CHAPTER XX.
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Meanwhile, a scene of still more tragical character
was on the point of being represented within
the walls of the palace.
It was a tempestuous night. The clouds, which
had all day enveloped the pagan metropolis, were,
at last, gathered over Tezcuco. The wind blew in
gusts, with frequent rain; and as the distant thunderbolts
rolled with a rumbling cadence over Mexico,
vast sheets of lightning shot up in the west, illuminating
sky, lake, and mountain, with a cadaverous
glare.
Some five or six of the principal cavaliers were
assembled with Cortes, in the great Hall of Audience,
engaged in earnest and anxious debate. It
happened, by accident, that the huge curtain, which,
at night, was usually drawn over the window of
alabaster, had been, this evening, neglected by the
attendants; so that it remained, drooping in gigantic
festoons from the great beam, carved into a serpent's
head, which held it at the top, down to the
lesser ornaments that supported it on the sides, of the
casement. The strong cords, by which it could be
dragged into its place, hung over the central beam,
flapping occasionally against the alabaster wall,
as the gust, puffing in through the great door,
whirled the smoke and flame of the lamps and
torches, from the walls and pillars, to which they
were attached.
Thus, though the alabaster slabs were too thick
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to transmit any ordinary ray, the brighter flashes
of lightning made their way through, and added,
at times, a ghastly glare to the light of the lamps;
in which the countenances of the cavaliers, perturbed
as they were, assumed such an unnatural
hue as might have beseemed the ghosts of dead
heroes, rising to earth, to meddle again in the sport
of slaughter.
The visage of the Captain-General betrayed
greater anxiety, mingled with sterner wrath, than
appeared on any other; and when he spoke, it was
in accents brief and low, and exceedingly emphatic.
“I tell you, cavaliers,” he cried, “the mystery
that shrouds this treason is more frightful than the
treason itself. We are at fault, señores, we are at
fault. We behold enough to show us that the devils
are at work about us, but not to discover in
what mode they are toiling. It is clear enough that
Villafana is a dog, and one day he shall hang; but
I know not, in what manner, nor at what time, he
will bite. This is certain: he has suffered one of
the Mexicans to leave his cell, and communicate
with Xicotencal: it is certain, also, that this
cur of Tlascala will leave the camp before daydawn;
and how many of his warriors will follow
after him, that I leave you to conjecture. This
I have from a true mouth. He is incensed, first,
on account of Juan Lerma; and, secondly, I doubt
not, the Mexican has made the most of his growling
temper and present discontent. What sayst
thou, Sandoval? What hinders thee to lie in wait,
and, following at his heels, so do with him, that his
Tlascalans who desert afterwards, may be frightened
on the path, and so return to us? There are
good trees on the wayside!”
“Ay,” replied Don Gonzalo, grimly, “when there
is any executioner's work towards, I am sure to
play jack-ketch. I am loath to deal with a man
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that hath been so valiant; but if he be a traitor, it
is right he should die. What if I give him the bastinado,
Turk-wise? Methinks that would bring him
into a sounder temper.”
It would but inflame the choler of his proud
people,” said the shrewder general; “whereas his
sudden death, dealt upon him in the act of desertion,
will strike them with fear. Take thou a rope
with thee, my son, and fear not to use it.”
The young cavalier nodded assent; and the general
went on:
“Concerning the ambassadors, thus secretly
treating with a traitor, methinks they have forfeited
all claim to protection?”
“Ay,” said Alvarado; “and the bastinado, of
which Sandoval spake, may serve the good purpose
of opening their lips, and thereby revealing,
not only the depth of the Tlascalan defection, but
the length to which Villafana and his curs have
gone with them. Let us send for them, and try the
experiment. Or stay--here are cords enough on
the curtain. One of these, twisted round the brow
with a sword-hilt, I have known to bring out a
man's tongue as far as his eyes.”
The cavaliers turned to the window; and the
bitter smile of the Captain-General was made deathlike,
by a flash, brighter than usual, shooting
through the wall.
