Amador surveyed the prisoner, though somewhat indifferently. He was, in
figure and age, very much such a man as Baltasar, but in other respects
very dissimilar. His face was wan, and even cadaverous; but this might
have been the effect of the blows he had received from the dying
soldier, as was made probable by the presence of several spots of blood
encrusted over his visage. His cheeks were broad, and the bones
prominent; his eyes very hollow, and expressive of a wild solemnity,
mingled with cunning; his beard long and bushy, and only slightly
grizzled, and a rugged mustache hung over his lips so as almost to
conceal them. His apparel was of black cloth, none of the freshest, the
principal garment of which was a long loose doublet, under which was
buckled an iron breast-plate,--his only armour; for, instead of a
morion, he wore a cloth hat of capacious brim, stuck round with the
feathers of divers birds, as well as several medals of the saints,
rudely executed in silver. Besides these fantastic decorations, he had
suspended to his neck several instruments of the Cabala,--a pentacle of
silver, and charms and talismans written over with mystical characters,
as well as a little leathern pouch filled with various dried herbs and
roots. This mystagogue, an agent of no little importance among many of
the scenes of the Conquest, was led into the presence of the general,
and approached him without betraying any signs of fear or embarrassment;
nor, on the other hand, did he manifest any thing like audacity or
presumption; but lifting his eyes to the visage of the Biscayan, he
gazed upon him with a silent and grave earnestness, that seemed somewhat
to disconcert the leader.
"Sirrah sorcerer," said he, "since the devil has deserted you at last,
call up what spirits you can muster, and find me why I shall not hang
you for a spy, early in the morning."
"_Tetragrammaton Adonai!_" muttered the warrior-magician in the holy
gibberish of his art, with a voice of sepulchral hollowness, and with a
countenance gleaming with indignation or enthusiasm. "In the name of
God, Amen! I defy the devil, and am the servant of his enemy; and in the
land of devils, of Apollyon in the air, Beelzebub on the earth, and
Satan in men's hearts, I forswear and defy, contemn and denounce them;
and I pray for, and foresee, the day when they shall tumble from the
high places!"
"All this thou mayst do, and all this thou mayst foresee," said the
general; "but nevertheless thy wisdom will be more apparent to employ
itself a little in the investigation of thine own fate; which, I promise
thee, is approaching to a crisis."
"I have read it in the stars, I have seen it in the smoke of waters and
of blessed herbs, and I have heard it from the lips of dead men and the
tongues of dreams," cried the professor of the occult sciences, with
much emphasis. "But what is the fate of Botello, the swordsman, to that
of the leaders of men, the conquerors of kings and great nations? I have
read my own destinies; but why shouldst thou trifle the time to know
them, when I can show thee the higher mysteries of thine own?"
"Canst thou do so? By my faith then, I will have thee speak them very
soon," said Narvaez. "But first, let me know what wert thou doing when
thou wert found prowling this morning so near to my camp?"
"Gathering the herbs for the suffumigation which shall tell me in what
part of the world thou shalt lay thy bones!" said the magician,
solemnly. "The moon, in the house Alchil, showed me many things, but not
all; a thick smoke came over the crystal, and I saw not what I wanted; I
slept under the cross, with a skull on my bosom, but it breathed nothing
but clouds. Wherefore I knew, it should be only when the wolf spoke to
the vulture, and the vulture to the red star, that Camael the angel
should unlock the lips of destiny, and lead me whither I longed to
follow."
"I am ever bound to thee," said the general, with a manner in which an
attempt at mockery was mingled with a natural touch of superstition,
"for the extreme interest thou seemest to cherish in my fate and again I
say to thee, I will immediately converse with thee on that subject. But
at present, senor nigromante, I warn thee, it will be but wisdom, to
confine thy rhapsodies within the limits of answers to such
interrogatories as I shall propose thee.--Where lies thy master, the
outcast and arch-rebel, my enemy?"
