University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.

At midday, the squadron, after having accomplished
more than half the journey, halted for rest
and refreshment on the banks of a little river, under
the shade of pleasant trees. The Tlamémé threw
down their bundles, and, apart from the rest, betook
themselves to their frugal meal. A plaintain, a cake
of maize, or a morsel of some of the nameless but
delicious fruits of the clime, perhaps growing at their
side, prepared them for the enjoyment of slumber;
while the Spaniards, grouped among the trees, added

to this simple repast the more substantial luxury of
the tasajo, or jerked beef of the islands.

As for the cavalier De Leste, not having bethought
him to give orders for the preparation of such needful
munitions, he was glad to accept the invitation of
the captain Salvatierra to share his meal; and this
he did the more readily, that, having entered into
farther conversation with the leader, after the affair
of the lance, it was the good fortune of this gentleman
to stumble upon no more offensive topics. In
addition to this, he observed with great satisfaction,
that Salvatierra, preserving among his subalterns the
stateliness which he had vailed to the neophyte, did
not mean to trouble him with their society; and it
was only at his express desire that the secretary Fabueno
was admitted to partake of their repast. The
excellent taste of the worthy commander, or perhaps
the wisdom of his attendants, several of whom, both
Christian and pagan, being in constant waiting, gave
him an appearance of great rank and importance,
had provided a stock of food, which, in variety and
quantity, might have satisfied the hunger of half the
squadron. Here, besides the heavenly anana, the
grateful manioc, and other fruits and roots with
which the cavalier had become acquainted in the
islands, he was introduced to the royal chirimoya,
the zapote, and other fruits as new as they were delicious.
But, above all these delights with which
Providence has so bountifully enriched the lands of
Mexico, did Don Amador admire the appearance of
certain fowls, which, though neither reeking nor
smoking with their savoury juices, but drawn cold
from their covering of green leaves, were of so agreeable
a character as to fill his mind with transport.

“Either this land is the very paradise of earth!”
said he, “or, señor Salvatierra, you have the most
goodly purveyors among your household, that ever
loaded the table of man. I will be much beholden
to your favour to know the name of this fowl I am
eating, which, from its bulk, one might esteem a

goose, but which, I am sure, is no such contemptible
creature.”

“That,” said the leader, “is a sort of great pheasant,
the name of which I have not yet schooled my
organs to pronounce, but which, being taken among
the hills and trained in the cottages of the Indians,
becomes as familiar and loving as a dog; and is
therefore always ready when its master is hungry.”

“By my life, then!” said Amador, “I am loath to
eat it; for it seems to me, the creature that loves us
is more worthy to be consecrated in the heart, than
immolated to the cravings of the stomach. I will
therefore desire to know something of that other featherless
monster at your elbow, previous to determining
upon its fitness for mastification.”

“Your favour need entertain no scruples about
this bird,” said the captain; “for although domesticated,
and kept by the Indians about their houses in
great flocks, it hath too much affection for itself to
trouble itself much about its masters. It is a kind of
peacock, and without possessing any of the resplendent
beauty of that animal, it is endowed with all its
vanity and pride; so that, when strutting about with
its shaven head and long-gobbeted beard, its feathers
ruffled in a majestic self-conceit, our soldiers have
sometimes, for want of a better name, called it el
Turco.”

“A better name could not have been invented,”
said the neophyte; “for if it be true, as is sometimes
asserted by those who know better than myself, that
heretics and infidels are the food of the devil, I know
no morsel should be more agreeable to his appetite
than one of those same pagans that give name to this
foolish and savoury creature.”

The thoughts of Amador, as he sat testing the
merits of the noble fowl, which is one among the
many blessings America, in after days, scattered over
the whole world, wandered from Mexico to Rhodes,
from the peaceful enjoyment of his dinner to the uproar
and horror of a siege, from a dead fowl to the

turbaned Turk; and then, by a similar vagary, jumped
at once from the magnificent infidel to the poor Morisco
who had lately trod the desert at his side. As
the image of Abdoul al Sidi entered his brain, he
looked round and beheld the proselyte sitting with
his boy in the shadow of a palm, remote from the
rest; and a pang smote him, as he perceived, that,
among the scores who sat glutting their appetites
around, not one had dropped a morsel of food into
the hands of the Almogavar or his child.

“Harkee, Lazaro, thou gluttonous villain!” he
cried, with a voice that instantly brought the follower,
staring, to his side; “dost thou feed like a
pelican, and yet refuse to share thy meal, as a pelican
would, with a helpless fellow of thy race? Take
me this lump of a Turk to Sidi Abdalla, and bid him
feed his boy.”

“I will suggest to your favour,” said the captain
Salvatierra, with a grin, “that Lazaro be directed to
bring the urchin hither, with his lute, of which it is
said he is no mean master; and before he eats he
shall sing us a song, which, thus, he will doubtless execute
with more perfection than after he has gorged
himself into stupidity or the asthma.”

“I agree to that, with all my heart,” said the neophyte.
“The boy can sing while we are eating, provided
the poor fellow be not too hungry.”

Lazaro strode to the Moriscos; and in an instant,
as they rose, Amador beheld the Sidi take the instrument
from his own back where he had carried it, and
put it into the hands of his offspring. The boy received
it, and, as Amador thought, removed the gay covering,
with a faltering hand. Nevertheless, in a few
moments, this preparation was accomplished, and,
with Abdalla, the stripling stood trembling from weariness
or timidity at the side of the group.

