The Infidel Volume Ii Part 6

"What is this that I see?" said the king, in a low but stern voice; "and who hath brought this woman to my garden?"

Masquazateuctli bent his head to the earth, replying with the complacency of one who has achieved a happy exploit,--

"The king made the Great Eagle of the East his brother; he took him to the hill of Chapoltepec that his people might know him, and do him honour. Shall not Masquazateuctli do a good thing to the king's brother?

He was sorry because of his loneliness in the king's garden, and the Maiden of the East was afar in Tezcuco. I thought of this, and I crept to the gates of Tezcuco: and I said, 'I will take a prisoner for the king, and perhaps I shall find a maiden with white brows; which will gladden the heart of the king's brother.' Mexitli was with me. But I killed the man that came with her, for I saw she was that daughter of a G.o.d, with eyes like the full moon, of whom the king had spoken, when he came from Tezcuco alone, and my heart was very joyful. The Eagle is glad--he will not ask the king for the daughter of Montezuma!"

Guatimozin muttered a fierce interjection betwixt his teeth, but replied with dignity,

"The Lord of Death should have spoken this to the king; but if he be angry, he remembers that Masquazateuctli was Montezuma's soldier. By and by, I will speak with him in the palace.--I have said."

The Lord of Death, thus dismissed, and not a little mortified at such insufficient thanks, beckoned to his followers and departed.

Guatimozin strode up to the Christians, and touching Juan on the shoulder, said, with a stern voice,

"What shall the king say of his brother, to the daughter of Montezuma?"

The colour rushed into Juan's cheeks; but he replied immediately, and even firmly,

"That he brings her his sister, to whom, for his own sake, he prays her to be kind and gentle."

"Does my brother tell me this?" said the king, starting. "The Great Eagle said he was alone in the world, with none of his kin remaining."

"And so I thought, until this hour," said Juan, not without embarra.s.sment: "and now must I tell the king, that though I call this maiden my sister, and pray heaven she may prove so, yet neither she nor I have aught upon which to found our belief, but the words of one whom the Lord of Death killed, when he seized her."

Guatimozin intently eyed the maiden, who watched with painful interest the changes of his countenance and Juan's, for she understood not a word of their speech; and then said,

"Let it be so: Guatimozin will think of this. The Spanish lady is welcome--the Eagle shall speak with her a little, and then give her up to the women, that they may be good to her.--The king's house is very s.p.a.cious."

He then turned gravely away, signing to the outcast pair to follow him.

They were suffered to be alone together for a brief hour, in which Magdalena, rejecting impetuously and pa.s.sionately all Juan's doubts, poured out all the secrets of a life full of unhappiness, but not of crime; and Juan himself, forgetting the weakness of all her claims of consanguinity, melted into belief, and learned to call her his sister.

There were indeed certain circ.u.mstances of mystery about his birth, which might have often disturbed his thoughts, had he been of an imaginative turn. The man whom he had called and esteemed his father, had died a violent death in the islands, while Juan was yet very young.

He could recollect little of him that was agreeable to remember; and all that had afterwards come to his ears, only served to chill his curiosity; all persons, who had not forgotten him, representing the elder Lerma as a most depraved and infamous man. No one knew whence he had come, or if he had any relatives left in the world; and Juan remembered well, that the planters had, on several occasions, when the unnatural parent, if parent he was, had maltreated and abandoned him, taken him away from Lerma, and comforted Juan with the a.s.surance that the villain had undoubtedly _stolen_ him from some one. It is, however, very certain that Juan never seriously thought of doubting that this man was his parent; nor would he have recalled such trivial circ.u.mstances to his mind, had he not been staggered by the impetuosity of Magdalena, and by his own feelings of affection, into a credulity almost as ample as her own. That he should desire also to find a relative in one, who, considered without reference to the weakness shown only in her love for him, was of a soul as stainless as it was n.o.ble, is not to be doubted; and such love he could be rejoiced to return. In truth, his reasons for admitting her claims were as flimsy as hers for making them, as he came to discover, when left to examine them in solitude. They made, however, a deep and lasting impression upon his mind. Perhaps the impression would have been still deeper, had the two been permitted to remain longer together; but before Magdalena had yet been able to speak with composure, there came a train of maidens, bearing chaplets of flowers, and rich ornaments of feathers, giving Juan to understand, that it was the king's will his companion should now leave him.