“A good thought,” he said; “but we will not
be precipitate. We have them secured; and however
Villafana may permit them to speak with
others, he is somewhat too wise to set them free.
We will have this thing considered in the morning.”
At this moment, Don Francisco de Guzman
made his appearance in the chamber, his visage
disfigured by a black patch, and somewhat pale.
But this, as it was soon discovered, was caused
rather by care than sickness.
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“Señor,” he exclaimed, “I have been to seek the
ambassadors—They have escaped!”
“Escaped!” echoed Cortes. “Thou art beside
thyself! And the villain Alguazil, has he fled with
them? I will tear his flesh with pincers! What! release
the infidels, under my eye?”
“So please you,” said Guzman, “this, I think,
was no resolved treachery, but an effect of infatuation.
The wine that came to us to-day, was too
strong for the watchmen: where they got it, I
know not; but I found them sound asleep at the
open door.”
“They shall be scourged, till they drop more
blood than they have drunk wine,” said Don Hernan,
furiously. “And the prison-guards also? Hah?
The prisoner has escaped?”
“Not so,” said the cavalier: “all's well there,
save--”
“And Villafana? Speak me the word—Has he
fled?”
“Señor mio, no: he is in the prison, carousing
with Juan Lerma, as the guards say. I heard his
voice through the door.”
“Carousing? does Juan Lerma take his death so
merrily? By'r lady, devil as he is, it is a sin to slay
him!”
“As to the prisoner,” said Guzman, “I know not
whether he be merry or not; but I myself (for I
had mine ear to the door,) heard Villafana smack
his lips, and vow he `would drink no more, this
being no time to be thick-witted.' But every one
knows Villafana: his bibbing once brought him to
the strappado.”
“Ay; and it shall bring him to the gallows.--It
is the fate of the can-clinker—all spoken in three
words—drunk, whipped, and gibbeted!--Didst
thou worm naught from the guards? They were of
his own appointing.”
“Not a syllable,” replied Guzman: “I do believe
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they have been too much frightened, and are now
penitent men.”
“It may be,” said Cortes, “it may be; but I
would I could look into the dreams of Villafana. If
I punish him for the flight of the ambassadors, it
may be that I disperse an imposthume before it
comes to a head; or it may prove, that I drive the
matter into the more vital organs of this body politic,
till all be corrupted and consumed. What say
ye to a little torture inflicted on Villafana himself?
Yet he is a bold dog, and may not speak. They
say he winced not under the lash. I swear to you,
my friends, I am in a strait.”
While Cortes thus admitted the difficulty in
which he felt himself pressed, and the cavaliers
were divided in their counsels, they perceived a
common soldier intrude himself into the chamber,
and boldly approach them.
“Hah!” cried Alvarado, ever hot of temper,
“who art thou, Sir Gallows-bird, that bringest thy
knave's pate among cavaliers in council?”
“Hold! touch him not; 'tis the Barba-Roxa!”
exclaimed Don Hernan. “What impertinence is
this, sirrah? Who bade thee hitherward?”
“God and my good saint,” said Gaspar, flinging
himself on his knees, and adding, with the greatest
impetuosity, “Pardon, señor! pardon for two unhappy
men! Or if that cannot be, why pardon then
for one; and I care not how soon you hang up the
others.”
“What means the fool? Art thou distracted?”
“Señor!” cried the soldier, wringing his hands,
“I am a knave and traitor. Grant me the life of
Juan Lerma, who meant you no wrong, and I will
give you, for the rope and sword, two hundred and
forty such traitors as the world never saw, and
myself among them; for I have signed my name
with knife and arrow, and sworn myself to
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brotherhood, under the pains of hell, which I care not how
soon may came upon me.”
“Let some one of you look to the door,” said
Cortes, quickly: “and see that the sentinels keep
their eyes open.—How now, Gaspar! what is this
thou sayst? Art thou indeed a villain? I should
have struck on the mouth any soldier that had said
it of thee.”
