University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.

Amador surveyed the prisoner, though somewhat
indifferently. He was, in figure and age, very much
such a man as Baltasar, but in other respects very dissimilar.
His face was wan, and even cadaverous;
but this might have been the effect of the blows he
had received from the dying soldier, as was made
probable by the presence of several spots of blood
encrusted over his visage. His cheeks were broad,
and the bones prominent; his eyes very hollow, and
expressive of a wild solemnity, mingled with cunning;
his beard long and bushy, and only slightly grizzled,
and a rugged mustache hung over his lips so as almost
to conceal them. His apparel was of black
cloth, none of the freshest, the principal garment of
which was a long loose doublet, under which was
buckled an iron breast-plate,—his only armour; for, instead
of a morion, he wore a cloth hat of capacious
brim, stuck round with the feathers of divers birds,
as well as several medals of the saints, rudely executed
in silver. Besides these fantastic decorations,
he had suspended to his neck several instruments of
the Cabala,—a pentacle of silver, and charms and
talismans written over with mystical characters, as
well as a little leathern pouch filled with various
dried herbs and roots. This mystagogue, an agent
of no little importance among many of the scenes of
the Conquest, was led into the presence of the general,
and approached him without betraying any signs
of fear or embarrassment; nor, on the other hand,
did he manifest any thing like audacity or presumption;
but lifting his eyes to the visage of the Biscayan,
he gazed upon him with a silent and grave earnestness,
that seemed somewhat to disconcert the
leader.

“Sirrah sorcerer,” said he, “since the devil has
deserted you at last, call up what spirits you can

muster, and find me why I shall not hang you for a
spy, early in the morning.”

“Tetragrammaton Adonai!” muttered the warrior-magician
in the holy gibberish of his art, with a voice
of sepulchral hollowness, and with a countenance
gleaming with indignation or enthusiasm. “In the
name of God, Amen! I defy the devil, and am the
servant of his enemy; and in the land of devils, of
Apollyon in the air, Beelzebub on the earth, and Satan
in men's hearts, I forswear and defy, contemn
and denounce them; and I pray for, and foresee, the
day when they shall tumble from the high places!”

“All this thou mayst do, and all this thou mayst
foresee,” said the general; “but nevertheless thy
wisdom will be more apparent to employ itself a little
in the investigation of thine own fate; which, I promise
thee, is approaching to a crisis.”

“I have read it in the stars, I have seen it in the
smoke of waters and of blessed herbs, and I have
heard it from the lips of dead men and the tongues
of dreams,” cried the professor of the occult sciences,
with much emphasis. “But what is the fate of Botello,
the swordsman, to that of the leaders of men,
the conquerors of kings and great nations? I have
read my own destinies; but why shouldst thou trifle
the time to know them, when I can show thee the
higher mysteries of thine own?”

“Canst thou do so? By my faith then, I will have
thee speak them very soon,” said Narvaez. “But
first, let me know what wert thou doing when thou
wert found prowling this morning so near to my
camp?”

“Gathering the herbs for the suffumigation which
shall tell me in what part of the world thou shalt lay
thy bones!” said the magician, solemnly. “The
moon, in the house Alchil, showed me many things,
but not all; a thick smoke came over the crystal,
and I saw not what I wanted; I slept under the cross,
with a skull on my bosom, but it breathed nothing
but clouds. Wherefore I knew, it should be only

when the wolf spoke to the vulture, and the vulture
to the red star, that Camael the angel should unlock
the lips of destiny, and lead me whither I longed to
follow.”

“I am ever bound to thee,” said the general, with
a manner in which an attempt at mockery was mingled
with a natural touch of superstition, “for the
extreme interest thou seemest to cherish in my fate;
and again I say to thee, I will immediately converse
with thee on that subject. But at present, señor
nigromante, I warn thee, it will be but wisdom, to
confine thy rhapsodies within the limits of answers to
such interrogatories as I shall propose thee.—Where
lies thy master, the outcast and arch-rebel, my
enemy?”

