Calavar Part 27

"Oh, senor! and he escaped unharmed?" cried the boy.

"Verily without either bruise or wound, save that which was made on his soul, when I reproached him for deserting thee."

"I am deserted by all!" exclaimed Jacinto, clasping his hands.

"For the thousandth time, I tell thee, no!" said his patron: "And thy father made it apparent to me he abandoned thee unwillingly; nor would he leave me, though the pursuers were approaching fast, until he had exacted of me the very superfluous vow, that I would give thee a double protection from all wrong and injustice. Dry thy tears: I have already obtained of Cortes a promise of full pardon for Abdalla, when he returns to us, as doubtless he will, at Tenocht.i.tlan."

"I hope so! I pray he may!" said Jacinto, hurriedly; "or what, oh! what shall become of us!"

"I will have him sought out, and by-and-by take thee, and him along, to Cuenza. 'Tis hard by to Granada."

The boy remained silent, and Amador continued:--

"Thy father also showed me, that it was thy faithful love, in remaining by my kinsman during a swoon, which prevented thee from escaping with him. This, though it does not remove the fault of thy design, entirely forces me to pardon it; and indeed, Abdalla did as much as acknowledge thou wert averse to the plan."

"Senor, I was: for though our degradation was great, I knew not how much greater it might be among the pagans."

"Degradation! dost thou talk of degradation! In good faith, thou surprisest me!"

"Senor," said the boy, proudly, "though you will deride such vanity in poor barbarians of the desert, yet did we ever think ourselves, who had always been free and unenslaved, debased by servitude. At least, my father thought so; and I myself, though speedily solaced by the kindness which was shown me, could not but sometimes think it had been better to have perished with my father in the sea, along with our unhappy people, than to remain as I was,--and as I am,--a _servant_ in the house of my master!"

"A silly boy art thou, Jacinto," said Amador, surveying him with surprise: "for, first, thy office as the page of a most n.o.ble and renowned knight, is such a one as would be coveted by any grandee's son, however n.o.ble, who aspired to the glory of arms and knighthood; and I admonish thee, that, had not his infirmity driven Don Gabriel from Spain entirely without the knowledge of his servants, thou shouldst have seen the son of a very proud and lofty n.o.bleman attending him in the very quality which thou thinkest so degrading. I did myself, though very nearly related to him, and though sprung of such blood as acknowledges none superior, not even in the king that sits on the throne, enter first into his service in the same quality of page; and, trust me, I esteemed it great honour. In the second place, I marvel at thee, having already confessed that thy service is both light and pleasant."

"It is even so, senor," said the boy, meekly, "and I am not often so foolish as to repent me. It was not because I thought so yesternight, but because my father bade me, that I strove to escape from it; for he was in danger, or feared he was, and it was my duty to follow him without repining."

"I come now to ask thee another question," said the neophyte. "By what good fortune was it, that thou stumbledst upon my kinsman, among the ruins of that profane pyramid?"

"It was there, senor, that the princes met us."

"Hah! Oh, then, thou wert plotting with my bold prince, hah! Faith, a very valiant pagan! and in no wise resembling the varlets of Cuba. If thou knowest aught of these men that may concern our leader to know, it will be thy duty to report the same to him Jacinto, and that without delay."

"Nothing, senor," said the page, hastily. "I discovered that my father was to fly with the amba.s.sadors; that he was to seek them at the pyramid; and it was there we found my master swooning."

"Didst thou see aught there that was remarkable, or in any way inexplicable?"

"I saw my lord fainting, my father and the princes flying, and the soldiers pursuing and shooting both with cross-bow and musket."

"'Tis already," said the cavalier, turning his eye askaunt to Don Gabriel, "yet I know not by what revealment, whispered through the army, that my kinsman saw a spectre,--some devilish fiend, that, in the moment of his doubt, struck him to the earth!"

"Ay!" said Jacinto, turning towards the knight, and eyeing him with a look of horror; "he thought 'twas Zayda, whom he slew so barbarously among the Alpujarras!"

The cavalier laid his hand upon Jacinto's shoulder, sternly,--

"What art thou saying?--what art thou thinking? Hast thou caught some of the silly fabrications of the soldiers? I warn thee to be guarded, when thou speakest of thy master."

"He confessed it to me!" said the page, trembling but not at the anger of his patron. "He killed her with his own hands, when she screened from his cruel rage her husband Alharef, his vowed and true friend!"

"Peace!--thou art mad!--'Twas the raving of his delirium.--There is no such being as Zayda."

"There is not, but there _was_," said Jacinto, mournfully.

"And how knowest thou that?" demanded Amador, quickly. "Thou speakest as if she had been thy kinswoman. Art thou indeed a conjuror? There is no dark and hidden story, with which thou dost not seem acquainted!"

