The review, division, and minute organization of the vast army now at
the disposal of the Captain-General, occupied nearly the whole day,
which was unexpectedly propitious, as the rainy season might be said to
have already commenced. Clouds, indeed, gathered over the sky, in the
afternoon, giving a melancholy aspect to the hills and meadows; and a
thick fog rose from the lake and spread around, until it had pervaded
the lower grounds on its borders. Yet not a drop of rain fell during the
whole day, and, by sunset, the clouds dispersed, without having
disturbed the firmament with thunder; and the lake was left to glimmer
in the light of a young moon, and the multitude of stars.
The whole native population of Tezcuco had been drawn to the meadows, to
witness the glories of military parade, and the city was deserted and
solitary. Nay, even the watchmen on the walls, forgetting the audacious
assault of the past night, and anxious to share a spectacle from which
their duties should have separated them, stole, one after another, from
their posts, until the northern gates were left wholly unguarded. The
vanity of the Commander-in-Chief could not permit the absence of a
single effective Spaniard from the scene of display, and the walls had
been left to Tlascalans.
Late in the afternoon, and when the mists were thickest, and the hues of
the fields most mournful, a single individual passed from that gate at
which Juan Lerma, eight or nine weeks before, had terminated the first
chapter of his exile. A friar's cassock and cowl enveloped his whole
form, yet the dullest eye would have detected in the vigour and
impetuosity of his step, the presence of passions which could not belong
to the holy profession. His eye was fixed upon a shadowy figure, almost
lost among the mists, that went staggering along, as if upon a course
not yet defined, or over paths difficult to be traced; and while he was
obviously watching and pursuing the retreating shape, it seemed to be
with a confidence that feared not the observation of the fugitive. Thus,
when the figure paused, he arrested his steps, and resumed them only
when they were resumed by the other; and, in this manner, he followed
onwards, with little precaution, until Tezcuco was left far behind,
hidden in the fog. As he moved, he muttered many expressions, indicative
of a deeply disturbed and even remorseful mind.
"All this have _I_ done," he exclaimed, bitterly, and almost wildly.
"Mine own sin, though black as the soot of perdition, is stained a
triple dye by the malefactions it has caused in others--_Mea culpa, mea
culpa, mea maxima culpa!_ Cursed avarice! cursed ambition! There _is_ a
retribution that follows us even to the grave; sin is punished with
sin,--the first fault lays fire to the train of our vices, and in their
explosions we are further stained,--punished, destroyed. That sin! and
what has come of it? Where is the gain to balance it? Cajoled by the
demon that seduced me, cheated and flung aside--suspected, degraded,
demoralized--a wanderer, a villain, a cur--the friend of rogues, and
myself their fittest fellow--Heaven is strong, and justice
oppressive.--_Munda cor meum ac labia mea!_ for I blaspheme!"
Thus muttered the distracted Camarga, for it was he who gave vent to
such troubled expressions. Some of these were uttered so loudly, that
they seemed to reach the ear of the fugitive, who turned round, looked
back for a moment, and then diving into a misty hollow, was for a short
time concealed from his eyes.
"Ay,--fly, fly!" he muttered, gnashing his teeth; "fly, wretch, fly! But
wert thou fleeter than the mountain-deer, thou couldst not escape the
fiend that is already tearing at thy vitals. Fling thyself into the
lake, too, and after death, open thine eyes upon a phantom of horror,
that will sit before thee for ever!"
Then pursuing with greater activity, he again caught sight of the
fugitive, who was ascending the little promontory of the cypress-tree,
on which Juan Lerma had first beheld the faces of his countrymen.
"And Hernan Cortes will yet have me speak the story!" he murmured. "Be
it so--live she or die she, he shall hear it, and curse the curiosity
that compelled it. Ay! and his anguish will be some set-off to the joy
of having triumphed over the poor wretch he persecuted. God rest thee,
Juan Lerma! for thou at least hast died in ignorance; and but for this
mischance,--this fatal mischance,--hadst been worthy of a better fate,
and therefore saved from destruction."
