The Fair God; or, The Last of the 'Tzins

A stone then struck Avila, startling the group with its clang upon his armor.

“A slinger!” cried Cortes. “On the right here,—can ye see him?”

They looked that way, but saw nothing. Then the sense of helplessness in exposure smote them, and, knightly as they were, they also felt the common fear.

“Make way! Room, room!” shouted Magarino, rushing to the front, through the advance-guard. His Tlascalans were many and stout; to swim the canal,—with ropes to draw the bridge after them,—to plant it across the chasm, were things achieved in a moment.

“Well done, Magarino! Forward, gentlemen,—forward all!” so saying, Sandoval spurred across; after him, in reckless haste, his whole division rushed. The platform, quivering throughout, was stancher than the stone revetments upon which its ends were planted; calcined by fire, they crumbled like chalk. The crowd then crossing, sensible that the floor was giving way under them, yelled with terror, and in their frantic struggle to escape toppled some of them into the canal. None paused to look after the unfortunates; for the shouting of the infidels, which had been coming nearer and nearer, now rose close at hand, muffling the thunder of the horses plunging on the sinking bridge. Moreover, stones and arrows began to fall in that quarter with effect, quickening the hurry to get away.

Cortes reached the bridge at the same time the infidels reached the causeway. He called to Magarino; before the good captain could answer, the waves to the right hand became luminous with the plashing of countless paddles, and a fleet of canoes burst out of the darkness. Up rose the crews, ghost-like in their white armor, and showered the Christians with missiles. A cry of terror,—a rush,—and the cavaliers were pushed on the bridge, which they jammed deeper in the rocks. Some horses, wild with fright, leaped into the lake, and, iron-clad, like their riders, were seen no more.

On the further side, Cortes wheeled about, and shouted to his friends. Olmedo answered, so did Morla; then they were swept onward.

Alone, and in peril of being forced down the side of the dike, Cortes held his horse to the place. The occasional boom of guns, a straggling fire of small arms, and the unintermitted cries of the infidels, in tone exultant and merciless, assured him that the attack was the same everywhere down the column. One look he gave the scene near by,—on the bridge, a mass of men struggling, cursing, praying; wretches falling, their shrieks shrill with despair; the lake whitening with assailants! He shuddered, and called on the saints; then the instinct of the soldier prevailed:—

“Ola, comrades!” he cried. “It is nothing. Stand, if ye love life. Stand, and fight, as ye so well know how! Holy Cross! Christo y Santiago!”

He spurred into the thick of the throng. In vain: the current was too strong; the good steed seconded him with hoof and frontlet; now he prayed, now cursed; at last he yielded, seeing that on the other side of the bridge was Fear, on his side Panic.

When the signal I have described, borne from the lake to the city, began to resound from temple to temple, the rear-guard were yet many squares from the causeway, and had, for the most part, become merely a procession of drenched and cowering stragglers. The sound alarmed them; and divining its meaning, they assembled in accidental groups, and so hurried forward.

Nenetzin and Marina, yet in company, were also startled by the noisy shells. The latter stayed not to question or argue; at her word, sharply spoken, her slaves followed fast after the central division, and rested not until they had gained a place well in advance of the non-combatants, whose slow and toilsome progress she had shrewdly dreaded. Not so Nenetzin: the alarm proceeded from her countrymen; feared she, therefore, for her lover; and when, vigilant as he was gallant, he rode to her, and kissed her hand, and spoke to her in lover’s phrase, she laughed, though not understanding a word, and bade her slaves stay with him.

Last man in the column was Leon, brave gentleman, good captain. With his horsemen, he closed upon the artillery.

“Friend,” he said to Mesa, “the devil is in the night. As thou art familiar with wars as Father Olmedo with mass, how readest thou the noise we hear?”

The veteran, walking at the moment between two of his guns, replied,—

“Interpret we each for himself, Señor. I am ready to fight. See!”

And drawing his cloak aside, he showed the ruddy spark of a lighted match.

“As thou seest, I am ready; yet”—and he lowered his voice—“I shame not to confess that I wish we were well out of this.”

“Good soldier art thou!” said Leon. “I will stay with thee. A la Madre todos!”

