The Aztec Treasure-House 30 – Janvier · Verses Across
Literature · Historical Fiction
The Aztec Treasure-House 30The Assault in the Night
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Literature · Historical Fiction
The Aztec Treasure-House 30
The Assault in the Night
JanvierEnglish
Neither the Council, in its irresolute parleyings, nor Fray Antonio, in his resolute action, had at all considered certain factors which they themselves had interjected into the problem that they then were dealing with from such widely different stand-points and in such widely different ways. The Council, at a stroke, had transformed the Tlahuicos into soldiers, and had given the promise that in reward for their faithfulness and valor these slaves thenceforward should be freemen. Fray Antonio had preached to all those assembled at Huitzilan a creed that had taken strong hold upon many hearts, and that especially had won the hearts of those of the long-oppressed servile class--to whom its doctrine of equality seemed to hold out an absolute assurance that their life of slavery was at an end.
When, therefore, the terms which the Priest Captain offered were spread abroad through the town, and through the camp close beside the town in which the army lay--being there in readiness instantly to occupy the Citadel should the enemy appear--a very lively anger was aroused because such terms should even be listened to. For what the Priest Captain demanded was that the apostle of the new religion should be relinquished to him to be slain as a sacrifice to the Aztec gods, and that once more the Tlahuicos should be thrust back into slavery; while what he conceded--in that it affected only the higher classes--made the lot of the Tlahuicos but the more unjustly cruel and hard to bear.
And those who resented the delay on the part of the Council in sending back the Priest Captain's envoy with a sharp denial, presently went on from hot words to violent deeds; being directly led from mutinous talk to mutinous action by the knowledge that the Council had so far accepted the offered terms as to send Fray Antonio to the great city to be slain--for not one among them could be led for a moment to believe, so impossible from their stand-point did such an act appear, that the monk truly had gone thither of his own free-will.
Practically, the whole army was involved in the movement that then took place; for even its officers, while not of the servile class, dreaded the punishment that their revolt might bring upon them, and so preferred to take the chances of the war rather than to yield themselves to be dealt with as the Priest Captain might dispose. Therefore it was, on the day that Fray Antonio departed from us, that all the soldiers together marched in from their camp and massed themselves compactly about the Council Chamber within the Citadel, and then with loud cries demanded that the envoy should be sent back to the great city with an absolute refusal of the offered terms. Thus was there created a rebellion within a rebellion; and one that the Council was powerless to put down, for the reason that practically the whole of the force which it had created to serve against the enemy was now risen against its own authority with a most masterful strength.
In the case that thus was presented there was no opportunity to temporize. The fierce, wild creatures of whom soldiers suddenly had been made stood there before the Council Chamber, shouting and waving their spears angrily and clashing together their arms. And so they continued, without one moment of quiet, until their will was obeyed. Through the savage and tumultuous throng the envoy was led forth--his looks showing plainly his very natural expectation that his life would be let out of him amid that ferocious company--and so down to the water-side; and thence was sent back again to Culhuacan with the firm assurance--which message of defiance the soldiers themselves dictated--that the terms offered by the Priest Captain would be accepted only when all the Tlahuicos then risen together in arms against him had been slain!
"Bully for th' Tlahuicos!" cried Young, as I translated to him these ringing words. "Just tell 'em, Professor, that I've volunteered for three years or th' war, an' that they can count on me t' keep up a full head o' steam as long as there's any fightin' t' be done. Accordin' t' my notions, now that th' Padre's over there in th' city--t' say nothin' o' what we owe 'em on Pablo's account--th' row can't begin one minute too soon. These Tlahuicos are th' boys for me! Didn't I tell you that nobody could stop 'em when they once got fairly started? They're a tough lot; but they're just everlastin' rustlers--an' their style suits me right now all th' way down t' th' ground floor!"
The sharp excitement attendant upon this vigorous action gave place, as the day wore on, to a dull heavy pain as our thoughts dwelt upon the fate that Fray Antonio had gone forth to meet, and upon our present powerlessness to defend him in any way against it. Although the envoy had been sent back, and war was now resolutely determined upon, the situation remained unchanged in so far as concerned the necessity of our waiting for the Priest Captain to take the initiative. To attack that great walled city was so hopeless a task that even the Tlahuicos--flushed though they were by their victory over the Council--did not venture to propose it; for they knew, as we all did, that our only chance of carrying the enemy's stronghold lay in first defeating its garrison in a battle in the open field. Yet this dull inaction of waiting was a scarce of grave danger to us, in that it tended to wear out the spirits of our men and to make them still more careless of their guard. What Rayburn and I had seen that morning had shown how little trust could be placed in them, in so far as the soldierly attribute of watchfulness was concerned; and Tizoc, with whom we conferred in regard to this important matter, had little to say that we found comforting. Being himself a thorough soldier, he perceived the danger to which the unsoldierly lack of vigilance on the part of the Tlahuicos exposed our camp; but the situation was such that he was powerless to take effective measures for our protection. The few regular troops in our little army were not enough to do sentry duty everywhere, and the best that could be done would be to dispose them at the points most open to attack--"And then trust to luck," Rayburn put in, rather bitterly, "that the enemy will be polite enough to try to surprise only the part of the camp where the sentries are awake!"
