University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.

The fate of Mexico approached to its consummation.
The great streets leading from the causeways,
were in the power of the Spaniards. It
might be said, indeed, that they had gained possession
of the whole island, except the extreme point
of the neck of Tlatelolco; for though they did not
extend their ravages any great distance from the
streets, into the three quarters to the east and south,
it was because these were occupied only by women
and children—the wounded, the sick, and the dying,
—and could be, at any moment, taken possession
of. The warriors who yet remained, were concentrated
upon the little peninsula, around their monarch,
who, obstinate to the last, still resisted, even
when resistance was hopeless, refusing the offers
of peace and friendship, which Cortes, rendered
magnanimous by success, and softened by compassion,
now daily sent him. His obstinacy was indeed
surprising; for the point was surrounded by
brigantines and piraguas, prepared to intercept his
flight; and escape, unless by death, seemed evidently
impossible. The work of carnage therefore
went on, though with mitigated severity; for there
were but few left to suffer. The market-place of
Tlateloco was secured and occupied, and upon the
day of St. Hippolytus, (the 13th of August,) the
Spaniards concluded the labours of the long and
bloody siege, by storming, with all their forces, the
palace of Guatimozin—the last stronghold of the

Mexicans. The garden walls were beaten down
by the artillery, and soon after midday, the Spaniards
rushed, with tremendous vivas, upon the palace,
to which fire had been previously communicated
by flaming arrows, shot into the windows by
the confederates.

The preparations for the assault, and long before
it began, were surveyed by the Captain-General
from the terrace of the palace of Axajacatl, the famous
scene of his sufferings, when besieged therein
by the Mexicans, a year before. It was in the
quarter of Tlatelolco, midway between the great
pyramid and the market-place, and commanded,
from its turrets, not only a view of the palace of
Guatimozin, but of the whole surrounding city and
lake.

Deeply as his mind was engaged with the approaching
climax of his mighty enterprise,—for
now he could almost count the minutes that intervened
betwixt his hopes and his success,—he
was not without thoughts and feelings of another
character. The singular disappearance of Magdalena,
of which nothing more was known, or even
conjectured, than was disclosed in the midnight
conversation of the hunchback and Bernal Diaz;
the fate of Camarga, over which events not yet narrated,
had cast a peculiarly exciting mystery; and
the situation of Juan Lerma, upon whose character
and unhappy history certain events had shed a new
light, as well as what had now become a painful
interest; all, by turns, occupied his mind, and
sometimes even withdrew it from the contemplation
of the scene before him. The few cavaliers in
attendance, who enjoyed their immunity from combat
only because they were disabled by severe
wounds, referred his unusual gloom to the same
cause; for he had not yet recovered from the
many injuries, the penalty of his rashness on the
causeway.

“Thou knowest, Quinones,” said one, in a whisper
to the captain of his body guard, (for the conspiracy
of Villafana had been made, as is usual in
such catastrophes of ambition, an excuse for investing
his dignity with another engine of power;)—
“Thou knowest, the renegade struck him upon the
head; and it is a marvel of providence he was not
slain; for Lerma strikes with an arm like the wing
of a windmill. These blows on the skull, though
one may seem to recover from them, have a
perilous after-effect on the brain.”

“Fy!” muttered Quinones, with a shake of the
head; “there is a new word about Lerma, especially
since Garci Holguin brought in the princess.
Didst thou not hear that Alvarado, who heads the
assault, called this morning upon all soldiers who
had seen Juan Lerma in the melée, and asked them
a thousand questions? I tell thee, there is a new
thing in the wind. I did myself last night overhear
Cortes charge Sandoval to watch well for
every piragua and canoe, that might leave Tlatelolco,
and see that no one taken be harmed.—But
this we will see. Talking of canoes, methought I
beheld one some half hour since paddling from
Tezcuco?”

“Ay,” said another; “it landed in the northeastern
quarter.—No more complaints of Guzman
now? He will never harry infidels more. Garci's
sailors say, he was taken alive!”

“Hist!” whispered Quinones, with a warning
gesture. “This thing troubles Cortes. It was his
anger, and Guzman's desire to recover favour,
which drove him upon the mad feat, that brought
him to the block of sacrifice. It weighs upon the
general's mind.—And besides, as it is now apparent
that Camarga is alive, there is deeper
cause for remorse: It was perhaps his wrongful
belief in the charge of murder, rather than any

other cause, that made him proceed with such rigour
against Guzman.”

