Captain from Castile

by Samuel Shellabarger; Internet Archive

  Outnumbered a hundred to one, swamped in a sea of raging humanity, the Spanish ranks held; the wall of bucklers did not break. But retreat was necessary. Inching their way back, dripping with blood, dragging along their dead and dying, they regained the central square, only to find a howling myriad packed between them and the Spanish quarters. Still they held, still they plowed on. Ordas, bleeding from three wounds, his plume gone, his buckler pockmarked by a hundred blows, still kept his saddle, swung his heavy sword, and gave the cry of Castile. And Saint James, being called upon, lent aid, so that finally the gates were reached and the company surged through.

  They were all wounded; they had lost twenty-three men; they were on the verge of collapse.

  But if the returned foot soldiers expected solace and rest in the quarters, they were disappointed. Smoke volleyed here and there from buildings set on fire by flaming arrows. Without water, gangs of men, blackened, scorched, and desperate, worked with pickax and crowbar to tear down walls and bury the conflagration. Every open space was swept by a relentless sleet of missiles—from neighboring housetops, from the looming mass of the great pyramid near by, from the attacking multitude, arching their shots above the ramparts. A pall hung over the compound—dust and smoke from the buildings, smoke from the cannon and musketry, smoke shot through with patches of fire. The wounded were everywhere, but no time could be given to wounds. The dead lay where they fell.

  Meanwhile, the cavalry made ready for a sortie, a steel column, with Cortes leading. The horses reared and pranced at the sting of shots felt even through the plates protecting them. Footmen clung to their bridles. The lances, still perpendicular, slanted and swayed like saplings in a high wind.

  Catana, who had accompanied Garcia's escort to the prison and had then plunged into the thick of things, held on to Soldan's bit, dodging the play of his front feet. She had a smudge on one cheek and a cut on the other. From the saddle, Pedro shouted down to her and touched his cheek with his gauntlet.

  "It's only a scratch," she yelled. "It isn't anything. . . . Good luck, senor. Watch your left side."

  "What'd you say?"

  "Your left side, watch out!"

  He roared back, "Take care of yourself, querida mia."

  Cortes thundered to the master gunner, "Now let them have it with all your pieces."

  The explosion rocked the courtyard. The horses went wild.

  "Open the gates."

  Framed by the portal, a vivid picture of havoc wrought by the cannon showed beyond.

  "Adelante, cavalier!" Cortes gave his familiar war shout: "Saint James! And at them!"

  Catana sprang to one side. "Hasta la vistOj querido!"

  Like a steel torrent, the hidalgos passed through the gate, deployed from column into line, lowered their lances, and swept forward against the shot-torn mass of the Indians. Pedro's lance passed through the

  skull of one man to bury itself in the body of a second. At the same time, two more threw themselves on the shaft, wrenching it from his hands. He caught the blow of an obsidian-edged macuahuitl on his shield and turned the thrusts of several javelins. Now and then he caught a glimpse of his companions, identified by their well-known armor, and many as yet unfamiliar, the Narvaez cavaliers, concealed by their vizors. But more prominent and unmistakable than any, the pivot of the line, appeared the harness and plume of Cortes. As always, his great horse. El Molinero, kept a half-length in front of the others, wheeling, rearing, plunging. His crest rose, sank, tossed. His shout of "Santiago!" lifted itself above the clamor.

  Soon the great square was cleared of the enemy, and the battle seemed over. But, probing down one of the avenues, they found that the Aztecs had not fled. Here, barring the road, were barricades; and the whistling sleet of stones and arrows from in front and from the housetops on either side began again.

  Flesh and blood could not endure this fire from the house roofs. Then burn the houses; lay waste the quarter of the city adjoining the central plaza. Foot soldiers from the compound took charge of this, stormed the doors. Shrieks of women and children mingled in the yelling. Smoke clouds rose; but each house had to be dealt with separately, and the fire did not spread because of the canals.

  By the end of the week, one could not recall the sequence of battles. One remembered only uninterrupted effort, noise, stench, thirst, hunger, pain, killing—lighted up here and there by some more vivid thing. . . .

