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CHAPTER XLV

Whether it was that this attack was caused by an ebullition of popular fury, which yielded to some mysterious and religious revulsion of feeling, or whether, indeed, the leaders of the barbarians, persuaded of the madness of fighting the Christians hand to hand, and resolved to conquer them rather by famine than arms, had called off their forces, – was a secret the Spaniards could never penetrate. No sacred horn was sounded on the pyramid; but, in the very midst of what seemed their triumph, when the cavaliers were nearly exhausted and despairing, it became manifest that the Mexicans were giving way, and vanishing, not one by one, but in great clusters, from the field.

The Christians had no longer the spirit to pursue. They found the street open; and, dashing through the few foemen that lingered on the field, they made their way good to the palace. Before they reached it, they were joined by a powerful detachment, sent out to their assistance. They returned together. At the gate of the court-yard, stood Baltasar, Lazaro, and the secretary, looking eagerly for the appearance of Don Amador. His horse was led by a cavalier, whose countenance was more dejected than the rest. It was De Morla; and as he flung the bridle to Lazaro, he said, —

"Hadst thou been with thy master, this thing had not happened; for, though a serving-man, thou wouldst have remained behind him, when a cavalier deserted."

"Dost thou accuse me of deserting the noble youth?" said Alvarado, fiercely. "God forbid, I should shed Christian blood! but, with my sword's point, I will prove upon thy body, that thou liest!"

"And upon thine," said De Morla, with calm indignation, "I will make good the charge I have uttered, that thou didst abandon in extremity, when he called upon thee for aid, the man who had just preserved thine own life."

"Are there not deaths enow among the infidels?" cried Cortes, angrily, "that ye must lust after one another's blood? – Peace! and be ye friends, lamenting our valiant companion together; for, De Morla, thou doest a wrong to Alvarado; and, Don Pedro, thou art a fool, to quarrel with the peevishness of a mourning friend."

The secretary listened to the cavaliers with a face of horror; not a word said Lazaro, but as he wiped the foam from the steed, and, with it, the blood of his master, he eyed Don Pedro with a dark and vindictive scowl. As for Baltasar, his rugged features quivered, and he did not hesitate to stand in the way of the Tonatiuh, saying, —

"If any cavalier have, indeed, been false to my young lord, I, who am but a serving-man, will make bold to say, he has played false to a gentleman who would have perilled his life for any Christian in need; and the act, though it be answered to man, God will not forgive. – Who will tell this to my master, Don Gabriel?"

Alvarado, extremely enraged, had raised his spear to strike the old soldier; but he dropped his arm, at the last words, and said with great mildness, —

"Thou art a fool to say this. – I lament thy lord; I loved him, and I did not desert him – "

For the remainder of that day, the garrison were left in peace. No foes appeared on the square; but, twice or thrice, when parties were sent out to reconnoitre, they were met, at a distance from the palace, by herds of Mexicans, and driven back to their quarters.

The desperate situation of the army was now evident to the dullest comprehension. The barbarians had removed from the reach of the artillery, and drawn, with their bodies, a line of circumvallation round their victims, patiently waiting for the moment, when famine should bring them a secure vengeance. All day, there were seen, on the top of the pyramid, priests and nobles, now engaged in some rite of devotion, and now looking down, on the besieged, like vultures on their prey; but without attempting any annoyance.

The murmurs of the garrison, exasperated by despair and want of food, were loud and stern; but Don Hernan received them only with biting sarcasms. He bade those who were most mutinous, to depart if they would; and laughed scornfully at their confessions of inability. To those who cried for food, he answered by pointing grimly to the stone walls, and the carcasses that lay on the square; or he counselled them to seek it among their foes. In truth, the general knew their helplessness, and in the bitterness of his heart at being thus foiled and jeoparded, he did not scruple to punish their discontent, by disclosing the full misery of their situation. They were dependent upon him for life and hope, and he suffered this dependence to be made apparent. He revealed to them no scheme of relief or escape; for, in fact, he had framed none. He was, himself, as desperate as the rest, seeing nothing before him but destruction, and not knowing how to avoid it; and what measures he did take, during these sorrowful hours, were rather expedients to divert his thoughts, than plans to diminish the general distress.