“My master is in heaven!” said Botello, with a devout
and lofty earnestness, “and there is no outcast
and rebel but he that dwelleth in the pit, under the
foot of Michael; and he is the enemy!”

“Sirrah! I speak to thee of the knave Cortes,”
cried the general, angrily. “When wert thou last
at his side? and where?”

“At midnight,—on the river of Canoes, where he
has rested, as thou knowest, for a night and a day.”

“Ay!” said the Biscayan fiercely; “within a league
of my head-quarters, whither my clemency has suffered
him to come.”

“Whither God and his good star have drawn him,”
said the magician.

“And whence I will drive him to the rocks of the
mountains, or the mangroves of the beach, ere thou
art cured of thy wounds!”

“Lo! my wounds are healed!” said Botello; “the
hand that inflicted them is stiff and cold, and Hernan
Cortes yet lies by the river! Ay, the holy unguent,
blessed of the fat of a pagan's heart, hath dried the
blood and glued the skin; and yet my captain, whose
fate I have seen and spoken, even from the glory of
noon to the long and sorrowful shadows of the evening,
marshals his band within the sound of thy matin

bell; and wo be to his foeman, when he is nearer or
further!”

“Prattling fool,” said the commander, “if thou
hadst looked to the bright moon to-night, thou wouldst
have seen how soon the cotton-trees of the river
should be strung with thy leader and companions,
and with thyself, as a liar and an impostor, in their
midst!”

“I looked,” said the veteran, tranquilly, “and saw
what will be seen, but not by all. There was thunder
in the temple, and peace by the river, and more
wailing than comes from the lips of the Penitent
Knight.”

The angry impetuosity with which Narvaez was
about to continue the conference, was interrupted by
the impatience of the novice. He had listened with
much disgust both to the mystic jargon of the soldier
and the idle demands and bravadoes of the general.
The interest with which he discovered how short a
distance separated him from his kinsman, was increased
to an irresistible excitement, when he heard
the title with which, as the admiral had told him, the
knight was distinguished among the invaders, on the
lips of Botello. Rising therefore abruptly, he said,

“Señor Narvaez, I have to beg your pardon, if,
in my own impatience to be satisfied in a matter which
I have much at heart, I am somewhat blind to the
importance of this present controversy. If your excellency
will do me the favour to examine the letters
of the admiral, you will discover that it is not so
much my purpose to lay claim to your hospitable entertainment,
the proffer of which I acknowledge with
much gratitude, as to request your permission to pass
through the lines of your army, to join my kinsman
the knight Calavar. Understanding, therefore, from
the words of this lunatic, or enchanter, whichever he
may be, that I am within the short distance of a
league from my good knight, to whom all my allegiance
is due, I see not wherefore I should not proceed
to join him forthwith, instead of wasting the

night in slumber. I must, therefore, crave of your
excellency to grant me, to the camp of the señor
Cortes, a guide, to whom I will, with my life and
honour, guarantee a safe return;—or such instructions
concerning my route, as will enable me to proceed
alone—that is to say, with my attendants.”

The effect of this interruption and unexpected demand,
on the countenances of all, was remarkable
enough. The cavaliers present stared at the novice
with amazement, and even a sort of dismay; and the
secretary Fabueno, looking by chance at the captain
Salvatierra, observed the visage of this worthy suddenly
illuminated by a grin of delight. As for the
general himself, nothing could be more unfeigned
than his surprise, nothing more unquestionable than
the displeasure which instantly began to darken his
visage. He rose, thrust his hand into his belt, as if
to give his fingers something to gripe, and drawing
himself to his full height, said haughtily and severely,

“When I invited the cavalier De Leste to share
the shelter of this temple, I did not think I received
a friend of the traitor Cortes or of any of his people;
nor did I dream an adherent of this outlaw would
dare to beard me at my head-quarters with so rash
and audacious a request!”