  The hidalgos rode out again, Cortes leading, a buckler strapped to his useless left hand which had been crippled by a stone. Cross-bowmen and musketeers followed. They stormed the temple enclosure, slaughtered its defenders, and, dismounting, shields high and swords drawn, started the ascent of the pyramid. Only a hundred feet to climb, but half a mile to go. Up the first steep flight against a hail of missiles; then around the pyramid to the second flight and a second avalanche of stones, arrows, boulders, beams cascading down; then around the pyramid to a third flight and a third torrent.

  Inside the walls of the compound, standing with Maria de Estrada, a strapping girl who had come with the Narvaez people and was head over heels in love with Pedro Sanchez Farfan, Catana shaded her eyes against the white of the pyramid and gazed upward with parted lips.

  "There he is! Yonder!"

  Panting, sweating, their hearts racing, Cortes, de Vargas, Sandoval, and Olid lifted the weight of limbs and armor up the last steps,

  shouldered to a footing on the edge of the wide platform at the summit, tottered a moment, got a pace forward by the use of their swords, heard the next rank come up behind them, and plunged headlong against the wall of defenders.

  So the battle raged a hundred feet above the level of the courtyard. It raged invisible to the spectators on the ground, who could see only the fringes of it, when, here and there, men locked in fight tottered on the edge of the drop, sometimes saving themselves, sometimes toppling over like dead weights, to crash and lie still at the base of the teocalli.

  In spite of the odds against them, the Spaniards still had the advantage, not of courage, but of steel, discipline, physique. It was a battle of extermination. Gradually, increasingly, it reduced itself to a fringe of desperate Indians fighting with their backs to the abyss. Some were forced, others threw themselves, over; the dead and dying were hurled after them; until at the end of three hours only a steel line with bloody swords edged the brink and raised triumphant gauntlets, wavins: at their comrades below.

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  But their work was not yet finished. Turning back to the temple towers, that rose forty feet above the platform, they found that the Aztec dedl-gods had come to their own again. The sacred images of Virgin and Child were gone. So, over went the idols once more. They were pushed and dragged to the top of the steps, were shoved bounding down them, while the Aztecs, watching from the central square, sent up a howl of lamentation. Then, crowning signal of defeat for all in the city to read, the shrines themselves were set afire, their wooden roofs blazing like torches. And the victorious cavaliers marched down again, forty-five fewer than before, the silver serpent winding back from the gutted temples. . . .

  Meeting Cortes that evening, as he crossed the courtyard, Pedro saluted.

  "A word. Your Excellency."

  The General, who had removed a part of his armor for greater coolness, ran a sleeve over his forehead.

  "Yes?"

  "I have Juan Garcia's parole that he will abstain from any act against Ignacio de Lora until this company is in safety. He wishes to do his part. He is a good soldier, and we need every man."

  "Yes, we need ever)' man." Cortes seemed to bring his mind back from a distance. "Well, have him out then. But make it clear to him that the sentence stands."

  "I'll make it clear. Your Excellency."

  Cortes added suddenly, "If any sentence stands except that of God, who rebukes the pride and vainglory of men." He stood thoughtful a moment. "Why is it so hard to learn that, son Pedro?" He stared at the ground and then with a nod walked on.

  The
council meeting that night . . . Or was it the night before or the night after? The captains filthy with sweat and dust, for there was no water for washing. Matted and streaky hair. Stained bandages. Hoarse voices. Gaunt faces. Gold chains clinking against the naked table. Cortes, one hand bound up, the other fingering his beard.

  The Narvaez people were bitter with an unnerved bitterness. This was the docile, serviceable population they had been promised! This was the brilliant entry into the capital of New Spain! And God reward Velasquez who had launched them on such an enterprise! And God reward Cortes who had lured them from the coast! While looking to his leadership and utterly depending on it, they still laid every blame on him. Disaster! And now what? Stay here and starve? Feed a thousand whites and five thousand Tlascalans on exploits? What of the still more valuable horses? The ration was already no more than fifty grains of maize per man. No, evacuate the city; retreat while there was still time.

