The preparations for the assault, and long before it began, were surveyed by the Captain-General from the terrace of the palace of Axajacatl, the famous scene of his sufferings, when besieged therein by the Mexicans, a year before. It was in the quarter of Tlatelolco, midway between the great pyramid and the market-place, and commanded, from its turrets, not only a view of the palace of Guatimozin, but of the whole surrounding city and lake.
Deeply as his mind was engaged with the approaching climax of his mighty enterprise,—for now he could almost count the minutes that intervened betwixt his hopes and his success,—he was not without thoughts and feelings of another character. The singular disappearance of Magdalena, of which nothing more was known, or even conjectured, than was disclosed in the midnight conversation of the hunchback and Bernal Diaz; the fate of Camarga, over which events not yet narrated, had cast a peculiarly exciting mystery; and the situation of Juan Lerma, upon whose character and unhappy history certain events had shed a new light, as well as what had now become a painful interest; all, by turns, occupied his mind, and sometimes even withdrew it from the contemplation of the scene before him. The few cavaliers in attendance, who enjoyed their immunity from combat only because they were disabled by severe wounds, referred his unusual gloom to the same cause; for he had not yet recovered from the many injuries, the penalty of his rashness on the causeway.
"Thou knowest, Quinones," said one, in a whisper to the captain of his body guard, (for the conspiracy of Villafana had been made, as is usual in such catastrophes of ambition, an excuse for investing his dignity with another engine of power;)—"Thou knowest, the renegade struck him upon the head; and it is a marvel of providence he was not slain; for Lerma strikes with an arm like the wing of a windmill. These blows on the skull, though one may seem to recover from them, have a perilous after-effect on the brain."
"Fy!" muttered Quinones, with a shake of the head; "there is a new word about Lerma, especially since Garci Holguin brought in the princess. Didst thou not hear that Alvarado, who heads the assault, called this morning upon all soldiers who had seen Juan Lerma in the melée, and asked them a thousand questions? I tell thee, there is a new thing in the wind. I did myself last night over-hear Cortes charge Sandoval to watch well for every piragua and canoe, that might leave Tlatelolco, and see that no one taken be harmed.—But this we will see. Talking of canoes, methought I beheld one some half hour since paddling from Tezcuco?"
"Ay," said another; "it landed in the north-eastern quarter.—No more complaints of Guzman now? He will never harry infidels more. Garci's sailors say, he was taken alive!"
"Hist!" whispered Quinones, with a warning gesture. "This thing troubles Cortes. It was his anger, and Guzman's desire to recover favour, which drove him upon the mad feat, that brought him to the block of sacrifice. It weighs upon the general's mind.—And besides, as it is now apparent that Camarga is alive, there is deeper cause for remorse: It was perhaps his wrongful belief in the charge of murder, rather than any other cause, that made him proceed with such rigour against Guzman."
"But is this rumour true?" demanded the other.
"Ay, certain; and I wage ye my life, the very canoe we were looking after, brings the dead-alive to Mexico. Methought I could trace the cut of his sacerdotal maskings, even afar off. They say, after all, the man is a true brother of St. Dominic, under some dispensation.—Ay, faith! you may see now—Alive and shorn into the bargain! They are bringing him up the stairway.—By Santiago, it makes the general's eye flash fire!"
The eye of Cortes, up to this moment peculiarly gloomy and troubled, did indeed flash with lustre, as soon as it fell upon the figure of Camarga; for it was he, who now made his appearance on the terrace, led forward by Indians. He was greatly altered, and seemed indeed like the ghost of his former self, so wan and emaciated was his countenance, and so broken and feeble his step; he looked as if in almost the last stage of atrophy. He was otherwise changed; the hair was shorn from his crown, on which was a ghastly scar, left by the macana of the Lord of Death; his feet were bare; and from the cord that girded on his friar's frock, was suspended a knotted scourge, crusted over with blood. His whole appearance was that of some suicidal ascetic, who mourns with the severest maceration of the body, a sin not to be expiated by mere penitence of spirit.
"Heaven be thanked for thy resurrection!" cried Cortes, grasping him by the hand, and leading him to the seat he had himself occupied. "There is a wolf in my bosom, and now I know that thou canst remove it!"