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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Eagle Flight, by José Rizal
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: An Eagle Flight
+       A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere
+
+Author: José Rizal
+
+Release Date: December 22, 2008 [EBook #27594]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN EAGLE FLIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Distributed
+Proofreaders Team at https://www.pgdp.net/
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        AN EAGLE FLIGHT
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+        I have in this rough work shaped out a man
+        Whom this beneath-world doth embrace and hug
+        With amplest entertainment: my free drift
+        Halts not particularly, but moves itself
+        In a wide sea of wax; no levell'd malice
+        Infects one comma in the course I hold;
+        But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,
+        Leaving no track behind.
+
+                            Timon of Athens--Act 1, Scene 1.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        An Eagle Flight
+
+                        A Filipino Novel
+
+                          Adapted from
+
+                       "NOLI ME TANGERE"
+
+
+                               By
+
+                         DR. JOSÉ RIZAL
+
+
+
+
+                            NEW YORK
+
+                    McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
+
+                              MCMI
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        Copyright, 1900,
+                   By McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+    Chapter                                  Page
+
+    I.--The House on the Pasig                  1
+    II.--Crisóstomo Ibarra                      7
+    III.--The Dinner                            9
+    IV.--Heretic and Filibuster                12
+    V.--A Star in the Dark Night               15
+    VI.--Captain Tiago and Maria               17
+    VII.--Idylle                               20
+    VIII.--Reminiscences                       23
+    IX.--Affairs of the Country                25
+    X.--The Pueblo                             30
+    XI.--The Sovereigns                        32
+    XII.--All Saints' Day                      35
+    XIII.--The Little Sacristans               40
+    XIV.--Sisa                                 44
+    XV.--Basilio                               47
+    XVI.--At the Manse                         50
+    XVII.--Story of a Schoolmaster             53
+    XVIII.--The Story of a Mother              57
+    XIX.--The Fishing Party                    63
+    XX.--In the Woods                          71
+    XXI.--With the Philosopher                 79
+    XXII.--The Meeting at the Town Hall        87
+    XXIII.--The Eve of the Féte                94
+    XXIV.--In the Church                      102
+    XXV.--The Sermon                          105
+    XXVI.--The Crane                          109
+    XXVII.--Free Thought                      116
+    XXVIII.--The Banquet                      119
+    XXIX.--Opinions                           126
+    XXX.--The First Cloud                     130
+    XXXI.--His Excellency                     134
+    XXXII.--The Procession                    142
+    XXXIII.--Doña Consolacion                 145
+    XXXIV.--Right and Might                   150
+    XXXV.--Husband and Wife                   156
+    XXXVI.--Projects                          163
+    XXXVII.--Scrutiny and Conscience          165
+    XXXVIII.--The Two Women                   170
+    XXXIX.--The Outlawed                      176
+    XL.--The Enigma                           181
+    XLI.--The Voice of the Persecuted         183
+    XLII.--The Family of Elias                187
+    XLIII.--Il Buon di si Conosce da Mattina  193
+    XLIV.--La Gallera                         196
+    XLV.--A Call                              201
+    XLVI.--A Conspiracy                       204
+    XLVII.--The Catastrophe                   208
+    XLVIII.--Gossip                           212
+    XLIX.--Væ Victis                          217
+    L.--Accurst                               221
+    LI.--Patriotism and Interest              224
+    LII.--Marie Clara Marries                 232
+    LIII.--The Chase on the Lake              242
+    LIV.--Father Dámaso Explains Himself      247
+    LV.--The Nochebuena                       251
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+JOSÉ RIZAL
+
+
+In that horrible drama, the Philippine revolution, one man of
+the purest and noblest character stands out pre-eminently--José
+Rizal--poet, artist, philologue, novelist, above all, patriot; his
+influence might have changed the whole course of events in the islands,
+had not a blind and stupid policy brought about the crime of his death.
+
+This man, of almost pure Tagalo race, was born in 1861, at Calamba,
+in the island of Luzon, on the southern shore of the Laguna de Bay,
+where he grew up in his father's home, under the tutorage of a wise
+and learned native priest, Leontio.
+
+The child's fine nature, expanding in the troublous latter days
+of a long race bondage, was touched early with the fire of genuine
+patriotism. He was eleven when the tragic consequences of the Cavité
+insurrection destroyed any lingering illusions of his people, and
+stirred in them a spirit that has not yet been allayed.
+
+The rising at Cavité, like many others in the islands, was a protest
+against the holding of benefices by friars--a thing forbidden by a
+decree of the Council of Trent, but authorized in the Philippines, by
+papal bulls, until such time as there should be a sufficiency of native
+priests. This time never came. As the friars held the best agricultural
+lands, and had a voice--and that the most authoritative--in civil
+affairs, there developed in the rural districts a veritable feudal
+system, bringing in its train the arrogance and tyranny that like
+conditions develop. It became impossible for the civil authorities
+to carry out measures in opposition to the friars. "The Government
+is an arm, the head is the convent," says the old philosopher of
+Rizal's story.
+
+The rising at Cavité miscarried, and vengeance fell. Dr. Joseph Burgos,
+a saintly old priest, was put to death, and three other native priests
+with him, while many prominent native families were banished. Never
+had the better class of Filipinos been so outraged and aroused, and
+from this time on their purpose was fixed, not to free themselves
+from Spain, not to secede from the church they loved, but to agitate
+ceaselessly for reforms which none of them longer believed could be
+realized without the expulsion of the friars. In the school of this
+purpose, and with the belief on the part of his father and Leontio that
+he was destined to use his life and talents in its behalf, José was
+trained, until he left his home to study in Manila. At the College of
+the Jesuits he carried off all the honors, with special distinction
+in literary work. He wrote a number of odes; and a melodrama in
+verse, the work of his thirteenth year, was successfully played at
+Manila. But he had to wear his honors as an Indian among white men,
+and they made life hard for him. He specially aroused the dislike of
+his Spanish college mates by an ode in which he spoke of his patria. A
+Tagalo had no native land, they contended--only a country.
+
+At twenty Rizal finished his course at Manila, and a few months later
+went to Madrid, where he speedily won the degrees of Ph.D. and M.D.;
+then to Germany--taking here another degree, doing his work in the
+new language, which he mastered as he went along; to Austria, where he
+gained great skill as an oculist; to France, Italy, England--absorbing
+the languages and literature of these countries, doing some fine
+sculpture by way of diversion. But in all this he was single-minded;
+he never lost the voice of his call; he felt more and more keenly
+the contrast between the hard lot of his country and the freedom of
+these lands, and he bore it ill that no one of them even knew about
+her, and the cancer eating away her beauty and strength. At the end
+of this period of study he settled in Berlin, and began his active
+work for his country.
+
+Four years of the socialism and license of the universities had not
+distorted Rizal's political vision; he remained, as he had grown up,
+an opportunist. Not then, nor at any time, did he think his country
+ready for self-government. He saw as her best present good her
+continued union to Spain, "through a stable policy based upon justice
+and community of interests." He asked only for the reforms promised
+again and again by the ministry, and as often frustrated. To plead for
+the lifting of the hand of oppression from the necks of his people,
+he now wrote his first novel, "Noli Me Tangere."
+
+The next year he returned to the Philippines to find himself the
+idol of the natives and a thorn in the flesh of friars and greedy
+officials. The reading of his book was proscribed. He stayed long
+enough to concern himself in a dispute of his townspeople with the
+Dominicans over titles to lands; then finding his efforts vain and his
+safety doubtful, he left for Japan. Here he pursued for some time his
+usual studies; came thence to America, and then crossed to England,
+where he made researches in the British Museum, and edited in Spanish,
+"Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas," by Dr. Antonio de Morga, an important
+work, neglected by the Spaniards, but already edited in English by
+Dean Stanley.
+
+After publishing this work, in Paris, Rizal returned to Spain, where,
+in 1890, he began a series of brilliant pleas for the Philippines,
+in the Solidaridad, a liberal journal published at Barcelona and
+afterward at Madrid. But he roused little sympathy or interest in
+Spain, and his articles, repeated in pamphlets in the Philippines,
+served to make his position more dangerous at home.
+
+Disheartened but steadfast, he retired to Belgium, to write his second
+novel, "El Filibusterismo." "Noli Me Tangere" is a poet's story of his
+people's loves, faults, aspirations, and wrongs; "El Filibusterismo"
+is the work of a student of statecraft, pointing out the way to
+political justice and the development of national life. Inspired,
+it would seem, by his own creation of a future for his country, he
+returned to the Solidaridad, where, in a series of remarkable articles,
+he forecast the ultimate downfall of Spain in the Philippines and
+the rise of his people. This was his crime against the Government:
+for the spirit which in a Spanish boy would not permit a Tagalo to
+have a patria, in a Spaniard grown could not brook the suggestion of
+colonial independence, even in the far future.
+
+And now having poured out these passionate pleas and splendid
+forecasts, Rizal was homesick for this land of his. He went to
+Hong-Kong. Calamba was in revolt. His many friends at the English port
+did everything to keep him; but the call was too persistent. December
+23d, 1891, he wrote to Despujols, then governor-general of the
+Philippines: "If Your Excellency thinks my slight services could be
+of use in pointing out the evils of my country and helping heal the
+wounds reopened by the recent injustices, you need but to say so, and
+trusting in your honor as a gentleman, I will immediately put myself
+at your disposal. If you decline my offer, ... I shall at least be
+conscious of having done all in my power, while seeking the good of
+my country, to preserve her union to Spain through a stable policy
+based upon justice and community of interests."
+
+The governor expressed his gratitude, promised protection, and
+Rizal sailed for Manila. But immediately after his landing he was
+arrested on a charge of sedition, whose source made the governor's
+promise impotent. Nothing could be proved against Rizal; but it was
+not the purpose of his enemies to have him acquitted. A half-way
+sentence was imposed, and he was banished to Dapidan, on the island
+of Mindanao. Despujols was recalled to Spain.
+
+In this exile Rizal spent four years, beloved by the natives, teaching
+them agriculture, treating their sick (the poor without charge),
+improving their schools, and visited from time to time by patients from
+abroad, drawn here by his fame as an oculist. Among these last came
+a Mr. Taufer, a resident of Hong-Kong, and with him his foster-child,
+Josephine Bracken, the daughter of an Irish sergeant. The pretty and
+adventurous girl and the banished patriot fell in love with each other.
+
+These may well have been among the happiest years of Rizal's
+life. He had always been an exile in fact: now that he was one in
+name, strangely enough he was able for the first time to live in
+peace among his brothers under the skies he loved. He sang, in his
+pathetic content:
+
+
+    "Thou dear illusion with thy soothing cup!
+    I taste, and think I am a child again.
+
+    Oh! kindly tempest, favoring winds of heaven,
+    That knew the hour to check my shifting flight,
+    And beat me down upon my native soil,..."
+
+
+Always about his philological studies, he began here a work that
+should be of peculiar interest to us: a treatise on Tagalog verbs, in
+the English language. Did his knowledge of America's growing feeling
+toward Cuba lead him to foresee--as no one else seems to have done--her
+appearance in the Philippines, or was he thinking of England?
+
+At Hong-Kong, and in his brief stays at Manila, Rizal had established
+the Liga Filipina, a society of educated and progressive islanders,
+whose ideas of needed reforms and methods of attaining them were at
+one with his own. His banishment was a warning of danger and checked
+the society's activity.
+
+The Liga was succeeded, in the sense only of followed, by the
+Katipunan,--a native word also meaning league. The makers of this
+"league," though avowing the same purpose as the members of the other,
+were men of very different stamp. Their initiation was a blood-rite:
+they sought immediate independence; they preached a campaign of force,
+if not of violence. That a recent reviewer should have connected
+Dr. Rizal's name with the Katipunan is difficult to understand. Not
+alone are his writings, acts, and character against such a possibility,
+but so also is the testimony of the Spanish archives: for not only
+was it admitted at his final trial that he was not suspected of any
+connection with the Katipunan, but his well-known disapproval of that
+society's premature and violent action was even made a point against
+him. He was so much the more dangerous to the state because he had the
+sagacity to know that the times were not yet ripe for independence,
+and the honesty and purity of purpose to make only demands which the
+state herself well knew to be just.
+
+When the rebellion of 1896 broke out, Rizal, still at Dapidan,
+knew that his life would not long be worth a breath of his beloved
+Philippine air. He asked, therefore, of the Government permission to
+go to Cuba as an army surgeon. It was granted, and he was taken to
+Manila--ovations all along his route--and embarked on the Isla de
+Panay for Barcelona. He carried with him the following letter from
+General Blanco, then governor-general of the Philippines, to the
+Minister of War at Madrid:
+
+
+    Manila, August 30th, 1896.
+
+    Esteemed General and Distinguished Friend:
+
+
+    I recommend to you with genuine interest, Dr. José Rizal,
+    who is leaving for the Peninsula, to place himself at the
+    disposal of the Government as volunteer army surgeon to
+    Cuba. During the four years of his exile at Dapidan, he has
+    conducted himself in the most exemplary manner, and he is in
+    my opinion the more worthy of pardon and consideration, in
+    that he is in no way connected with the extravagant attempts
+    we are now deploring, neither those of conspirators nor of
+    the secret societies that have been formed.
+
+    I have the pleasure to reassure you of my high esteem,
+    and remain,
+
+
+    Your affectionate friend and comrade,
+
+    Ramon Blanco.
+
+
+But as soon as the Isla was on the seas, despatches began to pass
+between Manila and Madrid, and before she reached her port the
+promises, acceptances, and recommendations of the Government officials
+were void. Upon landing, Rizal was immediately arrested and confined
+in the infamous Montjuich prison. Despujols was now military governor
+of Barcelona. The interview of hours which he is said to have had
+with his Filipino prisoner must have been dramatic. Rizal was at
+once re-embarked, on the Colon, and returned to Manila, a state
+prisoner. Blanco was recalled, and Poliavieja, a sworn friend of the
+clericals, was sent out.
+
+Rizal was tried by court-martial, on a charge of sedition and
+rebellion. His guilt was manifestly impossible. Except as a prisoner
+of the state, he had spent only a few weeks in the Philippines since
+his boyhood. His life abroad had been perfectly open, as were all his
+writings. The facts stated in General Blanco's letter to the Minister
+of War were well known to all Rizal's accusers. The best they could
+do was to aver that he had written "depreciative words" against the
+Government and the Church. Some testimony was given against him by men
+who, since the American occupation, have made affidavit that it was
+false and forced from them by torture. Rizal made a splendid defence,
+but he was condemned, and sentenced to the death of a traitor. On that
+day José Rizal y Mercado and Josephine Bracken were married. Then
+the sweetness and strength of his character and his singleness of
+purpose made a beautiful showing. In the night, which his bride spent
+on her knees outside his prison, he wrote a long poem of farewell
+to his patria adorado, fine in its abnegation and exquisite in the
+wanderings of its fancy. He received the ministrations of a Jesuit
+priest. He was perfectly calm. "What is death to me?" he said;
+"I have sown, others are left to reap." At dawn he was shot.
+
+
+
+The poem in which he left a record of his last thoughts was the
+following:
+
+
+    MY LAST THOUGHT.
+
+    Land I adore, farewell! thou land of the southern sun's
+        choosing!
+    Pearl of the Orient seas! our forfeited Garden of Eden!
+    Joyous I yield up for thee my sad life, and were it far
+        brighter,
+    Young, rose-strewn, for thee and thy happiness still would
+        I give it.
+    Far afield, in the din and rush of maddening battle,
+    Others have laid down their lives, nor wavered nor paused in
+    the giving.
+    What matters way or place--the cyprus, the lily, the laurel,
+    Gibbet or open field, the sword or inglorious torture,
+    When 'tis the hearth and the country that call for the life's
+    immolation?
+
+    Dawn's faint lights bar the east, she smiles through the cowl
+        of the darkness,
+    Just as I die. Hast thou need of purple to garnish her pathway?
+    Here is my blood, on the hour! pour it out, and the sun in
+        his rising
+    Mayhap will touch it with gold, will lend it the sheen of
+        his glory.
+
+    Dreams of my childhood and youth, and dreams of my strong
+        young manhood,
+    What were they all but to see, thou gem of the Orient ocean!
+    Tearless thine eyes so deep, unbent, unmarred thy sweet
+        forehead.
+
+    Vision I followed from far, desire that spurred on and
+        consumed me!
+    Greeting! my parting soul cries, and greeting again!... O
+        my country!
+    Beautiful is it to fall, that the vision may rise to
+        fulfilment,
+    Giving my life for thy life, and breathing thine air in
+        the death-throe;
+    Sweet to eternally sleep in thy lap, O land of enchantment!
+
+    If in the deep, rich grass that covers my rest in thy bosom,
+    Some day thou seest upspring a lowly, tremulous blossom,
+    Lay there thy lips, 'tis my soul; may I feel on my forehead
+        descending,
+    Deep in the chilly tomb, the soft, warm breath of thy kisses.
+    Let the calm light of the moon fall around me, and dawn's
+    fleeting splendor;
+    Let the winds murmur and sigh, on my cross let some bird tell
+    its message;
+    Loosed from the rain by the brazen sun, let clouds of soft
+        vapor
+    Bear to the skies, as they mount again, the chant of my spirit.
+    There may some friendly heart lament my parting untimely,
+    And if at eventide a soul for my tranquil sleep prayeth,
+    Pray thou too, O my fatherland! for my peaceful reposing.
+    Pray for those who go down to death through unspeakable
+        torments;
+    Pray for those who remain to suffer such torture in prisons;
+    Pray for the bitter grief of our mothers, our widows,
+    our orphans;
+    Oh, pray too for thyself, on the way to thy final redemption.
+
+    When our still dwelling-place wraps night's dusky mantle
+        about her,
+    Leaving the dead alone with the dead, to watch till the
+        morning,
+    Break not our rest, and seek not to lay death's mystery open.
+    If now and then thou shouldst hear the string of a lute or
+        a zithern,
+    Mine is the hand, dear country, and mine is the voice that
+        is singing.
+
+    When my tomb, that all have forgot, no cross nor stone marketh,
+    There let the laborer guide his plough, there cleave the
+        earth open.
+    So shall my ashes at last be one with thy hills and thy
+        valleys.
+    Little 'twill matter then, my country, that thou shouldst
+        forget me!
+    I shall be air in thy streets, and I shall be space in thy
+        meadows.
+    I shall be vibrant speech in thine ears, shall be fragrance
+        and color,
+    Light and shout, and loved song forever repeating my message.
+
+
+Rizal's own explanation of the lofty purpose of his searching story
+of his Tagalog fatherland was in these words of his dedicatory preface:
+
+
+
+TO MY COUNTRY
+
+The records of human suffering make known to us the existence of
+ailments of such nature that the slightest touch irritates and causes
+tormenting pains. Whenever, in the midst of modern civilizations,
+I have tried to call up thy dear image, O my country! either for the
+comradeship of remembrance or to compare thy life with that about
+me, I have seen thy fair face disfigured and distorted by a hideous
+social cancer.
+
+Eager for thy health, which is our happiness, and seeking the best
+remedy for thy pain, I am about to do with thee what the ancients did
+with their sick: they exposed them on the steps of their temples, that
+every one who came to adore the divinity within might offer a remedy.
+
+So I shall strive to describe faithfully thy state without extenuation;
+to lift a corner of the covering that hides thy sore; sacrificing
+everything to truth, even the love of thy glory, while loving, as
+thy son, even thy frailties and sins.
+
+José Rizal.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AN EAGLE FLIGHT
+
+I.
+
+THE HOUSE ON THE PASIG.
+
+
+It was toward the end of October. Don Santiago de los Santos, better
+known as Captain Tiago, was giving a dinner; and though, contrary to
+custom, he had not announced it until that very afternoon, it had
+become before evening the sole topic of conversation, not only at
+Binondo, but in the other suburbs of Manila, and even in the city
+itself. Captain Tiago passed for the most lavish of entertainers,
+and it was well known that the doors of his home, like those of his
+country, were closed to nobody and nothing save commerce and all
+new or audacious ideas. The news spread, therefore, with lightning
+rapidity in the world of the sycophants, the unemployed and idle,
+whom heaven has multiplied so generously at Manila.
+
+The dinner was given in a house of the Calle de Anloague, which
+may yet be recognized, if an earthquake has not demolished it. This
+house, rather large and of a style common to the country, stood near
+an arm of the Pasig, called the Boco de Binondo, a rio which, like
+all others of Manila, washing along the multiple output of baths,
+sewers, and fishing grounds serves as a means of transport, and even
+furnishes drinking-water, if such be the humor of the Chinese carrier.
+Scarcely at intervals of a half-mile is this powerful artery of the
+quarter where the traffic is most important, the movement most active,
+dotted with bridges; and these, in ruins at one end six months of
+the year and inapproachable the remaining six at the other, give
+horses a pretext for plunging into the water, to the great surprise of
+preoccupied mortals in carriages dozing tranquilly or philosophizing
+on the progress of the century.
+
+The house of Captain Tiago was rather low and on lines sufficiently
+incorrect. A grand staircase with green balustrades, carpeted at
+intervals, led from the vestibule, with its squares of colored faience,
+to the main floor, between Chinese pedestals ornamented with fantastic
+designs, supporting vases and jardinières of flowers.
+
+At the top of the staircase was a large apartment, called here caida,
+which for this night served at once as dining- and music-room. In the
+centre, a long table, luxuriously set, seemed to promise to diners-out
+the most soothing satisfaction, at the same time threatening the
+timid girl--the dalaga--who for six mortal hours must submit to the
+companionship of strange and diverse people.
+
+In contrast to these mundane preparations, richly colored pictures
+of religious subjects hung about the walls, and at the end of the
+apartment, imprisoned in ornate and splendid Renaissance carving,
+was a curious canvas of vast dimensions, bearing the inscription,
+"Our Lady of Peace and of Safe Journeys, Venerated at Antipolo." The
+ceiling was prettily decorated with jewelled Chinese lamps, cages
+without birds, spheres of crystal faced with colored foil, faded air
+plants, botetes, etc. On the river side, through fantastic arches, half
+Chinese, half European, were glimpses of a terrace, with trellises and
+arbors, illuminated by little colored lanterns. Brilliant chandeliers,
+reflected in great mirrors, lighted the apartment. On a platform of
+pine was a superb grand piano. In a panel of the wall, a large portrait
+in oil represented a man of agreeable face, in frock coat, robust,
+straight, symmetrical as the gavel between his jewelled fingers.
+
+The crowd of guests almost filled the room; the men separated from
+the women, as in Catholic churches and synagogues. An old cousin
+of Captain Tiago's was receiving alone. Her appearance was kindly,
+but her tongue not very flexible to the Castilian. She filled her
+rôle by offering to the Spaniards trays of cigarettes and buyos, and
+giving the Filipinos her hand to kiss. The poor old lady, wearied at
+last, profited by the sound of breaking china to go out hurriedly,
+grumbling at maladroits. She did not reappear.
+
+Whether the pictures roused a spirit of devotion, whether the women
+of the Philippines are exceptional, the feminine part of the assembly
+remained silent. Scarcely was heard even a yawn, stifled behind a
+fan. The men made more stir. The most interesting and animated group
+was formed by two monks, two Spanish provincials, and an officer,
+seated round a little table, on which were wine and English biscuits.
+
+The officer, an old lieutenant, tall and morose, looked a Duke of Alba,
+retired into the Municipal Guard. He spoke little and dryly. One of the
+monks was a young Dominican, handsome, brilliant, precociously grave;
+it was the curate of Binondo. Consummate dialectician, he could escape
+from a distinguo like an eel from a fisherman's nets. He spoke seldom,
+and seemed to weigh his words.
+
+The other monk talked much and gestured more. Though his hair was
+turning gray, he seemed to have preserved all his vigor. His carriage,
+his glance, his large jaws, his herculean frame, gave him the air of a
+Roman patrician in disguise. Yet he seemed genial, and if the timbre
+of his voice was autocratic, his frank and merry laugh removed any
+disagreeable impression, so far even that one pardoned his appearing
+in the salon with unshod feet.
+
+One of the provincials, a little man with a black beard, had nothing
+remarkable about him but his nose, which, to judge from its size,
+ought not to have belonged to him entire. The other, young and blond,
+seemed newly arrived in the country. The Franciscan was conversing
+with him somewhat warmly.
+
+"You will see," said he, "when you have been here several months;
+you will be convinced that to legislate at Madrid and to execute in
+the Philippines is not one and the same thing."
+
+"But----"
+
+"I, for example," continued Brother Dámaso, raising his voice to
+cut off the words of his objector, "I, who count twenty-three years
+of plane and palm, can speak with authority. I spent twenty years
+in one pueblo. In twenty years one gets acquainted with a town. San
+Diego had six thousand souls. I knew each inhabitant as if I'd borne
+and reared him--with which foot this one limped, how that one's pot
+boiled--and I tell you the reforms proposed by the Ministers are
+absurd. The Indian is too indolent!"
+
+"Ah, pardon me," said the young man, speaking low and drawing nearer;
+"that word rouses all my interest. Does it really exist from birth,
+this indolence of the native, or is it, as some travellers say, only an
+excuse of our own for the lack of advancement in our colonial policy?"
+
+"Bah! ask Señor Laruja, who also knows the country well; ask him if
+the ignorance and idleness of the Indians are not unparalleled?"
+
+"In truth!" the little dark man made haste to affirm; "nowhere will
+you find men more careless."
+
+"Nor more corrupt, nor more ungrateful."
+
+"Nor more ill-bred."
+
+The young man looked about uneasily. "Gentlemen," said he, still
+speaking low, "it seems to me we are the guests of Indians, and that
+these young ladies----"
+
+"Bah, you are too timid: Santiago does not consider himself an Indian,
+besides, he isn't here. These are the scruples of a newcomer. Wait a
+little. When you have slept in our strapped beds, eaten the tinola,
+and seen our balls and fêtes, you'll change your tone. And more, you
+will find that the country is going to ruin; she is ruined already!"
+
+"What does your reverence mean?" cried the lieutenant and Dominican
+together.
+
+"The evil all comes from the fact that the Government sustains
+wrong-doers in the face of the ministers of God," continued the
+Franciscan, raising his voice and facing about. "When a curate rids
+his cemetery of a malefactor, no one, not even the king, has the right
+to interfere; and a wretched general, a petty general from nowhere----"
+
+"Father, His Excellency is viceroy," said the officer, rising. "His
+Excellency represents His Majesty the king."
+
+"What Excellency?" retorted the Franciscan, rising in turn. "Who is
+this king? For us there is but one King, the legitimate----"
+
+"If you do not retract that, Father, I shall make it known to the
+governor-general," cried the lieutenant.
+
+"Go to him now, go!" retorted Father Dámaso; "I'll loan you my
+carriage."
+
+The Dominican interposed.
+
+"Señores," said he in a tone of authority, "you should not confuse
+things, nor seek offence where there is none intended. We must
+distinguish in the words of Father Dámaso those of the man from those
+of the priest. The latter per se can never offend, because they are
+infallible. In the words of the man, a sub-distinction must be made,
+into those said ab irato, those said ex ore, but not in corde, and
+those said in corde. It is these last only that can offend, and even
+then everything depends. If they were not premeditated in mente,
+but simply arose per accidens in the heat of the conversation----"
+
+At this interesting point there joined the group an old Spaniard,
+gentle and inoffensive of aspect. He was lame, and leaned on
+the arm of an old native woman, smothered in curls and frizzes,
+preposterously powdered, and in European dress. With relief every
+one turned to salute them. It was Doctor de Espadaña and his wife,
+the Doctora Doña Victorina. The atmosphere cleared.
+
+"Which, Señor Laruja, is the master of the house?" asked the young
+provincial. "I haven't been presented."
+
+"They say he has gone out."
+
+"No presentations are necessary here," said Brother Dámaso; "Santiago
+is a good fellow."
+
+Er hat das Pulfer nicht erfunden. "He didn't invent gunpowder,"
+added Laruja.
+
+"What, you too, Señor de Laruja?" said Doña Victorina over her
+fan. "How could the poor man have invented gunpowder when, if what
+they say is true, the Chinese made it centuries ago?"
+
+"The Chinese? 'Twas a Franciscan who invented it," said Brother Dámaso.
+
+"A Franciscan, no doubt; he must have been a missionary to China,"
+said the Señora, not disposed to abandon her idea.
+
+"Who is this with Santiago?" asked the lieutenant. Every one looked
+toward the door, where two men had just entered. They came up to the
+group around the table.
+
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+CRISÓSTOMO IBARRA.
+
+
+One was the original of the portrait in oil, and he led by the hand
+a young man in deep black. "Good evening, señores; good evening,
+fathers," said Captain Tiago, kissing the hands of the priests,
+"I have the honor of presenting to you Don Crisóstomo Ibarra."
+
+At the name of Ibarra there were smothered exclamations. The
+lieutenant, forgetting to salute the master of the house, surveyed
+the young man from head to foot. Brother Dámaso seemed petrified. The
+arrival was evidently unexpected. Señor Ibarra exchanged the usual
+phrases with members of the group. Nothing marked him from other guests
+save his black attire. His fine height, his manner, his movements,
+denoted sane and vigorous youth. His face, frank and engaging, of a
+rich brown, and lightly furrowed--trace of Spanish blood--was rosy
+from a sojourn in the north.
+
+"Ah!" he cried, surprised and delighted, "my father's old friend,
+Brother Dámaso!"
+
+All eyes turned toward the Franciscan, who did not stir.
+
+"Pardon," said Ibarra, puzzled. "I am mistaken."
+
+"You are not mistaken," said the priest at last, in an odd voice;
+"but your father was not my friend."
+
+Ibarra, astonished, drew slowly back the hand he had offered, and
+turned to find himself facing the lieutenant, whose eyes had never
+left him.
+
+"Young man, are you the son of Don Rafael Ibarra?"
+
+Crisóstomo bowed.
+
+"Then welcome to your country! I knew your father well, one of the
+most honorable men of the Philippines."
+
+"Señor," replied Ibarra, "what you say dispels my doubts as to his
+fate, of which as yet I know nothing."
+
+The old man's eyes filled with tears. He turned away to hide them,
+and moved off into the crowd.
+
+The master of the house had disappeared. Ibarra was left alone in the
+middle of the room. No one presented him to the ladies. He hesitated
+a moment, then went up to them and said:
+
+"Permit me to forget formalities, and salute the first of my
+countrywomen I have seen for years."
+
+No one spoke, though many eyes regarded him with interest. Ibarra
+turned away, and a jovial man, in native dress, with studs of
+brilliants down his shirt-front, almost ran up to say:
+
+"Señor Ibarra, I wish to know you. I am Captain Tinong, and live near
+you at Tondo. Will you honor us at dinner to-morrow?"
+
+"Thank you," said Ibarra, pleased with the kindness, "but to-morrow
+I must leave for San Diego."
+
+"What a pity! Well then, on your return----"
+
+"Dinner is served," announced a waiter of the Café La Campana.
+
+The guests began to move toward the table, not without much ceremony
+on the part of the ladies, especially the natives, who required a
+great deal of polite urging.
+
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+THE DINNER.
+
+
+The two monks finding themselves near the head of the table, like
+two candidates for a vacant office, began politely resigning in each
+other's favor.
+
+"This is your place, Brother Dámaso."
+
+"No, yours, Brother Sibyla."
+
+"You are so much the older friend of the family."
+
+"But you are the curate of the quarter."
+
+This polite contention settled, the guests sat down, no one but Ibarra
+seeming to think of the master of the house.
+
+"What," said he, "you're not to be with us, Don Santiago?"
+
+But there was no place: Lucullus was not dining with Lucullus.
+
+"Don't trouble yourself," said Captain Tiago, laying his hand on the
+young man's shoulder. "This feast is a thank-offering for your safe
+return. Ho, there! bring the tinola! I've ordered the tinola expressly
+for you, Crisóstomo."
+
+"When did you leave the country?" Laruja asked Ibarra.
+
+"Seven years ago."
+
+"Then you must have almost forgotten it."
+
+"On the contrary, it has been always in my thoughts; but my country
+seems to have forgotten me."
+
+"Why do you say that?" asked the old lieutenant.
+
+"Because for several months I have had no news, so that I do not even
+know how and when my father died."
+
+The lieutenant could not repress a groan.
+
+"And where were you that they couldn't telegraph you?" asked Doña
+Victorina. "When we were married, we sent despatches to the peninsula."
+
+"Señora, I was in the far north," said Ibarra.
+
+"You have travelled much," said the blond provincial; "which of the
+European countries pleased you most?"
+
+"After Spain, my second country, the nations that are free."
+
+"And what struck you as most interesting, most surprising, in the
+general life of nations--the genius of each, so to put it?" asked
+Laruja.
+
+Ibarra reflected.
+
+"Before visiting a country I carefully studied its history, and,
+except the different motives for national pride, there seems to
+me nothing surprisingly characteristic in any nation. Given its
+history, everything appears natural; each people's wealth and misery
+seem in direct proportion to its freedom and its prejudices, and in
+consequence, in proportion to the self-sacrifice or selfishness of
+its progenitors."
+
+"Did you discover nothing more startling than that?" demanded
+the Franciscan, with a mocking laugh. "It was hardly worth while
+squandering money for so slight returns. Not a schoolboy but knows
+as much."
+
+The guests eyed one another, fearful of what might follow. Ibarra,
+astonished, remained silent a moment, then said quietly:
+
+"Señores, do not wonder at these words of Brother Dámaso. He was my
+curate when I was a little boy, and with his reverence the years don't
+count. I thank him for thus recalling the time when he was often an
+honored guest at my father's table."
+
+Brother Sibyla furtively observed the Franciscan, who was trembling
+slightly. At the first possible opportunity Ibarra rose.
+
+"You will pardon me if I excuse myself," he said. "I arrived only
+a few hours ago, and have matters of importance to attend to. The
+dinner is over. I drink little wine, and scarcely taste liquors." And
+raising a glass as yet untouched, "Señores," he said, "Spain and the
+Philippines forever!"
+
+"You're not going!" said Santiago in amazement. "Maria Clara and her
+friends will be with us in a moment. What shall I say to her?"
+
+"That I was obliged to go," said Ibarra, "and that I'm coming early
+in the morning." And he went out.
+
+The Franciscan unburdened himself.
+
+"You saw his arrogance," he said to the blond provincial. "These young
+fellows won't take reproof from a priest. That comes of sending them
+to Europe. The Government ought to prohibit it."
+
+That night the young provincial added to his "Colonial Studies,"
+this paragraph: "In the Philippines, the least important person at a
+feast is he who gives it. You begin by showing your host to the door,
+and all goes merrily.... In the present state of affairs, it would
+be almost a kindness to prohibit young Filipinos from leaving their
+country, if not even from learning to read."
+
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+HERETIC AND FILIBUSTER.
+
+
+Ibarra stood outside the house of Captain Tiago. The night wind,
+which at this season brings a bit of freshness to Manila, seemed to
+blow away the cloud that had darkened his face. Carriages passed
+him like streaks of light, hired calashes rolled slowly by, and
+foot-passengers of all nationalities jostled one another. With the
+rambling gait of the preoccupied or the idle, he took his way toward
+the Plaza de Binondo. Nothing was changed. It was the same street,
+with the same blue and white houses, the same white walls with their
+slate-colored fresco, poor imitations of granite. The church tower
+showed the same clock with transparent face. The Chinese shop had
+the same soiled curtains, the same iron triangles. One day, long ago,
+imitating the street urchins of Manila, he had twisted one of these
+triangles: nobody had ever straightened it. "How little progress!" he
+murmured; and he followed the Calle de la Sacristia, pursued by the
+cry of sherbet venders.
+
+"Marvellous!" he thought; "one would say my voyage was a dream. Santo
+Dios! the street is as bad as when I went away."
+
+While he contemplated this marvel of urban stability in an unstable
+country, a hand fell lightly on his shoulder. He looked up and
+recognized the old lieutenant. His face had put off its expression
+of sternness, and he smiled kindly at Crisóstomo.
+
+"Young man," he said, "I was your father's friend: I wish you to
+consider me yours."
+
+"You seem to have known my father well," said Crisóstomo; "perhaps
+you can tell me something of his death."
+
+"You do not know about it?"
+
+"Nothing at all, and Don Santiago would not talk with me till
+to-morrow."
+
+"You know, of course, where he died."
+
+"Not even that."
+
+Lieutenant Guevara hesitated.
+
+"I am an old soldier," he said at last, in a voice full of compassion,
+"and only know how to say bluntly what I have to tell. Your father
+died in prison."
+
+Ibarra sprang back, his eyes fixed on the lieutenant's.
+
+"Died in prison? Who died in prison?"
+
+"Your father," said the lieutenant, his voice still gentler.
+
+"My father--in prison? What are you saying? Do you know who my father
+was?" and he seized the old man's arm.
+
+"I think I'm not mistaken: Don Rafael Ibarra."
+
+"Yes, Don Rafael Ibarra," Crisóstomo repeated mechanically.
+
+"You will soon learn that for an honest man to keep out of prison is
+a difficult matter in the Philippines."
+
+"You mock me! Why did he die in prison?"
+
+"Come with me; we will talk on the way."
+
+They walked along in silence, the officer stroking his beard in search
+of inspiration.
+
+"As you know," he began, "your father was the richest man of the
+province, and if he had many friends he had also enemies. We Spaniards
+who come to the Philippines are seldom what we should be. I say this
+as truthfully of some of your ancestors as of others. Most of us come
+to make a fortune without regard to the means. Well, your father was a
+man to make enemies among these adventurers, and he made enemies among
+the monks. I never knew exactly the ground of the trouble with Brother
+Dámaso, but it came to a point where the priest almost denounced him
+from the pulpit.
+
+"You remember the old ex-artilleryman who collected taxes? He became
+the laughing-stock of the pueblo, and grew brutal and churlish
+accordingly. One day he chased some boys who were annoying him, and
+struck one down. Unfortunately your father interfered. There was a
+struggle and the man fell. He died within a few hours.
+
+"Naturally your father was arrested, and then his enemies unmasked. He
+was called heretic, filibustero, his papers were seized, everything
+was made to accuse him. Any one else in his place would have been
+set at liberty, the physicians finding that the man died of apoplexy;
+but your father's fortune, his honesty, and his scorn of everything
+illegal undid him. When his advocate, by the most brilliant pleading,
+had exposed these calumnies, new accusations arose. He had taken
+lands unjustly, owed men for imaginary wrongs, had relations with the
+tulisanes, by which his plantations and herds were unmolested. The
+affair became so complicated that no one could unravel it. Your father
+gave way under the strain, and died suddenly--alone--in prison."
+
+They had reached the quarters.
+
+The lieutenant hesitated. Ibarra said nothing, but grasped the old
+man's long, thin hand; then turned away, caught sight of a coach,
+and signalled the driver.
+
+"Fonda de Lala," he said, and his words were scarcely audible.
+
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+A STAR IN THE DARK NIGHT.
+
+
+Ibarra went up to his chamber, which faced the river, threw himself
+down, and looked out through the open window. Across the river a
+brilliantly lighted house was ringing with joyous music. Had the young
+man been so minded, with the aid of a glass he might have seen, in that
+radiant atmosphere, a vision. It was a young girl, of exceeding beauty,
+wearing the picturesque costume of the Philippines. A semicircle
+of courtiers was round her. Spaniards, Chinese, natives, soldiers,
+curates, old and young, intoxicated with the light and music, were
+talking, gesturing, disputing with animation. Even Brother Sibyla
+deigned to address this queen, in whose splendid hair Doña Victorina
+was wreathing a diadem of pearls and brilliants. She was white,
+too white perhaps, and her deep eyes, often lowered, when she raised
+them showed the purity of her soul. About her fair and rounded neck,
+through the transparent tissue of the piña, winked, as say the Tagals,
+the joyous eyes of a necklace of brilliants. One man alone seemed
+unreached by all this light and loveliness; it was a young Franciscan,
+slim, gaunt, pale, who watched all from a distance, still as a statue.
