XXXI.
DEFEAT.
After all, the life that I thought was lost, and had but little sorrowfor the losing of it, slowly came back to me again. For a good whilebefore I recovered consciousness fully, I understood a little of whatwas going on around me by sounds which, no doubt, were loud and ringing,yet which seemed to me to come faintly from a long way off. They plainlywere the sounds of fighting--of weapons rattling together, of shouts andyells and death-cries--but I did not associate them with our presentbattling, but thought that we still were in the canon, and were stillfighting those wild Indians by whom poor Dennis was slain. And I knewthat I had been hurt badly; for in my head was a throbbing pain so keenthat it seemed like to split my skull open, and my stomach was stirredby most distressing qualms, and my weakness was such that I could notease the sore muscles of my body by moving by so much as ahair's-breadth from the cramped position in which I lay.
It seemed to me a vastly long while that I remained in this drearycondition of half-consciousness, with no certain knowledge of anythingsave the pain that I suffered; and then I felt some one touch me, and ahand laid upon my heart; and this touch so far roused me that I heaved along sigh and slowly opened my eyes. For a moment I did not know theface that I saw bending over me; nor was this wonderful, for in place ofits usual ruddiness was a death-like pallor, that was the more marked bycontrast with the blood that trickled down over it from a great gashacross the brow whereby the bone was laid bare. But there was nomistaking the voice that called out: "He's alive, Rayburn!" and added,"I don't see what right he's got t' be alive, either, after a crack likethat. I guess studyin' antiquities must everlastin'ly harden an' thickena man's skull!"
"Studying engineering doesn't harden a man's leg, anyway," I heardRayburn answer. "That cut pretty near took mine off. But now that we'vestopped the bleeding I guess I'm all right. I think I can work over toyou on my hands and knees and help you with the Professor. Now that Iknow he's alive I seem to be a lot more alive myself."
"Just you stay where you are," Young called back, sharply. "If you moveyou'll start that bandage an' I'll have t' tie you up all over again.I'll attend t' th' Professor." And then Young bent over me, and, with atenderness that I never would have thought his rough hands capable of,set himself to bandaging my wounded head. But the best thing that he didfor me was to give me a draught of water from a gourd that had beenslung about the neck of one of the soldiers lying dead there; whichdraught, with the comfort that the cool wet bandage about my head gaveme, brought back to me so much of my strength that I was able presentlyto sit up and look around.
Truly, a more ghastly sight than that which my eyes then rested upon Inever saw. The gate-way of the Citadel was a very shambles. Piles ofdead men lay all around me; and the prodigious number of the enemy lyingslain there testified with a mute eloquence to the desperate fashion inwhich our handful of men had fought. Over the rough pavement, down theslope towards the lake, there flowed a stream of bright red blood thatin places shone a brilliant vermilion where it was touched by theglintings of the sun. Among the dead I did not see Tizoc's body, and forthis I was glad. Half a dozen of the enemy stood by us as a guard; butthese suffered us to minister to each other, evidently feeling that nogreat amount of caution was necessary in dealing with three badlywounded men. Indeed, these guards, in their way, manifested a kindlyfeeling for us; for when they perceived that our gourd of water wasempty one of them picked up another full gourd from amid the dead andhanded it to us. From inside the Citadel there still came a tumult offierce sounds which gave proof that though the battle--if it could becalled a battle--was ended the work of killing still was going on; butthese sounds sensibly diminished while we lay there waiting to know whatfate would come to us, and we concluded, therefore, that there remainedno more rebels to be slain.
Rayburn was seated upon the ground at no great distance from me, hisback propped against the wall. As he saw that I was looking towards him,and had again my wits about me, he greeted me with a very melancholysmile. "It's been a pretty cold day for us, Professor," he said, "andthere's no great comfort in knowing that it's partly our own fault thatthese fellows have laid us out. I didn't give them credit for such goodtactics; and even with the bad watch that we kept I don't see how theymanaged to get their men round on the other side of our camp. Well, itmust please them to know how straight we walked into the trap that theyset for us, like the pack of fools that we were."
"You won't ketch me joinin' in any more Indian revolutions, anyway,"Young put in. "I did think I could bet on those Tlahuicos, an' they'vejust gone back on us th' worst kind. Do you feel strong enough,Professor, to tie th' ends o' this rag?" He had been binding up the cutin his forehead, and now he got down on his hands and knees in front ofme, and bent his head down within easy reach of my hands; and mystrength had so far returned to me that without being very tired afterit I was able to make the ends of the bandage fast. The blow on his headhad glanced from the skull, luckily; but it had been heavy enough tostun him for some minutes after he received it--and his falling asthough dead had been the means, no doubt, of saving his life, even as inthe same manner my life had been saved. Rayburn's wound was a worse onethan either Young's or mine, for a great gash in his thigh had wellnighcut his leg off, and until, with Young's help, he had improvised atourniquet, from a bowstring and a broken fragment of a javelin, he hadbeen in great danger of bleeding to death.