"She was of my tribe," said Jacinto, mildly, though tremulously, returning the steadfast gaze of his patron: "I have heard my father speak of her, for she was famous among the mountains. Often has he repeated to me her sorrowful story,--how she drew upon herself the anger of her tribe, by preserving their foe, and how their foe repaid her by--oh heaven! by murdering her! Often have I heard of Zayda; but I knew not 'twas Calavar who killed her!"

"Can this be true?" said Amador, looking blankly towards his unconscious kinsman. "Is it possible my father can have stained his soul with so foul, so deadly, so fearful a crime! And he confessed it to thee? to thee, a boy so foolish and indiscreet that thou hast already babbled it to another?"

"I could not help speaking it _this_ time," said Jacinto, humbled at the reproach; "but if my lord will forgive me, I will never speak it more."

"I do forgive thee, Jacinto, as I hope heaven will my father. This then is the sin unabsolved, the action of wrath, the memory of sorrow, that has slain the peace of my kinsman? May heaven have pity on him, for it has punished him with a life of misery. I forgive thee, Jacinto: speak of this no more; think of it no more; let it be forgotten--now and for ever,--Amen!--I have but one more question to ask thee; and this I am, in part, driven to by thy admission of the most wondrous fact, that Don Gabriel confessed to _thee_ his secret. Many of thine actions have filled me with wonder; thy knowledge is, for thy years, inexplicable; and thou minglest with thy boyish simplicity the shrewdness of years.

Dost thou truly obtain thy knowledge by the practice of those arts, which so many allow to be possessed by Botello?"

"Senor!" exclaimed the boy, startled by the abruptness of the question.

"Art thou, indeed, an enchanter, as Yacub charged thee to be?--Give me to understand, for it is fitting I should know."

The exceeding and earnest gravity with which the cavalier repeated the question, dispelled as well the grief as the fears of the page. He cast his eyes to the earth, but this action did not conceal the humour that sparkled in them, while he replied,--

"If I were older, and had as much acquaintance with the people as Botello, I think I could prophesy as well as he; especially if my lord Don Hernan would now and then give me a hint or two concerning his designs and expectations, such as, it has been whispered, he sometimes vouchsafes to Botello. I have no crystal-imp like him indeed, but I possess one consecrated gem that can call me up, at any time, a thousand visions. It seems to me, too, that I can recall the dead; for once or twice I have done it, though very much to my own marvelling."

"Thou art an enigma," said Don Amador. "What thou sayest of Botello, a.s.sures me the more of thy subtle and penetrating observation; what thou sayest of thyself, seems to me a jest; and yet it hath a singular accordance, as well with my own foolish fancies and the charges of that Moorish menial, as with the events of the two last nights. Either there is, indeed, something very supernatural in thy knowledge, or the delirium of my kinsman is a disease of the blood, which is beginning to a.s.sail my own brain. G.o.d preserve me from madness! Hearken in thine ear, (and fear not to answer me:)--Hadst thou any thing to do with the raising of the phantom thou callest Zayda?--or is it the confusion of my senses, that causes me to suspect thee of the agency?"

"Senor!" said the boy, in alarm, "you cannot think I was serious?"

"What didst thou mean, then, by acknowledging the possession of that consecrated and vision-raising jewel?"

"I meant," responded the youth, sadly, "that, being a gift a.s.sociated with all the joys of my happiest days, I never look at it, or pray over it, without being beset by recollections, which may well be called visions; for they are representations of things that have pa.s.sed away."

"And the story of Leila?--Pho--'tis an absurdity!--I have heard that the cold which freezes men to death, begins by setting them to sleep. Sleep brings dreams; and dreams are often most vivid and fantastical, before we have yet been wholly lost in slumber. Perhaps 'tis this most biting and benumbing blast, that brings me such phantoms. Art thou not very cold?"

"Not very, senor: methinks we are descending; and now the winds are not so frigid as before."

"I would to heaven, for the sake of us all, that we were descended yet lower; for night approaches, and still we are stumbling among these clouds, that seem to separate us from earth, without yet advancing us nearer to heaven."