“I am what I said,” replied Gaspar; “your
excellency refused to listen to me, when I pleaded
for Juan Lerma; and I was incensed. I said to myself,
señor, `I have saved your life, and yet you
deny me the life of my friend, who, in ignorance,
broke a decree, yet knew no malice.' Besides, se
ñor, you called me a dog,—`an officious, presuming
dog;' whereas I was not a dog then, but now.
Well, señor, while I was in a passion, the devil
came to me, and tempted me, and I signed my
name to my perdition.”
“What!” said Alvarado, recoiling with devout
horror, “hast thou really signed over thy soul to
Satan? We will burn thee thou devil's penitent, in
a hot fire!”
“Speak on,” said Cortes. “What meanest thou
by this mummery? What devil is this? for, though
Satan be walking now among us, yet, I think, it
could not be he.”
“It was Villafana,” replied Gaspar; “and heaven
pardon me, for I think it must be Apollyon in his
likeness!”
At this communication, the cavaliers all stared at
one another, and Cortes exclaimed,
“Two hundred and forty men! What! are there
so many knaves of his party?”
“Ay, and many more, who will help, but will not
put down their names upon paper,” replied Gaspar.
“But your excellency says nothing of Juan Lerma.
If you will pardon him, your excellency shall hear
all.”
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“How, sirrah!” cried Cortes, sternly, “Do you
avow yourself a sworn traitor, and yet dictate to
me terms of mercy? Speak, or you shall have that
to your brows, which will bring out words with
screams.”
Gaspar sprang to his feet,—boldly, fearlessly,
and even insolently, returning the look of the Captain-General:
“Your excellency has no heart, and I have,”
he cried. “Do your will upon us both; and reckon
my death to your conscience, as you do that of
Juan Lerma. You shall not have a word more.
Here are my arms.—What cavalier will demean
himself to tie them? I will meet your excellency at
the judgment-seat.”
“Thou art but a fool,” said Cortes, moderating
his anger,—or, at least, mollifying the severity of
his accents; for his countenance yet gleamed with
wrath. “Thou knowest, that, having saved my
life at Xochimilco, I can, in no case, take thine.”
“But I leave that to the laws, without asking any
mercy,” said the Red Beard, obstinately: “I ask
the life of Juan Lerma, condemned without law.”
“Dost thou impugn my justice, fellow?” cried
the ferocious De Olid. “I swear to thee, when
thou art brought to be judged, I will give thee a
double quantity for this very reason.”
While the cavalier gave utterance to so excellent
a proof of his equity, Alvarado, with whom Gaspar
had been a favourite, whispered in his ear,
“Speak out, and fear not. It stands not with
the captain's honour to barter men's lives for
knave's confessions; yet he shall pardon the young
man, thy friend, as I am thy guarantee.”
“What say ye, cavaliers?” cried Cortes: “does
it become me, to remit a sentence of death, at such
mutinous intercession?”
Before any of the officers could reply, Gaspar,
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confiding in the promise of Alvarado, threw himself
again at the general's feet, crying,
“Señor, I am not a mutineer, but a penitent. I
am mad to think that one,—so good a friend, so
valiant a soldier, so true a follower, (for there is no
falsehood in Juan Lerma,) should die for a small
matter,—saving Don Francisco's presence,—when
there are so many rogues about us, that go unpunished.
But I leave him to your excellency's mercy,
trusting that your excellency will reconsider the
judgment, and release him. Therefore I will speak,
in this trust; and I pray heaven to remember the
act, be it merciful or be it cruel.—This is what I
have to say: In my passion, I betook me to Villafana;
who, promising to save Lerma's life, I signed
with him; though the first act of guilt was to take
your excellency's life. Holy mother of heaven!
pardon me; but I was very much incensed. Well,
señor, I found on the paper the names of two hundred
and forty men, and I will tell you such as I
remember; but if you will send to the prison, and
suddenly seize the Alguazil, you will find the list
in his bosom.—”
“Quinones, see thou to this,” said Cortes, turning
to the master of the armory, who made one
of the council. “Take with thee none but hidalgos,
and be sudden, making no noise and shedding
no blood—Yet stay: this will not do, neither.
