mob of our men, and these came surging towards us with the evident
intention of seeking safety in the Citadel. Tizoc saw at a glance the
hopelessness of trying to rally a rout like this until the terrified
creatures, fleeing like sheep from a pack of wolves, had been given rest
for a while in some safe place where their courage might return to them.
Being once within the Citadel they would be for a time wholly out of
danger; for even should the enemy try to set scaling-ladders in place,
and so break in upon us there, it would be an easy matter for a few
determined men to hold the walls until some sort of order had been
restored among our broken forces. Tizoc therefore promptly wheeled our
little force aside into an open space, and so made a way for the
struggling crowd to sweep past us. We noted, as the stream of
terror-stricken men flowed by, that their officers were not with them;
from which Tizoc drew the hopeful augury that the officers, being all
trained soldiers, had drawn together into a rear-guard that sought to
cover this wild retreat. And presently we found that Tizoc was right in
his inference, for soon the crowd began very perceptibly to grow
thinner, and the sound of loud cries and the rattle and clashing of arms
rang out above the tumult, and then there came around a turn in the
street, a little beyond where we had halted, a compact body of men who
were falling back slowly, and who were laying about them most valiantly
with their swords. Our party gave a yell, by way of putting fresh heart
into these gallant fellows, and Tizoc quickly disposed our company in
such a manner that the retreating force fell back through our midst; and
then we promptly closed in, and so took the fighting to ourselves.
I cannot tell very clearly how our retreat to the Citadel was managed,
nor even of my own part in it; for fighting is but rough, wild work,
which defies all attempts at scientific accuracy in describing it--and
for the reason, I fancy, that it engenders a wholly unscientific frame
of mind. Reduced to its lowest terms, fighting is mere barbarity; a most
illogical method of settling some disputed question by brute force
instead of by the refined reasoning processes of the intelligent human
mind; and by the anger that it inevitably begets, the habit of accurate
observation, out of which alone can come accurate description, is
hopelessly confused. Therefore I can say only that foot by foot we
yielded the ground to the enemy that pressed upon us; that wild shouts
rang out--in which I myself joined, though why I should have shouted I
am sure I do not know--together with the sharp rattle of clashing
swords; and that through the roar of this outburst of fierce sounds
there ran an undertone of groans and sobs from the poor wretches who had
fallen wounded to the ground. The one thing that I remember clearly is a
set-to with swords that I had with a big fellow, just as we had come
close to the Citadel, that ended in a way (that would have surprised him
mightily had he lived long enough to comprehend it) by my finishing him
by means of a stop-thrust followed by a beautiful draw-cut that was a
famous stroke with my old sabre-master at Leipsic. And I well remember
thinking, at the moment that I made this stroke--and so saved my life by
it, for the fellow was pressing me very closely--how happy it would have
made the old Rittmeister could he have seen me deliver it.
As we made a rush for the gate of the Citadel, that we might get inside
this place of safety and drop the grating before the enemy could follow
us, we were surprised by finding many of our own men lying dead about
the entrance; and what was far worse for us, we found that unskilled
hands had been at work with the machinery whereby the gate was lowered
and by their bungling had managed to start it downward in such a way
that it had jammed in the grooves. What actually had happened there, as
we knew afterwards, was that the first of the cowardly wretches who had
entered the Citadel had tried to drop the gate in the faces of their
companions and so secure their own safety; whence a fight among
themselves had sprung up, in course of which many of them very
deservedly were slain, and, most unhappily for us, their frantic efforts
to lower the gate had resulted in thus disabling it.
We had a moment of breathing space before the enemy came up with us, and
in this time Rayburn and Young and I had a grip of each other's hands,
in which, without any words over it, we said good-bye to each other; for
we neither of us for one moment doubted that our last hour had come.
