Chapter XXXIII: The Cause Once More in Jeopardy

A very singular and picturesque affair was the camp of the Spaniards, when they paused, for rest or war, on the march to Mexico.

The gay-coloured cotton hangings of the Mexican manufactures had, in many instances, taken the place of the Spaniards' own rough and ragged tent coverings. All around were squatted groups of the slaves who had accompanied the army from Cuba and the sea-coast--races far inferior to those by whom they were now surrounded, and with very scant ideas as to dress, or any of the other refinements of civilization.

Then there were the gentle-spirited, courteous Totonac allies, evidencing their cultured tastes, and advanced instincts, by gathering armfuls of the brilliant wild blossoms about them to adorn their helmets and their shields; whilst regarding them, a short distance off, stood companies of the more warlike, stern-spirited Tlascalans, looking on at their neighbours' doings with a contempt they took no pains to conceal. They were magnificent enough themselves in their warrior's dress, as has been seen; but, under present circumstances, aught having a festal or light-hearted appearance they fairly well judged to betoken effeminacy as much as refinement.

For the rest, there was little love lost between the Cempoallans and the poverty-stricken, hardy Republicans, and although united for the time in one camp as allies of one commander, they took care mutually not to have too much to do with each other.

As for the Spaniards themselves, who were now but as one to eight of their Indian comrades, they were a lean-cheeked, sallow, hollow-eyed set of tatterdemalions enough by this time. All of them had received more or less wounds in their fierce battles with the Tlascalans, and even Hernando Cortes was only kept up by his indomitable resolution, for what with illness and his doctor, he had been brought to such a state of weakness that he could hardly sit steady on his saddle. Fifty of his poor, overdone soldiers had died since starting from Vera Cruz, and the whole band had at last become more than half doubtful whether any of them would reach Mexico alive.

"And really," grumbled Pedro de Alvarado dolefully one evening, "really I don't much care if I do. I'd just as soon lay my bones out here to bleach as within yon mythical city of gold."

"Mythical, as to the being built of gold, doubtless," returned Montoro de Diego in a cheering tone. "But as to there being a fine city yonder, that you surely do not doubt. Think how hopeful all of you were a while since, when you saw the magnificence of its Emperor's gifts!"

"Ah, well!" sighed poor Pedro restlessly. "I would give him better thanks now for an ounce of good health than for an hundredweight of gold."

"Ay indeed, my Captain," groaned Father Juan Diaz. "There you have me with you. I am but just come hither from shriving two poor wretches, who have bid good-bye to this earthly purgatory to go to that which is invisible, and methinks 'twill be not long before you join them there."

"Nay, croaker," exclaimed a voice between contempt and indignation. "There is many an Indian now living will have cause to wish that thine ill prophecy were a true one, before our friend Pedro rids him of his troublesome body. But come thou with me. I would rather try my hand at putting some spirit into thee, than leave thee to rob our comrades of the measure that is theirs."

And so saying Cortes, who had come up at a somewhat opportune moment, marched off the crestfallen, discontented priest to his own quarters to receive a pretty sharp lecture, spite his reverend profession, before he was released.

All the same, the priest's mischievous growls had already borne fruit, and the following morning, before the tents were struck, the Captain-General had to receive a deputation from the malcontents, who were too numerous to be treated with anger or disdain.

"But you are so foolish!" exclaimed Hernando, indeed trembling at the desperate state of the mighty cause he had in hand. "Ye speak as though it were for my glory alone, to fill my pockets with gold only, that ye have all thus fought and struggled and endured until now! Is it not likewise for yourselves? If our achievements shall be so stupendous and so glorious that they hand my name down to after-ages, will not your names also gain the like renown?"

Cortes put the exclamation as a declared certainty, but his hearers rather accepted it as a question, and a shrunken-limbed, white-lipped soldier from amidst the group rejoined harshly--

"Nay, not so, Captain. Those who live through the battle win their spurs, like enough; but those who die, e'en though it be on the eve of victory, so it be before the battle is decided, think you their names get handed down? Faith, no, then. Fame is like other riches, limited in quantity, and so it is reserved, like many another thing, for those who walk over their comrades' dead bodies to success."

As the man ended his speech he staggered from weakness, and would have fallen forward to the ground on his face but that Montoro, who had been standing beside the General to guard him in case of mutiny, saw the poor fellow sinking, and sprang forward in time to catch him in his arms.

Cortes had been hitherto standing fronting his discontented followers with an air of proud resolve, every inch the commander, and the indomitable discoverer and conqueror, but now his countenance suddenly changed, softened, and his lips trembled. He was the man with a genial temper and a warm heart once more--the very comrade indeed of the meanest soldier in his company, who bore all that they had to bear, eat the same food, and shared all the same privations and fatigues; or rather, differed in this, that he took the lion's share of every discomfort whenever it was possible.

As the exhausted man fell swooning into Montoro's ready arms, Cortes stepped forward hastily, and carefully aided in carrying him to his own tent, and there placed him in the clever care of Doña Marina, the interpreter.

