"Hark!--Ah, 'tis the sound of oars! One of the night-ships is approaching the dike. What's in the wind now?--Hah, sirrah! what brings thee out of limits?"

These words were directed to a tall man, cloaked to the eyes, whom they had not before noticed, who stood hard by, peering into the lake, as if he sought to discover the approaching vessel. Najara hobbled up to him, in no little dudgeon, and repeated the question, before the stranger deigned to answer him. He then turned, and replied, with great coolness,

"Curiosity, crookback, curiosity,--some little itching to know how thou and thy brother a.s.s, Bernal Diaz, discourse of thy betters. Well, rogues, have you done? have you despatched mine honour twice over again?

I am not in good odour, hah? I have murdered Camarga, and suborned Indians to invent fables of La Monjonaza? Out upon ye, fools! I thought thou wert not so sodden-brained, Najara!"

As if his voice were not enough to make him known, the cavalier removed the cloak from his visage, and exhibited the iron features of Don Francisco de Guzman, illuminated by the watchfire hard by. There was something about his countenance unusually dark and fierce; yet he did not speak angrily, although Najara perceived he must have overheard some of his concluding expressions. But Najara was not a man to be daunted even by a stronger arm and a sterner eye. He replied therefore, with composure,

"What we have said, senor Don Francisco, we have said, and may take the same liberty again. But under your favour, senor, I am, just now, the captain of the guard; and as I cannot number you among my company, I must e'en make bold to ask your will, as well as your business, here, in advance of the post?"

"Thou shalt ask, and be answered," said Guzman, clapping his fingers to his lips, and whistling with a strength that might have done honour to the neighbouring infidels, though in a manner differing entirely from any of their signals. "One, two,--three,--and _too-whit! too-whit!_ like a hungry kite in the morning! Dost thou understand _that_, mi Corcobado?

If thou dost not, then _poco a poco, y paciencia_, as we say after dinner; for presently thou shalt be made wiser. After which, get thee to thy dogs there, in the mud, and snore with them.--Ah, _amigo y hermano_!

Garci, _mi corazoncito_! I will know thy pipe among a thousand, for it whistles out of the nose, like the hiss of a serpent!--Fare ye well, patches; and heaven send ye a rough rouse in the morning."

While the cavalier was yet speaking, a little boat from the brigantine, the heavy oars of which they had long since heard, though they could scarce trace it in the gloom, shot against the causeway; and an officer of a powerful frame and forbidding aspect, just rendered visible by the fire, rising up, extended his hand to Guzman, who immediately jumped aboard, and took a seat at his side. It was then pushed off, and soon vanished on the lake.

"There they go," said Najara, not without admiration, "two imps after the devil's own liking, strong-handed, tough-headed, hard-hearted! Wo betide ye, brown lambkins of Mexico! for these wolves have scented a hole in your pinfold. I tell thee, Bernal, man, we shall have rare work to-morrow, and these men will make it rarer. When the gall comes from Guzman's lips, the devil is waked up in his liver. 'A rough rouse in the morning!' For thy good wish, mayst thou have as rugged a couch in the evening--Amen! for I love thee not."

CHAPTER XIII.

The two subalterns now rejoined their companions, and pa.s.sing them, as they stood patiently to their arms, waiting for the dawn and the battle, they crept through the sleepers towards the cannon, which were placed in the rear, the cannoniers sleeping around them. Here, they found a solitary individual of the watch they had relieved, leaning moodily against one of the pieces, instead of sharing the slumber of his comrades.

Bernal Diaz surveyed him for a moment, and then touched him on the shoulder:

"Townsman," said he, "it is but a foolish thing of thee to stand upon thy legs, watching, when thy guard duty is over. Sleep a little, Gaspar--We shall have toilsome work to-morrow."

"Sleep thyself, Bernal," replied Gaspar Olea. "What care I for sleep?

Come, get thee into the mud, and I will take thy place. Thou shalt have my cloak, too, if thou wilt, to keep the rain out--I can warm me by walking."

