CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The distance between the great temple and the palace of Axajacatl was byno means great; though Cortes, for the purpose of prying into manystreets, had led his followers against it by a long and circuitouscourse,--a plan which had been followed by Don Gonzalo, though inanother direction. Indeed they were not so far separated, but that astrong bowman or a good slinger might, from the top of the pyramid,drive his missile upon the roof of the garrison, to the great injury ofthe besieged, as was, afterwards, fully made manifest. The distance,therefore, to be won by the retreating Spaniards, was small; but it tookthem hours to accomplish it. It seemed as if the infidels, fearing lesttheir foes might escape out of their hands, if they slackened theirefforts for a moment, were resolved to effect their destruction at anycost, while they were still at a distance from succour. They pressedferociously and rapidly on the fugitives; they gained their front; andthus encompassed them with a compact mass of human beings, against whichthe cavaliers charged, as against a stone wall; slaying and trampling,indeed, but without penetrating it for more than a few yards. Each stepgained by the van, was literally carved by the cavalry, as out of arock; while the utmost exertions of Don Hernan could do nothing morethan preserve his rear band in the attitude of a dike, slowly movingbefore the shocks of a flood, which it could not repel.
In addition to these alarming circumstances, there were others nowdeveloped, of a not less serious aspect. The canals that, in two orthree places, intersected the street, were swarming with canoes, fromwhich the savages discharged their arrows with fatal aim, or sprang, atonce, upon the footmen, striking with spear and maquahuitl, and weredriven back only after the most strenuous efforts. They had destroyedthe bridges, and the canals could only be passed by renewing them withsuch planks as the infantry could tear from the adjoining houses, andhastily throw over the water,--a work of no less suffering than time andlabour. Besides all this, the annoyance which Don Hernan had firstdreaded, was now practised by the crafty barbarians. The terraces werecovered with armed men, who, besides discharging their darts and arrowsdown upon the exposed soldiers, tore away, with levers, the stones fromthe battlements, and hurled them full upon the heads of their enemies.
The sound of drums and conches, the fierce yells, the whistling, thedying screams, the loud and hurried prayers, the neighing of horses--andnow and then the shriek of some beast mangled by a rough spear,--therattling of arrow-heads, the clang of clubs upon iron bucklers, theheavy fall of a huge stone crushing a footman to the earth, the plungingof some wounded wretch strangling in a ditch, and the roar of cannon atthe palace, showing that the battle was universal,--these together, nowmade up such a chorus of hellish sounds as Don Amador confessed tohimself he had never heard before, not even among the horrors of Rhodes,when sacked by other infidels, then esteemed the most valiant in theworld. But to these dismal tumults others were speedily added, whenCortes, raging with a fury that increased with his despair, commandedthe footmen to fire every house, whose top afforded footing to theferocious foe,--a command that was obeyed with good will, and withdreadful effect; for though, from the nature of its materials, and theisolated condition of each structure, it was not possible to produce ageneral conflagration, yet the great quantity of cotton robes, of drymats, and of resinous woods about each house, left it so combustible,that the application of a torch to the door-curtains, or the casting ofa fire-brand into the interior, instantly enveloped it in flames. Amongthese, when they burst through the roofs of light rafters, and thethatching of dried reeds, the pagan warriors perished miserably; or,flinging themselves desperately down, were either dashed to pieces, ortransfixed by the lances of the Spaniards.
But the same agent which so dreadfully paralyzed the efforts of theMexican, brought suffering scarcely less disastrous to the Christianranks. They were stifled with the smoke, they were scorched by theflames of the burning houses; and, ever and anon, some franticbarbarian, perishing among the fires of his dwelling, and seeking toinflict a horrid vengeance, grasped, even in his death-gasp, a flamingrafter in his arms, and sprang down with it upon his foes, maiming andscorching where he did not kill.
Thus fighting, and thus resisted, weary and despairing, their bodiescovered with blood, their garments sometimes burning, the Spaniards atlast gained the square that surrounded the palace; and fighting theirway through the herds that invested it, (for, almost at the same momentthat they had been attacked at the temple, the quarters were againassailed,) and shouting to the cannoniers, lest they should fire onthem, they placed their feet in the court-yard, and thanked God for thisrespite to their sufferings.
It was a respite from death, for behind the stone wall they werecomparatively secure; but not a respite from labour. The Mexicans abatednot a jot of their ardour. The same herds that covered the square atdawn, were again yelling at the gates, and with the same unconquerablefury; and the soldiers, already fainting with fatigue, with famine, andthirst, (for they had taken no refreshment since the preceding evening,)were fain to purchase, painfully, a temporary safety, by standing to thewalls, and keeping the savages at bay, as they could.