"Poor fellow!" he ejaculated on his return to the waiting deputation. "Poor fellow! no wonder that he speaks down-heartedly, for I find that he has been badly wounded, and has fever."

"So have we all been wounded," said another of the group, but more calmly. "And for the fever, well, I may almost say, and so have we all got fever. And do you wonder, General, that it is so?"

A rather weary smile passed over the General's countenance as he replied,

"No, truly, I wonder not at all. I also have been wounded, as you know, in our late engagements with these brave Tlascalans, and I also have fever. But seeing that we all confess to having suffered so much to reach the threshold, shall we not adventure the one more step to enter the door?"

"If it were a step!" ejaculated the new spokesman. "But as it is, we live a worse life than our very animals. When the saddles are off them they can forget their troubles for a while, but for us! Ah! then, we have no dog's life indeed, but one much worse. Fighting and watching night and day, we have no rest till death steps up to put an end to all."

The speaker's words were hard, but they were uttered so temperately and firmly that Cortes replied to them in the like spirit--

"You are right, my brothers--no animal, no unreasoning beast of burden could endure the life we have borne for these past months of desperate adventure; neither could any animal be so buoyed up with lofty hopes, neither could it have so glorious a rejoicing if success should be the crown at last. Our God has helped us to bear and to overcome, as the gods of the ancients never helped even the very greatest of their heroes. None but Spaniards, my brothers, aided by the Spaniard's God and St. Jago, could have struggled onwards, always conquerors as we have been, a handful in the midst of myriads of foes. And remember--" And as Cortes uttered that word he paused, and looked round upon his followers ere he repeated impressively, "Remember, comrades, whatever adversities we have suffered, whatever trials, we have still ever advanced, we have made no step backwards from our undertaking. But you are all free men. We will all stand here and watch the man who first makes that step in retreat and he shall have no hindrance. I myself will be the first to bid him the 'good speed' of farewell."

"Poor fellows!" murmured Father Olmedo with a half-smile to Montoro. "Our General is indeed clever. Few would have found a way so well to give a choice that is no choice. How can any of them now accept his permission to be gone!"

Montoro's countenance reflected the half-smile of his companion. But at the same time he shrugged his shoulders with the reply,

"Ah, well! as Hernando Cortes himself says, better death with honour than life with disgrace."

Unconsciously he uttered the last sentence aloud, and once more he did the General good service. The poor, hard-worn grumblers heard it, and it clenched the argument already so cleverly managed by Cortes.

"Perhaps you have reason, my Señor," exclaimed one of the malcontents. "If we get home alive with our boasted programme of conquest unfulfilled we shall get nought but scorning, it is probable, till we shall wish that verily we had died with our brethren out here. So for my part, after all, I elect to stay."

"To advance, you mean," cried Cortes joyously, making a stride forward to lay his hand, with a well-assumed air of gratitude and friendly familiarity, on the shoulder of the recovered adherent. "There is no 'staying' for us, my friends. We must continue to advance to our appointed goal, or we must retreat. And I frankly tell you all this, that it is my firm belief that our greatest safety, nay, still more, our only safety, lies in progress."

"How so?" boldly demanded a voice in the crowd. "For honour--well, that may be. But for safety!"

"Ay," replied Cortes. "And for safety too, I affirm. And were it not that the experiment would be too costly I would soon prove my assertion to be well-founded. Hitherto our course has been one of unbroken advance, and victory over one petty state after another, and all have become awed by our strange power. Let us make but one day's journey backwards, as though disheartened or worn out, and the spell would be broken; our enemies, forgetting their own petty squabbles for the time, would unite for the destruction of the common enemy and invader, and by the mere force of numbers we should be overwhelmed as with an avalanche. But now we are once more united, my hands feel strong once more, and I will most surely lead you on, my comrades, to a full and final success."

"Meantime," remarked Juan de Cabrera, in a tone of as much satisfaction as marked Cortes' own voice, "meantime, my very good friends and brothers, I see yonder a party of these worthy redskin cooks advancing in the very nick of time with our dinner. And I confess that, for my part, I would fain for the present put by the questions of backwards or forwards, and stay a while to help clear their dishes for them."

Apparently Don Juan's sentiments were remarkably similar at the moment to those of the rest of his companions, and, after a good meal, Cortes found his band once more ready with alacrity to follow whither he might choose to lead.

Their first destination was the beautiful and sacred city of Cholula--the Rome, as it were, of Mexico. The Tlascalans eagerly warned the Spaniards against approaching it or entering its streets. The Cholulans, they declared, were fair speaking but crafty, making amends to themselves for cowardly weakness by cunning, and the most unscrupulous treachery.

But Cortes was never a man to be easily turned aside from his purpose. The Cholulans sent to invite him to enter their city, but entreated that the hasty-tempered Tlascalan warriors might be kept without in the camp, and Cortes accepted the invitation and granted the request.