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The Aztec Treasure-House, a novel by Thomas A. Janvier |
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Chapter 23. A Rescue |
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_ CHAPTER XXIII. A RESCUE That the two parties should be thus battling for possession of us gave us a gleam of hope for the saving of our lives. While we remained prisoners, in the ward of the Priest Captain, we knew that our death was inevitable; inasmuch as the witness which we bore against him, if suffered to be published, must of necessity bring his authority to an end. But should we pass into the ward of the Council, there was every reason why we should be cherished and protected; because, in their behalf, we would be witnesses to the justice of their rebellion against Itzacoatl's rule. Nor would this feeling of amity towards us be confined to the leaders of the revolt; for we had perceived the substantial nature of the reasons which Tizoc had given us in support of his assurance that the hope of deliverance from oppression which our coming brought would raise up around us a host of friends. Therefore we knew that upon the issue of the battling that we heard the sounds of so loudly, and yet that might as well have been a thousand miles away for all that we could see of it, our fate must depend. And knowing this, it was a hard trial of our nerves and tempers to be forced to remain there idle in the dark, without the chance to strike in our own behalf a single blow. Young strode backward and forward in such a fashion, and the mutterings beneath his breath were so like growls, that the likening of him to a wild beast in a cage, while trite, is strictly accurate. Rayburn, not less resolute, but more self-contained, pressed close against the bars and never stirred, save that now and then he cracked his thumbs and fingers together with such vigor that the sound was like a pistol-shot. And even I, who am not naturally of a blood-thirsty disposition, found the need of walking briskly about our prison in order to quiet a little my strong longing to be outside with a weapon in my hands wherewith I could crack some skulls open. Indeed, among us all, only Fray Antonio maintained an outward show of calm. Thus far, all the sounds which we had heard had come to us from the direction of the front of the house, whence we inferred that the fight was being waged, greatly to the disadvantage of the assailants, through the grating by which the entrance was closed. But suddenly there was an outcry of alarm close by us in the court-yard, and then the sound of hurrying feet there, and then a roar of shouting mingled with the fierce clash of arms--so that we knew that the assailants, either by beating in the grating or by scaling the roof, had got inside. They and the defenders were engaged, hand to hand, almost within arm's-length of us. We could hear loudly the yells with which every stroke was accompanied, and the clang of metal striking upon metal, and the dull, crushing sound of the blows which went home truly and carved through flesh and bone--and we could see no more of it all than if we were dreaming, and these sounds of savage warfare were but the imaginings of our brains! One man, being, as we supposed, pursued by another from the central part of the court-yard--where, as it seemed, the fight raged most hotly--made a stand just outside the curtain that overhung the bars whereby we were pent in; and we could hear him panting as he struck and parried there, and then the splitting of his flesh and the crash of his bones as a tremendous blow overcame his guard, and the soft, deep groan that he gave as his life left him. His body fell against the curtain and dragged it a little; and presently, as I stood there by the bars, I found that my feet were in a pool of blood. It was only a moment or two after this that the sounds of conflict very sensibly diminished, and we heard a rush made, and the confused tread of feet upon the stairs that led upward to the temple, and then came so jubilant a shouting that we knew that to one side or the other had come victory. "If th' Priest Captain's outfit's on top," Young said, grimly, "I guess we've about got t' th' end of a division; an' there's not much chance of our changin' engines an' keepin' on with th' run." To which figurative suggestion Rayburn gave an immediate grunt of assent. But at that very instant there was a lull in the tumult outside, and we heard a voice that I recognized as Tizoc's loudly calling to us; and to his hail, that carried such joyful meaning with it, I joyfully and loudly answered. To Rayburn and Young, of course, the call was unintelligible, nor did they recognize the voice of him who called; and they therefore were disposed to think, when I fell to shouting, that my brain was addled. However, they changed their views a minute or two later--the dead body resting against the curtain having been thrown aside, and the curtain itself torn down--when they saw Tizoc's friendly face outside the bars, and then saw the bars rapidly removed. "Colonel," said Young, very seriously, as we stepped forth thankfully once more into the sunshine, "you may not know what a brick is, but you are one. Shake!" and very much to Tizoc's astonishment, though he perceived that the act was meant to express great friendliness, Young most vigorously shook his hand. Under more favorable circumstances Tizoc, no doubt, would have asked for an explanation of this curious ceremony, but just then his whole mind was given to making good his retreat and so securing us against recapture. There was not a moment to lose, he said; throughout the city the priests everywhere were rallying forces to Itzacoatl's support, and at any instant we might be attacked. As he spoke he drew us away with him towards the street, where the main body of his men still remained--for only a small part of them