The exclamation had scarcely passed his lips when to their left and front the darkness became peopled with men in white, rushing upon them, and shouting, “Up, up, Tlateloco! O, O luilones, luilones!”53

“Turn thy guns quickly, Mesa, or we are lost!” cried Leon; and to his comrades, “Swords and axes! Upon them, gentlemen! Santiago, Santiago!”

The veteran as promptly resolved himself into action. A word to his men,—then he caught a wheel with one hand, and swung the carriage round, and applied the match. The gun failed fire, but up sprang a hissing flame, and in its lurid light out came all the scene about: the infidels pouring into the street, the Tlascalans and many Spaniards in flight, Leon charging almost alone, and right amongst the guns a fighting man,—by his armor, half pagan, half Christian,—all this Mesa saw, and more,—that the slaves had abandoned the ropes, and that of the gunners the few who stood their ground were struggling for life hand to hand; still more, that the gun he was standing by looked point-blank into the densest ranks of the foe. Never word spoke he; repriming the piece, he applied the match again. The report shook the earth, and was heard and recognized by Cortes out on the causeway; but it was the veteran’s last shot. To his side sprang the ’tzin: in his ear a war-cry, on his morion a blow, and under the gun he died. When Duty loses a good servant Honor gains a hero.

The fight—or, rather, the struggle of the few against the many—went on. The ’tzin led his people boldly, and they failed him not. Leon drew together all he could of Christians and Tlascalans; then, as game to be taken at leisure, his enemy left him. Soon the fugitives following Alvarado heard a strange cry coming swiftly after them, “O, O luilones! O luilones!”

And through the rain and the night, doubly dark in the canals, Hualpa sped to the open lake, followed by nine canoes, fashioned for speed, each driven by six oarsmen, and carrying four warriors; so there were with him nine and thirty chosen men, with linked mail under their white tunics, and swords of steel on their long lances,—arms and armor of the Christians.

Off the causeway, beyond the first canal, he waited, until the great flotillas, answering his signal, closed in on the right hand and left; then he started for the canal, chafing at the delay of his vessels.

“Faster, faster, my men!” he said aloud; then to himself, “Now will I wrest her from the robber, and after that she will give me her love again. O happy, happy hour!”

He sought the canal, thinking, doubtless, that the Christians would find it impassable, and that in their front, as the place of safety, they would most certainly place Nenetzin. There, into the press he drove.

“Not here! Back, my men!” he shouted.

The chasm was bridged.

And marvelling at the skill of the strangers, which overcame difficulties as by magic, and trembling lest they should escape and his love be lost to him after all, he turned his canoe,—if possible, to be the first at the next canal. Others of his people were going in the same direction, but he out-stript them.

“Faster, faster!” he cried; and the paddles threshed the water,—wings of the lake-birds not more light and free. Into the causeway he bent, so close as to hear the tramp of horses; sometimes shading his eyes against the rain, and looking up, he saw the fugitives, black against the clouds,—strangers and Tlascalans,—plumes of men, but never scarf of woman.

Very soon the people on the causeway heard his call to the boatmen, and the plash of the paddles, and they quickened their pace.

“Adelante! adelante!” cried Sandoval, and forward dashed the cavaliers.

“O my men, land us at the canal before the strangers come up, and in my palace at ease you shall eat and drink all your lives! Faster, faster!”

So Hualpa urged his rowers, and in their sinewy hands the oaken blades bent like bows.

Behind dropped the footmen,—even the Tlascalans; and weak from hunger and wounds, behind dropped some of the horses. Shook the causeway, foamed the water. A hundred yards,—and the coursers of the lake were swift as the coursers of the land; half a mile,—and the appeal of the infidel and the cheering cry of the Christian went down the wind on the same gale. At last, as Hualpa leaped from his boat, Sandoval checked his horse,—both at the canal.

Up the dike the infidels clambered to the attack. And there was clang of swords and axes, and rearing and plunging of steeds; then the voice of the good captain,—

“God’s curse upon them! They have our shields!”

A horse, pierced to the heart, leaped blindly down the bank, and from the water rose the rider’s imploration: “Help, help, comrades! For the love of Christ, help! I am drowning!”

Again Sandoval,—

“Cuidado,—beware! They have our swords on their lances!” Then, observing his horsemen giving ground, “Stand fast! Unless we hold the canal for Magarino, all is lost! Upon them! Santiago, Santiago!”