“Moor,” said Salvatierra, before Amador had
commenced his benevolent greeting, “the noble and
valiant cavalier hath charitably commanded thou
shouldst eat thy dinner at our feet; which whilst thou

art doing, we will expect thy lad to entertain us with
such sample of his skill in luting and singing as may
make our own repast more agreeable.”

“That is, if the boy be not too hungry,” said the
good-natured neophyte. “I should blush to owe my
pleasures to any torments of his own, however slight;
and (as I know by some little famine wherewith we
were afflicted at Rhodes,) there is no more intolerable
anguish with which one can be cursed, than this same
unhumoured appetite.”

“Jacinto will sing to my lord,” said the Almogavar
submissively.

But Jacinto was seized with such a fit of trembling,
as seemed for a time to leave him incapable; and
when, at last, he had sufficiently subdued his terror,
to begin tuning his instrument, he did it with so slow
and so hesitating a hand, that Salvatierra lost patience,
and reproved him harshly and violently.

It happened, unluckily for the young Moor, that,
at that moment, the eye of Amador wandered to Fogoso,
and beheld him wallowing, with more of the
spirit of a yeoman's hog than a warrior's charger,
in a certain miry spot near to which he had been
suffered to crop the green leaves. He called hastily
and wrathfully to Lazaro, and, in his indignation, entirely
lost sight of his dinner, his host, and the musician.

“Whelp of a heathen!” said Salvatierra to the
shrinking lad: “hast thou no more skill or manners,
but to make this accursed jangling, to which there
seems no end? Bestir thyself, or I will teach thee
activity.”

The boy, frightened at the violence of the soldier,
rose to his feet, and dropping his instrument in alarm,
clung to Abdalla. The wrath of the hot-tempered
Salvatierra exceeded the bounds of decorum and of
humanity. He had a twig in his hand, and with this
he raised his arm to strike the unfortunate urchin.
But just then the neophyte turned round, and beheld
the act of tyranny.

“Señor!” he cried, with a voice even more harsh
and angry than his own, and seizing the uplifted hand
with no ceremonious grasp,—“Señor! you will not
so far forget your manhood as to do violence to the
child? Know that I have taken him, for this journey,
into my protection; know also, thou canst not inflict
a stripe upon his feeble body, that will not degrade
thee into the baseness of a hind, and that will not
especially draw upon thee the inconvenience of mine
own displeasure!”

The heart of Salvatierra sunk before the flaming
countenance of the cavalier: but observing that several
of his nearest followers had taken note of the insult,
and were grasping their arms, as if to avenge
it, he said with an air of firmness,

“The señor De Leste has twice or thrice taken occasion
to requite my courtesies with such shame as is
hard to be borne, and in particular by interfering
with the just exercise of my authority; and I have
to assure him, that when the duties of my office shall
release me from restraint, his injuries shall not be unremembered.”

“If thou art a hidalgo,” said the cavalier sternly,
“thou hast the right to command me; if of ignoble
blood, as from thy deportment to this trembling child,
I am constrained to believe, I have, nevertheless,
eaten of thy bread and salt, and cannot refuse to
meet thee with such weapons and in such way as
thou mayest desire; and to this obligation do I hold
myself bound and fettered.”

Some half-dozen followers of the captain had
crowded round their leader, and were lowering ominously
and menacingly on the neophyte. Lazaro
and Baltasar beheld the jeopardy of their master,
and silently but resolutely placed themselves at his
side; nay, even the youthful Fabueno, though seemingly
bewildered, as if doubting on which side to array
himself, had snatched up his bloodless sabre; and
it seemed for an instant as if this unlucky rupture
might end in blows. The señor Salvatierra looked

from his followers to the angry hidalgo; the flush
faded from his cheek; and it was remarked by some
of his soldiers, not a little to his dispraise, that when,
as if conquering his passion, he motioned them to retire,
it was with a hurried hand and tremulous lip.

“The señor de Leste is right,” he said, with a disturbed
voice; “I should have done myself dishonour
to harm the boy; and although the reproof was none
of the most gentle and honeyed, I can still thank him
that it preserved me from the shame of giving too
much rein to my ill-temper. I therefore forget the
injury, as one that was merited, discharge my anger
as causeless, and desiring rather to devote my blood
to the subjugation of pagans, than to squander it in
contest with a fellow-Christian, offer the hand of re-conciliation
and of friendship to Don Amador de
Leste.”

There was an appearance of magnanimity in this
confession of fault and offer of composition, that won
upon the good opinion of the neophyte; and he frankly
gave his hand to the captain. Then turning to the
innocent cause of his trouble, who, during the time
that there seemed danger of a conflict, had exhibited
the greatest dismay, he found him sobbing bitterly in
the arms of Abdalla.

“Poor child!” said the benevolent cavalier, “thou
art fitter to touch thy lute in the bower of a lady,
than to wake it among these wild and troubled deserts.
It is enough, Abdalla: conduct thy son to
some shade, where he may eat and sleep; and when
we renew our march, I will think of some device to
spare his tender feet the pain of trudging longer over
the sands.”

The Moor laid his hand on his heart, bowed with
the deepest submission and gratitude, and led the boy
away to a covert.