"General, I have disobeyed your orders, and I accept my punishment, and acknowledge its justice."
Those words were the first that were distinctly audible above the hubbub and din prevailing in the courtyard of the Spaniards' new encampment. But they were spoken by a singularly penetrating voice, and in cold, calm tones that had an almost incredible power of making themselves heard.
During the last half-hour the moon had dispelled the darkness of night, and was shining in a steel-blue, cloudless sky, with a brilliancy at least equal to the light of many a northern day. In the foreground glittered the waters of the great Gulf of Mexico; to the left the silver thread of a river wound in and out amidst a country luxuriant and fertile as a garden; the narrow streets of the city lay at their feet; above them still gloomed and glowed, like some evil eye, that fire on the summit of the great temple, and over all, away in the distant background, towered the 'everlasting hills' and the snow-crown of Citlaltepelt or Orizaba.
So beautiful, so majestic, so peaceful the scene, could but that agitated gathering of men of the two hemispheres have been blotted out.
Hernando Cortes, tall and stately, bearing his handsome face with a proud dignity, stood with folded arms somewhat apart from the tumultuous throngs, all of whom, in the midst of their other words and thoughts, took time to cast many a searching glance at the leader; but all their scrutiny was in vain. Nothing was to be learnt of the meditations going on in the brain behind that fixed countenance.
Opposite to Hernando stood a man equally handsome in face and figure, equally calm and stately, but with a strange sweet light in his eyes as they rested on the poor startled Indians standing huddled together, scarcely knowing as yet whether to rejoice or no, at their rescue from the hands of the Cempoallan priests.
Montoro's father had died because he dared to plead for the life of the Jew. Montoro had a deep hidden gratitude in his heart, that he had been thus able to offer his life for the lives of these poor helpless Indians. And with this thanksgiving in his heart he spoke, and the babel of confused voices ceased.
Cabrera stepped up beside his companion, saying coolly—
"Well, General, here am I also. I cannot say with Diego that I will acknowledge the justice of the threatened punishment, or that I would accept it, if I could see my way on any side to doing the other thing; but—as it is—"
A shrug of the shoulders finished the sentence, and then there was a silence. The native servant and interpreter crept to Montoro's feet, clasping them, and entreating to be returned to the stone of sacrifice if otherwise his deliverer must die. The native woman hid her face in her robe, and kneeling before Cortes wept there silently.
At last Alvarado stepped forward impetuously, and exclaimed—
"Hernando Cortes, those two comrades of ours have risked their lives to save the blood of a Christian from being poured out to the honour of a heathen god! Is the order of a Spanish leader like the law of the Medes and Persians—one that altereth not? Those two have broken your command; according to that, it is admitted, their lives are forfeited. Can it be that they are to pay the penalty!"
As he concluded with that passionate demand, a sudden brilliant smile for one instant passed over the face of Cortes like a lightning flash. Then it was sternly set as before, as his lips opened to reply.
The soldiers had been subsiding into quietness before, now they were hushed into an intense expectancy that seemed as though it could be felt. The words with which their attention was rewarded were few enough.
"You ask me, Don Pedro de Alvarado, if those two of our Spanish brethren yonder are to die. I say yes, if any of you, their brethren, will shoot them. Montoro, may I crave that private audience with you that I lost this afternoon?"
Juan de Cabrera sprang forward with raised hands, and shoulders almost up to his ears. Even the Indians forgot their apprehensions and laughed. He bestowed a most horrible-looking, wide-mouthed grin upon them, and then drew his face to an almost impossible length, as he continued his way to Cortes, groaning out—
"Oh, General! don't you please to need a private audience with me also? That fellow, Don Gonzalo there, is quite beside himself with longing to try the new gun he hath just received from the armourer. I shiver with fear."
"Then take a doze of sleep to cure thee," was the laughing reply, "and get Father Olmedo to shrive thee first for thy sin of disobedience. I had needs be a schoolmaster rather than a general, to rule great overgrown boys like thee."
Then Cortes turned to a quieter region of the temple, and with his officers held deep counsel as to next proceedings. Although he spared his two followers from the mingled motives of prudence, friendship, and admiration, he felt somewhat bitterly that their romantic act of generosity had greatly complicated the position of affairs. Yesterday he had feared enmity, now he was sure of it.
"As strongly as we hold to our faith," he said gravely, "so I have ere now discovered do they hold to theirs. As resolutely as we would avenge an insult to our Lord, so will these heathen endeavour to avenge the insult put upon their gods of wood and clay. We must be prepared."
As the dawn grew full, Cortes, with his usual decisive energy, determined suddenly to know the worst at once; not to act on the defensive as he had first planned, but to issue forth immediately, and complete the desecration, already so boldly begun, of the heathen altars of Cempoalla.
"We have come hither," he exclaimed in animated tones to his followers, "to burn the idols of this polluted land, and to raise the sacred standard of the cross. Let us delay the glorious task no longer. In the name of the Holy Faith I go."
"In the name of the Holy Faith lead on, we follow you," shouted back the small, undaunted army with one acclaim; and in another minute, in firm, close array, the Spaniards had issued forth from their enclosure.
They had not made much way when an Indian scout flew back to them, with heels winged with fear, to say that the Cacique himself, at the head of his troops, was advancing to their encounter.
"All the better," muttered Cabrera. "Saves our steps, and my boots are something the worse for wear."
But before proceeding to extremities the two leaders called a parley: the Indian chief to expostulate on the violence done his gods in return for his great hospitality; and Cortes to desire that he and his subjects would hear from Father Olmedo a discourse, to prove that his gods were no gods, that it was no more possible to do them dishonour than to show respect or disrespect to an old tree-stump, and to teach them the principles of Divine truth.
With a fine courtesy the Indian Cacique gave consent, even while burning under a sense of wrong; and something he must have gleaned through the interpreter of the required teaching, for he replied with dignity—
"Know this, ye white-faces, that it seemeth to me we have not much to learn from you, beyond that faithlessness that you would have us show to our gods. We too believe in a supreme Creator and Lord of the universe—that God by whom we live and move and have our being; the Giver of all good gifts, almighty, omnipresent, omniscient, perfect. We too believe in a future life—a heaven and a hell. We too believe in the virtues of temperance, charity, self-denial; and that of ourselves, being born in sin, we are capable of no good thing. We too are admitted into fellowship with the supreme Lord of all things by the rite of baptism. The lips and bosoms of our infants are sprinkled with water, and we beseech the Lord to permit the holy drops to wash away the sin that was given to them before the foundation of the world, so that they may be born anew. We too pray for grace to keep peace with all, to bear injuries with humility, trusting to the Almighty to avenge us."