"My _master_ is in heaven!" said Botello, with a devout and lofty
earnestness, "and there is no outcast and rebel but he that dwelleth in
the pit, under the foot of Michael; and _he_ is the enemy!"
"Sirrah! I speak to thee of the knave Cortes," cried the general,
angrily. "When wert thou last at his side? and where?"
"At midnight,--on the river of Canoes, where he has rested, as thou
knowest, for a night and a day."
"Ay!" said the Biscayan fiercely; "within a league of my head-quarters,
whither my clemency has suffered him to come."
"Whither God and his good star have drawn him," said the magician.
"And whence I will drive him to the rocks of the mountains, or the
mangroves of the beach, ere thou art cured of thy wounds!"
"Lo! my wounds are healed!" said Botello; "the hand that inflicted them
is stiff and cold, and Hernan Cortes yet lies by the river! Ay, the holy
unguent, blessed of the fat of a pagan's heart, hath dried the blood and
glued the skin; and yet my captain, whose fate I have seen and spoken,
even from the glory of noon to the long and sorrowful shadows of the
evening, marshals his band within the sound of thy matin bell; and wo
be to his foeman when he is nearer or further!"
"Prattling fool," said the commander, "if thou hadst looked to the
bright moon to-night, thou wouldst have seen how soon the cotton-trees
of the river should be strung with thy leader and companions, and with
thyself, as a liar and an impostor, in their midst!"
"I looked," said the veteran, tranquilly, "and saw what will be seen,
but not by _all_. There was thunder in the temple, and peace by the
river, and more wailing than comes from the lips of the Penitent
Knight."
The angry impetuosity with which Narvaez was about to continue the
conference, was interrupted by the impatience of the novice. He had
listened with much disgust both to the mystic jargon of the soldier and
the idle demands and bravadoes of the general. The interest with which
he discovered how short a distance separated him from his kinsman, was
increased to an irresistible excitement, when he heard the title with
which, as the admiral had told him, the knight was distinguished among
the invaders, on the lips of Botello. Rising therefore abruptly, he
said,
"Senor Narvaez, I have to beg your pardon, if, in my own impatience to
be satisfied in a matter which I have much at heart, I am somewhat blind
to the importance of this present controversy. If your excellency will
do me the favour to examine the letters of the admiral, you will
discover that it is not so much my purpose to lay claim to your
hospitable entertainment, the proffer of which I acknowledge with much
gratitude, as to request your permission to pass through the lines of
your army, to join my kinsman the knight Calavar. Understanding,
therefore, from the words of this lunatic, or enchanter, whichever he
may be, that I am within the short distance of a league from my good
knight, to whom all my allegiance is due, I see not wherefore I should
not proceed to join him forthwith, instead of wasting the night in
slumber. I must, therefore, crave of your excellency to grant me, to the
camp of the senor Cortes, a guide, to whom I will, with my life and
honour, guarantee a safe return;--or such instructions concerning my
route, as will enable me to proceed alone--that is to say, with my
attendants."
The effect of this interruption and unexpected demand, on the
countenances of all, was remarkable enough. The cavaliers present stared
at the novice with amazement, and even a sort of dismay; and the
secretary Fabueno, looking by chance at the captain Salvatierra,
observed the visage of this worthy suddenly illuminated by a grin of
delight. As for the general himself, nothing could be more unfeigned
than his surprise, nothing more unquestionable than the displeasure
which instantly began to darken his visage. He rose, thrust his hand
into his belt, as if to give his fingers something to gripe, and drawing
himself to his full height, said haughtily and severely,
"When I invited the cavalier De Leste to share the shelter of this
temple, I did not think I received a friend of the traitor Cortes or of
any of his people; nor did I dream an adherent of this outlaw would dare
to beard me at my head-quarters with so rash and audacious a request!"
