University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.

The two subalterns now rejoined their companions,
and passing them, as they stood patiently
to their arms, waiting for the dawn and the battle,
they crept through the sleepers towards the cannon,
which were placed in the rear, the cannoniers
sleeping around them. Here, they found a solitary
individual of the watch they had relieved, leaning
moodily against one of the pieces, instead of sharing
the slumber of his comrades.

Bernal Diaz surveyed him for a moment, and
then touched him on the shoulder:

“Townsman,” said he, “it is but a foolish thing
of thee to stand upon thy legs, watching, when thy
guard duty is over. Sleep a little, Gaspar—We
shall have toilsome work to-morrow.”

“Sleep thyself, Bernal,” replied Gaspar Olea.
“What care I for sleep? Come, get thee into the
mud, and I will take thy place. Thou shalt have
my cloak, too, if thou wilt, to keep the rain out—I
can warm me by walking.”

“I will do no such thing,” said Bernal, grasping
the hand of his friend, though Gaspar turned from
him, and seemed desirous to continue the conversation
no longer; “if thou wilt wake, why well. I
will talk thee out of thy melancholy. Thou art very
much changed, Gaspar. I know not why thou
shouldst grieve after this boy. Thou must now
confess, he is unworthy thy friendship.”

Gaspar returned no answer, and Bernal continued
to give consolation by inflicting pain,—which is the
common way.

“It is allowed by all, that he is a renegade; and
doubtless, also, he has become a worshipper of false
gods; for he who will turn his sword against his
countrymen, is a rogue and a blasphemer—That
is my opinion. Gil Ortaga said—”

“The fiend seize Ortaga, and thee into the bargain!”
said Gaspar, angrily. “If a deer be wounded,
and hide himself in a by-way, his fellows will
not hunt after him, to gore him!—Why shouldst
thou have less humanity than a deer?”

“Come, Gaspar, if I have offended thee, I ask
thy pardon,” said Bernal Diaz; “for thou art my
townsman and friend, though we have quarrelled
sometimes; and what I say, I say with a good
meaning.”

Gaspar looked over his shoulder, and finding
that Najara had returned to the front, he grasped
Bernal's hand, and said earnestly,

“Let there be ill will and ill words between us
no more; for who knows what may come to us to-morrow?
I know what is said of Juan Lerma. He
is with the infidels—but what drove him among
them? He is a renegade, too,—yet what made
him so? He teaches the enemy to cut ditches and
throw up ramparts, to lay ambushes and attack
ships, and a thousand other feats and stratagems,
not to be looked for among barbarians. This they
say,—all say; and some swear they have seen
him, in a Mexican cloak, fighting at the head of the
pagans, and knew him by his stature and voice.
Let us believe all this—What then? Bernal, it is a
thought that preys upon me, remembering his honour,
his goodness, and truth,—and this it is,—that
a damnable malice has driven him, against his own
will, into the den of perdition. Hark thee, here, in

thine ear—Thou rememberest the expedition to the
South Sea? Before that, thou knowest, I was in
great favour with Cortes, whom I loved well, for
he had done me many good deeds in Cuba. About
that time, Juan Lerma lost favour, and no one
knew why; for as to censuring the indignities offered
to Montezuma, that was a crime committed
by some hundreds besides, who were never
punished. The cause, Bernal, the true cause,—I
would I might tell thee the true cause: but I swore
an oath never to breathe it to mortal man. But
this I may speak, (and thou must afterwards forget
it.) I see things more clearly than I did before;
and methinks, this night, mine eyes are further
opened. I see very well, that we are all deluded
and abused, and Juan Lerma an innocent man.
Hearken then to what I say. One night, Cortes
came to me, looking more like a demon than a
man, and he said to me, `Gaspar Olea, thou must
kill me a snake, that has stung me upon the breast.'
And with that he told me a thing, which I cannot
speak; but this followed—I agreed that I would
kill Juan Lerma.”

“Thou art beside thyself, Gaspar!” said Bernal,
with the utmost astonishment.

“I had good reason given to me,” continued
Olea; “and at that time I had but little acquaintance
with the young man, and no love; and I was
bound very strongly to Cortes. Understand me,
Bernal: I did not consent to play the part of an
assassin, for that was no part for Gaspar Olea. But
being convinced the thing was just, and that the
young man was a knave deserving death, I agreed
to exasperate him into a quarrel; wherein I appeased
my conscience, by thinking of the risk I ran,
he being reckoned very good at all weapons. But
what dost thou think? The very next night comes
me Cortes again, with quite another story. `Gaspar,'