The fine old Cacique ceased, and in breathless amazement the Spaniards gazed at the Indian who had thus made confession of a faith so strangely in accord with their own, so utterly unexpected.
"And with these sublime truths," murmured Father Olmedo with wide eyes, "there is mingled the awful Polytheism, the ghastly idol-worship that revels in human sacrifices. This is verily the devil's work, transforming himself into the likeness of an angel of light that his worship may gain in glory."
Another thought came to Montoro de Diego. Imagination travels as the lightning, flashing from one end of the earth to the other. As Montoro stood there, in one of the flower-decked squares of the Indian town of Cempoalla, his spirit was hovering above the wide piazza of the Spanish city of Saragossa. It was the day, so imagination told him, of an Auto da Fé.
Slowly entering the square came the long procession—priests of the true holy Catholic faith who had learnt 'God is love,' incense-bearers, candle-bearers, and all the troop of satellites.
In Montoro de Diego's dream-ears were sounding the solemn cadences of the chants, as the procession moved slowly, solemnly along. Then, in the centre of the long imposing train he saw a dismal spectacle. Clad in the yellow garments of scorn and contumely, adorned for shame's sake and derision with scarlet flames and so-called devils, limped and crawled along the racked and wrenched, and twisted and scorched victims of the Inquisition, passing along to be burnt alive, in the name of religion, at those stakes at the four corners of the great piazza.
And as the Romish priest, Father Olmedo, thought of the Indian idol sacrifices, and murmured, "Verily this is the devil's work, uniting sublime truths with the blackest iniquity," Montoro thought of the Autos da Fé, and murmured to himself—
"If the one be the devil's work, is not the other likewise?"
At a future day the same question was asked by an Indian captive in Spain, asked with indignant scorn, and answered by himself—
"Ay, verily. Either both are of the gods—our sacrifices of blood and yours of fire—or both are of the devil. And ye, proud Spaniards, had done well to purge your own land, before ye laid waste our countries, and destroyed our nations, to remove the mote that lay in our eyes."
But we must return to Cempoalla, and pass by dreams and dreamers for the present, for there is once more a sudden sound and stir borne along upon the air. The Cacique and his army raise their heads, grasp their arrows more firmly, and look expectant.
The Spaniards close up together again, lay their hands on their sword-hilts, and wait.
The number of priests in the capital of the empire of Mexico itself amounted, at the time of the conquest, to very many thousands—five thousand for the immense chief teocalli, or house of God, alone.
These priests were gathered together in great establishments, where a most rigorous discipline was maintained, much after the fashion of Roman Catholic institutions. And as with the empire itself, so was it, in a lesser degree, with the empire's tributaries. In those also chiefs and people endeavoured to make their peace with heaven, as in the old world, by such immense endowments of lands and riches as tended naturally to swell the ranks of a race so well provided for, and regarded with such supreme reverence.
The smiling territory of Cempoalla was as well provided as its neighbours, with these numerous ministers of a religion that so strangely blended bloodthirsty superstition with exalted faith and enlightenment.
Juan de Cabrera fondly supposed that in slaying a man whom he honestly looked upon as a murderer of the blackest die, deserving death, he had rid that city, at any rate, of its one hideously-skilful executioner, and, as he put it, "that no more of that sort of work could go on for the present, either in their presence or their absence." But he made a most tremendous mistake.
"The king is dead. Long live the king."
The priest-executioner-in-chief had fallen, before the altar of the god he had served with such dreadful fidelity. He had died yesterday, to-day he had a successor burning with ardour to avenge him by increased sacrifices, to atone for those deferred, and to prove his own consummate skill in the detestable work.
"If only," was his fierce wild prayer—"if only the one invisible, supreme God would grant that some of the sacrilegious, infidel white faces might fall into the hands of the Cempoallan warriors, that they themselves might be offered up as peace-offerings to the insulted Huitzilopotchli!"
Were his prayer granted there was no doubt that the morose and gloomy-natured priest would not spare also to inflict upon the prisoners some prior tortures, ingenious enough in their barbarous cruelty to have excited the admiring envy of the most savage of Inquisitors.
But meantime he had other business on hand—sacrifices truly, but sacrifices drawn from the families of his own nation; and, moreover, sacrifices of such a nature that, had he been as wise as he was ruthless, he would have delayed their attempted offering until those white-faces had left his land. They were just the last drops needed to fill the Spaniards' cup of boiling indignation full to overflowing.
Exquisitely fertile and luxuriant as the whole district of Cempoalla looked to the Spanish eyes, so wearied with the barren tracts of sand, and marshy swamps of their recent station, there had in reality been a considerable time of drought lately, and the Indians were beginning to have fears for some of their harvests. Tlaloc, the god of rain, whose symbol of a cross had so disconcerted Cabrera and Father Olmedo, had to be propitiated.
For some days past a solemn festival had been decreed in his honour. The victims were bought for the altar, the invitation to the faithful was announced, and, although a priest had been slain in the night, the imperious god of rain must not be deprived of his offerings in the morning. Thence the sounds which had so suddenly arrested all speech and movement of the two armies, Christian and heathen, met together in the great square of the city.
The waiting and suspense were short. The sounds of musical instruments and of a wild melodious chant drew rapidly nearer. They reached the square, and the Spaniards turned wondering eyes upon each other.
"The procession of the Fête Dieu!" exclaimed Cabrera in bewilderment.
"One might well suppose so," returned Montoro, almost equally surprised.
Cortes turned with rapid questionings to Doña Marina, the native captive princess and his interpreter.
Passing across the further end of the square, on the way to Tlaloc's temple, were lines of sable-robed priests, trains of flower-decked youths and maidens from the priests' seminaries, crowds of devout worshippers; and in the midst of all, borne aloft in view of every eye, a number of lovely children, tiny creatures scarcely beyond the days of infancy, dressed in bright-hued festal robes, wreathed with flowers, and seated in gay litters, around each of which gathered groups of chanting priests, and the parents who had sold them.
Wide-eyed and dumb with wonder were some of these little ones. And on them the priests frowned. Others, startled, terrified, with tiny, helpless arms outstretched to their miserable, deluded mothers, were drowned in tears, choking with piteous sobbings. And on them the priests cast pitiless smiles, and sang and danced with wilder fervour than before. Those tears were of good omen for the god's acceptance of his worshippers' prayers. Dry-eyed sacrifices were fruitless ones.[7]
But the exacting god was to have no sacrifice that day, dry-eyed or otherwise.
