CHAPTER VI.
The review, division, and minute organization of the vast army now atthe disposal of the Captain-General, occupied nearly the whole day,which was unexpectedly propitious, as the rainy season might be said tohave already commenced. Clouds, indeed, gathered over the sky, in theafternoon, giving a melancholy aspect to the hills and meadows; and athick fog rose from the lake and spread around, until it had pervadedthe lower grounds on its borders. Yet not a drop of rain fell during thewhole day, and, by sunset, the clouds dispersed, without havingdisturbed the firmament with thunder; and the lake was left to glimmerin the light of a young moon, and the multitude of stars.
The whole native population of Tezcuco had been drawn to the meadows, towitness the glories of military parade, and the city was deserted andsolitary. Nay, even the watchmen on the walls, forgetting the audaciousassault of the past night, and anxious to share a spectacle from whichtheir duties should have separated them, stole, one after another, fromtheir posts, until the northern gates were left wholly unguarded. Thevanity of the Commander-in-Chief could not permit the absence of asingle effective Spaniard from the scene of display, and the walls hadbeen left to Tlascalans.
Late in the afternoon, and when the mists were thickest, and the hues ofthe fields most mournful, a single individual passed from that gate atwhich Juan Lerma, eight or nine weeks before, had terminated the firstchapter of his exile. A friar's cassock and cowl enveloped his wholeform, yet the dullest eye would have detected in the vigour andimpetuosity of his step, the presence of passions which could not belongto the holy profession. His eye was fixed upon a shadowy figure, almostlost among the mists, that went staggering along, as if upon a coursenot yet defined, or over paths difficult to be traced; and while he wasobviously watching and pursuing the retreating shape, it seemed to bewith a confidence that feared not the observation of the fugitive. Thus,when the figure paused, he arrested his steps, and resumed them onlywhen they were resumed by the other; and, in this manner, he followedonwards, with little precaution, until Tezcuco was left far behind,hidden in the fog. As he moved, he muttered many expressions, indicativeof a deeply disturbed and even remorseful mind.
"All this have _I_ done," he exclaimed, bitterly, and almost wildly."Mine own sin, though black as the soot of perdition, is stained atriple dye by the malefactions it has caused in others--_Mea culpa, meaculpa, mea maxima culpa!_ Cursed avarice! cursed ambition! There _is_ aretribution that follows us even to the grave; sin is punished withsin,--the first fault lays fire to the train of our vices, and in theirexplosions we are further stained,--punished, destroyed. That sin! andwhat has come of it? Where is the gain to balance it? Cajoled by thedemon that seduced me, cheated and flung aside--suspected, degraded,demoralized--a wanderer, a villain, a cur--the friend of rogues, andmyself their fittest fellow--Heaven is strong, and justiceoppressive.--_Munda cor meum ac labia mea!_ for I blaspheme!"
Thus muttered the distracted Camarga, for it was he who gave vent tosuch troubled expressions. Some of these were uttered so loudly, thatthey seemed to reach the ear of the fugitive, who turned round, lookedback for a moment, and then diving into a misty hollow, was for a shorttime concealed from his eyes.
"Ay,--fly, fly!" he muttered, gnashing his teeth; "fly, wretch, fly! Butwert thou fleeter than the mountain-deer, thou couldst not escape thefiend that is already tearing at thy vitals. Fling thyself into thelake, too, and after death, open thine eyes upon a phantom of horror,that will sit before thee for ever!"
Then pursuing with greater activity, he again caught sight of thefugitive, who was ascending the little promontory of the cypress-tree,on which Juan Lerma had first beheld the faces of his countrymen.
"And Hernan Cortes will yet have me speak the story!" he murmured. "Beit so--live she or die she, he shall hear it, and curse the curiositythat compelled it. Ay! and his anguish will be some set-off to the joyof having triumphed over the poor wretch he persecuted. God rest thee,Juan Lerma! for thou at least hast died in ignorance; and but for thismischance,--this fatal mischance,--hadst been worthy of a better fate,and therefore saved from destruction."