"I will do no such thing," said Bernal, grasping the hand of his friend, though Gaspar turned from him, and seemed desirous to continue the conversation no longer; "if thou wilt wake, why well. I will talk thee out of thy melancholy. Thou art very much changed, Gaspar. I know not why thou shouldst grieve after this boy. Thou must now confess, he is unworthy thy friendship."

Gaspar returned no answer, and Bernal continued to give consolation by inflicting pain,--which is the common way.

"It is allowed by all, that he is a renegade; and doubtless, also, he has become a worshipper of false G.o.ds; for he who will turn his sword against his countrymen, is a rogue and a blasphemer--That is my opinion.

Gil Ortaga said--"

"The fiend seize Ortaga, and thee into the bargain!" said Gaspar, angrily. "If a deer be wounded, and hide himself in a by-way, his fellows will not hunt after him, to gore him!--Why shouldst thou have less humanity than a deer?"

"Come, Gaspar, if I have offended thee, I ask thy pardon," said Bernal Diaz; "for thou art my townsman and friend, though we have quarrelled sometimes; and what I say, I say with a good meaning."

Gaspar looked over his shoulder, and finding that Najara had returned to the front, he grasped Bernal's hand, and said earnestly,

"Let there be ill will and ill words between us no more; for who knows what may come to us to-morrow? I know what is said of Juan Lerma. He is with the infidels--but what drove him among them? He is a renegade, too,--yet what made him so? He teaches the enemy to cut ditches and throw up ramparts, to lay ambushes and attack ships, and a thousand other feats and stratagems, not to be looked for among barbarians. This they say,--all say; and some swear they have seen him, in a Mexican cloak, fighting at the head of the pagans, and knew him by his stature and voice. Let us believe all this--What then? Bernal, it is a thought that preys upon me, remembering his honour, his goodness, and truth,--and this it is,--that a d.a.m.nable malice has driven him, against his own will, into the den of perdition. Hark thee, here, in thine ear--Thou rememberest the expedition to the South Sea? Before that, thou knowest, I was in great favour with Cortes, whom I loved well, for he had done me many good deeds in Cuba. About that time, Juan Lerma lost favour, and no one knew why; for as to censuring the indignities offered to Montezuma, that was a crime committed by some hundreds besides, who were never punished. The cause, Bernal, the true cause,--I would I might tell thee the true cause: but I swore an oath never to breathe it to mortal man. But _this_ I may speak, (and thou must afterwards forget it.) I see things more clearly than I did before; and methinks, this night, mine eyes are further opened. I see very well, that we are all deluded and abused, and Juan Lerma an innocent man. Hearken then to what I say. One night, Cortes came to me, looking more like a demon than a man, and he said to me, 'Gaspar Olea, thou must kill me a snake, that has stung me upon the breast.' And with that he told me a thing, which I cannot speak; but this followed--I agreed that I would kill Juan Lerma."

"Thou art beside thyself, Gaspar!" said Bernal, with the utmost astonishment.

"I had good reason given to me," continued Olea; "and at that time I had but little acquaintance with the young man, and no love; and I was bound very strongly to Cortes. Understand me, Bernal: I did not consent to play the part of an a.s.sa.s.sin, for that was no part for Gaspar Olea. But being convinced the thing was just, and that the young man was a knave deserving death, I agreed to exasperate him into a quarrel; wherein I appeased my conscience, by thinking of the risk I ran, he being reckoned very good at all weapons. But what dost thou think? The very next night comes me Cortes again, with quite another story. 'Gaspar,' said he, 'the thing I told thee was false, and I have done the young man a wrong.

Wherefore, quarrel with him not, and forget what I have told thee;'

adding many things which satisfied my mind, that the youth was an innocent man, very basely slandered. This caused me to think well of him; and I consented to go with him to the South Sea. There, Bernal, I learned to love him, for he was brave, and n.o.ble, and good;--ay, by my faith, I loved him better than ever I had loved the general. But 'What then?' you will say; 'Whereto tends this?' To this--and it is d.a.m.nable to think upon: The General deceived me,--he repented having made me his confidant; but he still longed for the blood of Juan Lerma. Hence the South Sea scheme, devised for our destruction--(At this moment, I see it plainly,)--for Juan's, because of the General's hate, and for _mine_, Bernal, because he had confided to me a secret of which he was ashamed.