The procession was passing on, when at length Hernan Cortes, with a horror-stricken shout of comprehension, raised his head from Doña Marina, and turning to face his followers exclaimed, in a voice that literally trembled with passion and haste:
"Comrades! look yonder. See ye that sight? See ye those helpless babes, decked out thus bravely as the heathen nations of old were wont to deck four-footed beasts for sacrifice? Those babes are sold for sacrifice by a black, well-nigh incredible bigotry. Twenty minutes hence, without your succour, their innocent hearts will have been plucked from out their riven breasts, as offerings to that blasphemous god who pollutes the sign of our redemption. Say, comrades, shall this thing be?"
The men started a step forward with cheeks aflame.
"No!" exclaimed Alvarado. "By St. Jago and our good swords, no!"
"No!" echoed the whole band, as though with one voice.
"No!" cried Cabrera, impetuously. "Not if we have to put every man in Cempoalla to the sword to deliver them."
And with these exclamations it seemed, for one moment, as though the Spaniards were going to rush forward pell-mell, and effect a rescue. But Cortes raised his hand and checked them. There was time yet to proceed more peaceably. He turned back to the Cacique.
"You see," he began.
"I see there is another of those red-cloaked demons yonder," muttered Cabrera in a tone of bitter loathing to Montoro.
But the low aside formed no interruption to the General, who continued, with determination—
"You see, my followers and I have one heart in this matter. And I, for my part, am resolved that within this hour the idol gods shall be destroyed. Use your authority to stay yonder procession on its further course to sin, and thus hinder bloodshed."
But even before his words were ended it became evident that force must effect, if possible, what persuasion could not do. The Cacique's reply to the imperative demand was a swift signal to his army. It was obeyed as swiftly.
The Indian warriors gathered up from all sides, with shrill cries and clashing of weapons. The priests began to rush on with the litters and their wailing occupants, towards the temple, for the consummation of the sacrifice. The Spaniards, with Montoro de Diego at their head, flew forward, moved to too heart-sickened a pity to wait any longer upon the rule of orders. And soon the whole square and the entire route to the temple was one scene of wild uproar. The priests, in their sombre cotton robes, and dishevelled tresses matted with blood flowing over their shoulders, rushing frantically amongst their warrior brethren, urging them on to the fray, and calling upon them to protect their gods from violation.
All was war and tumult where so lately had been peace and friendly brotherhood.
Cortes took his usual prompt and decided measures. While Montoro led the rescue party, and ceased not his determined onslaught until he had delivered the infants back to arms that, in the new turn of affairs, were stretched out readily enough to receive them again, Cortes, by a bold manœuvre, and the firing off of those terror-speaking guns, gained possession of the great Cacique himself and of some of his principal subjects, including the chief priests.
"Now," he authoritatively commanded once more, and with a better chance of being obeyed. "Now, Nezahualth, you and your people are in my power. Give orders that not another arrow is shot this day, or disobedience shall cost you all your lives."
"The gods will protect us," exclaimed a frenzied priest.
Cortes turned upon him with a cold, haughty glance.
"Did the gods protect thy brethren yesternight? The Spaniards were two to a multitude, and the Spaniards' God gave them victory. Thy god gave his followers up to disgrace and death!"
Whatever effect these words of reminder had upon the Totonac priest, they had a powerful one upon the Totonac chieftain, the Cacique of Cempoalla. With a sudden lowering of his lofty head, he dropped his face into his hands, and exclaimed bitterly that the white men must work their will, and the gods must avenge themselves.
"Even so," said Cortes sternly. "Thus it must be, for from this hour, once for all, their idols shall be destroyed from this city, and the human sacrifices shall cease."
This settled the matter. The Christians were not slow in availing themselves of the Cacique's submission to the inevitable.
At a signal from Cortes fifty soldiers darted off to the chief temple, sprang up the great stone stairway as eagerly as Montoro de Diego and Cabrera had done the night before, entered the building on the summit, the walls of which were black with human gore, tore the huge wooden idols from their foundations, and dragged them to the edge of the terrace.
The fantastic forms and features of these symbolic idols meant nothing to the Spaniards' eyes but outward and visible representations of the hideous lineaments of Satan. With the greatest alacrity, cheered on by Cabrera, the soldiers rolled the colossal monsters down the steps of the pyramid, amidst the triumphant shouts of their own companions, and the groans and lamentations of the awe-struck natives, who forthwith gave up all hopes of the coming harvest in despair.
The work was finally crowned by the burning of the images in the presence of the assembled, startled multitudes. That finishing touch proved a wise one. Hitherto, during the work of desecration, the Totonacs had waited in trembling expectation of some fearful exhibition of their insulted god's great power and glory. But now. Poor impotent deities! they had not been able even to prevent the profanation of their shrines, the destruction of their own representations.
"What think ye of your gods now?" asked Pedro de Alvarado contemptuously, as he spurned a heap of the smouldering ashes with his foot, and turned his scornful eyes upon a group of humbled priests beside him.
"Verily they be fine gods," added Father Juan Diaz, ever ready to hit those who were down. "As able, i' faith, to help ye as to assert their own dignity."
So began the priests and people of Cempoalla, apparently, to think themselves. With bowed heads and dejected steps they left those humiliating mounds of ashes. The day of solemn festival was turned into a day of turmoil and mourning.
The people of that fair land of Mexico had received their first trample under the iron heel of the conqueror. In their abject dejection they aided in the business of their own humiliation.
By Cortes' orders a number of the Totonacs cleansed the floor and walls of the teocalli from their foul impurities; a fresh coating of stucco was laid on them by the native masons, and an altar was raised, surmounted by a lofty cross, and hung with garlands of roses.
"And now, my friends," exclaimed Cortes, addressing the multitudes assembled around the base of the pyramid temple, watching proceedings with a stupefied wonder—"and now, put by your sad thoughts and your saddened countenances, for a brighter day has dawned for you than you have ever known hitherto. I have spoilt one procession, but I will make you full amends with another and more glorious."
With the easy vivacity and changeableness of the semi-civilized nature, the Indians roused up at the Spanish General's new tones of cheerful friendship, and greeted his short speech with shouts of approval, smiles, and nods, which received full reply. Sternness had done its work; he was quite ready now to be as joyous and cordial and brotherly as they would let him. They went from one extreme to the other—from animal-like ferocity to childlike docility, owing to the weakness of their nature. But Cortes, from the dark brows of the resolute victor who would be obeyed, to the courteous, agreeable friend, from policy, and an almost unequalled power of self-command. He promised the procession, and it was soon formed.
Once more Spaniards and Indians assembled in the great square. Side by side, no longer conqueror and captive, but host and guest once more, moved on with calm and stately steps the two leaders, the tall, slender Spaniard, the tall, corpulent Indian chief. Following them came the two armies, in the same brotherly union. Then the Totonac priests, no longer wearing their dismal black garments with those suggestive dark-hued stains upon them, but clothed in white robes, and, like their brother Christian priests, bearing great lighted candles in their hands; while an image of the Virgin, little less roughly made in those days than the idols so lately deposed, but half-smothered under the sweet-scented, brilliant burden of flowers, was borne aloft, and, as the procession climbed the steps of the temple, was deposited above the altar, and a solemn mass, performed by Father Olmedo, concluded the great ceremony, instead of a bloody sacrifice.