Hark thee, Gaspar, man, when shall this precious
earthquake rumble into the upper air?”
“To-morrow,” replied the soldier; and then, to
the horror and astonishment of all present, he
divulged the whole scheme of assassination, as
Villafana had himself spoken it in the prison.
“With a letter from my father, too!” cried
Cortes, apparently more struck with the heartless
barbarity of the stratagem, than with anything
else in Gaspar's communication: “This is indeed
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the Judas-kiss, the—Faugh! these were the words
of Magdalena!”
While he muttered these words to himself, he
was roused by a sudden voice at the great door,
and heard distinctly the unexpected voice of Villafana,
saying, as he wrangled with the guards,
“Oh, 'slid, you take upon you too much. I come
at the order of the general.”
“Admit Villafana,” said Cortes, in tones that penetrated
loudly to the farthest limits of the room, for
the cavaliers were stricken into a boding silence
at the accents of the Alguazil: “Admit my trusty
Villafana.” And Villafana entered.
He was evidently flushed with wine, and it was
for that reason, doubtless, that he did not seem to
observe the presence of his forsworn associate, nor
the suspicious act of two cavaliers, who stole from
the group, and took possession of the door by which
he had entered. He approached with a reckless
and confident, though somewhat stupid, air, exclaiming,
after divers humble scrapes and salaams,
“I come at your excellency's bidding, according
to appointment. This was the hour, please your
excellency—But 'tis a scurvy night, with much
thunder and lightning.”
“Ay, truly,” said Cortes, with a mild voice, while
all the rest stood in the silence of death; “but,
being so observant, Villafana, how comes it you
have not remarked that you are here without the
Indian Techeechee, whom I commanded you to
bring hither at this hour?”
“Señor,” said the Alguazil, a little confused,
“that old Ottomi is a sly dog, and, I doubt me, not
over-honest.”
“I doubt me so, too,” said Cortes, in the same
encouraging tones; “yet, honest or false, sly or
simple, methinks thou shouldst not have suffered
him to escape.”
“Escape! what, Techeechee escape!” cried
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Villafana with unaffected surprise: “Ho, no! I did
but give the gray infidel a sop of wine, and straightway
he hid himself in a corner, to sleep off his
drunkenness. And,—and,—” continued he, with
instinctive though clumsy cunning,—“and I thought
it would be unbeseemly to bring him to your excellency,
in that condition. I beg your excellency's
pardon for making him acquainted with such Christian
liquor; but it was out of pity, together with
some little hope of converting him to the faith; and,
besides, I knew not his head was so weak. I will
fetch him to your excellency in the morning.”
“Why, this is well,” said the Captain-General,
with such insinuating gentleness as characterizes
the snake, when closing softly on his prey; “and
I doubt not thou canst give me as good an account
of the ambassadors. It is said to me, that they also
have escaped.”
“Good God!” cried Villafana, startled not only
out of his confidence, but, in great measure, out of,
his intoxication, by such an announcement; “the
ambassadors escaped? It cannot be!”
“Pho, they have hurt thee more than I thought,—
even to the point of destroying thy memory,”
rejoined the Captain-General, with the blandishment
of a smile. “There is blood upon thy shoulder: I
doubt not, thou wert severely hurt, while attempting
to prevent their flight. No one ever questioned
the courage of Villafana.”