Tizoc stood a little distance from us, as steady and as gallant in his
bearing as ever I saw a man; but that he also counted surely upon dying
there was shown by the glance of grave friendliness that he gave us, and
by his making the gesture that among his people is significant of
farewell. Then we ranged ourselves across the gate-way, holding our
swords in hand firmly, and Rayburn, who had caught up a javelin, stood
with it poised above his shoulder in readiness to discharge it as the
enemy came on. The sight of his splendid figure towering defiantly in
that heroic attitude set my mind to running upon the Homeric legend of
the glorious battling of the Greeks before the gates of Troy, and of
Hector uplifting the rock; and I was very angry with Young, whose
disposition to seize upon the whimsical side of everything was the most
irrepressible that ever I came across, when he exclaimed: "I'll bet you
five dollars, Rayburn, that when you throw that clothes-prop you don't
hit th' man you fire at!"
But Rayburn did hit his man, straight in the heart too, a moment later,
as the enemy with a wild yell charged us; and then, with his back set
well against the wall, he fell to work most gallantly with his sword.
From the very beginning of it we knew that our fighting was utterly
hopeless; for all of our company together did not number fifty men, and
we were confronting there a whole army. Up the street, as far as we
could see, the troops of the enemy were solidly massed; and for every
man whom we struck down twenty were ready to spring forward, fresh and
vigorous, to exhaust still further the strength that rapidly was leaving
us. That we fought on was due not to our valor but to our desperation;
and also--at least such was my own feeling--to a swelling rage that made
us long to kill as many as possible of these savages before we ourselves
died beneath their blows. Death, we knew, was the best thing that could
happen to us; for it would save us from the worse fate, that surely
would come to us should we be captured, of being turned over to the
priests, that they might torture us before their heathen altars, and in
the end tear our still quivering hearts out. And that the wish of our
enemies--according to the Aztec custom--was rather to capture us than to
kill us was shown by the way in which they fought; for all their effort
was to disable us, and so to take us alive; nor did they seem to have
any great care, if only this purpose could be accomplished, how many of
themselves were slain.
Sometimes in my dreams the wild commotion of that most desperate combat
comes back to me. I see again before me the crowd of half-naked men,
curving in a semicircle measured by the length of my sword, their faces
distorted by the passionate anger that stirred their souls; and I see
one fierce face after another lose out of it the look of life, yet not
the look of hate, as my sword crunches into the vitals of the body to
which it belongs; and I hear the wild din around me, and the yells of
rage and of pain, and my feet tread in slippery pools of blood, and my
body aches with weariness, and sharp thrills of agony dart through the
strained muscles of my right arm--yet still I fight on, and on. And,
truly, all this seems more real to me now in my sleep than it did to me
then in its reality; for a dull weight of most desolate hopelessness
settled down upon me as I fought out to the end that most hopeless
battle--so that my spirit shared in the numbness of my body, and I cut
and parried and gave men their death-blows with the stolid energy of a
mere death-dealing machine.
It had been from the first no more than a question of minutes how long
this unequal fight would last; and when I heard a great yell from the
enemy, and perceived a flood of soldiers swirling inward through the
gate-way just beyond the fellows whom I was dealing with, I knew that
Tizoc's men had been beaten down or slain, and that the end was very
near at hand. As I glanced across the shoulders of the man whom I just
then put forever on the list of the non-combatants, I saw what seemed to
be an eddy in the midst of the crowd that was rushing into the Citadel;
and in the thick of the tightly knotted group that thus choked the
narrow way I saw Tizoc still laying about him with his sword. He was a
very ghastly object, for a cut on his head had loosened a piece of his
scalp, that hung down over his forehead and waved and trembled there
like a draggled plume; his face was bathed in blood from this horrid
wound, and his armor of cotton cloth was soaked with the blood that had
run down upon it from the cut in his head, and also from a wound in his
neck. In the moment that I had free sight of him he made as fine a
sword-stroke as ever I saw, wherewith he fairly severed from its body
the head of one of his assailants; and at the very same instant, while
that head still was spinning in the air, a man directly behind him
forced back the pressing crowd by main strength and so gained a free
space in which to swing his sword. I shouted to Tizoc to warn him of the
danger, and he half turned to ward against it; but before he could turn
wholly around the blow had fallen, splitting his whole head open from
the crown to the very chin. And in the midst of the fierce yell of
triumph that went up as this cowardly stroke was delivered there passed
from earth the soul of as brave and as true a man as earth has ever
known.