While the cavalier was yet speaking, there came from the van of the army, very far in the distance, a shout of joy, that was caught up by those who toiled in his neighbourhood, and continued by the squadrons that brought up the rear, until finally lost among the echoes of remote cliffs. He pressed forward with the animation shared by his companions, and, still leading Jacinto, arrived, at last, at a place where the mountain dipped downwards with so sudden and so precipitous a declivity, as to interpose no obstacle to the vision. The mists were rolling away from his feet in huge wreaths, which gradually, as they became thinner, received and transmitted the rays of an evening sun, and were lighted up with a golden and crimson radiance, glorious to behold, and increasing every moment in splendour. As this superb curtain was parted from before him, as if by cords that went up to heaven, and surged voluminously aside, he looked over the heads of those that thronged the side of the mountain beneath, and saw, stretching away like a picture touched by the hands of angels, the fair valley imbosomed among those romantic hills, whose shadows were stealing visibly over its western slopes, but leaving all the eastern portion dyed with the tints of sunset. The green plains studded with yet greener woodlands; the little mountains raising their fairy-like crests; the lovely lakes, now gleaming like floods of molten silver, where they stretched into the suns.h.i.+ne, and now vanis.h.i.+ng away, in a shadowy expanse, under the gloom of the growing twilight; the structures that rose, vaguely and obscurely, here from their verdant margins, and there from their very bosom, as if floating on their placid waters, seeming at one time to present the image of a city crowned with towers and pinnacles, and then again broken by some agitation of the element, or confused by some vapour swimming through the atmosphere, into the mere fragments and phantasms of edifices,--these, seen in that uncertain and fading light, and at that misty and enchanting distance, unfolded such a spectacle of beauty and peace as plunged the neophyte into a revery of rapture. The trembling of the page's hand, a deep sigh that breathed from his lips, recalled him to consciousness, without however dispelling his delight.

"By the cross which I wors.h.i.+p!" he cried, "it fills me with amazement, to think that this cursed and malefactious earth doth contain a spot that is so much like to paradise! Now do I remember me of the words of the senor Gomez, that 'no man could conceive of heaven, till he had looked upon the valley of Mexico,'--an expression which, at that time, I considered very absurd, and somewhat profane; yet, if I am not now mistaken, I shall henceforth, doubtless, when figuring to my imagination the seats of bliss, begin by thinking of this very prospect."

"It is truly a fairer sight than any we saw in Florida, most n.o.ble senor," said a voice hard by.

The cavalier turned, and with not less satisfaction than surprise, (for the delight of the moment had greatly warmed his heart,) beheld, in the person of the speaker, the master of the caravel.

"Oho! senor Capitan!" cried Don Amador, stretching out his hand to the bowing commander. "I vow, I am as much rejoiced to see thee, as if we had been companions together in war. What brings thee hither to look on these inimitable landscapes? Art thou come, to disprove thy accounts of the people of Tenocht.i.tlan? I promise thee, I have heard certain stories, and seen certain sights, which greatly shake my faith in thy representations.--What news dost thou bring me of my kinsman, the admiral?"

"Senor," said the master, "the stars have a greater influence over our destinies, than have our desires. It seems to me, that that very astonis.h.i.+ng victory of the most n.o.ble and right valiant senor, Don Hernan, at Zempoala, did utterly turn the brains of all the sailors in the fleet: and his excellency the admiral having declared himself a friend to the conqueror, they were all straightway seized with such an ambition to exchange the handspike for the halbert, and mine own thirteen vagabonds among them, that, in an hour's time after the news, my good caravel was as well freed of men as ever I have known her cleared of rats, after a smoking of brimstone. So, perceiving the folly of remaining in her alone, and receiving the a.s.surance from my knaves that, if I went with them, I should be their captain, and his excellency consenting to the same, I forthwith armed myself with these rusty plates, (wherein you may see some of the dints battered by the red devils of Florida,) and was converted into a soldier,--the captain of the smallest company in this goodly army, and perhaps the most cowardly; for never did I before hear men grumble with such profane discontent, as did these same knaves, this very day, at the cold airs of the mountain.

If they will fight, well; if they will not, and anybody else will, may I die the death of a mule, if I will not make them; for one hath a better and stronger command in an army than in a s.h.i.+p. Last night I came to that great town they call Cholula, and was confirmed in my command by the general.--His excellency, the admiral, bade me commend his love to your wors.h.i.+p; and hearing that you have enlisted his secretary into your service, sends, by me, a better suit of armour for the youth, and prays your favour will have him in such keeping, that he shall be cured of his fit of valour, without the absolute loss of life, or his right hand, which last would entirely unfit him for returning to his ancient duties,--as, by my faith! so would the former. But, by'r lady, my thoughts run somewhat a wool-gathering at this prospect; for I see very clearly, 'tis a rich land here, that hath such admirable cities; and, I am told, we shall have blows enow, by and by, with the varlets in the valley. Nevertheless, I am ready to wager my soul against a cotton neck-piece, that, if these infidels have half the spirit of the savages of Florida, we shall be beaten, and sent to heaven, Amen!--that is, for the matter of heaven, and not the beating!"

"I applaud thy resolution, mine ancient friend," said the cavalier, "and methinks thou art more vigorous, both of body and mind, on land than thou wert at sea. I will, by and by, send the secretary to receive the armour, and will not forget his excellency's bidding, as far as is possible. But let us not, by conversation, distract our thoughts from this most lovely spectacle; for I perceive it will be soon enveloped in darkness; and how know we, we shall ever look upon it again?"