+
+But Ibarra sees none of this. Another spectacle appears to his fancy,
+commands his eyes. Four walls, bare and dank, enclose a narrow
+cell, lighted by a single streak of day. On the moist and noisome
+floor is a mat; on the mat an old man dying. Beaten down by fever,
+he lies and looks about him, calling a name, in strangling voice,
+with tears. No one--a clanking chain, an echoed groan somewhere;
+that was all. And away off in the bright world, laughing, singing,
+drenching flowers with wine, a young man.... One by one the lights
+go out in the festal house: no more of noise, or song, or harp;
+but in Ibarra's ears always the agonizing cry.
+
+Silence has drawn her deep breath over Manila; all its life seems
+gone out, save that a cock's crow alternates with the bells of clock
+towers and the melancholy watch-cry of the guard. A quarter moon comes
+up, flooding with its pale light the universal sleep. Even Ibarra,
+wearied more perhaps with his sad thoughts than his long voyage, sleeps
+too. Only the young Franciscan, silent and motionless just now at the
+feast, awake still. His elbow on the window-place of his little cell,
+his chin sunk in his palm, he watches a glittering star. The star
+pales, goes out, the slender moon loses her gentle light, but the monk
+stays on; motionless, he looks toward the horizon, lost now behind
+the morning mists, over the field of Bagumbayan, over the sleeping sea.
+
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+CAPTAIN TIAGO AND MARIA.
+
+
+While our friends are still asleep or breakfasting, we will sketch
+the portrait of Captain Tiago. We have no reason to ignore him,
+never having been among his guests. Short, less dark than most of
+his compatriots, of full face and slightly corpulent, Captain Tiago
+seemed younger than his age. His rounded cranium, very small and
+elongated behind, was covered with hair black as ebony. His eyes,
+small and straight set, kept always the same expression. His nose
+was straight and finely cut, and if his mouth had not been deformed
+by the use of tobacco and buyo, he had not been wrong in thinking
+himself a handsome man.
+
+He was reputed the richest resident of Binondo, and had large estates
+in La Pampanga, on the Laguna de Bay, and at San Diego. From its
+baths, its famous gallera, and his recollections of the place,
+San Diego was his favorite pueblo, and here he passed two months
+every year. He had also properties at Santo Cristo, in the Calle de
+Anloague, and in the Calle Rosario; the exploitation of the opium
+traffic was shared between him and a Chinese, and, needless to say,
+brought him great gains. He was purveyor to the prisoners at Bilibid,
+and furnished zacate to many Manila houses. On good terms with all
+authority, shrewd, pliant, daring in speculation, he was the sole
+rival of a certain Perez in the awards of divers contracts which
+the Philippine Government always places in privileged hands. From
+all of which it resulted that Captain Tiago was as happy as can be
+a man whose small head announces his native origin. He was rich,
+and at peace with God, with the Government, and with men.
+
+That he was at peace with God could not be doubted. One has no
+motive for being at enmity with Him when one is well in the land,
+and has never had to ask Him for anything. From the grand salon
+of the Manila home, a little door, hid behind a silken curtain,
+led to a chapel--something obligatory in a Filipino house. There
+were Santiago's Lares, and if we use this word, it is because the
+master of the house was rather a poly- than a monotheist. Here, in
+sculpture and oils, were saints, martyrdoms, and miracles; a chapter
+could scarcely enumerate them all. Before these images Santiago burned
+his candles and made his requests known.
+
+That he was at peace with the Government, however difficult the
+problem, could not be doubted either. Incapable of a new idea, and
+contented with his lot, he was disposed to obey even to the lowest
+functionary, and to offer him capons, hams, and Chinese fruits at all
+seasons. If he heard the natives maligned, not considering himself one,
+he chimed in and said worse: one criticised the Chinese merchants or
+the Spaniards, he, who thought himself pure Iberian, did it too. He was
+for two years gobernadorcillo of the rich association of half-breeds,
+in the face of protestations from many who considered him a native. The
+impious called him fool; the poor, pitiless and cruel; his inferiors,
+a tyrant.
+
+As to his past, he was the only son of a rich sugar merchant, who died
+when Santiago was still at school. He had then to quit his studies
+and give himself to business. He married a young girl of Santa Cruz,
+who brought him social rank and helped his fortunes.
+
+The absence of an heir in the first six years of marriage made Captain
+Tiago's thirst for riches almost blameworthy. In vain all this time
+did Doña Pia make novenas and pilgrimages and scatter alms. But at
+length she was to become a mother. Alas! like Shakespeare's fisherman
+who lost his songs when he found a treasure, she never smiled again,
+and died, leaving a beautiful baby girl, whom Brother Dámaso presented
+at the font. The child was called Maria Clara.
+
+Maria Clara grew, thanks to the care of good Aunt Isabel. Her
+eyes, like her mother's, were large, black, and shaded by long
+lashes; sparkling and mirthful when she laughed; when she did not,
+thoughtful and profound, even sad. Her curly hair was almost blond,
+her nose perfect; and her mouth, small and sweet like her mother's,
+was flanked by charming dimples. The little thing, idol of every one,
+lived amid smiles and love. The monks fêted her. They dressed her
+in white for their processions, mingled jasmine and lilies in her
+hair, gave her little silver wings, and in her hands blue ribbons,
+the reins of fluttering white doves. She was so joyous, had such a
+candid baby speech, that Captain Tiago, enraptured with her, passed
+his time in blessing the saints.
+
+In the lands of the sun, at thirteen or fourteen, the child becomes a
+woman. At this age full of mysteries, Maria Clara entered the convent
+of Santa Catalina, to remain several years. With tears she parted from
+the sole companion of her childish games, Crisóstomo Ibarra, who in
+turn was soon to leave his home. Some years after his departure, Don
+Rafael and Captain Tiago, knowing the inclinations of their children,
+agreed upon their marriage. This arrangement was received with eager
+joy by two hearts beating at two extremities of the world.
+
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+IDYLLE.
+
+
+The sky was blue. A fresh breeze stirred the leaves and shook the
+nodding "angels' heads," the aerial plants, and the many other
+adornments of the terrace. Maria and Crisóstomo were there, alone
+together for the first time since his return. They began with charming
+futilities, so sweet to those who understand, so meaningless to
+others. She is sister to Cain, a little jealous; she says to her lover:
+"Did you never forget me among the many beautiful women you have seen?"
+
+He too, he is brother to Cain, a bit subtle.
+
+"Could I ever forget you!" he answered, gazing into the dark
+eyes. "Your remembrance made powerless that lotus flower, Europe,
+which steeps out of the memory of many of my countrymen the hopes and
+wrongs of our land. It seemed as if the spirit, the poetic incarnation
+of my country was you, frank and lovely daughter of the Philippines! My
+love for you and that for her fused in one."
+
+"I know only your pueblo, Manila and Antipolo," replied the young girl,
+radiant; "but I have always thought of you, and though my confessor
+commanded it, I was never able to forget you. I used to think over
+all our childish plays and quarrels. Do you remember the day you were
+really angry? Your mother had taken us to wade in the brook, behind
+the reeds. You put a crown of orange flowers on my head and called me
+Chloe. But your mother took the flowers and ground them with a stone,
+to mix with gogo, for washing our hair. You cried. 'Stupid,' said she,
+'you shall see how good your hair smells!' I laughed; at that you
+were angry and wouldn't speak to me, while I wanted to cry. On the
+way home, when the sun was very hot, I picked some sage leaves for
+your head. You smiled your thanks, and we were friends again."
+
+Ibarra opened his pocketbook and took out a paper in which were some
+leaves, blackened and dry, but fragrant still.
+
+"Your sage leaves," he replied to her questioning look.
+
+In her turn, she drew out a little white satin purse.
+
+"Hands off!" as he reached out for it, "there's a letter in it!"
+
+"My letter of good-by?"
+
+"Have you written me any others, señor mio?"
+
+"What is in it?"
+
+"Lots of fibs, excuses of a bad debtor," she laughed. "If you're good I
+will read it to you, suppressing the gallantries, though, so you won't
+suffer too much." And lifting the paper to hide her face, she began:
+
+"'My----' I'll not read what follows, because it's a fib"; and she
+ran her eyes over several lines. "In spite of my prayers, I must
+go. 'You are no longer a boy,' my father said, 'you must think of the
+future. You have to learn things your own country cannot teach you, if
+you would be useful to her some day. What, almost a man and I see you
+in tears?' Upon that I confessed my love for you. He was silent, then
+placing his hand on my shoulder he said in a voice full of emotion:
+'Do you think you alone know how to love; that it costs your father
+nothing to let you go away from him? It is not long since we lost your
+mother, and I am growing old, yet I accept my solitude and run the risk
+of never seeing you again. For you the future opens, for me it shuts;
+the fire of youth is yours, frost touches me, and it is you who weep,
+you who do not know how to sacrifice the present to a to-morrow good
+for you and for your country."
+
+Ibarra's agitation stopped the reading; he had become very pale and
+was walking back and forth.
+
+"What is it? You are ill!" cried Maria, going toward him.
+
+"With you I have forgotten my duty; I should be on my way to the
+pueblo. To-morrow is the Feast of the Dead."
+
+Maria was silent. She fixed on him her great, thoughtful eyes, then
+turned to pick some flowers.
+
+"Go," she said, and her voice was deep and sweet; "I keep you no
+longer. In a few days we shall see each other again. Put these flowers
+on your father's grave."
+
+A little later, Captain Tiago found Maria in the chapel, at the foot of
+a statue of the Virgin, weeping. "Come, come," said he, to console her;
+"burn some candles to St. Roch and St. Michael, patrons of travellers,
+for the tulisanes are numerous: better spend four réales for wax than
+pay a ransom."
+
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+REMINISCENCES.
+
+
+Ibarra's carriage was crossing one of the most animated quarters of
+Manila. The street life that had saddened him the night before, now,
+in spite of his sorrow, made him smile. Everything awakened a world
+of sleeping recollections.
+
+These streets were not yet paved, so if the sun shone two days
+continuously, they turned to powder which covered everything. But
+let it rain a day, you had a mire, reflecting at night the shifting
+lamps of the carriages and bespattering the foot-passengers on the
+narrow walks. How many women had lost their embroidered slippers in
+these muddy waves!
+
+The good and honorable pontoon bridge, so characteristically Filipino,
+doing its best to be useful in spite of natural faults, and rising
+or falling with the caprices of the Pasig,--that brave bridge was no
+more. The new Spanish bridge drew Ibarra's attention. Carriages passed
+continuously, drawn by groups of dwarf horses, in splendid harness. In
+these sat at ease government clerks going to their bureaus, officers,
+Chinese, self-satisfied and ridiculously grave monks, canons. In an
+elegant victoria, Ibarra thought he recognized Father Dámaso, deep
+in thought. From an open carriage, where his wife and two daughters
+accompanied him, Captain Tinong waved a friendly greeting.
+
+Then came the Botanical Gardens, then old Manila, still enclosed in its
+ditches and walls; beyond that the sea; beyond that, Europe, thought
+Ibarra. But the little hill of Bagumbayan drove away all fancies. He
+remembered the man who had opened the eyes of his intelligence,
+taught him to find out the true and the just. It was an old priest,
+and the holy man had died there, on that field of execution!
+
+To these thoughts he replied by murmuring: "No, after all, first
+the country, first the Philippines, daughters of Spain, first the
+Spanish home-land!"
+
+His carriage rolled on. It passed a cart drawn by two horses whose
+hempen harness told of the back country. Sometimes there sounded the
+slow and heavy tread of a pensive carabao, drawing a great tumbrel;
+its conductor, on his buffalo skin, accompanying, with a monotonous and
+melancholy chant, the strident creaking of the wheels. Sometimes there
+was the dull sound of a native sledge's worn runners. In the fields
+grazed the herds, and among them white herons gravely promenaded, or
+sat tranquil on the backs of sleepy oxen beatifically chewing their
+cuds of prairie grass. Let us leave the young man, wholly occupied
+now with his thoughts. The sun which makes the tree-tops burn, and
+sends the peasants running, when they feel the hot ground through
+their thick shoes; the sun which halts the countrywoman under a clump
+of great reeds, and makes her think of things vague and strange--that
+sun has no enchantment for him.
+
+While the carriage, staggering like a drunken man over the uneven
+ground, passes a bamboo bridge, mounts a rough hillside or descends
+its steep slope, let us return to Manila.
+
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+AFFAIRS OF THE COUNTRY.
+
+
+Ibarra had not been mistaken. It was indeed Father Dámaso he had seen,
+on his way to the house which he himself had just left.
+
+Maria Clara and Aunt Isabel were entering their carriage when the monk
+arrived. "Where are you going?" he asked, and in his preoccupation
+he gently tapped the young girl's cheek.
+
+"To the convent to get my things," said she.
+
+"Ah! ah! well, well! we shall see who is the stronger, we shall
+see!" he murmured, as he left the two women somewhat surprised and
+went up the steps.
+
+"He's probably committing his sermon," said Aunt Isabel. "Come,
+we are late!"
+
+We cannot say whether Father Dámaso was committing a sermon, but he
+must have been absorbed in important things, for he did not offer
+his hand to Captain Tiago.
+
+"Santiago," he said, "we must have a serious talk. Come into your
+office."
+
+Captain Tiago felt uneasy. He answered nothing, but followed the
+gigantic priest, who closed the door behind them.
+
+While they talk, let us see what has become of Father Sibyla.
+
+The learned Dominican, his mass once said, had set out for the
+convent of his order, which stands at the entrance to the city,
+near the gate bearing alternately, according to the family reigning
+at Madrid, the name of Magellan or Isabella II.
+
+Brother Sibyla entered, crossed several halls, and knocked at a door.
+
+"Come in," said a faint voice.
+
+"God give health to your reverence," said the young Dominican,
+entering. Seated in a great armchair was an old priest, meagre,
+jaundiced, like Rivera's saints. His eyes, deep-sunken in their
+orbits, were arched with heavy brows, intensifying the flashes of
+their dying light.
+
+Brother Sibyla was moved. He inclined his head, and seemed to wait.
+
+"Ah!" gasped the sick man, "they recommend an operation! An operation
+at my age! Oh, this country, this terrible country! You see what it
+does for all of us, Hernando!"
+
+"And what has your reverence decided?"
+
+"To die! Could I do otherwise? I suffer too much, but--I've made
+others suffer. I'm paying my debt. And you? How are you? What do you
+bring me?"
+
+"I came to talk of the mission you gave me."
+
+"Ah! and what is there to say?"
+
+"They've told us fairy tales," answered Brother Sibyla wearily. "Young
+Ibarra seems a sensible fellow. He is not stupid at all, and thoroughly
+manly."
+
+"Is it so!"
+
+"Hostilities began yesterday."
+
+"Ah! and how?"
+
+Brother Sibyla briefly recounted what had passed between Brother
+Dámaso and Crisóstomo.
+
+"Besides," he said in conclusion, "the young man is going to marry
+the daughter of Captain Tiago, who was educated at the convent of
+our sisters. He is rich; he would not go about making himself enemies
+and compromise at once his happiness and his fortune."
+
+The sick man moved his hand in sign of assent.
+
+"Yes, you are right. He should be ours, body and soul. But if he
+declare himself our enemy, so much the better!"
+
+Brother Sibyla looked at the old man in surprise.
+
+"For the good of our sacred order, you understand," he added, breathing
+with difficulty; "I prefer attack to the flatteries and adulations
+of friends; besides, those are bought."
+
+"Your reverence believes that?"
+
+The old man looked at him sadly.
+
+"Remember this well," he went on, catching his breath; "our power lasts
+as long as it's believed in. If we're attacked, the Government reasons:
+'They are assailed because in them is seen an obstacle to liberty:
+therefore we must support them!'"
+
+"But if the Government should listen to our enemies, if it should
+come to covet what we have amassed--if there should be a man hardy
+enough----"
+
+"Ah! then beware!"
+
+Both were silent.
+
+"And too," the sick man continued, "we have need of attack to show
+us our faults and make us better them. Too much flattery deceives
+us; we sleep; and more, it makes us ridiculous, and the day we
+become ridiculous we fall as we have fallen in Europe. Money will no
+longer come to our churches. No one will buy scapulary, penitential
+cords, anything; and when we cease to be rich, we can no longer
+convince the conscience. And the worst is, that we're working our own
+destruction. For one thing, this immoderate thirst for gain, which I've
+combated in vain in all our chapters, this thirst will be our ruin. I
+fear we are already declining. God blinds whom He will destroy."
+
+"We shall always have our lands."
+
+"But every year we raise their price, and force the Indian to buy of
+others. The people are beginning to murmur. We ought not to increase
+the burdens we've already laid on their shoulders."
+
+"So your reverence believes that the revenues----"
+
+"Talk no more of money," interrupted the old man with aversion. "You
+say the lieutenant threatened Father Dámaso?"
+
+"Yes, Father," replied Sibyla, half smiling; "but this morning he
+told me the sherry had mounted to his head, and he thought it must
+have been the same with Brother Dámaso. 'And your threat?' I asked
+jestingly. 'Father,' said he, 'I know how to keep my word when it
+doesn't smirch my honor; I was never an informer--and that's why I
+am only a lieutenant.'"
+
+
+
+Though the lieutenant had not carried out his threat to go to
+Malacañang, the captain-general none the less knew what had happened. A
+young officer told the story.
+
+"From whom do you have it?" demanded His Excellency, smiling.
+
+"From De Laruja."
+
+The captain-general smiled again, and added:
+
+"Woman's tongue, monk's tongue doesn't wound. I don't wish to get
+entangled with these men in skirts. Besides, the provincial made
+light of my orders; to punish this priest I demanded that his parish
+be changed. Well, they gave him a better. Monkishness! as we say
+in Spain."
+
+Alone, His Excellency ceased to smile.
+
+"Oh! if the people were not so dense, how easy to bridle their
+reverences! But every nation merits its lot!"
+
+Meanwhile Captain Tiago finished his conference with Father Dámaso.
+
+"And now you are warned," said the Franciscan upon leaving. "This
+would have been avoided if you hadn't equivocated when I asked you
+how the matter stood. Don't make any more false moves, and trust
+her godfather."
+
+Captain Tiago took two or three turns about the room, reflecting
+and sighing. Then suddenly, as if a happy thought had struck him,
+running to the oratory, he extinguished the two candles lighted for
+the safeguard of Ibarra.
+
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+THE PUEBLO.
+
+
+Almost on the banks of the lake, in the midst of meadows and streams,
+is the pueblo of San Diego. It exports sugar, rice, coffee, and
+fruits, or sells these articles of merchandise at low prices to
+Chinese traders.
+
+When, on a clear day, the children climb to the top stage
+of the moss-grown and vine-clad church tower, there are joyous
+exclamations. Each picks out his own little roof of nipa, tile, zinc,
+or palm. Beyond they see the rio, a monstrous crystal serpent asleep
+on a carpet of green. Trunks of palm trees, dipping and swaying, join
+the two banks, and if, as bridges, they leave much to be desired for
+trembling old men and poor women who must cross with heavy baskets
+on their heads, on the other hand they make fine gymnastic apparatus
+for the young.
+
+But what besides the rio the children never fail to talk about is a
+certain wooded peninsula in this sea of cultivated land. Its ancient
+trees never die, unless the lightning strikes their high tops. Dust
+gathers layer on layer in their hollow trunks, the rain makes soil of
+it, the birds bring seeds, a tropical vegetation grows there in wild
+freedom: bushes, briers, curtains of netted bind-weed, spring from
+the roots, reach from tree to tree, hang swaying from the branches,
+and Flora, as if yet unsatisfied, sows on the trees themselves; mosses
+and fungi live on the creased bark, and graceful aerial guests pierce
+with their tendrils the hospitable branches.
+
+This wood is the subject of a legend.
+
+When the pueblo was but a group of poor cabins, there arrived one
+day a strange old Spaniard with marvellous eyes, who scarcely spoke
+the Tagal. He wished to buy lands having thermal springs, and did
+so, paying in money, dress, and jewelry. Suddenly he disappeared,
+leaving no trace. The people of the pueblo had begun to think of him
+as a magician, when one day his body was found hanging high to the
+branch of a giant fig tree. After it had been buried at the foot of
+the tree, no one cared much to venture in that quarter.
+
+A few months later there arrived a young Spanish halfbreed, who
+claimed to be the old man's son. He settled, and gave himself to
+agriculture. Don Saturnino was taciturn and of violent temper,
+but very industrious. Late in life he married a woman of Manila,
+who bore him Don Rafael, the father of Crisóstomo.
+
+Don Rafael, from his youth, was much beloved. He rapidly developed
+his father's lands, the population multiplied, the Chinese came, the
+hamlet grew to a pueblo, the native curate died and was replaced by
+Father Dámaso. And all this time the people respected the sepulchre
+of the old Spaniard, and held it in superstitious awe. Sometimes,
+armed with sticks and stones, the children dared run near it to gather
+wild fruits; but while they were busy at this, or stood gazing at
+the bit of rope still dangling from the limb, a stone or two would
+fall from no one knew where. Then with cries of "The old man! the
+old man!" they threw down sticks and fruit, ran in all directions,
+between the rocks and bushes, and did not stop till they were out of
+the woods, all pale and breathless, some crying, few daring to laugh.
+
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+THE SOVEREIGNS.
+
+
+Who was the ruler of the pueblo? Not Don Rafael during his lifetime,
+though he possessed the most land, and nearly every one owed him. As
+he was modest, and gave little value to his deeds, no party formed
+around him, and we have seen how he was deserted and attacked when
+his fortunes fell.
+
+Was it Captain Tiago? It is true his arrival was always heralded with
+music, he was given banquets by his debtors, and loaded with presents;
+but he was laughed at in secret, and called Sacristan Tiago.
+
+Was it by chance the town mayor, the gobernadorcillo? Alas! he was
+an unfortunate, who governed not, but obeyed; did not dispose, but
+was disposed of. And yet he had to answer to the alcalde for all
+these dispositions, as if they emanated from his own brain. Be it
+said in his favor that he had neither stolen nor usurped his honors,
+but that they cost him five thousand pesos and much humiliation.
+
+Perhaps then it was God? But to most of these good people, God seemed
+one of those poor kings surrounded by favorites to whom their subjects
+always take their supplications, never to them.
+
+No, San Diego was a sort of modern Rome. The curate was the pope
+at the Vatican; the alférez of the civil guard, the King in the
+Quirinal. Here as there, difficulties arose from the situation.
+
+The present curate, Brother Bernardo Salvi, was the young and silent
+Franciscan we have already seen. In mode of life and in appearance
+he was very unlike his predecessor, Brother Dámaso. He seemed ill,
+was always thoughtful, accomplished strictly his religious duties,
+and was careful of his reputation. Through his zeal, almost all
+his parishioners had speedily become members of the Third Order of
+St. Francis, to the great dismay of the rival order, that of the Holy
+Rosary. Four or five scapularies were suspended around every neck,
+knotted cords encircled all the waists, and the innumerable processions
+of the order were a joy to see. The head sacristan took in a small
+fortune, selling--or giving as alms, to put it more correctly--all
+the paraphernalia necessary to save the soul and combat the devil. It
+is well known that this evil spirit, who once dared attack God face
+to face, and accuse His divine word, as the book of Job tells us,
+is now so cowardly and feeble that he flees at sight of a bit of
+painted cloth, and fears a knotted cord.
+
+Brother Salvi again greatly differed from Brother Dámaso--who set
+everything right with fists or ferrule, believing it the only way to
+reach the Indian--in that he punished with fines the faults of his
+subordinates, rarely striking them.
+
+From his struggles with the curate, the alférez had a bad reputation
+among the devout, which he deserved, and shared with his wife,
+a hideous and vile old Filipino woman named Doña Consolacion. The
+husband avenged his conjugal woes on himself by drinking like a fish;
+on his subordinates, by making them exercise in the sun; and most
+frequently on his wife, by kicks and drubbings. The two fought famously
+between themselves, but were of one mind when it was a question of
+the curate. Inspired by his wife, the officer ordered that no one
+be abroad in the streets after nine at night. The priest, who did
+not like this restriction, retorted in lengthy sermons, whenever
+the alférez went to church. Like all impenitents, the alférez did
+not mend his ways for that, but went out swearing under his breath,
+arrested the first sacristan he met, and made him clean the yard of
+the barracks. So the war went on. All this, however, did not prevent
+the alférez and the curate chatting courteously enough when they met.
+
+And they were the rulers of the pueblo of San Diego.
+
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+ALL SAINTS' DAY.
+
+
+The cemetery of San Diego is in the midst of rice-fields. It is
+approached by a narrow path, powdery on sunny days, navigable on
+rainy. A wooden gate and a wall half stone, half bamboo stalks,
+succeed in keeping out men, but not the curate's goats, nor the
+pigs of his neighbors. In the middle of the enclosure is a stone
+pedestal supporting a great wooden cross. Storms have bent the strip
+of tin on which were the I. N. R. I., and the rain has washed off
+the letters. At the foot of the cross is a confused heap of bones
+and skulls thrown out by the grave-digger. Everywhere grow in all
+their vigor the bitter-sweet and rose-bay. Some tiny flowerets, too,
+tint the ground--blossoms which, like the mounded bones, are known to
+their Creator only. They are like little pale smiles, and their odor
+scents of the tomb. Grass and climbing plants fill the corners, cover
+the walls, adorning this otherwise bare ugliness; they even penetrate
+the tombs, through earthquake fissures, and fill their yawning gaps.
+
+At this hour two men are digging near the crumbling wall. One, the
+grave-digger, works with the utmost indifference, throwing aside
+a skull as a gardener would a stone. The other is preoccupied; he
+perspires, he breathes hard.
+
+"Oh!" he says at length in Tagalo. "Hadn't we better dig in some
+other place? This grave is too recent."
+
+"All the graves are the same, one is as recent as another."
+
+"I can't endure this!"
+
+"What a woman! You should go and be a clerk! If you had dug up,
+as I did, a boy of twenty days, at night, in the rain----"
+
+"Uh-h-h! And why did you do that?"
+
+The grave-digger seemed surprised.
+
+"Why? How do I know, I was ordered to."
+
+"Who ordered you?"
+
+At this question the grave-digger straightened himself, and examined
+the rash young man from head to foot.
+
+"Come! come! You're curious as a Spaniard. A Spaniard asked me the
+same question, but in secret. I'm going to say to you what I said to
+him: the curate ordered it."
+
+"Oh! and what did you do with the body?"
+
+"The devil! if I didn't know you, I should take you for the police. The
+curate told me to bury it in the Chinese cemetery, but it's a long way
+there, and the body was heavy. 'Better be drowned,' I said to myself,
+'than lie with the Chinese,' and I threw it into the lake."
+
+"No, no, stop digging!" interrupted the younger man, with a cry of
+horror, and throwing down his spade he sprang out of the grave.
+
+The grave-digger watched him run off signing himself, laughed, and
+went to work again.
+
+The cemetery began to fill with men and women in mourning. Some
+of them came for a moment to the open grave, discussed some matter,
+seemed not to be agreed, and separated, kneeling here and there. Others
+were lighting candles; all began to pray devoutly. One heard sighing
+and sobs, and over all a confused murmur of "requiem æternam."
+
+A little old man, with piercing eyes, entered uncovered. At sight
+of him some laughed, others frowned. The old man seemed to take no
+account of this. He went to the heap of skulls, knelt, and searched
+with his eyes. Then with the greatest care he lifted the skulls one
+by one, wrinkling his brows, shaking his head, and looking on all
+sides. At length he rose and approached the grave-digger.
+
+"Ho!" said he.
+
+The other raised his eyes.
+
+"Did you see a beautiful skull, white as the inside of a cocoanut?"
+
+The grave-digger shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Look," said the old man, showing a piece of money; "it's all I have,
+but I'll give it to you if you find it."
+
+The gleam of silver made the man reflect. He looked toward the heap
+and said:
+
+"It isn't there? No? Then I don't know where it is."
+
+"You don't know? When those who owe me pay, I'll give you more. 'Twas
+the skull of my wife, and if you find it----"
+
+"It isn't there? Then I know nothing about it, but I can give you
+another."
+
+"You are like the grave you dig," cried the old man, furious. "You
+know not the value of what you destroy! For whom is this grave?"
+
+"How do I know? For a dead man!" replied the other with temper.
+
+"Like the grave, like the grave," the old man repeated with
+a dry laugh. "You know neither what you cast out nor what you
+keep. Dig! dig!" And he went toward the gate.
+
+Meanwhile the grave-digger had finished his task, and two mounds of
+fresh, reddish earth rose beside the grave. Drawing from his pocket
+some buyo, he regarded dully what was going on around him, sat down,
+and began to chew.
+
+At that moment a carriage, which had apparently made a long journey,
+stopped at the entrance to the cemetery. Ibarra got out, followed by
+an old servant, and silently made his way along the path.
+
+"It is there, behind the great cross, señor," said the servant,
+as they approached the spot where the grave-digger was sitting.
+
+Arrived at the cross, the old servant looked on all sides, and became
+greatly confused. "It was there," he muttered; "no, there, but the
+ground has been broken."
+
+Ibarra looked at him in anguish.
+
+The servant appealed to the grave-digger.
+
+"Where is the grave that was marked with a cross like this?" he
+demanded; and stooping, he traced a Byzantine cross on the ground.
+
+"Were there flowers growing on it?"
+
+"Yes, jasmine and pansies."
+
+The grave-digger scratched his ear and said with a yawn:
+
+"Well, the cross I burned."
+
+"Burned! and why?"
+
+"Because the curate ordered it."
+
+Ibarra drew his hand across his forehead.
+
+"But at least you can show us the grave."
+
+"The body's no longer there," said the grave-digger calmly.
+
+"What are you saying!"
+
+"Yes," the man went on, with a smile, "I put a woman in its place,
+eight days ago."
+
+"Are you mad?" cried the servant; "it isn't a year since he was
+buried."
+
+"Father Dámaso ordered it; he told me to take the body to the Chinese
+cemetery; I----"
+
+He got no farther, and started back in terror at sight of Crisóstomo's
+face. Crisóstomo seized his arm. "And you did it?" he demanded,
+in a terrible voice.
+
+"Don't be angry, señor," replied the grave-digger, pale and
+trembling. "I didn't bury him with the Chinese. Better be drowned
+than that, I thought to myself, and I threw him into the water."
+
+Ibarra stared at him like a madman. "You're only a poor fool!" he
+said at length, and pushing him away, he rushed headlong for the
+gate, stumbling over graves and bones, and painfully followed by the
+old servant.
+
+"That's what the dead bring us," grumbled the gravedigger. "The curate
+orders me to dig the man up, and this fellow breaks my arm for doing
+it. That's the way with the Spaniards. I shall lose my place!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+THE LITTLE SACRISTANS.
+
+
+The little old man of the cemetery wandered absent-minded along
+the streets.
+
+He was a character of the pueblo. He had once been a student in
+philosophy, but abandoned his course at the demands of his mother. The
+good woman, finding that her son had talent, feared lest he become a
+savant and forget God; she let him choose, therefore, between studying
+for the priesthood and leaving the college of San José. He was in love,
+took the latter course, and married. Widowed and orphaned within a
+year, he found in books a deliverance from sadness, idleness, and
+the gallera. Unhappily he studied too much, bought too many books,
+neglected to care for his fortune, and came to financial ruin. Some
+people called him Don Astasio, or Tasio the philosopher; others,
+and by far the greater number, Tasio the fool.
+
+The afternoon threatened a tempest. Pale flashes of lightning illumined
+the leaden sky; the atmosphere was heavy and close.
+
+Arrived at the church door, Tasio entered and spoke to two little boys,
+one ten years old perhaps, the other seven.
+
+"Coming with me?" he asked. "Your mother has ready a dinner fit
+for curates."
+
+"The head sacristan won't let us leave yet," said the elder. "We're
+going into the tower to ring the bells."
+
+"Take care! don't go too near the bells in the storm," said Tasio, and,
+head down, he went off, thinking, toward the outskirts of the town.
+
+Soon the rain came down in torrents, the thunder echoed clap on clap,
+each detonation preceded by an awful zig-zag of fire. The tempest
+grew in fury, and, scarce able to ride on the shifting wind, the
+plaintive voices of the bells rang out a lamentation.
+
+The boys were in the tower, the younger, timid, in spite of his great
+black eyes, hugging close to his brother. They resembled one another,
+but the elder had the stronger and more thoughtful face. Their dress
+was poor, patched, and darned. The wind beat in the rain a little,
+where they were, and set the flame of their candle dancing.
+
+"Pull your rope, Crispin," said the elder to his little brother.
+
+Crispin pulled, and heard a feeble plaint, quickly silenced by
+a thunder crash. "If we were only home with mama," he mourned,
+"I shouldn't be afraid."
+
+The other did not answer. He watched the candle melt, and seemed
+thoughtful.
+
+"At least, no one there would call me a thief; mama would not have
+it. If she knew they had beaten me----" The elder gave the great cord
+a sharp pull; a deep, sonorous tone trembled out.
+
+"Pay what they say I stole! Pay it, brother!"
+
+"Are you mad, Crispin? Mama would have nothing to eat; they say you
+stole two onces, and two onces make thirty-two pesos."
+
+The little fellow counted thirty-two on his fingers.
+
+"Six hands and two fingers. And each finger makes a peso, and each
+peso how many cuartos?"
+
+"A hundred sixty."
+
+"And how much is a hundred sixty?"
+
+"Thirty-two hands."
+
+Crispin regarded his little paws.
+
+"Thirty-two hands," he said, "and each finger a cuarto! O mama! how
+many cuartos! and with them one could buy shoes, and a hat for the sun,
+and an umbrella for the rain, and clothes for mama."
+
+Crispin became pensive.
+
+"What I'm afraid of is that mama will be angry with you when she
+hears about it."
+
+"You think so?" said Crispin, surprised. "But I've never had a cuarto
+except the one they gave me at Easter. Mama won't believe I stole;
+she won't believe it!"
+
+"But if the curate says so----"
+
+Crispin began to cry, and said through his sobs:
+
+"Then go alone, I won't go. Tell mama I'm sick."
+
+"Crispin, don't cry," said his brother. "If mama seems to believe what
+they say, you'll tell her that the sacristan lies, that the curate
+believes him, that they say we are thieves because our father----"
+
+A head came out of the shadows in the little stairway, and as if it
+had been Medusa's, it froze the words on the children's lips.
+
+The head was long and lean, with a shock of black hair. Blue glasses
+concealed one sightless eye. It was the chief sacristan who had thus
+stolen upon the children.
+
+"You, Basilio, are fined two réales for not ringing regularly. And you,
+Crispin, stay to-night till you find what you've stolen."
+
+"We have permission," began Basilio; "our mother expects us at nine."
+
+"You won't go at nine o'clock either; you shall stay till ten."
+
+"But, señor, after nine one can't pass through the streets----"
+
+"Are you trying to dictate to me?" demanded the sacristan, and he
+seized Crispin's arm.
+
+"Señor, we have not seen our mother for a week," entreated Basilio,
+taking hold of his brother as if to protect him.
+
+With a stroke on the cheek the sacristan made him let go, and dragged
+off Crispin, who commenced to cry, let himself fall, tried to cling
+to the floor, and besought Basilio to keep him. But the sacristan,
+dragging the child, disappeared in the shadows.
+
+Basilio stood mute. He heard his little brother's body strike
+against the stairs; he heard a cry, blows, heart-rending words,
+growing fainter and fainter, lost at last in the distance.
+
+"When shall I be strong enough?" he murmured, and dashed down the
+stairs.
+
+He reached the choir and listened. He could still hear his little
+brother's voice; then over the cry, "Mama!--Brother!" a door
+shut. Trembling, damp with sweat, holding his mouth with his hand to
+stifle a cry, he stood a moment looking about in the dim church. The
+doors were closed, the windows barred. He went back to the tower, did
+not stop at the second stage, where the bells were rung, but climbed
+to the third, loosed the ropes that held the tongues of the bells,
+then went down again, pale, his eyes gleaming, but without tears.
+
+The rain commenced to slacken and the sky to clear. Basilio knotted
+the ropes, fastened an end to a beam of the balcony, and, forgetting
+to blow out the candle, glided down into the darkness.
+
+Some minutes later voices were heard in a street of the pueblo,
+and two rifle shots rang out; but it raised no alarm, and all again
+became silent.
+
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+SISA.
+
+
+Nearly an hour's walk from the pueblo lived the mother of Basilio and
+Crispin, wife of a man who passed his time in lounging or watching
+cock-fights while she struggled to bring up their children. The
+husband and wife saw each other rarely, and their interviews were
+painful. To feed his vices, he had robbed her of her few trinkets,
+and when the unhappy Sisa had nothing more with which to satisfy
+his caprices he began to abuse her. Without much strength of will,
+dowered with more heart than reason, she only knew how to love
+and to weep. Her husband was a god, her children were angels. He,
+who knew how much he was adored and feared, like other false gods,
+grew more and more arbitrary and cruel.
+
+The stars were glittering in the sky cleared by the tempest. Sisa
+sat on the wooden bench, her chin in her hand, watching some branches
+smoulder on her hearth of uncut stones. On these stones was a little
+pan where rice was cooking, and among the cinders were three dry
+sardines.
+
+She was still young, and one saw she had been beautiful. Her eyes,
+which, with her soul, she had given to her sons, were fine, deep,
+and fringed with dark lashes; her face was regular; her skin pure
+olive. In spite of her youth, suffering, hunger sometimes, had begun
+to hollow her cheeks. Her abundant hair, once her glory, was still
+carefully dressed--but from habit, not coquetry.
+
+All day Sisa had been thinking of the pleasure coming at night. She
+picked the finest tomatoes in her garden--favorite dish of little
+Crispin; from her neighbor, Tasio, she got a fillet of wild boar and
+a wild duck's thigh for Basilio, and she chose and cooked the whitest
+rice on the threshing-floor.
+
+Alas! the father arrived. Good-by to the dinner! He ate the rice,
+the filet of wild boar, the duck's thigh, and the tomatoes. Sisa said
+nothing, happy to see her husband satisfied, and so much happier
+that, having eaten, he remembered he had children and asked where
+they were. The poor mother smiled. She had promised herself to eat
+nothing--there was not enough left for three; but the father had
+thought of his sons, that was better than food.
+
+Sisa, left alone, wept a little; but she thought of her children,
+and dried her tears. She cooked the little rice she had left, and
+the three sardines.
+
+Attentive to every sound, she now sat listening: a footfall strong
+and regular, it was Basilio's; light and unsteady, Crispin's.
+
+But the children did not come.
+
+To pass the time, she hummed a song. Her voice was beautiful, and when
+her children heard her sing "Kundiman" they cried, without knowing
+why. To-night her voice trembled, and the notes came tardily.
+
+She went to the door and scanned the road. A black dog was there,
+searching about. It frightened Sisa, and she threw a stone, sending
+the dog off howling.
+
+Sisa was not superstitious, but she had so often heard of black dogs
+and presentiments that terror seized her. She shut the door in haste
+and sat down by the light. She prayed to the Virgin, to God Himself,
+to take care of her boys, and most for the little Crispin. Then, drawn
+away from prayer by her sole preoccupation, she thought no longer
+of aught but her children, of all their ways, which seemed to her so
+pleasing. Then the terror returned. Vision or reality, Crispin stood
+by the hearth, where he often sat to chatter to her. He said nothing,
+but looked at her with great, pensive eyes, and smiled.
