University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.

The review, division, and minute organization of
the vast army now at the disposal of the Captain-General,
occupied nearly the whole day, which was
unexpectedly propitious, as the rainy season might
be said to have already commenced. Clouds, indeed,
gathered over the sky, in the afternoon,
giving a melancholy aspect to the hills and meadows;
and a thick fog rose from the lake and spread
around, until it had pervaded the lower grounds
on its borders. Yet not a drop of rain fell during
the whole day, and, by sunset, the clouds dispersed,
without having disturbed the firmament with thunder;
and the lake was left to glimmer in the light
of a young moon, and the multitude of stars.

The whole native population of Tezcuco had
been drawn to the meadows, to witness the glories
of military parade, and the city was deserted and
solitary. Nay, even the watchmen on the walls,
forgetting the audacious assault of the past night,
and anxious to share a spectacle from which their
duties should have separated them, stole, one after
another, from their posts, until the northern gates
were left wholly unguarded. The vanity of the
Commander-in-Chief could not permit the absence
of a single effective Spaniard from the scene of display,
and the walls had been left to Tlascalans.

Late in the afternoon, and when the mists were
thickest, and the hues of the fields most mournful,
a single individual passed from that gate at which
Juan Lerma, eight or nine weeks before, had terminated

the first chapter of his exile. A friar's
cassock and cowl enveloped his whole form, yet the
dullest eye would have detected in the vigour and
impetuosity of his step, the presence of passions
which could not belong to the holy profession. His
eye was fixed upon a shadowy figure, almost lost
among the mists, that went staggering along, as if
upon a course not yet defined, or over paths difficult
to be traced; and while he was obviously
watching and pursuing the retreating shape, it
seemed to be with a confidence that feared not the
observation of the fugitive. Thus, when the figure
paused, he arrested his steps, and resumed them
only when they were resumed by the other; and,
in this manner, he followed onwards, with little
precaution, until Tezcuco was left far behind, hidden
in the fog. As he moved, he muttered many
expressions, indicative of 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 a triple dye by
the malefactions it has caused in others—Mea culpa,
mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! Cursed avarice!
cursed ambition! There is a retribution that follows
us even to the grave; sin is punished with sin,—
the first fault lays fire to the train of our vices, and
in their explosions we are further stained,—punished,
destroyed. That sin! and what has come of
it? Where is the gain to balance it? Cajoled
by the demon that seduced me, cheated and flung
aside—suspected, degraded, demoralized—a wanderer,
a villain, a cur—the friend of rogues, and
myself their fittest fellow—Heaven is strong, and
justice oppressive.—Munda cor meum ac labia
mea! for I blaspheme!”

Thus muttered the distracted Camarga, for it was
he who gave vent to such troubled expressions.
Some of these were uttered so loudly, that they

seemed to reach the ear of the fugitive, who turned
round, looked back for a moment, and then diving
into a misty hollow, was for a short time concealed
from his eyes.

“Ay,—fly, fly!” he muttered, gnashing his teeth;
“fly, wretch, fly! But wert thou fleeter than the
mountain-deer, thou couldst not escape the fiend
that is already tearing at thy vitals. Fling thyself
into the lake, 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 the fugitive, 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. “Be it so—live she or die
she, he shall hear it, and curse the curiosity that
compelled it. Ay! and his anguish will be some
set-off to the joy of having triumphed over the poor
wretch he persecuted. God rest thee, Juan Lerma!
for thou at least hast died in ignorance; and but
for this mischance,—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 was this unhappy creature
whom he followed,—steal over the mound to the
right hand, as if turning her steps from the lake
landward. But being aware 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, and stepping among the rocks and
brambles at the base of the hill, passed it in time to
behold Magdalena stalking, with a countenance of
distraction, towards the lake, as if impelled by
some terrible goadings of mind, to self-destruction.

“Wretched creature!” he cried, springing forwards,
and staying her frenzied steps, “what is
this you do? Fling not away the grace that is in
wait.—You, at least, may live and be forgiven.”

To his great surprise, the unhappy girl, whose
countenance had indicated all the iron determination
of desperation, offered not the slightest resistance,
while he drew her from the water-side; but
turning towards him with the face of a maiden detected
in some merry and harmless mischief, she
began to laugh; but immediately afterwards, burst
into tears.