“The señor Narvaez has then to learn,” said Amador,
with a degree of moderation that could only be
produced by a remembrance of his engagement to
the admiral, and his promise to the secretary, not
causelessly to provoke the anger of the general,—but
nevertheless with unchanging decision, “that if I
boast not to be the friend of Cortes, whom you call
a traitor, I avouch myself to be very much the creature
of mine own will; and that if I cannot be termed
the adherent of an outlaw, I am at least a Spanish
hidalgo, bent on the prosecution of my designs, and
making requests more as the ceremonies of courtesy,
than the tribute of humility. I will claim nothing
more of your excellency than your excellency is,
without claim, inclined to grant; and allowing therefore

that you invited me to your lodgings under a
mistaken apprehension of my character, I will
straightway release you from the obligation, only previously
desiring of your excellency to reconsider
your expressions, wherein, as I think, was an innuendo
highly unjust and offensive.”

“Now, by heaven!” exclaimed the Biscayan, with
all the irascibility of his race, and the arrogant pride
of his station, “I have happened upon a strange day,
when a vagabond esquire, wandering through my jurisdiction,
asks my permission to throw himself into
the arms of my enemy; and when I admonish him a
little of his rashness, rebukes me with insult and defiance!”

“A very strange day indeed!” muttered a voice
among the cavaliers, in which Amador, had he not
been too much occupied with other considerations,
might have recognized the tones of Salvatierra.

“Biscayan!” said he, with an eye of fire, “I have
given you all the respect, which, as a governor's governor,
and a captain's captain, you had a right to
demand; I have also done you the homage of a guest
to his host, and of a gentleman to a reputed hidalgo;
but neither as a governor nor commander, neither
as a host nor a nobleman, have you the privilege to
offend with impunity, or to insult without being called
to a reckoning.”

“Is this another madman of the stock of Calavar,
that the silly admiral hath sent me?” cried the enfuriated
leader, snatching up a sword from the table,
and advancing upon the novice.

“Señor Panfilo!” cried Amador, confronting the
general, and waving his hand with dignity, “unless
thou force me by thine own violence, I cannot draw
my sword upon thee on thine own floor, not even although
thou add to thy wrongs a sarcasm on my
knight and kinsman. Nevertheless I fling this glove
at thy feet, in token that if thou art as valiant as
thou art ill-bred, as ready to repair as to inflict an
injury, I will claim of thee, as soon as may suit thy

convenience, to meet me with weapons, and to answer
thy manifold indignities.”

“Dios santisimo!” cried the commander, foaming
with rage and stamping furiously on the floor.
“What ho! swords and pikemen! shall I strike this
galofero braggart with my own hands? Arrest him!”

“The blood of him that stays me, be on his own
head!” said Amador, drawing his sword and striding
to the entrance. “I will remember thee, uncourteous
cavalier, when I see thee in a fitter place.”

The arm of the governor had been arrested by
Duero; and in the confusion of the moment, though
the door of the tower was instantly beset by a dozen
gaping attendants, Don Amador would doubtless
have passed through them without detention, notwithstanding
the furious commands of Narvaez. But at
the moment, when, as he waved his sword menacingly,
the hesitating satellites seemed parting before
him, Salvatierra stepped nimbly behind, and suddenly
seizing his outstretched arm, and calling to the guards
at the same time, in an instant Don Amador was disarmed
and a prisoner. His rage was for a moment
unspeakable; but it did not render him incapable of
observing the faithful boldness of the secretary.

“Señor general!” cried Lorenzo, though with a
stammering voice, “if your excellency will read this
letter to the end, your excellency will find my master
recommends Don Amador as of a most noble and
lofty family, and, at this moment, raised above arrest
and detention, by being charged with authority from
the Grand Master of Rhodes.”

The only answer of the general was a scowl and
a wave of the hand, which instantly left Fabueno in
the predicament of the cavalier. He was seized, and
before he could follow the example of his patron, and
draw his sabre, it was snatched from his inexperienced
hand.

All this passed in a moment; and before the neophyte
could give utterance to the indignation which
choked him, he was dragged, with Fabueno, from the
sanctuary.