Partly that we might see for ourselves how our pickets were disposed, but more that by action of any sort we might divert our thoughts from the sorrow that was gnawing at our hearts, we walked out together in the late afternoon to the rocky heights of the promontory that on the western side of the town extended far into the lake. From a military stand-point this position was of great importance to us, inasmuch as bowmen or slingmen gaining access to it could command a considerable part of the town, and even could annoy very seriously the garrison of the Citadel; and it also was of value to us as a place of lookout whence an attacking party coming by way of the lake from the city could be perceived while yet it was a long way off.
We were surprised, therefore, when we had come well out upon the promontory, that no sentinel challenged us; but our surprise vanished a moment or two later as we perceived one of our men curled up comfortably against a sunny rock and apparently sound asleep. However, as we got close to the man it was clear to us that his sleep was one that he never would waken from, for a pool of blood stained the rock beside him, and an arrow was shot fairly through his heart. We made but a short stop beside this fellow--who plainly had been shot in his sleep, and so deserved the fate that had overtaken him--and then went forward anxiously that we might see how the other sentinels stationed hereabouts had fared. The result of our quest was as bad as it could be; for in one place or another among the rocks we found all five of the men who had been posted upon the promontory, and all of them were dead. Three more of them certainly had been shot while asleep or wholly off their guard, as was shown by the easy attitudes in which we found them sitting or lying among the rocks. The fifth had not been instantly killed; as we inferred from finding a broken arrow sticking in his left arm, and some signs of a struggle about where he lay, and a great split in his skull, as from a sword stroke, that finally had let the life out of him. It struck us as strange that this man had not aroused the camp with his shouts; but his post was at the extreme end of the promontory, so that he must have called very loudly in order to be heard; and it was possible that in the suddenness of his danger he never thought to call at all. However, the important matter, so far as we were concerned, was that these five sentinels had been slain close beside the town and in broad daylight, and that but for the chance of our coming out upon the promontory the most important of our outposts would have remained unguarded until the night relief should have come on. It was Rayburn's theory that the plan of the enemy was to place his own men on the vacant posts--trusting to the reasonable certainty that in the dusk of evening one naked Indian would look much like another--and so despatch the relief, one by one, as the guard was changed.
Of those of the enemy who had accomplished this piece of work so skilfully we could see no sign--unless it were a boat that we dimly saw a long way off on the lake, and that presently wholly disappeared in a bank of haze; and despite the hot sunshine basking upon us a chill went through me at thought of the stealthy daring and truly devilish cunning of the men who thus could do their evil work in the full light of day, and close to the encampment of an army, and yet could get safely away without leaving a trace of their presence save the dead bodies of their foes.
Having made sure by carefully searching among the rocks throughout the length of the promontory that none of the enemy was hidden there, we hastened back to the town to tell what we had come upon, and to provide for mounting fresh sentinels in the place of those who had been relieved by death. We had expected that the news which we brought would stir up a great commotion; and we were not a little troubled, therefore, knowing how serious the matter was in its exhibition of the carelessness of our guards, by finding that only Tizoc and a few other tried soldiers were more than lightly discomposed by what we had to tell. The general feeling seemed to be--inasmuch as our lucky discovery had dispelled the danger--that there was no need to worry about a calamity which had not occurred; and what after all was the most essential consideration--the constant danger that threatened us by reason of the criminal laxity of the watch maintained by our pickets--practically was lost sight of. Apparently neither the Council nor the higher officers of the army had the power to remedy this dangerous condition of affairs. At no time had any very strong authority been exercised over the Tlahuicos--for all the orders which until now had been given to them had been directed only towards urging them along a way that they were glad enough to follow of their own accord--and since their assertion of their will that morning, what little control had restrained their waywardness seemed to have been wholly lost.
However, as there was a chance in it of fighting, and as fighting was what they longed for earnestly, our unruly soldiers were willing enough that a strong detachment should be placed in ambush on the promontory, to the end that the force which the enemy probably would land there that night might be summarily dealt with. And the better to carry out our plan of a counter-surprise the dead sentinels were left where we found them. Tizoc was given the command of the ambushed force, and he willingly granted our request that we might accompany him; which request was prompted by the desire that we fully shared with the Tlahuicos to get at close quarters with the enemy, and also by the conviction that in Tizoc's company--though in his company we were like to have hot fighting and plenty of it--we would have better chances of safety than anywhere else in all our camp.