A dizziness came over me as I saw Tizoc fall, and saw in the same moment
the wild rush forward of the enemy over his dead body into the Citadel;
and so I suppose that what with this dizziness and my great weariness I
must have dropped my guard. I faintly remember hearing a shout of
warning from Young, who was close beside me, which shout mingled with
the shrieks of those inside the Citadel whom the enemy everywhere were
cutting down, and the great roar of victory that went up from all the
army, both within and without the Citadel, rising tempestuously in
mighty waves of sound: and then a crash like that of a thunder-bolt
burst directly upon my head, and a sickening pain shot through me, and I
seemed to be falling through untold depths into vast gloomy chasms (so
that I thought I was dropping once more into the hollow darkness of the
cañon), and there was a very dreadful surging and roaring and ringing in
my ears; and then all this horror of evil sounds grew fainter, and I
felt myself slipping quickly into the awful stillness and blackness that
I surely thought must be the entrance-way to death. And with this
thought a numb sort of gladness came over me, for in death there was
promise of restfulness and peace.
XXXI.
DEFEAT.
After all, the life that I thought was lost, and had but little sorrow
for the losing of it, slowly came back to me again. For a good while
before I recovered consciousness fully, I understood a little of what
was going on around me by sounds which, no doubt, were loud and ringing,
yet which seemed to me to come faintly from a long way off. They plainly
were the sounds of fighting--of weapons rattling together, of shouts and
yells and death-cries--but I did not associate them with our present
battling, but thought that we still were in the cañon, and were still
fighting those wild Indians by whom poor Dennis was slain. And I knew
that I had been hurt badly; for in my head was a throbbing pain so keen
that it seemed like to split my skull open, and my stomach was stirred
by most distressing qualms, and my weakness was such that I could not
ease the sore muscles of my body by moving by so much as a
hair's-breadth from the cramped position in which I lay.
It seemed to me a vastly long while that I remained in this dreary
condition of half-consciousness, with no certain knowledge of anything
save the pain that I suffered; and then I felt some one touch me, and a
hand laid upon my heart; and this touch so far roused me that I heaved a
long sigh and slowly opened my eyes. For a moment I did not know the
face that I saw bending over me; nor was this wonderful, for in place of
its usual ruddiness was a death-like pallor, that was the more marked by
contrast with the blood that trickled down over it from a great gash
across the brow whereby the bone was laid bare. But there was no
mistaking the voice that called out: "He's alive, Rayburn!" and added,
"I don't see what right he's got t' be alive, either, after a crack like
that. I guess studyin' antiquities must everlastin'ly harden an' thicken
a man's skull!"
"Studying engineering doesn't harden a man's leg, anyway," I heard
Rayburn answer. "That cut pretty near took mine off. But now that we've
stopped the bleeding I guess I'm all right. I think I can work over to
you on my hands and knees and help you with the Professor. Now that I
know he's alive I seem to be a lot more alive myself."
"Just you stay where you are," Young called back, sharply. "If you move
you'll start that bandage an' I'll have t' tie you up all over again.
I'll attend t' th' Professor." And then Young bent over me, and, with a
tenderness that I never would have thought his rough hands capable of,
set himself to bandaging my wounded head. But the best thing that he did
for me was to give me a draught of water from a gourd that had been
slung about the neck of one of the soldiers lying dead there; which
draught, with the comfort that the cool wet bandage about my head gave
me, brought back to me so much of my strength that I was able presently
to sit up and look around.
