"Shall we be thus shamed, my masters?" cried Don Hernan, sharply. "Methinks there are two more such cavaliers in this company?—Santiago, and at them!"
Thus saying, and, with a word, inflaming their pride, he leaped against the foe, followed by all the horsemen.
The two leaders in this desperate assault had vanished,—swallowed up, as it were, in the vortex of contention; and it was not until his friends heard the voice of Alvarado exclaiming, wildly, as if in extremity, "Help me, De Leste, true friend! for I am unhorsed! Help me, or the hell-hounds will have me to the temple!"—that they were convinced the young men were living.
"Be of good heart!" cried Don Amador, (for he was at his side,) drawing his sabre, with a dexterous sleight, over the sinewy arms that clutched his companion, and releasing, without doing him harm. "If thou art disarmed, draw my dagger from the sheath and use it; and fear not that I will leave thee, till rescued by others."
"Who gets my sword, takes the arm along with it!" cried Alvarado, grasping again his chained weapon, and dealing fierce blows, as he spoke. "I will remember the act—Ho! false friends! forsworn soldiers! condemned Christians! why leave ye us unsupported?"
"Courage, and strike well! we are near," answered Don Hernan. "Press on, friends; trample the curs to death! Join we our true cavaliers; and then sweep back for victory!"
"Where goest thou, now, mad Amador?" they heard the voice of Alvarado exclaiming; "Return: thy horse is shoed with piraguas; but mine sticks fast in this bog of flesh. Return; for, by heaven, I can follow thee no further!"
"Come on, as thou art a true man; for I am sore beset, and wounded!" These words, from the lips of the neophyte, came yet through the din of yells; but it seemed to those who listened, that there was feebleness in the voice that uttered them.
"Onward!" cried Cortes, with a voice of thunder, and urging his dun steed furiously over the trampled barbarians; "the young man shall not perish!"
A wolf-hound, weary and spent with the chase, suddenly surrounded by a whole pack of the destroyers he has been tracking, and falling under the fangs of his quarry, may figure the condition of Don Amador de Leste, surrounded and seized upon by the enemy. Nothing but the vigour of powerful and fiery-spirited steeds could have carried the two cavaliers so far into a crowd of warriors almost compacted. While the neophyte gave assistance to his friend, a dozen blows of the maquahuitl were rained upon his body; and so closely was he invested immediately after, (when, as Alvarado reined in his steed to await the rest, the two cavaliers were separated,) that he thought no longer of warding off blows; but giving himself up to smiting, he trusted to the strength of his mail for protection. But the heavy bludgeons bruised where they could not wound; and his armour being, at last, broken by the fury of the blows, the sharp glass penetrated to his flesh, and he began to bleed. He cast his eye over his shoulder, for his strength was failing; but the plume of Don Pedro waved at a distance behind, and the shouts of Cortes seemed to come from afar. He turned his horse's head, to retreat; but half a dozen savages, emboldened by this symptom of defeat, clutched upon the bridle; and the hand he raised to smite at them, was seized by as many others. It was at this moment that he called out to his companion, in the words we have recorded; but the answer, if answer were made, was drowned in the savage yells of exultation, with which his foes beheld him in their power. He collected all his energies, struggled violently, and striking the rowels deep, and animating Fogoso with his voice, hoped, by one bound, to spring clear of his capturers. The gallant steed vaulted on high, but fell again to the earth, under the weight of the many that clung to him: and a dozen new hands were added to those that already throttled the rider.