CHAPTER XXXIII.
The soldiers of Alvarado differed in no wise from those veterans whomDon Amador had found standing to their arms on the banks of the River ofCanoes; only that they presented, notwithstanding their loudly venteddelight, a care-worn and somewhat emaciated appearance,--the consequenceof long watches, perpetual fears, and, in part, of famine. They broketheir ranks, as has been said, as soon as they beheld their general, andsurrounded him with every expression of affection; and, while stretchingforth their hands with cries of gratitude and joy, invoked manyexecrations on their imperial prisoner, the helpless Montezuma, as thecause of all their sufferings. Among them, Don Amador took notice of oneman, who, though armed and habited as a Spaniard, seemed, in most otherrespects, an Indian, and of a more savage race than any he had yet seen;for his face, hands, and neck were tattooed with the most fantasticfigures, and his motions were those of a barbarian. This was Geronimo deAguilar, a companion of Balboa, who, being wrecked on the coast ofYucatan, had been preserved as a slave, and finally, adopted as awarrior, among the hordes of that distant land; from which he wasrescued by Don Hernan,--happily to serve as the means of communication,through the medium of another and more remarkable interpreter, with theraces of Mexico. This other interpreter, who approached the general withthe dignified gravity of an Indian princess, and was received withsuitable respect, was no less a person than that maid of Painalla, soldby an unfeeling parent a slave to one of the chieftains of Tobasco,presented by him to Cortes, and baptized in the faith under thedistinguished title of the senora Dona Marina; who, by interpreting toAguilar, in the language of Yucatan, the communications that were madein her native tongue, thus gave to Cortes the means of conferring withher countrymen, until her speedy acquisition of the Castilian languageremoved the necessity of such tedious intervention. But at this period,many Spaniards had acquired a smattering of her tongue, and could playthe part of interpreters; and, for this reason, Dona Marina will make nogreat figure in this history. Other annalists have sufficientlyimmortalized her beauty, her wisdom, and her fidelity; and it has beenher good fortune, continued even to this day, to be distinguished withsuch honours as have fallen to the lot of none of her masters. HerChristian denomination, Marina, converted by her countrymen into_Malintzin_, (a title that was afterwards scornfully applied by them toCortes himself,) and this again, in modern days, corrupted by theCreoles into _Malinche_, has had the singular fate to give name both toa mountain and a divinity: the sierra of Tlascala is now called themountain of Malinche; and the descendants of Montezuma pay theiradorations to the Virgin, under the title of Malintzin.
Don Amador de Leste, attended by De Morla, as well as his newacquaintance, Alvarado, was able to understand, as well as admire, manyof the wonders of the city, as he now, for the first time, planted hisfoot on its imperial streets.
The retreat of the salt waters of Tezcuco has left the presentrepublican city of Mexico a full league west of the lake. In the days ofMontezuma, it stood upon an island two miles removed from the westernshore, with which it communicated by the dike or _calzada_ ofTlacopan,--now called Tacuba. The causeway of Iztapalapan, coming fromthe South, seven miles in length, passed over the island and through thecity, and was continued in a line three miles further to the northernshore, and to the city Tepejacac, where now stand the church and themiraculous picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Besides these three greatcauseways, constructed with inconceivable labour, there were twoothers,--that of Cojohuacan, which, as we have mentioned, terminated inthe greater one of Iztapalapan, at the military point Xoloc, a halfleague from the city; and that, a little south-ward of the dike ofTacuba, which conveyed, in aqueducts of earthenware, the pure waters ofChapoltepec to the temples and squares of the imperial city. The islandwas circular, saving that a broad angle or peninsula ran out from thenorth-west, and a similar one from the opposite point of the compass: itwas a league in diameter; but the necessities of the people, aftercovering this ample space with their dwellings, extended them far intothe lake; and perhaps as many edifices stood, on piles, in the water ason the land. The causeways of Iztapalapan and Tacuba, intersecting eachother in the heart of the island, divided the city into four convenientquarters, to which a fifth was added, some few generations before, whenthe little kingdom of Tlatelolco, occupying the north-western peninsula,was added to Tenochtitlan. On this peninsula and in this quarter ofTlatelolco, stood the palace of an ancient king, which the munificenceof Montezuma had presented to Cortes for a dwelling, and which theinvader, six days after the gift, by an act of as much treachery asdaring, converted into the prison of his benefactor.