Truly, a more ghastly sight than that which my eyes then rested upon I
never saw. The gate-way of the Citadel was a very shambles. Piles of
dead men lay all around me; and the prodigious number of the enemy lying
slain there testified with a mute eloquence to the desperate fashion in
which our handful of men had fought. Over the rough pavement, down the
slope towards the lake, there flowed a stream of bright red blood that
in places shone a brilliant vermilion where it was touched by the
glintings of the sun. Among the dead I did not see Tizoc's body, and for
this I was glad. Half a dozen of the enemy stood by us as a guard; but
these suffered us to minister to each other, evidently feeling that no
great amount of caution was necessary in dealing with three badly
wounded men. Indeed, these guards, in their way, manifested a kindly
feeling for us; for when they perceived that our gourd of water was
empty one of them picked up another full gourd from amid the dead and
handed it to us. From inside the Citadel there still came a tumult of
fierce sounds which gave proof that though the battle--if it could be
called a battle--was ended the work of killing still was going on; but
these sounds sensibly diminished while we lay there waiting to know what
fate would come to us, and we concluded, therefore, that there remained
no more rebels to be slain.
Rayburn was seated upon the ground at no great distance from me, his
back propped against the wall. As he saw that I was looking towards him,
and had again my wits about me, he greeted me with a very melancholy
smile. "It's been a pretty cold day for us, Professor," he said, "and
there's no great comfort in knowing that it's partly our own fault that
these fellows have laid us out. I didn't give them credit for such good
tactics; and even with the bad watch that we kept I don't see how they
managed to get their men round on the other side of our camp. Well, it
must please them to know how straight we walked into the trap that they
set for us, like the pack of fools that we were."
"You won't ketch me joinin' in any more Indian revolutions, anyway,"
Young put in. "I did think I could bet on those Tlahuicos, an' they've
just gone back on us th' worst kind. Do you feel strong enough,
Professor, to tie th' ends o' this rag?" He had been binding up the cut
in his forehead, and now he got down on his hands and knees in front of
me, and bent his head down within easy reach of my hands; and my
strength had so far returned to me that without being very tired after
it I was able to make the ends of the bandage fast. The blow on his head
had glanced from the skull, luckily; but it had been heavy enough to
stun him for some minutes after he received it--and his falling as
though dead had been the means, no doubt, of saving his life, even as in
the same manner my life had been saved. Rayburn's wound was a worse one
than either Young's or mine, for a great gash in his thigh had wellnigh
cut his leg off, and until, with Young's help, he had improvised a
tourniquet, from a bowstring and a broken fragment of a javelin, he had
been in great danger of bleeding to death.
For more than an hour we were suffered to lie in the gate-way; while the
work went on of slaying the wretched Tlahuicos, and then of marshalling
the more important personages who had been reserved alive as prisoners,
and, finally, of restoring order in the victorious ranks. At the end of
this time an officer with a squad of men came to where we were lying,
and roughly ordered us to rise, to the end that we also might be placed
among the prisoners. Young and I had so far recovered our strength that
we managed to scramble on our feet with no great difficulty; though in
my case this exertion, which made the blood flow more briskly in my
veins, suddenly increased so greatly the pain in my head as to bring
upon me for a little while a dizziness that compelled me to lean against
the wall for support. In Rayburn's case standing was quite out of the
question; and I shortly told the officer in what manner he was wounded,
and that to make him rise and walk assuredly would start the bandage on
his leg, and so lead to his quickly bleeding to death. Thereupon the
officer gave an order to some of his men to fetch a stretcher such as
their own wounded were carried in; yet at the same time he said to me:
"This companion of yours is a brave man; and but for my orders, I would
loosen the bandage with my own hands, and so let him die without further
pain;" which speech, notwithstanding the obviously kind intention of it,
I did not translate to Rayburn at that time.
While we waited for the stretcher to be brought, the soldiers fastened
about Young's neck and about mine heavy wooden collars, which set well
out over our shoulders and were not unlike great ruffs. I confess that
for my own part my professional interest in this curious piece of gear
entirely overcame my repugnance to wearing it, for I instantly
recognized it as the cuauh-cozatl, with which, as the ancient records
tell us, the Aztecs were accustomed to secure their prisoners of war.