“But is this rumour true?” demanded the other.

“Ay, certain; and I wage ye my life, the very
canoe we were looking after, brings the dead-alive
to Mexico. Methought I could trace the cut of his
sacerdotal maskings, even afar off. They say, after
all, the man is a true brother of St. Dominic, under
some dispensation.—Ay, faith! you may see now—
Alive and shorn into the bargain! They are bringing
him up the stairway.—By Santiago, it makes
the general's eye flash fire!”

The eye of Cortes, up to this moment peculiarly
gloomy and troubled, did indeed flash with lustre,
as soon as it fell upon the figure of Camarga; for it
was he, who now made his appearance on the terrace,
led forward by Indians. He was greatly altered,
and seemed indeed like the ghost of his former
self, so wan and emaciated was his countenance,
and so broken and feeble his step; he looked
as if in almost the last stage of atrophy. He was
otherwise changed; the hair was shorn from his
crown, on which was a ghastly scar, left by the
macana of the Lord of Death; his feet were bare;
and from the cord that girded on his friar's frock,
was suspended a knotted scourge, crusted over
with blood. His whole appearance was that of
some suicidal ascetic, who mourns with the severest
maceration of the body, a sin not to be expiated
by mere penitence of spirit.

“Heaven be thanked for thy resurrection!” cried
Cortes, grasping him by the hand, and leading him
to the seat he had himself occupied. “There is a
wolf in my bosom, and now I know that thou canst
remove it!”

“Have I come too late?” cried Camarga, eagerly,
though with a voice no longer sonorous. “Agnus
Dei, dona nobis pacem! The victim of our madness,
driven among the infidels,—the poor wretch

whom misery cast into the same hands—What of
them, señor? what of them?”

“Nothing,” replied Cortes, “unless thou canst
speak it: Nothing, at least, except that both are
still in captivity. Yet know, if it will relieve thee,
that what I could do by embassies and goodly offers,
that I have done to recover them; and I have
given such orders, that, if they be not murdered by
the Indians, we may see them living this day.”

“God be thanked!” cried Camarga, dropping on
his knees, and praying with such fervour, though
in inaudible accents, as to excite no little curiosity
among the attendant cavaliers, whom Cortes had
already waved away. He turned upon them again,
and sternly bade them descend from the terrace,
which they did, followed by the Indians.

As soon as they were alone, Cortes, scarce pausing
until Camarga had ceased his devotions, exclaimed,

“Speak, and delay not, either to mourn or to
pray: Thou canst do these things hereafter.
Enough evil has already come of thy silence. Speak
me in a word—What art thou? and what is thy
interest in these wretches? What is thine? and
what—yes, what is mine?”

The last word was uttered with vehement emphasis,
that seemed to recall Camarga to his self-possession.
He rolled his eyes upon Cortes with a
ghastly smile, and replied,

“Thou shalt know; for thou hast a sin to answer
as well as I; and answer it thou must, both to God
and thy conscience. Moderate thy impatience: what
I have to say, cannot be spoken in a word, but yet
it shall be spoken briefly. In thy boyish days, thou
hast heard of the Counts of Castillejo—”

The Captain-General bent upon the speaker a
look that seemed designed to slay, it was so frowningly
fixed and penetrating. He then smote his

hands together upon his breast, as if to beat down
some dreadful thought, and immediately exclaimed,

“What thou hast to say, speak in God's name,
and without further preface. Were I but a dog of
the house of Cortes, instead of its son and sole representative,
the name of a Castillejo of Merida
would be hateful to my ear. Ay, by heaven! be
thou layman or monk, my friend or the friend of
my enemy, yet know that my rage burns with undiminished
fire, though the proud scutcheons of
the Castillejos have been turned into funeral hatchments,
and the mosses of twenty years have gathered
on their graves.—But it is enough. The first
word of thy story harmonizes with mine own conceit.
A strange accident opened my eyes upon a
remembrance of dishonour; which let us rake up
no further.—I have heard enough. Keep thine own
secret, too,” he continued, with a gleaming eye;
“for I would not take the life of one, upon whom
heaven has itself set the seal of vengeance.”