As he uttered these broken words, he perceived La Monjonaza,--for it was
this unhappy creature whom he followed,--steal over the mound to the
right hand, as if turning her steps from the lake landward. But being
aware that she had beheld him, and suspecting this to be merely a feint,
designed to mislead him, he directed his course to the water-side, and
stepping among the rocks and brambles at the base of the hill, passed it
in time to behold Magdalena stalking, with a countenance of distraction,
towards the lake, as if impelled by some terrible goadings of mind, to
self-destruction.
"Wretched creature!" he cried, springing forwards, and staying her
frenzied steps, "what is this you do? Fling not away the grace that is
in wait.--_You_, at least, may live and be forgiven."
To his great surprise, the unhappy girl, whose countenance had indicated
all the iron determination of desperation, offered not the slightest
resistance, while he drew her from the water-side; but turning towards
him with the face of a maiden detected in some merry and harmless
mischief, she began to laugh; but immediately afterwards, burst into
tears.
"Good heavens!" said Camarga, with compassion, "are you indeed brought
to this pass? What! the mind that even amazed Don Hernan--is it gone?
wholly gone? Miserable Magdalena! this is the fruit of sin!"
At the sound of a name, so seldom pronounced in these lands, the lady
rose from the rock, on which she had suffered herself to be seated,
although it was observable that she showed no symptoms of surprise. She
gazed fixedly at Camarga for an instant, and a dark frown gathering on
her brows, she turned to depart, without reply. Camarga, however,
detained her, and would have spoken; but no sooner did she feel his hand
laid upon her mantle than she turned suddenly round, with a look of
inexpressible fierceness, saying, with the sternest accents of a voice
always strikingly expressive,
"Who art thou, that comest between me and my purpose? If a priest or an
angel, fly,--for here thou art with contamination; if a man, and a bad
man, still fly, lest thou be struck dead with the breath of one deeper
plunged in guilt than thyself.--If a devil, then remain, and claim thy
prey from the apostate and murderess. Dost thou forbid me even to die?"
"Ay--I do," replied Camarga, trembling, yet less at her terrible
countenance than her fearful expressions: "I am one who, in the name of
heaven,--a name which is alike polluted: in thy mouth and in
mine--command thee to recall thy senses, if they have not utterly fled,
and bid thee, thinking of self-slaughter no longer, leave this land of
wretchedness, and, in a cloister, and with a life of penitence, obtain
the pardon which heaven will not perhaps withhold."
"Pardon comes not without punishment," said Magdalena, sternly; "and I
would not that it should: and for penitence,--the moaning regret that
exists without torture and suffering,--know that it is but a mockery.
Kill thy friend, and repent,--yet dream not of paradise. Scourge
thyself, die on the rack or gibbet, and await thy fate in the grave.
Begone; or rest where thou art, and follow me no more."
"Till thou die, or till thou art lodged within the walls of a convent,"
said Camarga, grasping her arm with a strength and determination she
could not resist: "thus far will I follow thee, rave thou never so much.
Oh, wretched creature! and wert thou about to rush into the presence of
thy Maker, unshriven, unrepenting, unprepared?"
Magdalena surveyed him with a look that changed gradually from anger to
wistful emotion; and then again shedding tears, she dropped on her
knees, saying, with a tone and manner that went to his heart,
"I will shrive me then, and then let me go, for thy presence persecutes
me.--Well, and perhaps it is better; for it is long since I have looked
upon a man of God--long since I have spoken with any just Christian but
_one_,--and him I have given up to the murderers. Hear me then, and then
absolve or condemn as thou wilt, for I judge myself; and I confess to
thee, only that my words may drive thee away, as would the moans of a
coming pestilence. Hear me then, friar, and then begone from me."
"Arise," said Camarga, "I seek not thy confession, at least not now: I
have that will draw it from thee, at a fitter time and place. In this
distant spot, thou art exposed to danger from the infidels."
"If thou fearest them, away! Why dost thou trouble me? If thou stayest,
listen to my words; for though they come too late, yet will they cause
thee to do justice to the name, and say masses for the soul, of Juan
Lerma."
