The Infidel Volume I Part 11

"This is but a silly question, friendly though it may be," replied Juan.

"Oh, senor," said Villafana, "you must remember, the first night we slept with the army, at the base of El Volcan, the mighty Popocatepetl, how much we admired the great stones, that the devils therein flung up against the stars! You nod again: good luck to your recollections! Did you observe any one of those ignited ma.s.ses stick against the vault, and there hang among the luminaries?"

"Surely not," said Juan; "those that fell not immediately back into the crater, rolled down among the snows on the mountain-side, and were there extinguished."

"Very well, senor--When you are mounted, you can remember the fire-stones, and make your choice whether to tumble back into the fire of wrath, that now sends you upward, or to quench yourself for ever in the frozen bed of degradation.--You go to Tochtepec?"

"I do," said Juan, somewhat angrily; "and I warn thee, thy malicious metaphors will not make me less grateful for the kindness that sends me."

"G.o.d rest you--it were better you had accepted the emba.s.sy to Guatimozin."

"Hah!" said Juan, "how knowest thou of this? It was spoken only in secret council?"

"Oh," said Villafana, with a second laugh, "if thou wilt but scratch on one end of a long log, be sure I will hear it at the other. There is something more in the world than magic."

He spoke with marked exultation; indeed Juan had already observed that his carriage was freer and bolder than common, and that he bore himself like a man who cares not wholly to conceal a triumph of spirit, which he thinks it not needful altogether to divulge.

"Harkee, senor Don Juan," he went on, abruptly and inquisitively, "thou art good friends with Xicotencal?"

"So far as a Christian man can be with one, who, though a very n.o.ble being, is yet a misbeliever."

"And thou wert sworn friends, at Mexico, with the young prince, Guatimozin?"

"Not so," said Juan: "the young man kept aloof from us all, being of the hostile party; and there was scarce one of us who had ever seen his face. I must confess, however, if I can believe Techeechee, that my preservation in the expedition was owing to his good act; for Techeechee avers, that it was through Guatimozin's good will that he was sent with me, to secure me from the death which was designed for all the rest of the party."

"Designed? dost thou allow it then?" cried the Alguazil, quickly.

"Ay," replied Juan, dryly; "designed by the Mexican lords, but not by Christian leaders."

"And art thou not sorry thou wert not despatched to him as envoy?"

"Why need we talk of this?" said Juan, hesitating. "Guatimozin the king, may be different from Guatimozin the prince."

"He is not _yet_ the king," said Villafana. "He will not be crowned till the day of the great war-festival, and not then, unless he can furnish a Spaniard for the sacrifice. I'faith, he loves not the blood of his red neighbours."

"Villafana," said Juan, struck with certain uneasy suspicions, "thou seemest better acquainted with these things than becomes a true follower of Don Hernan."

"Not a whit, not a whit," cried the Alguazil, hastily: "this is but the common talk,--the common talk, senor; and I am but a fool to indulge in it, to the prejudice of other business more urgent. Come, senor,--will you walk in the garden? There is a friend to speak with you."

"What friend?" said Juan.--"Villafana, I half suspect you are engaged in some foul work. I will have naught to do with it."

"Lo you now," said the Alguazil, impatiently; "this is wild work. Do you think I will a.s.sa.s.sinate you? Ho! this is a thing thy best friend would entrust to another. Come, senor;--you have your rapier,--you can take your casque, too, if you have any fear. It is a friend, who has that to say which it concerns your life to know. You know not your danger. G.o.d be with you, and your blood be upon your own head! If you refuse, you will not repent you:--no, faith--you will not have time left for lamentation.--Farewell, senor,--"

"Stay, Villafana," exclaimed Juan, much disturbed: "Friend or foe,--it is not that which stays me, but the fear of being entrapped into something more to be dreaded than death. Thou art a schemer; it is thy nature: I will have nothing to do with thy plots, or with those who--"

"Pho! this concerns thyself alone, not me. My only plot is to help one who desires to drag thee out of the fire thou art so bent to burn in. I take you to your friend, and depart: I have other things to occupy me. I am but a messenger. Will you go? I must give you a token then.--You have not forgotten Hilario?"

