Chapter XXV: Montoro De Diego Turns Hangman

A good deal within the hour Pedro de Alvarado stepped into Montoro's tent, and with somewhat scant ceremony; for, Spaniard though he was, he felt ceremony and strict punctuality also somewhat out of the reckoning where a man's life was concerned.

Besides, he had just seen Morla sitting bound upon the ground between two guardians, and with the rope beside him, with which he was to be hung so soon as the priest should have been fetched back to the camp to confess him. And the poor wretch had appealed to his superior with a mixture of pitifulness and indignation.

"Ah, Captain! save me from this dismal fate. You should, in very justice you should, for you contented not yourself with stealing skin and bone done up in feathers. And yet you came off with no punishment at all."

"Thou impudent fellow!" exclaimed Alvarado. "Callest thou a furious rebuke before the whole force, and accompanied with threats too, nothing? Thinkest thou that thy beggarly life is worth a Spanish noble's honour?"

Morla was in no great haste to answer this peremptory question; but at last he grumbled out--

"If one has not the honour, I suppose, then, one may at least value the life; and I call it hard lines to lose all one's got."

A grim laugh was the reply to this undeniable statement.

"Well, well, fellow, maybe there I can agree with thee. And yet more; know that I have already given thee more of my thoughts than thou shouldst venture to expect."

The man's eyes brightened.

"Ah! and I am not to be hung after all, thou wouldst say, my Captain?"

"After all, I would say that thou art to be hung," was the curt retort, and with it Pedro de Alvarado turned short round, and went his way. But before he did so he had managed to cast a warning, significant glance at the condemned culprit, which gave the poor fellow comfort in spite of the sinister words, and the brutal laugh of his guardians.

The Captain betook himself, as has been said, at once to Montoro's tent, and was greeted instantly with a ready alacrity that proved time and reflection had not cooled his promise.

"Now, Captain, what wouldst thou?"

Don Pedro had marched in quickly enough, but his tongue seemed unwilling to second the agility of his feet. He paused so long ere speaking, that Montoro said at last, between jest and earnest--

"Perhaps, Captain, your suggestion is that I should substitute my own neck for that of the poor culprit, Morla?"

"And if it were," was the reply, "I verily believe that you would accept it. At any rate, you would accept it as easily as that which I am about to make; that--that--"

"Well!" rather impatiently.

Alvarado made a dash at it.

"I want you to beg the post of hangman."

Montoro started back with a cry of horror. It was bad enough to him to kill men in fair fight, but to destroy a fellow-creature in cold blood was a thing too horrible to be thought of. He felt stunned, and it was not until his companion had broken into a short, smothered laugh that he could recall his scattered senses.

"Why, Diego," muttered Don Pedro, "you could not look more horror-struck if I had asked you to murder the man, instead of only--"

"Don't, don't," gasped Montoro. "To me, hanging the man would be like murdering him."

"Doubtless. But I intend not that you should do either, if you please."

Montoro began to breathe more freely, but also to look somewhat angry.

"Don Pedro, this is no time for speaking in riddles, to my thinking."

"Nor to mine either," replied the Captain, with a half-smile. "But to tell you the truth, I am a trifle afraid of you, friend Diego, and I well know that my present proposition must be somewhat unpalatable. But mark you, I only wish that you should request the post of hangman on the present occasion, and not that you should fulfil the duties of the office, when you have it, to its usual end."

"Oh--h--h!" ejaculated Montoro now, with a new light of comprehension beginning to dawn on his face. "But yet," he added, after a moment's pause, "although I am willing enough to plead for mercy in this instance, I fear greatly that I shall sue in vain. Cortes is so resolved on making an example of some one."

"I know that. That is why I only ask you to be appointed executioner, and not to plead for pardon. The wretches to whom the office is now given have a personal spite against their comrade, and will take good care that the fatal decree be carried out to the very letter--that he be hanged by the neck until he be dead. Now I propose that you hang him."

"Hold, hold," exclaimed Montoro once more, with a half-smile upon his face, it is true, but a return of horrified disgust also. "You said I was not to have any hanging to do."

"Well, well," was the answer, "not hanging till any one hung be dead, or even choked. But surely, to save a fellow-creature's life, you will not refuse to put a rope round his neck, will you?"

"Umph!" muttered Montoro, dismally. He did not at all like the alternative. "I would really rather that some one should put the rope round mine. But, by the bye, why do not you ask Cortes to let you have this new kind of honour yourself, pray? Why am I, of all people, to seek it?"

Alvarado lifted his dark eyebrows significantly enough.