+
+"Mother, open! Open the door, mother!" said Basilio's voice outside.
+
+Sisa shuddered, and the vision disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+BASILIO.
+
+Life is a Dream.
+
+
+Basilio had scarcely strength to enter and fall into his mother's
+arms. A strange cold enveloped Sisa when she saw him come alone. She
+wished to speak, but found no words; to caress her son, but found
+no force. Yet at the sight of blood on his forehead, her voice came,
+and she cried in a tone which seemed to tell of a breaking heartstring:
+
+"My children!"
+
+"Don't be frightened, mama; Crispin stayed at the convent."
+
+"At the convent? He stayed at the convent? Living?"
+
+The child raised his eyes to hers.
+
+"Ah!" she cried, passing from the greatest anguish to the utmost
+joy. She wept, embraced her child, covered with kisses his wounded
+forehead.
+
+"And why are you hurt, my son? Did you fall?"
+
+Basilio told her he had been challenged by the guard, ran, was shot
+at, and a ball had grazed his forehead.
+
+"O God! I thank Thee that Thou didst save him!" murmured the mother.
+
+She went for lint and vinegar water, and while she bandaged his wound:
+
+"Why," she asked, "did Crispin stay at the convent?"
+
+Basilio looked at her, kissed her, then little by little told the
+story of the lost money; he said nothing of the torture of his little
+brother. Mother and child mingled their tears.
+
+"Accuse my good Crispin! It's because we are poor, and the poor must
+bear everything," murmured Sisa. Both were silent a moment.
+
+"But you have not eaten," said the mother. "Here are sardines and
+rice."
+
+"I'm not hungry, mama; I only want some water."
+
+"Yes, eat," said the mother. "I know you don't like dry sardines,
+and I had something else for you; but your father came, my poor child."
+
+"My father came?" and Basilio instinctively examined his mother's
+face and hands.
+
+The question pained the mother; she sighed.
+
+"You won't eat? Then we must go to bed; it is late."
+
+Sisa barred the door and covered the fire. Basilio murmured his
+prayers, and crept on the mat near his mother, who was still on her
+knees. She was warm, he was cold. He thought of his little brother,
+who had hoped to sleep this night close to his mother's side, trembling
+with fear in some dark corner of the convent. He heard his cries as
+he had heard them in the tower; but Nature soon confused his ideas
+and he slept.
+
+In the middle of the night Sisa wakened him.
+
+"What is it, Basilio? Why are you crying?"
+
+"I was dreaming. O mama! it was a dream, wasn't it? Say it was nothing
+but a dream!"
+
+"What were you dreaming?"
+
+He did not answer, but sat up to dry his tears.
+
+"Tell me the dream," said Sisa, when he had lain down again. "I
+cannot sleep."
+
+"It is gone now, mama; I don't remember it all."
+
+Sisa did not insist: she attached no importance to dreams.
+
+"Mama," said Basilio after a moment of silence, "I'm not sleepy
+either. I had a project last evening. I don't want to be a sacristan."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Listen, mama. The son of Don Rafael came home from Spain to-day;
+he should be as kind as his father. Well, to-morrow I find Crispin,
+get my pay, and say I'm not going to be a sacristan. Then I'll go
+see Don Crisóstomo and ask him to make me a buffalo-keeper. Crispin
+could go on studying with old Tasio. Tasio's better than the curate
+thinks; I've often seen him praying in the church when no one else was
+there. What shall I lose in not being a sacristan? One earns little and
+loses it all in fines. I'll be a herdsman, mama, and take good care of
+the cows and carabaos, and make my master love me; then perhaps he'll
+let us have a cow to milk: Crispin loves milk. And I could fish in the
+rivers and go hunting when I get big. And by and by perhaps I could
+have a little land and sow sugar-cane. We could all live together,
+then. And old Tasio says Crispin is very bright. By and by we would
+send him to study at Manila, and I would work for him. Shall we,
+mama? He might be a doctor; what do you say?"
+
+"What can I say, except that you are right," answered Sisa, kissing
+her son.
+
+Basilio went on with his projects, talking with the confidence of a
+child. Sisa said yes to everything. But little by little sleep came
+back to the child's lids, and this time he did not cry in his dreams:
+that Ole-Luk-Oie, of whom Andersen tells us, unfurled over his head
+the umbrella with its lining of gay pictures. But the mother, past
+the age of careless slumbers, did not sleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+AT THE MANSE.
+
+
+It was seven o'clock when Brother Salvi finished his last mass. He
+took off his priestly robes without a word to any one.
+
+"Look out!" whispered the sacristans; "it is going to rain fines! And
+all for the fault of those children!"
+
+The father came out of the sacristy and crossed to the manse. On the
+porch six or seven women sat waiting for him, and a man was walking
+to and fro. The woman rose, and one bent to kiss his hand, but the
+priest made such a gesture of impatience that she stopped short.
+
+"He must have lost a real miser," she cried mockingly, when he had
+passed. "This is something unheard of: refuse his hand to the zealous
+Sister Rufa?"
+
+"He was not in the confessional this morning," said a toothless
+old woman, Sister Sipa. "I wanted to confess, so as to get some
+indulgences."
+
+"I have gained three plenary indulgences," said a young woman of
+pleasing face, "and applied them all to the soul of my husband."
+
+"You have done wrong," said Sister Rufa, "one plenary is enough;
+you should not squander the holy indulgences. Do as I do."
+
+"I said to myself, the more there are the better," replied young
+sister Juana, smiling; "but what do you do?"
+
+Sister Rufa did not respond at once; she chewed her buyo, and scanned
+her audience attentively; at length she decided to speak.
+
+"Well, this is what I do. Suppose I gain a year of indulgences; I say:
+Blessed Señor Saint Dominic, have the kindness to see if there is some
+one in purgatory who has need of precisely a year. Then I play heads
+or tails. If it falls heads, no; if tails, yes. If it falls heads,
+I keep the indulgence, and so I make groups of a hundred years, for
+which there is always use. It's a pity one can't loan indulgences at
+interest. But do as I do, it's the best plan."
+
+At this point Sisa appeared. She said good morning to the women,
+and entered the manse.
+
+"She's gone in, let us go too," said the sisters, and they followed
+her.
+
+Sisa felt her heart beat violently. She did not know what to say to the
+curate in defence of her child. She had risen at daybreak, picked all
+the fine vegetables left in her garden, and arranged them in a basket
+with platane leaves and flowers, and had been to the river to get a
+fresh salad of pakô. Then, dressed in the best she had, the basket
+on her head, without waking her son, she had set out for the pueblo.
+
+She went slowly through the manse, listening if by chance she might
+hear a well-known voice, fresh and childish. But she met no one,
+heard nothing, and went on to the kitchen.
+
+The servants and sacristans received her coldly, scarcely answering
+her greetings.
+
+"Where may I put these vegetables?" she asked, without showing offence.
+
+"There--wherever you want to," replied the cook curtly.
+
+Sisa, half-smiling, placed all in order on the table, and laid on
+top the flowers and the tender shoots of the pakô; then she asked a
+servant who seemed more friendly than the cook:
+
+"Do you know if Crispin is in the sacristy?"
+
+The servant looked at her in surprise.
+
+"Crispin?" said he, wrinkling his brows; "isn't he at home?"
+
+"Basilio is, but Crispin stayed here."
+
+"Oh, yes, he stayed, but he ran off afterward with all sorts of things
+he'd stolen. The curate sent me to report it at the quarters. The
+guards must be on their way to your house by this time."
+
+Sisa could not believe it; she opened her mouth, but her lips moved
+in vain.
+
+"Go find your children," said the cook. "Everybody sees you're a
+faithful woman; the children are like their father!"
+
+Sisa stifled a sob, and, at the end of her strength, sat down.
+
+"Don't cry here," said the cook still more roughly, "the curate is ill;
+don't bother him! Go cry in the street!"
+
+The poor woman got up, almost by force, and went down the steps with
+the sisters, who were still gossiping of the curate's illness. Once
+on the street she looked about uncertain; then, as if from a sudden
+resolution, moved rapidly away.
+
+
+
+
+
+XVII.
+
+STORY OF A SCHOOLMASTER.
+
+
+The lake, girt with hills, lies tranquil, as if it had not been
+shaken by yesterday's tempest. At the first gleam of light which
+wakes the phosphorescent spirits of the water, almost on the bounds
+of the horizon, gray silhouettes slowly take shape. These are the
+barks of fishermen drawing in their nets; cascos and paraos shaking
+out their sails.
+
+From a height, two men in black are silently surveying the lake. One
+is Ibarra, the other a young man of humble dress and melancholy face.
+
+"This is the place," said the stranger, "where the gravedigger brought
+us, Lieutenant Guevara and me."
+
+Ibarra uncovered, and stood a long time as if in prayer.
+
+When the first horror at the story of his father's desecrated grave
+had passed, he had bravely accepted what could not be undone. Private
+wrongs must go unavenged, if one would not add to the wrongs of the
+country: Ibarra had been trained to live for these islands, daughters
+of Spain. In his country, too, a charge against a monk was a charge
+against the Church, and Crisóstomo was a loyal Catholic; if he knew
+how in his mind to separate the Church from her unworthy sons, most of
+his fellow-countrymen did not. And, again, his intimate life was all
+here. The last of his race, his home was his family; he loved ideally,
+and he loved the goddaughter of the malevolent priest. He was rich,
+and therefore powerful still--and he was young. Ibarra had taken up
+his life again as he had found it.
+
+His prayer finished, he warmly grasped the young man's hand.
+
+"Do not thank me," said the other; "I owe everything to your father. I
+came here unknown; your father protected me, encouraged my work,
+furnished the poor children with books. How far away that good
+time seems!"
+
+"And now?"
+
+"Ah! now we get along as best we can."
+
+Ibarra was silent.
+
+"How many pupils have you?"
+
+"More than two hundred on the list--in the classes, fifty-five."
+
+"And how is that?"
+
+The schoolmaster smiled sadly.
+
+"It is a long story."
+
+"Don't think I ask from curiosity," said Ibarra. "I have thought much
+about it, and it seems to me better to try to carry out my father's
+ideas than to weep or to avenge his death. I wish to inspire myself
+with his spirit. That is why I ask this question."
+
+"The country will bless your memory, señor, if you carry out the
+splendid projects of your father. You wish to know the obstacles I
+meet? In a word, the plan of instruction is hopeless. The children
+read, write, learn by heart passages, sometimes whole books, in
+Castilian, without understanding a single word. Of what use is such
+a school to the children of our peasants!"
+
+"You see the evil, what remedy do you propose?"
+
+"I have none," said the young man; "one cannot struggle alone against
+so many needs and against certain influences. I tried to remedy
+the evil of which I just spoke; I tried to carry out the order
+of the Government, and began to teach the children Spanish. The
+beginning was excellent, but one day Brother Dámaso sent for me. I
+went up immediately, and I said good-day to him in Castilian. Without
+replying, he burst into laughter. At length he said, with a sidelong
+glance: 'What buenos dias! buenos dias! It's very pretty. You know
+Spanish?' and he began to laugh again."
+
+Ibarra could not repress a smile.
+
+"You laugh," said the teacher, "and I, too, now; but I assure you
+I had no desire to then. I started to reply, I don't know what,
+but Brother Dámaso interrupted:
+
+"'Don't wear clothes that are not your own,' he said in Tagal; 'be
+content to speak your own language. Do you know about Ciruela? Well,
+Ciruela was a master who could neither read nor write, yet he kept
+school.' And he left the room, slamming the door behind him. What
+was I to do? What could I, against him, the highest authority of the
+pueblo, moral, political, and civil; backed by his order, feared by the
+Government, rich, powerful, always obeyed and believed. To withstand
+him was to lose my place, and break off my career without hope of
+another. Every one would have sided with the priest. I should have
+been called proud, insolent, no Christian, perhaps even anti-Spanish
+and filibustero. Heaven forgive me if I denied my conscience and my
+reason, but I was born here, must live here, I have a mother, and I
+abandoned myself to my fate, as a cadaver to the wave that rolls it."
+
+"And you lost all hope? You have tried nothing since?"
+
+"I was rash enough to try two more experiments, one after our change
+of curates; but both proved offensive to the same authority. Since
+then I have done my best to convert the poor babies into parrots."
+
+"Well, I have cheerful news for you," said Ibarra. "I am soon to
+present to the Government a project that will help you out of your
+difficulties, if it is approved."
+
+The school-teacher shook his head.
+
+"You will see, Señor Ibarra, that your projects--I've heard something
+of them--will no more be realized than were mine!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+THE STORY OF A MOTHER.
+
+
+Sisa was running toward her poor little home. She had experienced
+one of those convulsions of being which we know at the hour of a
+great misfortune, when we see no possible refuge and all our hopes
+take flight. If then a ray of light illumine some little corner,
+we fly toward it without stopping to question.
+
+Sisa ran swiftly, pursued by many fears and dark presentiments. Had
+they already taken her Basilio? Where had her Crispin hidden?
+
+As she neared her home, she saw two soldiers coming out of the little
+garden. She lifted her eyes to heaven; heaven was smiling in its
+ineffable light; little white clouds swam in the transparent blue.
+
+The soldiers had left her house; they were coming away without her
+children. Sisa breathed once more; her senses came back.
+
+She looked again, this time with grateful eyes, at the sky, furrowed
+now by a band of garzas, those clouds of airy gray peculiar to
+the Philippines; confidence sprang again in her heart; she walked
+on. Once past those dreadful men, she would have run, but prudence
+checked her. She had not gone far, when she heard herself called
+imperiously. She turned, pale and trembling in spite of herself. One
+of the guards beckoned her.
+
+Mechanically she obeyed: she felt her tongue grow paralyzed, her
+throat parch.
+
+"Speak the truth, or we'll tie you to this tree and shoot you,"
+said one of the guards.
+
+Sisa could do nothing but look at the tree.
+
+"You are the mother of the thieves?"
+
+"The mother of the thieves?" repeated Sisa, without comprehending.
+
+"Where is the money your sons brought home last night?"
+
+"Ah! the money----"
+
+"Give us the money, and we'll let you alone."
+
+"Señores," said the unhappy woman, gathering her senses again,
+"my boys do not steal, even when they're hungry; we are used to
+suffering. I have not seen my Crispin for a week, and Basilio did
+not bring home a cuarto. Search the house, and if you find a réal,
+do what you will with us; the poor are not all thieves."
+
+"Well then," said one of the soldiers, fixing his eyes on Sisa's,
+"follow us!"
+
+"I--follow you?" And she drew back in terror, her eyes on the uniforms
+of the guards. "Oh, have pity on me! I'm very poor, I've nothing to
+give you, neither gold nor jewelry. Take everything you find in my
+miserable cabin, but let me--let me--die here in peace!"
+
+"March! do you hear? and if you don't go without making trouble,
+we'll tie your hands."
+
+"Let me walk a little way in front of you, at least," she cried,
+as they laid hold of her.
+
+The soldiers spoke together apart.
+
+"Very well," said one, "when we get to the pueblo, you may. March on
+now, and quick!"
+
+Poor Sisa thought she must die of shame. There was no one on the
+road, it is true; but the air? and the light? She covered her face,
+in her humiliation, and wept silently. She was indeed very miserable;
+every one, even her husband, had abandoned her; but until now she
+had always felt herself respected.
+
+As they neared the pueblo, fear seized her. In her agony she looked
+on all sides, seeking some succor in nature--death in the river would
+be so sweet. But no! She thought of her children; here was a light
+in the darkness of her soul.
+
+"Afterward," she said to herself,--"afterward, we will go to live in
+the heart of the forest."
+
+She dried her eyes, and turning to the guards:
+
+"We are at the pueblo," she said. Her tone was indescribable; at once
+a complaint, an argument, and a prayer.
+
+The soldiers took pity on her; they replied with a gesture. Sisa went
+rapidly forward, then forced herself to walk tranquilly.
+
+A tolling of bells announced the end of the high mass. Sisa hastened,
+in the hope of avoiding the crowd from the church, but in vain. Two
+women she knew passed, looked at her questioningly; she bowed with
+an anguished smile, then, to avoid new mortifications, she fixed her
+eyes on the ground.
+
+At sight of her people turned, whispered, followed with their eyes,
+and though her eyes were turned away, she divined, she felt, she
+saw it all. A woman who by her bare head, her dress, and her manners
+showed what she was, cried boldly to the soldiers:
+
+"Where did you find her? Did you get the money?"
+
+Sisa seemed to have taken a blow in the face. The ground gave way
+under her feet.
+
+"This way!" cried a guard.
+
+Like an automaton whose mechanism is broken she turned quickly, and,
+seeing nothing, feeling nothing but instinct, tried to hide herself. A
+gate was before her; she would have entered but a voice still more
+imperious checked her. While she sought to find whence the voice came,
+she felt herself pushed along by the shoulders. She closed her eyes,
+took two steps, then her strength left her and she fell.
+
+It was the barracks. In the yard were soldiers, women, pigs, and
+chickens. Some of the women were helping the men mend their clothes
+or clean their arms, and humming ribald songs.
+
+"Where is the sergeant?" demanded one of the guards angrily. "Has
+the alférez been informed?"
+
+A shrug of the shoulders was the sole response; no one would take
+any trouble for the poor woman.
+
+Two long hours she stayed there, half mad, crouched in a corner,
+her face hidden in her hands, her hair undone. At noon the alférez
+arrived. He refused to believe the curate's accusations.
+
+"Bah! monks' tricks!" said he; and ordered that the woman be released
+and the affair dropped.
+
+"If he wants to find what he's lost," he added, "let him complain to
+the nuncio! That's all I have to say."
+
+Sisa, who could scarcely move, was almost carried out of the
+barracks. When she found herself in the street, she set out as fast
+as she could for her home, her head bare, her hair loose, her eyes
+fixed. The sun, then in the zenith, burned with all his fire: not a
+cloud veiled his resplendent disc. The wind just moved the leaves of
+the trees; not a bird dared venture from the shade of the branches.
+
+At length Sisa arrived. Troubled, silent, she entered her poor cabin,
+ran all about it, went out, came in, went out again. Then she ran
+to old Tasio's, knocked at the door. Tasio was not there. The poor
+thing went back and commenced to call, "Basilio! Crispin!" standing
+still, listening attentively. An echo repeating her calls, the sweet
+murmur of water from the river, the music of the reeds stirred by
+the breeze, were the sole voices of the solitude. She called anew,
+mounted a hill, went down into a ravine; her wandering eyes took a
+sinister expression; from time to time sharp lights flashed in them,
+then they were obscured, like the sky in a tempest. One might have said
+the light of reason, ready to go out, revived and died down in turn.
+
+She went back, and sat down on the mat where they had slept the night
+before--she and Basilio--and raised her eyes. Caught in the bamboo
+fence on the edge of the precipice, she saw a piece of Basilio's
+blouse. She got up, took it, and examined it in the sunlight. There
+were blood spots on it, but Sisa did not seem to see them. She bent
+over and continued to look at this rag from her child's clothing,
+raised it in the air, bathing it in the brazen rays. Then, as if
+the last gleam of light within her had finally gone out, she looked
+straight at the sun, with wide-staring eyes.
+
+At length she began to wander about, crying out strange sounds. One
+hearing her would have been frightened; her voice had a quality the
+human larynx would hardly know how to produce.
+
+The sun went down; night surprised her. Perhaps Heaven gave her
+sleep, and an angel's wing, brushing her pale forehead, took away
+that memory which no longer recalled anything but griefs. The next
+day Sisa roamed about, smiling, singing, and conversing with all the
+beings of great Nature.
+
+
+
+Three days passed, and the inhabitants of San Diego had ceased to talk
+or think of unhappy Sisa and her boys. Maria Clara, who, accompanied
+by Aunt Isabel, had just arrived from Manila, was the chief subject
+of conversation. Every one rejoiced to see her, for every one loved
+her. They marvelled at her beauty, and speculated about her marriage
+with Ibarra. On this evening, Crisóstomo presented himself at the
+home of his fiancée; the curate arrived at the same moment. The house
+was a delicious little nest among orange-trees and ylang-ylang. They
+found Maria by an open window, overlooking the lake, surrounded by
+the fresh foliage and delicate perfume of vines and flowers.
+
+"The winds blow fresh," said the curate; "aren't you afraid of
+taking cold?"
+
+"I don't feel the wind, father," said Maria.
+
+"We Filipinos," said Crisóstomo, "find this season of autumn and
+spring together delicious. Falling leaves and budding trees in
+February, and ripe fruit in March, with no cold winter between,
+is very agreeable. And when the hot months come we know where to go."
+
+The priest smiled, and the conversation turned to the pueblo and the
+festival of its patron saint, which was near.
+
+"Speaking of fêtes," said Crisóstomo to the curate, "we hope you will
+join us in a picnic to-morrow, near the great fig-tree in the wood. The
+arrangements are all made as you wished, Maria. A small party is to
+start for the fishing-ground before sunrise," he went on to the curate,
+"and later we hope to be joined by all our friends of the pueblo."
+
+The curate said he should be happy to come after his services were
+said. They chatted a few moments longer, and then Ibarra excused
+himself to finish giving his invitations and make his final
+arrangements.
+
+As he left the house a man saluted him respectfully.
+
+"Who are you?" asked Crisóstomo.
+
+"You would not know my name, señor; I have been trying to see you
+for three days."
+
+"And what do you want?"
+
+"Señor, my wife has gone mad, my children are lost, and no one will
+help me find them. I want your aid."
+
+"Come with me," said Ibarra.
+
+The man thanked him, and they disappeared together in the darkness
+of the unlighted streets.
+
+
+
+
+
+XIX.
+
+THE FISHING PARTY.
+
+
+The stars were yet brilliant in the sapphire vault, and in the
+branches the birds were still asleep when a merry party went through
+the streets of the pueblo, toward the lake, lighted by the glimmer
+of the pitch torches here called huepes.
+
+There were five young girls, walking rapidly, holding each other by
+the hand or waist, followed by several elderly ladies, and servants
+bearing gracefully on their heads baskets of provisions. To see these
+girls' faces, laughing with youth, to judge by their abundant black
+hair flying free in the wind, and the ample folds of their garments,
+we might take them for divinities of the night fleeing at the approach
+of day; but they were Maria Clara and her four friends, the merry
+Sinang, her cousin, the calm Victoria, beautiful Iday, and pensive
+Neneng. They talked with animation, pinched each other, whispered in
+each other's ears, and pealed out merry rounds of laughter.
+
+After a while there came to meet the party a group of young men,
+carrying torches of reeds. They were walking, silent, to the sound
+of a guitar.
+
+When the two groups met, the girls became serious and grave. The men,
+on the contrary, talked, laughed, and asked six questions to get half
+a reply.
+
+"Is the lake smooth? Do you think we shall have a fine day?" demanded
+the mamas.
+
+"Don't be disturbed, señoras, I'm a splendid swimmer," said a tall,
+slim fellow, a merry-looking rascal with an air of mock gravity.
+
+But they were already at the borders of the lake, and cries of
+delight escaped the lips of the women. They saw two great barks,
+bound together, picturesquely decked with garlands of flowers and
+various-colored festoons of fluffy drapery. Little paper lanterns hung
+alternating with roses, pinks, pineapples, bananas, and guavas. Rudders
+and oars were decorated too, and there were mats, rugs, and cushions to
+make comfortable seats for the ladies. In the boat, most beautifully
+trimmed, were a harp, guitars, accordeons, and a carabao's horn; in
+the other burned a ship's fire; and tea, coffee and salabat--a tea
+of ginger sweetened with honey--were making for the first breakfast.
+
+"The women here, the men there," said the mamas, embarking; "move
+carefully, don't stir the boat or we shall capsize!"
+
+"And we're to be in here all alone?" pouted Sinang.
+
+Slowly the boats left the beach, reflecting in the mirror of the lake
+the many lights of their lanterns. In the east were the first streaks
+of dawn.
+
+Comparative silence reigned. The separation established by the ladies
+seemed to have dedicated youth to meditation. The water was perfectly
+tranquil, the fishing-grounds were near; it was soon decided to abandon
+the oars, and breakfast. Day had come, and the lanterns were put out.
+
+It was a beautiful morning. The light falling from the sky and
+reflected from the water made radiant the surface of the lake, and
+bathed everything in an atmosphere of clearness saturated with color,
+such as some marines suggest. Everybody, even the mamas, laughed and
+grew merry. "Do you remember, when we were girls--" they began to each
+other; and Maria and her young companions exchanged smiling glances.
+
+One man alone remained a stranger to this gayety--it was the
+helmsman. Young, of athletic build, his melancholy eyes and the severe
+lines of his lips gave an interest to his face, and this was heightened
+by his long black hair falling naturally about his muscular neck. His
+wrists of steel managed like a feather the large and heavy oar which
+served as rudder to guide the two barks.
+
+Maria Clara had several times met his eyes, but he quickly turned
+them away to the shores or the mountains. Pitying his solitude,
+she offered him some cakes. With a certain surprise he took one,
+refusing the others, and thanked her in a voice scarcely audible. No
+one else seemed to think of him.
+
+The early breakfast done, the party moved off toward the fishing
+enclosures. There were two, a little distance apart, both the property
+of Captain Tiago. In advance, a flock of white herons could be seen,
+some moving among the reeds, some flying here and there, skimming
+the water with their wings, and filling the air with their strident
+cries. Maria Clara followed them with her eyes, as, at the approach
+of the two barks, they flew away from the shore.
+
+"Do these birds have their nests in the mountains?" she asked the
+helmsman, less perhaps from the wish to know than to make the silent
+fellow talk.
+
+"Probably, señora," he replied, "but no one has ever yet seen them."
+
+"They have no nests, then?"
+
+"I suppose they must have; if not, they are unhappy indeed."
+
+Maria Clara did not catch the note of sadness in his voice.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"They say, señora, that the nests of these birds are invisible, and
+have the power to render invisible whoever holds them; that as the
+soul can be seen only in the mirror of the eyes, so these nests can
+be seen only in the mirror of the water."
+
+Maria Clara became pensive. But they had come to the first baklad, as
+the enclosures are called. The old sailor in charge attached the boats
+to the reeds, while his son prepared to mount with lines and nets.
+
+"Wait a moment," cried Aunt Isabel, "the fish must come directly out
+of the water into the pan."
+
+"What, good Aunt Isabel!" said Albino reproachfully, "won't you give
+the poor things a moment in the air?"
+
+Andeng, Maria's foster-sister, was a famous cook. She began to prepare
+rice water, the tomatoes, and the camias; the young men, perhaps to
+win her good graces, aided her, while the other girls arranged the
+melons, and cut paayap into cigarette-like strips.
+
+To while away the time Iday took up the harp, the instrument most
+often played in this part of the islands. She played well, and was
+much applauded. Maria thanked her with a kiss.
+
+"Sing, Victoria, sing the 'Marriage Song,'" demanded the ladies. This
+is a beautiful Tagal elegy of married life, but sad, painting its
+miseries rather than its joys. The men clamored for it too, and
+Victoria had a lovely voice; but she was hoarse. So Maria Clara was
+begged to sing.
+
+"All my songs are sad," she said.
+
+"Never mind," said her companions, and without more urging she took
+the harp and sang in a rich and vibrant voice, full of feeling.
+
+The chant ceased, the harp became mute; yet no one applauded; they
+seemed listening still. The young girls felt their eyes fill with
+tears; Ibarra seemed disturbed; the helmsman, motionless, was gazing
+far away.
+
+Suddenly there came a crash like thunder. The women cried out and
+stopped their ears. It was Albino, filling with all the force of his
+lungs the carabao's horn. There needed nothing more to bring back
+laughter, and dry tears.
+
+"Do you wish to make us deaf, pagan?" cried Aunt Isabel.
+
+"Señora," he replied, "I've heard of a poor trumpeter who, from
+simply playing on his instrument, became the husband of a rich and
+noble lady."
+
+"So he did--the Trumpeter of Säckingen!" laughed Ibarra.
+
+"Well," said Albino, "we shall see if I am as happy!" and he began
+to blow again with still more force. There was a panic: the mamas
+attacked him hand and foot.
+
+"Ouch! ouch!" he cried, rubbing his hurts; "the Philippines are far
+from the borders of the Rhine! For the same deed one is knighted,
+another put in the san-benito!"
+
+At last Andeng announced the kettle ready for the fish.
+
+The fisherman's son now climbed the weir or "purse" of the
+enclosure. It was almost circular, a yard across, so arranged that
+a man could stand on top to draw out the fish with a little net or
+with a line.
+
+All watched him, some thinking they saw already the quiver of the
+little fishes and the shimmer of their silver scales.
+
+The net was drawn up; nothing in it; the line, no fish adorned it. The
+water fell back in a shower of drops, and laughed a silvery laugh. A
+cry of disappointment escaped from every mouth.
+
+"You don't understand your business," said Albino, climbing up by
+the young man; and he took the net. "Look now! Ready, Andeng!"
+
+But Albino was no better fisherman. Everybody laughed.
+
+"Don't make a noise, you'll drive away the fish. The net must be
+broken." But every mesh was intact.
+
+"Let me try," said Léon, the fiancée of Iday. "Are you sure no one
+has been here for five days?"
+
+"Absolutely sure."
+
+"Then either the lake is enchanted or I draw out something."
+
+He cast the line, looked annoyed, dragged the hook along in the water
+and murmured:
+
+"A crocodile!"
+
+"A crocodile!"
+
+The word passed from mouth to mouth amid general stupefaction.
+
+"What's to be done?"
+
+"Capture him!"
+
+But nobody offered to go down. The water was deep.
+
+"We ought to drag him in triumph at our stern," said Sinang; "he has
+eaten our fish!"
+
+"I've never seen a crocodile alive," mused Maria Clara.
+
+The helmsman got up, took a rope, lithely climbed the little platform,
+and in spite of warning cries dived into the weir. The water, troubled
+an instant, became smooth; the abyss closed mysteriously.
+
+"Heaven!" cried the women, "we are going to have a catastrophe!"
+
+The water was agitated: a combat seemed to be going on below. Above,
+there was absolute silence. Ibarra held his blade in a convulsive
+grasp. Then the struggle seemed to end, and the young man's head
+appeared. He was saluted with joyous cries. He climbed the platform,
+holding in one hand an end of the rope. Then he pulled with all his
+strength, and the monster came in view. The rope was round its neck
+and the fore part of its body; it was large, and on its back could be
+seen green moss--to a crocodile what white hair is to man. It bellowed
+like an ox, beat the reeds with its tail, crouched, and opened its
+jaws, black and terrifying, showing its long and saw-like teeth. No
+one thought of aiding the helmsman. When he had drawn the reptile
+out of the water he put his foot on it, closed with his robust hand
+the redoubtable jaws, and tried to tie the muzzle. The creature made
+a last effort, arched its body, beat about with its powerful tail,
+and escaping, plunged outside the enclosure into the lake, dragging
+its vanquisher after it. The helmsman was a dead man. A cry of horror
+escaped from every mouth.
+
+Like a flash, another body disappeared in the water. There scarce
+was time to see it was Ibarra's. If Maria Clara did not faint, it
+was that the natives of the Philippines do not yet know how.
+
+The waters grew red. Then the young fisherman leaped in, his father
+followed him. But they had scarcely disappeared, when Ibarra and the
+helmsman came to the surface, clinging to the crocodile's body. Its
+white belly was lacerated, Ibarra's knife was in the gorge.
+
+Many arms stretched out to help the two young men from the water. The
+mamas, hysterical, wept, laughed, and prayed. Ibarra was unharmed. The
+helmsman had a slight scratch on the arm.
+
+"I owe you my life," said he to Ibarra, who was being wrapped in
+mantles and rugs.
+
+"You are too intrepid," said Ibarra. "Another time do not tempt God."
+
+"If you had not come back!" murmured Maria Clara, pale and trembling.
+
+The ladies did not approve of going to the second baklad; to their
+minds the day had begun ill; there could not fail to be other
+misfortunes; it were better to go home.
+
+"But what misfortune have we had?" said Ibarra. "The crocodile alone
+has the right to complain."
+
+At length the mamas were persuaded, and the barks took their course
+toward the second baklad.
+
+
+
+
+
+XX.
+
+IN THE WOODS.
+
+
+There had not been much hope in this second baklad. Every one
+expected to find there the crocodile's mate; but the net always
+came up full. The fishing ended, the boats were turned toward the
+shore. There was the party of the townspeople whom Ibarra had
+invited to meet his guests of the morning, and lunch with them
+under improvised tents beside a brook, in the shade of the ancient
+trees of the wooded peninsula. Music was resounding in the place,
+and water sang in the kettles. The body of the crocodile, in tow of
+the boats, turned from side to side; sometimes presenting its belly,
+white and torn, sometimes its spotted back and mossy shoulders. Man,
+the favorite of nature, is little disturbed by his many fratricides.
+
+The party dispersed, some going to the baths, some wandering among
+the trees. The silent young helmsman disappeared. A path with many
+windings crossed the thicket of the wood and led to the upper course
+of the warm brook, formed from some of the many thermal springs on
+the flanks of the Makiling. Along the banks of the stream grew wood
+flowers, many of which have no Latin names, but are none the less
+known to golden bugs, to butterflies, shaded, jewelled, and bronzed,
+and to thousands of coleopters powdered with gold and gleaming with
+facets of steel. The hum of these insects, the song of birds, or the
+dry sound of dead branches catching in their fall, alone broke the
+mysterious silence. Suddenly the tones of fresh, young voices were
+added to the wood notes. They seemed to come down the brook.
+
+"We shall see if I find a nest!" said a sweet and resonant voice. "I
+should like to see him without his seeing me. I should like to follow
+him everywhere."
+
+"I don't believe in heron's nests," said another voice; "but if I
+were in love, I should know how at once to see and to be invisible."
+
+It was Maria Clara, Victoria, and Sinang walking in the brook. Their
+eyes were on the water, where they were searching for the mysterious
+nest. In blouses striped with dainty colors, their full bath skirts
+wet to the knees, outlining the graceful curves of their bodies,
+they moved along, seeking the impossible, meanwhile picking flowers
+along the banks. Soon the little stream bent its course, and the tall
+reeds hid the charming trio and cut off the sound of their voices.
+
+A little farther on, in the middle of the stream, was a sort of bath,
+well enclosed, its roof of leafy bamboo; palm leaves, flowers, and
+streamers decked its sides. From here, too, came girls' voices. Farther
+on was a bamboo bridge, and beyond that the men were bathing, while a
+multitude of servants were busy plucking fowls, washing rice, roasting
+pigs. In the clearing on the opposite bank a group of men and women
+had formed under a great canvas roof, attached in part to the branches
+of the ancient trees, in part to pickets. There chatted the curate,
+the alférez, the vicar, the gobernadorcillo, the lieutenant, all the
+chief men of the town, including the famous orator, Captain Basilio,
+father of Sinang and opponent of Don Rafael Ibarra in a lawsuit not
+yet ended.
+
+"We dispute a point at law," Crisóstomo had said in inviting him,
+"but to dispute is not to be enemies," and the famous orator had
+accepted the invitation.
+
+Bottles of lemonade were opened and green cocoanut shells were broken,
+so that those who came from the baths might drink the fresh water;
+the girls were given wreaths of ylang-ylang and roses to perfume
+their unbound hair.
+
+The lunch hour came. The curate, the alférez, the gobernadorcillo,
+some captains, and the lieutenant sat at a table with Ibarra. The
+mamas allowed no men at the table with the girls.
+
+"Have you learned anything, señor alférez, about the criminal who
+attacked Brother Dámaso?" said Brother Salvi.
+
+"Of what criminal are you speaking?" asked the alférez, looking at
+the father over his glass of wine.
+
+"What? Why, the one who attacked Brother Dámaso on the highway day
+before yesterday."
+
+"Father Dámaso has been attacked?" asked several voices.
+
+"Yes; he is in bed yet. It is thought the maker of the assault is
+Elias, the one who threw you into the swamp some time ago, señor
+alférez."
+
+The alférez reddened with shame, if it were not from emptying his
+glass of wine.
+
+"But I supposed you were informed," the curate went on; "I said to
+myself that the alférez of the Municipal Guard----"
+
+The officer bit his lip.
+
+At that moment a woman, pale, thin, miserably dressed, appeared,
+like a phantom, in the midst of the feast.
+
+"Give the poor woman something to eat," said the ladies.
+
+She kept on toward the table where the curate was seated. He turned,
+recognized her, and the knife fell from his hand.
+
+"Give the woman something to eat," ordered Ibarra.
+
+"The night is dark and the children are gone," murmured the poor
+woman. But at sight of the alférez she became frightened and ran,
+disappearing among the trees.
+
+"Who is it?" demanded several voices.
+
+"Isn't her name Sisa?" asked Ibarra with interest.
+
+"Your soldiers arrested her," said the lieutenant to the alférez,
+with some bitterness; "they brought her all the way across the pueblo
+for some story about her sons that nobody could clear up."
+
+"What!" demanded the alférez, turning to the curate. "It is perhaps
+the mother of your sacristans?"
+
+The curate nodded assent.
+
+"They have disappeared, and there hasn't been the slightest effort to
+find them," said Don Filipo severely, looking at the gobernadorcillo,
+who lowered his eyes.
+
+"Bring back the woman," Crisóstomo ordered his servants.
+
+"They have disappeared, did you say?" demanded the alférez. "Your
+sacristans have disappeared, Father Salvi?"
+
+The curate emptied his glass and made another affirmative sign.
+
+"Ho, ho! father," cried the alférez with a mocking laugh, rejoiced at
+the prospect of revenge. "Your reverence loses a few pesos, and my
+sergeant is routed out to find them; your two sacristans disappear,
+your reverence says nothing; and you also, señor gobernadorcillo,
+you also----"
+
+He did not finish, but broke off laughing, and buried his spoon in
+the red flesh of a papaw.
+
+The curate began with some confusion:
+
+"I was responsible for the money."
+
+"Excellent reply, reverend pastor of souls!" interrupted the alférez,
+his mouth full. "Excellent reply, holy man!"
+
+Ibarra was on the point of interfering, but the priest recovered
+himself.
+
+"Do you know, señor alférez," he asked, "what is said about the
+disappearance of these children? No? Then ask your soldiers."
+
+"What!" cried the alférez, thus challenged, abandoning his mocking
+tone.
+
+"They say that on the night when they disappeared shots were heard
+in the pueblo."
+
+"Shots?" repeated the alférez, looking at the faces around him. There
+were several signs of assent.
+
+Brother Salvi went on with a sarcastic smile:
+
+"Come! I see that you do not know how to arrest criminals, that you
+are unaware of what your soldiers do, but that you are ready to turn
+yourself into a preacher and teach others their duty."
+
+"Señores," interrupted Ibarra, seeing the alférez grow pale, "I wish
+to know what you think of a project I've formed. I should like to
+give the mother into the care of a good physician. I've promised the
+father to try to find his children."
+
+The return of the servants without Sisa gave a new turn to the
+conversation. The luncheon was finished. While the tea and coffee
+were being served the guests separated into groups, the elders to
+play cards or chess, while the girls, curious to learn their destiny,
+posed questions to the "Wheel of Fortune."
+
+"Come, Señor Ibarra!" cried Captain Basilio, a little gayer than usual;
+"we've had a case in court for fifteen years and no judge is able to
+solve it; let's see if we cannot end it at chess."
+
+"In a moment, with great pleasure," said Ibarra; "the alférez is
+leaving us."
+
+As soon as the officer had gone the men grouped around the two
+players. It was to be an interesting game. The elder ladies meanwhile
+had surrounded the curate, to talk with him of the things of religion;
+but Brother Salvi seemed to judge the time unfitting and made but
+vague replies, his rather irritated glance being directed almost
+everywhere except toward his questioners.
