"You called me craven, too!" said the cavalier, with a hoarse laugh, raising his voice aloud. "Thou liest!—I am braver than thou; for my body is covered with wounds—from the crown to the sole, there is no part but is mangled;—and yet thou hast not a limb but is untouched! You call me craven! God smite you with punishment, for you are all cravens, knaves, and murderers together! You wait on the banks, while we are dying, and you call us cravens! God will do us right! God will avenge us! God will hear our prayers! and so God curse you all, and keep your bones for the maws of infidels!"
Thus speaking, and concluding with the voice of a madman, the young cavalier cast a look on the dead princess, and, uttering a horrid scream, ran back, distracted, to the causeway.
"In the name of God, on!" exclaimed an hundred voices; "we are not cravens and murderers, and Spaniards shall not fall unaided!"
Don Hernan himself, stung by the sarcasms of the unhappy and well-beloved cavalier, was the first to clap spurs to his horse; and again the thunder of cavalry, and the quick tread of footmen moving in order, were heard on the dike of Tacuba.
CHAPTER LX.
Thousands of infuriated and exulting savages had, in the meanwhile, landed from their canoes at the second ditch, raised their cries of triumph over the abandoned artillery, and struck, with a rage not to be appeased by death, the Christian corses which lay so thick among them. But, while living invaders remained, either in the front or rear, they tarried not long, to waste their malice on the dead.
The cavalier Don Amador, when he made the marvellous discovery, detailed in a preceding chapter, and perceived that the fair and lamented being of his dreams, heaven had permitted so long to walk by his side, in this new and strange world,—revealing her to his eyes only at the moment when destined to be snatched from them for ever,—felt, at that instant of discovery as if all the ties which bound him to existence, were at once dissevered. Rage at his blindness, furious compunctions of remorse for his negligence, and an agony of grief at the supposed dreadful fate of the maiden, were mingled with a sort of wild indignation against the providence which, by veiling his eyes, and shutting his ears to the suggestions of his heart, (for, surely, from the moment he looked upon the page, his affections were given him,) had robbed him of his mistress. It was not, therefore, wonderful, that such a conflict of mind, acting upon a body weakened by previous wounds and sickness, and exhausted by present exertions, should have thrown him across the body of Lazaro, himself, to all appearance, full as lifeless. And thus he lay, for half an hour, insensible to the battle, which was now drawing nigh to the ditch, and now leaving it to its charnel solitude.
He was recalled to life, by feeling some one tug forcibly at the sacred jewel, which he retained throughout his lethargy, with the same instinct which had preserved it in the death-grasp of the henchman. More lucky than Lazaro, yet scarce more happy, this violence woke up the sleeping energies of life; and he raised his head, though only to stare about him with a bewildered look of unconsciousness.
"God be thanked!" exclaimed a Christian voice in his ear, as a friendly hand seized him by the shoulder; "lead or gold, glass or precious stone, never was cross of Christ picked up on the wayside, but good fortune followed after it! What ho, señor! up and away! The things that I spoke of, have come to pass. Kalidon-Sadabath dances in the Crystal; he loves the smell of blood!—Up! arise and away, for thine hour is not come."