“Good heavens!” said Camarga, with compassion,
“are you indeed brought to 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 lady rose from the rock, on
which she had suffered herself to be seated, although
it was observable that she showed no symptoms of
surprise. She gazed fixedly at Camarga for an instant,
and a dark frown gathering on her brows,
she turned to depart, without reply. Camarga,
however, detained her, and would have spoken;
but no sooner did she feel his hand laid upon her
mantle than she turned suddenly round, with a look
of inexpressible fierceness, saying with the sternest
accents of a voice always strikingly expressive,

“Who art thou, that comest between me and my
purpose? If a priest or an angel, fly,—for here thou
art with contamination; if a man, and a bad man,
still fly, lest thou be struck dead with the breath of
one deeper plunged in guilt than thyself.—If a devil,
then remain, and claim thy prey from the apostate
and murderess. Dost thou forbid me even to die?”

“Ay—I do,” replied Camarga, trembling, yet less

at her terrible countenance than her fearful expressions:
“I am one who, in the name of heaven,—a
name which is alike polluted in thy mouth and in
mine—command thee to recall thy senses, if they
have not utterly fled, and bid thee, thinking of self-slaughter
no longer, leave this land of wretchedness,
and, in a cloister, and with a life of penitence,
obtain the pardon which heaven will not perhaps
withhold.”

“Pardon comes not without punishment,” said
Magdalena, sternly; “and I would not that it
should: and for penitence,—the moaning regret
that exists without torture and suffering,—know
that it is but a mockery. Kill thy friend, and repent,—yet
dream not of paradise. Scourge thyself,
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 she could
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 of thy Maker,
unshriven, unrepenting, unprepared?”

Magdalena surveyed him with a look that changed
gradually from anger to wistful emotion; and
then again shedding tears, she dropped on her
knees, saying, with a tone and manner that went
to his heart,

“I will shrive me then, and then let me go, for
thy presence persecutes me.—Well, and perhaps it
is better; for it is long since I have looked upon 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 then absolve
or condemn as thou wilt, for I judge myself;
and I confess to thee, only that my words may drive

thee away, as would the moans of a coming pestilence.
Hear me then, friar, and then begone from
me.”

“Arise,” said Camarga, “I seek not thy confession,
at least not now: I have that will draw it
from thee, at a fitter time and place. In this distant
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 cause
thee to do justice to the name, and say masses for
the soul, of Juan Lerma.”

“Speak of Juan Lerma,” said Camarga, with a
trembling voice, “and I will indeed listen to thee.
In nomine Dei Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti,
speak and speak truly. Cursed be thou, even by
my lips, if thou speakest that which is false, or concealest
aught that is true!”

“Truth, though I die,—and let me die when it
is spoken,” said Magdalena, placing her lips with
the instinctive reverence of habit to the cross
which Camarga extended. As she kissed it, her
heart seemed to soften, and she shed many bitter
tears, while pouring forth her broken and melancholy
story.

“Know, father,” she said, not once doubting that
she had a true father of the church before her, “that
it was my misfortune never to have known the
kindness and care of a parent.”

“Let that be passed,” said Camarga, hurriedly.
“Speak not of the sins of thy youth, a thousand
times confessed, and a thousand times absolved.
Speak of thy coming to the island,—of thy broken
vows,—thy—” But here perceiving that Magdalena
started with a sort of affright, at finding how
far his knowledge had anticipated her divulgements,
he continued, with better discretion, “Thus much

do I know—how I know, ask not; and yet thou
mayst be told, too, that much of thy fate was interwoven
with that of Villafana.”

“My fate, and that of Villafana!” cried Magdalena,
with a withering look of contempt. But instantly
changing to a more submissive air, she
exclaimed, “My story, indeed, father, but not my
fate. If he have confessed to you, then do you
know enough,—perhaps all. He told you, then,
that his avarice, gratified at the expense of a horrible
crime,—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
the ship of the golden and silver church-vessels,
when we were near to the port, and made his
escape to the shore, leaving us to sink in the
midst of a storm then rising. Our pilot having no
hope but in running upon the shore, then within
sight, ran the vessel among certain rocks, where
it was 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 a gulf
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 that thou wert rendered
unable by any exercise of criminal love, to preserve
on the earth's surface a wretch, at whose
footstep it shuddered.”