"At the same time," murmured Montoro to a companion late that night, as he paced the courtyard of the Spanish encampment—"at the same time, methinks, these poor creatures can but credit us with the cruel insolence of strength, which has destroyed their idols to make way for our own. They had a cross which they adored; we have cast it down to erect our own. They had idols which they reverenced; we have burnt their images but to set up another."
"Even so," replied the good priest, in the same low tones. "My fears go with your thoughts—that they must have strange doubts as to our honesty."
"We preach against idols, and yet have them," added Montoro. "I wonder if our work this day has done much good for the salvation of souls?"
"It has done some good for the salvation of bodies, at any rate," broke in Juan de Cabrera from his sentry post, opposite to which the two friends had paused in the interest of their conversation. "It is thanks wholly and solely to thee, all throughout, Toro, that that hapless little company of babies is alive to-night. And so, my long-faced friend, instead of looking solemn as an old crow, thou shouldst be the merriest fellow in the company."
"Ho, there!" cried the voice of a fourth comer on the scene. "Who talks of merriment, I would know, forsooth, at this sleepy hour of the night, and with never an honest bit of gambling allowed to pass the watch hours by. For my part, I feel glum as a sulky bear."
"Then keep thy distance," was the retort. "For this sultry weather makes me suspicious that my bones may be in a dried-up state, and somewhat too easily crackable, my very esteemed Señor Velasquez de Leon."
Montoro laughed.
"Didst say, Juan, bones or brains were crackable?"
"Both—or meant to," said the young man. "My bones, and Leon's brains. But come, Leon, hast thou not come to relieve guard? for that Toro there, thief that he is, robbed me of my rest last night, and I shall fall asleep on the march to-morrow."
"Better not," replied Velasquez, with a warning shake of the head. "Be advised in time, lest thou mightest get left behind, and then thou wouldst assuredly be raised by the Totonac priests to the honour of the post of one of their lost gods. Thy beauty matches to a marvel that of their striking god of war."
"I'll match him in the striking trait on thee then, at any rate," cried Cabrera, as he raised his arm. But the next instant it was caught, and held fast for a moment in a good firm grip before it was let go.
"How now, my crack-brained schoolboy?" said the laughing voice of the General. "Hast had not enough of brawls during the past day to last thee even over one night? Keep thy blows for the turbulent spirits we may meet on the road to Mexico."
Such magnificent and royal gifts of gold and silver, of precious stones and precious stuffs, of birds and animals, of jeweller's work and the marvellous feather work, feather fans and feather tapestries, costly shields and beautiful embroidery, had been forwarded, by the hands of ambassadors, from the Emperor of Mexico to the Spanish camp, that the Spaniards, from Cortes down to the meanest soldier, had the most exalted ideas of the wealth and power of the new-found empire.
"For my part," remarked Juan de Cabrera one day during the march—"for my part, I have serious thoughts of giving up the worn-out old country, and setting up my tent for the future in this new fairy-land. Gold and fruit and flowers, and food for the trouble of accepting it, are things just suited to my quiet tastes."
Montoro laughed.
"Few of thy friends will doubt thy word for it, Juan. But how about that promise to thy new, bright-eyed bride, the princess of Cempoalla—that she should reign as the queen of beauty not long hence in thine own old city of Madrid?"
"Umph!" ejaculated Cabrera with a slight shrug. "For the promise—well, seest thou it was no vow, bound for honour's sake to be kept—nought but a passing word to a woman. And since she hath me, I doubt not she will have little care for aught else."
"Hearken to him, O ye birds!" cried Alvarado. "Thy vanity doth but outdo thy faithlessness, thou black-crested cockatoo. But knowest thou, I shall be fairly content, for my part, when we are indeed in Mexico's great capital, Tenochtitlan; for I grow tired of this marching with one's head watching all ways at once during the day, and taking sleep at night like a dog, with one eye open."
"Ay, and worse than a dog—with one's hand on one's sword besides," added Cabrera.
Montoro raised his eyebrows as he looked from one to the other of his companions.
"Think ye then, that once in the island city all your cares and anxieties will be at an end?"
"If they do," put in Gonzalo de Sandoval, "I can tell them so thinks not the General himself. Methinks, for all his assumption of cool confidence, that his black locks grow something touched with grey of late."
"And mine also," said Alvarado with a toss of his yellow locks. "But from want of a siesta, and not from any dread of what these poor helpless, red-skinned creatures are likely to do to us."
But even the bold Alvarado and the careless Cabrera felt, a few days later, that confidence, and a feeling of security, were not much more certain of acquirement in a town than amid the uncertain perils of the high-way. Meantime their easy and bloodless victory at Cempoalla had taught both officers and men, for the most part, a good-natured contempt for the natives; and this sentiment was increased by the friendliness hitherto shown them on their route, whenever they were able to come fairly to speech with the Indians.
Alvarado and Cabrera in particular might be pardoned for their impatience, at what they considered something of overmuch watchfulness, for the sunny hair and blue eyes of the one, and the merry face of the other, had hitherto won them smiles and Benjamin's portions from all they met.
However, even before entering a town, the various members of that small army were to learn that their General's prudence was wiser than their own impatience of the discipline.
Between the territory of Cempoalla and Mexico lay the fine little warlike, independent republic of Tlascala, governed by a council elected by their tribes, and united by the strongest bonds of patriotism, and mutual hatred to their powerful and aggressive neighbour, the Emperor of Mexico.[8]
Fierce and revengeful, high-spirited and independent, Cortes decided, as soon as he heard of them, that they were the very auxiliaries to be desired in the contemplated conquest. For every step he now made towards the heart of the great empire, gave him fresh evidence of what an astoundingly bold thing he was doing, in adventuring himself and his handful of enfeebled men in such a magnificent enterprise.
"But with some few thousands of these enemies of Mexico, these Tlascalans," he said one evening towards the end of August, when a halt had been called for the night—"with their aid at our back, Diego, we shall go forward right merrily, methinks."
Montoro looked grave. To say truth, the many human sacrifices he had witnessed of late, and the awfully numerous traces of others discovered along the route, had caused some temporary wavering in his sympathies. Just for the time he was not quite sure if he did not think his Spanish sword would, after all, be well employed in slaying some of the bloodthirsty beings who offered up, in sacrifices to their abominable idols, girls and boys and little children, and then held ghastly feastings on their flesh.