Notwithstanding the memorable fate of the burro, and the disinclination of the soldiers to die the death of its garrison, he obstinately commanded those which were unfinished to be completed, with some additional contrivances to increase their strength and mobility. He sent out parties to ransack the deserted houses in the vicinity, for provisions, though hopeless of obtaining any; and he set the idlers to mending their armour of escaupil, and the smiths to making arrow-heads, as if still determined rather to fight than fly. He held no councils with his officers, for he knew they had no projects to advise; and the desperate resort over which he pondered, of sallying out with his whole force, and cutting his way through the opposing foe, was too full of horror to be yet spoken. Moreover, while Montezuma yet lived, he could not think his situation entirely hopeless. The surgeon, upon a re-examination of the king's wounds, had formed a more favourable prognostic; and this was strengthened, when Montezuma at last awoke from stupor, and recovered the possession of his intellects. It was told him, indeed, that the royal Indian, as if resuming his wits only to cast them away again, had no sooner become sensible of his condition, and remembered that his wounds had been inflicted by his people, than he fell into a frenzy of grief and despair, tearing away the bandages from his body, and calling upon his gods to receive him into Tlacopan, the place of caverns and rivers, where wandered those who died the death of the miserable. Don Hernan imagined that these transports would soon rave themselves away, and persuaded himself that his captive, yielding at last to the natural love of life, would yet remain in his hands, the hostage of safety, and perhaps the instrument of authority.

Sorrow dwelt in the palace of Axajacatl; but her presence was more deeply acknowledged in the chamber of Calavar. From the lips of Baltasar, – and the rude veteran wept, when he narrated the fall of the young cavalier, whom he had himself first taught the knowledge of arms, – Don Gabriel learned the fate of his kinsman. But he neither wept like Baltasar, nor joined in the loud lamentations of Marco. His eyes dilated with a wild expression, his lip fell, he drooped his head on his breast, and clasping his hands over his heart, muttered an unintelligible prayer, – perhaps the ejaculation which so often, and so piteously, expressed his desolation. Then falling down upon his couch, and turning his face to the wall, he remained for the whole day and night without speaking a word.

CHAPTER XLVI

The fate of Don Amador de Leste, though so darkly written in the hearts of his companions, was not yet brought to a close. Some of his late friends deemed only that he had been overpowered and slain; but others, better acquainted with the customs of the foe, shuddered over the assurance of a death yet more awful. They knew that the pride of the Mexican warrior was, not to slay, but to capture; as if, indeed, these demi-barbarians made war less for the glory of taking life, than for the honour of offering it in sacrifice to the gods. Such, in truth, was the case; and to this circumstance was it owing that the Christians were not utterly destroyed, in any one encounter in the streets of Tenochtitlan. The fury of their foes was such as may be imagined in a people goaded to desperation by atrocious tyranny and insult, and fighting with foreign oppressors at their very firesides; yet, notwithstanding the deadly feeling of vengeance at their hearts, they never forgot their duties to their faith; and they forbore to kill, in the effort to take prisoner. Twice or thrice, at least, in the course of the war that followed after these events, the life of Cortes, himself, was in their hands; and the thrust of a javelin, or the stroke of a bludgeon, would have freed them from the destroyer. But they neither struck nor thrust; they strove to bear him off alive, as the most acceptable offering they could carry to the temple; thus always giving his followers an opportunity to rescue him out of their grasp. Every captive thus seized and retained, died a death too terrible for description; and high or low, – the base boor, and the noble hidalgo, alike, – expiated, on the stone of sacrifice, the wrongs done to the religion of Mexitli.

Knowing so much of the customs of Anahuac, and not having discovered his body, the more experienced cavaliers were convinced that Don Amador de Leste had not yet enjoyed the happiness of death; they persuaded themselves that he had been taken alive, and was preserved for sacrifice. Many a Castilian eye, that afternoon, was cast upon the pyramid, watching the steps, and eagerly examining the persons of all who ascended. – But no victim was seen borne upon their shoulders —

When the cavalier of Cuenza opened his eyes, after the stunning effects of the blow were over, it was in a confusion of mind, which the objects about him, or, perhaps, the accession of a hot fever, – the result of many severe wounds and contusions, – soon converted into delirium. He lay, – his armour removed, – on a couch in a spacious apartment, but so darkened, that he could not distinguish the countenances of two or three dusky figures which seemed to bend over him. His thoughts were still in the battle; and, in these persons, he perceived nothing less than Mexican warriors still clutching at his body. He started up, and calling out, "Ho, Fogoso! one leap more for thy master," caught fiercely at the nearest of the individuals. But he had overrated his strength; and, almost before a hand was laid upon him, he fell back, fainting, on the bed.

