CHAPTER XXXIX.
After much search and persuasion, a surgeon was found and induced tovisit the knight. He despatched his questions almost in a word, for hewas a fighting Bachelor, and burned with impatience to return to thecontest. He mingled hastily a draught, which he affirmed to be ofwondrous efficacy in composing disordered minds to sleep, gave a fewsimple directions, and excusing his haste in the urgency of his otheroccupations, both military and chirurgical, he immediately departed.
"Marco!" said the neophyte, when the draught was administered, and DonGabriel laid on the couch, "thou deservest the heaviest punishment forleaving thy master an instant, though, as thou sayest, while fastasleep. Remain by him now, and be more faithful. As for thee, Lorenzo,"he continued, to the secretary, who stood panting at his side, "thereis good reason thou shouldst share the task of Marco, were it only torepose thee a little; but more need is it, that thou suffer thy blood tocool, and reflect, with shame, that thou hast, this day, cancelled allthy good deeds, by killing a prostrate and beseeching foe. Remain,therefore, to assist Marco; and by-and-by I will come to thee, anddeclare whether or not thou shalt draw thy sword again to-day."
And thus leaving his kinsman to the care of the two followers, andbeckoning Lazaro along, Don Amador returned to the court-yard and theconflict.
The history of the remainder of the day (it was now noon,) is a wearytale of blood. Wounds could not check, nor slaughter subdue, theanimosity of the besiegers; and the Spaniards, tired even of killing,hoped no longer for victory over men who seemed to fight with no objectbut to die, and who rushed up as readily to the mouth of a cannon, whosevent was already blazing under the linstock, as to the spears thatbristled with fatal opposition at the gates.
But night came at last, and with it a hope to end the sufferings thatwere already intolerable. The hope was vain. The barbarians, apparentlyincapable of fatigue, or perhaps yielding their places to freshcombatants, continued the assault even with increasing vigour andboldness. They rushed against the court-wall with heavy beams,--rudebattering-rams,--with which they thought to shake it to its foundations,and thus deprive the Christians of their greatest safeguard. In certainspots they succeeded; and the soldiers cursed the day of their birth, asthe ruins fell crashing to the ground, and they saw themselves reducedto the alternative of filling the breaches with their bodies, orremaining to perish where they stood. It is true, that in this kind ofdefence, as well as under other urgent difficulties, they received goodand manly aid from their numerous allies, the Tlascalans, who fought,during the whole day, with a spirit and cheerfulness that put many arepining Castilian to shame. But these, though battling equally fortheir lives, were incapable of withstanding long the unexampled violenceof the assaults; and it was soon found that the naked bodies of theTlascalans offered but slight impediment to the frenzied Mexicans.
The Spaniards, in the expedient used to drive the citizens from theirhouse-tops, had taught them a mode of warfare which they were not slowto adopt. The palace was of a solid structure, and seemed to biddefiance to flames. But the same cedars that finished the interior ofmeaner houses, formed its floors and ceilings; every chamber was coveredwith mats, and most of them were hung with the most inflammable kind oftapestry. In addition to this, the five thousand Tlascalans, who hadbeen left with Alvarado, and who slept in the court-yard, besidesstrewing the earth with rushes--their humble couches--had constructedalong the walls of the palace itself, many rude arbours, or ratherkennels, of reeds from the lake, to shelter them from the vicissitudesof the rainy season, which had, already, in part, set in. And, to crownall, the cavaliers, whose horses, as they well knew, were each worth athousand Tlascalans, had caused stalls to be constructed for them,wherein they were better protected from the weather, than theirfellow-animals, the allies. With these arrangements, the Mexicans werewell acquainted.
No sooner, therefore, had they succeeded in beating down severalbreaches in the wall, and found that they could sometimes drive thebesieged from them, than they made trial of the expedient. They rushedtogether against the walls in a general assault, waving firebrands andtorches, which those who forced their way through the breaches, appliedto the stalls and arbours, or scattered over the beds of the Tlascalans.The dying incendiary, pierced with a dozen spears, ended his life with alaugh of joy, as he beheld the flames burst ruddily up to his brand.
The misery of the Spaniards was now complete. They were parched withthirst. The sweet fountains of Chapoltepec gushed only over the squareof the temple. A well, dug by Alvarado, in his extremity, furnished ameager supply of water, and that so brackish, that even the brutesturned from it in disgust, till forced to drink, by pangs that wouldallow them to be fastidious no longer. The nearest canal, conducting thebriny waters of Tezcuco, was shut out by ramparts of savages. TheSpaniards, with one universal voice, sent up a cry of despair, as theybeheld the flames run over the court, the stalls, the kennels, and upthe palace walls, and knew not how to extinguish them. The cry wasanswered from without, with such yells of exultation, as froze theirblood; and in the glare of the sudden conflagration, they saw thebarbarians rushing again to the attack, darting through the breaches,and leaping over the walls.
In this strait, beset at once by two foes, equally irresistible, equallypitiless, they struck about them blindly and despairingly, cursing theirfate, their folly, and the leader who had seduced them from their islandhomes, to die a death so ignoble and so dreadful.
For a moment, the spirit of the general sunk, and turning to Don Amador,whose fate it was again to be at his side, he said, with a ghastlycountenance, rendered hideous by the infernal glare,--
"We die the death of foxes in a hole, very noble friend! Commend thysoul to God, and choose thy death; for we have no water to quench thishell!"
"God help my kinsman and father, and all is one!" said Amador, with adesperate calmness. "The flames are hot, but the grave is cold."
"_The grave is cold!_" shouted Cortes, with the voice of a madman. "Livein my heart for ever! Cold grave, moist earth! and Santiago, who strikesfor a true Christian, speaks in thy words!--What ho, mad Spaniards!" hecontinued, shouting aloud, and running as he spoke round the palace;"earth quenches flames, like water! Swords and hands to the task; and heworks best, who delves as at the grave of his foeman!"
If there was obscurity in the words of the general, it was dispelled byhis actions; for, dashing the rushes aside, he loosened the damp soilwith his sabre, and flung the clods lustily on the nearest flames. Loudand joyous were the shouts of his people, as hope dawned upon them withthe happy idea; and, in a moment, the hands of many thousand men weretearing up the earth of the court, and casting it on the flames, whilethe savages, confidently expecting the result of their stratagem,intermitted their efforts for awhile, leaving the gates and breachesnearly unguarded.
It is probable, that even this poor resource, in the hands of so great amultitude of men, toiling with the zeal of desperation, might havesufficed to quell the flames. But, as if heaven had at last taken pityon their sufferings, and vouchsafed a miracle for their relief, therecame, almost at the same moment, the pattering of rain-drops, which werequickly followed by a heavenly deluge; and as the flames vanished underit, the Christians fell upon their knees, and, with devout ardour,offered up thanks to the Providence, that had so marvellously preservedthem.
They sprang from their knees, with bolder hearts, as the Mexicans againadvanced to the assault. But this was the last attack. As if satisfiedwith the toils of the day, or commanded by some unknown ruler, thebarbarians, uttering a mournful scream, suddenly departed.--They wereheard during the night; and in the morning, when the waning moon shonedimly through the rack, were seen stirring about the square, but in nogreat numbers; and as they did not attempt any annoyance, but seemedengaged in dragging away the dead, Don Hernan forbade his sentinels tomolest them.
The guards were set, and the over-worn soldiers retired, at last, tothrow their wounded bodies on their pallets. But throughout the wholenight, the
noises of men repairing the breaches, and constructingcertain military engines, assured those who were too sore or too fearfulto sleep, that the leader they had cursed was sacrificing a second nightto the duties of his station.