As he uttered these broken words, he perceived La Monjonaza,--for it wasthis unhappy creature whom he followed,--steal over the mound to theright hand, as if turning her steps from the lake landward. But beingaware that she had beheld him, and suspecting this to be merely a feint,designed to mislead him, he directed his course to the water-side, andstepping among the rocks and brambles at the base of the hill, passed itin time to behold Magdalena stalking, with a countenance of distraction,towards the lake, as if impelled by some terrible goadings of mind, toself-destruction.
"Wretched creature!" he cried, springing forwards, and staying herfrenzied steps, "what is this you do? Fling not away the grace that isin wait.--_You_, at least, may live and be forgiven."
To his great surprise, the unhappy girl, whose countenance had indicatedall the iron determination of desperation, offered not the slightestresistance, while he drew her from the water-side; but turning towardshim with the face of a maiden detected in some merry and harmlessmischief, she began to laugh; but immediately afterwards, burst intotears.
"Good heavens!" said Camarga, with compassion, "are you indeed broughtto this pass? What! the mind that even amazed Don Hernan--is it gone?wholly gone? Miserable Magdalena! this is the fruit of sin!"
At the sound of a name, so seldom pronounced in these lands, the ladyrose from the rock, on which she had suffered herself to be seated,although it was observable that she showed no symptoms of surprise. Shegazed fixedly at Camarga for an instant, and a dark frown gathering onher brows, she turned to depart, without reply. Camarga, however,detained her, and would have spoken; but no sooner did she feel his handlaid upon her mantle than she turned suddenly round, with a look ofinexpressible fierceness, saying, with the sternest accents of a voicealways strikingly expressive,
"Who art thou, that comest between me and my purpose? If a priest or anangel, fly,--for here thou art with contamination; if a man, and a badman, still fly, lest thou be struck dead with the breath of one deeperplunged in guilt than thyself.--If a devil, then remain, and claim thyprey from the apostate and murderess. Dost thou forbid me even to die?"
"Ay--I do," replied Camarga, trembling, yet less at her terriblecountenance than her fearful expressions: "I am one who, in the name ofheaven,--a name which is alike polluted: in thy mouth and inmine--command thee to recall thy senses, if they have not utterly fled,and bid thee, thinking of self-slaughter no longer, leave this land ofwretchedness, and, in a cloister, and with a life of penitence, obtainthe pardon which heaven will not perhaps withhold."
"Pardon comes not without punishment," said Magdalena, sternly; "and Iwould not that it should: and for penitence,--the moaning regret thatexists without torture and suffering,--know that it is but a mockery.Kill thy friend, and repent,--yet dream not of paradise. Scourgethyself, die on the rack or gibbet, and await thy fate in the grave.Begone; or rest where thou art, and follow me no more."
"Till thou die, or till thou art lodged within the walls of a convent,"said Camarga, grasping her arm with a strength and determination shecould not resist: "thus far will I follow thee, rave thou never so much.Oh, wretched creature! and wert thou about to rush into the presence ofthy Maker, unshriven, unrepenting, unprepared?"
Magdalena surveyed him with a look that changed gradually from anger towistful emotion; and then again shedding tears, she dropped on herknees, saying, with a tone and manner that went to his heart,
"I will shrive me then, and then let me go, for thy presence persecutesme.--Well, and perhaps it is better; for it is long since I have lookedupon a man of God--long since I have spoken with any just Christian but_one_,--and him I have given up to the murderers. Hear me then, and thenabsolve or condemn as thou wilt, for I judge myself; and I confess tothee, only that my words may drive thee away, as would the moans of acoming pestilence. Hear me then, friar, and then begone from me."
"Arise," said Camar
ga, "I seek not thy confession, at least not now: Ihave that will draw it from thee, at a fitter time and place. In thisdistant spot, thou art exposed to danger from the infidels."
"If thou fearest them, away! Why dost thou trouble me? If thou stayest,listen to my words; for though they come too late, yet will they causethee to do justice to the name, and say masses for the soul, of JuanLerma."
