"And who," said Juan, "shall warrant me of safety, if I go even as a friend?"

He deemed it now the period to commence acting upon his scheme of escape, yet hesitated, stung with shame at the thought of the duplicity to which he was descending.--"It is better to die on the dikes than to pine in the dungeon."

Guatimozin's eye gleamed with a sudden fire:

"Does my brother jest with me?" he said. "If my brother think it wrong to strike a Spaniard, he shall not be called upon to fight. He can teach me the things it is needful to know; and be in no fear."

"When did Guatimozin see me afraid?" cried Juan, stifling as well as he could the sense of humiliation and disgust, with which he began the office of a deceiver. "To give you counsel how to resist or attack, will make me as much a renegade as to draw sword at once. If I do become apostate, it shall be boldly, and with the sword. Prince, I have thought over this thing: my heart is grieved with your distress; and for my sister, and for Zelahualla, I will do what my conscience condemns. Does the king know what shall be my fate, if I am found fighting by the Spaniards?"

"Twenty chosen warriors shall circle my brother round about, and he shall keep aloof from the van of battle."

"If I fight, it shall be in the van," said Juan, his self-condemnation giving a character of sullenness to his tones. "But what, if I fall,--what shall become of my sister?"

"She shall be the sister of Guatimozin and of Zelahualla," said Guatimozin, with energy, yet with doubt; for he could hardly believe that Juan was speaking seriously.

"Let the king say _this_, and I will go out with him to battle:--If I die, he will cause my sister and the princess to be delivered into the hands of Cortes."

"The Spanish lady shall be sent to Malintzin; but the Centzontli shall remain with her brother the king. It is better she should die with him than dwell with the Spaniards. Why shouldst thou think it? Are there not more Guzmans than one?"

Juan muttered painfully to himself,

"Perhaps it _is_ better. Heaven will protect her, for she has acknowledged her Redeemer.--Will the king swear, then, if his brother falls, that Magdalena shall be sent to the Spaniards?"

"He will swear," said Guatimozin, ardently. "It is better for the Spanish lady; for she knows not our speech, and she pines away with grief. And if the king prevails over his enemies, the king will remember what Juan says of her."

"Now, then, let the king tell me the truth, and mislead me not. How much longer can he maintain the city?"

"Till he is dead!--But he may soon die," he added, confidingly, for now he doubted no longer that he had gained his purpose. "My brother shall first teach me how to get food. The ships move about at night, and no canoe can reach the sh.o.r.e. The king sits down to eat with the warriors, and he eats no more--but the warriors cry all night for food."

"Good heaven!" said Juan, surveying the wasted cheeks of the monarch; "are you already so straitened? your garners already exhausted?"

"Who can reckon for so many mouths?" cried Guatimozin.

"I dreamed not of this--Sure, _I_ have never been denied abundance!"

"My brother is a prisoner; and the women and children are feeble. Why should _they_ want, when the warriors can endure hunger better?"

The communication of this painful intelligence nerved Juan more strongly in his purpose. He perceived the necessity of acting without delay, if he wished to protect the young infidel from the consequence of his own despairing fury, and the maiden of his love, and his sister, from a fate too dreadful to be imagined. His eagerness the more fully deluded the young monarch, not p.r.o.ne to suspicion where he loved, and he was soon made acquainted with the whole condition of the beleaguered city, and the situation of the Spaniards. He was also instructed in the particulars of a design of Guatimozin, to be practised upon the ensuing day, the boldness of which, as well as its strong probabilities of success, both astonished and dismayed him. He perceived that perhaps the fate of the entire Spanish army depended upon the course he might pursue, and his honour and feelings seemed all to call upon him for some exertion to arrest the impending destruction.

When he had been made acquainted with all that Guatimozin thought fit to divulge, and had again and again repeated his resolution to take arms and accompany the Mexicans against his countrymen, the king embraced him with great warmth, promising to provide him with a good Spanish sword and helmet from among the spoils; but recommending that, in all other respects, he should a.s.sume the guise of a Mexican.

When these arrangements were completed, he turned to depart, and yet seemed loath to go. Finally, he took Juan by the arm, and said,

"To-night the king will sleep by the side of his brother: we will wake in the morning and go out together."

"Why will not the king speak kind things to the queen? It will rejoice her to look upon the king."

