The name of his kinsman, spoken by the well-known voice of Baltasar, dispelled at once the dreamy trance of the cavalier.
"How fares my noble kinsman?" he cried.
The head of Baltasar fell on his breast, and a loud groan came from his fellow-servitor. Don Amador looked to the Tonatiuh, and witnessed the change from blithe joy to gloomy hesitation, which instantly marked his handsome aspect; the face of Fabueno darkened; and the magician strode away.
"Clear for me, if ye will not speak!" said the cavalier, with sudden sternness; "for there is no sight of wo I cannot now look upon."
He grasped the arm of Jacinto, and pushing into the palace, made his way toward the chamber of the knight.—The hand of devastation had been upon the walls of the passage; beams and planks had been torn away to supply the materials for the mantas and other martial engines; and Don Amador no longer knew the apartment of his kinsman. A dim light, and a low sound of wailing, came from a curtained door. Before the secretary and the other attendants who followed, could intercept him, he stepped into the room.
The sight that awaited him instantly fastened his attention. He was in the chamber of Montezuma, and the captive monarch lay on the bed of death. Around the low couch knelt his children, and behind were the princes of the empire, gazing with looks of awe on the king. In front were several Spanish cavaliers, unhelmed and silent; and Cortes himself, bare-headed and kneeling, gazed with a countenance of remorse on his victim; while the priest Olmedo stood hard by, vainly offering, through the medium of Doña Marina and the cavalier De Morla, the consolations of religion.
The king struggled in a kind of low delirium, in the arms of a man of singular and most barbarous appearance. This was a Mexican of gigantic stature, robed in a hooded mantle of black; but the cowl had fallen from his head, and his hair, many feet in length, plaited and twisted with thick cords, fell like cables over his person and that of the dying king. This was the high-priest of Mexico, taken prisoner at the battle of the temple.
The countenance of Montezuma was changed by suffering and the death-throe; and yet, from their hollow depths, his eyes shot forth beams of extraordinary lustre. As he struggled, he muttered; and his broken exclamations being interpreted, were found to be the lamentations of a crushed spirit and a broken heart.
"Bid the Teuctli depart," were some of the words which Don Amador caught, as rendered by the lips of Marina: "before he came, I was a king in Mexico.—But the son of the gods," he went on, with a hoarse and rattling laugh, "shall find that there are gods in Mexico, who shall devour the betrayer! They roar in the heavens, they thunder among the mountains,"—(the continued peals of artillery, shaking the fabric of the palace, mingled with his dreams, and gave a colour to them)—"they speak under the earth, and it trembles at their shouting. Ometeuctli, that dwelleth in the city of heaven, Tlaloc, that swimmeth on the great dark waters, Tonatricli and Meztli, the kings of day and night, and Mictlanteuctli, the ruler of hell,—all of them speak to their people; they look upon the strangers that destroy in their lands, and they say to me, 'Thou art the king, and they shall perish!'—Wo! wo! wo!" he continued, with an abrupt transition to abasement and grief; "they look upon me and laugh, for I have no people! In the face of all, I was made a slave; and, when they had spit upon me, they struck me as they strike the slave; so struck my people. Come, then, thou that dwellest among the rivers of night; for, among the rivers, with those who die the death of shame, shall I inhabit. Did not Mexico strike me, and shout for joy? Wo, wo! for my people have deserted me! and, in their eyes, the king is a slave!"
"Put thy lips to this emblem of salvation," said the Spanish priest, extending his crucifix, eagerly; "curse thy false gods, which are devils; acknowledge Christ to be thy master; and part,—not to dwell among the rivers of hell, which are of fire, but in the seats of bliss, the heaven of the just and happy."