"Dost thou strike me, too, false villain?" he again exclaimed, as his distempered eyes pictured, in one silent visage, the features of Abdalla. "Be thou accursed for thy ingratitude, and live in hell for ever!"

A murmur of voices, followed by the sound of retreating steps, was heard; and in the silence which ensued, his fancy became more disordered, presenting him phantasms still more peculiar.

"Is this death?" he muttered, "and lie I now in the world of shadows? God be merciful to me a sinner! Pity and pardon me, O Christ, for I have fought for thy faith. Take me from this place of blackness, and let me look on the light of bliss!"

A gentle hand was laid upon his forehead, a low sigh breathed on his cheek; and suddenly a light, flashing up as from some expiring cresset, revealed to his wondering eyes the face and figure of the mysterious prophetess.

"O God! art thou indeed a fiend? and dost thou lead me, from the land of infidels, to the prison-house of devils?" he cried, again starting up, clasping his hands, and gazing wildly on the vision. "Speak to me, thou that livest not; for I know, thou art Leila!"

As he uttered these incoherent words, the figure, bending a little away, and fastening upon his own, eyes of strange meaning, in which pity struggled with terror, seemed, gradually, to fade into the air; until, as suddenly as it had flashed into brightness, the light vanished, and all was left in darkness.

From this moment, the thoughts of the cavalier wandered with tenfold wildness; and he fell into a delirium, which presented, as long as it lasted, a succession of exciting images. Now he struggled, in the hall of his own castle of Alcornoque, or the Cork-tree, with the false Abdalla, the knee of the Almogavar on his breast, and the Arab poniard at his throat – while all the time, the perfidious Jacinto stood by, exhorting his father to strike; now he stood among burning sands, fighting with enraged fiends, over the dead body of his knight, Calavar, to protect the beloved corse from their fiery fingers; now the vanished Leila sat weeping by his side, dropping upon his fevered lips the juice of pleasant fruits, or now she came to him in the likeness of the pagan Sibyl, beckoning him away, with melancholy smiles, to a distant bay; while, ever, when he strove to rise and follow, the page Jacinto, converted into a giant, and brandishing a huge dagger, held him back with a lion's strength and ferocity.

With such chimeras, and a thousand others, equally extravagant, disturbing his brain, he passed through many hours; and then, as a torpor like that of death gradually stole over him, benumbing his deranged faculties, the same gentle hand, the same low suspiration, which had soothed him before, but without the countenance which had maddened, returned to him, and made pleasant the path to annihilation.

CHAPTER XLVII

From a deep slumber, that seemed, indeed, death, for it was dreamless, the cavalier, at last, awoke, somewhat confused, but no longer delirious; and, though greatly enfeebled, entirely free from fever. A yellow sunbeam, – the first or the last glimmering of day, he knew not which, – played through a narrow casement, faintly illuminating the apartment, and falling especially upon a low table at his side, whereon, among painted and gilded vessels of strange form, he perceived his helmet, and other pieces of armour as well as a lute, of not less remembered workmanship. He raised his eyes to the attendant, who sat musing, hard by, and, with a thrill and exclamation of joy, beheld the Moorish page, Jacinto.

"Is it thou, indeed, my dear knave Jacinto! whom I thought in the maws of infidels?" he cried, starting up. "And how art thou; and how is thy lord, Don Gabriel, to-day? Tell me, where hast thou been, these two troubled days? and how didst thou return? By my faith, this last bout was somewhat hard, and I have slept long!"

"Leave not thy couch, and speak not too loud, noble master," said the page, kneeling, and kissing his hand, – "for thou art sick and wounded, and here only art thou safe."

"Ay, now indeed!" said Don Amador, with a sudden and painful consciousness of his situation, "I remember me. I was struck down, and made a prisoner. What good angel brought me into thy company? Thanks be to heaven! for my hurts are not much; and I will rescue thee from captivity."

"I am not a captive, señor," said the boy, gently.

"Are we, then, in the palace? – Where are our friends? – Am I not a prisoner?"

"Señor, we are far from the palace of Axajacatl. But grieve not; for here thou art with thy servants."

"Thou speakest to me in riddles," said the novice, with a disturbed and bewildered countenance. "Have I been dreaming? Am I enchanted? Am I living, and in my senses?"

"The saints be praised, thou art indeed," said the page, fervently; "though, both nights, and all day, till the blessed potion set thee asleep, I had no hopes thou wouldst ever recover."