A rally and a charge! The sword-blades did their work well; horses, wounded to death or dead, began to cumber the causeway, and the groans and prayers of their masters caught under them were horrible to hear. Once, with laughter and taunting jests, the infidels retreated down the slope; and once, some of them, close pressed, leaped into the canal. The lake received them kindly; with all their harness on they swam ashore. Never was Sandoval so distressed.

Meantime, the footmen began to come up; and as they were intolerably galled by the enemy, who sometimes landed and engaged them hand to hand, they clamored for those in front to move on. “Magarino! The bridge, the bridge! Forward!” With such cries, they pressed upon the horsemen, and reduced the space left them for action.

At length Sandoval shouted,—

“Ola, all who can swim! Follow me!”

And riding down the bank, he spurred into the water. Many were bold enough to follow; and though some were drowned, the greater part made the passage safely. Then the cowering, shivering mass left behind without a leader, became an easy prey; and steadily, pitilessly, silently, Hualpa and his people fought,—silently, for all the time he was listening for a woman’s voice, the voice of his beloved.

And now, fast riding, Cortes came to the second canal, with some cavaliers whom he rallied on the way; behind him, as if in pursuit, so madly did they run, followed all of the central division who succeeded in passing the bridge. The sick and wounded, the prisoners, even king Cacama and the women, abandoned by their escort, were slain and captured,—all save Marina, rescued by some Tlascalans, and a Spanish Amazon, who defended herself with sword and shield.

At points along the line of flight the infidels intercepted the fugitives. Many terrible combats ensued. When the Christians kept in groups, as did most of the veterans, they generally beat off the assailants. The loss fell chiefly upon the Tlascalans, the cross-bowmen, and arquebusiers, whose arms the rain had ruined, and the recruits of Narvaez, who, weighted down by their treasure and overcome by fear, ran blindly along, and fell almost without resistance.

One great effort Cortes made at the canal to restore order before the mob could come up.

“God help us!” he cried at last to the gentlemen with him. “Here are bowmen and gunners without arms, and horsemen without room to charge. Nothing now but to save ourselves! And that we may not do, if we wait. Let us follow Sandoval. Hearken to the howling! How fast they come! And by my conscience, with them they bring the lake alive with fiends! Olmedo, thou with me! Come, Morla, Avila, Olid! Come, all who care for life!”

And through the mêlée they pushed, through the murderous lancers, down the bank,—Cortes first, and good knights on the right and left of the father. There was plunging and floundering of horses, and yells of infidels, and the sound of deadly blows, and from the swimmers shrieks for help, now to comrades, now to saints, now to Christ.

“Ho, Sandoval, right glad am I to find thee!” said Cortes, on the further side of the canal. “Why waitest thou?”

“For the coming of the bridge, Señor.”

“Bastante! Take what thou hast, and gallop to the next canal. I will do thy part here.”

And dripping from the plunge in the lake, chilled by the calamity more than by the chill wind, and careless of the stones and arrows that hurtled about him, he faced the fight, and waited, saying simply,—“O good Mother, hasten Magarino!”

Never prayer more hearty, never prayer more needed! For the central division had passed, and Alvarado had come and gone, and down the causeway to the city no voice of Christian was to be heard; at hand, only the infidels with their melancholy cry, of unknown import, “O, O luilones! O, O luilones!” Then Magarino summoned his Tlascalans and Christians to raise the bridge. How many of them had died the death of the faithful, how many had basely fled, he knew not; the darkness covered the glory as well as the shame. To work he went. And what sickness of the spirit, what agony ineffable seized him! The platform was too fast fixed in the rocks to be moved! Awhile he fought, awhile toiled, awhile prayed; all without avail. In his ears lingered the parting words of Cortes, and he stayed though his hope was gone. Every moment added to the dead and wounded around him, yet he stayed. He was the dependence of the army: how could he leave the bridge? His men deserted him; at last he was almost alone; before him was a warrior whose shield when struck gave back the ring of iron, and whose blows came with the weight of iron; while around closer and closer circled the white uniforms of the infidels; then he cried,—

“God’s curse upon the bridge! What mortals can, my men, we have done to save it; enough now, if we save ourselves!”

And drawn by the great law, supreme in times of such peril, they came together, and retired across the bridge.