At these words, muttered under breath, Juan started and turned pale, exclaiming, "Saints and angels! and heaven forbid! Mine ears did not then deceive me? Oh wo to us all! Alas for thine ill news! Have I not pain enough of mine own?"

As he spoke, with a trembling voice, Villafana handed him his cap and sword, saying, as he put into his hand the latter, which was a light rapier,

"A good blade! and has hung at Don Hernan's girdle.--Leave the dog behind: he will but set up his cursed growling, and so bring upon you some one who may not relish the meeting."

"It is true, then?" cried Juan, with tones and aspect of the greatest distress: "So fair, so young, so n.o.ble, so fallen!"

"Back, cur! thick-lips! Befo!" cried the Alguazil, as the two left the chamber.--"He grumbles at me, as if to say _Ehem_, with disdain. Command him thyself: he is a superfluous companion."

The young man waved his hand to Befo; at which signal Befo threw himself upon his haunches, looking after Juan till he beheld him issue from the long pa.s.sage into the open air. Then rising, with the air of a servant who understands his duty much better even than his master, he followed slowly after the pair into the garden.

CHAPTER X.

The royal garden of Tezcuco was an extensive piece of ground, fenced, on three sides, by the palace and its dependencies, and bounded on the fourth, by the waters of the lake, from which it was divided by a low wall, long since broken down by the Conquerors, by certain shadowy buildings, and by clumps of n.o.ble cypresses and other trees. The moon, not yet near her full, shone westward of the meridian, in a sky intensely azure and almost cloudless; and her beams could be traced, through the wall of cypresses, glittering and dancing on the light waves, as they rippled up merrily to the night-breeze. What taste was displayed in the plan and cultivation of the garden, could not be determined, at this hour, and in this insufficient, though beautiful, light. One could behold, indeed, obscurely, flower-beds and shrubberies, winding alleys and hanging groves, little still pools and even, here and there, a jetting fountain, scattered about in a manner which the imagination might believe was designed and judicious; but it seemed, at night, rather a wilderness, in which the nostrils had greater reason to be gratified than the eyes. A thousand odours fell from the trees, a thousand scents rose from the flowers, as the heads of the one and the petals of the other were shaken by the flitting gusts. It was a scene calculated at least to soothe exasperated feelings, and induce sentiment and melancholy in the breast of the contemplative.

To Juan's temperament, it would have been, at any other moment, saddening enough; but his thoughts were, at present, far too much, and far too painfully, engaged, to permit any to be wasted upon it.

As he followed hastily at the heels of the Alguazil, he made one or two agitated attempts to draw from him some further tokens to remove or confirm his boding suspicions; but the Alguazil had on the sudden grown very cautiously or very maliciously silent, and answered only by pressing his finger on his lips, eyeing the youth significantly, and hurrying him more rapidly along.

He led him to a spot, almost in the centre of the garden, where a little oval-shaped pool lay embosomed among schinus-trees, whose long weeping branches, stirred by the wind, swept gracefully over and in the water, which was only agitated, when thus disturbed by the motion of a bough, or by the plunge of the fragrant berries, the harvest of a former year, which dropped at intervals from the cl.u.s.ter. A single moonbeam found its way into this solitary inclosure, falling upon a limited portion of a path which seemed to surround the pool. In other respects, all was dark and invisible, and not a ray could be seen on the water, save when the spectator, peering over the brink, beheld some faint star of the zenith glimmering down among the shadowy depths.

Upon this path, and in this moonbeam, the Alguazil paused, and pointing hastily to a nook--the darkest of all where all were dark,--Juan perceived obscurely what seemed a moving figure. The next moment, Villafana pa.s.sed among the boughs, retracing his steps, and strode again into the moonlight. As he stood an instant shaking the dew-drops from his cloak, he beheld a dark object approaching slowly on the path. It was the faithful Befo, who, with his head to the ground, and his tail draggling in the gra.s.s, as if sensible of having committed a breach of discipline, yet crawled along after his master, under the irresistible instinct of fidelity.