He had begun to feel a loathing indignation for these wretched believers in a gross superstition, which made him a more welcome confidant for Cortes than was usual. He was quite ready to have his five hundred valiant Spanish companions reinforced by a few times that number of the natives. But he had heard news from his interpreter, during the day's march, that made him doubtful if such a reinforcement were altogether so likely as the General appeared to think.
"What does thy face mean, Diego, since thy tongue says nought?" asked Hernando Cortes after a few moments' silence. "Forgive me, but it looks nigh as long as yon merry madcap Cabrera is wont to call it."
Montoro smiled slightly. But he grew earnest enough the next instant as he said—
"Cortes, I fear me that thy face also will lengthen when I tell thee that the Tlascalans are meditating war with us, I believe, rather than peace."
"How sayest thou, Toro?" exclaimed that impetuous fellow, Velasquez de Leon. "Sayest thou the rascals have a mind to feel the touch of a good Toledo blade or two? I' faith, under those circumstances it is for them, not us, to draw the long faces, so I warn them."
"And I warn you," said Cortes seriously, "that it is for both to do so. But what is it that you have learnt, Diego? or rather, what reason is given you for these worthy warriors' bad feeling? They are at such enmity with the Mexicans, that one had some right, truly, to count with confidence upon their friendship."
"And I fully believe would have also had it," was the reply, "had you but given any proof that your sentiments towards this emperor bore any likeness to their own. But——"
"Well?" came the rather impatient query; "but what? Although I have not told the Mexicans themselves such things as should lead them to shut their ways against us, I have let their foes know fairly well that I am ready to aid all complainants to redress their wrongs."
"You have told them so, that is true," said Montoro, once more with a slight smile. "The Tlascalans also admit so much; but, as they say with some astuteness, your deeds are at variance with your words. You have exchanged many valuable gifts with their powerful adversary, you have entertained many of his ambassadors, and you now propose as a friend to visit him in his capital."
"Moreover," put in Father Olmedo, "I learn from your own interpreter, Doña Marina, that they hold us in terrible abhorrence for our hasty and unexplained desecration of the altars of Cempoalla, a place with which they are on terms of peace."
Cortes sprang to his feet angrily.
"That is the best deed I have performed in my life, and it shall receive many a repetition. Preachments are no part of a soldier's duties. It shall be mine to destroy the pollutions of the land; you, father, can take the task of preaching it into purity with such suave slowness as you please. Meantime, to put these rumours respecting those Tlascalans yonder to the test. We will send an embassy forthwith to demand a passage through their territories to Mexico."
"Send me," exclaimed Velasquez de Leon eagerly.
"And me," cried Juan de Cabrera, delighted at the prospect of real action. He preferred using his arms to watching by them, and so did most of his companions.
But Cortes was too politic to accept the offers. The number of his fearless and trusty knights was small enough without risking the lives of any of them needlessly. Some of the chief men among the Cempoallans had accompanied the Spaniards on their march, and of these Cortes chose out four, and sent them to their neighbours, charged with his amicable demand.
Three or four days passed, and those messengers had not returned. Matters began to look serious. Montoro, with his native interpreter, and both in disguise, penetrated some distance one early morning into the unknown dominions. They returned to the camp with the startling intelligence that the ambassadors had been seized as traitors to their country's cause, and renegades from the true faith, and were within a short time to be sacrificed as peace-offerings to the insulted gods.
Instantly the whole camp was astir. The Cempoallans tremblingly anxious to deliver their friends from the indignity of the fate awaiting them; Cortes strongly determined that such a blot should not fall upon his expedition, in the person of his allies.
There was no need to urge despatch in preparations. Each man of the force, native and Spaniard alike, was burning to set forth against the new foe. The foe was equally ready.
But amongst these strange people of the new world were some of the sentiments supposed to belong wholly to the old world's chivalry.
Just as the army was about to set out from its quarters, on that morning of the thirtieth of August, 1519, a long train of people was observed approaching from the distance, bearing an ensign of peace.
Cortes called a halt of his own followers. He and Montoro de Diego, and Father Olmedo, felt most thankful for the turn affairs appeared to have taken, thus at the very twelfth hour. Alvarado and Velasquez, with a good many of their like-minded comrades, it is true, were nothing at all so well contented. They had been living on very short commons the past few days, fare as meagre and unsatisfying as possible, and they regarded the punishment of the unfriendly republicans as a probable means of replenishing their scanty larders.
However, as it turned out, neither content nor discontent had any present foundation. The Tlascalans had also, on their part, it was true, sent an embassage, and a well-laden one. But, although the messengers brought a good deal with them that was acceptable, a request for peace was not one of the offerings.
As the train came near, it was discovered that abundant supplies of food of all kinds were being brought to the half-famished little army. But before they were presented, and to leave no doubt on the Spaniards' minds as to the motives of the gift, one fierce, slim warrior advanced before the company of food-bearers, and with a haughty, undaunted bearing that extorted the respect even of his haughty hearers, he exclaimed—
"See, poor starved-out creatures of a starved-out land, although we refuse entrance to the impious enemies of our gods, we would not that ye should think we grudge, or have need to grudge, you of the bounties that your God, it seems, denies you.
"The Republic of Tlascala sends you food, and in abundance—meat and bread. Eat, and be satisfied. The warriors of Tlascala scorn to attack an enemy enfeebled with disease, faint with hunger. Victory over such would be a vain one. We affront not our gods with famished victims, neither do we deign to feast upon an emaciated prey."
"What a mercy for us," muttered that reckless Cabrera, "since your noble disdain hath led you to feed us thus hospitably."
"For my part also," added Alvarado as quietly, "I would fain try if food will give me back something of the strength of arm their blazing sun hath robbed me of."
"You may well say blazing sun," ejaculated Velasquez de Leon, upon whose excitable temperament the tremendous, continuous heat of the past few weeks had had a peculiarly trying effect. Even the sight of the food scarcely cheered his flagging spirits. Cabrera laid his hand on his shoulder encouragingly.
"Cheer up, friend Leon; I will do the friendly part by thee, if thou wilt, and offer thee up to that aggravating god of rain. Thy dignified person may appease his angry, spiteful idol-ship."
Velasquez sighed.
"I feel well-nigh inclined, Juan, to give thee leave. I have more than once of late had the thought that I would offer up myself."
But whatever might be the voluntarily-endured sufferings of the Spaniards, they were light enough in comparison with those of the poor, brave Tlascalans. Cortes accepted their food, and likewise accepted their challenge, and the following day the two armies met to do battle—the one to preserve its country from the presumptuous invaders' tread, the other to make good its claim to advance where it chose.
Of the two armies decidedly the native one presented the most magnificent and imposing appearance, not only for numbers, but for array.
