They were in full armor, except that Alvarado’s squire carried his helmet for him. In preparation for the entry, their skilful furbishers had well renewed the original lustre of helm, gorget, breastplate, glaive, greave, and shield. The plumes in their crests, like the scarfs across their breasts, had been carefully preserved for such ceremonies. At the saddle-bows hung heavy hammers, better known as battle-axes. Rested upon the iron shoe, and balanced in the right hand, each carried a lance, to which, as the occasion was peaceful, a silken pennon was attached. The horses, opportunely rested in Iztapalapan, and glistening in mail, trod the causeway as if conscious of the terror they inspired.
Cortes, between his favorite captains, rode with lifted visor, smiling and confident. His complexion was bloodless and ashy, a singularity the more noticeable on account of his thin, black beard. The lower lip was seamed with a scar. He was of fine stature, broad-shouldered, and thin, but strong, active, and enduring. His skill in all manner of martial exercises was extraordinary. He conversed in Latin, composed poetry, wrote unexceptionable prose, and, except when in passion, spoke gravely and with well-turned periods.[41] In argument he was both dogmatic and convincing, and especially artful in addressing soldiers, of whom, by constitution, mind, will, and courage, he was a natural leader. Now, gay and assured, he managed his steed with as little concern and talked carelessly as a knight returning victorious from some joyous passage of arms.
Gonzalo de Sandoval, not twenty-three years of age, was better looking, having a larger frame and fuller face. His beard was auburn, and curled agreeably to the prevalent fashion. Next to his knightly honor, he loved his beautiful chestnut horse, Motilla.[42]
Handsomest man of the party, however, was Don Pedro de Alvarado. Generous as a brother to a Christian, he hated a heathen with the fervor of a crusader. And now, in scorn of Aztecan treachery, he was riding unhelmed, his locks, long and yellow, flowing freely over his shoulders. His face was fair as a gentlewoman’s, and neither sun nor weather could alter it. Except in battle, his countenance expressed the friendliest disposition. He cultivated his beard assiduously, training it to fall in ringlets upon his breast,—and there was reason for the weakness, if such it was; yellow as gold, with the help of his fair face and clear blue eyes, it gave him a peculiar expression of sunniness, from which the Aztecs called him Tonitiah, child of the Sun.[43]
And over what a following of cavaliers the leader looked when, turning in his saddle, he now and then glanced down the column,—Christobal de Oli, Juan Velasquez de Leon, Francisco de Montejo, Luis Marin, Andreas de Tapia, Alonzo de Avila, Francisco de Lugo, the Manjarezes, Andreas and Gregorio, Diego de Ordas, Francisco de Morla, Christobal de Olea, Gonzalo de Dominguez, Rodriques Magarino, Alonzo Hernandez Carrero,—most of them gentlemen of the class who knew the songs of Rodrigo, and the stories of Amadis and the Paladins!
And much shame would there be to me if I omitted mention of two others,—Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who, after the conquest, became its faithful historian, and Father Bartolomé de Olmedo,[44] sweet singer, good man, and devoted servant of God, the first to whisper the names of Christ and the Holy Mother in the ear of New Spain. In the column behind the cavaliers, with his assistant, Juan de las Varillas, he rode bareheaded, and clad simply in a black serge gown. The tinkle of the little silver bell, which the soldiers, in token of love, had tied to the neck of his mule, sounded, amid the harsher notes of war, like a gentle reminder of shepherds and grazing flocks in peaceful pastures near Old World homes.
After the holy men, in care of a chosen guard of honor, the flag of Spain was carried; and then came the artillery, drawn by slaves; next, in close order, followed the cross-bowmen and arquebusiers, the latter with their matches lighted. Rearward still, in savage pomp and pride, strode the two thousand Tlascalans, first of their race to bear shield and fly banner along the causeway into Tenochtitlan. And so the Christians, in order of battle, but scarcely four hundred strong, marched into a capital of full three hundred thousand inhabitants, swollen by the innumerable multitudes of the valley.
As they drew nigh the city, the cavaliers became silent and thoughtful. With astonishment, which none of them sought to conceal, they gazed at the white walls and crowded houses, and, with sharpened visions, traced against the sky the outlines of temples and temple-towers, more numerous than those of papal Rome. Well they knew that the story of what they saw so magnificently before them would be received with incredulity in all the courts of Christendom. Indeed, some of the humbler soldiers marched convinced that all they beheld was a magical delusion. Not so Cortes.
“Ride on, gentlemen, ride on!” he said. “There is a question I would ask of a good man behind us. I will rejoin you shortly.”
From the artillerists he singled a soldier.