"Speak of Juan Lerma," said Camarga, with a trembling voice, "and I will
indeed listen to thee. _In nomine Dei Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus
Sancti_, speak and speak truly. Cursed be thou, even by my lips, if thou
speakest that which is false, or concealest aught that is true!"
"Truth, though I die,--and let me die when it is spoken," said
Magdalena, placing her lips with the instinctive reverence of habit to
the cross which Camarga extended. As she kissed it, her heart seemed to
soften, and she shed many bitter tears, while pouring forth her broken
and melancholy story.
"Know, father," she said, not once doubting that she had a true father
of the church before her, "that it was my misfortune never to have known
the kindness and care of a parent."
"Let that be passed," said Camarga, hurriedly. "Speak not of the sins of
thy youth, a thousand times confessed, and a thousand times absolved.
Speak of thy coming to the island,--of thy broken vows,--thy--" But here
perceiving that Magdalena started with a sort of affright, at finding
how far his knowledge had anticipated her divulgements, he continued,
with better discretion, "Thus much do I know--_how_ I know, ask not; and
yet thou mayst be told, too, that much of thy fate was interwoven with
that of Villafana."
"_My_ fate, and that of Villafana!" cried Magdalena, with a withering
look of contempt. But instantly changing to a more submissive air, she
exclaimed, "My _story_, indeed, father, but not my fate. If he have
confessed to you, then do you know enough,--perhaps all. He told you,
then, that his avarice, gratified at the expense of a horrible
crime,--the destruction of the ship, and the lives of all within it,
abbess, nuns, sailors, and all,--was the cause of all my calamities,
since it was my hard fate not to perish with the rest. He robbed the
ship of the golden and silver church-vessels, when we were near to the
port, and made his escape to the shore, leaving us to sink in the midst
of a storm then rising. Our pilot having no hope but in running upon the
shore, then within sight, ran the vessel among certain rocks, where it
was beaten to pieces. Father, it chanced to be my fate, and mine alone,
to be plucked out of that roaring sea, by one to whom, when lying in a
gulf ten times more hideous, I refused to stretch out my hand. Father!
last night a word from my lips would have saved the life of Juan Lerma,
and I did not speak it!"
"Dwell not on this," said Camarga, sternly. "Rather thank heaven that
thou wert rendered unable by any exercise of criminal love, to preserve
on the earth's surface a wretch, at whose footstep it shuddered."
"Hah!" cried Magdalena, starting up in a transport of indignation, and
sending daggers from her eyes, "who art thou, that speakest so falsely
and foully of Juan Lerma? Wert thou, instead of a pattering friar, a
canonized saint in heaven, still wert thou but a thing of dross and
earth, compared with him thou malignest!"
Before Camarga could rebuke this burst of passion, she sank, as before,
to the earth, weeping afresh; for she was in that pitiable state of
mental feebleness, in which life seems only to continue in impulses,--a
chain of convulsions and exhaustions. "Alas, father," she continued,
with sobs, "you have been taught, like the rest, to misconceive and
belie the best and most unfortunate of men;--for such is Juan
Lerma;--and you have perhaps joined with the rest to compass his
destruction. Has he wronged you? no--you have imagined a wrong. Has he
wronged Cortes? no--he has wronged no one; but the ear of Cortes was
open to his enemies. Hear me, father, and while you condemn me, listen
to the refutation of slander. Father, when I opened mine eyes to the
light, and in the presence of him who had saved me, I forgot my vows;
nay, I thought that heaven had absolved them in the wreck, and ordained
that I should be happy in a new existence. Never before had I looked
upon the world, and the people of the world,--never before had I looked
upon Juan Lerma. When had I seen one smile upon me with affection?
Father, for a second such smile, I would have moaned again on the wreck,
seeing my companions swept from me one by one. I grew cunning and
deceitful, and when they asked me of the ship and people, I told them
falsehoods, lest they should bring me the veil and the priest, and carry
me from his presence. Alas! and my deceit availed not; he smiled no
more; and when Hilario spoke of affection--affection for me,--Juan Lerma
withdrew without a sigh, without a struggle."