Far and wide, over a vast plain about six miles square, stretched the enormous army. Nothing could be more picturesque than the appearance of these Indian battalions, with the naked bodies of the common soldiers gaudily painted with the colours of the chieftains whose banners they followed, the splendidly attired chieftains themselves, with their gleaming spears and darts, and the innumerable banners, on which were emblazoned the armorial bearings of the great Tlascalan and Otomie chiefs.
Amongst the most conspicuous of these gorgeous banners were the white heron on the rock, the cognizance of the house of Xicotencatl, and the golden eagle with outspread wings, richly ornamented with emeralds and silver work, the great standard of the Republic of Tlascala.
The feather-mail of the more distinguished warriors, like the bodies of their inferior companions, also indicated by the choice of colours under whose orders they were more specially enrolled. The caciques themselves, and their chief officers, were clothed in quilted cotton tunics two inches thick, which, fitting close to the body, protected also the thighs and the shoulders; over this garment were cuirasses of thin gold or silver plate. Their legs were defended by leathern boots or sandals trimmed with gold.
But the most brilliant portion of the costume was a rich mantle of the Mexican feather work, embroidered with a skill and taste alike wonderful. This picturesque dress was surmounted by a fantastic helmet made of wood or leather, representing the head of some wild animal, and frequently displaying a fierce set of teeth.
From the crown floated a splendid plume of rich feathers, indicating by form and colour the rank and family of the wearer. The rest of their armour consisted of shields of wood covered with leather, or of reeds quilted with cotton, and all alike showily ornamented, and finished off with a beautiful fringe of feather work.
Their weapons were slings, bows and arrows, javelins, and darts. And for swords, a two-handed staff, about three and a half feet long, in which at regular distances were inserted sharp blades of itztli—a formidable weapon, with which they could fell a horse. They excelled in throwing the javelin, and they were such expert archers that they could discharge two and even three at a time.[9]
And yet with all this, and with an almost superhuman courage besides, the poor, noble republicans were conquered. They had not guns, they had not horses, and they had no keen Toledo blades—those cruel blades that cut their hands through to the bone when they grasped them, in their desperate courage, to wrench them, if it might be, from their adversaries' clasp.
And thus, after fourteen days of grand efforts to maintain their hitherto unbroken freedom, and to preserve the soil of their country from the invader's foot, the Tlascalans found themselves at length so diminished in numbers, so broken in strength, and so utterly helpless against the white-faces' wonderful animals and wonderful weapons, that once more an embassage came from Tlascalan head-quarters to the Spanish general.
Once more the stern-visaged Tlascalan warrior heralded a train of men and Indian maidens, bearing various gifts to the invading force.
Even yet the brave redskin maintained his grave dignity of bearing, but it was tempered now with a deep melancholy, as he exclaimed in tones of heart-stirred grief—
"Behold, ye strange and invincible white-faces, our gods have warned us now that to fight against ye is vain. Ye are few, and we are many; but we are slain, and our sepulchres already overflow, while ye all are still alive. We cannot fight against the gods, if such ye be, or against the gods who fight for you."
"You say well," responded Cortes, solemnly. "It is our God and St. Jago who fight for us, and through them we are as rocks to withstand the assaults of all enemies. But if you come to ask for peace, you will find us to be friends as staunch as we are resistless foes."
The warrior lifted his head proudly.
"We come to offer peace, and we bring gifts as signs of good-will. If ye are, in very deed, fierce-tempered divinities, lo! we present to you five slaves, that ye may drink their blood and eat their flesh. If ye are mild deities, accept an offering of incense and variegated plumes. For we are poor. We have little gold, or cotton, or salt; only, hitherto, our freedom and our arms. If ye be but men of like nature with ourselves, we bring you meat and bread and fruit to nourish you."
And they brought them far more besides than all that, for they brought them strong fidelity, clever brains, and arms useful enough against nations armed like themselves, and of no higher grade in the scale of civilization.
A very singular and picturesque affair was the camp of the Spaniards, when they paused, for rest or war, on the march to Mexico.
The gay-coloured cotton hangings of the Mexican manufactures had, in many instances, taken the place of the Spaniards' own rough and ragged tent coverings. All around were squatted groups of the slaves who had accompanied the army from Cuba and the sea-coast—races far inferior to those by whom they were now surrounded, and with very scant ideas as to dress, or any of the other refinements of civilization.
Then there were the gentle-spirited, courteous Totonac allies, evidencing their cultured tastes, and advanced instincts, by gathering armfuls of the brilliant wild blossoms about them to adorn their helmets and their shields; whilst regarding them, a short distance off, stood companies of the more warlike, stern-spirited Tlascalans, looking on at their neighbours' doings with a contempt they took no pains to conceal. They were magnificent enough themselves in their warrior's dress, as has been seen; but, under present circumstances, aught having a festal or light-hearted appearance they fairly well judged to betoken effeminacy as much as refinement.
For the rest, there was little love lost between the Cempoallans and the poverty-stricken, hardy Republicans, and although united for the time in one camp as allies of one commander, they took care mutually not to have too much to do with each other.
As for the Spaniards themselves, who were now but as one to eight of their Indian comrades, they were a lean-cheeked, sallow, hollow-eyed set of tatterdemalions enough by this time. All of them had received more or less wounds in their fierce battles with the Tlascalans, and even Hernando Cortes was only kept up by his indomitable resolution, for what with illness and his doctor, he had been brought to such a state of weakness that he could hardly sit steady on his saddle. Fifty of his poor, overdone soldiers had died since starting from Vera Cruz, and the whole band had at last become more than half doubtful whether any of them would reach Mexico alive.
"And really," grumbled Pedro de Alvarado dolefully one evening, "really I don't much care if I do. I'd just as soon lay my bones out here to bleach as within yon mythical city of gold."
"Mythical, as to the being built of gold, doubtless," returned Montoro de Diego in a cheering tone. "But as to there being a fine city yonder, that you surely do not doubt. Think how hopeful all of you were a while since, when you saw the magnificence of its Emperor's gifts!"
"Ah, well!" sighed poor Pedro restlessly. "I would give him better thanks now for an ounce of good health than for an hundredweight of gold."
"Ay indeed, my Captain," groaned Father Juan Diaz. "There you have me with you. I am but just come hither from shriving two poor wretches, who have bid good-bye to this earthly purgatory to go to that which is invisible, and methinks 'twill be not long before you join them there."
"Nay, croaker," exclaimed a voice between contempt and indignation. "There is many an Indian now living will have cause to wish that thine ill prophecy were a true one, before our friend Pedro rids him of his troublesome body. But come thou with me. I would rather try my hand at putting some spirit into thee, than leave thee to rob our comrades of the measure that is theirs."