"Both nights!" echoed Don Amador, fixing his eyes inquiringly on the boy; "Has a night – have two nights passed over me, and wert thou, then, with me, during it all? – Ha! Was it thine acts of sorcery, which brought me those strange and melancholy visions? Didst thou conjure up to me the image of Leila? – That priestess, that very supernatural prophetess – By heaven! as I see thee, so saw I her standing at my bed-side, in some magical light, which straightway turned to darkness. Didst thou not see her? Tell me boy, art thou indeed an enchanter? Prepare me thy spells again, reveal me her fate, and let me look on the face of Leila!"

As the cavalier spoke, he strove in his eagerness to rise from the couch.

"Señor," said the page, a little pleasantly, "if thou wilt have me satisfy thy questions, thou must learn to acknowledge me as thy physician and jailor; and give me such obedience as thou wouldst, formerly, have claimed of me. Rise not up, speak not aloud, and give not way to the fancies of fever; for here are no priestesses, and no Leilas. I will sing to thee, if that will content thee with bondage. But now thou must remain in quiet, and be healed of thy wounds."

"I tell thee, my boy Jacinto," went on the cavalier, "wounds or no wounds, jailed or not jailed, I am in a perplexity of mind, which, if thou art able, I must command, or, what is the same thing, beseech thee to remove. First, therefore, what house is this? and where is it? (whether on the isle Mexico, the lake side, the new world, or the old, or, indeed, in any part of the earth at all?) Secondly, how got'st thou into it? Thirdly, how came I hither myself? – and especially, what good Christian did snatch my body out of the paws of those roaring lions, the Mexicans, when I was hit that foul and assassin-like blow by – by – "

"Señor," said the page, not doubting but that his patron had paused for want of breath, "to answer all these questions, is more than I am allowed. All that I can say, is, that if prudent and obedient, (I say obedient, noble and dear master," continued the boy archly, "for now you are my prisoner,) you are safer in this dungeon than are your Spanish friends in their fortress, – reduced to captivity, indeed, but preserved from destruction – "

"By the false, traitorous, and most ungrateful knave, Abdalla, thy father!" exclaimed the neophyte, with a loud and stern voice; for just as he had hesitated to wound the ears of the boy, he beheld, slowly stalking into the apartment, and eyeing him over Jacinto's shoulder, the Almogavar himself; and the epithets of indignation burst at once from his lips. Jacinto started back, alarmed; but Abdalla approached, and regarding the wounded cavalier with an unmoved countenance, motioned the boy to retire. – In an instant the Moor of Barbary and the Spaniard of Castile were left alone together.

"Shall I repeat my words, thou base and cut-throat infidel?" cried Don Amador, rising so far as to place his feet on the floor, though still sitting on the platform which supported his mattress, and speaking with the most cutting anger. "Was it not enough, that thou wert a renegade to the rest, but thou must raise thy Judas-hand against thy benefactor?"

"My benefactor indeed!" said Abdoul calmly, and with the most musical utterance of his voice. "Though I wear the livery of the pagans;" (He had on an armed tunic, somewhat similar to that of Quauhtimotzin, though without a plume to his head, and looked not unlike to a Mexican warrior of high degree;) "and though I am, by birth, the natural enemy of thee and thine, yet have I not forgot that thou art my benefactor! I remember, that, when a brutal soldier struck at me with his lance, thy hand was raised to protect me from the shame; I remember, when a thousand weapons were darting at my prostrate body on the pyramid of Zempoala, that thou didst not disdain to preserve me; I remember, that, when I fled from the anger of Don Hernan, thou offeredst me thine intercession. Señor, I have forgotten none of this; nor have I forgotten," he went on, with earnest gratitude, "that, to these favours, thou didst add the greater ones, of shielding my feeble child from stripes, from ruin, and perhaps from death. This have I not forgotten, this can I never forget! The name of Spaniard is a curse on my ears; I hate thy people, and, when God gives me help, I will slay, even to the last man! but I remember, that thou art my benefactor, and the benefactor of my child."

"And dost thou think," said the neophyte, "that these oily words will blind me to thy baseness? or that they can deceive me into belief, when thy actions have so foully belied them? Cursed art thou, misbelieving Moor! an ingrate and apostate; and, had I no cause, in mine own person, to know thy perfidy, it should be enough to blazon thy villany, that thou hast, on thine own confession, deserted the standard of Christ, and the arms of Spain, to enlist in the ranks of their pagan foes!"

