University of Virginia Library

48. CHAPTER XLVIII.

Such was the terrible battle of Mauvila. The Spaniards had
obtained the victory. They had won the chief fortified city of
the Mauvilians. They had expelled the inhabitants or destroyed
them. Thousands of the redmen had perished—not so many,
by thousands, as the conquerors claim to have destroyed, but still
the havoc had been terrible, and the victims were five times as
numerous as the whole army of De Soto. The rash valor of the
Mauvilians, their naked bosoms, the superiority of the Spanish
arms and armor, had naturally rendered the defeat a massacre!

But the triumph of the invaders was dashed by their own
terrible losses, and De Soto lamented his victory in the language of
Pyrrhus. Nay, it did not require such another victory to leave
the Castilian conqueror undone. He was already undone, and
he felt it. The gloom of despair was on his soul. His face wore
a perpetual scowl. His language was harsh to all when he
spoke. He was no longer the confident, frank, impulsive cavalier,
who could sweetly smile upon his friends, and who bore in
his bosom an exulting hope and consciousness of desert, which
filled all who beheld with unvarying auguries of success. He
was now stern, savage, suspicious; distrustful of friends and fortune;
with the mortifying conviction that he had not only failed,
in the great hopes which had inspired his enterprise, but doomed
to other failures, involving fame as well as fortune; perilous to
life as to success. He thought of the noble woman, his wife, left
behind him in the Government of Cuba, and bitterly remembered
that between her and himself rolled the great sea, and between
that sea and his warriors, spread hundreds of miles of impenetrable
forest, every thicket of which harbored its hosts of implacable
and sleepless enemies.

And as the details of his real condition met his ear, the gloom
grew deeper upon his visage and within his soul. Very wretched
was the condition of the Spaniards after the battle of Mauvila.
More than two hundred of them had been slain or put hors de
combat. Scarcely a man had escaped entirely unhurt. De Soto

himself was thrice wounded, and though not, in either instance,
severely, yet the hurts were of a sort to goad, to mortify his
passions, and to vex his pride. We have seen, what were his
personal humiliations also. But he was not allowed to brood on
them. The condition of his army demanded all his thoughts.
His soldiers, covered with wounds, were attended by a single
surgeon, and he was at once slow and unskilful. There was
neither lint, nor linen, nor liniments; neither medicines nor
bandages; neither ointments nor instruments; not even clothing
and shelter. The fires of the wild Mauvilians had consumed all
the stores of commissary and surgeon—all the food and physic—
all that was needful for the healthy, no less than the suffering and
sick. The dwellings were all consumed, and but a poor shelter
was found in the miserable tents of boughs and branches, which
could be raised by the feeble efforts of the least wounded among
the Spaniards. For bandaging wounds, they tore the shirts from
their backs; to procure unguents for the hurt, the slain Indians
were torn open, and the fat taken from their bodies; the slain
horses were cut up and their flesh preserved, for sustenance for
all. Even their devotions were interrupted, in the loss of the
wine and wheaten flour which they had used in the performance
of the mass; and to the superstitious, the question became one of
serious importance, whether bread of Indian meal might be employed
for the sacrament,—a question gravely discussed among
them, and terminating in the unfavorable resolve, that it was not
tolerated by the canons of the church. When to the real physical
miseries of their situation, we add those of their spiritual hunger,
we may conjecture the terrible gloom which overspread the encampment
of the Spaniards.

This gloom of his followers was naturally of deeper and darker
complexion in the soul of De Soto, than it was among his people.
His had been the loftiest ambition, the most exulting hope. His
pride, and station, and responsibility, were greater than all the
rest. He was proportionately overwhelmed in the common catastrophe.
He was utterly unmanned by his reverses. Not that
he was unwilling to fight and peril himself as before; but that he
was no longer able to control his passions, and hide his infirmities,
and develop the strength and resources of his genius,
moody irritable and savage, he was now purposeless in his aim,
and utterly hopeless of favorable events in his future progress.
He had no longer the heart for enterprise, or the spirit for adventure;
and, for eight days, he lay in his rude and inadequate
encampment, among the ruins of Mauvila, like a wounded tiger,
licking his wounds in his jungle. Meanwhile, the wounded suffered,

or recovered, died or lived; without seeming to arouse his
active sensibilities. The army, under his gallant cavaliers, began
slowly to repair its hurts, and to recover, after a fashion, from its
maims and bruises. But it was the skeleton only of its former
strength, and symmetry and beauty. The despondency of their
chief oppressed the spirits of all. Hope had deserted them, and
they now only sighed for the opportunity to return to those distant
homes which few of them were ever destined to behold
again.

