OTOMIE’S FAREWELL
Thus then did I accomplish the vengeance that I had sworn to my father
I would wreak upon de Garcia, or rather, thus did I witness its
accomplishment, for in the end he died, terribly enough, not by my hand
but by those of his own fears. Since then I have sorrowed for this,
for, when the frozen and unnatural calm passed from my mind, I hated
him as bitterly as ever, and grieved that I let him die otherwise than
by my hand, and to this hour such is my mind towards him. Doubtless,
many may think it wicked, since we are taught to forgive our enemies,
but here I leave the forgiveness to God, for how can I pardon one who
betrayed my father to the priests, who murdered my mother and my son,
who chained me in the slave-ship and for many hours tortured me with
his own hand? Rather, year by year, do I hate him more. I write of this
at some length, since the matter has been a trouble to me. I never
could say that I was in charity with all men living and dead, and
because of this, some years since, a worthy and learned rector of this
parish took upon himself to refuse me the rites of the church. Then I
went to the bishop and laid the story before him, and it puzzled him
somewhat.
But he was a man of large mind, and in the end he rebuked the rector
and commanded him to minister to me, for he thought with me that the
Almighty could not ask of an erring man, that he should forgive one who
had wrought such evils on him and his, even though that enemy were dead
and gone to judgment in another place.
But enough of this question of conscience.
When de Garcia was gone into the pit, I turned my steps homewards, or
rather towards the ruined city which I could see beneath me, for I had
no home left. Now I must descend the ice cap, and this I found less
easy than climbing it had been, for, my vengeance being accomplished, I
became as other men are, and a sad and weary one at that, so sad indeed
that I should not have sorrowed greatly if I had made a false step upon
the ice.
But I made none, and at length I came to the snow where the travelling
was easy. My oath was fulfilled and my vengeance was accomplished, but
as I went I reckoned up the cost. I had lost my betrothed, the love of
my youth; for twenty years I had lived a savage chief among savages and
made acquaintance with every hardship, wedded to a woman who, although
she loved me dearly, and did not lack nobility of mind, as she had
shown the other day, was still at heart a savage or, at the least, a
thrall of demon gods. The tribe that I ruled was conquered, the
beautiful city where I dwelt was a ruin, I was homeless and a beggar,
and my fortune would be great if in the issue I escaped death or
slavery. All this I could have borne, for I had borne the like before,
but the cruel end of my last surviving son, the one true joy of my
desolate life, I could not bear. The love of those children had become
the passion of my middle age, and as I loved them so they had loved me.
I had trained them from babyhood till their hearts were English and not
Aztec, as were their speech and faith, and thus they were not only my
dear children, but companions of my own race, the only ones I had. And
now by accident, by sickness, and by the sword, they were dead the
three of them, and I was desolate.
Ah! we think much of the sorrows of our youth, and should a sweetheart
give us the go by we fill the world with moans and swear that it holds
no comfort for us. But when we bend our heads before the shrouded shape
of some lost child, then it is that for the first time we learn how
terrible grief can be. Time, they tell us, will bring consolation, but
it is false, for such sorrows time has no salves—I say it who am old—as
they are so they shall be. There is no hope but faith, there is no
comfort save in the truth that love which might have withered on the
earth grows fastest in the tomb, to flower gloriously in heaven; that
no love indeed can be perfect till God sanctifies and completes it with
His seal of death.
I threw myself down there upon the desolate snows of Xaca, that none
had trod before, and wept such tears as a man may weep but once in his
life days.
“O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for
thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!” I cried with the ancient king—I whose
grief was greater than his, for had I not lost three sons within as
many years? Then remembering that as this king had gone to join his son
long centuries ago, so I must one day go to join mine, and taking such
comfort from the thought as may be found in it, I rose and crept back
to the ruined City of Pines.
It was near sunset when I came thither, for the road was long and I
grew weak. By the palace I met the Captain Diaz and some of his
company, and they lifted their bonnets to me as I went by, for they had
respect for my sorrows. Only Diaz spoke, saying:
“Is the murderer dead?”
I nodded and went on. I went on to our chamber, for there I thought
that I should find Otomie.
She sat in it alone, cold and beautiful as though she had been
fashioned in marble.