“Yet must thou listen, and I speak,” said Camarga,
disregarding the menacing words and
glance; “for there is a story to be told, of which
thou and thy kindred have not dreamed—nay, nor
have others, except one—except one! My secret
will not throw thee into the frenzy thou fearest; he
of whom you think, is beyond the reach of human
vengeance. Listen to me, Hernan Cortes, and forbear
your rage, until I have done.—Of the Count
Sebastian's three brothers; the next in age, Julian,
was a slave in Barbary, yet supposed to be dead;
the youngest Gregorio, was a monk of St. Dominic;
and the third, Juan, was a wild and unhappy profligate.”

“Ay, by heaven,” said Cortes, with angry emotion;
“may he remember his deeds in torment—
Amen! Had not Gregorio been an inquisitor as
well as a monk, I should have seen him burn at a
stake, as was his due.”

“Reserve your curses for the true criminal,”
said Camarga, drawing the cowl over his visage,
as if no longer able to endure the fierce looks of
Don Hernan: “Among others who had inflamed
his wild and fiery affections, was one whom heaven
had seemingly placed beyond his reach,—one
whose name I need not pronounce to Hernan
Cortes.”

“I will tell thee who she was,” said the general,
laying his hand upon Camarga's shoulder, and
speaking with a passionate energy;—“the daughter
of a family, ancient and noble as his own, though
without its wealth,—a novice about to take the
vows, (for to this had the poverty of her house and
her own religious fervour destined her;) and thus
uplifted both by rank and profession above the aims
of a seducer. But what thought the young cub of
Castillejo of these impediments, when he feared not
God, and saw no one left to punish his villany, save
an impoverished old man and a rambling schoolboy?
Dwell not on this—Speak not her name
neither: let it be forgotten. May her soul rest in
peace! for her own act of distraction avenged the
dishonour of her fall.”

He paused in strong emotion, and Camarga,
drawing the mantle closer round his head, continued:

“Know, (and I speak thee a truth never before
divulged to mortal man,) that the sin of this act,—
the abduction of a devotee, whose novitiate was
already accomplished,—belongs not to Juan, the
debauchee, but to Gregorio, the Dominican.”

“These are the words of a madman,” said
Cortes, sternly; but he was interrupted by Camarga
hastily exclaiming,

“Misunderstand me not. The lover and the
convent-robber was indeed Juan; but it was Gregorio
who provoked him to the outrage, and gave him
the means of success. The sacrilege had not been

otherwise attempted, and the fickle-minded Juan
would have soon forgotten the object of a passion
both criminal and dangerous.”

“If you speak the truth,” said Cortes, “you have
exposed an atrocity, of which, as you said, truly no
man ever dreamed. On what improbable ground
do you make Gregorio a villain so monstrous?”

“On that of knowledge,” replied Camarga, with a
voice firmer than he had yet displayed. “Dost
thou think ambition lies not as often under a cowl
as a corslet? or that guilt can only be meditated
by a soldier? When the young monk Gregorio
beheld the two sons of his brother, the Count Sebastian,
taken up dead from the river, into which
an evil accident had plunged them, and knew that
the Count was dying—surely dying—of a broken
heart, the fiend of darkness put a thought into his
brain, which had never before dishonoured it. Yet
it slumbered again, until his evil fate showed him
his brother Juan, meditating a crime, which, if attempted,
must bring him under the ban of the
church, and into the dungeons of the Inquisition.
Then he said, in his heart, `If Sebastian die of grief,
childless, and if Juan destroy himself by an act of
impiety, where shall men look for the Count of
Castillejo, except in the cell of Gregorio?” It was
this thought of darkness that brought the thunderbolt
upon his house, and upon thine.”

“Ay! thou sayst it now,” said Cortes with a
smothered voice. “But this monk, this devil, this
Gregorio! Let me know more of the wretch, whose
flagitious ambition, not satisfied with destroying his
father's house and his brother's soul, must end by
bringing to a dishonourable grave a daughter—
I speak it now—a daughter of Martin Cortes of
Medellin!”

“It is spoken in a word; but let the iniquitous
details be forgotten. The power of Gregorio, unknown

even to Juan, (for the connivance was concealed
and unsuspected,) opened the doors of the
convent, and the lovers fled, were united in marriage,
and then parted for ever.”

“United? married? Now by heavens, thou mockest
me! Even this had been some mitigation of our
shame. But it is not true. Why dost thou say
it?”