"Has she not a little sick babe by her side? and are they not very wretched?" said Guatimozin, exposing, without reserve, the miseries preying upon his own bosom, and abandoning himself to a grief that seemed to mock the greatness of his station. "When I look upon them," he said, "I am no longer the king who thinks of Mexico and the people, but a man with a base heart, who cries, 'Why am not I a prisoner and a slave, that my little child may be saved, and his mother protected from the famine that is coming?' The king should not think these things,--he should not look upon his household, but his country."

"Go, notwithstanding," said Juan, touched still further by the distresses of the infidel. "Comfort them with your presence, and let their sufferings admonish you of the only way to end them. It is not too late to submit."

"Is this the way my brother begins the duties of a Mexican?" said Guatimozin. "The G.o.ds tell me to die, not yield. I fight for Mexico,--not for the wife and child of Guatimozin."

With these words, and having banished all traces of weakness and repining, he left Juan to slumber, or to weigh, in painful antic.i.p.ation, the risks and uncertainties of his projected enterprise.

CHAPTER XII.

As Guatimozin had confessed to Juan Lerma, the three suburbs of the causeways were already demolished, and their ruined walls, battered by cannon and blackened by smoke, peered over the lake, along the causeways, in melancholy ruins. The hand of desolation had extended still further; at least, in the quarter that was pierced by the dike of Iztapalapan. Here Cortes commanding in person, and fighting every day at the head of his army, he had infected the whole division with a share of his own energy. While Alvarado and Sandoval were contending for a foothold on the very borders of the city, he had already penetrated it to the distance of half a mile, destroying many houses, though without being able to effect a secure and permanent lodgment upon any portion of the island.

It must not be supposed, that, having reached the island, the Spaniards could exchange the narrow and ditched causeways for firm and s.p.a.cious streets. On the contrary, the causeways, so to speak, were continued up to within half a mile of the princ.i.p.al square which was in the very centre of the city, and contained the great pyramid, as well as the chief temples of Mexico. On either side was a ca.n.a.l both broad and deep, dividing the road from the houses; and others, running from intersecting streets, perforated the causeways with chasms, the number of which the Mexicans had long since greatly increased. The island, which was circular, did not exceed three miles in diameter, of which the central third only was dry and solid. Hence the advanced posts of the three divisions were at no considerable distance from each other; and if the call of Cortes in the morning was not absolutely heard and answered by his two lieutenants, the bugles of each could be easily distinguished, cheering one another as they advanced to the daily a.s.sault.

The labour of Cortes in destroying the suburb in his quarter, was less than that of the others; for here, the lake being deeper, the houses extended but a short distance from the island. His advanced post was almost within the limits of the suburb, and separated from the island by only one ditch, which he had twice or thrice taken and filled up, but was as often obliged to yield again to the foe, subduing his impatience, until his lieutenants had advanced equally far in their quarters.

The outposts were always guarded with the most jealous vigilance, particularly in the later hours of the night, after the rains, which, in this climate, commonly prevail with the greatest violence between the hours of noon and midnight. A guard of forty men, with two pieces of artillery, kept watch until midnight; when, yielding their places to forty more, but not retiring, they threw themselves to sleep upon the damp stones and clay. Two hours before dawn, the post was strengthened by another company of forty, who watched until morning, the others flinging themselves in their cloaks among the first watchmen. Thus, there were ready, before day, one hundred and twenty men, the strongest and boldest of their divisions, who, in case of sudden attack, could preserve the station, until reinforced by the whole strength of the division, from the towers of the gates, which were still the head-quarters of the several divisions. The causeway between the gates and the pickets, was occupied by patrols of hors.e.m.e.n, who watched lest the enemy, coming in canoes, should make a descent behind the advanced post, and thus cut it off.

Two hours after midnight, upon the night in which Juan revealed his purpose of escaping, the second guard on the causeway of Iztapalapan was relieved from watch by the coming of the third; and the soldiers flung themselves, as usual, upon the earth, to prepare for a morning, which, it was known to all, was to witness a general a.s.sault, made simultaneously by all the divisions, from their three several quarters.

The watchfires were replenished, and two subalterns, the leaders of the party, advanced a little beyond them, to reconnoitre the condition of the enemy. Three hundred paces in front, the causeway was intersected by the ditch, held by the Mexicans; and beyond it, on a strong rampart, blazed a great fire, in the light of which the pagan sentinels could be seen, squatting upon the mound, or stalking idly about. The gap was bridgeless, as was well-known; but this the Spaniards could not observe with their own eyes, not thinking it prudent to advance within the range of a Mexican arrow.

