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
demi-barbarians 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 off 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.