  On their side, the veterans rallied to Cortes, somberly, stubbornly. It was their city. They, and not these tenderfeet, had won it. It was their pride. But, after all, starve?

  "Friends and cavaliers, with such stakes on the board, shall we yield the game or try one more deal? We have other cards to play."

  Undoubtedly Montezuma was one of these. He volunteered to address his people. Or did he? That was Cortes's version. Others said that he agreed reluctantly, despondently, after much urging. His speaking would do no good. His brother Cuitlahua, whom on his advice the Spaniards had released to serve as negotiator, was now Uei Tlatoani of the Aztecs and not he. But, at any rate, once more in royal regalia— crown, robe and clasp, and golden sandals—with his guard of Spanish captains, he mounted the walls.

  Pedro de Vargas remembered the like occasion a month ago and felt the difference. Once again the attackers fell silent; once again Montezuma spoke; but this was only a voice, not a spirit—an effigy, not a man. Words, flat, empty, faint, as of one compelled to speak. What had Cortes threatened if he did not speak?

  No, he was no longer king. One could see that. And yet old reverence

  held the crowd silent awhile. Then a voice shouted something; others took up the hoot. The Spaniards raised their shields in front of the king too late.

  They carried Montezuma through the awe-struck throng of soldiers. His gold crown had not protected him from the sling stone, but he still wore it. A thin line of blood down his cheek stained the robe.

  "Nothing of moment. A glancing shot merely."

  But rumor whispered that he refused to live, tore off his bandages, sought death; that Father Olmedo worked in vain to save his soul: he remained true to his devils. Then that night, or was it the next—for there was much to be done, and recollection blurred—the Great Montezuma died.

  A few of his nobles bore him out to the square between lines of mourning veterans, for he had given many a roll of cotton cloth and many a gold piece. He was an open-handed lord, and the rank and file could understand that much. A tear wasn't too great a return for a peso. As to his schemes and policy, opinions differed. But all could sense in him the tragedy of greatness brought low—the common human tragedy.

  His nobles bore him out to the great square grown strangely silent and deserted; for what the Spanish sorties had not achieved, the attack of the Aztecs on their own king at once accomplished. Horrified and ashamed, they withdrew from the accursed spot and did not return. But the listening Spaniards could hear the far-off lamentation, as the funeral cortege passed among the people.

  Then the manias —that was also a card of the General's—the battle towers on wheels. Twenty-four hours, day and night, were spent in the building of them—hammering, sawing, nailing up their timbered sides to the height of an Aztec house. That would solve the rooftop problem. Dragged through the streets by the Tlascalan allies, their occupants, crossbowmen and arquebusiers, could sweep the azoteas as they moved along; or, by throwing over a gangplank, could attack the defenders of the roofs hand to hand. They lumbered off with great hopes that came to nothing. They got bogged in the canals; their wooden walls were crushed by the heavier rocks thrown by the enemy; the Tlascalans, unprotected and occupied with the hauling ropes, suffered too much.

  Now, as the desperate, tumultuous days passed, and each attempt ended where it started in hunger, wounds, and thinner ranks, the inevitable choice drew nearer: escape or die. The stars themselves

  decreed it in Master Botello's horoscope: withdraw from the city by the last night of June or none would remain alive. And Cortes himself could not ignore the stars, especially when they and common sense agreed.

  But how escape? Seven canals, their bridges destroyed, separated the Spanish quarters from the nearest, the western causeway, and three more gaps in the causeway remained beyond that. Thus ten intersections of water cut off retreat, for the Aztecs had been thorough in removing the bridges, and the Spanish lion could lash as he pleased: the trap looked tight.