“I have buried him with the bones of his brethren and his forefathers,”
she said, answering the question that my eyes asked. “It seemed best
that you should see him no more, lest your heart should break.”
“It is well,” I answered; “but my heart is broken already.”
“Is the murderer dead?” she said presently in the very words of Diaz.
“He is dead.”
“How?”
I told her in few words.
“You should have slain him yourself; our son’s blood is not avenged.”
“I should have slain him, but in that hour I did not seek vengeance, I
watched it fall from heaven, and was content. Perchance it is best so.
The seeking of vengeance has brought all my sorrows upon me; vengeance
belongs to God and not to man, as I have learned too late.”
“I do not think so,” said Otomie, and the look upon her face was that
look which I had seen when she smote the Tlascalan, when she taunted
Marina, and when she danced upon the pyramid, the leader of the
sacrifice. “Had I been in your place, I would have killed him by
inches. When I had done with him, then the devils might begin, not
before. But it is of no account; everything is done with, all are dead,
and my heart with them. Now eat, for you are weary.”
So I ate, and afterwards I cast myself upon the bed and slept.
In the darkness I heard the voice of Otomie that said, “Awake, I would
speak with you,” and there was that about her voice which stirred me
from my heavy sleep.
“Speak on,” I said. “Where are you, Otomie?”
“Seated at your side. I cannot rest, so I am seated here. Listen. Many,
many years ago we met, when you were brought by Guatemoc from Tobasco.
Ah! well do I remember my first sight of you, the Teule, in the court
of my father Montezuma, at Chapoltepec. I loved you then as I have
loved you ever since. At least _I_ have never gone astray after strange
gods,” and she laughed bitterly.
“Why do you talk of these things, Otomie?” I asked.
“Because it is my fancy to do so. Cannot you spare me one hour from
your sleep, who have spared you so many? You remember how you scorned
me—oh! I thought I should have died of shame when, after I had caused
myself to be given to you as wife, the wife of Tezcat, you told me of
the maid across the seas, that Lily maid whose token is still set upon
your finger. But I lived through it and I loved you the better for your
honesty, and then you know the rest. I won you because I was brave and
lay at your side upon the stone of sacrifice, where you kissed me and
told me that you loved me. But you never loved me, not truly, all the
while you were thinking of the Lily maid. I knew it then, as I know it
now, though I tried to deceive myself. I was beautiful in those days
and this is something with a man. I was faithful and that is more, and
once or twice you thought that you loved me. Now I wish that those
Teules had come an hour later, and we had died together there upon the
stone, that is I wish it for my own sake, not for yours. Then we
escaped and the great struggle came. I told you then that I understood
it all. You had kissed me on the stone of sacrifice, but in that moment
you were as one dead; when you came back to life, it was otherwise. But
fortune took the game out of your hands and you married me, and swore
an oath to me, and this oath you have kept faithfully. You married me
but you did not know whom you married; you thought me beautiful, and
sweet, and true, and all these things I was, but you did not understand
that I was far apart from you, that I was still a savage as my
forefathers had been. You thought that I had learned your ways,
perchance even you thought that I reverenced your God, as for your sake
I have striven to do, but all the while I have followed the ways of my
own people and I could not quite forget my own gods, or at the least
they would not suffer me, their servant, to escape them. For years and
years I put them from me, but at last they were avenged and my heart
mastered me, or rather they mastered me, for I knew nothing of what I
did some few nights since, when I celebrated the sacrifice to Huitzel
and you saw me at the ancient rites.
“All these years you had been true to me and I had borne you children
whom you loved; but you loved them for their own sake, not for mine,
indeed, at heart you hated the Indian blood that was mixed in their
veins with yours. Me also you loved in a certain fashion and this half
love of yours drove me well nigh mad; such as it was, it died when you
saw me distraught and celebrating the rites of my forefathers on the
_teocalli_ yonder, and you knew me for what I am, a savage. And now the
children who linked us together are dead—one by one they died in this
way and in that, for the curse which follows my blood descended upon
them—and your love for me is dead with them. I alone remain alive, a
monument of past days, and I die also.
