Captain from Castile (56 page)

Pedro felt a curious languor coupled with growing nervousness. The whole aff"air was too unreal. After the bloodshed of the past week, on the eve of flight, it smacked too much of the hangman's feast, a final

debauch. It had the air of a macabre joke, ominous of death and dissolution.

Father Olmedo, stopping briefly, summed it up. "After harvest, winter; after the banquet, hunger. After this, what?"

By now the room had been swept bare of gold, the soldiers staggering out one by one with their plunder. The torches, burned to their sockets, cast a final glimmering through the place, where beautiful but perishable things lay strewn over the floor like the flotsam of wreckage.

Looking about him, Cortes gave a slight shrug. It expressed more eloquently the vanity of human wishes than many a volume on the subject.

"You're clear as to the order of the march we discussed, son Pedro— vanguard, center, and rear guard, and who goes where? We'll start breaking quarters at once to march at midnight. And no noise. Our lives depend on it." He turned to the other officers who stood grouped around him at the door. "I repeat, no noise, seiiores. We came with drums and trumpets; we leave like thieves in the night."

He paused, his lips quivering. Then he added, "But some of us will return."

L/X

Mass was said; and, as the witching hour approached, the companies assembled silently in the pitch blackness of the vast courtyard. Since the besieging Aztecs had withdrawn from the central plaza and its purlieus following the death of Montezuma, there was a chance that no listening ears would catch the sounds unavoidable in the marshaling of an army with its horses, baggage, and guns, no matter how much care might be taken to quiet them. The Spaniards numbered about eleven hundred, their Indian allies several thousands. Thirty cannon had to be rolled here and there; a hundred horses with noisy iron shoes had to be lined up; and no lights could be shown for fear of watchers on distant housetops. Although the thick drizzle, which discouraged the enemy from prowling, gave added concealment, the complete darkness also increased the confusion.

Next to the main gates stood Margarino and a detachment in charge of the portable bridge which was designed to solve the problem of the gaps in the causeway across the lake. Behind would come Sandoval, leading the van with twenty lances, two hundred foot, and a Tlascalan

division. Then would follow the center under Cortes, with most of the horse, some foot and cannon, another division of Indians, the baggage and the royal treasure. Lastly, as rear guard, mustered the main force of the infantry under Alvarado and Juan Velasquez de Leon, supported by artillery and a final contingent of Indian allies.

In the black night, to get this column into some kind of initial order, and to make sure that its component parts were where they ought to be, took time. Pedro de Vargas with other officers groped here and there through the crowd, rearranging, checking up. The long wait, the soaking rain and utter darkness, drained the heart out of men in spite of the treasure they were carrying. They shifted from foot to foot or squatted in their ranks, feeling already the weight of arms and of gold-laden packs. The slipping of horses on the wet pavement, the continuous whisper of "Quiet! Quiet!" the suspense as to what the night would bring, set their nerves on edge. A kind of voiceless muttering went on: were they going to wait here forever! Why in the name of God didn't they march?

"Is it Captain de Sandoval?" whispered a voice.

"The same," he answered. "Mistress Catana?"

"Yes. I wanted to ask a favor of you, sir—if you would be so kind."

"Anything in my power, damisela"

"That you'd take my imp here, Ochoa, behind you when you ride. He'd be trodden under in a melee. You're a man of luck. Captain. I believe you'll reach the mainland."

" 'Sblood we'll all reach it. Who's to stop us? These Indian dogs?"

"I don't know, sir. It's a feeling— You'll take Ochoa?"

The hoarse voice in the darkness hesitated. "Faith, Mistress, I may have to ride hard, and Motilla isn't a palfrey. Can Ochoa hang on?"

"Como no!" came the boy's treble. "Like a burr. It isn't that I'm afraid to march with Aunty, but I'd like to tell the other pages how I'd ridden behind you on Motilla. Please, Senor Captain."

"Please!" Catana echoed.

"Very well," grunted the voice. "But look out for yourself, boy. I can't have you on my mind. And off with you when we're over the causeway."

A vibration, starting at the main portals and extending backward through the ranks, began.

The familiar voice of Pedro de Vargas sounded a few yards off. "Catana, get back to your place. Take care of yourself, por Dios. . . . Gentlemen of the bridge, are you ready? Open the gates, there! Forward, the first detachment!"