  The bridges! Whoever survived would at least remember them beyond all the rest. They were rebuilt of demolished houses, tumbled into the canals; of material taken from the causeway itself to fill the gaps across the lake. They were rebuilt to the tune of a howling battle at each of them; they were dearly paid for. But garrisons were posted, and the line of retreat was made good. Good for half a day perhaps. The garrison, overwhelmed, had to be rescued. It was impossible to hold a two-mile stretch against the hordes that swarmed over it. Thousands of canoes filled the lakes and the canals. Almost before the bridges were finished they began to disappear. Another day of fighting netted the same result, and the trap still held.

  So at dawn the battle of the bridges began again. The seven canals were filled up with a wider shoulder of rubble. Everybody multiplied himself and fought like a Roldan or Hector. Several hundred more Aztecs were killed, a few more Spaniards and many Tlascalans. But the line of retreat stretched solid, at least to the causeway; and for the openings in that, a portable bridge was made ready. As to the thousand paces from the quarters to the causeway, that distance could be held, must be held. Moreover, for once, the enemy, either disheartened or too confident, rested from attack. Senor Santiago cause him to rest soundly! For the word passed from rank to rank that the army would march that same night.

  LVlll

  Perhaps Master Botello had never given so much of himself to the casting of a horoscope as he did on the evening of this last day before the retreat, for the horoscope which he now cast was his own. The leather talisman, stuffed with flock wool, lay on a table in front of

  him, together with writing materials. Bending over these, he communed with the stars—or perhaps with the devil—pronouncing secret words of power, asking questions, writing symbols, deducing answers.

  It was expert magic, such as Catana Perez and Maria de Estrada had never seen, and they counted themselves privileged to behold it, though the rolling of the Master's voice, the dark and terrible formulae he used, prickled their scalps. He tolerated the presence of witnesses, all the more as Catana had darned the seat of his breeches and thus restored dignity to his person which might otherwise have been wanting.

  "If you must be present, women," he stipulated only, "at least be silent, or I shall call on Amadeus, the fiend, to blast you."

  In the gathering dusk, a pine torch fixed to a cresset cast uncertain light on Botello's divinations. The long, bare room, once inhabited by an Aztec princess; the suspense of the oncoming night; the drizzle which had begun outside—each added an uncanny touch to the proceedings. Intent on the future, neither Botello nor the women noticed that Cervantes, the fool, had entered and stood grimacing in the shadows.

  "I conjure and constrain thee, Amadeus," intoned the Master, "by all virtues and powers, and by the Holy Names of God, Tetragram-maton, Adonay, Agla, Saday, Saboth, Planaboth . . ." He added many others, crossing himself after each, while the onlookers devoutly copied him. ". . . Salvator, Via, Vita, Virtues and Powers, I conjure and constrain thee to fulfill my will in everything faithfully, wi
thout hurt of body or soul, and so be ready at my call as often as I shall call thee, by the virtue of one Lord" (more signs of the cross), "Jesus Christ of Nazareth."

  Botello, as well as the witnesses, had no doubt of his magic: anyone could see that this was a mighty spell.

  "I now constrain thee, Amadeus," he went on, "to answer certain questions which I shall ask. Guide thou my hand in the writing and divination. . . . Am I to die here in this sad war in the power of these dogs of Indians?"

  Having made some gestures that sent a chill along Catana's spine, he took up his quill, wrote out the question, and pulling his bushy brows together made slowly a series of symbols, which he then examined with the intentness of a cat watching a mouse hole.

  "Ha!" he exclaimed at last. "There's the answer. Thou shalt not die. . . . But once more, good Amadeus: Shall I die?"

  When he had written down the first answer and the renewed ques- -

  tion, more figuring followed. A bead of sweat trickled along his nose. He drew a long breath. "Nothing could be clearer. Thou shall not die."

  He set this down with a flourish.

  "But once again, Seiior Amadeus, once more. Will they kill my horse?" He frowned and worked his mouth over the symbols, then weighed and reviewed them. His head drooped. "Yes, they will kill it. They will kill my horse." He sighed heavily. "A shrewd blow. I spent all my winnings on him—all. A noble horse."

  Catana could no longer contain herself. "Good Master Botello, while the Senor Spirit is present, ask him how it will fare with Captain de Vargas."