CHAPTER LV.

As the cavalier sprang among his countrymen almost fainting with exhaustion, he loosened, with as much discretion as dexterity, the knot of the tilmatli, and dropped it to the earth, so that he might not be mistaken for a foe. The sudden gleam of his armour, and the sight of his wan visage, struck all those who had rushed against him with horror. Among the foremost of all, was the man-at-arms Lazaro, who no sooner perceived that he had raised his trusty espada against what he doubted not was the spectre of the novice, than he fell upon his knees, yelling aloud,

"Jesu Maria! my master! my master's ghost!" with other such exclamations of terror.

At this moment, the page revived in the arms of his patron, but only to add to the cry of Lazaro a shriek so wild and heart-piercing, that it drove all other sounds from the ears of Don Amador. The cavalier observed the cause of this cry, and again his eye lighted up with the fires of passion. A group of soldiers, agitated by some tumult, which had no part in the conflict around, stood against the palace wall, under a casement, from which was projected a bundle of partisans. Round this extempore gibbet was fixed a rope, one end of which being pulled at by those below, the cavalier beheld, shooting up above the heads of the mass, a human being, to all appearance, bound hand and foot; and in the blackened and horribly convulsed countenance of the sufferer, he perceived the features of Abdalla, the Wali.

With a bound, that carried him at once into their midst, and with a rapidity that prevented opposition he rushed up to the wall, and before the Morisco was elevated above his reach, struck the halter with his weapon. The Zegri fell to the earth;--the executioners looked upon the visage of his bold preserver, and being persuaded, like Lazaro, that the very ghastly apparition before them was nothing less than the ghost of an hidalgo, universally reckoned dead, they recoiled in affright. Before they had recovered from their confusion, the culprit rose to his feet, glared a moment on the cavalier, and then springing away, was instantly lost among the combatants. A wild and exulting cry of "Moro! Moro! Tlatoani Moro!" rose among the barbarians; and the Spaniards knew that their prey was beyond pursuit.

"Santos santisimos! Holy Mother of heaven! grace upon all, and Amen! if thou beest a living creature, speak,--or I will smite thee for a devil!"

These words came from the lips of Alvarado, who had himself commanded the body of hangmen, and who now, though his teeth chattered with terror, advanced his rapier towards the bosom of his late companion. As he gazed and menaced, Don Amador, yielding, at last, to the consequences of labours altogether above his enfeebled powers, sunk swooning to the earth; and Jacinto, rushing from the crowd, flung himself upon his body.

"Viva! praise God, and let the cry go round; for we have saved the noble De Leste!" shouted Don Pedro, with a voice of joy, raising the senseless cavalier. "Now shall ye hear from his own mouth, ye caitiffs that have belied me, that I played not the foul companion. Viva! I swear it rejoices me to behold thee!--Why, thou little rascal traitor, art thou here, too! It was God's will thy vagabond father should purchase me my brother; for which reason, I am not incensed he has escaped me. One day is as good as another for hanging.--How now, my noble friend! art thou hurt beyond speaking! God's lid! but I would hug thee, if thou didst not look so dismal!"

All this time, the neophyte surveyed the astounded visages around him with a bewildered eye; and, doubtless, his obtuse senses could not, at that moment of clamour, detect the accents of Don Pedro.

"Tetragrammaton! did I not tell thee the truth?" cried the harsh voice of Botello.

"Master! dear master!" exclaimed Lazaro, as he embraced the knees of the novice.

"Thanks be to God! the noble senor has escaped!" shouted the secretary.

"God be praised! but would it had been yesterday! for then might it have been better for Don Gabriel."

The name of his kinsman, spoken by the well-known voice of Baltasar, dispelled at once the dreamy trance of the cavalier.

"How fares my noble kinsman?" he cried.

The head of Baltasar fell on his breast, and a loud groan came from his fellow-servitor. Don Amador looked to the Tonatiuh, and witnessed the change from blithe joy to gloomy hesitation, which instantly marked his handsome aspect; the face of Fabueno darkened; and the magician strode away.

"Clear for me, if ye will not speak!" said the cavalier, with sudden sternness; "for there is no sight of wo I cannot now look upon."

He grasped the arm of Jacinto, and pushing into the palace, made his way toward the chamber of the knight.--The hand of devastation had been upon the walls of the passage; beams and planks had been torn away to supply the materials for the mantas and other martial engines; and Don Amador no longer knew the apartment of his kinsman. A dim light, and a low sound of wailing, came from a curtained door. Before the secretary and the other attendants who followed, could intercept him, he stepped into the room.

The sight that awaited him instantly fastened his attention. He was in the chamber of Montezuma, and the captive monarch lay on the bed of death. Around the low couch knelt his children, and behind were the princes of the empire, gazing with looks of awe on the king. In front were several Spanish cavaliers, unhelmed and silent; and Cortes himself, bare-headed and kneeling, gazed with a countenance of remorse on his victim; while the priest Olmedo stood hard by, vainly offering, through the medium of Dona Marina and the cavalier De Morla, the consolations of religion.

The king struggled in a kind of low delirium, in the arms of a man of singular and most barbarous appearance. This was a Mexican of gigantic stature, robed in a hooded mantle of black; but the cowl had fallen from his head, and his hair, many feet in length, plaited and twisted with thick cords, fell like cables over his person and that of the dying king. This was the high-priest of Mexico, taken prisoner at the battle of the temple.