It was while they lay thus, and suffered, in the town of the
Mauvilians,—groaning with their hurts, and dreading every
moment that the red men would surround, and compel them to
resume the struggle to which they felt themselves so unequal,
that they received intelligence which was calculated to cheer
them with the hope of escape from the perilous meshes in which
their enterprise had involved them. Tidings reached them, unexpectedly,
of the arrival, at Achuzi (now Pensacola) of certain
ships from Cuba, under the command of Gomez Arias and Diego
Maldonado. The moment this news was received, both officers
and men began to calculate the distance between Mauvila and
Achuzi. It was—according to their eager estimate—but eight
days journey to the sea coast; and all hearts began to cheer
themselves with the hope of soon reaching the ships, the succor
of their comrades, and finally the pleasant country which all
now were prepared to regret that they had so idly left. No one
thought to remain in a region which yielded them no golden
cities, and the people of which betrayed such implacable hostility,
such indomitable courage, and such sanguinary fierceness of
character. They discussed the matter among themselves. They
encouraged each other with their new born hopes of escape from
a country, in which they beheld nothing but sleepless and bloody
enemies—in which they could now anticipate nothing but disaster
and a gloomy fate for all. These resolves and desires were freely
spoken. They were not confined to the common soldiers; and De
Soto, by accident, overheard one of these discussions, in which the
same opinions and wishes were expressed by his favorite cavaliers.

From that moment, his resolve was taken. He could not return
a vagabond to Cuba. He who had gone forth in such state
and splendor, could not crawl back in the sight of his people, a
maimed and stricken fugitive. He must first conquer. He
must win the spoils he sought. He must carry back the proofs
and the trophies of the golden cities which he had promised.
He still had faith in the hidden treasures of the Apalachian. He
still looked to the conquest of a semi-civilized people, such as

those of Mexico and Peru, the overthrow and dominion of whom
would crown the close of his life with glory, and redeem and repair
the hurts of character and credit which had confessedly
accrued from his enterprise, up to the present moment. He
resolved to confound his cowardly followers, and to baffle all
their imbecile calculations. He determined that they should
share his fortunes, in spite of all their fears. He did not suffer
them to know that he was aware of their secret hopes. He
simply gave his orders—to turn their backs upon his shipping, and
go forward, deeper, deeper, into the wild abodes of the savage
Apalachian.

His cavaliers, as soon as they heard these orders, boldly undertook
to expostulate with him upon them. They spoke of
the sea, of the shipping at Achuzi, of their hopes and homes in
Cuba.

“Tell me not of sea, or ships, or Cuba!” was the angry reply
of the Adelantado. “I will see neither, until I have conquered
these savage Apalachians, and won possession of their great
cities.”

They would still have expostulated. “There were no great
cities” was the answer. “These people are mere savages. Our
people despond. They have not the heart for further adventure.
Their hearts are set only on returning to the sea coast, and
availing themselves of the shipping, of once more reaching Cuba.
They are already discontent with the delay. They will
mutiny—.”

“Ha! mutiny! Tell you this to me? Then get ye ready your
executioner, and prepare to do as I require, for by the Holy Cross,
so long as I breathe, the Vice-Gerent here of our Royal Master,
I will put to sharp justice the soldier who shall only dare to
murmur. Away, Sir Knights, and let me hear no more of
this.”

“The habitual exercise of authority had imparted to De Soto
a power of command, which was admirably seconded by a submission
as habitual, as well among his cavaliers, as common
soldiers. The obedience of the one, necessarily enforced that of
the other. The army was put under marching orders, and, with
weary footsteps and desponding hearts, the remnant of the army
took its way into the great solitudes once more.

But the one purpose of progress, in De Soto's mind, was undirected
by that aim and design which constitute the first true
essentials of succesful adventure on the part of the soldier.
Disappointed hitherto in the results which followed his several
enterprises, he knew not now whither to direct his footsteps.

From this moment, his only labor seemed to be to increase the distance
between his people and the sea. Haunted by the dread of their
desertion, he simply hurried forward, on a route that perpetually
changed its direction, now east, now west, hither and thither, but
always to no purpose. He knew not, nor seemed to care to
know, whither he sped. Stern, silent, irritable, he scorned
counsel and forbade expostulation. He wandered thus, in
weary pilgrimage, day by day, passing from forest to forest,
from village to village, fighting wherever the red men crossed his
path—which they did perpetually—and fighting always without
an object. One is forced to think, seeing how erratic was his
progress, and how recklessly he incurred all perils, that his real
purpose was to end a struggle which brought him vexation only,
and a life which, his pride taught him, was dishonored by the defeat
of all his expectations.

