University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

The fate of Don Amador de Leste, though so
darkly written in the hearts of his companions, was
not yet brought to a close. Some of his late friends
deemed only that he had been overpowered and
slain; but others, better acquainted with the customs
of the foe, shuddered over the assurance of a death
yet more awful. They knew that the pride of the
Mexican warrior was, not to slay, but to capture; as
if, indeed, these demibarbarians made war less for
the glory of taking life, than for the honour of offering
it in sacrifice to the gods. Such, in truth, was the
case; and to this circumstance was it owing that the
Christians were not utterly destroyed, in any one
encounter in the streets of Tenochtitlan. The fury
of their foes was such as may be imagined in a people
goaded to desperation by atrocious tyranny and
insult, and fighting with foreign oppressors at their

very firesides; yet, notwithstanding the deadly feeling
of vengeance at their hearts, they never forgot
their duties to their faith; and they forbore to kill,
in the effort to take prisoner. Twice or thrice, at
least, in the course of the war that followed after
these events, the life of Cortes, himself, was in their
hands; and the thrust of a javelin, or the stroke of a
bludgeon, would have freed them from the destroyer.
But they neither struck nor thrust; they strove to
bear him of alive, as the most acceptable offering
they could carry to the temple; thus always giving
his followers an opportunity to rescue him out of their
grasp. Every captive thus seized and retained, died
a death too terrible for description; and high or
low,—the base boor, and the noble hidalgo, alike,—
expiated, on the stone of sacrifice, the wrongs done
to the religion of Mexitli.

Knowing so much of the customs of Anahuac, and
not having discovered his body, the more experienced
cavaliers were convinced that Don Amador de Leste
had not yet enjoyed the happiness of death; they
persuaded themselves that he had been taken alive,
and was preserved for sacrifice. Many a Castilian
eye, that afternoon, was cast upon the pyramid,
watching the steps, and eagerly examining the persons
of all who ascended.—But no victim was seen
borne upon their shoulders.—

When the cavalier of Cuenza opened his eyes, after
the stunning effects of the blow were over, it was in
a confusion of mind, which the objects about him,
or, perhaps, the accession of a hot fever,—the result
of many severe wounds and contusions,—soon converted
into delirium. He lay,—his armour removed,
—on a couch in a spacious apartment, but so darkened,
that he could not distinguish the countenances
of two or three dusky figures which seemed to bend
over him. His thoughts were still in the battle; and,
in these persons, he perceived nothing less than Mexican
warriors still clutching at his body. He started
up, and calling out, “Ho, Fogoso! one leap more

for thy master,” caught fiercely at the nearest of the
individuals. But he had overrated his strength; and,
almost before a hand was laid upon him, he fell back,
fainting, on the bed.

“Dost thou strike me, too, false villain?” he again
exclaimed, as his distempered eyes pictured, in one
silent visage, the features of Abdalla. “Be thou accursed
for thy ingratitude, and live in hell for ever!”

A murmur of voices, followed by the sound of retreating
steps, was heard; and in the silence which
ensued, his fancy became more disordered, presenting
him phantasms still more peculiar.

“Is this death?” he muttered, “and lie I now in
the world of shadows? God be merciful to me a sinner!
Pity and pardon me, O Christ, for I have fought
for thy faith. Take me from this place of blackness,
and let me look on the light of bliss!”

A gentle hand was laid upon his forehead, a low
sigh breathed on his cheek; and suddenly a light,
flashing up as from some expiring cresset, revealed
to his wondering eyes the face and figure of the mysterious
prophetess.

“O God! art thou indeed a fiend? and dost thou
lead me, from the land of infidels, to the prison-house
of devils?” he cried, again starting up, clasping his
hands, and gazing wildly on the vision. “Speak to
me, thou that livest not; for I know, thou art Leila!”

As he uttered these incoherent words, the figure,
bending a little away, and fastening upon his own,
eyes of strange meaning, in which pity struggled with
terror, seemed, gradually, to fade into the air; until,
as suddenly as it had flashed into brightness, the light
vanished, and all was left in darkness.

From this moment, the thoughts of the cavalier
wandered with tenfold wildness; and he fell into a
delirium, which presented, as long as it lasted, a succession
of exciting images. Now he struggled, in
the hall of his own castle of Alcornoque, or the Cork-tree,
with the false Abdalla, the knee of the Almogavar
on his breast, and the Arab poniard at his throat,

—while all the time, the perfidious Jacinto stood by,
exhorting his father to strike; now he stood among
burning sands, fighting with enraged fiends, over the
dead body of his knight, Calavar, to protect the beloved
corse from their fiery fingers; now the vanished
Leila sat weeping by his side, dropping upon his
fevered lips the juice of pleasant fruits, or now she
came to him in the likeness of the pagan Sibyl, beckoning
him away, with melancholy smiles, to a distant
bay; while, ever, when he strove to rise and follow,
the page Jacinto, converted into a giant, and brandishing
a huge dagger, held him back with a lion's
strength and ferocity.

With such chimeras, and a thousand others, equally
extravagant, disturbing his brain, he passed through
many hours; and then, as a torpor like that of death
gradually stole over him, benumbing his deranged
faculties, the same gentle hand, the same low suspiration,
which had soothed him before, but without
the countenance which had maddened, returned to
him, and made pleasant the path to annihilation.