And so saying Cortes, who had come up at a somewhat opportune moment, marched off the crestfallen, discontented priest to his own quarters to receive a pretty sharp lecture, spite his reverend profession, before he was released.
All the same, the priest's mischievous growls had already borne fruit, and the following morning, before the tents were struck, the Captain-General had to receive a deputation from the malcontents, who were too numerous to be treated with anger or disdain.
"But you are so foolish!" exclaimed Hernando, indeed trembling at the desperate state of the mighty cause he had in hand. "Ye speak as though it were for my glory alone, to fill my pockets with gold only, that ye have all thus fought and struggled and endured until now! Is it not likewise for yourselves? If our achievements shall be so stupendous and so glorious that they hand my name down to after-ages, will not your names also gain the like renown?"
Cortes put the exclamation as a declared certainty, but his hearers rather accepted it as a question, and a shrunken-limbed, white-lipped soldier from amidst the group rejoined harshly—
"Nay, not so, Captain. Those who live through the battle win their spurs, like enough; but those who die, e'en though it be on the eve of victory, so it be before the battle is decided, think you their names get handed down? Faith, no, then. Fame is like other riches, limited in quantity, and so it is reserved, like many another thing, for those who walk over their comrades' dead bodies to success."
As the man ended his speech he staggered from weakness, and would have fallen forward to the ground on his face but that Montoro, who had been standing beside the General to guard him in case of mutiny, saw the poor fellow sinking, and sprang forward in time to catch him in his arms.
Cortes had been hitherto standing fronting his discontented followers with an air of proud resolve, every inch the commander, and the indomitable discoverer and conqueror, but now his countenance suddenly changed, softened, and his lips trembled. He was the man with a genial temper and a warm heart once more—the very comrade indeed of the meanest soldier in his company, who bore all that they had to bear, eat the same food, and shared all the same privations and fatigues; or rather, differed in this, that he took the lion's share of every discomfort whenever it was possible.
As the exhausted man fell swooning into Montoro's ready arms, Cortes stepped forward hastily, and carefully aided in carrying him to his own tent, and there placed him in the clever care of Doña Marina, the interpreter.
"Poor fellow!" he ejaculated on his return to the waiting deputation. "Poor fellow! no wonder that he speaks down-heartedly, for I find that he has been badly wounded, and has fever."
"So have we all been wounded," said another of the group, but more calmly. "And for the fever, well, I may almost say, and so have we all got fever. And do you wonder, General, that it is so?"
A rather weary smile passed over the General's countenance as he replied,
"No, truly, I wonder not at all. I also have been wounded, as you know, in our late engagements with these brave Tlascalans, and I also have fever. But seeing that we all confess to having suffered so much to reach the threshold, shall we not adventure the one more step to enter the door?"
"If it were a step!" ejaculated the new spokesman. "But as it is, we live a worse life than our very animals. When the saddles are off them they can forget their troubles for a while, but for us! Ah! then, we have no dog's life indeed, but one much worse. Fighting and watching night and day, we have no rest till death steps up to put an end to all."
The speaker's words were hard, but they were uttered so temperately and firmly that Cortes replied to them in the like spirit—
"You are right, my brothers—no animal, no unreasoning beast of burden could endure the life we have borne for these past months of desperate adventure; neither could any animal be so buoyed up with lofty hopes, neither could it have so glorious a rejoicing if success should be the crown at last. Our God has helped us to bear and to overcome, as the gods of the ancients never helped even the very greatest of their heroes. None but Spaniards, my brothers, aided by the Spaniard's God and St. Jago, could have struggled onwards, always conquerors as we have been, a handful in the midst of myriads of foes. And remember—" And as Cortes uttered that word he paused, and looked round upon his followers ere he repeated impressively, "Remember, comrades, whatever adversities we have suffered, whatever trials, we have still ever advanced, we have made no step backwards from our undertaking. But you are all free men. We will all stand here and watch the man who first makes that step in retreat and he shall have no hindrance. I myself will be the first to bid him the 'good speed' of farewell."
"Poor fellows!" murmured Father Olmedo with a half-smile to Montoro. "Our General is indeed clever. Few would have found a way so well to give a choice that is no choice. How can any of them now accept his permission to be gone!"
Montoro's countenance reflected the half-smile of his companion. But at the same time he shrugged his shoulders with the reply,
"Ah, well! as Hernando Cortes himself says, better death with honour than life with disgrace."
Unconsciously he uttered the last sentence aloud, and once more he did the General good service. The poor, hard-worn grumblers heard it, and it clenched the argument already so cleverly managed by Cortes.
"Perhaps you have reason, my Señor," exclaimed one of the malcontents. "If we get home alive with our boasted programme of conquest unfulfilled we shall get nought but scorning, it is probable, till we shall wish that verily we had died with our brethren out here. So for my part, after all, I elect to stay."
"To advance, you mean," cried Cortes joyously, making a stride forward to lay his hand, with a well-assumed air of gratitude and friendly familiarity, on the shoulder of the recovered adherent. "There is no 'staying' for us, my friends. We must continue to advance to our appointed goal, or we must retreat. And I frankly tell you all this, that it is my firm belief that our greatest safety, nay, still more, our only safety, lies in progress."
"How so?" boldly demanded a voice in the crowd. "For honour—well, that may be. But for safety!"
"Ay," replied Cortes. "And for safety too, I affirm. And were it not that the experiment would be too costly I would soon prove my assertion to be well-founded. Hitherto our course has been one of unbroken advance, and victory over one petty state after another, and all have become awed by our strange power. Let us make but one day's journey backwards, as though disheartened or worn out, and the spell would be broken; our enemies, forgetting their own petty squabbles for the time, would unite for the destruction of the common enemy and invader, and by the mere force of numbers we should be overwhelmed as with an avalanche. But now we are once more united, my hands feel strong once more, and I will most surely lead you on, my comrades, to a full and final success."
"Meantime," remarked Juan de Cabrera, in a tone of as much satisfaction as marked Cortes' own voice, "meantime, my very good friends and brothers, I see yonder a party of these worthy redskin cooks advancing in the very nick of time with our dinner. And I confess that, for my part, I would fain for the present put by the questions of backwards or forwards, and stay a while to help clear their dishes for them."
Apparently Don Juan's sentiments were remarkably similar at the moment to those of the rest of his companions, and, after a good meal, Cortes found his band once more ready with alacrity to follow whither he might choose to lead.
Their first destination was the beautiful and sacred city of Cholula—the Rome, as it were, of Mexico. The Tlascalans eagerly warned the Spaniards against approaching it or entering its streets. The Cholulans, they declared, were fair speaking but crafty, making amends to themselves for cowardly weakness by cunning, and the most unscrupulous treachery.