While our Spaniards were recreating themselves in Mauvila,
what of the people of the Great King, Tuscaluza? what of the
Portuguese Knight, whom we now know as Istalana, the immediate
confidant of the Mauvilian Cassique, sorely wounded
in the final battle with the Spaniards. Both of these chiefs were
seasonably borne away by their red followers to a place of
safety in the contiguous forests. As these proceedings were all
transacted with the greatest secrecy, by a people practised in the
utmost subtleties of savage warfare, as cunning as the serpent,
and as stealthy as the cat, the Spaniards never dreamed of the
vast numbers, that, more or less hurt, were carried safely from
the melée; and the still greater numbers, who escaped when the
conflict went too decidedly against them. The Mauvilians had
lost probably three thousand warriors, and a few score of women
had perished also fighting in their ranks; but a numerous army
still remained to the Great King, even of those engaged at Mauvila;
while others daily poured into his assistance, led by the
Cassiques of tributary provinces. Had he or Istalana been able
to take the field, the Spaniards had never been suffered to rest a
moment in Mauvila; had never been permitted time to repair
their disasters and to recruit themselves for a fresh campaign.
Had their quarters been beat up daily and nightly with incessant
alarm; had their foragers been cut off whenever they went forth;
it is probable, that the eight days of rest at Mauvila, would have
been so many days of struggle and starvation, ending in their utter
annihilation. They were then in no condition to fight, and as
little to endure.

But, in the wounds and incapacity of their great leaders, the

red men did not dare to venture upon the enterprise for themselves.
They were content to gather and prepare themselves;
to provide a new armory; to lay in supplies of provisions; to
guard their wounded monarch; and watch closely all the movements
of the Spaniards. Tuscaluza had been severely hurt, but
the red men, rarely outraging nature with the too frequently impertinent
pretensions of art, were good nurses, and not bad surgeons,
in that day, when they did not feel their own deficiencies
and had not learned to succumb to the genius of the white man.
They had considerable knowledge of pharmacy, and dealing with
green wounds, which were not necessarily mortal, they were
singularly successful. The conquering people have borrowed
many good lessons, and much knowledge, from their skill in
medicine.

Of course, Istalana shared with the Great King, in the best attentions
of his people. Nay, he had probably even better attendance,
for was not Coçalla his nurse, and was not Juan nigh,
jealous of her cares, and watchful of every opportunity to interpose
his own? Vasconselos had suffered from several wounds.
He had been brought from the field in a state of utter insensibility.
Borne on a litter through the forests to a place of
safety, remote from the scene of action, he had undergone a long
struggle with the mortal enemy of life. Youth, great vigor of
constitution, fond and sleepless cares, and a loving solicitude that
neglected nothing; to those he owed his recovery. During all
his sufferings, through a long insensibility, fever and delirium,
Coçalla never slept. Ah! the devotedness of the loving heart—
the loving woman! How it galled the soul of Juan to see her
officious tenderness, when he could not interpose—when he dared
not. How it angered him, when Coçalla bound the fever balm
to the forehead of the unconscious Knight—when she bathed his
hands and arms in cooling waters; when she applied the bruised
herbs to his wounded side and bosom, when she poured the cooling
beverages into his burning lips, when she sate by him, and
lifted his head upon her arms, and against her bosom, and murmured
softly in his ears, her fond, exulting consciousness—“oh!
Philip! my Philip.”

Then would the page chafe with vexation. He betrayed his
anger. He was rude to Coçalla. He complained even of her
officious zeal, and sleepless attendance.

And Coçalla pleaded with him as if she had been no princess.
She knew that the boy loved the cavalier, and for this she
forgave him all his offences. It was quite enough with her, that
the rude boy was devoted to his master. That, she saw. She

was not anxious to see further. But she said to Juan, one day,
when he was absolutely insolent?

“Why does the page of Philip grow angry? Doth he not
love his master? And loving Philip, doth he not see that Coçalla
loves him too, and because she loves him, that she watches him, and
tends him, and dresses his wounds, and makes his couch of suffering
soft and easy? What would Juan desire but to make well
and happy his master? would he have Coçalla to hate Philip?
Coçalla will not hate Philip! Coçalla loves Philip with her
whole heart. She loves nothing, nobody, so well as Philip.”

But this was precisely what Juan did not desire. But, to this,
what could he answer? He could only turn away, and conceal
his tears, and curse his fate, that suffered other hands and other
cares than his own, to nurse and tend, and minister to the being
whom he so much loved, with a like love also. Verily, great were
the tortures of the page, during that long trial, while Vasconselos
lay wounded and insensible upon the fringed couch of the beautiful
princess, and so long as she alone had power to watch beside
him.

But gradually both Tuscaluza and Istalana grew better from
their hurts, and the eyes of the Portuguese Knight opened to a
knowledge of his friends; and he took the hand of Coçalla within
his own,—and the hand of Juan too; as they stood on opposite
sides of the couch; and he kissed the hand of Coçalla; while the
princess laughed merrily with joy, and kissed his forehead in
return. But as for Juan, he could only turn away, and weep.
The joy of the princess was the sorrow of the page.