had joined in scaling the roof, and so taking the enemy by surprise in the rear. "But what of Pablo, our young companion?" I asked, stopping short as I spoke. "My men are looking for him; they will find him in a moment; he surely is safe; he may be already outside. Come." The possibility that Pablo truly might be outside of the building was the only argument that could have induced us to leave it without him; and that possibility was so reasonable a one that we made no more delay. Indeed, we fully realized the necessity for promptness. From all parts of the city came a humming, angry sound, which assured us that everywhere the people were aroused; and Tizoc bade us arm ourselves with what weapons we could use most effectively among those which were scattered about the pavement of the court-yard, as we surely would have need of weapons soon. A sword was the only instrument of warfare of which I had knowledge--which knowledge was acquired during my German student days--and I took, therefore, one of the heavy maccuahuitls; and the others also, excepting Fray Antonio, similarly armed themselves, each with a sword that they found lying beside the dead hand that never would wield it more. It was as we obeyed Tizoc's order that we saw how fierce and how bloody the fight had been; for the court-yard was red with blood, like a slaughter-house, and over the stones everywhere dead bodies were lying, all cut and gashed with ghastly wounds. Excepting a few of Tizoc's men, who had bound up their hurts, and who staggered along with us, not a wounded man remained alive; whence we inferred that the fight had been waged on strictly barbarous principles, and that no quarter had been given. And of this we had proof; for as we passed through the guard-room we found there a moaning wretch, belonging to the Priest Captain's party, in whose chest was a great hole made by a spear-thrust--and at a sign from Tizoc one of our men stepped aside, and with a blow of his heavy sword coolly mashed in the wounded man's skull, and so finished him. The metal grating that closed the entrance had been raised by Tizoc's people from the inside, and we passed out beneath it to where the main body of his men was drawn up in readiness to march. But of Pablo and El Sabio there was no sign. Tizoc was not less distressed by the loss of the lad than we were, for he had counted upon the moral effect which the exhibition of Pablo and El Sabio most certainly would produce to aid powerfully in fomenting the spirit of revolt. When, therefore, we refused to go forward until further search had been made, he did not oppose us; but he told us plainly that further looking for him in that place was useless, for already every room in the building had been examined without the finding of a trace of him. There could be no doubt, he said, that when we had been made prisoners Pablo, and El Sabio with him, had been taken up the stair to the temple for greater security; in which place, if they were not both by this time dead, they still remained. Whereupon Young was for making an attack upon the temple instantly, and in this project Rayburn and I warmly seconded him; and even Fray Antonio said that this was a case in which he felt justified in using carnal weapons, since the fighting would be to rescue from among infidels a Christian soul. But Tizoc hurriedly explained to us the hopelessness, at that time, of such an assault. The success that had attended his bold rescue of us had been due to the suddenness of it; for the majority of the people in the city, including the large force of soldiery there, assuredly was on the Priest Captain's side. It was outside the city that the strength of the revolution must be gathered; and his orders were, when his rescue of us should be accomplished, to carry us safely out beyond the walls with all possible speed. Such of the Council of the Twenty Lords as had decided to take the chances of revolt--being all the members of that body save the five priests that had belonged to it--already had gone down to the water-side, together with the small force that they had gathered, that they might seize the water-gate and hold it until we should join them. Even now it was certain that in going down through the city we should have to fight our way, and each moment that we delayed our retreat increased our danger. Capturing the temple now was a sheer impossibility. Our only hope of saving Pablo's life lay in our getting away promptly, and so beginning the preparations that would lead to ultimate victory. All the while that Tizoc spoke he was edging us away towards the outer face of the terrace, where steps led downward; and when the men who had been searching the building once more for Pablo returned without him, he resolutely gave the order to march. To the arguments that he had advanced we were compelled to yield; but our hearts were heavy with sorrow for the boy whom we were leaving behind us, and little hope was in our breasts that we ever again should see him alive. The truth of Tizoc's words about the great danger that we ourselves were in became apparent as we crossed the terrace next below that on which our march began. Where the street passed through the rampart by a narrow portal, and so by a flight of stone steps descended to the next level, soldiers were clustered together with the evident intention of disputing the way with us. Their number was so much less than ours that we made short work of them; killing a few, and driving the remainder down the steps before us. But those who escaped ran on ahead of us to where the next rampart was, and there joined themselves to a much larger body that lay in wait for us. Here our work was less easy; for the force that confronted us was nearly our equal, and some resolute fighting was required before we could drive it before us and so pass on. Some of our men were killed there, and more of the enemy; and I got a trifling hurt