But Cortes was never a man to be easily turned aside from his purpose. The Cholulans sent to invite him to enter their city, but entreated that the hasty-tempered Tlascalan warriors might be kept without in the camp, and Cortes accepted the invitation and granted the request.
The ancient and populous city of Cholula was reputed of great antiquity by the Aztecs, even when they themselves conquered it from the descendants of its ancient founders. It was the chief seat of the religion of the empire and of its commerce, and was held in the most profound veneration by the Aztecs generally, as the chosen abode for twenty years of their wonderful, benevolent, and wise white god Quetzalcoatl, whose descendants they took the unknown Spaniards to be when they first landed on their coasts.
Poor creatures! they were soon undeceived. These new gods taught them plenty of lessons, truly—such lessons as human nature learns but too readily. But they taught none of the lessons their wise ancestor and so-called god had taught of the arts of peace, and civilization, and wise-living.
But whatever might be the merits or demerits of Cholula and the Cholulans, the Tlascalan Caciques showed such anxiety that the Spaniards should give them a wide berth, that at length Cortes somewhat impatiently exclaimed,—
"Methought the Republicans of Tlascala were reputed a brave nation; but I see now that there are some they fear, and they are the people of Cholula."
The eyes of the younger chieftains flashed indignantly at the imputation, but the grand old centenarian Xicotencatl signed to them to keep silence. He called to him a young Indian maiden, his granddaughter, and in low, impressive tones spoke a few words to her.
As the girl listened the crimson deepened in her cheeks, her chest heaved, and the pair of brilliant dark eyes, she turned upon the Spanish General, were flashing as proudly as any of those belonging to the warriors of her country.
Leaving the apartment for a few moments, she quickly returned with a long leather thong, which she carried to Cortes, and then placing her small, dark-hued wrists together, she made signs to him that he should bind them with it thus.
Hernando Cortes was ever gentle with women, and he looked at the rough leather strap, and at the delicate wrists from which the gaily-embroidered robe had been thrown back, and met the girl's signs with smiling shakings of the head for denial. But it was no good. The young Indian flung back the hair from her low, broad forehead angrily, and stamped her foot. Then pressing her wrists against each other more tightly than before, she again held them up to Cortes with an air of resolution, mingled with something of wistful entreaty he could no longer resist.
"Best see, Captain," said Cabrera, inquisitively; "best let us see what the wilful lassie will be at."
"Ay, indeed," agreed Velasquez readily. "I would fain see what rebuke for your taunt of cowardice, Captain, the ancient white-locks yonder hath devised, and yon maiden is so eager to carry out."
Even Montoro looked curious enough to see what small play was to be performed for their edification. Neither he nor any of them thought it could be anything very desperate, with that slight young girl chosen for the heroine and only actor.
Accordingly, thus urged, and with the small, gold-sandalled foot still tapping restlessly before him on the floor, Hernando Cortes at last set himself to the singular task accorded him, and was not let off, by his small monitress, before he had really bound her wrists together too tightly for her to move them as much as a leaf's thickness apart.
Then she walked with erect head and firm steps back to the old Cacique, where he sat, even that hot day, beside a brazier of burning coals. Old age had chilled the physical nature, although the brave spirit still glowed with the generous warmth of youth.
As his granddaughter stood before him he stooped for a moment over the copper pan of fire. The Spaniards stood at the other end of the apartment still and silent, waiting for what was to come. With all their guessing they had not guessed rightly the nature of the lesson to be taught them.
At the expiration of a few instants the Indian maiden returned back towards them, walking with calm, slow dignity as before—her head erect, her full, crimson lips lying lightly and softly together, and her two bound arms stretched out steadily before her.
At first the Spaniards looked only at her face, and were greatly puzzled. What had been done to her, or what had she done in that short interval to prove the courage of her nation? They could not tell the riddle.
Suddenly the eyes of Montoro fell to her arms, and he uttered a low, pained cry. But he did no more. He seemed as though he could not move; for once his readiness forsook him. His friends looked at him, saw the direction of his eyes, and in their turn they also glanced down at the girl's arms, and in their turn they also uttered startled cries as they did so.
There upon the soft, tender young arms lay a glowing coal, eating its fiery way into the bare flesh. And there came the young and delicate owner of those agonized arms pacing along slowly, with a calm and noble bearing and a proudly-smiling face, the champion of her nation's dauntlessness.
Pedro de Alvarado sprang forward, an unwonted dimness in his eyes, and snatching away the burning fragment with his fingers, he flung it out into the courtyard, and then with hasty gentleness unbound the tortured, swelling wrists, whilst the girl looked up in his face with a pleased, half-smiling wonder at his pity.
The old Cacique turned to Cortes.
"Will the white-face chieftain or his brothers any longer doubt the courage of the warriors of Tlascala? They have seen the courage of our maidens."
"Ay, indeed!" ejaculated Cabrera. "And if the courage of the maidens of ancient times were anything of a match to it I, for my part, feel little wonder that in those days there was a race of Amazons. Little use would there be in trying to keep a wife, after that pattern, in order with a threat of fisticuffs."
Montoro turned a laughing face round from the young Indian girl, whose wounds he was examining.
"Is that the way you try to rule your Cempoallan bride, my Juan? I had scarcely thought it from her looks."
"Ah," was the calm reply, "thou seest, friend Montoro, thou knowest nought of women and their natures. Sour looks and savage ways always put the merry light in their eyes, and the laughter on their lips. I have taught thee a useful lesson, see that it proves profitable."
"When the opportunity shall come," came the answer, but more in earnest now than in jest, "I will surely try to profit by thy teaching, but the teaching of thy ways and not thy words."
And then, summoning one of the young maiden's attendants to accompany them, Montoro went with his docile and grateful patient away to a quieter apartment.
The girl-heroine had been quite willing to bear the agonizing pain with uncomplaining fortitude, but she was by no means loth to have the scorched and blistered sores dressed with a skill and tenderness to which she had been hitherto a stranger. Doña Marina stood by the while, gaining a useful lesson, and acting as interpreter.
As the dressing drew to a close the girl said with a sudden tone of animation,—
"The good white-face seems to think I have done something deserving praise; will he let me take him to see what my brothers, and their companions, bear ere they can enter the noble rank of knighthood?"
Her eyes looked so bright and eager that Montoro would have scarcely cared to refuse the request, even had it been an unwelcome one; but as it happened to agree most thoroughly with his own desires to see, and learn, everything that was possible of these wonderful new-found countries before he quitted them, his assent was almost as eager as the offer; and a few minutes hence Montoro, accompanied by his faithful interpreter, and the Cacique's granddaughter, accompanied, as befitted her rank, by half-a-dozen attendants and Doña Marina, set forth on an expedition to one of the neighbouring temples.