"Speak of Juan Lerma," said Camarga, with a trembling voice, "and I willindeed listen to thee. _In nomine Dei Patris, et Filii, et SpiritusSancti_, speak and speak truly. Cursed be thou, even by my lips, if thouspeakest that which is false, or concealest aught that is true!"
"Truth, though I die,--and let me die when it is spoken," saidMagdalena, placing her lips with the instinctive reverence of habit tothe cross which Camarga extended. As she kissed it, her heart seemed tosoften, and she shed many bitter tears, while pouring forth her brokenand melancholy story.
"Know, father," she said, not once doubting that she had a true fatherof the church before her, "that it was my misfortune never to have knownthe kindness and care of a parent."
"Let that be passed," said Camarga, hurriedly. "Speak not of the sins ofthy youth, a thousand times confessed, and a thousand times absolved.Speak of thy coming to the island,--of thy broken vows,--thy--" But hereperceiving that Magdalena started with a sort of affright, at findinghow far his knowledge had anticipated her divulgements, he continued,with better discretion, "Thus much do I know--_how_ I know, ask not; andyet thou mayst be told, too, that much of thy fate was interwoven withthat of Villafana."
"_My_ fate, and that of Villafana!" cried Magdalena, with a witheringlook of contempt. But instantly changing to a more submissive air, sheexclaimed, "My _story_, indeed, father, but not my fate. If he haveconfessed to you, then do you know enough,--perhaps all. He told you,then, that his avarice, gratified at the expense of a horriblecrime,--the destruction of the ship, and the lives of all within it,abbess, nuns, sailors, and all,--was the cause of all my calamities,since it was my hard fate not to perish with the rest. He robbed theship of the golden and silver church-vessels, when we were near to theport, and made his escape to the shore, leaving us to sink in the midstof a storm then rising. Our pilot having no hope but in running upon theshore, then within sight, ran the vessel among certain rocks, where itwas beaten to pieces. Father, it chanced to be my fate, and mine alone,to be plucked out of that roaring sea, by one to whom, when lying in agulf ten times more hideous, I refused to stretch out my hand. Father!last night a word from my lips would have saved the life of Juan Lerma,and I did not speak it!"
"Dwell not on this," said Camarga, sternly. "Rather thank heaven thatthou wert rendered unable by any exercise of criminal love, to preserveon the earth's surface a wretch, at whose footstep it shuddered."
"Hah!" cried Magdalena, starting up in a transport of indignation, andsending daggers from her eyes, "who art thou, that speakest so falselyand foully of Juan Lerma? Wert thou, instead of a pattering friar, acanonized saint in heaven, still wert thou but a thing of dross andearth, compared with him thou malignest!"
Before Camarga could rebuke this burst of passion, she sank, as before,to the earth, weeping afresh; for she was in that pitiable state ofmental feebleness, in which life seems only to continue in impulses,--achain of convulsions and exhaustions. "Alas, father," she continued,with sobs, "you have been taught, like the rest, to misconceive andbelie the best and most unfortunate of men;--for such is JuanLerma;--and you have perhaps joined with the rest to compass hisdestruction. Has he wronged you? no--you have imagined a wrong. Has hewronged Cortes? no--he has wronged no one; but the ear of Cortes wasopen to his enemies. Hear me, father, and while you condemn me, listento the refutation of slander. Father, when I opened mine eyes to thelight, and in the presence of him who had saved me, I forgot my vows;nay, I thought that heaven had absolved them in the wreck, and ordainedthat I should be happy in a new existence. Never before had I lookedupon the world, and the people of the world,--never before had I lookedupon Juan Lerma. When had I seen one smile upon me with affection?Father, for a second such smile, I would have moaned again on the wreck,seeing my companions swept from me one by one. I grew cunning anddeceitful, and when they asked me of the ship and people, I told themfalsehoods, lest they should bring me the veil and the priest, and carryme from his presence. Alas! and my deceit availed not; he smiled nomore; and when Hilario spoke of affection--affection for me,--Juan Lermawithdrew without a sigh, without a struggle."