+
+The chess players began with much solemnity.
+
+"If the game is a tie, the affair is forgotten!" said Ibarra.
+
+In the midst of the play he received a despatch. His eyes shone and he
+became pale, but he put the message in his pocket without opening it.
+
+"Check!" he cried. Captain Basilio had no recourse but to hide his
+king behind the queen.
+
+"Check!" said Ibarra, threatening with his castle.
+
+Captain Basilio asked a moment to reflect.
+
+"Willingly," said Ibarra; "I, too, should like a moment," and excusing
+himself he went toward the group round the "Wheel of Fortune."
+
+Iday had the disc on which were the forty-eight questions, Albino
+the book of replies.
+
+"Ask something," they all cried to Ibarra, as he came up. "The one
+who has the best answer is to receive a present from the others."
+
+"And who has had the best so far?"
+
+"Maria Clara!" cried Sinang. "We made her ask whether her lover is
+constant and true, and the book said----"
+
+But Maria, all blushes, put her hand over Sinang's mouth.
+
+"Give me the 'Wheel' then," said Crisóstomo, smiling. And he asked:
+
+"Shall I succeed in my present undertaking?"
+
+"What a stupid question!" pouted Sinang.
+
+The corresponding answer was found in the book. "'Dreams are dreams,'"
+read Albino.
+
+Ibarra brought out his telegram and opened it, trembling.
+
+"This time your wheel lies!" he cried. "Read!"
+
+"'Project for school approved.' What does that mean?" they asked.
+
+"This is my present," said he, giving the despatch to Maria Clara. "I'm
+to build a school in the pueblo; the school is my offering." And the
+young fellow ran back to his game of chess.
+
+After making this present to his fiancée, Ibarra was so happy that
+he played without reflection, and, thanks to his many false moves,
+the captain re-established himself, and the game was a draw. The two
+men shook hands with effusion.
+
+While they were thus making an end of the long and tedious suit, the
+sudden appearance of a sergeant and four armed guards, bayonets fixed,
+broke rudely in upon the merry-makers.
+
+"Whoever stirs is a dead man!" cried the sergeant.
+
+In spite of this bluster, Ibarra went up to him and asked what
+he wanted.
+
+"We want a criminal named Elias, who was your helmsman this morning,"
+replied the officer, still threatening.
+
+"A criminal? The helmsman? You must be mistaken."
+
+"No, señor, this Elias is accused of having raised his hand against
+a priest. You admit questionable people to your fêtes."
+
+Ibarra looked him over from head to foot and replied with great
+coldness.
+
+"I am in no way accountable to you for my actions. Every one is
+welcome at my fêtes." And he turned away.
+
+The sergeant, finding he was making no headway, ordered his men to
+search on all sides. They had the helmsman's description on paper.
+
+"Notice that this description answers well for nine-tenths of the
+natives," said Don Filipo; "see that you make no mistakes!"
+
+Quiet came back little by little. There were no end of questions.
+
+"So this is the Elias who threw the alférez into the swamp," said Léon.
+
+"He's a tulisane then?" asked Victoria, trembling.
+
+"I think not, for I know that he once fought against the tulisanes."
+
+"He hasn't the face of a criminal," said Sinang.
+
+"No; but his face is very sad," said Maria. "I did not see him smile
+all the morning."
+
+The day was ending, and in the last rays of the setting sun
+everybody left the wood, passing in silence the tomb of Ibarra's
+ancestor. Farther on conversation again became animated, gay, full
+of warmth, under these branches little used to merry-making. But the
+trees appeared sad, and the swaying bindweed seemed to say: "Adieu,
+youth! Adieu, dream of a day!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XXI.
+
+WITH THE PHILOSOPHER.
+
+
+The next morning, Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra, after visiting his land,
+turned his horse toward old Tasio's.
+
+Complete quiet reigned in the old man's garden; scarcely did the
+swallows make a sound as they flew round the roof. The old walls of
+the house were mossy, and ivy framed the windows. It seemed the abode
+of silence.
+
+Ibarra tied his horse, crossed the neat garden, almost on tiptoe, and
+entered the open door. He found the old man in his study, surrounded
+by his collections of insects and leaves, his maps, manuscript, and
+books. He was writing, and so absorbed in his work that he did not
+notice the entrance of Ibarra until the young man, loath to disturb
+him, was leaving as quietly as he had come.
+
+"What! you were there?" he cried, looking at Crisóstomo with a certain
+astonishment.
+
+"Don't disturb yourself; I see you are busy----"
+
+"I was writing a little, but it is not at all pressing. Can I be of
+service to you?"
+
+"Of great service," said Ibarra, approaching; "but--you are deciphering
+hieroglyphics!" he exclaimed in surprise, catching sight of the old
+man's work.
+
+"No, I'm writing in hieroglyphics."
+
+"Writing in hieroglyphics? And why?" demanded the young man, doubting
+his senses.
+
+"So that no one can read me."
+
+Ibarra looked at him attentively, wondering if he were not a little
+mad after all.
+
+"And why do you write if you do not wish to be read?"
+
+"I write not for this generation, but for future ages. If the men
+of to-day could read my books, they would burn them; the generation
+that deciphers these characters will understand, and will say: 'Our
+ancestors did not all sleep.' But you have something to ask of me,
+and we are talking of other things."
+
+Ibarra drew out some papers.
+
+"I know," he said, "that my father greatly valued your advice, and
+I have come to ask it for myself."
+
+And he briefly explained his project for the school, unrolling before
+the stupefied philosopher plans sent from Manila. "Whom shall I consult
+first, in the pueblo, whose support will avail me most? You know them
+all, I am almost a stranger."
+
+Old Tasio examined with tearful eyes the drawings before him.
+
+"You are going to realize my dream," he said, greatly moved; "the
+dream of a poor fool. And now the first advice I give you is never
+to ask advice of me."
+
+Ibarra looked at him in surprise.
+
+"Because, if you do," he continued with bitter irony, "all sensible
+people will take you for a fool, too. For all sensible people think
+those who differ with them fools; they think me one, and I am grateful
+for it, because the day they see in me a reasonable being woe is
+me! That day I shall lose the little liberty I now enjoy at the
+expense of my reputation. The gobernadorcillo passes with them for
+a wise man because having learned nothing but to serve chocolate and
+to suffer the caprices of Brother Dámaso, he is now rich and has the
+right to trouble the life of his fellow-citizens. 'There is a man of
+talent!' says the crowd. 'He has sprung from nothing to greatness.' But
+perhaps I am really the fool and they are the wise men. Who can say?"
+
+And the old man shook his head as though to dismiss an unwelcome
+thought.
+
+"The second thing I advise is to consult the curate, the
+gobernadorcillo, all the people of position in the pueblo. They will
+give you bad advice, unintelligible, useless. But to ask advice is
+not to follow it. All you need is to make it understood that you are
+working in accordance with their ideas."
+
+Ibarra reflected, then replied:
+
+"No doubt your counsel is good, but it is very hard to take. May I
+not offer my own ideas to the light of day? Cannot the good make its
+way anywhere? Has truth need of the dross of error?"
+
+"No one likes the naked truth," replied the old man. "It is good in
+theory, easy in the ideal world of which youth dreams. You say you
+are a stranger to your country; I believe it. The day that you arrived
+here, you began by wounding the self-esteem of a priest. God grant this
+seemingly small thing has not decided your future. If it has, all your
+efforts will break against the convent walls, without disturbing the
+monk, swaying his girdle, or making his robe tremble. The alcalde,
+under one pretext or another, will deny you to-morrow what he grants
+you to-day; not a mother will let her child go to your school, and
+the result of all your efforts will be simply negative."
+
+"I cannot help feeling your fears exaggerated," said Ibarra. "In spite
+of all you say, I cannot believe in this power; but even admitting it
+to be so great, the most intelligent of the people would be on my side,
+and also the Government, which is animated by the best intentions,
+and wishes the veritable good of the Philippines."
+
+"The Government! the Government!" murmured the philosopher,
+raising his eyes. "However great its desire to better the country,
+however generous may have been the spirit of the Catholic kings,
+the Government sees, hears, judges nothing more than the curate or
+the provincial gives it to see, hear, or judge. The Government is
+convinced that its tranquillity comes through the monks; that if
+it is upheld, it is because they uphold it; that if it live, is it
+because they consent to let it, and that the day when they fail it,
+it will fall like a manikin that has lost its base. The monks hold
+the Government in hand by threatening a revolt of the people they
+control; the people, by displaying the power of the Government. So
+long as the Government has not an understanding with the country,
+it will not free itself from this tutelage. The Government looks to
+no vigorous future; it's an arm, the head is the convent. Through
+its inertia, it allows itself to be dragged from abyss to abyss; its
+existence is no more than a shadow. Compare our system of government
+with the systems of countries you have visited----"
+
+"Oh!" interrupted Ibarra, "that is going far. Let us be satisfied that,
+thanks to religion and the humanity of our rulers, our people do not
+complain, do not suffer like those of other countries."
+
+"The people do not complain because they have no voice; if they
+don't revolt, it is because they are lethargic; if you say they do
+not suffer, it is because you have not seen their heart's blood. But
+the day will come when you will see and hear. Then woe to those who
+base their strength on ignorance and fanaticism; woe to those who
+govern through falsehood, and work in the night, thinking that all
+sleep! When the sun's light shows the sham of all these phantoms,
+there will be a frightful reaction; all this strength conserved for
+centuries, all this poison distilled drop by drop, all these sighs
+strangled, will find the light and the air. Who pay these accounts
+which the people from time to time present, and which History preserves
+for us in its bloody pages?"
+
+"God will never permit such a day to come!" replied Ibarra, impressed
+in spite of himself. "The Filipinos are religious, and they love
+Spain. There are abuses, yes, but Spain is preparing reforms to
+correct them; her projects are now ripening."
+
+"I know; but the reforms which come from the head are annulled
+lower down, thanks to the greedy desire of officials to enrich
+themselves in a short time, and to the ignorance of the people, who
+accept everything. Abuses are not to be corrected by royal decrees,
+not where the liberty of speech, which permits the denunciation of
+petty tyrants, does not exist. Projects remain projects; abuses,
+abuses. Moreover, if by chance some one coming to occupy an office
+begins to show high and generous ideas, immediately he hears on all
+sides--while to his back he is held a fool: 'Your Excellency does
+not know the country, Your Excellency does not know the character of
+the Indians, Your Excellency will ruin them, Your Excellency will do
+well to consult this one and that one,' and so forth, and so on. And
+as in truth His Excellency does not know the country, which hitherto
+he had supposed to be in America, and since, like all men, he has his
+faults and weaknesses, he allows himself to be convinced. Don't ask
+for miracles; don't ask that he who comes here a stranger to make his
+fortune should interest himself in the welfare of the country. What
+does it mean to him, the gratitude or the execration of a people he
+does not know, among whom he has neither attachments nor hopes? To
+make glory sweet to us, its plaudits must resound in the ears of
+those we love, in the atmosphere of our home, of the country that
+is to preserve our ashes; we wish this glory seated on our tomb,
+to warm a little with its rays the cold of death, to keep us from
+being reduced to nothingness quite. But we wander from the question."
+
+"It is true I did not come to argue this point; I came to ask advice,
+and you tell me to bow before grotesque idols."
+
+"Yes, and I repeat it; you must either lower your head or lose it."
+
+"'Lower my head or lose it!'" repeated Ibarra, thoughtful. "The dilemma
+is hard. Is it impossible to reconcile love of my country and love of
+Spain? Must one abase himself to be a good Christian; prostitute his
+conscience to achieve a good work? I love my country; I love Spain;
+I am a Catholic, and keep pure the faith of my fathers; but I see in
+all this no reason for delivering myself into the hands of my enemies."
+
+"But the field where you would sow is in the keeping of your
+enemies. You must begin by kissing the hand which----"
+
+Ibarra did not let him finish.
+
+"Kiss their hands! You forget that among them are those who killed my
+father and tore his body from the grave; but I, his son, do not forget,
+and if I do not avenge, it is because of my allegiance to religion!"
+
+The old philosopher lowered his eyes.
+
+"Señor Ibarra," he said slowly, "if you are going to keep the
+remembrance of these things, things I cannot counsel you to forget,
+abandon this enterprise and find some other means of benefiting your
+compatriots. This work demands another man."
+
+Ibarra saw the force of these words, but he could not give up his
+project. The remembrance of Maria Clara was in his heart; he must
+make good his offering to her.
+
+"If I go on, does your experience suggest nothing but this hard
+road?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+Old Tasio took his arm and led him to the window. A fresh breeze was
+blowing, courier of the north wind. Below lay the garden.
+
+"Why must we do as does that slender stalk, charged with buds and
+blossoms?" said the philosopher, pointing out a superb rose-tree. "The
+wind makes it tremble, and it bends, as if to hide its precious
+charge. If the stalk stood rigid, it would break, the wind would
+scatter the flowers, and the buds would die without opening. The
+gust of wind passed, the stalk rises again, proudly wearing her
+treasure. Who accuses her for having bowed to necessity? To lower the
+head when a ball whistles is not cowardice. What is reprehensible is
+defying the shot, to fall and rise no more."
+
+"And will this sacrifice bear the fruit I seek? Will they have faith
+in me? Can the priest forget his own offence? Will they sincerely
+aid me to spread that instruction which is sure to dispute with the
+convents the wealth of the country? Might they not feign friendship,
+simulate protection, and, underneath, wound my enterprise in the heel,
+that it fall more promptly than if attacked face to face? Admitting
+your views, one might expect anything."
+
+The old man reflected, then he said:
+
+"If this happens, if the enterprise fails, you will have the
+consolation of having done what you could. Something will have been
+gained. Your example will embolden others, who fear only to commence."
+
+Ibarra weighed these reasonings, examined the situation, and saw that
+with all his pessimism the old man was right.
+
+"I believe you," he said, grasping his hand. "It was not in vain
+that I came to you for counsel. I will go straight to the curate,
+who, after all, may be a fair-minded man. They are not all like the
+persecutor of my father. I go with faith in God and man."
+
+He took leave of Tasio, mounted, and rode away, followed by the regard
+of the pessimistic old philosopher, who stood muttering to himself:
+
+"We shall see, we shall see how the fates unroll the drama begun in
+the cemetery!"
+
+This time the wise Tasio was wrong; the drama had begun long before.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXII.
+
+THE MEETING AT THE TOWN HALL.
+
+
+It was a room of twelve or fifteen by eight or ten yards. The
+whitewashed walls were covered with charcoal drawings, more or less
+ugly, more or less decent. In the corner were a dozen old shot-guns
+and some rusty swords, the arms of the cuadrilleros.
+
+At one end, draped with soiled red curtains, was a portrait of His
+Majesty the King, and on the platform underneath an old fauteuil
+opened its worn arms; before this was a great table, daubed with ink,
+carved and cut with inscriptions and monograms, like the tables of
+a German students' inn. Lame chairs and tottering benches completed
+the furniture.
+
+In this hall meetings were held, courts sat, tortures were
+inflicted. At the moment the authorities of the pueblo and its vicinity
+were met there. The party of the old did not mingle with the party
+of the young; the two represented the Conservatives and Liberals.
+
+"My friends," Don Filipo, the chief of the Liberals, was saying to
+a little group, "we shall vanquish the old men this time; I'm going
+to present their plan myself, with exaggerations, you may imagine."
+
+"What are you saying?" demanded his surprised auditors.
+
+"Listen," said Don Filipo. "This morning I ran across old Tasio. He
+said to me: 'Your enemies are more opposed to your person than to your
+ideas. Is there something you don't want to have go through? Propose it
+yourself. If it's as desirable as a mitre, they will reject it. Then
+let the most modest young fellow among you present what you really
+want. To humiliate you, your enemies will help to carry it.' Hush! Keep
+the secret."
+
+The gobernadorcillo had come in. Conversation ceased, all took places,
+and silence reigned.
+
+The captain, as the gobernadorcillo is called, sat down in the chair
+under the king's portrait. His look was harried. He coughed, passed
+his hand over his cranium, coughed again, and at length began in a
+failing voice:
+
+"Señores, I've taken the risk of convening you all--hem, hem!--because
+we are to celebrate, the twelfth of this month, the feast of our
+patron, San Diego--hem, hem!"
+
+At this point of his discourse a cough, dry and regular, reduced him
+to silence.
+
+Then from among the elders arose Captain Basilio:
+
+"Will your honors permit me," said he, "to speak a word under these
+interesting circumstances? I speak first, though many of those present
+have more right than I, but the things I have to say are of such
+importance that they should neither be left aside nor said last,
+and for that reason I wish to speak first, to give them the place
+they merit. Your honors will, then, permit me to speak first in this
+assembly, where I see very distinguished people, like the señor, the
+present gobernadorcillo; his predecessor, my distinguished friend, Don
+Valentine; his other predecessor, Don Julio; our renowned captain of
+the cuadrilleros, Don Melchior, and so many others, whom, for brevity,
+I will not mention, and whom you see here present. I entreat your
+honors to give me the floor before any one else speaks. Am I happy
+enough to have the assembly accede to my humble request?" And the
+speaker bowed respectfully, half smiling.
+
+"You may speak, we shall hear you with pleasure!" cried his flattering
+friends, who held him a great orator. The old men hemmed with
+satisfaction and rubbed their hands.
+
+Captain Basilio wiped the sweat from his brow and continued:
+
+"Since your honors have been so kind and complaisant toward my humble
+self as to grant me the right of speech before all others here present,
+I shall profit by this permission, so generously accorded, and I shall
+speak. I imagine in my imagination that I find myself in the midst of
+the very venerable Roman senate--senatus populusque Romanus, as we said
+in those good old times which, unhappily for humanity, will never come
+back,--and I will ask the patres conscripti--as the sage Cicero would
+say if he were in my place--I would ask them, since time presses,
+and time is golden as Solomon says, that in this important matter
+each one give his opinion clearly, briefly, and simply. I have done."
+
+And satisfied with himself and with the attention of the house the
+orator sat down, not without directing toward his friends a look
+which plainly said: "Ha! Did I speak well? Ha!"
+
+"Now the floor belongs to any one who--hem!" said the gobernadorcillo,
+without being able to finish his sentence.
+
+To judge by the general silence, no one wished to be one of the patres
+conscripti. Don Filipo profited thereby and rose.
+
+The Conservatives looked at one another with significant nods and
+gestures.
+
+"Señores, I will present my project for the fête," he began.
+
+"We cannot accept it!" said an uncompromising Conservative.
+
+"We vote against it!" cried another adversary.
+
+Don Filipo could not repress a smile.
+
+"We have a budget of 3,500 pesos. With this sum we can assure a
+fête that will surpass any we have yet seen in our own province or
+in others."
+
+There were cries of "Impossible!" Such a pueblo spent 4,000 pesos;
+another, 5,000!
+
+"Listen, señores, and you will be convinced," continued Don Filipo,
+unshaken. "I propose that in the middle of the plaza we erect a grand
+theatre, costing 150 pesos."
+
+"Not enough! Say 160!"
+
+"Observe, gentlemen, 200 pesos for the theatre. I propose that
+arrangements be made with the Comedy Company of Tondo for seven
+representations, seven consecutive evenings, at 200 pesos an
+evening. Seven representations, at 200 pesos each, makes 1,400
+pesos. Observe, señor director, 1,400 pesos."
+
+Old and young looked at one another in surprise. Only those in the
+secret remained unmoved.
+
+"I further propose magnificent fireworks; not those little rockets
+and crackers that amuse nobody but children and old maids, but great
+bombs, colossal rockets. I propose, then, 200 bombs at two pesos each,
+and 200 rockets at the same price. Observe, señores, 1,000 pesos for
+bombs and----"
+
+The Conservatives could not contain themselves. They got up and
+conferred with one another.
+
+"And further, to show our neighbors that we are not people who must
+count their expenditures, I propose, first, four great preachers for
+the two feast days; second, that each day we throw into the lake 200
+roasted fowls, 100 stuffed capons, and 50 sucking pigs, as did Sylla,
+contemporary of Cicero, to whom Captain Basilio alluded."
+
+"That's it! Like Sylla!" repeated Captain Basilio, flattered.
+
+The astonishment grew.
+
+"As many rich people will come to the fêtes, each bringing thousands
+of pesos and his best cocks, I propose fifteen days of the gallera,
+the liberty of open gaming houses----"
+
+Cries rising from all sides drowned his voice; there was a veritable
+tumult. The gobernadorcillo, more crushed than ever, did nothing to
+quell it; he waited for order to establish itself.
+
+Happily Captain Valentine, most moderate of the Conservatives, rose
+and said:
+
+"What the lieutenant proposes seems to us extravagant. So many bombs
+and so much comedy could only be proposed by a young man, like the
+lieutenant, who could pass all his evenings at the theatre and hear
+countless detonations without becoming deaf. And what of these fowls
+thrown into the lake? Why should we imitate Sylla and the Romans? Did
+they ever invite us to their fêtes? I'm an old man, and I've never
+received any summons from them!"
+
+"The Romans live at Rome with the Pope," Captain Basilio whispered.
+
+This did not disconcert Don Valentine.
+
+"At all events," he went on, "the project is inadmissible, impossible;
+it's a folly!"
+
+Don Filipo must needs retire his project.
+
+Satisfied with the defeat of their enemy, the Conservatives were not
+displeased to see another young man rise, the municipal head of a
+group of fifty or sixty families, known as a balangay.
+
+He modestly excused himself for speaking. With delicate blandishments
+he referred to the "ideas so elegantly expressed by Captain Basilio,"
+upon which the delighted captain made signs to show him how to
+gesture and to change position: then he unfolded his project: to have
+something absolutely new, and to spend the 3,500 pesos in such a way
+as to benefit their own province.
+
+"That's it!" interrupted the young men; "that's what we want!"
+
+What did they care about seeing the King of Bohemia cut off the
+heads of his daughters! They were neither kings nor barbarians, and
+if they did such things themselves, would be hung high on the field
+of Bagumbayan. He proposed that two native plays be given which dealt
+with the manners of the times. There were two he had in mind, works
+of their best writers. They demanded only native costumes, and could
+be played by amateurs of talent, of whom the province had no lack.
+
+"A good idea!" some of the Conservatives began to murmur.
+
+"I'll pay for the theatre!" cried Captain Basilio, with enthusiasm.
+
+"Accepted! Accepted!" cried numerous voices. The young man went on:
+
+"A part of the money taken at the theatre might be distributed in
+prizes: to the best pupil in the school, the best shepherd, the
+best fisherman. We might have boat races, and games, and fireworks,
+of course."
+
+Almost all were agreed, though some talked about "innovations."
+
+When silence was established, only the decision of the gobernadorcillo
+was wanting.
+
+The poor man passed his hand across his forehead, he fidgeted, he
+perspired; finally he stammered, lowering his eyes:
+
+"I also; I approve; but, hem!"
+
+The assembly listened in silence.
+
+"But----" demanded Captain Basilio.
+
+"I approve entirely," repeated the functionary, "that is to say,
+I do not approve; I say yes, but----"
+
+He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.
+
+"But," continued the unhappy man, coming to the point at last,
+"the curate wants something else."
+
+"Is the curate to pay for the festival? Has he given even a
+cuarto?" cried a penetrating voice.
+
+Every one turned. It was Tasio. The lieutenant remained immovable,
+his eyes on the gobernadorcillo.
+
+"And what does the curate want?" demanded Don Basilio.
+
+"The curate wants six processions, three sermons, three solemn masses,
+and if any money is left, a comedy with songs between the acts."
+
+"But we don't want it!" cried the young men and some of their elders.
+
+"The curate wishes it," repeated the gobernadorcillo, "and I've
+promised that his wishes shall be carried out."
+
+"Then why did you call us together?" asked one, impatient.
+
+"Why didn't you say so in the beginning?" demanded another.
+
+"I wished to, señores, but, Captain Basilio, I did not have a
+chance. We must obey the curate!"
+
+"We must obey!" repeated some of the Conservatives.
+
+Don Filipo approached the gobernadorcillo and said bitterly:
+
+"I sacrificed my pride in a good cause; you sacrifice your manliness
+in a bad one; you spoil every good thing that might be done!"
+
+Ibarra said to the schoolmaster:
+
+"Have you any commission for the capital? I leave immediately."
+
+On the way home the old philosopher said to Don Filipo, who was
+cursing his fate:
+
+"The fault is ours. You didn't protest when they gave you a slave
+for mayor, and I, fool that I am, forgot about him!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XXIII.
+
+THE EVE OF THE FÊTE.
+
+
+It is the 10th of November, the eve of the fête. The pueblo of San
+Diego is stirred by an incredible activity; in the houses, the streets,
+the church, the gallera, all is unwonted movement. From windows flags
+and rugs are hanging; the air, resounding with bombs and music,
+seems saturated with gayety. Inside on little tables covered with
+bordered cloths the dalaga arranges in jars of tinted crystal the
+confitures made from the native fruits. Servants come and go; orders,
+whispers, comments, conjectures are everywhere. And all this activity
+and labor are for guests as often unknown as known; the stranger,
+the friend, the Filipino, the Spaniard, the rich man, the poor man,
+will be equally fortunate; and no one will ask his gratitude, nor
+even demand that he speak well of his host till the end of his dinner.
+
+The red covers which all the year protect the lamps are taken off,
+and the swinging prisms and crystal pendants strike out harmonies from
+one another and throw dancing rainbow colors on the white walls. The
+glass globes, precious heirlooms, are rubbed and polished; the dainty
+handiwork of the young girls of the house is brought out. Floors
+shine like mirrors, curtains of piña or silk jusi ornament the doors,
+and in the windows hang lanterns of crystal or of colored paper. The
+vases on the Chinese pedestals are heaped with flowers, the saints
+themselves in their reliquaries are dusted and wreathed with blossoms.
+
+At intervals along the streets rise graceful arches of reed; around
+the parvis of the church is the costly covered passageway, supported
+by trunks of bamboos, under which the procession is to pass, and
+in the centre of the plaza rises the platform of the theatre, with
+its stage of reed, of nipa, or of wood. The native pyrotechnician,
+who learns his art from no one knows what master, is getting ready
+his castles, balloons, and fiery wheels; all the bells of the pueblo
+are ringing gaily. There are sounds of music in the distance, and the
+gamins run to meet the bands and give them escort. In comes the fanfare
+with spirited marches, followed by the ragged and half-naked urchins,
+who, the moment a number is ended, know it by heart, hum it, whistle
+it with wonderful accuracy, and are ready to pass judgment on it.
+
+Meanwhile the people of the mountains, the kasamà, in gala dress,
+bring down to the rich of the pueblo wild game and fruits, and the
+rarest plants of the woods, the biga, with its great leaves, and
+the tikas-tikas, whose flaming flowers will ornament the doorways of
+the houses. And from all sides, in all sorts of vehicles, arrive the
+guests, known and unknown, many bringing with them their best cocks
+and sacks of gold to risk in the gallera, or on the green cloth.
+
+"The alférez has fifty pesos a night," a little plump man is murmuring
+in the ears of his guests. "Captain Tiago will hold the bank; Captain
+Joaquin brings eighteen thousand. There will be liam-pô; the Chinese
+Carlo puts up the game, with a capital of ten thousand. Sporting men
+are coming from Lipa and Batanzos and Santa Cruz. There will be big
+play! big play!--but will you take chocolate?--Captain Tiago won't
+fleece us this year as he did last; and how is your family?"
+
+"Very well, very well, thank you! And Father Dámaso?"
+
+"The father will preach in the morning and be with us at the games
+in the evening."
+
+"He's out of danger now?"
+
+"Without question! Ah, it's the Chinese who will let their hands
+go!" And in dumb show the little man counted money with his hands.
+
+But the greatest animation of all was at the outskirts of the crowd,
+around a sort of platform a few paces from the home of Ibarra. Pulleys
+creaked, cries went up, one heard the metallic ring of stone-cutting,
+of nail-driving; a band of workmen were opening a long, deep trench;
+others were placing in line great stones from the quarries of the
+pueblo, emptying carts, dumping sand, placing capstans.
+
+"This way! That's it! Quick about it!" a little old man of
+intelligent and animated face was crying. It was the foreman, Señor
+Juan, architect, mason, carpenter, metalworker, stonecutter, and on
+occasions sculptor. To each stranger he repeated what he had already
+said a thousand times.
+
+"Do you know what we are going to build? A model school, like those
+of Germany, and even better. The plans were traced by Señor R----. I
+direct the work. Yes, señor, you see it is to be a palace with two
+wings, one for the boys, the other for the girls. Here in the centre
+will be a great garden with three fountains, and at the sides little
+gardens for the children to cultivate plants. That great space you
+see there is for playgrounds. It will be magnificent!" And the Señor
+Juan rubbed his hands, thinking of his fame to come. Soothed by its
+contemplation, he went back and forth, passing everything in review.
+
+"That's too much wood for a crane," he said to a Mongol, who was
+directing a part of the work. "The three beams that make the tripod
+and the three joining them would be enough for me."
+
+"But not for me," replied the Mongol, with a peculiar smile, "the
+more ornament, the more imposing the effect. You will see! I shall
+trim it, too, with wreaths and streamers. You will say in the end
+that you were right to give the work into my hands, and Señor Ibarra
+will have nothing left to desire."
+
+The man smiled still, and Señor Juan laughed and threw back his head.
+
+In truth, Ibarra's project had found an echo almost everywhere. The
+curate had asked to be a patron and to bless the cornerstone, a
+ceremony that was to take place the last day of the fête, and to be
+one of its chief solemnities. One of the most conservative papers of
+Manila had dedicated to Ibarra on its first page an article entitled,
+"Imitate Him!" He was therein called "the young and rich capitalist,
+already a marked man," "the distinguished philanthropist," "the Spanish
+Filipino," and so forth. The students who had come from Manila for
+the fête were full of admiration for Ibarra, and ready to take him
+for their model. But, as almost always when we try to imitate a man
+who towers above the crowd, we ape his weaknesses, if not his faults,
+many of these admirers of Crisóstomo's held rigorously to the tie of
+his cravat, or the shape of his collar; almost all to the number of
+buttons on his vest. Even Captain Tiago burned with generous emulation,
+and asked himself if he ought not to build a convent.
+
+The dark presentiments of old Tasio seemed dissipated. When Ibarra said
+so to him, the old pessimist replied: "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."
+
+Toward evening Captain Tiago arrived from Manila, bringing Maria
+Clara, in honor of the fête, a beautiful reliquary of gold, set with
+emeralds and diamonds, enshrining a splinter from the fishing-boat
+of St. Peter. Scarcely had he come when a party of Maria's friends
+came to take her out to see the streets.
+
+"Go," said Captain Tiago, "but come back soon. Father Dámaso, you know,
+is to dine with us. You, too, Crisóstomo, must join us."
+
+"With the greatest pleasure," stammered Ibarra, avoiding Maria Clara's
+eyes, "if I did not feel that I must be at home to receive whoever
+may come."
+
+"Bring your friends here; there is always room at my table," said
+Captain Tiago, somewhat coldly. "I wish Father Dámaso and you to come
+to an understanding."
+
+"There is yet time," said Ibarra, forcing a smile.
+
+As they descended to the street, Aunt Isabel following, people moved
+aside to let them pass. Maria Clara was a vision of loveliness: her
+pallor had disappeared, and if her eyes remained pensive, her mouth
+seemed to know only smiles. With the amiability characteristic of
+happy young womanhood she saluted the people she had known as a child,
+and they smiled back their admiration. In these few days of freedom she
+had regained the frank friendliness, the gracious speech, which seemed
+to have slumbered inside the narrow walls of her convent. She felt a
+new, intense life within her, and everything without seemed good and
+beautiful. She showed her love for Ibarra with that maiden sweetness
+which comes from pure thoughts and knows no reason for false blushes.
+
+At regular intervals in the streets were kindled great clustered
+lights with bamboo supports, like candelabra. People were beginning
+to illuminate their houses, and through the open windows one could
+see the guests moving about in the radiance among the flowers to
+the music of harp, piano, or orchestra. Outside, in gala costume,
+native or European, Chinese, Spaniards, and Filipinos were moving
+in all directions, escaping with difficulty the crush of carriages
+and calashes.
+
+When the party reached Captain Basilio's house, Sinang saw them,
+and ran down the steps.
+
+"Come up till I'm ready to go out with you," she said. "I'm weary of
+all these strangers who talk of nothing but cocks and cards."
+
+The house was full of people. Many came up to greet Crisóstomo, and
+all admired Maria Clara. "Beautiful as the Virgin!" the old dames
+whispered, chewing their buyo.
+
+Here they must take chocolate. As they were leaving, Captain Basilio
+said in Ibarra's ear:
+
+"Won't you join us this evening? Father Dámaso is going to make up
+a little purse."
+
+Ibarra smiled and answered by a movement of the head, which might
+have meant anything.
+
+Chatting and laughing, the merry party went on past the brilliantly
+illuminated houses. At length they came to one fast closed and dark. It
+was the home of the alférez. Maria was astonished.
+
+"It's that old sorceress. The Muse of the Municipal Guard, as Tasio
+calls her," said Sinang. "Her house is in mourning because the people
+are gay."
+
+At a corner of the plaza, where a blind man was singing, an uncommon
+sight offered itself. A man stood there, miserably dressed, his
+head covered by a great salakot of palm leaves, which completely
+hid his face, though from its shadow two lights gleamed and went out
+fitfully. He was tall, and, from his figure, young. He pushed forward
+a basket, and after speaking some unintelligible words drew back and
+stood completely isolated. Women passing put fruit and rice into his
+basket, and at this he came forward a little, speaking what seemed
+to be his thanks.
+
+Maria Clara felt the presence of some great suffering. "Who is it?" she
+asked Iday.
+
+"It's a leper. He lives outside the pueblo, near the Chinese cemetery;
+every one fears to go near him. If you could see his cabin! The wind,
+the rain, and the sun must visit him as they like."
+
+"Poor man!" murmured Maria Clara, and hardly knowing what she did,
+she went up and put into the basket the reliquary her father had just
+given her.
+
+"Maria!" exclaimed her friends.
+
+"I had nothing else," she said, forcing back the tears.
+
+"What will he do with the reliquary? He can't sell it! Nobody will
+touch it now! If only it could be eaten!" said Sinang.
+
+But the leper went to the basket, took the glittering thing in his
+hands, fell on his knees, kissed it, and bent his head to the ground,
+uncovering humbly. Maria Clara turned her face to hide the tears.
+
+As the leper knelt, a woman crept up and knelt beside him. By her long,
+loose hair and emaciated face the people recognized Sisa. The leper,
+feeling her touch, sprang up with a cry; but, to the horror of the
+crowd, she clung to his arm.
+
+"Pray! Pray!" said she. "It is the Feast of the Dead! These lights
+are the souls of men. Pray for my sons!"
+
+"Separate them! Separate them!" cried the crowd; but no one dared
+do it.
+
+"Do you see the light in the tower? That is my son Basilio, ringing
+the bells. Do you see that other in the manse? That is my son Crispin;
+but I cannot go to them, because the curate is ill, and his money is
+lost. I carried the curate fruit from my garden. My garden was full
+of flowers, and I had two sons. I had a garden, I tended my flowers,
+and I had two sons."
+
+And leaving the leper she moved away, singing:
+
+"I had a garden and flowers. I had two sons, a garden and flowers."
+
+"What have you done for that poor woman?" Maria asked Ibarra.
+
+"Nothing yet," he replied, somewhat confused. "But don't be troubled;
+the curate has promised to aid me."
+
+As they spoke, a soldier came dragging Sisa back, rather than leading
+her. She was resisting.
+
+"Where are you taking her? What has she done?" asked Ibarra.
+
+"What has she done? Didn't you hear the noise she made?" said the
+guardian of public tranquillity.
+
+The leper took up his basket and vanished. Maria Clara asked to
+go home. She had lost all her gayety. Her sadness increased when,
+arrived at her door, her fiancé refused to go in.
+
+"It must be so to-night," he said as he bade her good-by.
+
+Maria, mounting the steps, thought how tiresome were fête days,
+when one must receive so many strangers.
+
+The next evening a little perfumed note came to Ibarra by the hand
+of Andeng, Maria's foster sister.
+
+
+    "Crisóstomo, for a whole day I have not seen you. They tell
+    me you are ill. I have lighted two candles and prayed for
+    you. I'm so tired of being asked to play and dance. I did not
+    know there were so many tiresome people in the world. If Father
+    Dámaso had not tried to amuse me with stories, I should have
+    left them all and gone away to sleep. Write me how you are,
+    and if I shall send papa to see you. I send you Andeng now to
+    make your tea; she will do it better than your servants. If
+    you don't come to-morrow, I shall not go to the ceremony.
+
+    Maria Clara."
+
+
+
+
+
+XXIV.
+
+IN THE CHURCH.
+
+
+The orchestras sounded the reveille at the first rays of the sun,
+waking with joyous airs the tired inhabitants of the pueblo.
+
+It was the last day of the fête--indeed, the fête itself. Every one
+expected much more than on the eve, when the Brothers of the Sacred
+Rosary had had their sermon and procession; for the Brothers of the
+Third Order were more numerous, and counted on humiliating their
+rivals. The Chinese candle merchants had reaped a rich harvest.
+
+Everybody put on his gala dress; all the jewels came out of their
+coffers; the fops and sporting men wore rows of diamond buttons on
+their shirt fronts, heavy gold chains, and white jipijapa hats, as
+the Indians call Panamas. No one but old Tasio was in everyday costume.
+
+"You seem even sadder than usual," the lieutenant said to him. "Because
+we have so many reasons to weep, may we not laugh once in a while?"
+
+"Yes, laugh, but not play the fool! It's the same insane orgy every
+year, the same waste of money when there's so much need and so much
+suffering! But I see! It's the orgy, the bacchanal, that is to still
+the lamentations of the poor!"
+
+"You know I share your opinion," said Don Filipo, half serious,
+half laughing, "and that I defended it; but what can I do against
+the gobernadorcillo and the curate?"
+
+"Resign!" cries the irate old man, leaving him.
+
+"Resign!" muttered Don Filipo, going on toward the
+church. "Resign? Yes, certainly, if my post were an honor and not
+a charge."
+
+There was a crowd in the parvis, and men, women, and children
+in a stream were coming and going through the narrow doors of
+the church. The smell of powder mingled with that of flowers and
+incense. Rockets, bombs, and serpents made women run and scream and
+delighted the children. An orchestra was playing before the convent;
+bands accompanied dignitaries on their way to the church, or paraded
+the streets under innumerable floating and dipping flags. Light and
+color distracted the eye, music and explosions the ear.
+
+High mass was about to be celebrated. Among the congregation were
+to be the chief alcalde of the province and other Spanish notables;
+and last, the sermon would be given by Brother Dámaso, who had the
+greatest renown as a preacher.
+
+The church was crammed. People were jostled, crushed, trampled on, and
+cried out at each encounter. From far they stretched their arms to dip
+their fingers in the holy water, but getting nearer, saw its color, and
+the hands retired. They scarcely breathed; the heat and atmosphere were
+insupportable; but the preacher was worth the endurance of all these
+miseries; besides, his sermon was to cost the pueblo two hundred and
+fifty pesos. Fans, hats, and handkerchiefs agitated the air; children
+cried, and gave the sacristans a hard enough task getting them out.
+
+Ibarra was in a corner. Maria Clara knelt near the high altar, where
+the curate had reserved a place for her. Captain Tiago, in frock coat,
+sat on the bench of authorities, and the children, who did not know
+him, taking him for another gobernadorcillo, dared not go near him.
+
+At length the alcalde arrived with his suite. He came from the
+sacristy, and sat down in a splendid fauteuil, beneath which was
+spread a rich carpet. He was in full dress, and wore the cordon of
+Charles III., with four or five other decorations.