Then rose the cry, “Todo es perdido! All is lost! The bridge cannot be raised!” And along the causeway from mouth to mouth the warning flew, of such dolorous effect as not merely to unman all who heard it, but to take from them the instincts to which life so painfully intrusts itself when there is no judgment left. Those defending themselves quitted fighting, and turned to fly; except the gold, which they clutched all the closer, many flung away everything that impeded them, even the arquebuses, so precious in Cortes’ eyes; guns dragged safely so far were rolled into the lake or left on the road; the horses caught the contagion, and, becoming unmanageable, ran madly upon the footmen.

When the cry, outflying the fugitives with whom it began, reached the thousands at the second canal, it had somewhere borrowed a phrase yet more demoralizing. “The bridge cannot be raised! All is lost! Save yourselves, save yourselves!” Such was its form there. And about that time, as ill-fortune ordered, the infidels had gathered around the fatal place until, by their yells and missiles there seemed to be myriads of them. Along the causeway their canoes lay wedged in, like a great raft; and bolder grown, they flung themselves bodily on the unfortunates, and strove to carry them off alive. Enough if they dragged them down the slope,—innumerable hands were ready at the water’s edge to take them speedily beyond rescue. Momentarily, also, the yell of the fighting men of Tenochtitlan, surging from the city under the ’tzin, drew nearer and nearer, driving the rear upon the front, already on the verge of the canal with barely room for defense against Hualpa and his people. All that held the sufferers passive, all that gave them endurance, the virtue rarer and greater than patience, was the hope of the coming of Magarino; and the announcement, at last, that the bridge could not be raised, was as the voice of doom over their heads. Instantly, they saw death behind them, and life nowhere but forward,—so always with panic. An impulse moved them,—they rushed on, they pushed each with the might of despair. “Save yourselves, save yourselves!” they screamed, at the same time no one thought of any but himself.

To make the scene clear to the reader, he should remember that the causeway was but eight yards across its superior slope; while the canal, about as wide, and crossing at right angles, was on both sides walled with dressed masonry to the height, probably, of twelve feet, with, water at least deep enough to drown a horse. Ordinarily, the peril of the passage would have been scorned by a stout swimmer; but, alas! such were not all who must make the attempt now.

The first victims of the movement I have described were those in the front fighting Hualpa. No time for preparation: with shields on their arms, if footmen, on their horses, if riders,—a struggle on the verge, a cry for pity, a despairing shriek, and into the yawning chasm they were plunged; nor had the water time to close above their heads before as many others were dashed in upon them.

Cortes, on the further side, could only hear what took place in the canal, for the darkness hid it from view; yet he knew that at his feet was a struggle for life impossible to be imagined except as something that might happen in the heart of the vortex left by a ship foundering at sea. The screams, groans, prayers, and execrations of men; the neighing, snorting, and plunging of horses; the bubbling, hissing, and plashing of water; the writhing and fighting,—a wretch a moment risen, in a moment gone, his death-cry half uttered; the rolling of the mass, or rather its impulsion onward, which, horrible to think, might be the fast filling up of the passage; now and then a piteous appeal for help under the wall, reached at last (and by what mighty exertion!) only to mock the hopes of the swimmers,—all this Cortes heard, and more. No need of light to make the scene visible; no need to see the dying and the drowning, or the last look of eyes fixed upon him as they went down, a look as likely to be a curse as a prayer! If never before or never again, his courage failed him then; and turning his horse he fled the place, shouting as he went,—

“Todo es perdido! all is lost! Save yourselves, save yourselves!”

And in his absence the horror continued,—continued until the canal from side to side was filled with the bodies of men and horses, blent with arms and ensigns, baggage, and guns, and gun-carriages, and munitions in boxes and carts,—the rich plunder of the empire, royal fifth as well as humbler dividend,—and all the paraphernalia of armies, infidel and Christian; filled, until most of those who escaped clambered over the warm and writhing heap of what had so lately been friends and comrades. And the gods of the heathen were not forgotten by their children; for sufferers there were who, snatching at hands offered in help, were dragged into canoes, and never heard of more. Tears and prayers and the saving grace of the Holy Mother and Son for them! Better death in the canal, however dreadful, than death in the temples,—for the soul’s rest, better!