"Saints of heaven!" cried Camarga, starting with horror, gasping for
breath, and, in the sense of suffocation, forgetting his assumed
character so much as to fling back the cowl that had concealed his
features. "Dost thou speak me the truth? On thy life,--on thy hopes of
heaven's forgiveness,--on thy love even for this lost, perhaps this
dead, youth,--I charge thee speak me the truth. Went there no more than
this between you? And Juan Lerma loved you not? and Villafana belied ye
both? And you are not--"
He paused in agitation, unable to utter another word; and Magdalena,
surprised as much at his extraordinary interest in her story, as well as
confounded by the absence of the tonsure, and the glittering of an iron
gorget about his throat, seemed for a moment unable to answer his
questions. But summoning her spirits at last, she said,
"Thou art not a priest, but a layman, a stranger, and a man of sin! But
be who thou wilt, friend or foe, thou knowest now enough of my history
to be entitled to know all. Never did man couple my name with shame, and
think of any but him who died under the dagger of Villafana. As for Juan
Lerma, not even Cortes, his bitterest enemy, would dare accuse him of a
deed of dishonour. Stranger, if thou art interested in the betrayed and
murdered Juan, know at least that he died innocent of any wrong to
Magdalena."
"Now God be praised for this good word!" said Camarga, dropping on his
knees, and speaking with what seemed a distraction of fervour and
delight: "God be praised that I may not think, at my death-hour, that my
sins have caused among my children the crime of incest! God be praised!
God be praised!"
"Incest! _Thy_ children!" exclaimed Magdalena, wildly. "What art thou?
What is this thou sayst?"
"What do I say I and why need I say it?" cried Camarga, springing up and
wringing his hands--"have we not slain him among us? Oh, wretched
Magdalena, if, by thine influence, he was brought to this pass, know
that thou hast slain thine own brother!"
At this strange and exciting revelation, Magdalena, who had, in the
ecstacy of expectation, seized upon Camarga's hands with a convulsive
grasp, uttered a scream, wild, loud, and thrilling, and yet how unlike
to that which rose from her breaking heart in the prison! It was some
such cry as might be supposed to come from a despairing Christian, who
finds that the gates, which he thinks are conducting him to hell, have
suddenly ushered him into the walks of paradise. It mingled fear and
astonishment with joy, but joy predominant over the others; and though
it sounded as if coming from a bursting heart, it was as if from one
bursting in the over-bound and expansion of a breast released from a
mountain of oppression. It echoed over the lake, and seemed to have
called up the spirits thereof; for before its last hysterical echo had
vibrated on the ear, there sprang up, as if they had risen from the
earth or the waters, six or seven athletic barbarians, flourishing heavy
macanas, who rushed at once upon the pair.
At the sight of such unexpected and formidable antagonists, though taken
entirely by surprise, Camarga snatched his concealed sword from the
scabbard, leaped with great intrepidity betwixt Magdalena and the
nearest savage, who seemed the leader of the party, and made a blow at
him, while calling to her,
"Fly! fly! and tell Cortes that thy brother--" But his lips finished not
the sentence. Whether it was that he was rendered helpless by long
continued disease, was embarrassed by the friar's cassock, or was really
unskilful in the use of weapons, it is certain that his blade dropped
harmless on the macana of the warrior. Before he could recover his
guard, the battle-axe of the Mexican fell upon his head with deadly
violence, and he rolled, to all appearance a dying man, on the ground.
At the same instant, another warrior clutched upon Magdalena, who,
though pale as death, and agitated by a long succession of passions, yet
drew the dagger she always carried at her girdle, and aimed it at the
breast of the infidel. Before it could do him any harm, it was snatched
out of her hand, and she herself caught up as by the grasp of a giant,
in the arms of the leader, and hurried to the water. In an instant more,
she was placed in a piragua, which her capturers drew from a reed-brake
hard by, and secured, though not rudely, beyond the possibility of
further resistance, among the infidels. They caught up their paddles,
uttered a wild yell, and the next moment dashed from the shore, and were
hidden among the mists of the lake.