"You know the answer, I dare swear, to your own question, Diego. To whom but yourself would our worthy commander be likely to grant such a favour, think you? He knows your feeling for the Indians, and may credit your willingness to avenge them; but for the rest of us--Ah! thou knowest."

Pedro de Alvarado was right enough. Hernan Cortes gave the desired order to Montoro to replace the executioners already appointed, and at the same time he declared very positively that he would have given it to no one else. Secretly, he was intensely astonished and disgusted with his friend for having asked the favour.

"Every man with a hobby is sure to ride it to death," he muttered angrily to Montejo. "Morla must hang, to win us the trust and good-will of the Indians for the present, that our progress towards Mexico be not further hindered or harassed. But to think of a Spaniard longing to kill a Spaniard, for the sake of a parcel of redskins! Faugh! Our Don Diego hath fallen a hundred-fold in our estimation."

That same poor Don Diego felt, foolishly enough, as if he had fallen a hundred-fold in his own estimation when he actually stood beside the condemned culprit, Morla, with the hangman's rope in his hand.

The order obtained, Alvarado had lost no time in hurrying his friend with him to the proposed scene of execution. They were joined on their way by Juan de Cabrera, carrying an empty tub, at sight of which Montoro actually shuddered, to the evident amusement of his companions, who burst into shouts of laughter. He remonstrated impatiently.

"How can you find amusement in what perchance may turn out a tragedy?"

"Tragedy, indeed," exclaimed Cabrera, laughing as heartily as ever. "That element is passed, my well-beloved but too long-faced friend. The comedy is to be played now."

"And thy tub yonder represents stage properties," laughed Alvarado. "The carrying of it becomes thee as would the carrying of a Damascus blade."

"Beware that I break not thy head with it, by way of proving it hath use as well as ornament to boast," was the retort of the light-hearted knight, who ever seemed ready to dance, whether to fun or fighting.

The surly fellows who were guarding the soldier, Morla, were very loth to give up their trust, and it was not until they had received a particularly sharp hint from Don Pedro that their own past, present, and future delinquencies should be visited with the heaviest possible punishments if they did not preserve themselves from his displeasure, that they at length obeyed his commands to betake themselves out of sight and hearing.

"And now, sirrah," said Cabrera, jauntily, "may it please thee to stand up and be hung; for, as doubtless thou canst perceive, the noble Don Montoro de Diego is in haste to be quit of that rough rope, and of his task."

The man thus adjured began to rise from the ground, but still somewhat slowly, and with a dubious countenance. His reluctance grew greater when he saw it reflected on the amateur hangman's face.

"But, my good Señors," he began anxiously, "I thought that surely now you signified I should be released?"

"Yes," said Montoro, with equal anxiety; "verily I think that this play hath continued long enough; too long for yon fellow's apprehensions and my distress. What is to be the end?"

"Why, his hanging," replied Cabrera, quickly. "To that thou art pledged to the commander; therefore proceed to thy task, and for the sake of that very tender conscience of thine ask no further questions. Ten minutes hence thou wilt have light enough to see our plot by. It is very simple."

So saying, he placed his tub on the ground beneath the gallows, and with a solemn shake of the head at the prisoner, desired him to kneel upon it, and to pray that all things might go well with him. To this piece of advice poor Morla paid the greatest heed, as he felt Montoro's trembling fingers adjusting that horrible rope about his neck.

"Ah, Señor, not too tight," he muttered, even yet thinking it more than probable that his noble countrymen might really hang him, in inadvertence, if not in sport.

But they had no such intention. The next minute he felt the tub very slowly and gently drawn from beneath him; his feet naturally went downwards to the ground, which they managed just to touch by the toes, and there he stood, not comfortably certainly, but still not dead--most decidedly not.

"And there thou art to stay, upon the gallows--"

"Or under it," interrupted Cabrera.

"'Upon' was the commander's word," was the sedate answer. "It best becomes us to keep to that. There thou art to stay upon the gallows for the space of half-an-hour, and then be cut down, and thy body cast outside the camp. But hearken, thou Morla; if I find thy body not again within the camp, ten minutes later, I will find thee a further punishment as a deserter. Don Juan de Cabrera hath consented to hide thee in his tent awhile."

At the expiration of a rather short half-hour, a very tired, toe-aching Morla was accordingly cut down, and Montoro returned to his tent, thankful enough that his good repute had enabled him to save a fellow-Spaniard's life, but also not a little relieved that the unpleasant farce was over, and his new office of hangman come to an end with sunset.