Cortes had been hitherto standing fronting his discontented followers with an air of proud resolve, every inch the commander, and the indomitable discoverer and conqueror, but now his countenance suddenly changed, softened, and his lips trembled. He was the man with a genial temper and a warm heart once more—the very comrade indeed of the meanest soldier in his company, who bore all that they had to bear, eat the same food, and shared all the same privations and fatigues; or rather, differed in this, that he took the lion's share of every discomfort whenever it was possible.
As the exhausted man fell swooning into Montoro's ready arms, Cortes stepped forward hastily, and carefully aided in carrying him to his own tent, and there placed him in the clever care of Doña Marina, the interpreter.
"Poor fellow!" he ejaculated on his return to the waiting deputation. "Poor fellow! no wonder that he speaks down-heartedly, for I find that he has been badly wounded, and has fever."
"So have we all been wounded," said another of the group, but more calmly. "And for the fever, well, I may almost say, and so have we all got fever. And do you wonder, General, that it is so?"
A rather weary smile passed over the General's countenance as he replied,
"No, truly, I wonder not at all. I also have been wounded, as you know, in our late engagements with these brave Tlascalans, and I also have fever. But seeing that we all confess to having suffered so much to reach the threshold, shall we not adventure the one more step to enter the door?"
"If it were a step!" ejaculated the new spokesman. "But as it is, we live a worse life than our very animals. When the saddles are off them they can forget their troubles for a while, but for us! Ah! then, we have no dog's life indeed, but one much worse. Fighting and watching night and day, we have no rest till death steps up to put an end to all."
The speaker's words were hard, but they were uttered so temperately and firmly that Cortes replied to them in the like spirit—
"You are right, my brothers—no animal, no unreasoning beast of burden could endure the life we have borne for these past months of desperate adventure; neither could any animal be so buoyed up with lofty hopes, neither could it have so glorious a rejoicing if success should be the crown at last. Our God has helped us to bear and to overcome, as the gods of the ancients never helped even the very greatest of their heroes. None but Spaniards, my brothers, aided by the Spaniard's God and St. Jago, could have struggled onwards, always conquerors as we have been, a handful in the midst of myriads of foes. And remember—" And as Cortes uttered that word he paused, and looked round upon his followers ere he repeated impressively, "Remember, comrades, whatever adversities we have suffered, whatever trials, we have still ever advanced, we have made no step backwards from our undertaking. But you are all free men. We will all stand here and watch the man who first makes that step in retreat and he shall have no hindrance. I myself will be the first to bid him the 'good speed' of farewell."
"Poor fellows!" murmured Father Olmedo with a half-smile to Montoro. "Our General is indeed clever. Few would have found a way so well to give a choice that is no choice. How can any of them now accept his permission to be gone!"