University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

After much search and persuasion, a surgeon was
found and induced to visit the knight. He despatched
his questions almost in a word, for he was a fighting
Bachelor, and burned with impatience to return
to the contest. He mingled hastily a draught, which
he affirmed to be of wondrous efficacy in composing
disordered minds to sleep, gave a few simple directions,
and excusing his haste in the urgency of his
other occupations, both military and chirurgical, he
immediately departed.

“Marco!” said the neophyte, when the draught
was administered, and Don Gabriel laid on the couch,
“thou deservest the heaviest punishment for leaving
thy master an instant, though, as thou sayest, while
fast asleep. Remain by him now, and be more faithful.
As for thee, Lorenzo,” he continued, to the

secretary, who stood panting at his side, “there is
good reason thou shouldst share the task of Marco,
were it only to repose thee a little; but more need is
it, that thou suffer thy blood to cool, and reflect, with
shame, that thou hast, this day, cancelled all thy good
deeds, by killing a prostrate and beseeching foe. Remain,
therefore, to assist Marco; and by-and-by I will
come to thee, and declare whether or not thou shalt
draw thy sword again to-day.”

And thus leaving his kinsman to the care of the
two followers, and beckoning Lazaro along, Don
Amador returned to the court-yard and the conflict.

The history of the remainder of the day (it was
now noon,) is a weary tale of blood. Wounds could
not check, nor slaughter subdue, the animosity of the
besiegers; and the Spaniards, tired even of killing,
hoped no longer for victory over men who seemed
to fight with no object but to die, and who rushed up
as readily to the mouth of a cannon, whose vent was
already blazing under the linstock, as to the spears
that bristled with fatal opposition at the gates.

But night came at last, and with it a hope to end
the sufferings that were already intolerable. The
hope was vain. The barbarians, apparently incapable
of fatigue, or perhaps yielding their places to
fresh combatants, continued the assault even with
increasing vigour and boldness. They rushed against
the court-wall with heavy beams,—rude battering-rams,—with
which they thought to shake it to its
foundations, and thus deprive the Christians of their
greatest safeguard. In certain spots they succeeded;
and the soldiers cursed the day of their birth, as the
ruins fell crashing to the ground, and they saw themselves
reduced to the alternative of filling the breaches
with their bodies, or remaining to perish where they
stood. It is true, that in this kind of defence, as well
as under other urgent difficulties, they received good
and manly aid from their numerous allies, the Tlascalans,
who fought, during the whole day, with a
spirit and cheerfulness that put many a repining Castilian

to shame. But these, though battling equally
for their lives, were incapable of withstanding long the
unexampled violence of the assaults; and it was soon
found that the naked bodies of the Tlascalans offered
but slight impediment to the frenzied Mexicans.

The Spaniards, in the expedient used to drive the
citizens from their house-tops, had taught them a mode
of warfare which they were not slow to adopt. The
palace was of a solid structure, and seemed to bid
defiance to flames. But the same cedars that finished
the interior of meaner houses, formed its floors
and ceilings; every chamber was covered with mats,
and most of them were hung with the most inflammable
kind of tapestry. In addition to this, the five
thousand Tlascalans, who had been left with Alvarado,
and who slept in the court-yard, besides strewing
the earth with rushes—their humble couches—
had constructed along the walls of the palace itself,
many rude arbours, or rather kennels, of reeds from
the lake, to shelter them from the vicissitudes of the
rainy season, which had, already, in part, set in.
And, to crown all, the cavaliers, whose horses, as
they well knew, were each worth a thousand Tlascalans,
had caused stalls to be constructed for them,
wherein they were better protected from the weather,
than their fellow-animals, the allies. With
these arrangements, the Mexicans were well acquainted.