But Young, who could not be expected to share in my delight at seeing
actually alive, and ourselves made party to it, a custom that was
supposed to have been extinguished to more than three centuries, grew
exceedingly indignant at having thus placed about his neck what he
coarsely described as "an overgrown d----n goose-yoke." Nor was I at all
successful in my attempt to soothe him by telling him that the
discomfort to which we were subjected was a very trifling matter in
comparison with the gain to the science of archeology that flowed from
this positive identification of an exceedingly interesting historical
fact.
"Oh, come off, Professor," he growled. "What th' d----l do I care for
historical facts, or for historical lies either?--an' they're all about
th' same thing. What I want t' do is t' punch th' head o' th' fellow who
put this thing on me, an' I can't. They'll be hangin' me up by my heels
an' stickin' a corn-cob in my mouth next, I s'pose, an' makin' a regular
stuck-pig out o' me; an' then likely enough you'll try t' make me
believe that _that_ proves something or other that nobody but you thinks
ever happened, an' so want me t' feel pleased about it. Antiquities be
d----d! I've had as much of' em as I want, an' more too!"
While the collars were being placed about our necks, and while Rayburn
was being lifted upon the stretcher which the soldiers had brought, we
heard from within the Citadel the sound of drums tapping, and then the
measured tread of soldiers marching; and as we looked through the
gate-way we saw that the troops had been formed in regular order and
were moving towards us. At the head of the column were the
prisoners--numbering three or four hundred, and all wearing wooden
collars about their necks--covered on both flanks by a strong line of
guards. They were ranged in order of their dignity, the unlucky members
of the Council coming first, and after them the other officers of that
short-lived government; then the military officers, and in the rear a
few private soldiers. The fact that no Tlahuicos were among the
prisoners led me to conclude that such of these as had not been slain
had been held under guard until they might be returned to their owners
or set again to toiling hopelessly in the mine.
The importance that in the estimation of our captors attached to
ourselves was shown by their placing us at the very head of the column,
in advance even of the members of the Council; and this was a compliment
that we willingly enough would have declined, for such honorable
consideration, according to the customs of this people, meant surely
that we were reserved for a very exemplary fate. But we were in no
position to raise objections of any sort just then, and we therefore
fell into the place assigned to us and tried as well as we could to show
a bold front as we went downward towards the lake.
Only a few terrified women and children, who fled away as we advanced,
were in sight as we passed through the streets of the town; and from
many of the hovels came the moans of poor wounded wretches who had
crawled to their miserable homes to die in them; and from others came
the lamentations of women over their dead; and in nooks and corners,
whither with their last strength they had dragged themselves, we saw men
lying dead in pools of their own blood. But down by the water-side there
were live men in plenty, soldiers and oarsmen, and the pier was crowded
with them; while out beyond the pier the whole bay was swarming with
the boats in which the enemy's forces had stolen down upon us in the
darkness from Culhuacan; making their landing, as we now learned, just
beyond the town in a bay that ran up close to where our army was
encamped. And this scene of bustling activity in the bright sunshine
made a joyous and brilliant picture; that was all the brighter because
of its setting in that sunlit bay, opening out between beaches of
golden-yellow sand upon the broad expanse of restful water which fell
away in gleaming splendor into a bank of soft gray haze.
But the picture was still more stirring that we saw as we looked
landward, when the barge that we were put aboard of pulled out from the
pier and our rowers lay on their oars, and so waited while the work of
embarkation went on. Right in front of us was the broad central street
of the town; and the whole length of this, from the pier to the Citadel,
was filled with a solidly massed body of soldiers that came down the
steep descent slowly, and halting often, to the boats which were in
waiting to bear them away. Barbarians though they were, these soldiers
made a gallant showing. In front of each regiment was borne its feather
standard, and in the midst of each company was its rallying flag of
brightly painted cotton cloth. The higher officers wore wooden casques,
carved and painted in the semblance of the heads of ferocious beasts;
the cotton-cloth armor of all the officers was decked with a great
variety of strange devices, wrought in very lively hues, and similarly
strong hues were used in the decoration of the universally-carried light
round shields. And all this brilliant color, the more vivid because of
its background of bare brown skins, was flecked with a thousand
glittering points of light where the sunshine sparkled on swords and on
spear-heads of hardened gold.