Slowly along the causeway, meantime, Alvarado toiled with the rear-guard. Very early he had given up Leon and Mesa, and all with them, as lost. And to say truth, little time had he to think of them; for now, indeed, he found the duties of lover and soldier difficult as they had been pleasant. Gay of spirit, boastful but not less generous and brave, skilful and reckless, he was of the kind to attract and dazzle the adventurers with whom he had cast his lot; and now they were ready to do his bidding, and equally ready to share his fate, life or death. Of them he constituted a body-guard for Nenetzin. Rough riders were they, yet around her they formed, more careful of her than themselves; against them rattled and rang the stones and arrows; against them dashed the infidels landed from their canoes; sometimes a cry announced a hurt, sometimes a fall announced a death; but never hand of foe or flying missile reached the curtained carriage in which rode the little princess.

Nor can it be said that Alvarado, so careful as lover, failed his duty as captain. Sometimes at the rear, facing the ’tzin; sometimes, with a laugh or a kiss of the hand, by the palanquin; and always his cry, blasphemous yet cheerful. “Viva á Christo! Viva Santa Cruz! Santiago, Santiago!” So from mistress and men he kept off the evil bird Fear. The stout mare Bradamante gave him most concern; she obeyed willingly,—indeed, seemed better when in action; yet was restless and uneasy, and tossed her head, and—unpardonable as a habit in the horse of a soldier—cried for company.

“So-a, girl!” he would say, as never doubting that she understood him. “What seest thou that I do not? or is it what thou hearest? Fear! If one did but say to me that thou wert cowardly, better for him that he spoke ill of my mother! But here they come again! Upon them now! Upon them, sweetheart! Viva á Christo! Viva la Santa Cruz!”

And so, fighting, he crossed the bridge; and still all went well with him. Out of the way he chased the foe; on the flanks they were beaten off; only at the rear were they troublesome, for there the ’tzin led the pursuit.

Finally, the rear-guard closed upon the central division, which, having reached the second canal, stood, in what condition we have seen, waiting for Magarino. Then Alvarado hurried to the palanquin; and while there, now checking Bradamante, whose uneasiness seemed to increase as they advanced, now cheering Nenetzin, he heard the fatal cry proclaiming the loss of the bridge. On his lips the jest faded, in his heart the blood stood still. A hundred voices took up the cry, and there was hurry and alarm around him, and he felt the first pressure of the impulsive movement forward. The warning was not lost:—

“Ola, my friends!” he said, at once aroused, “Hell’s door of brass hath been opened, and the devils are loose! Keep we together—”

As he spoke the pressure strengthened, and the crowd yelled “Todo es perdido! Save yourselves!”

Up went his visor, out rang his voice in fierce appeal,—

“Together let us bide, gentlemen. We are Spaniards, and in our saddles, with swords and shields. The foe are the dogs who have bayed us so to their cost for days and weeks. On the right and left, as ye are! Remember, the woman we have here is a Christian; she hath broken the bread and drunken the wine; her God is our God; and if we abandon her, may he abandon us!”

Not a rider left his place. The division went to pieces, and rushed forward, sweeping all before it except the palanquin; as a boat in a current, that floated on,—fierce the current, yet placid the motion of the boat. And nestled warm within, Nenetzin heard the tumult as something terrible afar off.

And all the time Hualpa kept the fight by the canal. Hours passed. The dead covered the slopes of the causeway; on the top they lay in heaps; the canal choked with them; still the stream of enemies poured on roaring and fighting. Over the horrible bridge he saw some Tlascalans carry two women,—neither of them Nenetzin. Another woman came up and crossed, but she had sword and shield, and used them, shrilly shouting the war-cries of the strangers. Out towards the land the battle followed the fugitives,—beyond the third canal even,—and everywhere victory! Surely, the Aztecan gods had vindicated themselves; and for the ’tzin there was glory immeasurable. But where was Nenetzin? where the hated Tonatiah? Why came they not? In the intervals of the slaughter he began to be shaken by visions of the laughing lips and dimpled cheeks of the loved face out in the rain crushed by a hoof or a wheel. At other times, when the awful chorus of the struggle swelled loudest, he fancied he heard her voice in agony of fear and pain. Almost he regretted not having sought her, instead of waiting as he had.