said he, `the thing I told thee was false, and I
have done the young man a wrong. Wherefore,
quarrel with him not, and forget what I have
told thee;” adding many things which satisfied my
mind, that the youth was an innocent man, very
basely slandered. This caused me to think well of
him; and I consented to go with him to the South
Sea. There, Bernal, I learned to love him, for he
was brave, and noble, and good;—ay, by my faith,
I loved him better than ever I had loved the general.
But `What then?' you will say; `Whereto
tends this?' To this—and it is damnable to think
upon: The General deceived me,—he repented
having made me his confidant; but he still longed
for the blood of Juan Lerma. Hence the South
Sea scheme, devised for our destruction—(At this
moment, I see it plainly,)—for Juan's, because of
the General's hate, and for mine, Bernal, because
he had confided to me a secret of which he was
ashamed. Ay, by my faith! he repented him that
passion had made him so indiscreet; and therefore
designed to put me out of the way. The soldiers
have a story that he was angry with me for some
freedom of speech. This is false. He smiled on
me to the last, and thus lulled my fears. Neither
Juan nor myself had any suspicion of evil intentions.
He made it appear, that the expedition was
given to us, because of his regard for our courage;
and he deigned to tell me in secret, that his chief
reason for sending Lerma, was that he might be
angered no longer by his censures,—Juan being
then very melancholy and peevish, in consequence
of the death of some old companion he had killed in
Española. But, Bernal, he deceived us both, as I
can now see clearly. He made it appear to the
soldiers, that he was sorry to punish Juan—Nay
some said he shed tears, among the Indians, when
he signed the death-warrant. But this was hypocrisy.
I know that he was rejoiced; for he remembered
the old cause, and abhorred him.”

“Marry,” said Bernal Diaz, “it cannot be doubted
he did. But the cause, Gaspar? I do not ask
thee, what it was: but was it enough to excuse
such rancour?”

“If true, yes,” replied Gaspar, with deep emphasis:
“But it was not true. Juan was innocent. I
have probed his heart a thousand times, while we
were in the desert together, and when he knew not
what I was doing. He has not wronged Cortes—
no, nor any other living creature. This I told the
General, when we returned to Tezcuco, after the
campaign round the lake. But what wouldst thou
think? He averred that he had forgot the thing;—
that it was very foolish;—a groundless slander
brought against Juan by an enemy;—that he loved
him as well as ever, and proceeded against him
only on account of broken laws and decrees;—that
he durst not pardon him, since his affection was
well known, (his affection, Bernal!) and the men
would cry out against his favouritism. I knew he
spoke falsely, and so I told him. He hardened my
heart; and then I ran to Villafana, who had the
power to save him, and promised to make him our
chief captain.”

“Now that you speak of Villafana,” said Bernal,
“it reminds me of this: Why, had Juan Lerma
been a man of honour and a Christian, should he
have joined in the murderous plots of that detestable
traitor?”

“Thou shouldst ask that of me,” said Gaspar,
fiercely. “But it matters not. Who says that
Juan Lerma joined him? Najara avers that he kept
them from speech together; and Luis Rafaga, who
died of the wounds he got among the piraguas, a
week since, declared to his comrades as well as the
priest, (and being of the prison-guard, he knew all,)

that Juan fought in the prison with Villafana, about
the list, the very night that Villafana was hanged,
and would have been killed, but for the coming of
La Monjonaza. I saw the traitor, myself, when he
came among the cavaliers; and he was hurt in the
shoulder. Does this look like joining him? Trust
me, Bernal, we have done a great wrong to my
young captain; and I cannot die, without thinking
that I leave behind me one man, at least, to do him
justice. This is what I say:—Not his crime, but
the general's secret malice, has driven him among
the infidels. He is a prisoner with them, or perhaps
he has already died the death of sacrifice.
They lie, who say they have seen, or will see him
in arms against us. On this I will gage my life;
and I pray heaven to take it, the moment the pledge
is forfeited! I swear it—Amen.”

The worst point in the character of a dog, is
that, in all the quarrels betwixt others of his species,
he always takes part against the feebler. In
this particular, he is sometimes aped by his master,—not,
indeed, in an absolute conflict between
man and man; for ninety in a hundred will, in such
case, befriend the weaker party,—but in those combats
which an individual wages with an evil destiny.
Ill thoughts naturally follow upon ill luck;
and it is the curse of misfortune to be followed by
ungenerous suspicion and still more odious crimination.
As the whole army were acquainted with
the manner of Juan's flight, or rather captivity,
they did not hesitate to believe him up in arms
against them; and every repulse which they endured
from the barbarians, they traced to the
malignance and activity of the exile's treason.
Fear and invention together clothed him with the
vestments of a fallen angel; and if some savage,
more gigantic and ferocious than the rest, distinguished
himself in the front of battle, straightway

a dozen voices invoked curses upon the head of
the unhappy Lerma. There were few who did
not forget his sorrows and wrongs, and speak of
him only with execrations; and many had already
begun to anticipate, as the chief triumph of victory,
and the most delightful of all their hopes, the privilege
of burning him alive on the temple-top, or
even sacrificing him to their vengeance, after the
equally horrific manner of the Mexicans.

While Bernal Diaz was thus conversing with
the outcast's only friend, there came from the distant
gates of Xoloc, a suppressed hum, as of an
army arising from its slumbers. This was soon
followed by the sound of heavy bodies of men, approaching
over the causeway; and it soon became
evident, that the morn was to be ushered in with
the usual horrors of contention.