"The senor Narvaez has then to learn," said Amador, with a degree of
moderation that could only be produced by a remembrance of his
engagement to the admiral, and his promise to the secretary, not
causelessly to provoke the anger of the general,--but nevertheless with
unchanging decision, "that if I boast not to be the friend of Cortes,
whom you call a traitor, I avouch myself to be very much the creature of
mine own will; and that if I cannot be termed the adherent of an outlaw,
I am at least a Spanish hidalgo, bent on the prosecution of my designs,
and making requests more as the ceremonies of courtesy, than the tribute
of humility. I will claim nothing more of your excellency than your
excellency is, without claim, inclined to grant; and allowing therefore
that you invited me to your lodgings under a mistaken apprehension of my
character, I will straightway release you from the obligation, only
previously desiring of your excellency to reconsider your expressions,
wherein, as I think, was an innuendo highly unjust and offensive."
"Now, by heaven!" exclaimed the Biscayan, with all the irascibility of
his race, and the arrogant pride of his station, "I have happened upon a
strange day, when a vagabond esquire, wandering through my jurisdiction,
asks my permission to throw himself into the arms of my enemy; and when
I admonish him a little of his rashness, rebukes me with insult and
defiance!"
"A very strange day indeed!" muttered a voice among the cavaliers, in
which Amador, had he not been too much occupied with other
considerations, might have recognized the tones of Salvatierra.
"Biscayan!" said he, with an eye of fire, "I have given you all the
respect, which, as a governor's governor, and a captain's captain, you
had a right to demand; I have also done you the homage of a guest to his
host, and of a gentleman to a reputed hidalgo; but neither as a governor
nor commander, neither as a host nor a nobleman, have you the privilege
to offend with impunity, or to insult without being called to a
reckoning."
"Is this another madman of the stock of Calavar, that the silly admiral
hath sent me?" cried the enfuriated leader, snatching up a sword from
the table, and advancing upon the novice.
"Senor Panfilo!" cried Amador, confronting the general, and waving his
hand with dignity, "unless thou force me by thine own violence, I cannot
draw my sword upon thee on thine own floor, not even although thou add
to thy wrongs a sarcasm on my knight and kinsman. Nevertheless I fling
this glove at thy feet, in token that if thou art as valiant as thou art
ill-bred, as ready to repair as to inflict an injury, I will claim of
thee, as soon as may suit thy convenience, to meet me with weapons, and
to answer thy manifold indignities."
"_Dios santisimo!_" cried the commander, foaming with rage and stamping
furiously on the floor. "What ho! swords and pikemen! shall I strike
this _galofero_ braggart with my own hands? Arrest him!"
"The blood of him that stays me, be on his own head!" said Amador,
drawing his sword and striding to the entrance. "I will remember thee,
uncourteous cavalier, when I see thee in a fitter place."
The arm of the governor had been arrested by Duero; and in the confusion
of the moment, though the door of the tower was instantly beset by a
dozen gaping attendants, Don Amador would doubtless have passed through
them without detention, notwithstanding the furious commands of Narvaez.
But at the moment, when, as he waved his sword menacingly, the
hesitating satellites seemed parting before him, Salvatierra stepped
nimbly behind, and suddenly seizing his outstretched arm, and calling to
the guards at the same time, in an instant Don Amador was disarmed and a
prisoner. His rage was for a moment unspeakable; but it did not render
him incapable of observing the faithful boldness of the secretary.
"Senor general!" cried Lorenzo, though with a stammering voice, "if your
excellency will read this letter to the end, your excellency will find
my master recommends Don Amador as of a most noble and lofty family,
and, at this moment, raised above arrest and detention, by being charged
with authority from the Grand Master of Rhodes."
The only answer of the general was a scowl and a wave of the hand, which
instantly left Fabueno in the predicament of the cavalier. He was
seized, and before he could follow the example of his patron, and draw
his sabre, it was snatched from his inexperienced hand.
All this passed in a moment; and before the neophyte could give
utterance to the indignation which choked him, he was dragged, with
Fabueno, from the sanctuary.