“Nay, be silent; listen to me, for my time is short. When you bade me
call you ‘husband’ no longer, then I knew that it was finished. I obey
you, I put you from me, you are no more my husband, and soon I shall
cease to be your wife; still, Teule, I pray you listen to me. Now it
seems to you in your sorrow, that your days are done and that there is
no happiness left for you. This is not so. You are still but a man in
the beginning of middle age, and you are yet strong. You will escape
from this ruined land, and when you shake the dust of it off your feet
its curse shall fall from you; you will return to your own place, and
there you will find one who has awaited your coming for many years.
There the savage woman whom you mated with, the princess of a fallen
house, will become but a fantastic memory to you, and all these strange
eventful years will be as a midnight dream. Only your love for the dead
children will always remain, these you must always love by day and by
night, and the desire of them, that desire for the dead than which
there is nothing more terrible, shall follow you to your grave, and I
am glad that it should be so, for I was their mother and some thought
of me must go with them. This alone the Lily maid has left to me, and
there only I shall prevail against her, for, Teule, no child of hers
shall live to rob your heart of the memory of those I gave you.
“Oh! I have watched you by day and by night: I have seen the longing in
your eyes for a face which you have lost and for the land of your
youth. Be happy, you shall gain both, for the struggle is ended and the
Lily maid has been too strong for me. I grow weak and I have little
more to say. We part, and perhaps for ever, for what is there between
us save the souls of those dead sons of ours? Since you desire me no
more, that I may make our severance perfect, now in the hour of my
death I renounce your gods and I seek my own, though I think that I
love yours and hate those of my people. Is there any communion between
them? We part, and perchance for ever, yet I pray of you to think of me
kindly, for I have loved you and I love you; I was the mother of your
children, whom being Christian, you will meet again. I love you now and
for always. I am glad to have lived because you kissed me on the stone
of sacrifice, and afterwards I bore you sons. They are yours and not
mine; it seems to me now that I only cared for them because they were
yours, and they loved you and not me. Take them—take their spirits as
you have taken everything. You swore that death alone should sever us,
and you have kept your oath in the letter and in the thought. But now I
go to the Houses of the Sun to seek my own people, and to you, Teule,
with whom I have lived many years and seen much sorrow, but whom I will
no longer call husband, since you forbade me so to do, I say, make no
mock of me to the Lily maid. Speak of me to her as little as you may—be
happy and—farewell!”
Now as she spoke ever more faintly, and I listened bewildered, the
light of dawn grew slowly in the chamber. It gathered on the white
shape of Otomie seated in a chair hard by the bed, and I saw that her
arms hung down and that her head was resting on the back of the chair.
Now I sprang up and peered into her face. It was white and cold, and I
could feel no breath upon her lips. I seized her hand, that also was
cold. I spoke into her ear, I kissed her brow, but she did not move nor
answer. The light grew quickly, and now I saw all. Otomie was dead, and
by her own act.
This was the manner of her death. She had drunk of a poison of which
the Indians have the secret, a poison that works slowly and without
pain, leaving the mind unclouded to the end. It was while her life was
fading from her that she had spoken to me thus sadly and bitterly. I
sat upon the bed and gazed at her. I did not weep, for my tears were
done, and as I have said, whatever I might feel nothing could break my
calm any more. And as I gazed a great tenderness and sorrow took hold
of me, and I loved Otomie better now that she was dead before me than
ever I had done in her life days, and this is saying much. I remembered
her in the glory of her youth as she was in the court of her royal
father, I remembered the look which she had given me when she stepped
to my side upon the stone of sacrifice, and that other look when she
defied Cuitlahua the emperor, who would have slain me. Once more I
seemed to hear her cry of bitter sorrow as she uncovered the body of
the dead babe our firstborn, and to see her sword in hand standing over
the Tlascalan.
Many things came back to me in that sad hour of dawn while I watched by
the corpse of Otomie. There was truth in her words, I had never
forgotten my first love and often I desired to see her face. But it was
not true to say that I had no love for Otomie. I loved her well and I
was faithful in my oath to her, indeed, not until she was dead did I
know how dear she had grown to me. It is true that there was a great
gulf between us which widened with the years, the gulf of blood and
faith, for I knew well that she could not altogether put away her old
beliefs, and it is true that when I saw her leading the death chant, a
great horror took me and for a while I loathed her. But these things I
might have lived to forgive, for they were part of her blood and
nature, moreover, the last and worst of them was not done by her own
will, and when they were set aside there remained much that I could
honour and love in the memory of this most royal and beautiful woman,
who for so many years was my faithful wife. So I thought in that hour
and so I think to this day. She said that we parted for ever, but I
trust and I believe that this is not so. Surely there is forgiveness
for us all, and a place where those who were near and dear to each
other on the earth may once more renew their fellowship.