“Up, knaves!” cried the voice of the hunchback,
“ye grumbling, growling, wallowing, swine, that
call yourselves lions and tigers! up, and shake the
clay from your cloaks, before it is trodden off by
the hoofs of the horsemen!”

As he spoke, a cavalier galloped up to the party,
and drawing in his steed, while the men rose to
their feet, he exclaimed,

“Halon, Najara, man! where art thou? Dost
thou talk thus in thy sleep?”

“Ay, may it please your excellency,” said the
hunchback, recognizing the voice of Cortes; “for
it is well, on such a post, that a soldier should
have the faculty of issuing commands asleep, as
well as waking.”

“Dost thou hear, Diaz?” muttered Gaspar in his
companion's ear. “Wouldst thou think now to
what the devil has tempted me, ever since I have
seen clearly that of which I have spoken? I tell
thee, man, I have sometimes thought it were but a

turn of good friendship, to kill the man who has
brought these things upon Juan Lerma!”

“Thou art mad!” said the historian in alarm.
But his further remonstrance was cut short by
Cortes riding by, and even urging his charger,
though at a cautious pace, beyond the watch-fire,
as if to reconnoitre with his own eyes, the situation
of the foe.

“Fear me not,” said Gaspar, bitterly. “You
shall see me do what I have done before at Xochimilco,—pluck
him out of the jaws of the devourers,
if need be. I think I was then enchanted; for,
when I saw the Indians have him off his horse, I
said to myself, `If I let him die now, no harm happens
to Juan Lerma.' But come—let us follow after
him. And bid some of your dull sluggards along
with us, lest the pagans should make a sally from
the rampart. Hark! he has ridden up, till their
fire shines on his armour, and they see him! He
will have the villains upon us, before the reinforcements
arrive!”

The Captain-General did, indeed advance so far
that he was seen by the pagan sentinels, who
whistled out a shrill note of alarm, and then bent
their bows against him, till his corslet and the iron
buckler which he carried before his face, rattled
under the crashing arrowheads. Thus admonished,
he rode a little back, and was joined by three or
four other cavaliers, who came galloping up from
the causeway.

“What say ye, cavaliers?” he cried. “Methinks
there is not even a duck lying near the causey-side,
much less a brace or two of my brigantines.”

“If your excellency be looking for the ships,”
said Najara, “I can satisfy your mind. There
were some five or six here an hour since: I heard
the plunging of their anchors on both sides of the
dike.”

“Ah! I will set thine ears against mine eyes any
dark morn, Corcobado.—Fetch up the Indians,
Quinones; and bid the horsemen follow at their
heels. And hark ye, Najara,—let your drowsy
knaves take post on the causey-sides, lest they be
trampled to death under the feet of my red pioneers.
Wheel up the pieces some ninety or an
hundred paces in advance; and see that your
matchsticks be dry and combustible. Where didst
thou hear the sound of the anchors?”

“But a little distance on the lake; and methinks
I can see two of the vessels on the left, betwixt us
and the Indians.—His valour, Don Garci Holguin,
did but now take up the señor Guzman—”

“A pest upon Guzman!” said the general, sharply.
“Get thee to thy men, and move me the ordnance
without delay.”

“`A pest upon Guzman?” muttered Gaspar.
“I have a thought of him also; but I know not that
he has done Juan a wrong. At all events, methinks,
his case is like mine.—The general's secrets are
unlucky.”

With that, he retired, and took post among the
soldiers.

In a few moments, a numerous body of Indian
auxiliaries made their appearance, bearing, besides
their ordinary weapons, which were slung on their
backs, certain hoes and mattocks, called coas, some
of stone, others of copper, but most of them of some
hard wood. It was the business of these men to
fill up the ditches, after the defenders had been driven
away by a fierce cannonade from the ships,
and by incessant discharges of stones and arrows
from fleets of piraguas, manned by other Indian
confederates, which lay near the brigantines. And
here it may be observed, that the labour of filling a
ditch was much inferior to that of re-opening it; and
the causeways being constructed of stones as well

as clay, it was not possible to remove the former to
any great extent. Hence, the gaps that had been
once or twice filled, remained, notwithstanding the
toil of the besieged, so shallow, that they might, at
almost any period, be forded; though this, usually,
was not done, until they were filled above the level
of the water.

Immediately after these pioneers, came a small
body of horsemen, behind whom were ranged the
lancers and swordsmen; the musketeers and crossbowmen
being chiefly distributed among the ships.

These arrangements having been made, and the
Tlascalans halting within the distance of two hundred
paces from the ditch, and throwing themselves
flat upon their faces on the causeway, to guard
against the first volleys of the foe, all were directed
to remain in repose, until the coming daylight
should give the signal for battle.

Nothing now broke the silence of the hour, save
the dropping sound of paddles from two numerous
squadrons of canoes, filled with allies, which were
stationed on the flanks of the rear.