Sandoval swung to Motilla's saddle, stuck out a foot, and Ochoa slid up behind him like a lizard.

"Good-by, Tia Catana."

"Good-by, mozuelo mio."

Catana had a lump in her throat. It was as if she would not be seeing Ochoa again. A ridiculous feeling, because, even in the case of attack, who could prevent so well-equipped and seasoned an army from making good its retreat? She put her depression down to the dreariness of the night, the strangeness of departure from a place to which she had grown accustomed during six months. But the funereal heaviness of farewell hung on. And of course, as she groped her way back toward the center of the column, it must be then that she would remember the ill-omened fiock of birds which had recently perched on the roofs of the palace.

"Ay de mi" she reflected, "it is in the hands of God."

The ranks were already shuffling forward foot by foot.

"Captain Marin's company?" she whispered.

"Here," replied someone.

A horse's hoofs slithered on the pavement.

"Quiet, you fool!"

Behind the men carrying the portable bridge, Pedro rode out with Sandoval, too absorbed in the suspense of the moment for any sentimental retrospect. Were the city canals that lay between them and the lake viaduct still bridged since the day's fighting? Would it be possible to get the army out on the causeway before its retreat was discovered? If so, by transferring the portable bridge from gap to gap as soon as the troops had crossed from one segment of the dike to the next, they would be able to reach the mainland with only at worst an attack by canoes on their flanks. But if the seven canals were open . . .

Fortunately no light was needed, as they could have followed the much-fought-over avenue blindfolded. Pedro listened with his ears strained, but could hear nothing except the labored breathing of the forty men who toiled forward with the ponderous bridge, the muffled tread of the escorting vanguard, the occasional clink of a horse's shoes. Nothing. They shouldered forward into the blackness, as if the crowded city had been blotted out.

Now they must be close to the first canal. They advanced heart in mouth. Then a whisper came back. Gracias a Dios! The canal was still bridged. They crossed the rough surface of the rubble, treading it smoother, and so to the next; crossed that one and the next. A

scout brought back the news that the road to the causeway was clear.

Viva! And still no sound of alarm. The Indian dogs, sure of their quarry and relying on the bridgeless viaduct, underrated the cunning of the Spanish fox. They still slept. It was oply a thousand paces from the palace of Axayacatl to the lake, but to Pedro it seemed an eternity until Margarino's bridge carriers halted at the brink of the first gap separating the city from the viaduct beyond.

The suspense of the vanguard now took a new turn. Suppose, by some miscalculation, that the heavy gangway, which had been constructed in the quarters, did not reach across the twenty-odd feet of water? Or suppose that some unforeseen difficulty in placing it should arise?

Carrying ropes attached to one end, a number of the Indian bearers half-swam, half-forded, the intervening water; and while their fellows on the city side pushed the bridge forward, they hauled and steadied it into position on the dike. The carpenters' calculations had been correct; the timbers reached, with plenty of purchase on either side. It remained only to determine whether they could stand the stress of men, horses, and cannon. Sandoval, Pedro, and the other lances immediately put this to the test. The thudding of horses' hoofs sounded briefly from the bridge.

"Solid as a rock," approved Sandoval. "We'll be pushing ahead to the next gap. Redhead. You can tell the General that all's clear."

"Listen!" de Vargas whispered. "I thought I heard a shout."

They both strained their ears, but the only sound was the shuffle of the foot soldiers crossing the gangway.

"Probably nothing," said Sandoval. "Or it meant nothing—"

He stopped. A long-drawn call somewhere in the darkness was answered by another, then by a third.

''Maldito sea!'' Sandoval growled. "Well—it was too much to hope that we'd get off scot-free. I'll wait for the bridge at the next gap. Speed up the column. We'll have a cloud of hornets at our ears in fifteen minutes. Viva Esparia!"

His detachment marched off down the causeway. Pedro rode back to report to Cortes in the center of the column. No need for further silence or caution. The city was awaking. The first scattered cries had become a general stir, then a hum deepening rapidly in tone. All that mattered now was haste, to get the army across to the causeway and free from the tangle of the city streets and canals. The portable bridge could then be raised, and the gap it had covered would serve as moat between the rear guard and its pursuers.