Ay, by my faith! he repented him that pa.s.sion had made him so indiscreet; and therefore designed to put me out of the way. The soldiers have a story that he was angry with me for some freedom of speech. This is false. He smiled on me to the last, and thus lulled my fears. Neither Juan nor myself had any suspicion of evil intentions. He made it appear, that the expedition was given to us, because of his regard for our courage; and he deigned to tell me in secret, that his chief reason for sending Lerma, was that he might be angered no longer by his censures,--Juan being then very melancholy and peevish, in consequence of the death of some old companion he had killed in Espanola. But, Bernal, he deceived us both, as I can now see clearly. He made it appear to the soldiers, that he was sorry to punish Juan--Nay some said he shed tears, among the Indians, when he signed the death-warrant. But this was hypocrisy. I know that he was rejoiced; for he remembered the old cause, and abhorred him."

"Marry," said Bernal Diaz, "it cannot be doubted he did. But the cause, Gaspar? I do not ask thee, what it was: but was it enough to excuse such rancour?"

"If true, _yes_," replied Gaspar, with deep emphasis: "But it was not true. Juan was innocent. I have probed his heart a thousand times, while we were in the desert together, and when he knew not what I was doing.

He has not wronged Cortes--no, nor any other living creature. This I told the General, when we returned to Tezcuco, after the campaign round the lake. But what wouldst thou think? He averred that he had forgot the thing;--that it was very foolish;--a groundless slander brought against Juan by an enemy;--that he loved him as well as ever, and proceeded against him only on account of broken laws and decrees;--that he durst not pardon him, since his affection was well known, (his _affection_, Bernal!) and the men would cry out against his favouritism. I knew he spoke falsely, and so I told him. He hardened my heart; and then I ran to Villafana, who had the power to save him, and promised to make him our chief captain."

"Now that you speak of Villafana," said Bernal, "it reminds me of this: Why, had Juan Lerma been a man of honour and a Christian, should he have joined in the murderous plots of that detestable traitor?"

"Thou shouldst ask that of _me_," said Gaspar, fiercely. "But it matters not. Who says that Juan Lerma joined him? Najara avers that he kept them from speech together; and Luis Raf.a.ga, who died of the wounds he got among the piraguas, a week since, declared to his comrades as well as the priest, (and being of the prison-guard, he knew all,) that Juan fought in the prison with Villafana, about the list, the very night that Villafana was hanged, and would have been killed, but for the coming of La Monjonaza. I saw the traitor, myself, when he came among the cavaliers; and he was hurt in the shoulder. Does this look like joining him? Trust me, Bernal, we have done a great wrong to my young captain; and I cannot die, without thinking that I leave behind me one man, at least, to do him justice. This is what I say:--Not his crime, but the general's secret malice, has driven him among the infidels. He is a prisoner with them, or perhaps he has already died the death of sacrifice. They lie, who say they have seen, or will see him in arms against us. On this I will gage my life; and I pray heaven to take it, the moment the pledge is forfeited! I swear it--Amen."

The worst point in the character of a dog, is that, in all the quarrels betwixt others of his species, he always takes part against the feebler.

In this particular, he is sometimes aped by his master,--not, indeed, in an absolute conflict between man and man; for ninety in a hundred will, in such case, befriend the weaker party,--but in those combats which an individual wages with an evil destiny. Ill thoughts naturally follow upon ill luck; and it is the curse of misfortune to be followed by ungenerous suspicion and still more odious crimination. As the whole army were acquainted with the manner of Juan's flight, or rather captivity, they did not hesitate to believe him up in arms against them; and every repulse which they endured from the barbarians, they traced to the malignance and activity of the exile's treason. Fear and invention together clothed him with the vestments of a fallen angel; and if some savage, more gigantic and ferocious than the rest, distinguished himself in the front of battle, straightway a dozen voices invoked curses upon the head of the unhappy Lerma. There were few who did not forget his sorrows and wrongs, and speak of him only with execrations; and many had already begun to antic.i.p.ate, as the chief triumph of victory, and the most delightful of all their hopes, the privilege of burning him alive on the temple-top, or even sacrificing him to their vengeance, after the equally horrific manner of the Mexicans.