For more than an hour we were suffered to lie in the gate-way; while thework went on of slaying the wretched Tlahuicos, and then of marshallingthe more important personages who had been reserved alive as prisoners,and, finally, of restoring order in the victorious ranks. At the end ofthis time an officer with a squad of men came to where we were lying,and roughly ordered us to rise, to the end that we also might be placedamong the prisoners. Young and I had so far recovered our strength thatwe managed to scramble on our feet with no great difficulty; though inmy case this exertion, which made the blood flow more briskly in myveins, suddenly increased so greatly the pain in my head as to bringupon me for a little while a dizziness that compelled me to lean againstthe wall for support. In Rayburn's case standing was quite out of thequestion; and I shortly told the officer in what manner he was wounded,and that to make him rise and walk assuredly would start the bandage onhis leg, and so lead to his quickly bleeding to death. Thereupon theofficer gave an order to some of his men to fetch a stretcher such astheir own wounded were carried in; yet at the same time he said to me:"This companion of yours is a brave man; and but for my orders, I wouldloosen the bandage with my own hands, and so let him die without furtherpain;" which speech, notwithstanding the obviously kind intention of it,I did not translate to Rayburn at that time.
While we waited for the stretcher to be brought, the soldiers fastenedabout Young's neck and about mine heavy wooden collars, which set wellout over our shoulders and were not unlike great ruffs. I confess thatfor my own part my professional interest in this curious piece of gearentirely overcame my repugnance to wearing it, for I instantlyrecognized it as the cuauh-cozatl, with which, as the ancient recordstell us, the Aztecs were accustomed to secure their prisoners of war.But Young, who could not be expected to share in my delight at seeingactually alive, and ourselves made party to it, a custom that wassupposed to have been extinguished to more than three centuries, grewexceedingly indignant at having thus placed about his neck what hecoarsely described as "an overgrown d----n goose-yoke." Nor was I at allsuccessful in my attempt to soothe him by telling him that thediscomfort to which we were subjected was a very trifling matter incomparison with the gain to the science of archeology that flowed fromthis positive identification of an exceedingly interesting historicalfact.
"Oh, come off, Professor," he growled. "What th' d----l do I care forhistorical facts, or for historical lies either?--an' they're all aboutth' same thing. What I want t' do is t' punch th' head o' th' fellow whoput this thing on me, an' I can't. They'll be hangin' me up by my heelsan' stickin' a corn-cob in my mo
uth next, I s'pose, an' makin' a regularstuck-pig out o' me; an' then likely enough you'll try t' make mebelieve that _that_ proves something or other that nobody but you thinksever happened, an' so want me t' feel pleased about it. Antiquities bed----d! I've had as much of' em as I want, an' more too!"
While the collars were being placed about our necks, and while Rayburnwas being lifted upon the stretcher which the soldiers had brought, weheard from within the Citadel the sound of drums tapping, and then themeasured tread of soldiers marching; and as we looked through thegate-way we saw that the troops had been formed in regular order andwere moving towards us. At the head of the column were theprisoners--numbering three or four hundred, and all wearing woodencollars about their necks--covered on both flanks by a strong line ofguards. They were ranged in order of their dignity, the unlucky membersof the Council coming first, and after them the other officers of thatshort-lived government; then the military officers, and in the rear afew private soldiers. The fact that no Tlahuicos were among theprisoners led me to conclude that such of these as had not been slainhad been held under guard until they might be returned to their ownersor set again to toiling hopelessly in the mine.
The importance that in the estimation of our captors attached toourselves was shown by their placing us at the very head of the column,in advance even of the members of the Council; and this was a complimentthat we willingly enough would have declined, for such honorableconsideration, according to the customs of this people, meant surelythat we were reserved for a very exemplary fate. But we were in noposition to raise objections of any sort just then, and we thereforefell into the place assigned to us and tried as well as we could to showa bold front as we went downward towards the lake.