No sooner, therefore, had they succeeded in beating
down several breaches in the wall, and found that
they could sometimes drive the besieged from them,
than they made trial of the expedient. They rushed
together against the walls in a general assault,
waving firebrands and torches, which those who
forced their way through the breaches, applied to
the stalls and arbours, or scattered over the beds
of the Tlascalans. The dying incendiary, pierced
with a dozen spears, ended his life with a laugh of
joy, as he beheld the flames burst ruddily up to his
brand.

The misery of the Spaniards was now complete.
They were parched with thirst. The sweet fountains
of Chapoltepec gushed only over the square of the
temple. A well, dug by Alvarado, in his extremity,
furnished a meager supply of water, and that so
brackish, that even the brutes turned from it in disgust,
till forced to drink, by pangs that would allow
them to be fastidious no longer. The nearest canal,
conducting the briny waters of Tezcuco, was shut
out by ramparts of savages. The Spaniards, with
one universal voice, sent up a cry of despair, as they
beheld the flames run over the court, the stalls, the
kennels, and up the palace walls, and knew not how
to extinguish them. The cry was answered from
without, with such yells of exultation, as froze their
blood; and in the glare of the sudden conflagration,
they saw the barbarians rushing again to the attack,
darting through the breaches, and leaping over the
walls.

In this strait, beset at once by two foes, equally
irresistible, equally pitiless, they struck about them
blindly and despairingly, cursing their fate, their
folly, and the leader who had seduced them from
their island homes, to die a death so ignoble and so
dreadful.

For a moment, the spirit of the general sunk, and
turning to Don Amador, whose fate it was again to
be at his side, he said, with a ghastly countenance,
rendered hideous by the infernal glare,—

“We die the death of foxes in a hole, very noble
friend! Commend thy soul to God, and choose thy
death; for we have no water to quench this hell!”

“God help my kinsman and father, and all is one!”
said Amador, with a desperate calmness. “The
flames are hot, but the grave is cold.”

“The grave is cold!” shouted Cortes, with the voice
of a madman. “Live in my heart for ever! Cold
grave, moist earth! and Santiago, who strikes for a
true Christian, speaks in thy words!—What ho, mad
Spaniards!” he continued, shouting aloud, and running

as he spoke round the palace; “earth quenches
flames, like water! Swords and hands to the task;
and he works best, who delves as at the grave of his
foeman!”

If there was obscurity in the words of the general,
it was dispelled by his actions; for, dashing the rushes
aside, he loosened the damp soil with his sabre, and
flung the clods lustily on the nearest flames. Loud
and joyous were the shouts of his people, as hope
dawned upon them with the happy idea; and, in a
moment, the hands of many thousand men were tearing
up the earth of the court, and casting it on the
flames, while the savages, confidently expecting the
result of their stratagem, intermitted their efforts for
awhile, leaving the gates and breaches nearly unguarded.

It is probable, that even this poor resource, in the
hands of so great a multitude of men, toiling with
the zeal of desperation, might have sufficed to quell
the flames. But, as if heaven had at last taken pity
on their sufferings, and vouchsafed a miracle for
their relief, there came, almost at the same moment,
the pattering of rain-drops, which were quickly followed
by a heavenly deluge; and as the flames vanished
under it, the Christians fell upon their knees,
and, with devout ardour, offered up thanks to the Providence,
that had so marvellously preserved them.

They sprang from their knees, with bolder hearts,
as the Mexicans again advanced to the assault. But
this was the last attack. As if satisfied with the toils
of the day, or commanded by some unknown ruler,
the barbarians, uttering a mournful scream, suddenly
departed.—They were heard during the night; and in
the morning, when the waning moon shone dimly
through the rack, were seen stirring about the square,
but in no great numbers; and as they did not attempt
any annoyance, but seemed engaged in dragging
away the dead, Don Hernan forbade his sentinels to
molest them.

The guards were set, and the over-worn soldiers

retired, at last, to throw their wounded bodies on their
pallets. But throughout the whole night, the noises
of men repairing the breaches, and constructing certain
military engines, assured those who were too
sore or too fearful to sleep, that the leader they had
cursed was sacrificing a second night to the duties of
his station.