As they returned, they conversed together in low voices; and it was worthy of remark, as indicating how little their spirits were occupied by the dangers around them, that they bestowed more words upon the ordinary scandal of the camp than upon the horrible conflicts through which they had pa.s.sed, or in which they were yet to mingle.

"They lay this thing of Camarga entirely to the door of Guzman," said one; "and, in my mind, the imputation were reasonable, could we discover any cause for enmity between them. They say, that Guzman smothered him with pillows of cottontree-down. Wherefore--"

"Pho, Najara," said the other, bluffly; "blame not a man upon these vain fancies; for Camarga was killed by a hard weapon, and by no pillows of cotton-down or feathers. I found him myself."

"Ay," said Najara, for it was the hunchback, whose companion was no other than the worthy historian, Bernal Diaz del Castillo,--"Ay, senor amigo, but he was not dead; and we are speaking of two very different events: to make which palpable to thy historical wits, we must e'en go back to the starting point. It is with a man of ill mind as with a cannonier; who, if he look for the mark of his ball in a forest, must go back to the place whence he shot it, and take the range over again."

"I do not understand thy trope," said Bernal, "nor what thou meanest by an 'ill mind,' not having one myself, but one that harbours animosities against none but Indians. As for Camarga, I found him myself. It was when we marched out of Tezcuco, by the northern road; for I was then with Alvarado, going to Tacuba. I say it, and it is to my honour, not shame, that Cortes, when he left the brigantines, demanded me of Alvarado; 'for,' said he, 'Bernal Diaz is one of my best friends, and a soldier second to none:' which is true, though I say it myself. De Olid was with us, with his men. The story is this: When we pa.s.sed by the cypress-tree on the hill, I bethought me of a chapter of my book, which I had lost, I knew not where nor when. 'Now,' said I, 'perhaps I left it under this tree;' for what with the sudden coming of Juan Lerma, poor fellow, and the quarrel I had with Gaspar on his account, I departed from that place, without much thought of what might be left behind me.

But pondering on this, as we pa.s.sed, I dropped from the ranks, and hunting about, I saw Camarga lying mangled at the bottom of the hill; and when we came to examine him, it was plain he had been struggling there for many hours,--perhaps, all night. We thought he was dead; but Juan Catalan, the cannonier, who is so good at a fresh wound, said, his heart was yet beating, and he might live. So we sent him back to Tezcuco, then in charge of Guzman, that the Indian doctors might see what could be done for him. And there he died."

"Ay, if we can believe Guzman," said Najara; "and no doubt, he did: but _how_? Know now, Bernal, for thou art too innocent to look further than thy nose, that this man's death has made a great noise at head-quarters; for, somehow, they have come to a.s.sociate it with the marvellous disappearance of La Monjonaza; for which there are but two ways of accounting."

"As how?" said Bernal, gravely. "Gil Ortaga told me, he saw her ghost, six nights after, in Iztapalapan, dragging the spirit of Villafana by the hair; which frightened him very much."

"The first thought," said Najara, "is, that she drowned herself for the love of Juan Lerma, of which--that is, of her love, at least--there is some proof that might be mentioned, were there any wisdom in speaking it; and the second, that Guzman hid her in some den about Tezcuco, trusting to the departure of Cortes on the morrow. It is well known that Guzman will play rival with the devil himself, if he have taken a fancy to a woman."

"Fu," said Bernal, "that is a foolish thought."

"Dost thou not know," demanded the hunchback, "that he is in disgrace, for acts still darker than these? He abused the Indians in the palace, robbing them of their gold and women, at his will, and greatly incensed the young king Ixtlilxochitl, who complained to Cortes. Cortes sailed to Tezcuco in person, and removed him from his government; and now he is in such disgrace, that were it not for some old friendship between him and the Captain-General, it is thought, Cortes would utterly renounce him.

The Indians say, that he murdered Camarga, when the poor man was recovering. But this is improbable. Camarga was a stranger, and without foes. Yet his fate has greatly troubled the general. As for the lady Infeliz, Don Francisco persists in averring that he knows nothing about her. He brought a Tlascalan, who swore he saw both her and Camarga walk out from the northern gate together, during the review; whereby he would have us believe they fell into the hands of the Mexicans; but Indians will swear anything, if you tell them how. It is said, that Guzman has got permission to serve in the fleet with Garci Holguin, his old friend.

They are two dare-devils together, and neither in very good odour; so they will doubtless do some desperate act to regain favour.--Hark, Bernal! dost thou hear nothing?"

"Nothing but the whistling of the Indians at the fire;--for that is the way they make their signals. We shall have hot work to-morrow, Najara."--