in my arm from the point of a javelin, that, luckily, did little more than graze the skin. I do not think that I killed anybody there, but I remember very plainly the look of pain and of anger on the face of that fellow who poked his javelin at me when I gashed his arm, and broke the bone of it, with a blow from my sword. I was glad, at the moment, that I had succeeded in giving him a worse hurt than he had given me; and then the absurdity occurred to me of my thus fighting with a total stranger, against whom I had no personal ill-will; and I could not but feel sorrow for him as I thought of the long time that he must suffer severe pain and great inconvenience because I had chanced to strike him that blow. However, from the way in which they went cutting and slashing about them, it was evident that neither Rayburn nor Young were troubled with any compunctions of this nature. They were only too glad, apparently, to get a chance to whack away at any of the Priest Captain's representatives; and they made such use of their opportunity that the Aztlanecas fighting with us cried out in admiration of their prowess and their strength. Fray Antonio was more sorely tried than any of us during this passage, for I knew that his flesh greatly longed to take part in the fighting, and that only the strong spirit which was within him subdued the flesh and so held his hands. With a final rush we succeeded in forcing the enemy through the narrow opening in the rampart, and so down the steps beyond; but as we pursued them across the next terrace, keeping close at their heels so that they might not have time to form again, many of our wounded fell out from the ranks and dropped by the way--and we had left behind us a dozen or more of our dead on the ground where the fight had been. Our tactics of rapid pursuit of the force that we had defeated served us well at the next rampart; for the men whom we pursued and we ourselves came to it almost in one body, and thus threw into such confusion the fresh force that was waiting for us that, without any long fighting about it, we drove right through them and went on downward; and in the same dashing fashion we carried the rampart beyond. However, when those men whom we had pushed aside from our path so easily got over their surprise at being so lightly handled, they formed in our rear and came hurrying after us; the result of which was that as we approached the last of the ramparts that we had to pass through, where was gathered the largest body of men that we had yet encountered, we found ourselves fairly wedged in between two bodies of the enemy and outnumbered four to one. Here, too, the passage through the rampart had been closed by the metal bars that were in readiness for that purpose. Setting these in place was no real barrier to our passage, for, being intended to close the portal against assailants from below, the fastenings which held them were on the side nearest to us. But to remove them it was necessary that we should fight our way through the crowd--with no possibility of driving the enemy before us, as we had done upon the upper terraces, since here the way was closed. What we did was literally to cut a path through the throng; and over the men who fell dead or wounded beneath our blows we made our advance. There was a curious creeping, uneasy sensation in the region of my stomach as I trod thus on the bodies of wounded men who were not dead yet, and felt them moving, and heard their groaning; and I was conscious of a feeling of relief when a body that I trod upon did not squirm beneath my foot, and so by its stillness assured me that I was standing only on dead flesh that had no feeling in it. Very slowly did we go forward, for while the living barrier that we had to deal with was not at the outset more than twenty feet, or thereabouts, in thickness, hacking it down took us a tediously long time. While still we faced a dozen or more very desperate fighters, who held us off most resolutely from the metal bars which closed the way, a pang of dread and sorrow went through me as I perceived that Fray Antonio, who a moment before had been close beside me, had disappeared. That he might the better restrain his longing to take part in the fighting he had remained in the centre of our men; and it was hard to understand how, in that position, harm could have come to him, for missiles had no share in the work that was going forward, which was a fiery struggle hand to hand. As I looked for him in the throng--so far as I could do this and at the same time keep up my guard against the man whom at that moment I was fighting with--I saw some signs of uneasy movement among the enemy in advance of us, and several of them evidently made an effort to reach down as though to get at something that was on the ground; which effort was wholly futile, for they were wedged so tightly together by our pressure upon them that reaching downward was impossible. By a lucky blow, I just then finished the man with whom I was contending, and so had a moment's breathing spell; and at that instant I saw one of the enemy, whose back was ranged against the bars, rise up in the air as though a strong spring had been loosed beneath him, and then fall sidewise upon the heads and shoulders of his fellows. And then, in the place thus made vacant, the cowled head of Fray Antonio instantly appeared--whereby I guessed, what afterwards I knew certainly, that he had crawled along the ground through the press until he reached the place that he aimed at, and then had risen up beneath one of the enemy with such sudden violence that he fairly had sent the man spinning upward into the air. What his purpose was I saw in a moment, for no sooner did he stand upright than he had his hands upon the metal bars, and then I heard the clinking together of stone and metal as he lifted them bodily away. _ |
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