The voice of Cortes rose somewhere in the darkness, urging speed. "Push on!" shouted the officers. The creeping advance of the column now became a hurried shuffle, the shuffle of people under too heavy loads. Ranks began to lose their form and melt into a solid block of men, guns, and horses, straining forward.

Keeping to one side, Pedro, mounted on Soldan, forced his way against the current back to the quarters, where Alvarado and Velasquez were only beginning to lead the rear guard through the gates. Then, having reassured them about the bridge, he rode again toward the head of the column, which was now crossing to the causeway.

By this time, the silence of the night had reversed itself into a roar bellowing out of the darkness on all sides. The host of hell seemed to be unleashed, whooping, whistling, screaming, drum-beating, conch-blowing. But as an undercurrent could be heard the splashing sound of thousands of paddles on the waters of the lake, converging toward the causeway. And the first gusts of arrows and stones began to rattle and sting.

Then suddenly, above all other noise, rolled a peal of thunder. At least that was the first impression of it. But the thunder became rhythmic, a continued throbbing, like giant heartbeats. Steady, terrible, it roared out a volume of sound to be heard for miles across the waters of the lagoon, conveying in its tones warning, menace, and triumph.

"What the devil!" shouted Pedro, reining Soldan back against the melee that swirled and pushed around the rear end of the bridge. "What the devil's that?"

Someone heard him and yelled. "The big drum on top of the cu . . . remember . . ."

Yes, that was it. Pedro recalled the huge cylinder covered with serpents' skins that stood close to the shrine of Witchywolves on the teocalli, but he had never heard it struck until now. It was more than a drum beat—much more. In the thick night, it became a slow, continuous voice, the voice of the Aztec god of war. It fell like a tocsin on the retreating army. It maddened people with its ceaseless, rhythmic thunder. It became an accompaniment, underlying everything else. Darkness and rain, confusion, fear, and clamor, merged into a storm, which found its tempo and coherence in the surging of the temple drum.

But another sound challenged, without defeating it. It was the roar of Alvarado's cannon, blasting at the city multitude, which pressed the rear guard as it fought slowly toward the bridge. Meanwhile, Cortes's center was crossing to the viaduct, along which it streamed until brought

to a stop by Sandoval's vanguard, halted in front of the second gap. Meanwhile, too, an assault had begun from the canoes massed on both sides of the dike.

No one could see anything—that was the misery of it. It was a battle of blind men. Out of the pitch darkness came stones, arrows, atl-atl javelins, thick as the fine needles of the rain; out of the darkness came clutching hands and the vagueness of white cotton tunics like pale ghosts.

Another misery was the slipperiness of the pavement, which put horses at a disadvantage. As Pedro waited at one end of the bridge for the coming of the rear guard and as the Indian attack began eddying around him, it took all his skill to keep Soldan upright. Now and then a rider went down among lashing hoofs and general confusion.

But one way or another, the center with its troops, horses, baggage, and cannon had now passed, and the first of the rear guard followed on its heels. Pedro could tell this from the war shouts of Alvarado and Velasquez as they drew nearer, and also from the battle that raged around them along the avenue and up from the city canals. At times a salvo of cannon drowned everything else. Then in the lull between could be heard the thick scuffle of hand-to-hand fighting and the rallying cries of the captains. It was as if a furnace were approaching, the hot breath of it already passing across the bridge. Pedro wondered about Garcia, who was marching with this section of the army.

Wheels rumbled slowly over the bridge. The great voice of Alvarado made itself heard a few yards off.

"Give them a push now, gentlemen. Clear a circle about the bridgehead. Margarino, get ready to raise it when I give the word. . . . Captain de Vargas?"

"Here!"

"Tell the General that the rear guard's across and that the bridge is being sent forward."

"Hey, companero!" bellowed a voice somewhere. "Good luck!"

"Buena suerte to you, Juan!"

Crossing the bridge again, Pedro made his way as fast as possible along the crowded dike. Though it was twenty feet wide and extended three quarters of a mile to the second gap, the several thousand troops now on it formed a dense mass hard to penetrate. Moreover, the Indian attack by canoe on both sides of the causeway had grown heavier, the rain of missiles thicker, and a continuous struggle of assault and defense was going on along the entire length on each flank. By dint of persuasion, profanity, and force, Pedro edged forward through the