+
+"Ha!" cried a countryman. "A citizen in fancy dress!"
+
+"Imbecile!" replied his neighbor. "It's Prince Villardo whom we
+saw last night in the play!" And the alcalde, in the character of
+giant-slayer, rose accordingly in the popular estimation.
+
+Presently those seated arose, those sleeping awoke, the mass had
+begun. Brother Salvi celebrated, attended by two Augustins. At length
+came the long-looked-for moment of the sermon. The three priests
+sat down, the alcalde and other notables followed them, the music
+ceased. The people made themselves as comfortable as possible, those
+who had no benches sitting outright on the pavement, or arranging
+themselves tailor fashion.
+
+Preceded by two sacristans and followed by another monk, who bore
+a great book, Father Dámaso made his way through the crowd. He
+disappeared a moment in the spiral staircase of the pulpit, then
+his great head reappeared and his herculean bust. He looked over his
+audience, and, the review terminated, said to his companion, hidden
+at his feet:
+
+"Attention, brother!"
+
+The monk opened his book.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXV.
+
+THE SERMON.
+
+
+The first part of the sermon was to be in Castilian, the remainder
+in Tagalo. Brother Dámaso began slowly and in ordinary voice:
+
+"Et spiritum tuum bonum dedisti qui docevet eos, et manna tuum non
+prohibuisti ab ore eorum, et aquam dedisti eis in siti. Words of the
+Lord spoken by the mouth of Esdras, Book II., chapter ix., verse 20.
+
+"Most worshipful señor (to the alcalde), very reverend priests,
+brothers in Christ!"
+
+Here an impressive pose and a new glance round the audience, then,
+his eyes on the alcalde, the father majestically extended his right
+hand toward the altar, slowly crossed his arms, without saying a word,
+and, passing from this calm to action, threw back his head, pointed
+toward the main entrance, and, impetuously cutting the air with the
+edge of his hand, began to speak in a voice strong, full, and resonant.
+
+"Brilliant and splendid is the altar, wide the door, the air is the
+vehicle of the sacred word which shall spring from my lips. Hear,
+then, with the ears of the soul and the heart, that the words of the
+Lord may not fall on a stony ground, but that they may grow and shoot
+upward in the field of our seraphic father, St. Francis. You, sinners,
+captives of those Moors of the soul who infest the seas of the eternal
+life, in the doughty ships of the flesh and the world; you who row
+in the galleys of Satan, behold with reverent compunction him who
+redeems souls from the captivity of the demon--the intrepid Gideon,
+the courageous David, the victorious Roland of Christianity! the
+celestial guard, more valiant than all the civil guards of past and
+future. (The alférez frowned.) Yes, Señor Alférez, more valiant and
+more powerful than all! This conqueror, who, without other weapon
+than a wooden cross, vanquished the eternal tulisanes of darkness,
+and would have utterly destroyed them were spirits not immortal. This
+marvel, this incredible phenomenon, is the blessed Diego of Alcala!"
+
+The "rude Indians," as the correspondents say, fished out of this
+paragraph only the words civil guard, tulisane, San Diego, and San
+Francisco. They had noticed the grimace of the alférez and the militant
+gesture of the preacher, and had from this deduced that the father
+was angry with the guard for not pursuing the tulisanes, and that
+San Diego and San Francisco had taken upon themselves to do it. They
+were enchanted, not doubting that, the tulisanes once dispersed,
+St. Francis would also destroy the municipal guard. Their attention,
+therefore, redoubled.
+
+The monk continued so long his eulogy of San Diego that his auditors,
+not even excepting Captain Tiago, began to yawn a little. Then
+he reproached them with living like the Protestants and heretics,
+who respect not the ministers of God; like the Chinese, for which
+condemnation be upon them!
+
+"What is he telling us, the Palé Lámaso?" murmured the Chinese Carlos,
+looking angrily at the preacher, who went on improvising a series of
+apostrophes and imprecations.
+
+"You will die in impenitence, race of heretics! Your punishment is
+already being meted out to you in jails and prisons. The family and its
+women should flee you; rulers should destroy you. If you have a member
+that causeth you to offend, cut it off and cast it into the fire!"
+
+Brother Dámaso was nervous. He had forgotten his sermon and was
+improvising. Ibarra became restless; he looked about in search of
+some corner, but the church was full. Maria Clara no longer heard
+the sermon. She was analyzing a picture of the souls of the "Blessed
+in Purgatory."
+
+In the improvisation the monk who played the part of prompter lost his
+place and skipped some paragraphs. The text returned to San Diego,
+and with a long series of exclamations and contrasts the father
+brought to a close the first part of his sermon.
+
+The second part was entirely improvised; not that Brother Dámaso
+knew Tagalo better than Castilian; but, considering the natives of
+the province entirely ignorant of rhetoric, he did not mind making
+errors before them. Yet the second part of his discourse had for
+certain people graver consequences than the first.
+
+He began with a "Maná capatir concristians," "My Christian brothers,"
+followed by an avalanche of untranslatable phrases about the
+soul, sin, and the patron saint. Then he launched a new series of
+maledictions against lack of respect and growing irreligion. On this
+point he seemed to be inspired, and expressed himself with force and
+clearness. He spoke of sinners who die in prison without confession
+or the sacraments; of accursed families, of petty students, and of
+toy philosophers.
+
+Ibarra listened and understood. He kept a calm exterior, but his eyes
+turned toward the bench of magistrates. No one seemed to pay attention;
+as to the alcalde, he was asleep.
+
+The inspiration of the preacher increased. He spoke of the early
+times when every Filipino encountering a priest uncovered, knelt,
+and kissed his hand. Now, he said, there were those who, because they
+had studied in Manila or in Europe, thought fit to shake the hand of
+a priest instead of kissing it.
+
+But in spite of the cries and gestures of the orator, by this time
+many of his auditors slept, and few listened. Some of the devout
+would have wept over the sins of the ungodly, but nobody joined them,
+and they were forced to give it up. A man seated beside an old woman
+went so sound asleep that he fell over against her. The good woman
+took her slipper and tried to waken him, at the same time crying out:
+
+"Get away! Savage, animal, demon, carabao!"
+
+Naturally this raised a tumult. The preacher elevated his brows,
+struck dumb by such a scandal; indignation strangled the words in
+his throat; he could only strike the pulpit with his fists. This had
+its effect. The old woman dropped the shoe and, still grumbling and
+signing herself, sank on her knees.
+
+"Ah, ah, ah, ah!" the irate priest could at last articulate. "It is for
+this that I have preached to you all the morning! Savages! You respect
+nothing! Behold the work of the incontinence of the century!" And
+launched again upon this theme, he preached a half hour longer. The
+alcalde breathed loud. Maria Clara, having studied all the pictures in
+sight, had dropped her head. Crisóstomo had ceased to be moved by the
+sermon. He was picturing a little house, high up among the mountains,
+with Maria Clara in the garden. Why concern himself with men, dragging
+out their lives in the miserable pueblos of the valley?
+
+At length the sermon ended, and the mass went on. At the moment
+when all were kneeling and the priests bowed their heads at the
+"Incarnatus est," a man murmured in Ibarra's ear: "At the blessing
+of the cornerstone do not separate yourself from the curate; do not
+go down into the trench. Your life is at stake!"
+
+It was the helmsman.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXVI.
+
+THE CRANE.
+
+
+It was indeed not an ordinary crane that the Mongol had built for
+letting the enormous cornerstone of the school into the trench. The
+framework was complicated and the cables passed over extraordinary
+pulleys. Flags, streamers, and garlands of flowers, however, hid the
+mechanism. By means of a cleverly contrived capstan, the enormous
+stone held suspended over the open trench could be raised or lowered
+with ease by a single man.
+
+"See!" said the Mongol to Señor Juan, inserting the bar and turning
+it. "See how I can manipulate the thing up here and unaided!"
+
+Señor Juan was full of admiration.
+
+"Who taught you mechanics?" he asked.
+
+"My father, my late father," replied the man, with his peculiar smile,
+"and Don Saturnino, the grandfather of Don Crisóstomo, taught him."
+
+"You must know then about Don Saturnino----"
+
+"Oh, many things! Not only did he beat his workmen and expose them
+to the sun, but he knew how to awaken sleepers and put waking men to
+sleep. Ah, you will see presently what he could teach! You will see!"
+
+On a table with Persian spread, beside the trench, were the things
+to be put into the cornerstone, and the glass box and leaden cylinder
+which were to preserve for the future these souvenirs, this mummy of
+an epoch.
+
+Under two long booths near at hand were sumptuous tables, one for the
+school-children, without wine, and heaped with fruits; the other for
+the distinguished visitors. The booths were joined by a sort of bower
+of leafy branches, where were chairs for the musicians, and tables with
+cakes, confitures, and carafes of water, for the public in general.
+
+The crowd, gay in garments of many colors, was massed under the trees
+to avoid the ardent rays of the sun, and the children, to better see
+the ceremony of the dedication, had climbed up among the branches.
+
+Soon bands were heard in the distance. The Mongol carefully examined
+his construction; he seemed nervous. A man with the appearance of a
+peasant standing near him on the edge of the excavation and close
+beside the capstan watched all his movements. It was Elias, well
+disguised by his salakot and rustic costume.
+
+The musicians arrived, preceded by a crowd of old and young in motley
+array. Behind came the alcalde, the municipal guard officers, the
+monks, and the Spanish Government clerks. Ibarra was talking with
+the alcalde; Captain Tiago, the alférez, the curate and a number of
+the rich country gentlemen accompanied the ladies, whose gay parasols
+gleamed in the sunshine.
+
+As they approached the trench, Ibarra felt his heart
+beat. Instinctively he raised his eyes to the strange scaffolding. The
+Mongol saluted him respectfully, and looked at him intently a
+moment. Ibarra recognized Elias through his disguise, and the
+mysterious helmsman, by a significant glance, recalled the warning
+in the church.
+
+The curate put on his robes and began the office. The one-eyed
+sacristan held his book; a choir boy had in charge the holy water
+and sprinkler. The men uncovered, and the crowd stood so silent that,
+though the father read low, his voice was heard to tremble.
+
+The manuscripts, journals, money, and medals to be preserved in
+remembrance of this day had been placed in the glass box and the box
+itself hermetically sealed within the leaden cylinder.
+
+"Señor Ibarra, will you place the box in the stone? The curate is
+waiting for you," said the alcalde in Ibarra's ear.
+
+"I should do so with great pleasure," said Ibarra, "but it would be
+a usurpation of the honor; that belongs to the notary, who must draw
+up the written process."
+
+The notary gravely took the box, descended the carpeted stairway which
+led to the bottom of the trench, and with due solemnity deposited
+his burden in the hollow of the stone already laid. The curate took
+the sprinkler and sprinkled the stone with holy water.
+
+Each one was now to deposit his trowel of cement on the surface of
+the lower stone, to seal it to the stone held suspended by the crane
+when that should be lowered.
+
+Ibarra offered the alcalde a silver trowel, on which was engraved
+the date of the fête, but before using it His Excellency pronounced
+a short allocution in Castilian.
+
+"Citizens of San Diego," he said, "we have the honor of presiding
+at a ceremony whose importance you know without explanations. We are
+founding a school, and the school is the basis of society, the book
+wherein is written the future of each race.
+
+"Citizens of San Diego! Thank God, who has given you these
+priests! Thank the Mother Country, who spreads civilization in these
+fertile isles and protects them with the covering of her glorious
+mantle. Thank God, again, who has enlightened you by his priests from
+his divine Word.
+
+"And now that the first stone of this building has been blessed, we,
+the alcalde of this province, in the name of His Majesty the King,
+whom God guard; in the name of the illustrious Spanish Government,
+and under the protection of its spotless and ever-victorious flag,
+consecrate this act and begin the building of this school!
+
+"Citizens of San Diego, long live the king! Long live Spain! Long
+live the religious orders! Long live the Catholic church!"
+
+"Long live the Señor Alcalde!" replied many voices.
+
+Then the high official descended majestically, to the strains of the
+orchestras, put his trowel of cement on the stone, and came back as
+majestically as he had gone down.
+
+The Government clerks applauded.
+
+Ibarra offered the trowel to the curate, who descended slowly in his
+turn. In the middle of the staircase he raised his eyes to the great
+stone suspended above, but he stopped only a second, and continued
+the descent. This time the applause was a little warmer, Captain
+Tiago and the monks adding theirs to that of the clerks.
+
+The notary followed. He gallantly offered the trowel to Maria Clara,
+but she refused, with a smile. The monks, the alférez, and others
+descended in turn, Captain Tiago not being forgotten.
+
+Ibarra was left. He had ordered the stone to be lowered when the
+curate remembered him.
+
+"You do not put on your trowelful, Señor Ibarra?" said the curate,
+with a familiar and jocular air.
+
+"I should be Juan Palomo, who made the soup and then ate it," replied
+Crisóstomo in the same light tone.
+
+"You go down, of course," said the alcalde, taking him by the arm
+in friendly fashion. "If not, I shall order that the stone be kept
+suspended, and we shall stay here till the Day of Judgment!"
+
+Such a menace forced Ibarra to obey. He exchanged the silver trowel
+for a larger one of iron, as some people noticed, and started out
+calmly. Elias gave him an indefinable look; his whole being seemed
+in it. The Mongol's eyes were on the abyss at his feet.
+
+Ibarra, after glancing rapidly at the block over his head, at Elias,
+and at the Mongol, said to Señor Juan, in a voice that trembled:
+
+"Give me the tray and bring me the other trowel."
+
+He stood alone. Elias no longer looked at him, his eyes were riveted
+on the hands of the Mongol, who, bending over, was anxiously following
+the movements of Ibarra. Then the sound of Ibarra's trowel was heard,
+accompanied by the low murmur of the clerks' voices as they felicitated
+the alcalde on his speech.
+
+Suddenly a frightful noise rent the air. A pulley attached to the
+base of the crane sprang out, dragging after it the capstan, which
+struck the crane like a lever. The beams tottered, the cables broke,
+and the whole fabric collapsed with a deafening roar and in a whirlwind
+of dust.
+
+A thousand voices filled the place with cries of horror. People fled
+in all directions. Only Maria Clara and Brother Salvi remained where
+they were, pale, mute, incapable of motion.
+
+As the cloud of dust thinned, Ibarra was seen upright among the beams,
+joists and cables, between the capstan and the great stone that had
+fallen. He still held the trowel in his hand. With eyes frightful to
+look at, he regarded a corpse half buried under the beams at his feet.
+
+"Are you unhurt? Are you alive? For God's sake, speak!" cried some
+one at last.
+
+"A miracle! A miracle!" cried others.
+
+"Come, take out the body of this man," said Ibarra, as if waking from
+a dream. At the sound of his voice Maria Clara would have fallen but
+for the arms of her friends.
+
+Then everything was confusion. All talked at once, gestured, went
+hither and thither, and knew not what to do.
+
+"Who is killed?" demanded the alférez.
+
+"Arrest the head builder!" were the first words the alcalde could
+pronounce.
+
+They brought up the body and examined it. It was that of the
+Mongol. The heart no longer beat.
+
+The priests shook Ibarra's hand, and warmly congratulated him.
+
+"When I think that I was there a moment before!" said one of the
+clerks.
+
+"It is well they gave the trowel to you instead of me," said a
+trembling old man.
+
+"Don Pascal!" cried some of the Spaniards.
+
+"Señores, the Señor Ibarra lives, while I, if I had not been crushed,
+should have died of fright."
+
+Ibarra had been to inform himself of Maria Clara.
+
+"Let the fête continue, Señor Ibarra," said the alcalde, as he came
+back. "Thank God, the dead is neither priest nor Spaniard! You ought
+to celebrate your escape! What if the stone had fallen on you!"
+
+"He had presentiments!" cried the notary. "He did not want to go down,
+that was plain to be seen!"
+
+"It's only an Indian!"
+
+"Let the fête go on! Give us music! Mourning won't raise the
+dead. Captain, let the inquest be held! Arrest the head builder!"
+
+"Shall he be put in the stocks?"
+
+"Yes, in the stocks! Music, music! The head builder in the stocks!"
+
+"Señor Alcalde," said Ibarra, "if mourning won't raise the dead,
+neither will the imprisonment of a man whose guilt is not proven. I
+go security for his person and ask his liberty, for these fête days
+at least."
+
+"Very well! But let him not repeat it!" said the alcalde.
+
+All kinds of rumors circulated among the people. The idea of a miracle
+was generally accepted. Many said they had seen descend into the
+trench at the fatal moment a figure in a dark costume, like that of
+the Franciscans. 'Twas no doubt San Diego himself.
+
+"A bad beginning," muttered old Tasio, shaking his head as he moved
+away.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXVII.
+
+FREE THOUGHT.
+
+
+Ibarra, who had gone home for a change of clothing, had just finished
+dressing when a servant announced that a peasant wished to see
+him. Supposing it to be one of his laborers, he had him taken to
+his work room, which was at the same time his library and chemical
+laboratory. To his great surprise he found himself face to face with
+the mysterious Elias.
+
+"You saved my life," said the man, speaking in Tagalo, and
+understanding the movement of Ibarra. "I have not half paid my
+debt. Do not thank me. It is I who should thank you. I have come to
+ask a favor."
+
+"Speak!" said his listener.
+
+Elias fixed his melancholy eyes on Ibarra's and went on:
+
+"When the justice of man tries to clear up this mystery, and your
+testimony is taken, I entreat you not to speak to any one of the
+warning I gave you."
+
+"Do not be alarmed," said Crisóstomo, losing interest; "I know you
+are pursued, but I'm not an informer."
+
+"I don't speak for myself, but for you," said Elias, with some
+haughtiness. "I have no fear of men."
+
+Ibarra grew surprised. This manner of speaking was new, and did not
+comport with the state or fortunes of the helmsman.
+
+"Explain yourself!" he demanded.
+
+"I am not speaking enigmas. To insure your safety, it is necessary
+that your enemies believe you blind and confiding."
+
+"To insure my safety?" said Ibarra, thoroughly aroused.
+
+"You undertake a great enterprise," Elias went on. "You have
+a past. Your grandfather and your father had enemies. It is not
+criminals who provoke the most hatred; it is honorable men."
+
+"You know my enemies, then?"
+
+Elias hesitated.
+
+"I knew one; the dead man."
+
+"I regret his death," said Ibarra; "from him I might have learned
+more."
+
+"Had he lived, he would have escaped the trembling hand of men's
+justice. God has judged him!"
+
+"Do you also believe in the miracle of which the people talk?"
+
+"If I believed in such a miracle, I should not believe in God, and I
+believe in Him; I have more than once felt His hand. At the moment when
+the scaffolding gave way I placed myself beside the criminal." Elias
+looked at Ibarra.
+
+"You--you mean that you----"
+
+"Yes, when his deadly work was about to be done, he was going to flee;
+I held him there; I had seen his crime! Let God be the only one who
+has the right over life!"
+
+"And yet, this time you----"
+
+"No!" cried Elias. "I exposed the criminal to the risk he had prepared
+for others; I ran the risk myself; and I did not strike him; I left
+him to be struck by the hand of God!"
+
+Ibarra regarded the man in silence.
+
+"You are not a peasant," he said at last. "Who are you? Have you
+studied?"
+
+"I've need of much belief in God, since I've lost faith in men,"
+said Elias, evading the question.
+
+"But God cannot speak to resolve each of the countless contests our
+passions raise; it is necessary, it is just, that man should sometimes
+judge his kind."
+
+"For good, yes; not for evil. To correct and ameliorate, not to
+destroy; because, if man's judgments are erroneous, he has not the
+power to remedy the evil he has done. But this discussion is over my
+head, and I am detaining you. Do not forget what I came to entreat;
+save yourself for the good of your country!" And he started to go.
+
+"And when shall I see you again?"
+
+"Whenever you wish; whenever I can be of use to you; I am always
+your debtor!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII.
+
+THE BANQUET.
+
+
+All the distinguished people of the province were united in the
+carpeted and decorated booth. The alcalde was at one end of the table,
+Ibarra at the other. The talk was animated, even gay. The meal was
+half finished when a despatch was handed to Captain Tiago. He asked
+permission to read it; his face paled; then lighted up. "Señores,"
+he cried, quite beside himself, "His Excellency the captain-general
+is to honor my house with his presence!" And he started off running,
+carrying his despatch and his napkin, forgetting his hat, and pursued
+by exclamations and questions. The announcement of the tulisanes
+could not have put him to greater confusion.
+
+"Wait a moment! When is he coming? Tell us?"
+
+Captain Tiago was already in the distance.
+
+"His Excellency asks the hospitality of Captain Tiago!" the guests
+exclaimed, apparently forgetting that they spoke before his daughter
+and his future son-in-law.
+
+"He could hardly make a better choice," said Ibarra, with dignity.
+
+"This was spoken of yesterday," said the alcalde, "but His Excellency
+had not fully decided."
+
+"Do you know how long he is to stay?" asked the alférez, uneasily.
+
+"I'm not at all sure! His Excellency is fond of surprising people."
+
+Three other despatches were brought. They were for the alcalde, the
+alférez, and the gobernadorcillo, and identical, announcing the coming
+of the governor. It was remarked that there was none for the curate.
+
+"His Excellency arrives at four this afternoon," said the alcalde,
+solemnly. "We can finish our repast." It might have been Leonidas
+saying: "To-night we sup with Pluto!"
+
+The conversation returned to its former course.
+
+"I notice the absence of our great preacher," said one of the clerks,
+an honest, inoffensive fellow, who had not yet said a word. Those
+who knew the story of Ibarra's father looked significantly at one
+another. "Fools rush in," said the glances of some; but others,
+more considerate, tried to cover the error.
+
+"He must be somewhat fatigued----"
+
+"Somewhat!" cried the alférez. "He must be spent, as they say here,
+malunqueado. What a sermon!"
+
+"Superb! Herculean!" was the opinion of the notary.
+
+"Magnificent! Profound!" said a newspaper correspondent.
+
+In the other booth the children were more noisy than little Filipinos
+are wont to be, for at table or before strangers they are usually
+rather too timid than too bold. If one of them did not eat with
+propriety, his neighbor corrected him. To one a certain article was
+a spoon; to others a fork or a knife; and as nobody settled their
+questions, they were in continual uproar.
+
+Their fathers and mothers, simple peasants, looked in ravishment to
+see their children eating on a white cloth, and doing it almost as well
+as the curate or the alcalde. It was better to them than a banquet.
+
+"Yes," said a young peasant woman to an old man grinding his buyo,
+"whatever my husband says, my Andoy shall be a priest. It is true,
+we are poor; but Father Mateo says Pope Sixtu was once a keeper
+of carabaos at Batanzas! Look at my Andoy; hasn't he a face like
+St. Vincent?" and the good mother's mouth watered at the sight of
+her son with his fork in both hands!
+
+"God help us!" said the old man, munching his sapa. "If Andoy gets
+to be pope, we will go to Rome! I can walk yet! Ho! Ho!"
+
+Another peasant came up.
+
+"It's decided, neighbor," he said, "my son is to be a doctor."
+
+"A doctor! Don't speak of it!" replied Petra. "There's nothing
+like being a curate! He has only to make two or three turns and say
+'déminos pabiscum' and he gets his money."
+
+"And isn't it work to confess?"
+
+"Work! Think of the trouble we take to find out the affairs of
+our neighbors! The curate has only to sit down, and they tell him
+everything!"
+
+"And preaching? Don't you call that work?"
+
+"Preaching? Where is your head? To scold half a day from the pulpit
+without any one's daring to reply and be paid for it into the
+bargain! Look, look at Father Dámaso! See how fat he gets with his
+shouting and pounding!"
+
+In truth, Father Dámaso was that moment passing the children's booth in
+the gait peculiar to men of his size. As he entered the other booth,
+he was half smiling, but so maliciously that at sight of it Ibarra,
+who was talking, lost the thread of his speech.
+
+The guests were astonished to see the father, but every one except
+Ibarra received him with signs of pleasure. They were at the dessert,
+and the champagne was sparkling in the cups.
+
+Father Dámaso's smile became nervous when he saw Maria Clara sitting
+next Crisóstomo, but, taking a chair beside the alcalde, he said in
+the midst of a significant silence:
+
+"You were talking of something, señores; continue!"
+
+"We had come to the toasts," said the alcalde. "Señor Ibarra was
+mentioning those who had aided him in his philanthropic enterprise,
+and he was speaking of the architect when your reverence----"
+
+"Ah, well! I know nothing about architecture," interrupted Father
+Dámaso, "but I scorn architects and the simpletons who make use
+of them."
+
+"Nevertheless," said the alcalde, as Ibarra was silent, "when certain
+buildings are in question, like a school, for example, an expert
+is needed----"
+
+"An expert!" cried the father, with sarcasm. "One needs be more
+stupid than the Indians, who build their own houses, not to know how
+to raise four walls and put a roof on them. Nothing else is needed
+for a school!"
+
+Every one looked at Ibarra, but, though he grew a little pale, he
+pursued his conversation with Maria Clara.
+
+"But does your reverence consider----"
+
+"See here!" continued the Franciscan, again cutting off the
+alcalde. "See how one of our lay brothers, the most stupid one we
+have, built a hospital. He paid the workmen eight cuartos a day,
+and got them from other pueblos, too. Not much like these young
+feather-brains who ruin workmen, paying them three or four réales!"
+
+"Does your reverence say he paid but eight cuartos? Impossible!" said
+the alcalde, hoping to change the course of the conversation.
+
+"Yes, señor, and so should those do who pride themselves upon being
+good Spaniards. Since the opening of the Suez Canal, corruption has
+reached even here! When the Cape had to be doubled, not so many ruined
+men came here, and fewer went abroad to ruin themselves!"
+
+"But Father Dámaso----"
+
+"You know the Indian; as soon as he has learned anything, he takes
+a title. All these beardless youths who go to Europe----"
+
+"But, your reverence, listen----" began the alcalde, alarmed by the
+harshness of these words.
+
+"Finish as they merit," continued the priest. "The hand of God is in
+it; he is blind who does not see that. Already even the fathers of
+these reptiles receive their chastisement; they die in prison! Ah----"
+
+He did not finish. Ibarra, livid, had been watching him. At these words
+he rose, gave one bound, and struck out with his strong hand. The monk,
+stunned by the blow, fell backward.
+
+Surprised and terrified, not one of the spectators moved.
+
+"Let no one come near!" said the young man in a terrible voice,
+drawing his slender blade, and holding the neck of the priest with
+his foot. "Let no one come, unless he wishes to die."
+
+Ibarra was beside himself, his whole body trembled, his threatening
+eyes were big with rage. Father Dámaso, regaining his senses, made
+an effort to rise, but Crisóstomo, grasping his neck, shook him till
+he had brought him to his knees.
+
+"Señor de Ibarra! Señor de Ibarra!" stammered one and another. But
+nobody, not even the alférez, risked a movement. They saw the knife
+glitter; they calculated Crisóstomo's strength, unleashed by anger;
+they were paralyzed.
+
+"All you here, you have said nothing. Now it rests with me. I avoided
+him; God brings him to me. Let God judge!"
+
+Ibarra breathed with effort, but his arm of iron kept harsh hold of
+the Franciscan, who struggled in vain to free himself.
+
+"My heart beats true, my hand is firm----" And he looked about him.
+
+"I ask you first, is there among you any one who has not loved his
+father, who has not loved his father's memory; any one born in shame
+and abasement? See, hear this silence! Priest of a God of peace, thy
+mouth full of sanctity and religion, thy heart of corruption! Thou
+canst not know what it is to be a father; thou shouldst have thought
+of thy own! See, in all this crowd that you scorn there is not one
+like you! You are judged!"
+
+The guests, believing he was going to strike, made their first
+movement.
+
+"Do not come near us!" he cried again in the same threatening
+voice. "What? You fear I shall stain my hand in impure blood? Did I not
+tell you that my heart beats true? Away from us, and listen, priests,
+believing yourselves different from other men, giving yourselves other
+rights! My father was an honorable man. Ask the country which venerates
+his memory. My father was a good citizen, who sacrificed himself for
+me and for his country's good. His house was open, his table set for
+the stranger or the exile who should turn to him! He was a Christian;
+always doing good, never pressing the weak, nor forcing tears from
+the wretched. As to this man, he opened his door to him, made him
+sit down at his table, and called him friend. And how did the man
+respond? He falsely accused him; he pursued him; he armed ignorance
+against him! Confiding in the sanctity of his office, he outraged his
+tomb, dishonored his memory; his hate troubled even the rest of the
+dead. And not yet satisfied, he now pursues the son. I fled from him,
+avoided his presence. You heard him this morning profane the chair,
+point me out to the people's fanaticism; but I said nothing. Now,
+he comes here to seek a quarrel; I suffer in silence, until he again
+insults a memory sacred to all sons.
+
+"You who are here, priests, magistrates, have you seen your old
+father give himself for you, part from you for your good, die of
+grief in a prison, looking for your embrace, looking for consolation
+from any one who would bring it, sick, alone; while you in a foreign
+land? Then have you heard his name dishonored, found his tomb empty
+when you went there to pray? No? You are silent; then you condemn him!"
+
+He raised his arm. But a girl, rapid as light, threw herself between
+him and the priest, and with her fragile hands held the avenging
+arm. It was Maria Clara. Ibarra looked at her with eyes like a
+madman's. Then, little by little, his tense fingers relaxed; he let
+fall the knife, and, covering his face with his hands, he fled.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXIX.
+
+OPINIONS.
+
+
+The noise of the affair spread rapidly. At first no one believed it,
+but when there was no longer room for doubt, each made his comments,
+according to the degree of his moral elevation.
+
+"Father Dámaso is dead," said some. "When he was carried away, his
+face was congested with blood, and he no longer breathed."
+
+"May he rest in peace, but he has only paid his debt!" said a young
+stranger.
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"One of us students who came from Manila for the fête left the church
+when the sermon in Tagalo began, saying it was Greek to him. Father
+Dámaso sent for him afterward, and they came to blows."
+
+"Are we returning to the times of Nero?" asked another student.
+
+"You mistake," replied the first. "Nero was an artist, and Father
+Dámaso is a jolly poor preacher!"
+
+The men of more years talked otherwise.
+
+"To say which was wrong and which right is not easy," said the
+gobernadorcillo, "and yet, if Señor Ibarra had been more moderate----"
+
+"You probably mean, if Father Dámaso had shown half the moderation of
+Señor Ibarra," interrupted Don Filipo. "The pity is that the rôles
+were interchanged: the youth conducted himself like an old man,
+and the old man like a youth."
+
+"And you say nobody but the daughter of Captain Tiago came between
+them? Not a monk, nor the alcalde?" asked Captain Martin. "I wouldn't
+like to be in the young man's shoes. None of those who were afraid
+of him will ever forgive him. Hah, that's the worst of it!"
+
+"You think so?" demanded Captain Basilio, with interest.
+
+"I hope," said Don Filipo, exchanging glances with Captain Basilio,
+"that the pueblo isn't going to desert him. His friends at least----"
+
+"But, señores," interrupted the gobernadorcillo, "what can we
+do? What can the pueblo? Whatever happens, the monks are always in
+the right----"
+
+"They are always in the right, because we always say they're in the
+right. Let us say we are in the right for once, and then we shall
+have something to talk about!"
+
+The gobernadorcillo shook his head.
+
+"Ah, the young blood!" he said. "You don't seem to know what country
+you live in; you don't know your compatriots. The monks are rich;
+they are united; we are poor and divided. Try to defend him and you
+will see how you are left to compromise yourself alone!"
+
+"Yes," cried Don Filipo bitterly, "and it will be so as long as fear
+and prudence are supposed to be synonymous. Each thinks of himself,
+nobody of any one else; that is why we are weak!"
+
+"Very well! Think of others and see how soon the others will let
+you hang!"
+
+"I've had enough of it!" cried the exasperated lieutenant. "I shall
+give my resignation to the alcalde to-day."
+
+The women had still other thoughts.
+
+"Aye!" said one of them. "Young people are always the same. If his
+good mother were living, what would she say? When I think that my son,
+who is a young hothead, too, might have done the same thing----"
+
+"I'm not with you," said another woman. "I should have nothing against
+my two sons if they did as Don Crisóstomo."
+
+"What are you saying, Capitana Maria?" cried the first woman, clasping
+her hands.
+
+"I'm a poor stupid," said a third, the Capitana Tinay, "but I know
+what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell my son not to study any
+more. They say men of learning all die on the gallows. Holy Mary,
+and my son wants to go to Europe!"
+
+"If I were rich as you, my children should travel," said the Capitana
+Maria. "Our sons ought to aspire to be more than their fathers. I
+have not long to live, and we shall meet again in the other world."
+
+"Your ideas, Capitana Maria, are little Christian," said Sister
+Rufa severely. "Make yourself a sister of the Sacred Rosary, or of
+St. Francis."
+
+"Sister Rufa, when I'm a worthy sister of men, I will think about
+being a sister of the saints," said the capitana, smiling.
+
+Under the booth where the children had their feast the father of the
+one who was to be a doctor was talking.
+
+"What troubles me most," said he, "is that the school will not be
+finished; my son will not be a doctor, but a carter."
+
+"Who said there wouldn't be a school?"
+
+"I say so. The White Fathers have called Don Crisóstomo
+plibastiero. There won't be any school."
+
+The peasants questioned each other's faces. The word was new to them.
+
+"And is that a bad name?" one at last ventured to ask.
+
+"It's the worst one Christian can give another."
+
+"Worse than tarantado and saragate?"
+
+"If it weren't, it wouldn't amount to much."
+
+"Come now. It can't be worse than indio, as the alférez says."
+
+He whose son was to be a carter looked gloomy. The other shook his
+head and reflected.
+
+"Then is it as bad as betalapora, that the old woman of the alférez
+says?"
+
+"You remember the word ispichoso (suspect), which had only to be said
+of a man to have the guards lead him off to prison? Well, plibastiero
+is worse yet; if any one calls you plibastiero, you can confess and
+pay your debts, for there's nothing else left to do but get yourself
+hanged. That's what the telegrapher and the sub-director say, and
+you know whether the telegrapher and the sub-director ought to know:
+one talks with iron wires, and the other knows Spanish, and handles
+nothing but the pen."
+
+The last hope fled.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXX.
+
+THE FIRST CLOUD.
+
+
+The home of Captain Tiago was naturally not less disturbed than the
+minds of the crowd. Maria Clara refused to be comforted by her aunt
+and her foster-sister. Her father had forbidden her to speak to
+Crisóstomo until the ban of excommunication should be raised.
+
+In the midst of his preparations for receiving the governor-general
+Captain Tiago was summoned to the convent.
+
+"Don't cry, my child," said Aunt Isabel, as she polished the mirrors
+with a chamois skin, "the ban will be raised. They will write to the
+holy father. We will make a big offering. Father Dámaso only fainted;
+he isn't dead!"
+
+"Don't cry," whispered Andeng; "I will arrange to meet Crisóstomo."
+
+At last Captain Tiago came back. They scanned his face for answers to
+many questions; but the face of Captain Tiago spoke discouragement. The
+poor man passed his hand across his brow and seemed unable to frame
+a word.
+
+"Well, Santiago?" demanded the anxious aunt.
+
+He wiped away a tear and replied by a sigh.
+
+"Speak, for heaven's sake! What is it?"
+
+"What I all the time feared," he said at last, conquering his
+tears. "Everything is lost! Father Dámaso orders me to break the
+promise of marriage. They all say the same thing, even Father Sibyla. I
+must shut the doors of my house to him, and--I owe him more than fifty
+thousand pesos! I told the fathers so, but they wouldn't take it into
+account. 'Which would you rather lose,' they said, 'fifty thousand
+pesos or your soul?' Ah, St. Anthony, if I had known, if I had known!"
+
+Maria Clara was sobbing.
+
+"Don't cry, my child," he said, turning to her; "you aren't like your
+mother; she never cried. Father Dámaso told me that a young friend
+of his is coming from Spain; he intends him for your fiancé----"
+
+Maria Clara stopped her ears.
+
+"But, Santiago, are you mad?" cried Aunt Isabel. "Speak to her of
+another fiancé now? Do you think your daughter changes them as she
+does her gloves?"
+
+"I have thought about it, Isabel; but what would you have me do? They
+threaten me, too, with excommunication."
+
+"And you do nothing but distress your daughter! Aren't you the friend
+of the archbishop? Why don't you write to him?"
+
+"The archbishop is a monk, too. He will do only what the monks say. But
+don't cry, Maria; the governor-general is coming. He will want to
+see you, and your eyes will be red. Alas, I thought I was going to
+have such a good afternoon! Without this misfortune I should be the
+happiest of men, with everybody envying me! Be calm, my child, I am
+more unhappy than you, and I don't cry. You may find a better fiancé;
+but as for me, I lose fifty thousand pesos! Ah, Virgin of Antipolo,
+if only I have luck tonight!"
+
+Salvos, the sound of wheels and of horses galloping, the band
+playing the Royal March, announced the arrival of His Excellency the
+governor-general of the Philippine Islands. Maria Clara ran to hide
+in her chamber. Poor girl! Her heart was at the mercy of rude hands
+that had no sense of its delicate fibres.
+
+While the house was filling with people, while heavy footsteps,
+words of command, and the hurling of sabres and spurs resounded all
+about, the poor child, heart-broken, was half-lying, half-kneeling
+before that picture of the Virgin where Delaroche represents her in a
+grievous solitude, as though he had surprised her returning from the
+sepulchre of her son. Maria Clara did not think of the grief of this
+mother; she thought only of her own. Her head bent on her breast,
+her hands pressed against the floor, she seemed a lily broken by
+the storm. A future for years caressed in dreams, illusions born in
+childhood, fostered in youth, grown a part of her being, they thought
+to shatter all these with a word, to drive it all out of her mind
+and heart. A devout Catholic, a loving daughter, the excommunication
+terrified her. Not so much her father's commands as her desire for
+his peace of mind demanded from her the sacrifice of her love. And
+in this moment she felt for the first time the full strength of her
+affection for Crisóstomo. The peaceful river glides over its sandy bed
+under the nodding flowers along its banks; the wind scarcely ridges
+its current; it seems to sleep; but farther down the banks close in,
+rough rocks choke the channel, a heap of knotty trunks forms a dyke;
+then the river roars, revolts, its waters whirl, and shake their
+plumes of spray, and, raging, beat the rocks and rush on madly. So
+this tranquil love was now transformed and the tempests were let loose.
+
+She would have prayed; but who can pray without hope? "O God!" her
+heart complained. "Why refuse a man the love of others? Thou givest
+him the sunshine and the air; thou dost not hide from him the sight
+of heaven. Why take away that love without which he cannot live?"
+
+The poor child, who had never known a mother of her own, had brought
+her grief to that pure heart which knew only filial and maternal
+love, to that divine image of womanhood of whose tenderness we dream,
+whom we call Mary.
+
+"Mother, mother!" she sobbed.
+
+Aunt Isabel came to find her; her friends were there, and the
+governor-general had asked for her.
+
+"Dear aunt, tell them I am ill!" she begged in terror. "They will
+want me to play and sing!"
+
+"Your father has promised. Would you make your father break his word?"
+
+Maria Clara rose, looked at her aunt, threw out her beautiful arms with
+a sob, then stood still till she was outwardly calm, and went to obey.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXI.
+
+HIS EXCELLENCY.
+
+
+"I want to talk with that young man," said the general to one of his
+aids; "he rouses all my interest."
+
+"He has been sent for, my general; but there is here another young
+man of Manila who insists upon seeing you. We told him you have not
+the time; that you did not come to give audiences. He replied that
+Your Excellency has always the time to do justice."