"The standard of Christ," said the Moor, with emphasis, "waves not over the heads of the Spaniards, but the banner of a fiend, bloody, unjust, and accursed, whom they call by His holy name, and who bids them to defile and destroy; while the Redeemer proclaimeth only good-will and peace to all men. Have thy good heart and thy strong mind been so deluded? Canst thou, in truth, believe, that these oppressors of a harmless people, these slayers, who raise the cross of heaven on the place of blood, and call to God for approval, when their hands are smoking with the blood of his creatures, are the followers of Christ the peaceful, Christ the just, Christ the holy? These friends whom thou hast followed, are not Christians; and God, whom they traduce and belie in all their actions, has given them over to the punishment of hypocrites and blasphemers, to sufferings miserable and unparalleled, to deaths dreadful and memorable! May it be accomplished, – Amen!"

"Dost thou speak this to me, vile Almogavar! of my friends and countrymen? Dost thou curse them thus in my presence, most unworthy apostate?"

"Sorrowful be their doom, and quickly may it come upon them!" cried Abdalla, with ferocious fervour, "for what are they, that it should not be just? and what am I, that I should not pray that it be accomplished? I remember the days of Granada! I remember the sack of the Alhambra! I remember the slaughter of the Alpujarras! and I have not forgotten the mourning exiles, driven from those green hills, to die among the sands of Africa, the clime of their fathers, but to them a land of strangers! I remember me how the lowly were given to the scourge, and the princely to the fires of Inquisitors, – our children to spears, our wives to ravishers and murderers! – Cursed be they that did these things, even to the last generation!"

The cavalier was amazed and confounded at the vehement and lofty indignation of the Morisco; and as the form of Abdoul-al-Sidi swelled with wrath, and his countenance darkened under the gloomy recollection, he seemed to Don Amador rather like one of those mountain princes, who had defied the conquerors, to the last, among the Alpujarras, than a poor herdsman of Fez, deriving his knowledge, and his fury, only from the incitations of exiles. His embarrassment was also increased by a secret consciousness, that the Moor had cause for his hate and his denunciations. He answered him, however, with a severe voice: —

"In these ills and sufferings, thou hadst no part, unless thou hast lied to me; having been a child of the desert, afar from the sufferers of Granada."

"I lied to thee, then," said Abdalla, elevating his figure, and regarding the cavalier with proud tranquillity. "From the beginning to the end, was I a chief among the mourners and rebels, – the first to strike, as I am now the last to curse, the oppressor, – a child of the desert, only when I had no more to suffer among the Alpujarras; and thou mayst know, now, that my fury is as deep as it is just, – for the poor Abdalla is no Almogavar of Barbary, but a Zegri of Granada!"

"A Zegri of Granada!" cried Don Amador, with surprise.

"A Zegri of Granada, and a prince among Zegris!" said the Moor, with a more stately look, though with a voice of the deepest sorrow; "one whose fathers have given kings to the Alhambra, but who hath lived to see his child a menial in the house of his foe, and both child and father leagued with, and lost among, the infidels of a strange land, in a world unknown!"

"I thought, by heaven!" said the cavalier, eyeing the apostate with a look almost of respect, "that that courage of thine in the pirate rover, did argue thee to be somewhat above the stamp of a common boor; and therefore, but more especially in regard of thy boy, did I give thee consideration myself, and enforce it, as well as I could, to be yielded by others. But, by the faith which thou professest, sir Zegri! be thou ignoble or regal in thy condition, I have not forgotten that, by the blow which has made me (as it seems to me, I am,) thy prisoner, thou hast shown thyself unworthy of nobility; and I tell thee again, with disgust and indignation, that thou hast done the act of a base and most villanous caitiff!"

"Dost thou still say so?" replied the Zegri, mildly. "I have acknowledged, that no gratitude can repay thy benefactions; this do I still confess; and yet have I done all to requite thee. Thou lookest on me with amazement. What is my crime, noble benefactor?"

"What is thy crime? Art thou bewitched, too? – Slave of an ingrate, didst thou not, when I was already overpowered, smite me down with thine own weapon?"

"I did, – heaven be thanked!" said the Moor, devoutly.

"Dost thou acknowledge it, and thank heaven too?" said the incensed cavalier.