"Saints of heaven!" cried Camarga, starting with horror, gasping forbreath, and, in the sense of suffocation, forgetting his assumedcharacter so much as to fling back the cowl that had concealed hisfeatures. "Dost thou speak me the truth? On thy life,--on thy hopes ofheaven's forgiveness,--on thy love even for this lost, perhaps thisdead, youth,--I charge thee speak me the truth. Went there no more thanthis between you? And Juan Lerma loved you not? and Villafana belied yeboth? And you are not--"
He paused in agitation, unable to utter another word; and Magdalena,surprised as much at his extraordinary interest in her story, as well asconfounded by the absence of the tonsure, and the glittering of an irongorget about his throat, seemed for a moment unable to answer hisquestions. But summoning her spirits at last, she said,
"Thou art not a priest, but a layman, a stranger, and a man of sin! Butbe who thou wilt, friend or foe, thou knowest now enough of my historyto be entitled to know all. Never did man couple my name with shame, andthink of any but him who died under the dagger of Villafana. As for JuanLerma, not even Cortes, his bitterest enemy, would dare accuse him of adeed of dishonour. Stranger, if thou art interested in the betrayed andmurdered Juan, know at least that he died innocent of any wrong toMagdalena."
"Now God be praised for this good word!" said Camarga, dropping on hisknees, and speaking with what seemed a distraction of fervour anddelight: "God be praised that I may not think, at my death-hour, that mysins have caused among my children the crime of incest! God be praised!God be praised!"
"Incest! _Thy_ children!" exclaimed Magdalena, wildly. "What art thou?What is this thou sayst?"
"What do I say I and why need I say it?" cried Camarga, springing up andwringing his hands--"have we not slain him among us? Oh, wretchedMagdalena, if, by thine influence, he was brought to this pass, knowthat thou hast slain thine own brother!"
At this strange and exciting revelation, Magdalena, who had, in theecstacy of expectation, seized upon Camarga's hands with a convulsivegrasp, uttered a scream, wild, loud, and thrilling, and yet how unliketo that which rose from her breaking heart in the prison! It was somesuch cry as might be supposed to come from a despairing Christian, whofinds that the gates, which he thinks are conducting him to hell, havesuddenly ushered him into the walks of paradise. It mingled fear andastonishment with joy, but joy predominant over the others; and thoughit sounded as if coming from a bursting heart, it was as if from onebursting in the over-bound and expansion of a breast released from amountain of oppression. It echoed over the lake, and seemed to havecalled up the spirits thereof; for before its last hysterical echo hadvibrated on the ear, there sprang up, as if they had risen from theearth or the waters, six or seven athletic barbarians, flourishing heavymacanas, who rushed at once upon the pair.
At the sight of such unexpected and formidable antagonists, though takenentirely by surprise, Camarga snatched his concealed sword from thescabbard, leaped with great intrepidity betwixt Magdalena and thenearest savage, who seemed the leader of the party, and made a blow athim, while calling to her,
"Fly! fly! and tell Cortes that thy brother--" But his lips finished notthe sentence. Whether it was that he was rendered helpless by longcontinued disease, was embarrassed by the friar's cassock, or was reallyunskilful in the use of weapons, it is certain that his blade droppedharmless on the macana of the warrior. Before he could recover hisguard, the battle-axe of the Mexican fell upon his head with deadlyviolence, and he rolled, to all appearance a dying man, on the ground.
At t
he same instant, another warrior clutched upon Magdalena, who,though pale as death, and agitated by a long succession of passions, yetdrew the dagger she always carried at her girdle, and aimed it at thebreast of the infidel. Before it could do him any harm, it was snatchedout of her hand, and she herself caught up as by the grasp of a giant,in the arms of the leader, and hurried to the water. In an instant more,she was placed in a piragua, which her capturers drew from a reed-brakehard by, and secured, though not rudely, beyond the possibility offurther resistance, among the infidels. They caught up their paddles,uttered a wild yell, and the next moment dashed from the shore, and werehidden among the mists of the lake.