+
+The general, perplexed, turned to the alcalde.
+
+"If I am not mistaken," said the alcalde, with an inclination of the
+head, "it is a student who this morning had trouble with Father Dámaso
+about the sermon."
+
+"Another still? Has this monk started out to put the province to
+revolt, or does he think he commands here? Admit the young man!" And
+the governor got up and walked nervously back and forth.
+
+In the ante-chamber some Spanish officers and all the functionaries of
+the pueblo were talking in groups. All the monks, too, except Father
+Dámaso, had come to pay their respects to the governor.
+
+"His Excellency begs your reverences to attend a moment," said the
+aide-de-camp. "Enter, young man!"
+
+The young Manilian who confounded the Tagalo with the Greek entered,
+trembling.
+
+Every one was greatly astonished. His Excellency must be much annoyed
+to make the monks wait this way. Said Brother Sibyla:
+
+"I have nothing to say to him, and I'm wasting my time here."
+
+"I also," said an Augustin. "Shall we go?"
+
+"Would it not be better to find out what he thinks?" asked Brother
+Salvi. "We should avoid a scandal, and we could remind him--of his
+duty----"
+
+"Your reverences may enter," said the aid, conducting back the young
+man, who came out radiant.
+
+The fathers went in and saluted the governor.
+
+"Who among your reverences is the Brother Dámaso?" demanded His
+Excellency at once, without asking them to be seated or inquiring for
+their health, and without any of those complimentary phrases which
+form the repertory of dignitaries.
+
+"Señor, Father Dámaso is not with us," replied Father Sibyla, in a
+tone almost as dry.
+
+"Your Excellency's servant is ill," added the humble Brother Salvi. "We
+come, after saluting Your Excellency and inquiring for his health,
+to speak in the name of Your Excellency's respectful servant, who
+has had the misfortune----"
+
+"Oh!" interrupted the captain-general, with a nervous smile, while he
+twirled a chair on one leg. "If all the servants of my Excellency were
+like the Father Dámaso, I should prefer to serve my Excellency myself!"
+
+Their reverences did not seem to know what to reply.
+
+"Won't your reverences sit down?" added the governor in more
+conventional tone.
+
+Captain Tiago, in evening dress and walking on tiptoe, came in,
+leading by the hand Maria Clara, hesitating, timid. Overcoming her
+agitation, she made her salute, at once ceremonial and graceful.
+
+"This sigñorita is your daughter!" exclaimed the surprised
+governor. "Happy the fathers whose daughters are like you,
+sigñorita. They have told me about you, and I wish to thank you in the
+name of His Majesty the King, who loves the peace and tranquillity
+of his subjects, and in my own name, in that of a father who has
+daughters. If there is anything you would wish, sigñorita----"
+
+"Señor!" protested Maria, trembling.
+
+"The Señor Don Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra awaits Your Excellency's orders,"
+announced the ringing voice of the aide-de-camp.
+
+"Permit me, sigñorita, to see you again before I leave the pueblo. I
+have yet things to say to you. Señor acalde, Your Highness will
+accompany me on the walk I wish to take after the private conference
+I shall have with the Señor Ibarra."
+
+"Your Excellency," said Father Salvi humbly, "will permit us to inform
+him that the Señor Ibarra is excommunicated----"
+
+The general broke in.
+
+"I am happy," he said, "in being troubled about nothing but the state
+of Father Dámaso. I sincerely desire his complete recovery, for,
+at his age, a voyage to Spain in search of health would be somewhat
+disagreeable. But all depends upon him. Meanwhile, God preserve the
+health of your reverences!"
+
+All retired.
+
+"In his own case also everything depends upon him," murmured Brother
+Salvi as he went out.
+
+"We shall see who makes the earliest voyage to Spain!" added another
+Franciscan.
+
+"I shall go immediately," said Father Sibyla, in vexation.
+
+"We, too," grumbled the Augustins.
+
+Both parties bore it ill that for the fault of a Franciscan His
+Excellency should have received them so coldly.
+
+In the ante-chamber they encountered Ibarra, who a few hours before
+had been their host. There was no exchange of greetings, but there
+were eloquent looks. The alcalde, on the contrary, gave Ibarra his
+hand. On the threshold Crisóstomo met Maria coming out. Looks spoke
+again, but very differently this time.
+
+Though this encounter with the monks had seemed to him of bad augury,
+Ibarra presented himself in the utmost calm. He bowed profoundly. The
+captain-general came forward.
+
+"It gives me the greatest satisfaction, Señor Ibarra, to take you
+by the hand. I hope for your entire confidence." And he examined the
+young man with evident satisfaction.
+
+"Señor, so much kindness----"
+
+"Your surprise shows that you did not expect a friendly reception;
+that was to doubt my fairness."
+
+"A friendly reception, señor, for an insignificant subject of His
+Majesty, like myself, is not fairness, but favor."
+
+"Well, well!" said the general, sitting down and motioning Crisóstomo
+to a seat. "Let us have a moment of open hearts. I am much gratified
+by what you are doing, and have proposed you to the Government of
+His Majesty for a decoration in recompense for your project of the
+school. Had you invited me, I should have found it a pleasure to be
+here for the ceremony. Perhaps I should have been able to save you an
+annoyance. But as to what happened between you and Father Dámaso, have
+neither fear nor regrets. Not a hair of your head shall be harmed so
+long as I govern the islands; and in regard to the excommunication,
+I will talk with the archbishop. We must conform ourselves to our
+circumstances. We cannot laugh at it here, as we might in Europe. But
+be more prudent in the future. You have weighted yourself with the
+religious orders, who, from their office and their wealth, must
+be respected. I protect you, because I like a good son. By heaven,
+I don't know what I should have done in your place!"
+
+Then, quickly changing the subject, he said:
+
+"They tell me you have just returned from Europe. You were in Madrid?"
+
+"Yes, señor, several months."
+
+"How happens it that you return without bringing me a letter of
+recommendation?"
+
+"Señor," replied Ibarra, bowing, "because, having heard there of the
+character of Your Excellency, I thought a letter of recommendation
+would not only be unnecessary, but might even offend you; the Filipinos
+are all recommended to you."
+
+A smile curled the lips of the old soldier, who replied slowly,
+as though meditating and weighing his words:
+
+"I cannot help being flattered that you think so. And yet, young
+man, you should know what a weight rests on our shoulders. Here we
+old soldiers have to be all--king, ministers of state, of war, of
+justice, of everything; and yet, in every event, we have to consult
+the far-off mother country, which often must approve or reject our
+propositions with blind justice. If in Spain itself, with the advantage
+of everything near and familiar, all is imperfect and defective,
+the wonder is that all here is not revolution. It is not lack of good
+will in the governors, but we must use the eyes and arms of strangers,
+of whom, for the most part, we can know nothing, and who, instead of
+serving their country, may be serving only their own interests. The
+monks are a powerful aid, but they are not sufficient. You inspire
+great interest in me, and I would not have the imperfection of our
+governmental system tell in anyway against you. I cannot watch over
+any one; every one cannot come to me. Tell me, can I be useful to
+you in any way? Have you any request to make?"
+
+Ibarra reflected.
+
+"Señor," he replied, "my great desire is for the happiness of my
+country, and I would that happiness might be due to the efforts
+of our mother country and of my fellow-citizens united to her and
+united among themselves by the eternal bonds of common views and
+interests. What I would ask, the Government alone can give, and that
+after many continuous years of labor and of well-conceived reforms."
+
+The general gave him a long look, which Ibarra bore naturally,
+without timidity, without boldness.
+
+"You are the first man with whom I've spoken in this country," cried
+His Excellency, stretching out his hand.
+
+"Your Excellency has seen only those who while away their lives
+in cities; he has not visited the falsely maligned cabins of our
+villages. There Your Excellency would be able to see veritable men,
+if to be a man a noble heart and simple manners are enough."
+
+The captain-general rose and walked up and down the room.
+
+"Señor Ibarra," he said, stopping before Crisóstomo, "your education
+and manner of thinking are not for this country. Sell what you own
+and come with me when I go back to Europe; the climate will be better
+for you."
+
+"I shall remember all my life this kindness of Your Excellency,"
+replied Ibarra, moved; "but I must live in the country where my
+parents lived----"
+
+"Where they died, you would say more justly. Believe me, I, perhaps,
+know your country better than you do yourself. Ah, but I forget! You
+are to marry an adorable girl, and I'm keeping you from her all this
+time! Go--go to her! And that you may have more freedom, send the
+father to me," he added, smiling. "Don't forget, though, that I want
+your company for the promenade."
+
+Ibarra saluted, and went out.
+
+The general called his aide-de-camp.
+
+"I am pleased," said he, giving him a light tap on the shoulder;
+"I have seen to-day for the first time how one may be a good Spaniard
+without ceasing to be a good Filipino. What a pity that this Ibarra
+some day or other----but call the alcalde."
+
+The judge at once presented himself.
+
+"Señor alcalde," said the general, "to avoid a repetition of scenes
+like those of which you were a spectator to-day--scenes, I deplore,
+because they reflect upon the Government and upon all Spaniards--I
+recommend the Señor Ibarra to your utmost care and consideration."
+
+The alcalde perceived the reprimand and lowered his eyes.
+
+Captain Tiago presented himself, stiff and unnatural.
+
+"Don Santiago," the general said affectionately, "a moment ago I
+congratulated you upon having a daughter like the Señorita de los
+Santos. Now I make you my compliments upon your future son-in-law. The
+most virtuous of daughters is worthy of the first citizen of the
+Philippines. May I know the day of the wedding?"
+
+"Señor----" stammered Captain Tiago, wiping drops of sweat from
+his brow.
+
+"Then nothing is settled, I see. If witnesses are lacking, it will
+give me the greatest pleasure to be one of them."
+
+"Yes, señor," said Captain Tiago, with a smile to stir compassion.
+
+Ibarra had gone off almost running to find Maria Clara. He had so much
+to talk over with her. Through a door he heard the murmur of girls'
+voices. He knocked.
+
+"Who is there?" asked Maria.
+
+"I."
+
+The voices were hushed, but the door did not open.
+
+"It's I. May I come in?" demanded Crisóstomo, his heart beginning to
+beat violently.
+
+The silence continued. After some moments, light foot-steps approached
+the door, and the voice of Sinang said through the keyhole:
+
+"Crisóstomo, we're going to the theatre to-night. Write what you have
+to say to Maria Clara."
+
+"What does that mean?" said Ibarra to himself as he slowly left
+the door.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXII.
+
+THE PROCESSION.
+
+
+That evening, in the light of countless lanterns, to the sound of
+bells and of continuous detonations, the procession started for the
+fourth time.
+
+The captain-general, who had set out on foot, accompanied by his two
+aides-de-camp, Captain Tiago, the alcalde, the alférez, and Ibarra, and
+preceded by the guards, to open a passage, was to view the procession
+from the house of the gobernadorcillo. This functionary had built a
+platform for the recitation of a loa, a religious poem in honor of
+the patron saint.
+
+Ibarra would gladly have renounced the hearing of this composition,
+but His Excellency had ordered his attendance, and Crisóstomo must
+console himself with the thought of seeing his fiancée at the theatre.
+
+The procession began by the march of the silver candelabra, borne
+by three sacristans. Then came the school children and their
+master, then other children, all with paper lanterns, shaped and
+ornamented according to the taste of each child--for each was
+his own lantern-maker--hoisted on bamboo poles of various lengths
+and lighted by bits of candles. An effigy of St. John the Baptist
+followed, borne on a litter, and then came St. Francis, surrounded by
+crystal lamps. A band followed, and then the standard of the saint,
+borne by the brothers of the Third Order, praying aloud in a sort of
+lamentation. San Diego came next, his car drawn by six brothers of the
+Third Order, probably fulfilling some vow. St. Mary Magdalen followed
+him, a beautiful image with splendid hair, wearing a costume of silk
+spangled with gold, and holding a handkerchief of embroidered piña
+in her jewelled hands. Lights and incense surrounded her, and her
+glass tears reflected the varied colors of Bengal lights. St. John
+the Baptist moved far ahead, as if ashamed of his camel's hair beside
+all this gold and glitter.
+
+After the Magdalen came the women of the order, the elder first, so
+that the young girls should surround the car of the Virgin; behind
+them was the curate under his dais. The car of the Virgin was preceded
+by men dressed as phantoms, to the great terror of the children;
+the women wore habits like those of religious orders. In the midst of
+this obscure mass of robes and cowls and cordons one saw, like dainty
+jasmines, like fresh sampages amid old rags, twelve little girls in
+white, their hair free. Their eyes shone like their necklaces. One
+might have thought them little genii of the light taken prisoner by
+spectres. By two wide blue ribbons they were attached to the car of
+the Virgin, like the doves which draw the car of Spring.
+
+At the gobernadorcillo's the procession stopped, all the images and
+their attendants were drawn up around the platform, and all eyes were
+fixed on the half-open curtain. At length it parted, and a young man
+appeared, winged, booted like a cavalier, with sash and belt and plumed
+hat, and in Latin, Castilian, and Tagal recited a poem as extraordinary
+as his attire. The verses ended, St. John pursued his bitter way.
+
+At the moment when the figure of the Virgin passed the house of Captain
+Tiago, a celestial song greeted it. It was a voice, sweet and tender,
+almost weeping out the Gounod "Ave Maria." The music of the procession
+died away, the prayers ceased. Father Salvi himself stood still. The
+voice trembled; it drew tears; it was more than a salutation: it was
+a supplication and a complaint.
+
+Ibarra heard, and fear and darkness entered his heart. He felt the
+suffering in the voice and dared not ask himself whence it came.
+
+The captain-general was speaking to him.
+
+"I should like your company at table. We will talk to those children
+who have disappeared," he said.
+
+Crisóstomo, looking at the general without seeing him, asked himself
+under his breath: "Can I be the cause?" And he followed the governor
+mechanically.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII.
+
+DOÑA CONSOLACION.
+
+
+Why were the windows of the house of the alférez not only without
+lanterns, but shuttered? Where, when the procession passed, were the
+masculine head with its great veins and purple lips, the flannel shirt,
+and the big cigar of the "Muse of the Municipal Guard"?
+
+The house was sad, as Sinang said, because the people were gay. Had
+not a sentinel paced as usual before the door one might have thought
+the place uninhabited.
+
+A feeble light showed the disorder of the room, where the alféreza
+was sitting, and pierced the dusty and spider-webbed conches of the
+windows. The dame, according to her idle custom, was dozing in a
+fauteuil. To deaden the sound of the bombs, she had coifed her head
+in a handkerchief, from which escaped her tangled hair, short and
+thin. This morning she had not been to mass, not because she did not
+wish it, but because her husband had not permitted it, accompanying
+his prohibition with oaths and threats of blows. Doña Consolacion
+was now dreaming of revenge. She bestirred herself at last and ran
+over the house from one end to the other, her dark face disquieting
+to look at. A spark flashed from her eyes like that from the pupil
+of a serpent trapped and about to be crushed. It was cold, luminous,
+penetrating; it was viscous, cruel, repulsive. The smallest error on
+the part of a servant, the least noise, drew forth words injurious
+enough to smirch the soul; but nobody replied; to offer excuse would
+have been to commit another crime.
+
+In this way the day passed. Meeting no opposition--her husband had
+been invited to the gobernadorcillo's--she stored up spleen; the
+cells of her organism seemed slowly charging with electric force,
+which burst out, later on, in a tempest.
+
+Sisa had been in the barracks since her arrest the day before. The
+alférez, fearing she might become the sport of the crowd, had ordered
+her to be kept until the fête was over.
+
+This evening, whether she had heard the song of Maria Clara, whether
+the bands had recalled airs that she knew, for some reason she began to
+chant, in her sympathetic voice, the songs of her youth. The soldiers
+heard and became still; they knew these airs, had sung them themselves
+when they were young and free and innocent. Doña Consolacion heard,
+too, and inquired for the singer.
+
+"Have her come up at once," she said, after a moment's reflection,
+something like a smile flickering on her dry lips.
+
+The soldiers brought Sisa, who came without fear or question. When
+she entered she seemed to see no one, which wounded the vanity of
+the dreadful muse. Doña Consolacion coughed, motioned the soldiers
+to withdraw, and, taking down her husband's riding whip, said in a
+sinister voice:
+
+"Vamos, magcanter icau!"
+
+It was an order to sing, in a mixture of Castilian and Tagalo. Doña
+Consolacion affected ignorance of her native tongue, thinking thus to
+give herself the air of a veritable Orofea, as she said in her attempt
+at Europea. For if she martyred the Tagalo, she treated Castilian
+worse, though her husband, and chairs and shoes, had contributed to
+giving her lessons.
+
+Sisa had been happy enough not to understand. The forehead of the
+shrew unknotted a bit, and a look of satisfaction animated her face.
+
+"Tell this woman to sing!" she said to the orderly. "She doesn't
+understand; she doesn't know Spanish!"
+
+The orderly spoke to Sisa, and she began at once the "Night Song."
+
+At first Doña Consolacion listened with a mocking smile, but little
+by little it left her lips. She became attentive, then serious. Her
+dry and withered heart received the rain. "The sadness, the cold,
+the dew come down from the sky in the mantle of the night," seemed
+to fall upon her heart; she understood "the flower, full of vanity,
+and prodigal with its splendors in the sun, now, at the fall of day,
+withered and stained, repentant and disillusioned, trying to raise
+its poor petals toward heaven, begging a shade to hide it from the
+mockery of the sun, who had seen it in its pomp, and was laughing at
+the impotence of its pride; begging also a drop of dew to be let fall
+upon it."
+
+"No! Stop singing!" she cried in perfect Tagal. "Stop! These verses
+bore me!"
+
+Sisa stopped. The orderly thought: "Ah, she knows the Tagal!" And he
+regarded his mistress with admiration.
+
+She saw she had betrayed herself, became ashamed, and shame in her
+unfeminine nature meant rage. She showed the door to the imprudent
+orderly, and shut it behind him with a blow. Then she took several
+turns around the room, wringing the whip in her nervous hands. At last,
+planting herself before Sisa, she said to her in Spanish: "Dance!"
+
+Sisa did not move.
+
+"Dance! Dance!" she repeated in a threatening voice. The poor thing
+looked at her with vacant eyes. The vixen took hold of one of her
+arms and then the other, raising them and swaying them about. It was
+of no use. Sisa did not understand.
+
+In vain Doña Consolacion began to leap about, making signs for Sisa to
+imitate her. In the distance a band was playing a slow and majestic
+march; but the creature leaped furiously to another measure, beating
+within herself. Sisa looked on, motionless. A faint curiosity rose
+in her eyes, a feeble smile moved her pale lips; the alféreza's dance
+pleased her.
+
+The dancer stopped, as if ashamed, and raised the terrible whip,
+well known to thieves and soldiers.
+
+"Now," said she, "it's your turn! Dance!" And she began to give light
+taps to the bare feet of bewildered Sisa, whose face contracted with
+pain; the poor thing tried to ward off the blows with her hands.
+
+"Ah! You're beginning, are you?" cried Doña Consolacion, with savage
+joy, and from lento, she passed to allegro vivace.
+
+Sisa cried out and drew up first one foot and then the other.
+
+"Will you dance, accursed Indian!" and the whip whistled.
+
+Sisa let herself fall to the floor, trying to cover her feet,
+and looking at her tormenter with haggard eyes. Two lashes on the
+shoulders forced her to rise with screams.
+
+Her thin chemise was torn, the skin broken and the blood flowing.
+
+This excited Doña Consolacion still more.
+
+"Dance! Dance!" she howled, and seizing Sisa with one hand, while
+she beat her with the other, she commenced to leap about again.
+
+At length Sisa understood, and followed, moving her arms without
+rhythm or measure. A smile of satisfaction came to the lips of the
+horrible woman--the smile of a female Mephistopheles who has found
+an apt pupil: hate, scorn, mockery, and cruelty were in it; a burst
+of demoniacal laughter could not have said more.
+
+Absorbed by her delight in this spectacle, the alféreza did not know
+that her husband had arrived until the door was violently thrown open
+with a kick.
+
+The alférez was pale and morose. When he saw what was going on, he
+darted a terrible glance at his wife, then quietly put his hand on
+the shoulder of the strange dancer, and stopped her motion. Sisa,
+breathing hard, sat down on the floor. He called the orderly.
+
+"Take this woman away," he said; "see that she is properly cared for,
+and has a good dinner and a good bed. To-morrow she is to be taken
+to Señor Ibarra's."
+
+Then he carefully closed the door after them, pushed the bolt, and
+approached his wife.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV.
+
+RIGHT AND MIGHT.
+
+
+It was ten o'clock in the evening. The first rockets were slowly
+going up in the dark sky, where bright-colored balloons shone like new
+stars. On the ridge-poles of the houses men were seen armed with bamboo
+poles, with pails of water at hand. Their dark silhouettes against the
+clear gray of the night seemed phantoms come to share in the gayety of
+men. They were there to look out for balloons that might fall burning.
+
+Crowds of people were going toward the plaza to see the last play
+at the theatre. Bengal fires burned here and there, grouping the
+merry-makers fantastically.
+
+The grand estrade was magnificently illuminated. Thousands of lights
+were fixed round the pillars, hung from the roof and clustered near
+the ground.
+
+In front of the stage the orchestra was tuning its instruments. The
+dignitaries of the pueblo, the Spaniards, and wealthy strangers
+occupied seats in rows. The people filled the rest of the place;
+some had brought benches, rather to mount them than to sit on them,
+and others noisily protested against this.
+
+Comings and goings, cries, exclamations, bursts of laughter, jokes,
+a whistle, swelled the tumult. Here the leg of a bench gave way and
+precipitated those on it, to the delight of the spectators; there
+was a dispute for place; and a little beyond a fracas of glasses
+and bottles. It was Andeng, carrying a great tray of drinks, and
+unfortunately she had encountered her fiancé, who was disposed to
+profit by the occasion.
+
+The lieutenant, Don Filipo, was in charge of the spectacle, for
+the gobernadorcillo was playing monte, of which he was a passionate
+devotee. Don Filipo was talking with old Tasio, who was on the point
+of leaving.
+
+"Aren't you going to see the play?"
+
+"No, thank you! My own mind suffices for rambling and dreaming,"
+replied the philosopher, laughing. "But I have a question
+to propose. Have you ever observed the strange nature of our
+people? Pacific, they love warlike spectacles; democratic, they adore
+emperors, kings, and princes; irreligious, they ruin themselves in
+the pomps of the ritual; the nature of our women is gentle, but they
+have deliriums of delight when a princess brandishes a lance. Do you
+know the cause of all this? Well----"
+
+The arrival of Maria Clara and her friends cut short the
+conversation. Don Filipo accompanied them to their places. Then came
+the curate, with his usual retinue.
+
+The evening began with Chananay and Marianito in "Crispino and the
+Gossip." The scene fixed the attention of every one. The act was
+ending when Ibarra entered. His coming excited a murmur, and eyes
+turned from him to the curate. But Crisóstomo observed nothing. He
+gracefully saluted Maria and her friends and sat down. The only one
+who spoke to him was Sinang.
+
+"Have you been watching the fireworks?" she asked.
+
+"No, little friend, I had to accompany the governor-general."
+
+"That was too bad!"
+
+Brother Salvi had risen, gone to Don Filipo, and appeared to be having
+with him a serious discussion. He spoke with heat, the lieutenant
+calmly and quietly.
+
+"I am sorry not to be able to satisfy your reverence, but Señor Ibarra
+is one of the chief contributors to the fête, and has a perfect right
+to be here so long as he creates no disturbance."
+
+"But is it not creating a disturbance to scandalize all good
+Christians?"
+
+"Father," replied Don Filipo, "my slight authority does not permit me
+to interfere in religious matters. Let those who fear Señor Ibarra's
+contact avoid him: he forces himself upon no one; the señor alcalde
+and the captain-general have been in his company all the afternoon;
+it hardly becomes me to give them a lesson."
+
+"If you do not put him out of the place, we shall go."
+
+"I should be very sorry, but I have no authority to remove him."
+
+The curate repented of his threat, but there was now no remedy. He
+motioned to his companions, who rose reluctantly, and all went out,
+not without hostile glances toward Ibarra.
+
+The whisperings and murmurs began again. Several people came up to
+Crisóstomo and said:
+
+"We are with you; pay no attention to them!"
+
+"To whom?" he asked in astonishment.
+
+"Those who have gone out because you are here; they say you are
+excommunicated."
+
+Ibarra, surprised, not knowing what to say, looked about him. Maria's
+face was hidden.
+
+"Is it possible? Are we yet in the middle ages?" he began. But he
+checked himself and said to the girls:
+
+"I must excuse myself; I will be back to go home with you."
+
+"Oh, stay!" said Sinang. "Yeyeng is going to dance!"
+
+"I cannot, little friend."
+
+While Yeyeng was coming forward, two soldiers of the guard approached
+Don Filipo and demanded that the representation be stopped.
+
+"And why?" he asked in surprise.
+
+"Because the alférez and his wife have been fighting; they want
+to sleep."
+
+"Tell the alférez we have the permission of the alcalde of the
+province, and nobody in the pueblo can overrule that, not even the
+gobernadorcillo."
+
+"But we have our orders to stop the performance."
+
+Don Filipo shrugged his shoulders and turned his back. The Comedy
+Company of Tondo was about to give a play, and the audience was
+settling for its enjoyment.
+
+The Filipino is passionately fond of the theatre; he listens in
+silence, never hisses, and applauds with measure. Does not the
+spectacle please him? He chews his buyo and goes out quietly, not
+to trouble those who may like it. He expects in his plays a combat
+every fifteen seconds, and all the rest of the time repartee between
+comic personages, or terrifying metamorphoses. The comedy chosen for
+this fête was "Prince Villardo, or the Nails Drawn from the Cellar
+of Infamy," comedy with sorcery and fireworks.
+
+Prince Villardo presented himself, defying the Moors, who held his
+father prisoner. He threatened to cut off all their heads at a single
+stroke and send them into the moon.
+
+Fortunately for the Moors, as they were preparing for the combat, a
+tumult arose. The music stopped, and the musicians assailed the theatre
+with their instruments, which went flying in all directions. The
+valiant Villardo, unprepared for so many foes, threw down his sword and
+buckler and took to flight, and the Moors, seeing the hasty leave of
+so terrible a Christian, made bold to follow him. Cries, exclamations,
+and imprecations rose on all sides, people ran against one another,
+lights went out, children screamed, and benches were overturned in
+a hurly-burly. Some cried fire, some cried "The tulisanes!"
+
+What had happened? The two guards had driven off the musicians,
+and the lieutenant and some of the cuadrilleros were vainly trying
+to check their flight.
+
+"Take those two men to the tribunal!" cried Don Filipo. "Don't let
+them escape!"
+
+When the crowd had recovered from its fright and taken account of
+what had happened, indignation broke forth.
+
+"That's why they are for!" cried a woman, brandishing her arms; "to
+trouble the pueblo! They are the real tulisanes! Fire the barracks!"
+
+Stones rained on the group of cuadrilleros leading off the guards,
+and the cry to fire the barracks was repeated. Chananay in her costume
+of Leonora in "Il Trovatore" was talking with Ratia, in schoolmaster's
+dress; Yeyeng, wrapped in a shawl, was attended by Prince Villardo,
+while the Moors tried to console the mortified musicians; but already
+the crowd had determined upon action, and Don Filipo was doing his
+best to hold them in check.
+
+"Do nothing rash!" he cried. "To-morrow we will demand satisfaction;
+we shall have justice; I promise you justice!"
+
+"No," replied some; "that's what they did at Calamba: they promised
+justice, and the alcalde didn't do a thing! We will take justice for
+ourselves! To the barracks!"
+
+Don Filipo, looking about for some one to aid him, saw Ibarra.
+
+"For heaven's sake, Señor Ibarra, keep the people here while I go
+for the cuadrilleros!"
+
+"What can I do?" demanded the perplexed young fellow; but Don Filipo
+was already in the distance.
+
+Ibarra, in his turn, looked about for aid, and saw Elias. He ran
+to him, took him by the arm, and, speaking in Spanish, begged him
+to do what he could for order. The helmsman disappeared in the
+crowd. Animated discussions were heard, and rapid questions; then,
+little by little, the mass began to dissolve and to wear a less hostile
+attitude. It was time; the soldiers arrived with bayonets fixed.
+
+As Ibarra was about to enter his house that night a little man in
+mourning, having a great scar on his left cheek, placed himself in
+front of him and bowed humbly.
+
+"What can I do for you?" asked Crisóstomo.
+
+"Señor, my name is José; I am the brother of the man killed this
+morning."
+
+"Ah," said Ibarra, "I assure you I am not insensible to your loss. What
+do you wish of me?"
+
+"Señor, I wish to know how much you are going to pay my brother's
+family."
+
+"Pay!" repeated Crisóstomo, not without annoyance. "We will talk of
+this again; come to me to-morrow."
+
+"But tell me simply what you will give," insisted José.
+
+"I tell you we will talk of it another day, not now," said Ibarra,
+more impatiently.
+
+"Ah! You think because we are poor----"
+
+Ibarra interrupted him.
+
+"Don't try my patience too far," he said, moving on. José looked
+after him with a smile full of hatred.
+
+"It is easy to see he is a grandson of the man who exposed my father
+to the sun," he murmured between his teeth. "The same blood!" Then
+in a changed tone he added: "But if you pay well--friends!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXV.
+
+HUSBAND AND WIFE.
+
+
+The fête was over, and the inhabitants of the pueblo now perceived,
+as they did every year, that their purses were empty, that in the
+sweat of their faces they had earned scant pleasure, and paid dear
+for noise and headaches. But what of that? The next year they would
+begin again; the next century it would still be the same, for it had
+been so up to this time, and there is nothing which can make people
+renounce a custom.
+
+The house of Captain Tiago is sad. All the windows are closed; one
+scarcely dares make a sound; and nowhere but in the kitchen do they
+speak aloud. Maria Clara, the soul of the house, is sick in bed. The
+state of her health could be read on all faces, as our actions betray
+the griefs of our hearts.
+
+"What do you think, Isabel, ought I to make a gift to the cross at
+Tunasan, or that at Matahong?" asks the unhappy father. "The cross
+at Tunasan grows, but that at Matahong perspires. Which do you call
+the more miraculous?"
+
+Aunt Isabel reflected, nodded her head, and whispered:
+
+"To grow is more miraculous; we all perspire, but we don't all grow."
+
+"That's so, yes, Isabel; but, after all, for wood to perspire--well,
+then, the best thing is to make offerings to both."
+
+A carriage stopping before the house cut short the
+conversation. Captain Tiago, followed by Aunt Isabel, ran down the
+steps to receive the coming guests. They were the doctor, Don Tiburcio
+de Espadaña, his wife, the Doctora Doña Victorina de Los Reyes de de
+Espadaña, and a young Spaniard of attractive face and fine appearance.
+
+The doctora wore a silk dress bordered with flowers, and a hat with a
+large parrot perched among bows of red and blue ribbons. The dust of
+the journey mingling with the rice powder on her cheeks, exaggerated
+her wrinkles; as when we saw her at Manila, she had given her arm to
+her lame husband.
+
+"I have the pleasure of presenting to you our cousin, Don Alfonso
+Linares de Espadaña," said Doña Victorina, indicating the young man;
+"the adopted son of a relative of Father Dámaso's, and private
+secretary of all the ministers----"
+
+The young man bowed low; Captain Tiago barely escaped kissing his hand.
+
+While the countless trunks, valises, and bags are being cared for and
+Captain Tiago is conducting his guests to their apartments, let us
+make a nearer acquaintance with these people whom we have not seen
+since the opening chapters.
+
+Doña Victorina is a woman of forty-five summers, which, according to
+her arithmetic, are equivalent to thirty-two springs. In her youth she
+had been very pretty, but, enraptured in her own contemplation, she
+had looked with the utmost disdain on her numerous Filipino adorers,
+even scorning the vows of love once murmured in her ears or chanted
+under her balcony by Captain Tiago. Her aspirations bore her toward
+another race.
+
+Her first youth, then her second, then her third, having passed in
+tending nets to catch in the ocean of the world the object of her
+dreams, Doña Victorina must in the end content herself with what fate
+willed her. It was a poor man torn from his native Estramadure, who,
+after wandering six or seven years about the world, a modern Ulysses,
+found at length, in the island of Luzon, hospitality, money, and a
+faded Calypso.
+
+Don Tiburcio was a modest man, without force, who would not willingly
+have injured a fly. He started for the Philippines as under-clerk
+of customs, but after breaking his leg was forced to give up his
+position. For a while he lived at the expense of some compatriots,
+but he found their bread bitter. As he had neither profession nor
+money, his advisers counselled him to go into the provinces and offer
+himself as a physician. At first he refused, but, necessity becoming
+pressing, his friends convinced him of the vanity of his scruples. He
+started out, kept by his conscience from asking more than small fees,
+and was on the road to prosperity when a jealous doctor called him to
+the attention of the College of Physicians at Manila. Nothing would
+have come of it, but the affair reached the ears of the people; loss
+of confidence followed, and then loss of patrons. Misery again stared
+him in the face when he heard of the affliction of Doña Victorina. Don
+Tiburcio saw here a patch of blue sky, and asked to be presented.
+
+They met, and after a half-hour of conversation, reached an
+understanding. Without doubt she would have preferred a Spaniard less
+halting, less bald, without impediment of speech, and with more teeth;
+but such a Spaniard had never asked her hand, and at thirty-two what
+woman is not prudent?
+
+For his part, Don Tiburcio resigned himself when he saw the spectre
+of famine raise its head. Not that he had ever had great ambitions
+or great pretensions; but his heart, virgin till now, had pictured a
+different divinity. He was, however, somewhat of a philosopher. He
+said to himself: "All that was a dream! Is the reality powdered
+and wrinkled, homely and ridiculous? Well, I am bald and lame and
+toothless."
+
+They were married then, and Doña Victorina was enchanted with her
+husband. She had him fitted out with false teeth, attired by the
+best tailors of the city, and ordered carriages and horses for the
+professional visits she intended him again to make.
+
+While thus transforming her husband, she did not forget herself. She
+discarded the silk skirt and jacket of piña for European costume,
+loaded her head with false hair, and her person with such extravagances
+generally as to disturb the peace of a whole idle and tranquil
+neighborhood.
+
+The glamour around the husband first began to dim when he tried to
+approach the subject of the rice powder by remarking that nothing is so
+ugly as the false or so admirable as the natural. Doña Victorina looked
+unpleasantly at his teeth, and he was silent. Indeed, at the end of a
+very short time the doctora had arrived at the complete subjugation of
+her husband, who no longer offered any more resistance than a little
+lap-dog. If he did anything to annoy her, she forbade his going out,
+and in her moments of greatest rage she tore out his false teeth,
+and left him, sometimes for days, horribly disfigured.
+
+When they were well settled in Manila, Rodoreda received orders to
+engrave on a plate of black marble:
+
+
+"Dr. De Espadaña,
+Specialist in All Kinds of Diseases."
+
+
+
+"Do you wish me to be put in prison?" asked Don Tiburcio in terror.
+
+"I wish people to call you doctor and me doctora," said Doña Victorina,
+"but it must be understood that you treat only very rare cases."
+
+The señora signed her own name, Victorina de los Reyes de de
+Espadaña. Neither the engraver of her visiting cards nor her husband
+could make her renounce that second "de."
+
+"If I use only one 'de,' people will think you haven't any,
+imbecile!" she said to Don Tiburcio.
+
+Then the number of gewgaws grew, the layer of rice powder was
+thickened, the ribbons and laces were piled higher, and Doña Victorina
+regarded with more and more disdain her poor compatriots who had not
+had the fortune to marry husbands of so high estate as her own.
+
+All this sublimity, however, did not prevent her being each day
+older and more ridiculous. Every time Captain Tiago was with her, and
+remembered that she had once really inspired him with love, he sent a
+peso to the church for a mass of thanksgiving. But he had much respect
+for Don Tiburcio, because of his title of specialist, and listened
+attentively to the rare sentences the doctor's impediment of speech
+let him pronounce. For this reason and because the doctor did not
+lavish his visits on people at large he had chosen him to treat Maria.
+
+As to young Linares, Doña Victorina, wishing a steward from the
+peninsula, her husband remembered a cousin of his, a law student at
+Madrid, who was considered the most astute of the family. They sent
+for him, and the young man had just arrived.
+
+Father Salvi entered while Don Santiago and his guests were at the
+second breakfast. They talked of Maria Clara, who was sleeping;
+they talked of the journey, and Doña Victorina exclaimed loudly
+at the costumes of the provincials, their houses of nipa, and
+their bamboo bridges. She did not omit to inform the curate of
+her friendly relations with the "Segundo Cabo," with this alcalde,
+with that councillor, all people of distinction, who had for her the
+greatest consideration.
+
+"If you had come two days earlier, Doña Victorina," said Captain
+Tiago, profiting by a slight pause in the lady's brilliant loquacity,
+"you would have found His Excellency the governor general seated in
+this very place."
+
+"What! His Excellency was here? And at your house? Impossible!"
+
+"I repeat that he was seated exactly here. If you had come two days
+ago----"
+
+"Ah! What a pity Clarita did not fall ill sooner!" she cried. "You
+hear, cousin! His Excellency was here! You know, Don Santiago, that
+at Madrid our cousin was the friend of ministers and dukes, and that
+he dined with the Count del Campanario."
+
+"The Duke de la Torre, Victorina," suggested her husband.
+
+"It is the same thing!"
+
+"Shall I find Father Dámaso at his pueblo to-day?" Linares asked
+Brother Salvi.
+
+"Father Dámaso is here, and may be with us at any moment."
+
+"I'm very glad! I have a letter for him, and if a happy chance had
+not brought me here, I should have come expressly to see him."
+
+Meanwhile the "happy chance," that is to say, poor Maria Clara,
+had awakened.
+
+"Come, de Espadaña, come, see Clarita," said Doña Victorina. "It
+is for you he does this," she went on, turning to Captain Tiago;
+"my husband attends only people of quality."
+
+The sick-room was almost in obscurity, the windows closed, for fear
+of draughts; two candles, burning before an image of the Virgin of
+Antipolo, sent out feeble glimmers.
+
+Enveloped in multiple folds of white, the lovely figure of Maria lay
+on her bed of kamagon, behind curtains of jusi and piña. Her abundant
+hair about her face increased its transparent pallor, as did the
+radiance of her great, sad eyes. Beside her were her two friends,
+and Andeng holding a lily branch.
+
+De Espadaña felt her pulse, examined her tongue, asked a question or
+two, and nodded his head.
+
+"Sh--she is s--sick, but she can be c--cured."
+
+Doña Victorina looked proudly at their audience.
+
+"Lichen with m--m--milk, for the m--m--morning, syrup of
+m--m--marshmallow, and two tablets of cynoglossum."
+
+"Take courage, Clarita," said Doña Victorina, approaching the bed,
+"we have come to cure you. I'm going to present to you our cousin."
+
+Linares, absorbed, was gazing at those eloquent eyes, which seemed
+to be searching for some one; he did not hear Doña Victorina.
+
+"Señor Linares," said the curate, drawing him out of his abstraction,
+"here is Father Dámaso."
+
+It was indeed he; but it was not the Father Dámaso of heretofore,
+so vigorous and alert. He walked uncertainly, and he was pale and sad.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI.
+
+PROJECTS.
+
+
+With no word for any one else, Father Dámaso went straight to Maria's
+bed and took her hand.
+
+"Maria," he said with great tenderness, and tears gushed from his eyes,
+"Maria, my child, you must not die!"
+
+Maria Clara looked at him with some astonishment. No one of those who
+knew the Franciscan would have believed him capable of such display
+of feeling.