At last I rose with a sigh to seek help, and as I rose I felt that
there was something set about my neck. It was the collar of great
emeralds which Guatemoc had given to me, and that I had given to
Otomie. She had set it there while I slept, and with it a lock of her
long hair. Both shall be buried with me.
I laid her in the ancient sepulchre amid the bones of her forefathers
and by the bodies of her children, and two days later I rode to Mexico
in the train of Bernal Diaz. At the mouth of the pass I turned and
looked back upon the ruins of the City of Pines, where I had lived so
many years and where all I loved were buried. Long and earnestly I
gazed, as in his hour of death a man looks back upon his past life,
till at length Diaz laid his hand upon my shoulder:
“You are a lonely man now, comrade,” he said; “what plans have you for
the future?”
“None,” I answered, “except to die.”
“Never talk so,” he said; “why, you are scarcely forty, and I who am
fifty and more do not speak of dying. Listen; you have friends in your
own country, England?”
“I had.”
“Folk live long in those quiet lands. Go seek them, I will find you a
passage to Spain.”
“I will think of it,” I answered.
In time we came to Mexico, a new and a strange city to me, for Cortes
had rebuilt it, and where the _teocalli_ had stood, up which I was led
to sacrifice, a cathedral was building, whereof the foundations were
fitly laid with the hideous idols of the Aztecs. The place was well
enough, but it is not so beautiful as the Tenoctitlan of Montezuma, nor
ever will be. The people too were changed; then they were warriors and
free, now they are slaves.
In Mexico Diaz found me a lodging. None molested me there, for the
pardon that I had received was respected. Also I was a ruined man, no
longer to be feared, the part that I had played in the _noche triste_
and in the defence of the city was forgotten, and the tale of my
sorrows won me pity even from the Spaniards. I abode in Mexico ten
days, wandering sadly about the city and up to the hill of Chapoltepec,
where Montezuma’s pleasure-house had been, and where I had met Otomie.
Nothing was left of its glories except some of the ancient cedar trees.
On the eighth day of my stay an Indian stopped me in the street, saying
that an old friend had charged him to say that she wished to see me.
I followed the Indian, wondering who the friend might be, for I had no
friends, and he led me to a fine stone house in a new street. Here I
was seated in a darkened chamber and waited there a while, till
suddenly a sad and sweet voice that seemed familiar to me, addressed me
in the Aztec tongue, saying, “Welcome, Teule.”
I looked and there before me, dressed in the Spanish fashion, stood a
lady, an Indian, still beautiful, but very feeble and much worn, as
though with sickness and sorrow.
“Do you not know Marina, Teule?” she said again, but before the words
had left her lips I knew her. “Well, I will say this, that I should
scarcely have known _you_, Teule. Trouble and time have done their work
with both of us.”
I took her hand and kissed it.
“Where then is Cortes?” I asked.
Now a great trembling seized her.
“Cortes is in Spain, pleading his suit. He has wed a new wife there,
Teule. Many years ago he put me away, giving me in marriage to Don Juan
Xaramillo, who took me because of my possessions, for Cortes dealt
liberally with me, his discarded mistress.” And she began to weep.
Then by degrees I learned the story, but I will not write it here, for
it is known to the world. When Marina had served his turn and her wit
was of no more service to him, the conqueror discarded her, leaving her
to wither of a broken heart. She told me all the tale of her anguish
when she learned the truth, and of how she had cried to him that
thenceforth he would never prosper. Nor indeed did he do so.
For two hours or more we talked, and when I had heard her story I told
her mine, and she wept for me, since with all her faults Marina’s heart
was ever gentle.
Then we parted never to meet again. Before I went she pressed a gift of
money on me, and I was not ashamed to take it who had none.
This then was the history of Marina, who betrayed her country for her
love’s sake, and this the reward of her treason and her love. But I
shall always hold her memory sacred, for she was a good friend to me,
and twice she saved my life, nor would she desert me, even when Otomie
taunted her so cruelly.