While Bernal Diaz was thus conversing with the outcast's only friend, there came from the distant gates of Xoloc, a suppressed hum, as of an army arising from its slumbers. This was soon followed by the sound of heavy bodies of men, approaching over the causeway; and it soon became evident, that the morn was to be ushered in with the usual horrors of contention.

"Up, knaves!" cried the voice of the hunchback, "ye grumbling, growling, wallowing, swine, that call yourselves lions and tigers! up, and shake the clay from your cloaks, before it is trodden off by the hoofs of the hors.e.m.e.n!"

As he spoke, a cavalier galloped up to the party, and drawing in his steed, while the men rose to their feet, he exclaimed,

"_Halon_, Najara, man! where art thou? Dost thou talk thus in thy sleep?"

"Ay, may it please your excellency," said the hunchback, recognizing the voice of Cortes; "for it is well, on such a post, that a soldier should have the faculty of issuing commands asleep, as well as waking."

"Dost thou hear, Diaz?" muttered Gaspar in his companion's ear. "Wouldst thou think now to what the devil has tempted me, ever since I have seen clearly that of which I have spoken? I tell thee, man, I have sometimes thought it were but a turn of good friendship, to kill the man who has brought these things upon Juan Lerma!"

"Thou art mad!" said the historian in alarm. But his further remonstrance was cut short by Cortes riding by, and even urging his charger, though at a cautious pace, beyond the watchfire, as if to reconnoitre with his own eyes, the situation of the foe.

"Fear me not," said Gaspar, bitterly. "You shall see me do what I have done before at Xochimilco,--pluck him out of the jaws of the devourers, if need be. I think I was then enchanted; for, when I saw the Indians have him off his horse, I said to myself, 'If I let him die now, no harm happens to Juan Lerma.' But come--let us follow after him. And bid some of your dull sluggards along with us, lest the pagans should make a sally from the rampart. Hark! he has ridden up, till their fire shines on his armour, and they see him! He will have the villains upon us, before the reinforcements arrive!"

The Captain-General did, indeed, advance so far that he was seen by the pagan sentinels, who whistled out a shrill note of alarm, and then bent their bows against him, till his corslet and the iron buckler which he carried before his face, rattled under the crashing arrowheads. Thus admonished, he rode a little back, and was joined by three or four other cavaliers, who came galloping up from the causeway.

"What say ye, cavaliers?" he cried. "Methinks there is not even a duck lying near the causey-side, much less a brace or two of my brigantines."

"If your excellency be looking for the ships," said Najara, "I can satisfy your mind. There were some five or six here an hour since: I heard the plunging of their anchors on both sides of the dike."

"Ah! I will set thine ears against mine eyes any dark morn, Corcobado.--Fetch up the Indians, Quinones; and bid the hors.e.m.e.n follow at their heels. And hark ye, Najara,--let your drowsy knaves take post on the causey-sides, lest they be trampled to death under the feet of my red pioneers. Wheel up the pieces some ninety or an hundred paces in advance; and see that your matchsticks be dry and combustible. Where didst thou hear the sound of the anchors?"

"But a little distance on the lake; and methinks I can see two of the vessels on the left, betwixt us and the Indians.--His valour, Don Garci Holguin, did but now take up the senor Guzman--"

"A pest upon Guzman!" said the general, sharply. "Get thee to thy men, and move me the ordnance without delay."

"'A pest upon Guzman?'" muttered Gaspar. "I have a thought of him also; but I know not that he has done Juan a wrong. At all events, methinks, his case is like mine.--The general's secrets are unlucky."

With that, he retired, and took post among the soldiers.