The appearance of this vast and remarkable city so occupied the mind ofthe neophyte, that, as he rode staring along, he gave but few thoughts,and fewer words, either to his kinsman or the page. It was sunset, andin the increasing obscurity, he gazed, as if on a scene of magic, onstreets often having canals in the midst, covered alike with bridges andempty canoes; on stone houses, low indeed, but of a strong and imposingstructure, over the terraces of which waved shrubs and flowers; and onhigh turrets, which, at every vista, disclosed their distant pinnacles.But he remarked also, and it was mentioned by the cavaliers at his sideas a bad omen, that neither the streets, the canals, nor the house-topspresented the appearance of citizens coming forth to gaze upon them. Afew Indians were now and then seen skulking at a distance in thestreets, raising their heads from a half-concealed canoe, or peeringfrom a terrace among the shrubs. He would have thought the cityuninhabited, but that he knew it contained as many living creatures,hidden among its retreats, as some of the proudest capitals ofChristendom. Even the great square, the centre of life and of devotion,was deserted; and the principal pyramid, a huge and mountainous mass,consecrated to the most sanguinary of deities, though its sanctuarieswere lighted by the ever-blazing urns, and though the _town_ of templescircumscribed by the great Coatepantli, or _Wall of Serpents_, whichsurrounded this Mexican Olympus, sent up the glare of many a devotionaltorch,--yet did it seem, nevertheless, to be inhabited by beings asinanimate as those monstrous reptiles which writhed in stone along theinfernal wall. In this light, and in that which still played in thewest, Don Amador marvelled at the structure of the pyramid, and cursedit as he marvelled. It consisted of five enormous platforms, faced withhewn stone, and mounted by steps so singularly planned, that, uponclimbing the first story, it was necessary to walk entirely round themass, before arriving at the staircase which conducted to the second.The reader may conceive of the vast size of this pagan temple by beingapprised, that, to ascend it, the votaries were compelled, in theirperambulations, to walk a distance of full ten furlongs, as well as toclimb a hundred and fourteen different steps. He may also comprehend themanner in which the stairways were contrived, by knowing that the first,ascending _laterally_ from the corner, was just as broad as the firstplatform was wider than the second; leaving thus a sheer and continuouswall from the ground to the top of the second terrace, from the bottomof the second to the top of the third, and so on, in like manner, to thetop.
But the pyramid, crowned with altars and censers, the innumerabletemples erected in honour of nameless deities at its foot, and thestrange and most hideous Coatepantli, were not the only objects whichexcited the abhorrence of the cavalier. Without the wall, and a fewpaces in advance of the great gate which it covered as a curtain, rose arampart of earth or stone, oblong and pyramidal, but truncated,twenty-five fathoms in length at the base, and perhaps thirty feet inheight. At either end of this tumulus, was a tower of goodly altitude,built, as it seemed at a distance and in the dim light, of somesingularly rude and uncouth material; and between them, occupying thewhole remaining space of the terrace, was a sort of frame-work or cageof slender poles, on all of which were strung thickly together, certainlittle globes, the character of which Don Amador could not penetrate,until fully abreast of them. Then, indeed, he perceived, with horror,that these globes were the skulls of human beings, the trophies of agesof superstition; and beheld, in like manner, that
the towers whichcrowned the Golgotha, (or _Huitzompan_, as it was called in the Mexicantongue,) were constructed of the same dreadful materials, cementedtogether with lime. The malediction which he invoked upon the buildersof the ghastly temple, was unheard; for the spectacle froze his bloodand paralyzed his tongue.
It was not yet dark, when, having left these haunts of idolatry, DonAmador found himself entering into the court-yard of a vast, and yet nota very lofty, building,--the palace of Axajacatl; wherein, with drumsbeating, and trumpets answering joyously to the salute of their friends,stood those individuals of the garrison who had remained to watch overtheir prisoners and treasures. The weary and the curious, throngingtogether impatiently at the gate, mingling with the garrison and sometwo thousand faithful Tlascalans, who had been left by Cortes as theirallies, and who now rushed forward to salute the viceroy of their gods,as some had denominated Don Hernan, made such a scene of confusion,that, for a moment, the neophyte was unable to ride into the yard. Inthat moment, and while struggling both to appease the unquiet of Fogoso,and to drive away the feathered herd that obstructed him, his arm wastouched, and, looking down, he beheld Jacinto at his side, greatlyagitated, and seemingly striving to disengage himself from the throng.
"Give me thy hand," cried Don Amador, "and I will pull thee out of thisrabble to the back of Fogoso."
But the page, though he seized upon the hand of his patron, and coveredit with kisses, held back, greatly to the surprise of Don Amador, whowas made sensible that hot tears were falling with the kisses.
"I swear to thee, my boy! that I will discover thy father for thee, ifit be possible for man to find him," said the cavalier, diving at once,as he thought, to the cause of this emotion.