“Thou wert deceived—all were deceived,” said
Camarga; “nay, even the scheming Gregorio was
deceived; for before he had dreamed that such a fatal
blow could be given to his ambition, the knot was
tied, and the children of Juan became the heirs of
Sebastian. Behold how treachery overshoots its
mark! Gregorio opened a path, that the lovers
might meet, not that they might escape. This was
reserved until the time when the vows should be
taken; after which the crime of abduction and
flight could not be pardoned. They fled a day too
early, and it was within the power of Sebastian
to obtain both a pardon and dispensation; for
Juan was now his heir, in the place of his children.”

“Good heavens!” cried Cortes, “was this indeed
possible? But no; thou deceivest me. Had
the offence been so venial, Juan Castillejo had not
perished among the vaults of the Inquisition.”

“Canst thou compass thine own vindictive purposes,
and attribute no similar power to others!”
cried Camarga, with a laugh, that sounded hollow
and unnatural under the mantle. “Did a venial
offence, or a malignant and perfidious stratagem,
drive Juan Lerma among the pagans of Mexico?—
Listen:—Juan Castillejo was dragged from his hiding-place,
and that perhaps the earlier, that Gregorio
knew of their marriage. The crime of carrying
off a novice was not indeed inexpiable, but it
demanded a deep cell in the office of the Brotherhood;
and such Juan obtained. Now, Cortes, ask

not for reasons to explain the acts of Gregorio.
The dying Sebastian exerted his powers to save
his brother, and would have succeeded, had not
Gregorio, visiting the dungeons, in virtue of his
office, subtly attacked the prisoner's mind with the
fear of torture and final condemnation; until, in a fit
of distraction, he laid violent hands upon himself,
and so ended a tragedy, for which Gregorio designed
another catastrophe. Ay, believe me! Think
not that even Gregorio planned out a climax so
cruel. He desired only to work upon Juan's terrors,
in order to banish him from the land for ever;
for it was his purpose to provide him with the
means of escape, when this was accomplished. He
foresaw not the consequences of the desperation he
had produced. Upon the morrow, Sebastian came
with an indulgence—almost a pardon. The shock
of the spectacle of Juan's dead body, broke away
the last feeble cords that bound him to life; and
Gregorio, absolved from his vows by the papal
dispensation, easily obtained, was now the Count
of Castillejo.”

“And never sat in the castle-hall a fiend more
truculent and diabolic!” cried Cortes, with terrific
emphasis. “Hark thee, man, demon, or whatsoever
thou art—I did think thee, at first, the very
wretched Juan of whom thou hast spoken, escaped
by some miracle, and finding the fiercest retribution
for his villany, in the misery of his children. I
remembered thy words at Tezcuco, and was thus
deluded. But I know thee at last, and words cannot
express how much I abhor thee.”

“We are alike worthy of detestation,” said Camarga,
rising and flinging back his cowl, “for we
are alike villains,—with but this difference between
us, that I have preceded thee in the path of remorse,
and must perhaps tread it more bitterly, because in
all things, self-deluded and baffled. I am what thou
thinkest,—the wretched Gregorio—and yet less

wretched than when I first discovered the twin
children of my brother in thy house at Tezcuco.—
Hearken yet a moment, and I have done. All supposed
that the unhappy Olivia had cast herself into
the river, and so perished. It was not so. Pity,
remorse, or some other feeling—perhaps, policy—
induced me to preserve her from her distraction.
She lived in concealment, until she had given birth
to twin children—these very wretches whom we
have persecuted. Let me speak their fate in a
word. The boy I sent by a creature whose name
he bears, to Colon's settlement in Española; the
girl I devoted from her infancy to the altar; and in
both cases, dreamed that I had provided for their
welfare, as well as against the possibility of discovery.
When I had thus arranged everything for
my own security, heaven sent me the first sting of
retribution in the person of my brother Julian, returned
in safety from the dungeons of Fez, and, in
right of seniority, the heir of the honours I had so
vainly usurped. It was a fitting reward, but it was
not all. Dishonour, other crimes, and awakened
suspicions, followed my downfall; and I became an
exile and outcast. What life I have lived, it needs
not I should speak. A strange accident acquainted
me with the stranger truth, that Magdalena had
followed her unknown brother to the islands. I
had amassed wealth; and an impulse, combining
both pity and foreboding terror, drove me to pursue
them. It was easy to trace out their respective
fates. The wreck of the ship which carried Magdalena,
with the supposed loss of all on board, satisfied
me that she was with her mother, in heaven. An
unexpected event had invested Juan with new interest.
This was the death of Julian, without heirs.
It was in my power to repair, at least, the wrongs
I had done him, by restoring him to his inheritance;
the knowledge and proofs of his legitimacy were in
my hands, and I resolved to employ them. This I
could not do in mine own person, but I discovered
—and know, señor, it filled me with joy,—that
thou hadst befriended him. I came then to Mexico,
to seek the young man, and to enable thee to do
justice to the memory, and to the child of thy sister.”