+
+He could not say another word, but moved aside the draperies and went
+out among the plants of Maria's balcony, crying like a child.
+
+"How he loves his god-daughter!" every one thought.
+
+Father Salvi, motionless and silent, watched him intently.
+
+When the father's grief seemed more controlled, Doña Victorino
+presented young Linares. Father Dámaso, saying nothing, looked him
+over from head to foot, took the letter, read it without appearing
+to comprehend, and asked:
+
+"Well, who are you?"
+
+"Alfonso Linares, the godson of your brother-in-law----" stammered the
+young fellow. Father Dámaso threw back his head and examined him anew,
+his face clearing.
+
+"What! It's the godson of Carlicos!" he cried, clasping him in his
+arms. "I had a letter from him some days ago. And it is you? You were
+not born when I left the country. I did not know you!" And Father
+Dámaso still held in his strong arms the young man, whose face began
+to color, perhaps from embarrassment, perhaps from suffocation. Father
+Dámaso appeared to have completely forgotten his grief.
+
+After the first moments of effusion and questions about Carlicos and
+Pepa, Father Dámaso asked:
+
+"Let's see, what is it Carlicos wishes me to do for you?"
+
+"I think he says something about it in the letter," stammered Linares
+again.
+
+"In the letter? Yes, that's so! He wishes me to find you employment
+and a wife. Ah, the employment is easy enough, but as for the
+wife!--hem!--a wife----"
+
+"Father, that is not so urgent," said Linares, with confusion.
+
+But Father Dámaso was walking back and forth murmuring: "A wife! A
+wife!" His face was no longer sad or joyful, but serious and
+preoccupied. From a distance Father Salvi watched the scene.
+
+"I did not think the thing could cause me so much pain," Father
+Dámaso murmured plaintively; "but of two evils choose the least!" Then
+approaching Linares:
+
+"Come with me, my boy," he said, "we will talk with Don
+Santiago." Linares paled and followed the priest.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII.
+
+SCRUTINY OF CONSCIENCE.
+
+
+Long days followed by weary nights were passed by the pillow of the
+sick girl. After a confession to Father Salvi, Maria Clara had had a
+relapse, and in her delirium she pronounced no name but that of her
+mother, whom she had never known. Her friends, her father, her aunt,
+watched her, and heaped with gifts and with silver for masses the
+altars of miraculous images. At last, slowly and regularly, the fever
+began to abate.
+
+The Doctor de Espadaña was stupefied at the virtues of the syrup of
+marshmallow and the decoction of lichen, prescriptions he had never
+varied. Doña Victorina was so satisfied with her husband that one
+day when he stepped on her train, in a rare state of clemency she
+did not apply to him the usual penal code by pulling out his teeth.
+
+One afternoon, Sinang and Victorina were with Maria; the curate,
+Captain Tiago, and the Espadañas were talking in the dining-room.
+
+"I'm distressed to hear it," the doctor was saying; "and Father Dámaso
+must be greatly disturbed."
+
+"Where did you say he is to be sent?" asked Linares.
+
+"Into the province of Tabayas," replied the curate carelessly.
+
+"Maria Clara will be very sorry too," said Captain Tiago; "she loves
+him like a father."
+
+Father Salvi looked at him from the corner of his eye.
+
+"Father," continued Captain Tiago, "I believe her sickness came from
+nothing but that trouble the day of the fête."
+
+"I am of the same opinion, so you have done well in not permitting
+Señor Ibarra to talk with her; that would only have aggravated her
+condition."
+
+"And it is thanks to us alone," interrupted Doña Victorina, "that
+Clarita is not already in heaven singing praises with the angels."
+
+"Amen!" Captain Tiago felt moved to say.
+
+"I think I know whereof I speak," said the curate, "when I say that
+the confession of Maria Clara brought about the favorable crisis
+that saved her life. I do not deny the power of science, but a pure
+conscience----"
+
+"Pardon," objected Doña Victorina, piqued; "then cure the wife of
+the alférez with a confession!"
+
+"A hurt, señora, is not a malady, to be influenced by the conscience,"
+replied Father Salvi severely; "but a good confession would preserve
+her in future from such blows as she got this morning."
+
+"She deserved them!" said Doña Victorina. "She is an insolent woman. In
+church she did nothing but look at me. I had a mind to ask her what
+there was curious about my face; but who would soil her lips speaking
+to these people of no standing?"
+
+The curate, as if he had not heard this tirade, continued: "To finish
+the cure of your daughter, she should receive the communion to-morrow,
+Don Santiago. I think she does not need to confess, and yet, if she
+will once more, this evening----"
+
+"I don't know," said Doña Victorina, profiting by the pause to
+continue her reflections, "I don't understand how men can marry such
+frights. One easily sees where that woman came from. She is dying of
+envy, that shows in her eyes. What does an alférez get?"
+
+"So prepare Maria for confession," the curate continued, turning to
+Aunt Isabel.
+
+The good aunt left the group and went to her niece's room. Maria Clara
+was still in bed, and pale, very pale; beside her were her two friends.
+
+Sinang was giving her her medicine.
+
+"He has not written to you again?" asked Maria, softly.
+
+"No."
+
+"He gave you no message for me?"
+
+"No; he only said he was going to make every effort to have the
+archbishop raise the ban of excommunication----"
+
+The arrival of Aunt Isabel interrupted the conversation.
+
+"The father says you are to prepare yourself for confession, my child,"
+said she. "Sinang, leave her to examine her conscience. Shall I bring
+you the 'Anchor,' the 'Bouquet,' or the 'Straight Road to Heaven,'
+Maria?"
+
+Maria Clara did not reply.
+
+"Well, we mustn't fatigue you," said the good aunt consolingly;
+"I will read you the examination myself, and you will only have to
+remember your sins."
+
+"Write him to think of me no more," murmured the sick girl in
+Sinang's ear.
+
+"What!"
+
+But Aunt Isabel came back with her book, and Sinang had to go.
+
+The good aunt drew her chair up to the light, settled her glasses on
+the tip of her nose, and opened a little book.
+
+"Give good attention, my child: I will begin with the commandments of
+God; I shall go slowly, so that you may meditate: if you don't hear
+well, you must tell me, and I will repeat; you know I'm never weary
+of working for your good."
+
+In a voice monotonous and nasal, she began to read. Maria Clara
+gazed vaguely into space. The first commandment finished, Aunt Isabel
+observed her listener over her glasses, and appeared satisfied with
+her sad and meditative air. She coughed piously, and after a long
+pause began the second. The good old woman read with unction. The
+terms of the second commandment finished, she again looked at her
+niece, who slowly turned away her head.
+
+"Bah!" said Aunt Isabel within herself, "as to taking His holy name
+in vain, the poor thing has nothing to question: pass on to the third."
+
+And the third commandment sifted and commentated, all the causes of
+sin against it droned out, she again looked toward the bed. This time
+she lifted her glasses and rubbed her eyes; she had seen her niece
+raise her handkerchief, as if to wipe away tears.
+
+"Hm!" said she; "hm! the poor child must have fallen asleep during
+the sermon." And putting back her glasses on the tip of her nose,
+she reflected:
+
+"We shall see if besides not keeping the holy feast days, she has
+not honored her father and her mother." And slowly, in a voice more
+nasal than ever, she read the fourth commandment.
+
+"What a pure soul!" thought the old lady; "she who is so obedient,
+so submissive! I've sinned much more deeply than that, and I've never
+been able to really cry!" And she began the fifth commandment with such
+enthusiasm that she did not hear the stifled sobs of her niece. It
+was only when she stopped after the commentaries on wilful homicide,
+that she perceived the groanings of the sinner. Then in a voice that
+passed description, and a manner she strove to make menacing, she
+finished the commentary, and seeing that Maria had not ceased to weep:
+
+"Cry, my child, cry!" she said, going to her bedside; "the more
+you cry the more quickly will God pardon you. Cry, my child, cry;
+and beat your breast, but not too hard, for you are ill yet, you know."
+
+But as if grief had need of mystery and solitude, Maria Clara,
+finding herself surprised, stopped sobbing little by little and dried
+her eyes. Aunt Isabel returned to her reading, but the plaint of her
+audience having ceased, she lost her enthusiasm; the second table of
+the law made her sleepy, and a yawn broke the nasal monotony.
+
+"No one would have believed it without seeing it," thought the
+good woman; "the child sins like a soldier against the first five
+commandments, and from the sixth to the tenth not so much as a
+peccadillo. That is contrary to the custom of the rest of us. One sees
+queer things in these days!" And she lighted a great candle for the
+Virgin of Antipolo, and two smaller ones for Our Lady of the Rosary
+and Our Lady of the Pillar. The Virgin of Delaroche was excluded from
+this illumination: she was to Aunt Isabel an unknown foreigner.
+
+We may not know what passed during the confession in the evening. It
+was long, and Aunt Isabel, who at a distance was watching over her
+niece, could see that instead of offering his ear to the sick girl,
+the curate had his face turned toward her. He went out, pale, with
+compressed lips. At the sight of his brow, darkened and moist with
+sweat, one would have said it was he who had confessed, and absolution
+had been denied him.
+
+"Maria! Joseph!" said the good aunt, crossing herself, "who can
+comprehend the girls of to-day!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII.
+
+THE TWO WOMEN.
+
+
+Doña Victorina was taking a walk through the pueblo, to see of
+what sort were the dwellings and the advancement of the indolent
+Indians. She had put on her most elegant adornments, to impress the
+provincials, and to show what distance separated them from her sacred
+person. Giving her arm to her limping husband, she paraded the streets
+of the pueblo, to the profound amazement of its inhabitants.
+
+"What ugly houses these Indians have!" she began, with a grimace. "One
+must needs be an Indian to live in them! And how ill-bred the people
+are! They pass us without uncovering. Knock off their hats, as the
+curates do, and the lieutenants of the Civil Guard."
+
+"And if they attack me?" stammered the doctor.
+
+"Are you not a man?"
+
+"Yes, but--but--I am lame."
+
+Doña Victorina grew cross. There were no sidewalks in these streets,
+and the dust was soiling the train of her dress. Some young girls who
+passed dropped their eyes, and did not admire at all as they should
+her luxurious attire. Sinang's coachman, who was driving Sinang and
+her cousin in an elegant tres-por-ciento, had the effrontery to cry out
+to her "Tabi!" in so audacious a voice that she moved out of the way.
+
+"What a brute of a coachman!" she protested; "I shall tell his master
+he had better train his servants. Come along, Tiburcio!"
+
+Her husband, fearing a tempest, turned on his heels, and they found
+themselves face to face with the alférez. Greetings were exchanged,
+but Doña Victorina's discontent grew. Not only had the officer said
+nothing complimentary of her costume, but she believed she detected
+mockery in his look.
+
+"You ought not to give your hand to a simple alférez," she said to
+her husband, when the officer had passed. "You don't know how to
+preserve your rank."
+
+"H--here he is the chief."
+
+"What does that mean to us? Do we happen to be Indians?"
+
+"You are right," said Don Tiburcio, not minded to dispute.
+
+They passed the barracks. Doña Consolacion was at the window, as
+usual dressed in flannel, and puffing her puro. As the house was low,
+the two women faced each other. The muse examined Doña Victorina from
+head to foot, protruded her lip, ejected tobacco juice, and turned
+away her head. This affectation of contempt brought the patience of
+the doctora to an end. Leaving her husband without support, she went,
+trembling with rage, powerless to utter a word, and placed herself
+in front of the alféreza's window. Doña Consolacion turned her head
+slowly back, regarded her antagonist with the utmost calm, and spat
+again with the same cool contempt.
+
+"What's the matter with you, doña?" she asked.
+
+"Could you tell me, señora, why you stare at me in this fashion? Are
+you jealous?" Doña Victorina was at last able to say.
+
+"I jealous? And of you?" replied the alféreza calmly. "Yes, I'm
+jealous of your frizzes."
+
+"Come away there!" broke in the doctor; "d--d--don't pay
+at--t--t--tention to these f--f--follies!"
+
+"Let me alone! I have to give a lesson to this brazenface!" replied
+the doctora, joggling her husband, who just missed sprawling in
+the dust.
+
+"Consider to whom you are speaking!" she said haughtily, turning
+back to Doña Consolacion. "Don't think I am a provincial or a woman
+of your class. With us, at Manila, the alférezas are not received;
+they wait at the door."
+
+"Ho! ho! most worshipful señora, the alférezas wait at the door! But
+you receive such paralytics as this gentleman! Ha! ha! ha!"
+
+Had she been less powdered Doña Victorina might have been seen to
+blush. She started to rush on her enemy, but the sentinel stood in
+the way. The street was filling with a curious crowd.
+
+"Know that I demean myself in speaking to you; persons of position
+like me ought not! Will you wash my clothes? I will pay you well. Do
+you suppose I do not know you are a washerwoman?"
+
+Doña Consolacion sat erect. To be called a washerwoman had wounded her.
+
+"And do you think we don't know who you are?" she retorted. "My
+husband has told me! Señora, I, at least----"
+
+But she could not be heard. Doña Victorina, wildly shaking her fists,
+screamed out:
+
+"Come down, you old hussy, come down and let me tear your beautiful
+eyes out!"
+
+Rapidly the medusa disappeared from the window; more rapidly yet
+she came running down the steps, brandishing her husband's terrible
+whip. Don Tiburcio, supplicating both, threw himself between, but he
+could not have prevented the combat, had not the alférez arrived.
+
+"Well, well, señoras!--Don Tiburcio!"
+
+"Give your wife a little more breeding, buy her more beautiful clothes,
+and if you haven't the money, steal it from the people of the pueblo;
+you have soldiers for that!" cried Doña Victorina.
+
+"Señora," said the alférez, furious, "it is fortunate that I remember
+you are a woman; if I didn't, I should trample you down, with all
+your curls and ribbons!"
+
+"Se--señor alférez!"
+
+"Move on, charlatan! It's not you who wear the breeches!"
+
+Armed with words and gestures, with cries, insults, and injuries,
+the two women hurled at each other all there was in them of soil
+and shame. All four talked at once, and in the multitude of words
+numerous verities were paraded in the light. If they did not hear
+all, the crowd of the curious did not fail to be diverted. They were
+looking forward to battle, but, unhappily for these amateurs of sport,
+the curate came by and established peace.
+
+"Señoras! señoras! what a scandal! Señor alférez!"
+
+"What are you doing here, hypocrite, carlist!"
+
+"Don Tiburcio, take away your wife! Señora, restrain your tongue!"
+
+Little by little the dictionary of sounding epithets became
+exhausted. The shameless shrews found nothing left to say to each
+other, and still threatening, the two couples drew slowly apart,
+the curate going from one to the other, lavishing himself on both.
+
+"We shall leave for Manila this very day and present ourselves to
+the captain-general!" said the infuriated Doña Victorina to her
+husband. "You are no man!"
+
+"But--but, wife, the guards, and I am lame."
+
+"You are to challenge him, with swords or pistols, or else--or
+else----" And she looked at his teeth.
+
+"Woman, I've never handled----"
+
+Doña Victorina let him go no farther; with a sublime movement she
+snatched out his teeth, threw them in the dust, and trampled them
+under her feet. The doctor almost crying, the doctora pelting him
+with sarcasms, they arrived at the house of Captain Tiago. Linares,
+who was talking with Maria Clara, was no little disquieted by the
+abrupt arrival of his cousins. Maria, amid the pillows of her fauteuil,
+was not less surprised at the new physiognomy of her doctor.
+
+"Cousin," said Doña Victorina, "you are to go and challenge the
+alférez this instant; if not----"
+
+"Why?" demanded the astonished Linares.
+
+"You are to go and challenge him this instant; if not, I shall say
+here, and to everybody, who you are."
+
+"Doña Victorina!"
+
+The three friends looked at each other.
+
+"The alférez has insulted us. The old sorceress came down with a whip
+to assault us, and this creature did nothing to prevent it! A man!"
+
+"Hear that!" said Sinang regretfully. "There was a fight, and we
+didn't see it!"
+
+"The alférez broke the doctor's teeth!" added Doña Victorina.
+
+Captain Tiago entered, but he wasn't given time to get his breath. In
+few words, with an intermingling of spicy language, Doña Victorina
+narrated what had passed, naturally trying to put herself in a
+good light.
+
+"Linares is going to challenge him, do you hear? Or don't let him
+marry your daughter. If he isn't courageous, he doesn't merit Clarita."
+
+"What! you are going to marry this gentleman?" Sinang asked Maria,
+her laughing eyes filling with tears. "I know you are discreet,
+but I didn't think you inconstant."
+
+Maria Clara, white as alabaster, looked with great, frightened eyes
+from her father to Doña Victorina, from Doña Victorina to Linares. The
+young man reddened; Captain Tiago dropped his head.
+
+"Help me to my room," Maria said to her friends, and steadied by
+their round arms, her head on the shoulder of Victorina, she went out.
+
+That night the husband and wife packed their trunks, and presented
+their account--no trifle--to Captain Tiago. The next morning they
+set out for Manila, leaving to the pacific Linares the rôle of avenger.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX.
+
+THE OUTLAWED.
+
+
+By the feeble moonlight that penetrates the thick foliage of forest
+trees, a man was making his way through the woods. His movement was
+slow but assured. From time to time, as if to get his bearings, he
+whistled an air, to which another whistler in the distance replied
+by repeating it.
+
+At last, after struggling long against the many obstacles a virgin
+forest opposes to the march of man, and most obstinately at night,
+he arrived at a little clearing, bathed in the light of the moon in
+its first quarter. Scarcely had he entered it when another man came
+carefully out from behind a great rock, a revolver in his hand.
+
+"Who are you?" he demanded with authority in Tagalo.
+
+"Is old Pablo with you?" asked the newcomer tranquilly; "if so,
+tell him Elias is searching for him."
+
+"You are Elias?" said the other, with a certain respect, yet keeping
+his revolver cocked. "Follow me!"
+
+They penetrated a cavern, the guide warning the helmsman when to
+lower his head, when to crawl on all fours. After a short passage
+they arrived at a sort of room, dimly lighted by pitch torches, where
+twelve or fifteen men, dirty, ragged, and sinister, were talking
+low among themselves. His elbows resting on a stone, an old man of
+sombre face sat apart, looking toward the smoky torches. It was a
+cavern of tulisanes. When Elias arrived, the men started to rise,
+but at a gesture from the old man they remained quiet, contenting
+themselves with examining the newcomer.
+
+"Is it thou, then?" said the old chief, his sad eyes lighting a little
+at sight of the young man.
+
+"And you are here!" exclaimed Elias, half to himself.
+
+The old man bent his head in silence, making at the same time a sign
+to the men, who rose and went out, not without taking the helmsman's
+measure with their eyes.
+
+"Yes," said the old man to Elias when they were alone, "six months ago
+I gave you hospitality in my home; now it is I who receive compassion
+from you. But sit down and tell me how you found me."
+
+"As soon as I heard of your misfortunes," replied Elias slowly,
+"I set out, and searched from mountain to mountain. I've gone over
+nearly two provinces." After a short pause in which he tried to read
+the old man's thoughts in his sombre face, he went on:
+
+"I have come to make you a proposition. After vainly trying to find
+some representative of the family which caused the ruin of my own,
+I have decided to go North, and live among the savage tribes. Will
+you leave this life you are beginning, and come with me? Let me be
+a son to you?"
+
+The old man shook his head.
+
+"At my age," he said, "when one has taken a desperate resolution it
+is final. When such a man as I, who passed his youth and ripe age
+laboring to assure his future and that of his children, who submitted
+always to the will of superiors, whose conscience is clear--when such
+a man, almost on the border of the tomb, renounces all his past, it is
+because after ripe reflection he concludes that there is no such thing
+as peace. Why go to a strange land to drag out my miserable days? I
+had two sons, a daughter, a home, a fortune. I enjoyed consideration
+and respect; now I am like a tree stripped of its branches, bare and
+desolate. And why? Because a man dishonored my daughter; because my
+sons wished to seek satisfaction from this man, placed above other by
+his office; because this man, fearing them, sought their destruction
+and accomplished it. And I have survived; but if I did not know how
+to defend my sons, I shall know how to avenge them. The day my band is
+strong enough, I shall go down into the plain and wipe out my vengeance
+and my life in fire! Either this day will come or there is no God!"
+
+The old man rose, and, his eyes glittering, his voice cavernous,
+he cried, fastening his hands in his long hair:
+
+"Malediction, malediction upon me, who held the avenging hands of my
+sons! I was their assassin!"
+
+"I understand you," said Elias; "I too have a vengeance to satisfy;
+and yet, from fear of striking the innocent, I choose to forego that."
+
+"You can; you are young; you have not lost your last hope. I too,
+I swear it, would not strike the innocent. You see this wound? I got
+it rather than harm a cuadrillero who was doing his duty."
+
+"And yet," said Elias, "if you carry out your purpose, you will bring
+dreadful woes to our unhappy country. If with your own hands you
+satisfy your vengeance, your enemies will take terrible reprisals--not
+from you, not from those who are armed, but from the people, who are
+always the ones accused. When I knew you in other days, you gave me
+wise counsels: will you permit me----"
+
+The old man crossed his arms and seemed to attend.
+
+"Señor," continued Elias, "I have had the fortune to do a great service
+to a young man, rich, kind of heart, upright, wishing the good of
+his country. It is said he has relations at Madrid; of that I know
+nothing, but I know he is the friend of the governor-general. What
+do you think of interesting him in the cause of the miserable and
+making him their voice?"
+
+The old man shook his head.
+
+"He is rich, you say. The rich think only of increasing their
+riches. Not one of them would compromise his peace to go to the aid
+of those who suffer. I know it, I who was rich myself."
+
+"But he is not like the others. And he is a young man about to
+marry, who wishes the tranquillity of his country for the sake of
+his children's children."
+
+"He is a man, then, who is going to be happy. Our cause is not that
+of fortunate men."
+
+"No, but it is that of men of courage!"
+
+"True," said the old man, seating himself again. "Let us suppose
+he consents to be our mouthpiece. Let us suppose he wins the
+captain-general, and finds at Madrid deputies who can plead for us;
+do you believe we shall have justice?"
+
+"Let us try it before we try measures of blood," said Elias. "It must
+surprise you that I, an outlaw too, and young and strong, propose
+pacific measures. It is because I see the number of miseries which
+we ourselves cause, as well as our tyrants. It is always the unarmed
+who pay the penalty."
+
+"And if nothing result from our steps?"
+
+"If we are not heard, if our grievances are made light of, I shall
+be the first to put myself under your orders."
+
+The old man embraced Elias, a strange light in his eyes.
+
+"I accept the proposition," he said; "I know you will keep your
+word. I will help you to avenge your parents; you shall help me to
+avenge my sons!"
+
+"Meanwhile, señor, you will do nothing violent."
+
+"And you will set forth the wrongs of the people; you know them. When
+shall I have the response?"
+
+"In four days send me a man to the lake shore of San Diego. I will
+tell him the decision, and name the person on whom I count."
+
+"Elias will be chief when Captain Pablo is fallen," said the old
+man. And he himself accompanied the helmsman out of the cave.
+
+
+
+
+
+XL.
+
+THE ENIGMA.
+
+
+The day after the departure of the doctor and the doctora, Ibarra
+returned to the pueblo. He hastened to the house of Captain Tiago to
+tell Maria he had been reconciled to the Church. Aunt Isabel, who was
+fond of the young fellow, and anxious for his marriage with her niece,
+was filled with joy. Captain Tiago was not at home.
+
+"Come in!" Aunt Isabel cried in her bad Castilian. "Maria,
+Crisóstomo has returned to favor with the Church; the archbishop has
+disexcommunicated him!"
+
+But Crisóstomo stood still, the smile froze on his lips, the words
+he was to say to Maria fled from his mind. Leaning against the
+balcony beside her was Linares; on the floor lay leafless roses and
+sampagas. The Spaniard was making garlands with the flowers and
+leaves from the vines; Maria Clara, buried in her fauteuil, pale
+and thoughtful, was playing with an ivory fan, less white than her
+slender hands.
+
+At sight of Ibarra Linares paled, and carmine tinted the cheeks of
+Maria Clara. She tried to rise, but was not strong enough; she lowered
+her eyes and let her fan fall.
+
+For some seconds there was an embarrassing silence; then Ibarra spoke.
+
+"I have this moment arrived, and came straight here. You are better
+than I thought you were."
+
+One would have said Maria had become mute: her eyes still lowered,
+she did not say a word in reply. Ibarra looked searchingly at Linares;
+the timid young man bore the scrutiny with haughtiness.
+
+"I see my arrival was not expected," he went on slowly. "Pardon me,
+Maria, that I did not have myself announced. Some day I can explain
+to you--for we shall still see each other--surely!"
+
+At these last words the girl raised toward her fiancé her beautiful
+eyes full of purity and sadness, so suppliant and so sweet that Ibarra
+stood still in confusion.
+
+"May I come to-morrow?" he asked after a moment.
+
+"You know that to me you are always welcome," she said in a weak voice.
+
+Ibarra left, calm in appearance, but a tempest was in his brain and
+freezing cold in his heart. What he had just seen and comprehended
+seemed to him incomprehensible. Was it doubt, inconstancy, betrayal?
+
+"Oh, woman!" he murmured.
+
+Without knowing where he went, he arrived at the ground where the
+school was going up. Señor Juan hailed him with delight, and showed
+him what had been done since he went away.
+
+With surprise Ibarra saw Elias among the workmen; the helmsman saluted
+him, as did the others, and at the same time made him understand that
+he had something to say to him.
+
+"Señor Juan," said Ibarra, "will you bring me the list of
+workmen?" Señor Juan disappeared, and Ibarra approached Elias, who
+was lifting a great stone and loading it on a cart.
+
+"If you can, señor," said the helmsman, "give me an hour of
+conversation, there is something grave of which I want to talk with
+you. Will you go on the lake early this evening in my boat?"
+
+Ibarra gave a sign of assent and Elias moved away. Señor Juan brought
+the list, but Ibarra searched it in vain for the name of the helmsman.
+
+
+
+
+
+XLI.
+
+THE VOICE OF THE PERSECUTED.
+
+
+The sun was just setting when Ibarra stepped into the little boat on
+the lake shore. He appeared disturbed.
+
+"Pardon me, señor," said Elias, "for having asked this favor; I wished
+to speak to you freely, with no possibility of listeners."
+
+"And what have you to say?"
+
+They had already shot away from the bank. The sun had disappeared
+behind the crest of the mountains, and as twilight is of short
+duration in this latitude, the night was descending rapidly, lighted
+by a brilliant moon.
+
+"Señor," replied Elias, "I am the spokesman of many unfortunates." And
+briefly he told of his conversation with the chief of the tulisanes,
+omitting the old man's doubts and threats.
+
+"And they wish?" asked Ibarra, when he had finished.
+
+"Radical reforms in the guard, the clergy, and the administration
+of justice."
+
+"Elias," said Ibarra, "I know little of you, but I believe you will
+understand me when I say that though I have friends at Madrid whom
+I might influence, and though I might interest the captain-general
+in these people, neither they nor he could bring about such a
+revolution. And more, I would not take a step in this direction,
+because I believe what you want reformed is at present a necessary
+evil."
+
+"You also, señor, believe in necessary evil?" said Elias with a tremor
+in his voice. "You think one must go through evil to arrive at good?"
+
+"No; but I look at evil as a violent remedy we sometimes use to cure
+ourselves of illness."
+
+"It is a bad medicine, señor, that does away with the symptoms without
+searching out the cause of the disease. The Municipal Guard exists
+only to suppress crime by force and terrorizing."
+
+"The institution may be imperfect, but the terror it inspires keeps
+down the number of criminals."
+
+"Rather say that this terror creates new criminals every day,"
+said Elias. "There are those who have become tulisanes for life. A
+first offence punished inhumanly, and the fear of further torture
+separates them forever from society and condemns them to kill or to
+be killed. The terrorism of the Municipal Guard shuts the doors of
+repentance, and as a tulisan, defending himself in the mountains,
+fights to much better advantage than the soldier he mocks, we cannot
+remedy the evil we have made. Terrorism may serve when a people is
+enslaved, and the mountains have no caverns; but when a desperate
+man feels the strength of his arm, and anger possesses him, terrorism
+cannot put out the fire for which it has itself heaped the fuel."
+
+"You would seem to speak reasonably, Elias, if one had not already his
+own convictions. But let me ask you, Who demand these reforms? You
+know I except you, whom I cannot class with these others; but are
+they not all criminals, or men ready to become so?"
+
+"Go from pueblo to pueblo, señor, from house to house, and listen
+to the stifled groanings, and you will find that if you think that,
+you are mistaken."
+
+"But the Government must have a body of unlimited power, to make
+itself respected and its authority felt."
+
+"It is true, señor, when the Government is at war with the country;
+but is it not unfortunate that in times of peace the people should
+be made to feel they are at strife with their rulers? If, however,
+we prefer force to authority, we should at least be careful to whom
+we give unlimited power. Such a force in the hands of men ignorant,
+passionate, without moral training or tried honor, is a weapon
+thrown to a madman in the middle of an unarmed crowd. I grant the
+Government must have an arm, but let it choose this arm well; and
+since it prefers the power it assumes to that the people might give
+it, let it at least show that it knows how to assume it!"
+
+Elias spoke with passion; his eyes were brilliant, his voice was
+resonant. His words were followed by silence; the boat, no longer
+driven forward by the oars, seemed motionless on the surface of the
+lake; the moon shone resplendent in the sapphire sky; above the far
+banks the stars glittered.
+
+"And what else do they ask?"
+
+"Reform of the religious orders,--they demand better protection----"
+
+"Against the religious orders?"
+
+"Against their oppression, señor."
+
+"Do the Philippines forget the debt they owe those men who led them
+out of error into the true faith? It is a pity we are not taught the
+history of our country!"
+
+"We must not forget this debt, no! But were not our nationality
+and independence a dear price with which to cancel it? We have
+also given the priests our best pueblos, our most fertile fields,
+and we still give them our savings, for the purchase of all sorts of
+religious objects. I realize that a pure faith and a veritable love
+of humanity moved the first missionaries who came to our shores. I
+acknowledge the debt we owe those noble men; I know that in those
+days Spain abounded in heroes, of politics as well as religion. But
+because the ancestors were true men, must we consent to the excesses
+of their unworthy descendants? Because a great good has been done us,
+may we not protest against being done a great wrong? The missionaries
+conquered the country, it is true; but do you think it is through
+the monks that Spain will keep the Philippines?"
+
+"Yes, and through them only. It is the opinion of all those who have
+written on the islands."
+
+"Señor," said Elias in dejection, "I thank you for your patience. I
+will take you back to the shore."
+
+"No," said Ibarra, "go on; we should know which is right in so
+important a question."
+
+"You will excuse me, señor," said Elias, "I have not eloquence enough
+to convince you. If I have some education, I am an Indian, and my
+words would always be suspected. Those who have expressed opinions
+contrary to mine are Spaniards, and as such disarm in advance all
+contradiction. Besides, when I see that you, who love your country,
+you, whose father sleeps below this calm water, you who have been
+attacked and wronged yourself, have these opinions, I commence to doubt
+my own convictions, I acknowledge that the people may be mistaken. I
+must tell these unfortunates who have placed their confidence in men
+to put it in God or in their own strength."
+
+"Elias, your words hurt me, and make me, too, have doubts. I have not
+grown up with the people, and cannot know their needs. I only know
+what books have taught me. If I take your words with caution, it is
+because I fear you may be prejudiced by your personal wrongs. If
+I could know something of your story, perhaps it would alter my
+judgment. I am mistrustful of theories, am guided rather by facts."
+
+Elias thought a moment, then he said:
+
+"If this is so, señor, I will briefly tell you my history."
+
+
+
+
+
+XLII.
+
+THE FAMILY OF ELIAS.
+
+
+"It is about sixty years since my grandfather was employed as
+accountant by a Spanish merchant. Although still young, he was married,
+and had a son. One night the warehouse took fire, and was burned
+with the surrounding property. The loss was great, incendiarism was
+suspected, and my grandfather was accused. He had no money to pay
+for his defence, and he was convicted and condemned to be publicly
+flogged in the streets of his pueblo. Attached to a horse, he was
+beaten as he passed each street corner by men, his brothers. The
+curates, you know, advocate nothing but blows for the discipline
+of the Indian. When the unhappy man, marked forever with infamy,
+was liberated, his poor young wife went about seeking work to keep
+alive her disabled husband and their little child. Failing in this,
+she was forced to see them suffer, or to live herself a life of shame."
+
+Ibarra rose to his feet.
+
+"Oh, don't be disturbed! There was no longer honor or dishonor for
+her or hers. When the husband's wounds were healed, they went to hide
+themselves in the mountains, where they lived for a time, shunned
+and feared. But my grandfather, less courageous than his wife, could
+not endure this existence and hung himself. When his body was found,
+by chance, my grandmother was accused for not reporting his death, and
+was in turn condemned to be flogged; but in consideration of her state
+her punishment was deferred. She gave birth to another son, unhappily
+sound and strong; two months later her sentence was carried out. Then
+she took her two children and fled into a neighboring province.
+
+"The elder of the sons remembered that he had once been happy. As soon
+as he was old enough he became a tulisan to avenge his wrongs, and
+the name of Bâlat spread terror in many provinces. The younger son,
+endowed by nature with a gentle disposition, stayed with his mother,
+both living on the fruits of the forest and dressing in the cast-off
+rags of those charitable enough to give. At length the famous Bâlat
+fell into the hands of justice, and paid a dreadful penalty for
+his crimes, to that society which had never done anything to teach
+him better than to commit them. One morning the young brother, who
+had been in the forest gathering fruits, came back to find the dead
+body of his mother in front of their cabin, the horror-stricken eyes
+staring upward; and following them with his own, the unhappy boy saw
+suspended from a limb the bloody head of his brother."
+
+"My God!" cried Ibarra.
+
+"It is perhaps the cry that escaped the lips of my father," said
+Elias coldly. "Like a condemned criminal, he fled across mountains
+and valleys. When he thought himself far enough away to have lost
+his identity, he found work with a rich man of the province of
+Tayabas. His industry and the sweetness of his disposition gained
+him favor. Here he stayed, economized, got a little capital, and as
+he was yet young, thought to be happy. He won the love of a girl of
+the pueblo, but delayed asking for her hand, fearing that his past
+might be uncovered. At length, when love's indiscretion bore fruit,
+to save her reputation he was obliged to risk everything. He asked to
+marry her, his papers were demanded, and the truth was learned. As
+the father was rich, he instituted a prosecution. The unhappy young
+man made no defence, and was sent to the garrison.
+
+"Our mother bore twins, my sister and me. She died while we were
+yet young, and we were told that our father was dead also. As our
+grandfather was rich, we had a happy childhood; we were always
+together, and loved each other as only twins can. I was sent very
+early to the college of the Jesuits, and my sister to La Concordia,
+that we might not be completely separated. In time we returned to
+take possession of our grandfather's property. We had many servants
+and rich fields. We were both happy, and my sister was affianced to
+a man she adored.
+
+"By my haughtiness, perhaps, and for pecuniary reasons, I had won the
+dislike of a distant relative. He threw in my face the obscurity of our
+origin and the dishonor of our race. Believing it calumny, I demanded
+satisfaction; the tomb where so many miseries sleep was opened, and
+the truth came forth to confound me. To crown all, there had been
+with us many years an old servant, who had suffered all my caprices
+without complaint. I do not know how our relative found it out, but he
+brought the old man before the court and made him declare the truth:
+he was our father. Our happiness was ended. I gave up my inheritance,
+my sister lost her fiancé, and with our father we left the pueblo,
+to live where he might. The thought of the unhappiness he had brought
+upon us shortened our father's days, and my sister and I were left
+alone. She could not forget her lover, and little by little I saw
+her droop. One day she disappeared, and I searched everywhere for
+her in vain. Six months afterward, I learned that at the time I lost
+her there had been found on the lake shore of Calamba the body of a
+young woman drowned or assassinated. A knife, they said, was buried
+in her breast. From what they told me of her dress and her beauty,
+I recognized my sister. Since then I have wandered from province to
+province, my reputation and my story following in time. Many things
+are attributed to me, often unjustly, but I continue my way and take
+little account of men. You have my story, and that of one of the
+judgments of our brothers!"
+
+Elias rowed on in a silence which was for some time unbroken.
+
+"I believe you are not wrong when you say that justice should interest
+herself in the education of criminals," said Crisóstomo at length;
+"but it is impossible, it is Utopia; where get the money necessary
+to create so many new offices?"
+
+"Why not use the priests, who vaunt their mission of peace and
+love? Can it be more meritorious to sprinkle a child's head with water
+than to wake, in the darkened conscience of a criminal, that spark
+lighted by God in every soul to guide it in the search for truth? Can
+it be more humane to accompany a condemned man to the gallows than
+to help him in the hard path that leads from vice to virtue? And the
+spies, the executioners, the guards, do not they too cost money?"
+
+"My friend, if I believed all this, what could I do?"
+
+"Alone, nothing; but if the people sustained you?"
+
+"I shall never be the one to lead the people when they try to obtain
+by force what the Government does not think it time to give them. If I
+should see the people armed, I should range myself on the side of the
+Government. I do not recognize my country in a mob. I desire her good;
+that is why I build a school. I seek this good through instruction;
+without light there is no route."
+
+"Without struggle, no liberty; without liberty, no light. You say you
+know your country little. I believe you. You do not see the conflict
+coming, the cloud on the horizon: the struggle begun in the sphere
+of the mind is going to descend to the arena of blood. Listen to the
+voice of God; woe to those who resist it! History shall not be theirs!"
+
+Elias was transfigured. He stood uncovered, his manly face illumined by
+the white light of the moon. He shook his mane of hair and continued:
+
+"Do you not see how everything is waking? The sleep has lasted
+centuries, but some day the lightning will strike, and the bolt,
+instead of bringing ruin, will bring life. Do you not see minds in
+travail with new tendencies, and know that these tendencies, diverse
+now, will some day be guided by God into one way? God has not failed
+other peoples; He will not fail us!"
+
+The words were followed by solemn silence. The boat, drawn on by the
+waves, was nearing the bank. Elias was the first to speak.
+
+"What shall I say to those who sent me?"
+
+"That they must wait. I pity their situation, but progress is slow,
+and there is always much of our own fault in our misfortunes."
+
+Elias said no more. He lowered his eyes and continued to row. When
+the boat touched the shore, he took leave of Ibarra.
+
+"I thank you, señor," he said, "for your kindness to me, and, in your
+own interest, I ask you to forget me from this day."
+
+When Ibarra was gone, Elias guided his boat toward a clump of reeds
+along the shore. His attention seemed absorbed in the thousands of
+diamonds that rose with the oar, and fell back and disappeared in
+the mystery of the gentle azure waves. When he touched land, a man
+came out from among the reeds.
+
+"What shall I say to the captain?" he asked.
+
+"Tell him Elias, if he lives, will keep his word," replied the
+helmsman sadly.
+
+"And when will you join us?"
+
+"When your captain thinks the hour has come."
+
+"That is well; adieu!"
+
+"If I live!" repeated Elias, under his breath.
+
+
+
+
+
+XLIII.
+
+IL BUON DI SI CONOSCE DA MATTINA.
+
+
+While Ibarra and Elias were on the lake, old Tasio, ill in his
+solitary little house, and Don Filipo, who had come to see him, were
+also talking of the country. For several days the old philosopher, or
+fool--as you find him--prostrated by a rapidly increasing feebleness,
+had not left his bed.