But before he had well done speaking, the press thickening around him,drew the boy from his side; and when he had, a moment after, disengagedhimself, Jacinto was no longer to be seen. Not doubting, however, thathe was entangled in the mass, and would immediately appear, he calledout to him to follow; and riding slowly up to Cortes, he had his wholeattention immediately absorbed by the spectacle of the Indian emperor.
Issuing from the door of the palace, surrounded as well by Spanishcavaliers as by the nobles, both male and female, of his own household,who stood by him,--the latter, at least,--with countenances of thedeepest veneration,--he advanced a step to do honour to the dismountinggeneral.
In the light of many torches, held by the people about him, Don Amador,as he flung himself from his horse, could plainly perceive the personand habiliments of the pagan king. He was of good stature, clad in whiterobes, over which was a huge mantle of crimson, studded with emeraldsand drops of gold, knotted on his breast, or rather on his shoulder, soas to fall, when he raised his arm, in careless but very graceful folds;his legs were buskined with gilded leather; his head covered with the_copilli_, or crown, (a sort of mitre of plate-gold, graved and chasedwith certain idolatrous devices,) from beneath which fell to hisshoulders long and thick locks of the blackest hair. He did not yet seemto have passed beyond the autumn of life. His countenance, though of thedarkest hue known among his people, was good, somewhat long and hollow,but the features well sculptured; and a gentle melancholy, acharacteristic expression of his race, deepened, perhaps, in gloom, by asense of his degradation, gave it a something that interested thebeholder.
In the abruptness with which he was introduced to the regal barbarian,Don Amador had no leisure to take notice of his attendants, all princelyin rank, and, two or three of them, the kings of neighbouring cities: heonly observed that their decorations were far from being costly andostentatious;--a circumstance, which, he did not then know, marked thegreatness of their respect. In the absurd grandeur which attached to theperson of their monarch, no distinction of inferior ranks was allowed tobe traced, during the time of an audience; and in his majestic presence,a vassal king wore the coarse garments of a slave. So important wasesteemed the observance of this courtly etiquette, that, at the firstvisit made him, in his palace, by the Spaniards, the renowned Cortes andhis proud officers did not refuse to throw off their shoes, and covertheir armour with such humble apparel as was offered them. But thosedays were passed; the king of kings was himself the vassal of a king'svassal. Yet notwithstanding this, it had been, up to this time, thepolicy of Don Hernan to soften the captivity, and engage the affections,of the monarch, by such marks of reverence as might still allow him todream he possessed the grandeur, along with the state, of a king. Beforethis day, Cortes had never been known to pass his prisoner, withoutremoving his cap or helmet; and indeed, such had been so long the habitof his cavaliers, that all, as they now dismounted, fell to doffingtheir casques without delay, until the action of their leader taughtthem a new and unexpected mode of salutation.
The weak spirit of Montezuma had yielded to the arts of the Spaniard;and forgetting the insults of past days, the loss of his empire, and theshame of his imprisonment, he had already conceived a species ofaffection for his wronger. Cortes had no sooner, therefore, leaped fromhis horse, than the emperor, with outstretched arms, and with hissadness yielding to a smile, advanced to meet him.
"Dog of a king!" said the invader, with a ferocious frown, "dost thoustarve and murder my people, and then offer me the hand of friendship?away with thee! I defy thee, and thou shalt see that I can punish!" Thussaying, and thrusting the king rudely aside, he stepped into the palace.
A wild cry of lamentation, at this insult (it needed no interpretation)to their king, burst from the lips of all the Mexicans; and theSpaniards themselves were not less panic-struck. The gentle manners ofMontezuma, and his munificence, (for he was in the daily habit ofenriching them with costly presents,) had endeared him to most of hisenemies; and even the soldiers of the garrison, who had so latelyaccused him of endeavouring to famish them, had no belief in the justiceof their charges. Many of them therefore, both soldiers and hidalgos,indignant and grieved at the wanton insult, had their sympathiesstrongly excited, when they beheld the monarch roll his eyes upon themwith a haggard smile, in which pride was struggling vainly with a bittersense of humiliation. De Morla and several others rushed forwards toatone, by caresses, for the crime of their general. But it was too late;the king threw his mantle over his head, and without the utterance ofany complaint, passed, with his attendants, into his apartments. Hiscountenance was never more, from that day, seen to wear a smile.
Don Amador de Leste was greatly amazed and shocked by this rudeness; andit was one of many other circumstances, which, by lessening his respectfor the general, contributed to weaken his friendship and undermine hisgratitude. But he had no time to indulge his indignation. He wasstartled by a loud cry, or rather a shriek, from the lips of the knightCalavar; and running to the gate, beheld, in the midst of a confusedmass of men, rushing to and fro, and calling out as if to secure anassassin, his kinsman lying, to all appearance dead, in the arms of hisattendants.