"This is ill thought on, and may be unlucky," muttered Villafana, with a subdued voice. "Here, Befo! you rascal! come with me, and you shall have a bone.--Ay, thou ill devil!" he continued, in the same whispered tones, as Befo, without stirring to the right or the left, and merely showing his teeth, when the Alguazil seemed disposed to check him with his hand, pa.s.sed on towards the grove,--"go thy ways, and growl as thou wilt: thou art the only thing in the land incorruptible. But thou wilt be acquainted with my dagger yet, if thou hast no better appet.i.te for my dinner."

He resumed his path. He had not taken a dozen steps, before he became sensible of the approach of another intruder: but this time the intruder was human. There was something in the fas.h.i.+on and sweep of the garments, which, even at a distance, apprized him of the character of the comer.

"The devil take these prying priests, monks, friars, and all!" he muttered irreverently betwixt his teeth.--"Holy father,----Hah! by the ma.s.s, is it thou, Camarga! my brother of all orders, monkish, mendicant, martial, and so on? Thy masking goes the wrong way: I told thee to meet me at the prison. 'Tis my palace, man; and the princes are in waiting.--Come, these damp mazes are ill for thy years and diseased liver. We will walk together."

"Senor Grunidor, as they call you," said Camarga, flinging back the white cowl, and revealing his sallow features in the moons.h.i.+ne, "senor Alguazil, carcelero, rogue, conspirator, devil, and what-not, how I came to be so deep among your d.a.m.nable devices, in the short month I have been in this land, I know not, except that I have, like thyself, a greater apt.i.tude to be groping among caverns than journeying on kings'

highways. But know, sirrah, that besides _thy_ subtleties, I have some whimseys of my own; to which, when the wind stirs them, yours must give place, were they ten thousand times more magnificent than your wit strives to make them appear. Begone, therefore; get thee to thy scurvy Tlascalan, whom thou art training to the gallows; to thy Mexican Magnifico, who is an a.s.s to trust his neck to thy keeping; and to what vagabond Christians will give thee their countenance, who are e'en greater fools than thyself, and the Indians together. Get thee away: I have business of mine own; and I will come to you when it is despatched, or I will _not_ come,--just as the imp urges me. So away with you, and leave me to myself."

"Under your favour, no," said Villafana, apparently too well acquainted with the man to be much surprised at a tone and manner so unlike to those which Camarga had used at the cypress-tree: "I must e'en have your saintly cowl and leaden cross, to swear the two infidels together: otherwise there is no trusting them.--They have much superst.i.tious reverence for our priests and ceremonies. Come, senor; I tell thee, the Mexican will make our fortunes."

"Thine, rogue, _thine_!" said the disguised Camarga, impatiently: "Why talkest thou to me in this stupid wise? I am an older villain than thou.--I have a fancy for this lad of the Anakim, this thick-witted, turtle-brained young Magog. Thou makest a mystery of him, too. 'Slid! I will penetrate it; for I have a use to make of him, as well as thou."

"Demonios!" said Villafana; "are you seeking Juan Lerma?"

"Ay, marry. I dogged thee hitherward, I saw thee hide him in the bush, and by St. Dominic, (who will fry my soul to cinders, for defiling his garments--_peccavi_!) I will know what's i' the wind betwixt you, ere I stir a step further in your counsels. Dost thou think I will be thine accomplice, and have anything hidden from me? Thou swearest, he is to be murdered to-morrow, too. There is no time to be lost."

"Thou art mad," said Villafana: "he is engaged on our business. I make no mystery; I will tell you all. It is well I met thee. He has company,--a good sword,--and would think no more of lunging through thy holy lion's skin, if he caught thee eavesdropping--"

"Hark! dost thou not hear tuck and corselet?" said Camarga, smiling grimly, and rattling the hilt of a sword against his concealed armour.

"I must know his companion too. I tell thee, I will have all thy secrets, or I drop thee, perhaps denounce thee."

"Thou shalt have them," said Villafana, gradually drawing him further from the pool. "His companion is La Monjonaza."