Magdalena turned pale, when this command was announced to her by Juan, and seemed at first as if resolved never to be parted from him more. But being persuaded by Juan that she had nothing to fear--that the king was his friend--that they should certainly meet again,--she at last consented. She strode to the door--she listened to his words of farewell, and she sobbed upon his breast; and then departed with the happy but delusive hope of seeing him again on the morrow.

It was the last night of peace that ever darkened over the Mexico of the pagans.

CHAPTER VIII.

To one whose perverted imagination can dwell with pleasure on 'the pomp and circ.u.mstance of glorious war,' no better study can be recommended than the history of the siege of Mexico, which may be considered as one single battle, lasting for the s.p.a.ce of ninety-three days, counting from the time when the different divisions of the besieging army had taken their positions in form, upon the different causeways. This does not include the period occupied in the march of these bodies from Tezcuco, and which was not devoted to inactivity. On the contrary, the Captain-General took advantage of the occasion to discipline his naval force, by sweeping over the lake from bay to bay, and town to town, destroying every piragua that made its appearance, as well as such chinampas, or floating gardens, as he could approach, and frequently by cannonading the imperial city itself. Besides this, he a.s.saulted and took, on each occasion after a most sanguinary combat, certain fortresses upon two island rocks, one of which rose near to Iztapalapan: the other, though no longer insulated, still lies a little to the east of the republican city, and is called the Penon, or Crag, of Montezuma.

The preparations of the Mexicans were extensive and antic.i.p.ative of all the peculiar evils which they thought it in the power of their great enemy to inflict. They had cut through the causeways numberless ditches, each of which was furnished with a light bridge, to be withdrawn, when about to fall into the power of the Spaniards; and the earth and stones thus removed, were built up before and behind the chasms, into strong ramparts, which were still further strengthened with palisades. In this manner, while opposing the greatest obstructions to the pa.s.sage of the foot-soldiers, they made it impossible for horses to be brought against them,--a precaution that, for a long time, robbed the Spaniards of their greatest advantage.

The beginning of the siege of Mexico, then, lay in the struggles of the besiegers to obtain possession of the ditches, which were to be filled up, by levelling the ramparts. This was a work both of infinite danger and toil, the besieged fighting from behind the advanced barriers with unexampled resolution, and, however overpowered, never retreating beyond the ditch, until their companions had left but a single plank for their pa.s.sage, which was immediately afterwards withdrawn. After this, the Spaniards were forced to overturn the first barrier into the chasm, before they could rush across the slough of mud and water, to attack the second; and all this was to be done not only against violent opposition in front, but with a most dangerous and audacious species of annoyance practised on one flank or the other, and sometimes on both. Wherever the shallows admitted, the Mexicans drove into the bottom of the lake, and at but a short distance from the dike, strong piles, to which they secured their canoes, furnished with high and thick bulwarks of planks, almost musket-proof; and from these they drove arrows, darts, and stones against the soldiers with destructive effect. Nay, with such wisdom had the young king of Mexico devised means to embarra.s.s his adversary, that he had even secured his little flotillas from the possibility of approach, by sinking rows of piles in the lake, parallel with the causeways, through which the brigantines could not pa.s.s, to disperse them. It was to but little purpose that Cortes battered them from a distance with his falconets; the following morning saw replaced every loss of men and canoes. The soldiers were excited to fury by an annoyance so irritating, and some were found at times frantic enough to leap into the lake, where the waters happened to be sufficiently shallow, and endeavour to carry the flotillas, sword in hand.

The narrowness and obstructed condition of the dikes making it impossible that all the forces could act upon them together, the vast mult.i.tudes of native allies were left in reserve, with the cavalry, on the sh.o.r.e,--where they were not idle, the numbers, as well as the boldness of the Mexicans being so great, that they frequently sent armies to the sh.o.r.e by night, who, at the dawn, fell upon the reserved troops with all the rancour of opponents in a civil war.

This was the condition of the war at its commencement. The grand desiderata,--the removal of the flotillas, and the profitable employment of the confederates, were not effected until Cortes had seized all the piraguas of the sh.o.r.e-towns, and sent them, manned with Tlascalans, against the palisaded posts, where, besides doing what execution they could upon the enemy, the allies tore away the piles, and thus admitted some of the lighter brigantines among the canoes.

Aided in this manner, the soldiers were able to advance along the several dikes, until they got possession of certain military stations, on each, which might have been called the gates of Mexico.