“Hah!” cried Magdalena, starting up in a
transport of indignation, and sending daggers from
her eyes, “who art thou, that speakest so falsely
and foully of Juan Lerma? Wert thou, instead of
a pattering friar, a canonized saint in heaven, still

wert thou but a thing of dross and earth, 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 of mental
feebleness, in which life seems only to continue in
impulses,—a chain of convulsions and exhaustions.
“Alas, father,” she continued, with sobs, “you
have been taught, like the rest, to misconceive and
belie the best and most unfortunate of men;—for
such is Juan Lerma;—and you have perhaps joined
with the rest to compass his destruction. Has he
wronged you? no—you have imagined a wrong.
Has he wronged Cortes? no—he has wronged no
one; but the ear of Cortes was open to his enemies.
Hear me, father, and while you condemn
me, listen to the refutation of slander. Father,
when I opened mine eyes to the light, 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 ordained that I should be
happy in a new existence. Never before had I
looked upon the world, and the people of the world,
—never before had I looked upon 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
and deceitful, and when they asked me of the
ship and people, I told them falsehoods, lest they
should bring me the veil and the priest, and carry
me from his presence. Alas! and my deceit
availed not; he smiled no more; and when
Hilario spoke of affection—affection for me,—Juan
Lerma withdrew without a sigh, without a struggle.”

“Saints of heaven!” cried Camarga, starting
with horror, gasping for breath, and, in the sense

of suffocation, forgetting his assumed character so
much as to fling back the cowl that had concealed
his features. “Dost thou speak me the truth?
On thy life,—on thy hopes of heaven's forgiveness,
—on thy love even for this lost, perhaps this dead,
youth,—I charge thee speak me the truth. Went
there no more than this between you? And Juan
Lerma loved you not? and Villafana belied ye
both? 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 as
confounded by the absence of the tonsure, and
the glittering of an iron gorget about his throat,
seemed for a moment unable to answer his questions.
But summoning her spirits at last, she
said,

“Thou art not a priest, but a layman, a stranger,
and a man of sin! But be who thou wilt, friend or
foe, thou knowest now enough of my history to be
entitled to know all. Never did man couple my
name with shame, and think of any but him who
died under the dagger of Villafana. As for Juan
Lerma, not even Cortes, his bitterest enemy, would
dare accuse him of a deed of dishonour. Stranger,
if thou art interested in the betrayed and murdered
Juan, know at least that he died innocent of any
wrong to Magdalena.”

“Now God be praised for this good word!” said
Camarga, dropping on his knees, and speaking with
what seemed a distraction of fervour and delight:
“God be praised that I may not think, at my death-hour,
that my sins 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? and why need I say it?” cried
Camarga, springing up and wringing his hands—
“have we not slain him among us? Oh, wretched
Magdalena, if, by thine influence, he was brought
to this pass, know that thou hast slain thine own
brother!”

At this strange and exciting revelation, Magdalena,
who had, in the ecstacy of expectation, seized
upon Camarga's hands with a convulsive grasp, uttered
a scream, wild, loud, and thrilling, and yet how
unlike to that which rose from her breaking heart in
the prison! It was some such cry as might be supposed
to come from a despairing Christian, who finds
that the gates, which he thinks are conducting him
to hell, have suddenly ushered him into the walks of
paradise. It mingled fear and astonishment with
joy, but joy predominant over the others; and
though it sounded as if coming from a bursting
heart, it was as if from one bursting in the over-bound
and expansion of a breast released from a
mountain of oppression. It echoed over the lake,
and seemed to have called up the spirits thereof;
for before its last hysterical echo had vibrated on
the ear, there sprang up, as if they had risen from
the earth or the waters, six or seven athletic barbarians,
flourishing heavy macanas, who rushed
at once upon the pair.

At the sight of such unexpected and formidable
antagonists, though taken entirely by surprise, Camarga
snatched his concealed sword from the scabbard,
leaped with great intrepidity betwixt Magdalena
and the nearest savage, who seemed the
leader of the party, and made a blow at him, while
calling to her,

“Fly! fly! and tell Cortes that thy brother—”
But his lips finished not the sentence. Whether it
was that he was rendered helpless by long continued
disease, was embarrassed by the friar's cassock,

or was really unskilful in the use of weapons,
it is certain that his blade dropped harmless on the
macana of the warrior. Before he could recover
his guard, the battle-axe of the Mexican fell upon
his head with deadly violence, and he rolled, to all
appearance a dying man, on the ground.

At the same instant, another warrior clutched
upon Magdalena, who, though pale as death, and
agitated by a long succession of passions, yet drew
the dagger she always carried at her girdle, and
aimed it at the breast of the infidel. Before it could
do him any harm, it was snatched out 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-brake hard
by, and secured, though not rudely, beyond the
possibility of further resistance, among the infidels.
They caught up their paddles, uttered a wild yell,
and the next moment dashed from the shore, and
were hidden among the mists of the lake.