“Yes, señor, yes—no—yes; that is,—I mean to
say—Saints of heaven!”—And here the Alguazil
paused, completely sobered,—that is, restored to
his senses, but not to his wits; for he perceived
himself in a difficulty, and his invention pointed out
no means of escape. He rolled his eyes, haggard
at once with debauch and alarm, over the cavaliers,
and, though the lofty figure of Alvarado concealed
Gaspar from his view, he beheld enough in the extraordinary
sedateness of all present, to fill him
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with the most racking suspicions. He turned again
to Cortes, and commanding his fears as much as
he could, went on, with an appearance of boldness,
“Alas, noble señor, if the ambassadors be escaped,
I am a lost man,—for I trusted too much to
the vigilance of others, and I should not have done
so. Alas, señor,” he continued with more energy,
as his mind began to work more clearly, “I have
committed a great offence in this negligence; but I
vow to heaven, it was owing to my fears of Juan
Lerma, who made many efforts to escape, and had
strong friends to help him. Your excellency may
see the necessity I was under, to give all my
thoughts to him; for, some one having furnished
him with a dagger, he foully attacked me, not on
my guard, giving me this wound; and had it not
been for the sudden rushing in of the guard, I should
certainly have been killed.”
Thus spoke the Alguazil, with returning craft,
mingling together fiction and fact with an address
which astonished even himself:
“Yes, señor,” he continued, satisfied with the
strength of his argument, and now elated with a
prospect of providing against the effects of his imprudent
disclosures in the prison; “yes, señor,
and the young man, besides thus wounding me,
swore he would have me hanged for a conspiracy;
stating roundly, as the guards will witness, (I am
certain that Esteban, the Left-Handed, heard him,)
that, being a notorious grumbler, any such fiction
would be believed of me. As if this would make
me a conspirator! whereas, your excellency knows,
according to the proverb, Barking dogs are no
biters.” And the audacious ruffian, relapsing into
security, attested his innocence by a gentle laugh
and the sweetest of his smiles.
“Again I say, thou speakest well,” said Cortes,
carelessly descending from the platform, on which
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he had mounted at the approach of Villafana.
“Thine arguments have even satisfied me of the
folly of certain charges, brought against thee by
this mad fellow, here, at thy elbow.”
As he spoke, Alvarado, taking his instructions
rather from a consentaneous feeling of propriety
than from any hint of Don Hernan's, moved aside,
and Villafana's eyes fell upon the figure of Gaspar.
“Think of it, good fellow,” said Cortes, laying
his hand upon Villafana's shoulder, as if to support
himself a little; “the things he said of thee are innumerable,
and excessively preposterous. He
averred, for instance, that thou wert peevishly offended,
because I had not invited thy presence to
the festivities of the morning banquet, and wert resolved
to come, whether I would or not, and that
with a letter from my father in one hand, and a
dagger in the other. Eh! is not this outrageous?
He said, besides,—But, o' my life, thou hast bled
too much from this wound! Juan Lerma strikes
deep, when the fit is on him. I hope thou art not
faint, man?”
To these benevolent expressions, the Alguazil
replied by turning upon the general a countenance
so bloodless, and an eye filled with such ecstacy
of despair, (for if the poniards of all had been at his
throat, he could not have been more perfectly apprized
of his coming fate,) that Cortes must have
been struck with some feeling of commiseration,
had not his nature been somewhat akin to that of
a eat, which delights less to kill than to sport with
the agonies of a dying victim. As it was, he continued
to torment the abandoned wretch, by adding,
pleasantly,
“And what thinkest thou of this, too, my Villafana?
Two hundred and forty conspirators, to rush
in when the blow was struck!—doubtless to carve
their dinners from the ribs of my cavaliers!—Ah,
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Villafana, Villafana! thou shouldst have a care of
thy friends. Our enemies are harmless, but our
friends are always dangerous.—What dost thou
say to all this, Villafana?—Knave! hadst thou
twenty daggers in thy jerkin, thou wert still but
an unfanged reptile!”
While he spoke, in this jestful mood, he was sensible
that Villafana, (doubtless with an instinctive
motion, of which he was himself unconscious, being
apparently turned to stone,) was stealing his
hand up towards his bosom, as if to grasp a weapon.
The moment the member had reached the
opening of his garment, Cortes caught him by the
throat, and giving utterance to his last words with
a voice of thunder, and employing a strength irresistible
by such a man as Villafana, he hurled him
to the floor, at the same instant placing his foot on
his throat. Then stooping down, and thrusting his
hand into the traitor's bosom, he plucked out, at a
single grasp, a poniard, a letter, and the fatal list
of conspirators. He pushed the first aside, read
the superscription of the second with a laugh, and
casting his eye upon the third, devoured its contents
with an avidity that left him unconscious of
the murmurs of the fierce cavaliers, and the groans
of the wretched Alguazil, strangling under his
foot.