It has been already said, that the causeways of Iztapalapan and Cojohuacan, coming respectively from the south and southwest, united together at the distance of less than a league from Mexico. At the point of junction, the causeway expanded into a mole or quay, where was a strong and lofty stone wall, the pa.s.sage through which was contrived by the overlapping of the walls, in the manner described at Tezcuco. This rampart was defended by very strong towers and by a parapet with embrasures, from which the defenders could easily repel any enemy, inferior in strength and determination to the Spaniards. The point was called Xoloc, and when wrested from the hands of the Mexicans, became the head-quarters of Cortes.

A similar expansion of the dike of Tacuba, fortified in the same way, and at the distance of two miles from the city, and one from the sh.o.r.e, afforded a resting-place and garrison for the forces under Alvarado, whose first act, after reaching Tacuba, was to destroy the aqueduct of Chapoltepec, which consisted of a double line of baked earthenware pipes, carried across the lake on a dike constructed only for that purpose, and therefore so narrow and inconsiderable, that it does not appear that the Spaniards derived any advantage from the possession of it.

The division of De Olid united with that of Sandoval at the point Xoloc; the latter of whom was afterwards directed to take possession of the northern dike of Tepejacac, the remains of which may yet be traced between the city and the hill of Our Lady of Guadalupe, on which was a fortification resembling the others.

These positions being thus a.s.sumed, the Captain-General divided the fleet of brigantines among the three captains, to whom they were of vast service, by protecting the flanks of their divisions.

From this period, the siege may be considered to have been begun in form; and it was continued with a fury of attack and resistance almost without parallel in the history of conquest. Foot by foot, and inch by inch, the invaders advanced, staining the causeways with their blood, and choking the lake with the bodies of their foes. Ditch after ditch was won and filled, and almost as often lost and re-opened. The day was devoted to battle, the night to alarms. The only periods of rest were when the daily tempests, for it was now the heart of the rainy season, burst over the heads of the combatants, as if heaven had sent its floods to efface the horrible dyes of carnage, and its thunders to drown the roar of man's more destructive artillery. Then, the exhausted soldier and the fainting barbarian flung themselves to rest upon the trodden mud of their ramparts, within sight of each other, regardless of the wrath of the elements, so much less enduring than their own.

At first, the Spaniards after winning a ditch and filling it, were content to return for the night to the fortified stations, to shelter themselves in the towers, and in miserable huts of reeds which they had constructed, from the rains, that, usually, continued until midnight.

But finding that the infidels, more manly or more desperate, devoted the night to repair the losses of the day, by again opening the chasms, they denied themselves even this poor solace, and threw themselves to sleep on the spots where they fought, ready to resume the conflict at the first glimmer of dawn.

Thus, day by day, the approaches were effected, and by the end of the second month, the besiegers had advanced almost to the suburbs, which jutted out into the lake along the three causeways, supported upon foundations of piles, and sometimes piers of stone. The houses stood apart from each other, but were connected, in seasons of peace, by light wooden drawbridges, running from terrace to terrace; so that the _streets_ of these quarters may be said to have been on the tops of the houses,--and the same thing was true of the gardens. The communication below was effected always by means of canoes. Among these edifices, the water was often of sufficient depth to float the brigantines of lighter draught, which sometimes entered them, to fire the buildings, that were so many fortresses, from which the soldiers on the causeways could be annoyed.

The labours and sufferings of the besiegers were constant, and almost intolerable; yet they endured them with a patience derived from the a.s.surance of a certain though tardy success. The toils and distresses of the Mexicans were greater, and endured with heroism still more n.o.ble, because almost without hope; and it may be said with justice of these poor barbarians, whose memory has almost vanished from the earth, that never yet did a people fight for their altars and firesides with greater courage and devotion. They saw themselves each day confined to narrow limits,--they fought the more resolutely; they beheld all the marine forces of the neighbouring towns, late their feudatories, led against them,--they sent navies of their own to chastise the insurgents, and still kept their ground against the Spaniards.