For this expedition we put on for the first time our armor of quilted cotton cloth; and the look of these garments certainly did justify Young's comments upon them. "It's a pity we can't get photographed now," he said, "so's t' send our likenesses in this rig home t' our folks. You'd just jolt the Cap Cod folks, Rayburn, with that pair o' telegraph poles you call your legs stickin' out from under th' tails o' that thing that looks like a cross between a badly made frock-coat and an undersized night-shirt. And I guess your college boys 'd be jolted, too, Professor, if they could get a squint at you. And I s'pose that if some o' th' hands on th' Old Colony happened t' ketch up with me dressed this way they'd think I'd gone crazy. But I haven't got anything t' say against these little night-shirts except about their looks. When you get right down t' th' hard-pan with 'em, they're a first-rate thing."
For three American citizens, belonging to the nineteenth century, we certainly presented a strange appearance, and appeared also in very strange company, as we marched out from the town late that afternoon with Tizoc and his men. Each of us carried half a dozen darts, and strapped around our waists, outside our cotton-cloth armor, we each wore a maccahuitl--the heavy sword with a jagged double edge that we knew from experience was an excellent weapon when wielded by a strong hand. Indeed, Young and I carried the darts rather to satisfy Tizoc than because we expected to make any very effective use of them, and all of our reliance both for assault and defence was upon what we could do with our swords at close quarters. Rayburn, however, had been practising dart-throwing very diligently, and as he naturally was an extraordinarily dextrous man he had made rapid progress in this savage art. The soldiers in our company, naked creatures, lithe and sinewy, were armed for the most part with spears and slings; and the officers wore each a sword and carried each a handful of darts. As we all stepped out briskly together I could not but think how amazed would be the President of the University of Michigan, and my fellow-members of the Faculty of that institution of learning, should they happen to encounter me in that barbarous company, and arrayed in that most barbarous garb!
It was a little before sunset when we reached the place that Tizoc had selected for our ambush upon the promontory; and an hour later, just as the shadows of evening were beginning to fall, one of our lookout men reported that a large boat--of which the oars must be muffled, for no sound came from it--was pulling around a point just beyond where we lay. There was a little stir among our men when this news was received, and a shifting and arranging of weapons, so that all might be in readiness when the moment for opening the ambush came; but we had a picked force with us, each man of which fully understood how necessary was silence to the success of our plans, and the quick thrill of movement was so guarded that it scarcely ruffled the deep stillness of the night.
But the moments lengthened out into minutes, and the minutes slowly slipped by until a full hour had passed, and the thick darkness of tropical night was upon us, and still there was no sign of a foe. Tizoc grew uneasy, for it was evident that we were in error in our conception of the enemy's plan. Had he intend-to mount his own men as sentinels in place of our men whom he had slain, and then get save possession of the promontory by killing the relief as it came on, we should have been long since engaged with him; but here the night was wearing on, and, excepting only the boat that our scouts had seen, there had been nothing to show that the attack which we had expected so confidently was anything more than a creation of our own fears. Yet our only course was to remain where we were until morning; for some accident might have delayed the attack, and the necessity of holding the promontory was so urgent that we could not take the risk of withdrawing our force.
It was weary work sitting there in the darkness, after all the weariness of so exciting a day, and as the hours dragged on I found myself now and then sinking into a doze, for which I reproached myself; yet also excused myself by the reflection that I did not at all profess to have either the training or the instincts of a soldier, but had been brought up, as a man of peace and as a scholar, in accordance with the sound principle that night rationally is the time set apart for sleep. It was from a most agreeable nap--in which I was dreaming pleasantly of my old life in Ann Arbor--that I was roused suddenly by Rayburn's quick grip upon my shoulder, and by his sharp whisper, "What's that?"
In an instant I was thoroughly awake, and as I bent forward and listened intently I heard very distinctly a faint cry of alarm, that seemed to come from a long way off. Tizoc, I perceived--for he had risen to his feet--also was most eagerly listening; and I heard a slight sound of movement and of arms clinking as our men roused themselves, showing that they also had heard that warning cry.
But in a moment there was no need to strain our ears to catch the sounds which came to us. The cry that a single throat had uttered was taken up by a thousand; and so grew into a dull, distant roar, that pierced the black and sullen stillness of the night. And with this came also the higher notes of savage yells, and then we heard the clash of arms--which evidence that fighting was going on, no less than the direction whence, as we now perceived clearly, the sounds came, assured us that while we had maintained our watchful guard on the promontory the enemy had surprised our camp.
Rayburn sprang up with a growl like that of a savage beast. "By G----d!" he cried, "they meant us to do just what we've done, and we've walked into their trap like so many d----n fools!"