Only a few terrified women and children, who fled away as we advanced,were in sight as we passed through the streets of the town; and frommany of the hovels came the moans of poor wounded wretches who hadcrawled to their miserable homes to die in them; and from others camethe lamentations of women over their dead; and in nooks and corners,whither with their last strength they had dragged themselves, we saw menlying dead in pools of their own blood. But down by the water-side therewere live men in plenty, soldiers and oarsmen, and the pier was crowdedwith them; while out beyond the pier the whole bay was swarming withthe boats in which the enemy's forces had stolen down upon us in thedarkness from Culhuacan; making their landing, as we now learned, justbeyond the town in a bay that ran up close to where our army wasencamped. And this scene of bustling activity in the bright sunshinemade a joyous and brilliant picture; that was all the brighter becauseof its setting in that sunlit bay, opening out between beaches ofgolden-yellow sand upon the broad expanse of restful water which fellaway in gleaming splendor into a bank of soft gray haze.
But the picture was still more stirring that we saw as we lookedlandward, when the barge that we were put aboard of pulled out from thepier and our rowers lay on their oars, and so waited while the work ofembarkation went on. Right in front of us was the broad central streetof the town; and the whole length of this, from the pier to the Citadel,was filled with a solidly massed body of soldiers that came down thesteep descent slowly, and halting often, to the boats which were inwaiting to bear them away. Barbarians though they were, these soldiersmade a gallant showing. In front of each regiment was borne its featherstandard, and in the midst of each company was its rallying flag ofbrightly painted cotton cloth. The higher officers wore wooden casques,carved and painted in the semblance of the heads of ferocious beasts;the cotton-cloth armor of all the officers was decked with a greatvariety of strange devices, wrought in very lively hues, and similarlystrong hues were used in the decoration of the universally-carried lightround shields. And all this brilliant color, the more vivid because ofits background of bare brown skins, was flecked with a thousandglittering points of light where the sunshine sparkled on swords and onspear-heads of hardened gold.
"Its not much wonder that those fellows got away with us," Rayburn said,as he watched the orderly manner in which the disciplined ranks movedout upon the pier and stepped briskly into the boats at the word ofcommand. "They're as fine a lot of fighters as I ever saw anywhere. Justlook how steadily they stand at a halt, and how sharply they obeyorders, and how well set up they are! I must say I don't see what theColonel could have been thinking about when he said that we had afighting chance against an army like that. Well, he's paid for hismistake about as much as a man can pay for anything. It breaks me all upto think that the Colonel is dead. He was good all the way through. AndI wonder what will become of that little lame boy of his now? They'llmake a Tlahuico of him, I suppose. By Jove! what a mess we've made ofthis whole business from first to last!"
My heart was too heavy for me to answer Rayburn save by a nod; for whilehe spoke the thought came home to me very bitterly that upon me restedthe responsibility of the black misfortune in which he and Young wereinvolved; and with this came also a great burst of sorrow as I thoughthow still more closely at my door lay Pablo's death--for Rayburn andYoung at least had come into my plans with a reasonable understanding ofthe danger to which they exposed themselves; but Pablo, having no suchknowledge, had followed me unquestioningly because of his loving trustthat I would hold him safe from harm. My sorrow concerning Fray Antoniowas keen enough, Heaven knows; but in his case I had the solace ofknowing surely that he had come to his death not because of my urging,but in pursuance of his own strong desire. There was a little comfort inthe thought that even one of these four lost lives could not be chargedto my account; and yet this reflection seemed only to make my sorrowheavier as I thought of the woful weight of my responsibility for theother three.
For nearly two hours we lay there in the bay while the embarkation ofthe prisoners and the troops went on--our boat moving farther out fromthe pier from time to time as the double line of boats behind itlengthened. In that sheltered place there was little wind blowing, andthe blazing heat of the sun beating down upon my wounded head gave me sosharp a pain that I gladly would have died to be rid of it; and I couldsee, from the drawn look of their faces, that Young and Rayburn weresuffering not less keenly. We were thankful enough, therefore, when atlast the embarkation was completed--more than half of the army remainingin Huitzilan to restore order there--and we pulled out from the bay intothe open waters of the lake and were comforted by the light breeze,which yet brought with it a delicious refreshment, that was blowingthere.
All the bright beauty of that lovely lake was around us, having for itsbackground the green meadows and the darker green of the forestshanging above them on the upward slopes, and beyond all the toweringheight of the cliffs, which shaded in their colorings from delicate grayto dark brown, and were touched here and there by patches of blackshadow where some great cleft opened; and yet all that we then thoughtof was that across those blue waters, which gleamed golden in thesunlight, we were going swiftly to a cruel death, and that the cliffs,whereof the beauty was hateful to us, irrevocably shut us in. Whichgloomy feelings pressed upon us throughout that dismal passage, whileall our oarsmen pulled stoutly together, and we went gliding onward overthe sunlit waters towards the evil fate that we knew was waiting for uswithin the dark walls whereby was encircled the city of Culhuacan.
The Aztec Treasure-House Page 33