The artillery thundered, the cross-bows twanged, the arquebuses addedtheir destructive volleys to the other warlike noises; but the Mexicans,disregarding these sounds, as well as the havoc made among their ranks,rushed, in repeated assaults, against the walls, and, sometimes, withsuch violence, that they drove the besieged from the gate, and enteredpell-mell with them into the court-yard. Then, indeed, ensued a scene ofmurder; for the Christians, flying again to the portal, cut off theretreat of such desperadoes, and slew them within the walls, withoutloss, and almost at their leisure.
On such occasions, no one showed more spirit in attacking, or more furyin slaying, than the young secretary. The suit of goodly armour sent himby the admiral, and his rapid proficiency in the practice of arms, hadinflamed his vanity; and he burned to approve himself worthy thecompanionship of cavaliers. The native conscientiousness which filledhim with horror at the sight of the first blood shed, the first lifedestroyed, by his hand, had vanished as a dream; for it is theexcellence of war, that, while developing our true nature, andremaining, itself, as the link which binds man to his original state ofbarbarism, it preserves him the delights of a savage, without entirelydepriving him of the pleasures of civilization. The right of sheddingblood, mankind enjoy in common with brutes; and, doubtless, aconformable philosophy will not frown on the privilege, so long as theloss of it would contract our circle of enjoyments. There is somethingpoetical in the diabolism of a fiend, and as much that is splendid inthe ferocity of a tiger; and though these two qualities be the chiefelements of heroism, they bring with them such accompaniments ofsplendour and sentiment, that he would rob the world of half its glory,as well as much of its poetry, who should destroy the race of the great,and leave mankind to the dull innocence of peace.--There are moremillions of human beings, the victims of war, rotting under the earth,than now move on its surface.
The pain of wounds had also produced a new effect in the bosom ofLorenzo; for, instead of cooling his courage, it now inflamed his rage,and helped to make him valiant. The mild and feeling boy was quitetransformed into a heartless ruffian; and so great had become his loveof slaughter, and so unscrupulous his manner of gratifying it, that,once or twice, Don Amador noticed him, and would have censured himsharply, but that his attention was immediately absorbed by thenecessity of self-defence. The cavaliers had dismounted, and theneophyte fought at the gates on foot. In the midst of an assault, inwhich the defenders had been driven back, but which disgrace they werenow repairing, he beheld his ward struggling with a wounded savage, whograsped his knees and hand, but in intreaty, not hostility; and greatlywas Don Amador shocked, when he beheld the secretary disengage his arm,and, with a shout of triumph, plunge his steel into the throat of thesupplicating barbarian.
"Art thou a devil, Lorenzo?" cried the cavalier, indignantly. "That wasa knave's and a coward's blow! Thou shalt follow me no longer."
While he spoke, and left himself unguarded, a gigantic pagan, takingadvantage of his indiscretion, leaped suddenly upon him, and struck himsuch a blow with a maquahuitl, as, but for the strength of his casque,would have killed him outright. As it was, the shock so stunned him, asto leave him for a moment, incapable of defence. In that moment, thesavage, uttering a loud yell, sprang forward to repeat the blow, or todrag him off a prisoner; when Fabueno, perceiving the extremity of hispatron, and fired with the opportunity of proving his valour, rushedbetween them, and with a lucky blow on the naked neck of the Mexican,instantly despatched him.
"A valiant stroke, Lorenzo!" said the neophyte, losing somewhat of hisheat, as he recovered his wits. "But it does not entirely wipe out theshame of the other. Moderate thy wrath, curb thy fury, and remember thatcruelty is the mark of a dastard. Strike me no more foes that cry formercy!"
As his anger had been changed into approbation, so now were his censuresabruptly ended by exclamations of surprise. For at that instant,Fabueno, grasping his arm with one hand, and with the other pointing alittle to one side, turned upon him a countenance full of alarm. Helooked around, and beheld with amazement, his kinsman, Don Gabriel,entirely unarmed, except with sword and buckler, mingled with thecombatants, shouting a feeble war-cry, striking faintly, and, indeed,preserved less by his courage than his appearance, from the bludgeons ofthe infidels. His grizzly locks (for he was entirely bare-headed,) fellover his hollow and bloodless cheeks, whereon glittered, black andhideous, a single gout of gore. His face was like the face of the dead;and the savages recoiled from before him, as if from a spirit rousingfrom Mictlan, the world of gloom, to call them down to his darkdwelling.
In a moment the neophyte, followed by Fabueno, and Lazaro, who answeredto his call, and Marco, who seemed to have been separated by the meleefrom his master, was at the side of Calavar. The mind of the knight waswholly gone; and he seemed as if, at the point of death, raised from hiscouch by the clamours of the contest, and urged into it by the instinctof long habit, or by the goadings of madness.
He submitted patiently, and without words, to the gentle violence of hiskinsman, and was straightway carried to his apartment.