The countenance of Montezuma was changed by suffering and the death-throe; and yet, from their hollow depths, his eyes shot forth beams of extraordinary lustre. As he struggled, he muttered; and his broken exclamations being interpreted, were found to be the lamentations of a crushed spirit and a broken heart.

"Bid the Teuctli depart," were some of the words which Don Amador caught, as rendered by the lips of Marina: "before he came, I was a king in Mexico.--But the son of the gods," he went on, with a hoarse and rattling laugh, "shall find that there are gods in Mexico, who shall devour the betrayer! They roar in the heavens, they thunder among the mountains,"--(the continued peals of artillery, shaking the fabric of the palace, mingled with his dreams, and gave a colour to them)--"they speak under the earth, and it trembles at their shouting. Ometeuctli, that dwelleth in the city of heaven, Tlaloc, that swimmeth on the great dark waters, Tonatricli and Meztli, the kings of day and night, and Mictlanteuctli, the ruler of hell,--all of them speak to their people; they look upon the strangers that destroy in their lands, and they say to me, 'Thou art the king, and they shall perish!'--Wo! wo! wo!" he continued, with an abrupt transition to abasement and grief; "they look upon me and laugh, for I have no people! In the face of all, I was made a slave; and, when they had spit upon me, they struck me as they strike the slave; so struck my people. Come, then, thou that dwellest among the rivers of night; for, among the rivers, with those who die the death of shame, shall I inhabit. Did not Mexico strike me, and shout for joy? Wo, wo! for my people have deserted me! and, in their eyes, the king is a slave!"

"Put thy lips to this emblem of salvation," said the Spanish priest, extending his crucifix, eagerly; "curse thy false gods, which are devils; acknowledge Christ to be thy master; and part,--not to dwell among the rivers of hell, which are of fire, but in the seats of bliss, the heaven of the just and happy."

"I spit upon thy accursed image!" said the monarch, rousing, with indignation, into temporary sanity, and endeavouring to suit the action to the word; "I spit upon thy cross, for it is the god of liars and deceivers! of robbers and murderers! of betrayers and enslavers! I curse thy god, and I spit upon him!"

All the Spaniards present recoiled with horror at the impiety, which was too manifest in the act to need interpretation; and some, in the moment, half drew their swords, as if to punish it by despatching the dying man at once. But they looked again on the king, and knew that this sin was the sin of madness.

As they started back, the person of De Leste, whom, in their fixed attention to Montezuma, none of them had yet perceived, was brought into the view of the monarch. His glittering eye fell upon the penacho, which the cavalier had not yet thought to remove from his helmet, and which yet drooped, with its badges of rank, over his forehead. A laugh, that had in it much of the simple exultation of childhood, burst from the king's lips; and, raising himself on the couch, he pointed at the ruddy symbols of distinction. The cavaliers, following the gesture with their eyes, beheld, with great agitation, their liberated companion; and even Cortes, himself, started to his feet, with an invocation to his saint, when his eye fell upon the apparition.

The words of Amador,--"Fear me not, for I live,"--though not lost, were unanswered; for, notwithstanding that many of the cavaliers immediately seized upon his hands, to express their joy, they instantly cast their regards again upon Montezuma, as not having the power to withdraw them for a moment from him.

"Say what they will," muttered the king, still eyeing the penacho with delight, "I, also, am of the House of Darts; and in Tlascala and Michoacan, and among the Otomies of the hills, have I won me the tassels of renown. Before I was a king, I was a soldier: so will I gather on me the armour of a general, and drive the Teuctli from my kingdom. Ho, then, what ho! Cuitlahuatzin! and thou, son of my brother, Quauhtimotzin! that are greater in war than the sons of my body, get ye forth your armies, and sound the horns of battle! Call upon the gods, and smite! on Mexitli the terrible, on Painalton the swift! call them, that they may see ye strike, and behold your valour! Call them, for Montezuma will fight at your side, and they shall know that he is valiant!"

The struggles of the king, as he poured forth these wild exclamations, were like convulsions. But suddenly, and while the Spaniards thought he was about to expire in his fury, the contortions passed from his countenance, his lips fell, his eyes grew dim, and his voice was turned to a whisper of lamentation.

"I sold my people for the smile of the Teuctli; I bartered my crown for the favour of the Christian; I gave up my fame for the bonds of a stranger; and now what am I? I betrayed my children--and what are they? Let it not be written in the books of history,--blot the name of Montezuma from the list of kings; let it not be taught to them that are to follow.--Tlaloc, I come!--Let it be forgotten."

Suddenly, as he concluded, and as if the fiend of the world of waters he had invoked, had clutched upon him, he was seized with a dreadful convulsion, and as his limbs writhed about in the agony, his eyes, dilating with each struggle, were fixed with a stony and basilisk glare upon those of Cortes; and thus,--his gaze fixed to the last on his destroyer,--he expired.

When the neophyte beheld the last quiver cease in the body, and knew by the loud wail of the Mexicans, that Montezuma was no more, he looked round for Don Hernan; but the general had stolen from the apartment.--The visage of Cortes revealed not the workings of his mind; but his heart spoke to his conscience, and his soul recorded the confession;--"I have wronged thee, pagan king;--but thy vengeance cometh!"

Don Amador's arm was touched by his friend De Morla.

"In the chamber of death," said the cavalier, sadly, "thou mightest best hear of death: but I cannot discourse to thee, while Minnapotzin is mourning. Let us depart, brother."

Don Amador motioned to the page, and followed his friend out of the apartment.