It was certain that Cortes had found in the young king an antagonist far more formidable than he had expected. The resistance at the ramparts, the sallies by night that were often made with fatal effect, the secret expeditions against the sh.o.r.es, and the stratagems put in execution to cripple the brigantines, all indicated, in the infidel prince, a capacity of mind worthy of his unconquerable courage. A single exploit will prove his daring and his craft. He decoyed two of the largest brigantines into a certain bay, where many of his strongest piraguas lay in ambush among the reeds. With these, he attacked, boarded, and carried the two vessels, and had he possessed any knowledge of the management of sails, would have conducted them in safety to his palace walls. As it was, they were maintained against an overpowering force, sent to retake them, and not yielded until the captors had destroyed every Christian on board, fifty in number, as well as the sails and cordage, and cast the falconets into the lake.

Another stratagem of a still more daring character, and infinitely more fatal to the Spaniards, was conceived and executed, almost at the moment when they thought the young monarch reduced to despair. But of that we shall have occasion to speak more at length hereafter. The thousand conflicts on land and water, that marked the progress of a siege so extraordinary, have but little connexion with the adventures of the two outcasts; and we are glad of the privilege to pa.s.s them by.

CHAPTER IX.

When Magdalena was led from the presence of Juan, she was conducted through many chambers and pa.s.sages, which gave her an idea of the immense extent of the palace, to the quarter especially appropriated to the women, and which was as carefully guarded from the approach of the other s.e.x as the harem of an oriental monarch. It consisted of a series of dormitories and other small apartments, as well as a vast hall, covered with pictured tapestry and knots of flowers, in which the daily labour of the loom and spindle was shared by all, the princess and the slave alike, mingled with the more elegant occupations of embroidery and feather-painting.

But the toil of the day had been long since over, and when she entered, the maidens were amusing themselves, some talking and laughing, and others dancing to the sound of flutes, and all unconscious or heedless of the perils that were about to hem them in.

The appearance of a vision so strange, so often imagined, yet never before seen--a woman of the race of the invaders, and one at once so majestic and lovely as Magdalena--produced an immediate sensation throughout the merry crew. The dancing ceased, the music of the pipe was exchanged for a murmur of admiration, and all eyes were turned upon the novel apparition. But it was observable, that the maidens indulged in no rude demonstrations of curiosity or surprise. They neither thronged about her, nor uttered any loud exclamations; and however ardently they gazed, when unperceived, each cast her looks modestly to the floor, the moment she found the eyes of the stranger directed upon her.

Troubled as were Magdalena's thoughts by the strangeness of her situation, and conscious of her inability to exchange a word with these new companions, she yet felt a sort of relief, and even pleasure, to find herself once more surrounded by individuals of her own s.e.x, who, as was evident from their appearance, were neither rude in manners nor degraded in mind.

In this happier frame of feeling, she suffered herself to be conducted to a chamber, where two young female slaves attended her with refreshments of meats, fruits, and confections, and pointing to a couch of robes, upon a little platform under a canopy, left her to her meditations.

She rose from a troubled and dreamy slumber at the dawn, and waited impatiently for the moment when she should be led to Juan. The slaves again made their appearance, bearing, besides food, which they set before her, rich garments of the most splendid hues, which they desired her by signs to subst.i.tute for her monastic attire. To this she acceded, after some hesitation, thinking it needful to humour the wishes of those upon whose friendship her existence, as well as that of Juan, so obviously depended. She exchanged, at least, the gray veil for a broad mantle embroidered with feathers and gold, and placed over her other dress three several tunics, each of a different hue, and each gorgeously ornamented. Her toilet was completed when the slaves had encircled her arms and neck with jewels, and wreathed her hair with chains of gold; to all which she pa.s.sively, yet impatiently, submitted.

Thus dressed and decorated, she was conducted again to the great hall, and seated upon a throne cushioned over with feathers of every hue, when, to her great surprise, she found herself the object upon whom was to be showered marks of the most extraordinary honour. The crowd of maidens was huddled in the farther end of the apartment, where they stood with downcast eyes, giving place to a female, evidently of exalted rank, who came from among them, followed by five or six girls, much more splendidly dressed than the others, one of whom bore in her arms a sleeping infant.

The Indian lady was distinguished from her attendants by apparel similar in hues and splendour to that worn by Magdalena, and she had on her head a little cap or caul of emeralds, mingled with pearls. Her face was prepossessing, her figure well proportioned, and her bearing not without dignity. Yet there was in her aspect something of trouble and hesitation, and she went through the business of salutation, or rather homage, for so it appeared, with visible reluctance. She approached the throne, and kneeling before it, took Magdalena's hand, and laid it upon her head, speaking a few words which the Christian did not comprehend.