said the cavalier, faltering, "and, therefore, I return thee my thanks. But I would have thee know, that, whatever blood was improperly shed by my kinsman, was shed by accident and not design; for, no man is more incapable of cruelty than the noble knight, Don Gabriel. But, this shows me, that thou art really of lofty blood; for none but a magnanimous soul can render justice to a hated enemy."

"Why should I dwell upon the conflict in the yard?" continued the Moor, hastily. "Through the flames of the many chapels, that filled it, – with shouts and the roar of muskets, – the Christians, ever victorious, and yet ever conquered even by victory, rushed against the steps of the pyramid, disregarding the stones tumbled on them from the terraces, the darts flung down from the little barbicans or niches in the wall, and the flaming logs shot down, endwise, from the steps. Terrace after terrace, stair after stair, were won; and the Christians stood, at last, on the summit, fighting hand to hand with the four thousand nobles who defended it. My lord cannot think, that even these numbers of naked men could long withstand a thousand Christians, robed in iron, and infuriated by desperation. Score after score were slain, and tumbled from the top; the flames burst from the altar of Mexitli, – the priest died in the sanctuary, the Tlatoani at the downfallen urns; and, in an hour's time, the Spaniards were masters of the pyramid."

"Thanks be to heaven, which fought with them!" cried Amador, devoutly. "And thus may the infidel fall!"

"Does not my lord pity the wretches, who die for their country?" said the Zegri, reproachfully. "This is not a war of heaven against hell, but of tyranny against freedom. – I did see some sights, this day, upon the pyramid, which caused me to remember those noble Roman generals, who, in ancient times, were wont to devote themselves to death, for the good of the state. At the very moment when the condition of the Mexicans was most dreadful, when, despairing of the usefulness of longer resistance, they rushed frantically upon the Spanish spears, transfixing themselves by their own act, or flung themselves from the pyramid, to be dashed to pieces below, – at this moment, I beheld, with mine own eyes, two very young and noble Tlatoani, to whom I had myself just shown a means of escape, rush upon Don Hernan, who fought very valiantly throughout the day. They cast away their arms, flung themselves at his feet, as if to supplicate for mercy; and having thus thrown the general off his guard, they seized him, on a sudden, in their arms, and hurried him to the edge of the terrace. From that dizzy brink they strove to drag him, willing, themselves, to die dreadfully, so that the great enemy of Tenochtitlan should fall with them. But the strength of boys yielded to the iron grasp of the Christian; and, flinging them from him like drops of water, or gouts of blood from his wounded hand, he beheld them fall miserably to the earth, – dead, but not yet avenged."

"Thanks be to God again!" cried the cavalier, warming with excitement; "for, though these youths met their death very bravely, they were guilty of a most vile treachery; for which, death was but a just punishment. And so, my true and excellent friends did win this battle? By heaven! it galls me to the marrow, to think that I lie here idle, while such things are doing around me!"

"They won the temple top," said Abdalla, with a laugh of scorn, "that they might look down from that height, and behold themselves surrounded by an hundred thousand men, who were busy slaying their Tlascalan slaves, and waiting for the masters. Very plainly did I hear their cries of despair at that sight; and these were goodly music. For myself, I escaped, as did some few others, by dropping from terrace to terrace, upon the dead bodies, which, being tumbled, in great numbers, from the top, lay, in some places, in such heaps along the galleries, as greatly to lessen the dangers of a fall. Well were the Mexicans revenged for this slaughter," continued the Moor, his eyes glittering with ferocious transport, "when the Spaniards descended, to cut their way to the quarters, encumbered with captive priests, and such provisions as they had gathered in the chapels. How many fell in the squares and streets, how many were suffocated in the canals, – how few were able to pierce through the myriads that invested the palace, (for, all this time, had there been thousands assailing the weak garrison, and tearing down the court-yard wall) – why should I speak of these? It is enough, that the gain of the pyramid, – lost as soon as gained, – cost them irreparable wo; and that the wounded fugitives (for the Mexican glass drank of the blood of all,) now lie in their desolate house, their court-walls prostrate, the buttresses of their palace cracked by fire, their steeds unfed and starving, their ammunition expended – hopeless and helpless, calling to the leaders who cannot relieve, the saints who will not hear, and waiting only for death. Death then! for it cometh; death! for it is inevitable; death! for it is just; and death! for it repays the wrongs of Granada!"