"I acknowledge it, and I thank heaven!" said Abdalla, firmly. "Thou saidst, thou wert already overpowered. Wert thou not in the hands of the Mexicans, beyond all hope of rescue?"

"Doubtless, I was," replied the neophyte; "for Cortes was afar, and Alvarado full three spears' length behind. Nevertheless, I did not despair of maintaining the fight, until my friends came up to my relief."

"Thou wert a captive!" cried the Zegri, impetuously, – "a living captive in the hands of Mexicans! Dost thou know the fate of a prisoner in such hands?"

"By my faith," said Don Amador, "I have heard, they put their prisoners to the torture."

"They sacrifice them to the gods!" cried the Moor. "And the death," he continued, his swarthy visage whitening with horror, "the death is of such torment and terror as thou canst not conceive; but I can, for I have seen it! Now hear me: I saw my benefactor a captive, and I knew his life would end on the stone of sacrifice, offered up, like that of a beast, to false and fiendish gods! I say, I saw thee thus; I knew this should be thy doom; and I did all that my gratitude taught me, to save thee. I struck thee down, knowing, that if I slew thee, the blow would be that of a true friend, and that thou shouldst die like a soldier, not like a fatted sheep. Heaven, however, gave me all that I had dared to hope: I harmed thee not; and yet the Mexicans believed that death had robbed them of a victim. I harmed thee not; and the heathens suffered me to drag away what seemed a corse; but which lived, and was my benefactor, – the saviour of myself, and the protector of my child!"

As Abdalla concluded these words, spoken with much emphasis and feeling, a tear glistened in his eye; and the neophyte, starting up and eagerly grasping his hand, exclaimed, —

"Now, by heaven! I see all the wisdom and truth of thy friendship; and I beg thy pardon for whatever insulting words my folly has caused me to speak. And, now that I know the blow was struck for such a purpose, I confess to thee, as thou saidst thyself, it would have been true gratitude and love, though it had killed me outright."

"I have done thee even more service than this," said the Zegri, calmly; "but, before I speak it, I must demand of thee, as a Christian and honourable soldier, to confess thyself my just and true captive."

"Thy captive!" cried Don Amador. "Dost thou hold me then as a prisoner, and not as a guest and friend? Dost thou check my thankfulness in the bud, and cancel thy services, by making me thy thrall?"

"I will not answer thy demands," said Abdalla. "I call upon thee, as a noble and knightly soldier, fairly captured, in open war, by my hands, to acknowledge thyself my captive; and, as such, in all things, justly at my disposition."

"If thou dost exact it of me," said the cavalier, regarding him with much surprise and sorrow, "I must, as a man of honour, so acknowledge myself. But I began to think better of thee, Abdalla!"

"And, as a prisoner, to whose honour is confided the charge of his own keeping, thou engagest to remain in captivity, without abusing the confidence which allows such license, by any efforts to escape?"

"Dost thou demand this much of me?" said Don Amador, with mortified and dejected looks. "If thou art thyself resolved to remain in the indulgence of thy treason, thou surely wilt not think to keep me from my friends, in their difficulties? and especially from my poor kinsman; who is now greatly disordered, and chiefly, I think, because thou hast robbed him of Jacinto."

"This am I not called upon to answer," said Abdalla, gravely. "I only demand of thee, what thou knowest thou canst not honourably refuse, – thy knightly gage, to observe the rules of captivity, until such time as I may think proper to absolve and free thee."

"Sir Almogavar, or sir Zegri, or whatsoever thou art," said the cavalier, folding his arms, and surveying his jailor sternly, "use the powers which thou hast, thy chains, and thy magical arts; for I believe thou dealest with the devil; – get me ready thy fetters, and thy dungeon. Thou hast the right so to use me, and I consent to the same; but I will gage thee no word to keep in bonds, inglorious and at ease, while my friends are in peril. However great the service thou hast done to me, I perceive thou art a traitor. I command thee, therefore, that thou have me chained and immured forthwith; for, with God's will and help, I will escape from thee as soon as possible, and especially, whensoever my friends come to assist me."

"I grant thee this privilege, when thy friends come near to us," said Abdalla, coolly, "whether thou art chained or not. It is not possible thou canst escape, otherwise, at all. Thou art far from the palace, ignorant of the way, and, besides, divided from it by a wall of Mexicans, who cannot be numbered. What I ask thee, is for thy good, and for the good of myself, and Jacinto. If thou leave this house, thou wilt be immediately seized, and carried to the stone of sacrifice."