Gregorio, for so we must now call him, paused a
moment, while Cortes strode to and fro, in great
agitation. He then resumed:

“The first thing I heard was the supposed death
of Juan,—his expedition, and the cause of it—thine
own bitter and unrelenting hatred.”

“It is true,” said Cortes, with a vain effort at
composed utterance. “I confessed my folly to thee
before. I have persecuted the son of my sister almost
to death, and for an imaginary crime. There
were villains about me—I will tell thee, by and by,
my delusion.”

“Señor,” continued Gregorio, “I found in thy
camp a villain, whose subtle and malicious nature
was in harmony with my own. This was Villafana,
whose representations of thy cruelty in the matter
of Juan, stirred up my evil passions; and until the
day when Juan returned, I was very eager to
avenge his wrongs. Upon that day, I discovered
that Magdalena was living. Now,” he exclaimed,
with vehemence, “thou mayst understand the cause
of my seeming madness: now thou mayst know
that the vengeance of heaven was punishing my old
sin with lashes of horror. Thou knowest the evil
slanders cast by the ribald soldiers upon thee, in relation
to Magdalena. That dreadful suspicion was
soon at an end; but there remained the other, the
persuasion, supported by strong circumstances and
by the malign averments of Villafana,—the dreadful,
damning belief, that a horrible and unnatural sin,
the direct consequence of my own, had plunged the
brother and sister into a never-ending wretchedness.
Ask not my feelings, when I made this supposed
discovery. They caused me to seek the life

of the unhappy brother, to attempt it with my own
hands, and finally through thine; and all in a distraction,
that mingled a thirst of vengeance with the
precautions of pity. Thou knowest the rest: he
was snatched out of our hands; and from Magdalena
I discovered the blessed—the blissful truth,
that heaven had not punished them for my sin! A
course of extraordinary calamities, while it covered
them with misery, yet kept them asunder.—But
why should I trifle thus? The girl also was taken
from me, and by the pagans, who left me on the
lake-side weltering in blood. When I recovered
speech and sense, I besought Guzman to send for
you; nay, in my distracted impatience, being myself
incapable of any effort beyond mere speech, I
confided to him the secret of their birth—”

“Villain that he was, a double-dyed villain!”
exclaimed Cortes, “this then accounts for his attempt
upon your life, of which I had something
more than mere suspicion to bring against him. I
see it all now: exposure of a long series of malignant
deceptions, must have followed the revealment,
if it found the young Lerma—the young Castillejo,
shall I say?—yet living. Is it not true? did he do
you violence?”

“Not with his own hands,” replied Gregorio;
“nor can I say he really designed my death, not
being able to communicate with the Indians, who
dragged me by night from Tezcuco, carried me to
the mountains, and finally took me back again,
when Guzman was no longer the governor. But I
doubt not, his intentions were evil.”

“He has suffered for his crimes,” said Cortes.—
He strode to and fro for an instant, with hands
clasped together, and a working visage. Then returning,
and casting around a glance of suspicion,
he said,