“What, señor! will you rob the gallows of its
prey?” cried Alvarado, pointing his sword at the
prostrate traitor, as, indeed, did all the rest, (having
drawn them at the moment when Cortes seized
him by the throat:) “His crime is manifest to all:
what need of trial? Every man his steel through
the dog!”
“Hold!” cried the Captain-General; “this were
a death for an hidalgo. Up, cur! up, and meet thy
fate! Up!” And he spurned the wretch with his
foot.
The Alguazil rose up, his face black with blood,
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which, not perfectly dispersing even at release from
strangulation, remained in leopard-like blotches
over his visage, ghastfully contrasted with the ashy
hues that gathered between them. As he rose, his
arms were seized by two or three cavaliers; and
Sandoval, as quick in action as he was sluggish
in speech, snatching the rich sword-sash of samite
from his own shoulders, instantly secured them behind
his back.
“For the love of God, señores!” cried Villafana,
finding speech at last, “what do you mean? what
do you design? You will not kill an innocent man?
Will you judge me at the charge of a liar? Gaspar
is my sworn foe. I will make all clear.—Señor, I
have been drinking, and my mind is confused:
take me not at this disadvantage. Oh, for God's
sake, what do you mean?—The list? what, the list?
'Tis for a merry-making--a rejoicing for my birthday.
I will explain all to your excellencies.—I am
an innocent man.—Gaspar is a forsworn caitiff—a
caitiff, señores, a caitiff!—I claim trial by the civil
judges.”--
“Gag him,” cried one.
“Strike him on the mouth,” said another. And
Villafana, gasping for breath, uttered, for a moment,
nothing but inarticulate murmurs.
“De Olid, Marin, De Ircio,” cried Cortes, rapidly,
and with inexpressible decision, “ye are judges
of life and death; Sandoval and Alvarado, by right
of office, ye can sit in judgment; Quinones, Guzman,
and the rest, I make you, in the king's name,
special associates of the others.—Why, here is a
court, not martial, but civil; and the dog shall have
judgment to his content! He stands charged of
treason.—Guilty, señores? or not guilty?”
“Guilty!” cried all with one voice: and De Olid
added, “Let us take him into the garden, and hang
him to the cedar-tree.”
“To the window,” said Cortes, pointing with his
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sword to the stout cords, hanging so invitingly
from the serpent's-head; and in an instant the victim
was dragged upon the platform.
Up to this moment, his fears had been uttered
rather in vehement complaints than in outcries;
but now, when he perceived that he was condemned
by a mockery of trial, doomed without the respite
of a minute's space to pray, the rope dangling
before his eyes, and already in the hands of a cavalier,
who was bending it into a noose, he uttered a
piercing scream, and endeavoured to throw himself
on his knees.
“Mercy!” he cried, “mercy! mercy! I will
confess—I can save all your lives—Mercy!
mercy!”
Of all the sights of horror and disgust, villany,
transformed at the death-hour, into its natural character
and original of cowardice, is among the most
appalling. Villafana was as brave as a ruffian could
be; but when imagination is linked in the same
spirit with vice, courage expires almost at the same
moment with hope. With a weapon in his hand,
and that at liberty, Villafana, perhaps, would have
manifested all the valour in which despair perceives
the only hope, and died like a man. As it was,
bound and grasped in the arms of strong men,
entirely helpless and equally without hope, his death
staring him in the face, he gave himself up at once
to unmanly fears, and wept, screamed, and prayed,
until the guards, at watch in the vestibule, sank
upon their knees and conned over their beads, to
divert their senses from cries so agonized and so
horrible.
As he strove to prostrate himself before his inexorable
judges, he was pulled up by the cavaliers,
and among others by Don Francisco de Guzman,
whose countenance he recognized.
