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.