“Hark thee, Gregorio—If we save these unhappy
creatures from death, thou shalt be forgiven,—

ay, man, and honoured, too. I understand the motives
that made thee mine ally in wickedness: now
understand mine,—the persuasions of belief that
converted me into a persecutor—the base and devilish
persecutor, for such I was—of my sister's
son—of my own flesh and blood. By heaven! I
loved him dearly; nature spoke in my heart,—the
instinct of consanguinity was alive within me; and
even the lies of Guzman could not wholly destroy
it. Velasquez the governor,” he went on, “has
fought me with all weapons, and with all in vain.
Yet did he at last fall upon one, that was made to
wound me to the quick, though it could not make
me falter in this emprise of conquest. My lady,
Gregorio, my lady!” he continued, struggling in
vain against the feelings of humiliation, with which
he confessed a weakness so unworthy;—“my lady
Catalina is fair and merry, and, God wot, somewhat
over fond of the gingling galliards that ruffle
it at Santiago; and I,—by my conscience, I will be
as honest as thou,—I have had the devil of suspicion
sometimes enter my mind; but, I swear to thee, to
mine own dishonour only. Upon this ground, Velasquez
has thrust at me with hints, innuendos, sarcasms,
jests, rumours, accusations, time without
end. There has never a ship arrived, that it has
not brought some petard to be shot off on my bosom;
and sometimes, I think, I have been half mad
with my dreams. Know, then, that one of these
damnable devices was made to play in the person
of my adopted son,—for such he was,—and my
lady's favourite, Juan Lerma. My lady won him
out of prison, and she harboured him during the
sickness that followed. Out of this was constructed
a story that tormented me. Yet it was naught,
until Guzman penetrated the weakness, and wrought
it, by I know not what means, into a fierce and
fiendish jealousy. The young man was melancholy,
too—he had killed his friend Hilario: but (heaven
save me such madness again!) I deemed it the
workings of his conscience, his sense of ingratitude,
operating upon a temper, which, I knew, was naturally
noble and virtuous. Thou canst not think
how many little events were turned, by Guzman's
malignant address, into proof and confirmation of
my detestable suspicion. There came for him certain
horses and arms, sent, as I quickly believed,
by my wife, now bold in infidelity—”

“Alas!” said Gregorio; “I learned from Villafana,
that these were the gifts of Magdalena, who,
poor wretch, would have sent him her life, could
that have been made an acceptable present.”

“Thou makest my heart still lighter,” said
Cortes, “for this was the only matter I could not
myself explain away, so soon as certain passages
with Guzman had opened my eyes to his baseness.
His oppressions forced me to withdraw him from
Tezcuco; and, quarrelling with him upon that subject,
as well as in regard to thine own fate, he let
fall, in the heat of contention, certain unguarded
expressions, which convinced me that he had made
me his tool,—by heaven, Gregorio, his instrument!
Suspicion once awake, my judgment once informed
how much he had to gain, both of favour
and revenge, by destroying my poor cornet, it
needed but mine own reflections, to show me how
ruthlessly I had been cajoled. And to crown all,
a new light was shot into my soul, by the recovery,
from an Indian princess, now a captive in my
hands, of this trinket; which thou mayest know, if
thou hast indeed ever looked upon the face of my
sister.”

He drew from his bosom the cross and rosary
which Juan had flung round the neck of the Indian
princess.

“I placed it,” said Gregorio, “with mine own
own hands upon the bosom of the infant Magdalena—But,

good heaven, how came it on the neck
of a savage, unless they have murdered her?”

“Fear not,” said Cortes: “It was given to the
princess by Juan Lerma—by Juan of Castillejo;
and was doubtless presented to him by Magdalena,
in the island. From this princess, I learned the first
news of Magdalena, who was kindly treated by the
young king, in his palace, for Juan's sake. Thou
must know how this cross wrought upon my heart
and brain; for I did myself give it to my sister,
when they took me, but a boy, to see her in the
convent. And as for this princess, Gregorio,” continued
Cortes, with an air of pride, “know that she
is a daughter of Montezuma, the descendant of a
thousand kings; and the Count of Castillejo will
carry with him to his castle, a bride more noble
than ever entered it before.”

“These things are vanities,” said Gregorio,
gloomily. “Let my brother's children be first
plucked from the nest of infidels, if it be not too
late.”

“Heaven will not now forsake them, after protecting
them through so many and greater perils,”
said Cortes, kissing the little cross and restoring it to
his bosom. “The best men in the army, cavaliers
and all, have sworn they will fetch them from the
palace, in which they are now surrounded. And
hark thee, Gregorio: The only daughter of the
Count of Castillejo is too noble a prize for a nunnery.—We
will have another dispensation.”

The further disclosures of these two men, both
villains, and both penitents, after their ways, were
arrested by the commencement of the attack upon
the palace; and Cortes calling some of his attendants
to support his companion's steps, they descended
from the terrace.