“Save me, Guzman! save me!” he cried; “for
thou wert once of the party—Save me!”
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“Peace, wolf—”
“Mercy! mercy! noble señor!” he continued,
turning to Cortes: “I am but one of many. Guzman
is as false as I; I charge him with treason:
he has abused your excellency's ear!—Listen,
señores, and spare me my life: give me a day—
give me but to-night, to pray and confess, and you
shall have all. There are cavaliers among us—
Mercy, for the love of heaven!—Camarga, the Do
minican,—Don Palmerino de Castro,—Muertazo of
Toledo, Carabo of Seville,—Artiaga, Santa-Rosa,
Bravo, Aljaraz, and an hundred more—”
“Peace, lying villain!” cried the Captain-General—
“What ho, the rope! quick, the rope!”
“A moment to repent! a moment to repent!”
shrieked the victim, struggling so violently to bring
his hands before him, as if to clasp them in prayer,
that the silken band crackled behind him, and his
hands turned black with congested blood; “a moment
to repent! for I am a sinner. What! would
you condemn my soul, too? Saints, hear me!
angels, plead for me! A priest, for the love of
heaven! I killed Artiaga of Cadiz; I scuttled the
ship at Alonso, drowned the nuns, and stole the
church-plate—Call Magdalena—Where's Magdalena?—
You are murdering me! Mercy! mercy!
I killed Hilario, too—I poniarded him in the old
wounds, inflicted by Juan Lerma—I have much to
repent—A priest, for the love of God! A priest,
oh, a priest!”
Thus raved the villain, stained with a thousand
crimes; and if aught had been wanting to steel the
hearts of his executioners, enough was divulged in
the unavailing abandonment with which he accused
himself of misdeeds, so many and so atrocious.
While his neck was yet free from the rope, he
struggled violently, but without any attempt to do
a mischief to his unrelenting murderers; his resistance
was, indeed, like that of a cur, under the
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chastisement of a cruel and brutal master, which
howls and contends, and yet fears to employ its
fangs against the tyrant. But when he found, at
last, that the cavaliers were actually putting the
hasty halter about his neck, his struggles were not
greater to escape than to inflict injury. He shook
and tossed his head in distraction, and Don Francisco
de Guzman, endeavouring to seize him by
the beard, he caught the hand of the cavalier betwixt
his teeth, and held it with the gripe of a
tiger.
“Hell confound thee, wolf!” cried Guzman,
groaning with pain, and striking him over the face
with the hilt of his sword, but in vain: “Help me,
cavaliers, or he will have my hand off!—Villain,
unlock thy teeth.—”
“Stand aside—This will unloose thee,” said
one, thrusting his rapier into the thigh of the vindictive
wretch; who no sooner felt the cold steel
penetrate his flesh, than he opened his mouth to
utter a yell. “Whip him up now.—So much for
traitors!”
It was the last scream of the assassin. His lips
uttered one more cry to heaven; the name of
Magdalena was cut short, as the noose closed upon
his throat, and ended in a hoarse, rattling, gulphing
whine, that did not itself prevail beyond the space
of a second. As he shot up to the top of the window,
an intense glare of lightning flashed through
the alabaster, and his figure, traced upon that lustrous
and ghastly medium, was seen dangling and
writhing in the death-agony. The next moment,
the huge curtain was drawn over the dreadful
spectacle: but those who paused a moment, to look
back, could behold the convulsions of the dying
miscreant giving motion, and sometimes protrusion,
to the dark folds of the drapery.—When all was
silent, in the darkness of the night, the watchmen
in the vestibule could yet hear the pattering of
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blood-drops falling from his mangled limb, upon the
sonorous wood of the platform.
But there were other scenes now occurring,
which, for a time, drove from their thoughts the
memory of Villafana.
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Bird, Robert Montgomery, 1806-1854 [1835], The infidel, or, The fall of Mexico, volume 1 (Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, Philadelphia) [word count] [eaf015v1].