+
+"The country," he was saying to Don Filipo, "isn't what it was twenty
+years ago."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Don't you see it?" asked the old man, sitting up. "Ah! you did not
+know the past. Hear the students of to-day talking. New names are
+spoken under the arches that once heard only those of Saint Thomas,
+Suarez, Amat, and the other idols of my day. In vain the monks cry
+from the chair against the demoralization of the times; in vain the
+convents extend their ramifications to strangle the new ideas. The
+roots of a tree may influence the parasites growing on it, but they
+are powerless against the bird, which, from the branches, mounts
+triumphant toward the sky!"
+
+The old man spoke with animation, and his eye shone.
+
+"And yet the new germ is very feeble," said the lieutenant. "If they
+all set about it, the progress already so dearly paid for may yet
+be choked."
+
+"Choke it? Who? The weak dwarf, man, to choke progress, the powerful
+child of time and energy? When has he done that? He has tried dogma,
+the scaffold, and the stake, but E pur si muove is the device of
+progress. Wills are thwarted, individuals sacrificed. What does
+that mean to progress? She goes her way, and the blood of those who
+fall enriches the soil whence spring her new shoots. The Dominicans
+themselves do not escape this law, and they are beginning to imitate
+the Jesuits, their irreconcilable enemies."
+
+"Do you hold that the Jesuits move with progress?" asked the astonished
+Don Filipo. "Then why are they so attacked in Europe?"
+
+"I reply as did once an ecclesiastic of old," said the philosopher,
+laying his head back on the pillow and putting on his mocking air,
+"that there are three ways of moving with progress: ahead, beside,
+behind; the first guide, the second follow, the third are dragged. The
+Jesuits are of these last. At present, in the Philippines, we are
+about three centuries behind the van of the general movement. The
+Jesuits, who in Europe are the reaction, viewed from here represent
+progress. For instance, the Philippines owe to them the introduction
+of the natural sciences, the soul of the nineteenth century. As for
+ourselves, at this moment we are entering a period of strife: strife
+between the past which grapples to itself the tumbling feudal castle,
+and the future whose song may be heard afar off, bringing us from
+distant lands the tidings of good news."
+
+The old man stopped, but seeing the expression of Don Filipo he smiled
+and went on.
+
+"I can almost divine what you are thinking."
+
+"Can you?"
+
+"You are thinking that I may easily be wrong; to-day I have the fever,
+and I am never infallible. But it is permitted us to dream. Why not
+make the dreams agreeable in the last hours of life? You are right:
+I do dream! Our young men think of nothing but loves and pleasures;
+our men of riper years have no activity but in vice, serve only to
+corrupt youth with their example; youth spends its best years without
+ideal, and childhood wakes to life in rust and darkness. It is well
+to die. Claudite jam rivos, pueri."
+
+"Is it time for your medicine?" asked Don Filipo, seeing the cloud
+on the old man's face.
+
+"The parting have no need of medicine, but those who stay. In a few
+days I shall be gone. The Philippines are in the shadows."
+
+
+
+
+
+XLIV.
+
+LA GALLERA.
+
+
+To keep holy the afternoon of Sunday in Spain, one goes ordinarily to
+the plaza de toros; in the Philippines, to the gallera. Cock-fights,
+introduced in the country about a century ago, are to-day one of the
+vices of the people. The Chinese can more easily deprive themselves
+of opium than the Filipinos of this bloody sport.
+
+The poor, wishing to get money without work, risks here the little
+he has; the rich seeks a distraction at the price of whatever loose
+coin feasts and masses leave him. The education of their cocks costs
+both much pains, often more than that of their sons.
+
+Since the Government permits and almost recommends it, let us take
+our part in the sport, sure of meeting friends.
+
+The gallera of San Diego, like most others, is divided into three
+courts. In the entry is taken the sa pintû, that is, the price of
+admission. Of this price the Government has a share, and its revenues
+from this source are some hundred thousand pesos a year. It is said
+this license fee of vice serves to build schools, open roads, span
+rivers, and establish prizes for the encouragement of industry. Blessed
+be vice when it produces so happy results! In this entry are found
+girls selling buyo, cigars, and cakes. Here gather numerous children,
+brought by their fathers or uncles, whose duty it is to initiate them
+into the ways of life.
+
+In the second court are most of the cocks. Here the contracts are made,
+amid recriminations, oaths, and peals of laughter. One caresses his
+cock, while another counts the scales on the feet of his, and extends
+the wings. See this fellow, rage in his face and heart, carrying by
+the legs his cock, deplumed and dead. The animal which for months has
+been tended night and day, on which such brilliant hopes were built,
+will bring a peseta and make a stew. Sic transit gloria mundi! The
+ruined man goes home to his anxious wife and ragged children. He has
+lost at once his cock and the price of his industry. Here the least
+intelligent discuss the sport; those least given to thought extend the
+wings of cocks, feel their muscles, weigh, and ponder. Some are dressed
+in elegance, followed and surrounded by the partisans of their cocks;
+others, ragged and dirty, the stigma of vice on their blighted faces,
+follow anxiously the movements of the rich; the purse may get empty,
+the passion remains. Here not a face that is not animated; in this the
+Filipino is not indolent, nor apathetic, nor silent; all is movement,
+passion. One would say they were all devoured by a thirst always more
+and more excited by muddy water.
+
+From this court one passes to the pit, a circle with seats terraced to
+the roof, filled during the combats with a mass of men and children;
+scarcely ever does a woman risk herself so far. Here it is that
+destiny distributes smiles and tears, hunger and joyous feasts.
+
+Entering, we recognize at once the gobernadorcillo, Captain Basilio,
+and José, the man with the scar, so cast down by the death of his
+brother. And here comes Captain Tiago, dressed like the sporting man,
+in a canton flannel shirt, woollen trousers, and a jipijapa hat. He
+is followed by two servants with his cocks. A combat is soon arranged
+between one of these and a famous cock of Captain Basilio's. The
+news spreads, and a crowd gathers round, examining, considering,
+forecasting, betting.
+
+While men were searching their pockets for their last cuarto, or in
+lieu of it were engaging their word, promising to sell the carabao,
+the next crop, and so forth, two young fellows, brothers apparently,
+looked on with envious eyes. José watched them by stealth, smiling
+evilly. Then making the pesos sound in his pocket, he passed the
+brothers, looking the other way and crying:
+
+"I pay fifty; fifty against twenty for the lásak!"
+
+The brothers looked at each other discontentedly.
+
+"I told you not to risk all the money," said the elder. "If you had
+listened to me----"
+
+The younger approached José and timidly touched his arm.
+
+"What! It's you?" he cried, turning and feigning surprise. "Does your
+brother accept my proposition?"
+
+"He won't do it. But if you would lend us something, as you say you
+know us----"
+
+José shook his head, shifted his position, and replied:
+
+"Yes, I know you; you are Társilo and Bruno; and I know that your
+valiant father died from the club strokes of these soldiers. I know
+you don't think of vengeance----"
+
+"Don't concern yourself with our history," said the elder brother,
+joining them; "that brings misfortune. If we hadn't a sister, we
+should have been hanged long ago!"
+
+"Hanged! Only cowards are hanged. Besides, the mountain isn't so far."
+
+"A hundred against fifty for the bûlik!" cried some one passing.
+
+"Loan us four pesos--three--two," begged Bruno. José again shook
+his head.
+
+"Sh! the money isn't mine. Don Crisóstomo gave it to me for those who
+are willing to serve him. But I see you are not like your father;
+he was courageous. The man who is not must not expect to divert
+himself." And he moved away.
+
+"See!" said Bruno, "he's talking with Pedro; he's giving him a lot
+of money!" And in truth José was counting silver pieces into the palm
+of Sisa's husband.
+
+Társilo was moody and thoughtful; with his shirt sleeve he wiped the
+sweat from his forehead.
+
+"Brother," said Bruno, "I'm going, if you don't; our father must
+be avenged!"
+
+"Wait," said Társilo, gazing into his eyes--they were both pale--"I'm
+going with you. You are right: our father must be avenged!" But he
+did not move, and again wiped his brow.
+
+"What are you waiting for?" demanded Bruno impatiently.
+
+"Don't you think--our poor sister----"
+
+"Bah! Isn't Don Crisóstomo the chief, and haven't we seen him with
+the governor-general? What risk do we run?"
+
+"And if we die?"
+
+"Did not our poor father die under their clubs?"
+
+"You are right!"
+
+The brothers set out to find José, but hesitation again possessed
+Társilo.
+
+"No; come away! we're going to ruin ourselves!" he cried.
+
+"Go on if you want to. I shall accept!"
+
+"Bruno!"
+
+Unhappily a man came up and asked:
+
+"Are you betting? I'm for the lásak."
+
+"How much?" demanded Bruno.
+
+The man counted his pieces.
+
+"I have two hundred; fifty against forty!"
+
+"No!" said Bruno resolutely.
+
+"Good! Fifty against thirty!"
+
+"Double it if you will."
+
+"A hundred against sixty, then!"
+
+"Agreed! Wait while I go for the money," and turning to his brother
+he said:
+
+"Go away if you want to; I shall stay!"
+
+Társilo reflected. He loved Bruno, and he loved sport.
+
+"I am with you," he said. They found José.
+
+"Uncle," said Társilo, "how much will you give?" "I've told you
+already; if you will promise to find others to help surprise
+the quarters, I'll give you thirty pesos each, and ten to each
+companion. If all goes well, they will each receive a hundred, and
+you double. Don Crisóstomo is rich!"
+
+"Agreed!" cried Bruno; "give us the money!"
+
+"I knew you were like your father! Come this way, so that those who
+killed him cannot hear us," said José. And drawing them into a corner,
+he added as he counted out the money:
+
+"Don Crisóstomo has come and brought the arms. To-morrow night at
+eight o'clock meet me in the cemetery. I will give you the final
+word. Go find your companions." And he left them.
+
+The brothers appeared to have exchanged rôles. Társilo now seemed
+undisturbed; Bruno was pale. They went back to the crowd, which was
+leaving the circle for the raised seats. Little by little the place
+became silent. Only the soltadores were left in the ring holding two
+cocks, with exaggerated care, looking out for wounds. The silence
+became solemn; the spectators became mere caricatures of men; the
+fight was about to begin.
+
+
+
+
+
+XLV.
+
+A CALL.
+
+
+Two days later Brother Salvi presented himself at the house of
+Captain Tiago. The Franciscan was more gaunt and pale than usual;
+but as he went up the steps a strange light shone in his eyes, and
+his lips parted in a strange smile. Captain Tiago kissed his hand,
+and took his hat and cane, smiling beatifically.
+
+"I bring good news," said the curate as he entered the drawing-room;
+"good news for everybody. I have letters from Manila confirming
+the one Señor Ibarra brought me, so that I believe, Don Santiago,
+the obstacle is quite removed."
+
+Maria Clara, seated at the piano, made a movement to rise, but her
+strength failed her and she had to sit down again. Linares grew pale;
+Captain Tiago lowered his eyes.
+
+"The young man seems to me very sympathetic," said the curate. "At
+first I misjudged him. He is impulsive, but when he commits a fault,
+he knows so well how to atone for it that one is forced to forgive
+him. If it were not for Father Dámaso----" And the curate flashed a
+glance at Maria Clara. She was listening with all her being, but did
+not take her eyes off her music, in spite of the pinches that were
+expressing Sinang's joy. Had they been alone they would have danced.
+
+"But Father Dámaso has said," continued the curate, without losing
+sight of Maria Clara, "that as godfather he could not permit; but,
+indeed, I believe if Señor Ibarra will ask his pardon everything will
+arrange itself."
+
+Maria rose, made an excuse, and with Victorina left the room.
+
+"And if Father Dámaso does not pardon him?" asked Don Santiago in a
+low voice.
+
+"Then Maria Clara must decide. But I believe the matter can be
+arranged."
+
+The sound of an arrival was heard, and Ibarra entered. His coming made
+a strange impression. Captain Tiago did not know whether to smile or
+weep. Father Salvi rose and offered his hand so affectionately that
+Crisóstomo could scarcely repress a look of surprise.
+
+"Where have you been all day?" demanded wicked Sinang. "We asked
+each other: 'What can have taken that soul newly rescued from
+perdition?' and each of us had her opinion."
+
+"And am I to know what each opinion was?"
+
+"No, not yet! Tell me where you went, so I can see who made the
+best guess."
+
+"That's a secret too; but I can tell you by yourself if these gentlemen
+will permit."
+
+"Certainly, certainly?" said Father Salvi. Sinang drew Crisóstomo to
+the other end of the great room.
+
+"Tell me, little friend," said he, "is Maria angry with me?"
+
+"I don't know. She says you had best forget her, and then she
+cries. This morning when we were wondering where you were I said to
+tease her: 'Perhaps he has gone a-courting.' But she was quite grave,
+and said: 'It is God's will!'"
+
+"Tell Maria I must see her alone," said Ibarra, troubled.
+
+"It will be difficult, but I'll try to manage it."
+
+"And when shall I know?"
+
+"To-morrow. But you are going without telling me the secret!"
+
+"So I am. Well, I went to the pueblo of Los Baños to see about some
+cocoanut trees!"
+
+"What a secret!" cried Sinang aloud in a tone of a usurer despoiled.
+
+"Take care, I really don't want you to speak of it."
+
+"I've no desire to," said Sinang scornfully. "If it had been really
+of importance I should have told my friends; but cocoanuts, cocoanuts,
+who cares about cocoanuts!" and she ran off to find Maria.
+
+Conversation languished, and Ibarra soon took his leave. Captain Tiago
+was torn between the bitter and the sweet. Linares said nothing. Only
+the curate affected gayety and recounted tales.
+
+
+
+
+
+XLVI.
+
+A CONSPIRACY.
+
+
+The bell was announcing the time of prayer the evening after. At its
+sound every one stopped his work and uncovered. The laborer coming from
+the fields checked his song; the woman in the streets crossed herself;
+the man caressed his cock and said the Angelus, that chance might favor
+him. And yet the curate, to the great scandal of pious old ladies,
+was running through the street toward the house of the alférez. He
+dashed up the steps and knocked impatiently. The alférez opened.
+
+"Ah, father, I was just going to see you; your young buck----"
+
+"I've something very important----" began the breathless curate.
+
+"I can't allow the fences to be broken; if he comes back, I shall
+fire on him."
+
+"Who knows whether to-morrow you will be alive," said the curate,
+going on toward the reception-room.
+
+"What? You think that youngster is going to kill me?"
+
+"Señor alférez, the lives of all of us are in danger!"
+
+"What?"
+
+The curate pointed to the door, which the alférez closed in his
+customary fashion.
+
+"Now, go ahead," he said calmly.
+
+"Did you see how I ran? When I thus forget myself, there is some
+grave reason."
+
+"And this time it is----"
+
+The curate approached him and spoke low.
+
+"Do you--know--of nothing--new?"
+
+The alférez shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Are you speaking of Elias?"
+
+"No, no! I'm speaking of a great peril!"
+
+"Well, finish then!" cried the exasperated alférez.
+
+The curate lowered his voice mysteriously:
+
+"I have discovered a conspiracy!"
+
+The alférez gave a spring and looked at the curate in stupefaction.
+
+"A terrible conspiracy, well organized, that is to break out to-night!"
+
+The alférez rushed across the room, took down his sabre from the wall,
+and grasped his revolver.
+
+"Whom shall I arrest?" he cried.
+
+"Be calm! There is plenty of time, thanks to the haste with which I
+came. At eight o'clock----"
+
+"They shall be shot, all of them!"
+
+"Listen! It is a secret of the confessional, discovered to me by a
+woman. At eight o'clock they are to surprise the barracks, sack the
+convent, and assassinate all the Spaniards."
+
+The alférez stood dumbfounded.
+
+"Be ready for them; ambush your soldiers; send me four guards for
+the convent! You will earn your promotion to-night! I only ask you
+to make it known that it was I who warned you."
+
+"It shall be known, father; it shall be known, and, perhaps, it will
+bring down a mitre!" replied the alférez, his eyes on the sleeves of
+his uniform.
+
+While this conversation was in progress, Elias was running toward the
+house of Ibarra. He entered and was shown to the laboratory, where
+Crisóstomo was passing the time until the hour of his appointment
+with Maria Clara.
+
+"Ah! It is you, Elias?" he said, without noticing the tremor of the
+helmsman. "See here! I've just made a discovery: this piece of bamboo
+is non-combustible."
+
+"Señor, there is no time to talk of that; take your papers and flee!"
+
+Ibarra looked up amazed, and, seeing the gravity of the helmsman's
+face, let fall the piece of bamboo.
+
+"Leave nothing behind that could compromise you, and may an hour from
+this time find you in a safer place than this!"
+
+"What does all this mean?"
+
+"That there is a conspiracy on foot which will be attributed to you. I
+have this moment been talking with a man hired to take part in it."
+
+"Did he tell you who paid him?"
+
+"He said it was you."
+
+Ibarra stared in stupid amazement.
+
+"Señor, you haven't a moment to lose. The plot is to be carried
+out to-night."
+
+Crisóstomo still gazed at Elias, as if he did not understand.
+
+"I learned of it too late; I don't know the leaders; I can do
+nothing. Save yourself, señor!"
+
+"Where can I go? I am due now at Captain Tiago's," said Ibarra,
+beginning to come out of his trance.
+
+"To another pueblo, to Manila, anywhere! Destroy your papers! Fly,
+and await events!"
+
+"And Maria Clara? No! Better die!"
+
+Elias wrung his hands.
+
+"Prepare for the accusation, at all events. Destroy your papers!"
+
+"Aid me then," said Crisóstomo, in almost helpless bewilderment. "They
+are in these cabinets. My father's letters might compromise me. You
+will know them by the addresses." And he tore open one drawer after
+another. Elias worked to better purpose, choosing here, rejecting
+there. Suddenly he stopped, his pupils dilated; he turned a paper
+over and over in his hand, then in a trembling voice he asked:
+
+"Your family knew Don Pedro Eibarramendia?"
+
+"He was my great-grandfather."
+
+"Your great-grandfather?" repeated Elias, livid.
+
+"Yes," said Ibarra mechanically, and totally unobservant of Elias. "The
+name was too long; we cut it."
+
+"Was he a Basque?" asked Elias slowly.
+
+"Yes; but what ails you?" said Crisóstomo, looking round and recoiling
+before the hard face and clenched fists of Elias.
+
+"Do you know who Don Pedro Eibarramendia was? Don Pedro Eibarramendia
+was the wretch who caused all our misfortune! I have long been
+searching for his descendants; God has delivered you into my
+hands! Look at me! Do you think I have suffered? And you live, and
+you love, and have a fortune and a home; you live, you live!" and,
+beside himself, he ran toward a collection of arms on the wall. But
+no sooner had he reached down two poniards than he dropped them,
+looking blindly at Ibarra, who stood rigid.
+
+"What was I going to do?" he said under his breath, and he fled like
+a madman.
+
+
+
+
+
+XLVII.
+
+THE CATASTROPHE.
+
+
+Captain Tiago, Aunt Isabel, and Linares were dining. Maria Clara
+had said she was not hungry, and was at the piano with Sinang. The
+two girls had arranged this moment for meeting Ibarra away from too
+watchful eyes. The clock struck eight.
+
+"He's coming! Listen!" cried the laughing Sinang.
+
+He entered, white and sad. Maria Clara, in alarm, started toward him,
+but before any one could speak a fusilade sounded in the street; then
+random pistol shots, and cries and clamor. Crisóstomo seemed glued
+to the floor. The diners came running in crying: "The tulisanes! The
+tulisanes!" Aunt Isabel fell on her knees half dead from fright,
+Captain Tiago was weeping. Some one rushed about fastening the
+windows. The tumult continued outside; then little by little there
+fell a dreadful silence. Presently the alférez was heard crying out
+as he ran through the street:
+
+"Father Salvi! Father Salvi!"
+
+"Mercy!" exclaimed Aunt Isabel. "The alférez is asking for confession!"
+
+"The alférez is wounded!" murmured Linares, with an expression of
+the utmost relief.
+
+"The tulisanes have killed the alférez! Maria, Sinang, into your
+chamber! Barricade the door!"
+
+In spite of the protests of Aunt Isabel, Ibarra went out into the
+street. Everything seemed turning round and round him; his ears rang;
+he could scarcely move his limbs. Spots of blood, flashes of light and
+darkness alternated before his eyes. The streets were deserted, but the
+barracks were in confusion, and voices came from the tribunal, that of
+the alférez dominating all the others. Ibarra passed unchallenged, and
+reached his home, where his servants were anxiously watching for him.
+
+"Saddle me the best horse and go to bed," he said to them.
+
+He entered his cabinet and began to pack a valise. He had put in his
+money and jewels and Maria's picture and was gathering up his papers
+when there came three resounding knocks at the house door.
+
+"Open in the name of the King! Open or we force the door!" said an
+imperious voice. Ibarra armed himself and looked toward the window;
+then changed his mind, threw down his revolver, and went to the
+door. Three guards immediately seized him.
+
+"I make you prisoner in the name of the King!" said the sergeant.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You will learn at the tribunal; I am forbidden to talk with you."
+
+"I am at your disposition. It will not be for, I suppose, long."
+
+"If you promise not to try to escape us, we may leave your hands free;
+the alférez grants you that favor."
+
+Crisóstomo took his hat and followed the guards, leaving his servants
+in consternation.
+
+Elias, after leaving the house of Ibarra, ran like a madman, not
+knowing whither. He crossed the fields and reached the wood. He was
+fleeing from men and their habitations; he was fleeing from light;
+the moon made him suffer. He buried himself in the mysterious silence
+of the wood. The birds stirred, wakened from their sleep; owls flew
+from branch to branch, screeching or looking at him with great, round
+eyes. Elias did not see or hear them; he thought he was followed by
+the irate shades of his ancestors. From every branch hung the bleeding
+head of Bâlat. At the foot of every tree he stumbled against the cold
+body of his grandmother; among the shadows swung the skeleton of his
+infamous grandfather; and the skeleton, the body, and the bleeding
+head cried out: "Coward! Coward!"
+
+He ran on. He left the mountain and went down to the lake, moving
+feverishly along the shore; his wandering eyes became fixed upon a
+point on the tranquil surface, and there, surrounded by a silver
+nimbus and rocked by the tide, stood a shade which he seemed to
+recognize. Yes, that was her hair, so long and beautiful; yes, that
+was her breast, gaping from the poniard stroke. And the wretched man,
+kneeling in the sand, stretched out his arms to the cherished vision:
+
+"Thou! Thou, too!" he cried.
+
+His eyes fixed on the apparition, he rose, entered the water and
+descended the gentle slope of the beach. Already he was far from the
+bank; the waves lapped his waist; but he went on fascinated. The water
+reached his breast. Did he know it? Suddenly a volley tore the air;
+the night was so calm that the rifle shots sounded clear and sharp. He
+stopped, listened, came to himself; the shade vanished; the dream
+was gone. He perceived that he was in the lake, level with his eyes
+across the tranquil water he saw the lights in the poor cabins of
+fishermen. Everything came back to him. He made for the shore and
+went rapidly toward the pueblo.
+
+San Diego was deserted; the houses were closed; even the dogs had
+hidden themselves. The glittering light that bathed everything detached
+the shadows boldly, making the solitude still more dreary.
+
+Fearing to encounter the guards, Elias scaled fences and hedges,
+and so, making his way through the gardens, reached the home of
+Ibarra. The servants were around the door lamenting the arrest of their
+master. Elias learned what had happened, and made feint of going away,
+but returned to the back of the house, jumped the wall, climbed into a
+window and made his way to the laboratory. He saw the papers, the arms
+taken down, the bags of money and jewels, Maria's picture, and had a
+vision of Ibarra surprised by the soldiers. He meditated a moment and
+decided to bury the things of value in the garden. He gathered them
+up, went to the window, and saw gleaming in the moonlight the casques
+and bayonets of the guard. His plans were quickly laid. He hid about
+his person the money and jewels, and, after an instant's hesitation,
+the picture of Maria. Then, heaping all the papers in the middle of the
+room, he saturated them with oil from a lamp, threw the lighted candle
+in the midst, and sprang out of the window. It was none too soon:
+the guards were forcing entrance against the protests of the servants.
+
+But dense smoke made its way through the house and tongues of flame
+began to break out. Soldiers and servants together cried fire and
+rushed toward the cabinet, but the flames had reached the chemicals,
+and their explosion drove every one back. The water the servants
+could bring was useless, and the house stood so apart that their cries
+brought no aid. The flames leaped upward amid great spirals of smoke;
+the house, long respected by the elements, was now their prisoner.
+
+
+
+
+
+XLVIII.
+
+GOSSIP.
+
+
+It was not yet dawn. The street in which were the barracks and tribunal
+was still deserted; none of its houses gave a sign of life. Suddenly
+the shutter of a window opened with a bang and a child's head
+appeared, looking in all directions, the little neck stretched to
+its utmost--plas! It was the sound of a smart slap in contact with
+the fresh human skin. The child screwed up his face, shut his eyes,
+and disappeared from the window, which was violently closed again.
+
+But the example had been given: the two bangs of the shutter had
+been heard. Another window opened, this time with precaution, and the
+wrinkled and toothless head of an old woman looked stealthily out. It
+was Sister Putá, the old dame who had caused such a commotion during
+Father Dámaso's sermon. Children and old women are the representatives
+of curiosity in the world; the children want to know, the old women
+to live over again. The old sister stayed longer than the child,
+and gazed into the distance with contracted brows. Timidly a skylight
+opened in the house opposite, giving passage to the head and shoulders
+of sister Rufa. The two old women looked across at each other, smiled,
+exchanged gestures, and signed themselves.
+
+"Since the sack of the pueblo by Bâlat I've not known such a
+night!" said Sister Putá.
+
+"What a firing! They say it was the band of old Pablo."
+
+"Tulisanes? Impossible! I heard it was the cuadrilleros against the
+guards; that's why Don Filipo was arrested."
+
+"They say at least fourteen are dead."
+
+Other windows opened and people were seen exchanging greetings
+and gossip.
+
+By the light of the dawn, which promised a splendid day, soldiers
+could now be seen dimly at the end of the street, like gray silhouettes
+coming and going.
+
+"Do you know what it was?" asked a man, with a villainous face.
+
+"Yes, the cuadrilleros."
+
+"No, señor, a revolt!"
+
+"What revolt? The curate against the alférez?"
+
+"Oh, no; nothing of that kind. It was an uprising of the Chinese."
+
+"The Chinese!" repeated all the listeners, with great disappointment.
+
+"That's why we don't see one!"
+
+"They are all dead!"
+
+"I--I suspected they had something on foot!"
+
+"I saw it, too. Last night----"
+
+"What a pity they are all dead before Christmas!" cried Sister
+Rufa. "We shall not get their presents!"
+
+The streets began to show signs of life. First the dogs, pigs, and
+chickens began to circulate; then some little ragged boys, keeping
+hold of each other's hands, ventured to approach the barracks. Two or
+three old women crept after them, their heads wrapt in handkerchiefs
+knotted under their chins, pretending to tell their beads, so as
+not to be driven back by the soldiers. When it was certain that one
+might come and go without risking a pistol shot, the men commenced
+to stroll out. Affecting indifference and stroking their cocks,
+they finally got as far as the tribunal.
+
+Every quarter hour a new version of the affair was circulated. Ibarra
+with his servants had tried to carry off Maria Clara, and in defending
+her, Captain Tiago had been wounded. The number of dead was no longer
+fourteen, but thirty. At half-past seven the version which received
+most credit was clear and detailed.
+
+"I've just come from the tribunal," said a passer, "where I saw Don
+Filipo and Don Crisóstomo prisoners. Well, Bruno, son of the man who
+was beaten to death, has confessed everything. You know, Captain Tiago
+is to marry his daughter to the young Spaniard. Don Crisóstomo wanted
+revenge, and planned to massacre all the Spaniards. His band attacked
+the convent and the barracks. They say many of them escaped. The
+guards burned Don Crisóstomo's house, and if he hadn't been arrested,
+they would have burned him, too."
+
+"They burned the house?"
+
+"You can still see the smoke from here," said the narrator.
+
+Everybody looked: a column of smoke was rising against the sky. Then
+the comments began, some pitying, some accusing.
+
+"Poor young man!" cried the husband of Sister Putá.
+
+"What!" cried the sister. "You are ready to defend a man that heaven
+has so plainly punished? You'll find yourself arrested too. You uphold
+a falling house!"
+
+The husband was silent; the argument had told.
+
+"Yes," went on the old woman. "After striking down Father Dámaso,
+there was nothing left but to kill Father Salvi!"
+
+"But you can't deny he was a good child."
+
+"Yes, he was good," replied the old woman; "but he went to Europe,
+and those who go to Europe come back heretics, the curates say."
+
+"Oho!" said the husband, taking his advantage. "And the curate, and
+all the curates, and the archbishop, and the pope, aren't they all
+Spaniards? What? And are they heretics?"
+
+Happily for Sister Putá, the conversation was cut short. A servant
+came running, pale and horror-stricken.
+
+"A man hung--in our neighbor's garden!" she gasped.
+
+A man hung! Nobody stirred.
+
+"Let's come and see," said the old man, rising.
+
+"Don't go near him," cried Sister Putá, "'twill bring us misfortune. If
+he's hung, so much the worse for him!"
+
+"Let me see him, woman. You, Juan, go and inform them at the tribunal;
+he may not be dead." And the old man went off, the women, even Sister
+Putá, following at a distance, full of fear, but also of curiosity.
+
+Hanging from the branch of a sandal tree in the garden a human body
+met their gaze. The brave man examined it.
+
+"We must wait for the authorities; he's been dead a long time,"
+he said.
+
+Little by little the women drew near.
+
+"It's the new neighbor," they whispered. "See the scar on his face?"
+
+In half an hour the authorities arrived.
+
+"People are in a great hurry to die!" said the directorcillo, cocking
+his pen behind his ear, and he began his investigation.
+
+Meanwhile a peasant wearing a great salakat on his head and having
+his neck muffled was examining the body and the cord. He noticed
+several evidences that the man was dead before he was hung. The
+curious countryman noticed also that the clothing seemed recently
+torn and was covered with dust.
+
+"What are you looking at?" demanded the directorcillo, who had gathered
+all his evidence.
+
+"I was looking, señor, to see if I knew him," stammered the man, half
+uncovering, in which he managed to lower his salakat even farther
+over his eyes.
+
+"But didn't you hear that it is a certain José? You must be asleep!"
+
+Everybody laughed. The confused countryman stammered something else
+and went away. When he had reached a safe distance, he took off his
+disguise and resumed the stature and gait of Elias.
+
+
+
+
+
+XLIX.
+
+VÆ VICTIS.
+
+
+With threatening air the guards marched back and forth before the door
+of the town hall, menacing with the butt of their rifles intrepid
+small boys, who came and raised themselves on tiptoe to see through
+the gratings.
+
+The court room had not the same appearance as the day of the discussion
+of the fête. The guards and the cuadrilleros spoke low; the alférez
+paced the room, looking angrily at the door from time to time. In
+a corner yawned Doña Consolacion, her steely eyes riveted on the
+door leading into the prison. The arm-chair under the picture of His
+Majesty was empty.
+
+It was almost nine o'clock when the curate arrived.
+
+"Well," said the alférez, "you haven't kept us waiting!"
+
+"I did not wish to be here," said the curate, ignoring the tone of
+the alférez. "I am very nervous."
+
+"I thought it best to wait for you," said the alférez. "We have
+eight here," he went on, pointing toward the door of the prison;
+"the one called Bruno died in the night. Are you ready to examine
+the two unknown prisoners?"
+
+The curate sat down in the arm-chair.
+
+"Let us go on," he said.
+
+"Bring out the two in the cepo!" ordered the alférez in as terrible
+a voice as he could command. Then turning to the curate:
+
+"We skipped two holes."
+
+For the benefit of those not acquainted with the instruments of torture
+of the Philippines, we will say that the cepo, a form of stocks, is
+one of the most innocent; but by skipping enough holes, the position is
+made most trying. It is, however, a torture that can be long endured.
+
+The jailor drew the bolt and opened the door. A sickening odor escaped,
+and a match lighted by one of the guards went out in the vitiated
+air; when it was possible to take in a candle, one could see dimly,
+from the rooms outside, the forms of men crouching or standing. The
+cepo was opened.
+
+A dark figure came out between two soldiers; it was Társilo, the
+brother of Bruno. His torn clothing let his splendid muscles show. The
+other prisoner brought out was weeping and lamenting.
+
+"What is your name?" the alférez demanded of Társilo.
+
+"Társilo Alasigan."
+
+"What did Don Crisóstomo promise you for attacking the convent?"
+
+"I have never had any communication with Don Crisóstomo."
+
+"Don't attempt to deny it: what other reason had you for joining
+the conspiracy?"
+
+"You had killed our father, we wished to avenge him, nothing more. Go
+find two of your guards. They're at the foot of the precipice, where
+we threw them. You may kill me now, you will learn nothing more."
+
+There was silence and general surprise.
+
+"You will name your accomplices," cried the alférez, brandishing
+his cane.
+
+The accused man smiled disdainfully. The alférez talked apart with
+the curate.
+
+"Take him where the bodies are," he ordered.
+
+In a corner of the patio, on an old cart, five bodies were heaped
+under a piece of soiled matting.
+
+"Do you know them?" asked the alférez, lifting the covering. Társilo
+did not reply. He saw the body of Sisa's husband, and that of his
+brother, pierced through with bayonet strokes. His face grew darker,
+and a great sigh escaped him; but he was mute.
+
+"Beat him till he confesses or dies!" cried the exasperated alférez.
+
+They led him back where the other prisoner, with chattering teeth,
+was invoking the saints.
+
+"Do you know this man?" demanded Father Salvi.
+
+"I never saw him before," replied Társilo, looking at the poor wretch
+with faint compassion.
+
+"Fasten him to the bench; gag him!" ordered the alférez, trembling
+with rage. When this was done, a guard began his sad task.
+
+Father Salvi, pale and haggard, rose trembling, and left the
+tribunal. In the street he saw a girl, leaning against the wall,
+rigid, motionless, her eyes far away. The sun shone full down on
+her. She seemed not to breathe but to count, one after another,
+the muffled blows inside. It was Társilo's sister.
+
+The torture continued until the soldier, breathless, let his arm
+fall, and the alférez ordered his victim released. But Társilo still
+refused to speak. Then Doña Consolacion whispered in her husband's ear;
+he nodded.
+
+"To the well with him!" he said.
+
+The Filipinos know what that means. In Tagalo it is called timbaîn. We
+do not know who invented this judiciary process, but it must belong
+to antiquity. Truth coming out of a well is perhaps a sarcastic
+interpretation.
+
+In the middle of the patio of the tribunal was a picturesque well curb
+of uncut stones. It had a rustic crank of bamboo; its water was slimy
+and putrid. All sorts of refuse had been thrown around it and in it.
+
+Toward this Társilo was led. He was very pale, and his lips trembled,
+if he was not praying. The pride he had shown appeared now to be
+crushed out; he seemed resigned to suffer. The poor wretch looked
+enviously at the pile of bodies, and sighed heavily.
+
+"Speak then!" said the directorcillo. "You will be hung anyway. Why
+not die without so much suffering?" But Társilo remained mute.
+
+When the well was reached, they bound his feet. He was to be let
+down head foremost. He was fastened to the curb; the crank turned,
+and his body disappeared. The alférez noted the seconds with his
+watch. At the signal the body was drawn up, too pitiable to describe;
+but Társilo was still mute. Again he was let down, again he refused
+to speak; when he was drawn up the third time, he no longer breathed.
+
+His torturers looked at each other in consternation. The alférez
+ordered the body taken down, and they all examined it for signs of
+life; but there were none.
+
+"See," said a cuadrillero, at last, "he has strangled himself with
+his tongue!"
+
+"Put the body with the others," ordered the alférez nervously. "We
+must examine the other unknown prisoner."
+
+
+
+
+
+L.
+
+ACCURST.
+
+
+The news spread that the prisoners were to be taken to the capital,
+and members of their families ran wildly from convent to barracks, from
+barracks to tribunal, but found no consolation anywhere. The curate
+was said to be ill. The guards dealt roughly with the supplicating
+women, and the gobernadorcillo was more useless than ever. The
+friends of the accused, therefore, had collected near the prison,
+waiting for them to be brought out. Doray, Don Filipo's young wife,
+wandered back and forth, her child in her arms, both crying. The
+Capitana Tinay called on her son Antonio, and brave Capitana Maria
+watched the grating behind which were her twins, her only children.
+
+At two in the afternoon, an uncovered cart drawn by two oxen stopped
+in front of the tribunal. It was surrounded, and there were loud
+threats of breaking it.
+
+"Don't do that!" cried Capitana Maria; "do you wish them to go on
+foot?" In a few moments, twenty soldiers came out and surrounded
+the ox-cart; then the prisoners appeared. The first was Don Filipo,
+who smiled at his wife. Doray responded by bitter sobs, and would
+have rushed to her husband, had not the guards held her back. The
+son of Capitana Tinay was crying like a child, which did not help
+to check the lamentations of his family. The twins were calm and
+grave. Ibarra came last. He walked between two guards, his hand free;
+his eyes sought on all sides for a friendly face.
+
+"He is the guilty one!" cried numerous voices. "He is the guilty one,
+and his hands are unbound!"
+
+"Bind my arms," said Ibarra to his guards.
+
+"We have no orders."
+
+"Bind me!"
+
+The soldiers obeyed.
+
+The alférez appeared on horseback, armed to the teeth, and followed
+by an escort of soldiers. The prisoners' friends saluted them with
+affectionate words; only Ibarra was friendless.
+
+"What has my husband done to you?" sobbed Doray. "See my child;
+you have robbed him of his father!"
+
+Grief began to turn to hate against the man who was said to have
+provoked the uprising.
+
+The alférez gave the order to start.
+
+"Coward!" cried a woman, as the cart moved off. "While the others
+fought, you were in hiding! Coward!"
+
+"Curses on you!" cried an old man, running after. "Cursed be the gold
+heaped up by your family to take away our peace. Accurst! accurst!"
+
+"May you be hung, heretic!" cried a woman, picking up a stone and
+throwing it after him. Her example was promptly followed, and a shower
+of dust and pebbles beat against the unhappy man. Crisóstomo bore
+this injustice without a sign. It was the farewell of his beloved
+country. He bent his head and sat motionless. Perhaps he was thinking
+of a man beaten in the pueblo streets; perhaps of the body of a girl,
+washed up by the waves.
+
+The alférez felt obliged to drive away the crowd, but stones did not
+cease to fall, nor insult to sound. One mother only did not curse
+Ibarra; the Capitana Maria watched her sons go, with compressed lips
+and eyes full of silent tears.
+
+Of all the people in the open windows as he passed, none but the
+indifferent and curious showed Ibarra the least compassion. All his
+friends had deserted him, even Captain Basilio, who had forbidden
+Sinang to weep. When Crisóstomo passed the smoking ruins of his home,
+that home where he was born, and spent his happy childhood and youth,
+the tears, long repressed, gushed from his eyes, and bound as he was,
+he had to experience the bitterness of showing a grief that could
+not rouse the slightest sympathy.
+
+From a hill, an old man, pale and thin, wrapped in a mantle, and
+leaning on a stick, watched the sad procession. At the news of what had
+happened, old Tasio had left his bed, and tried to go to the pueblo,
+but his strength had failed him. He followed the cart with his eyes,
+until it disappeared in the distance. Then, after resting a while in
+thought, he got up painfully, and started toward his home, halting
+for breath at almost every step. The next day some shepherds found
+him dead under the shadow of his solitary house.
+
+
+
+
+
+LI.
+
+PATRIOTISM AND INTEREST.
+
+
+The telegraph had secretly transmitted to Manila the news of the
+uprising, and thirty-six hours later, the newspapers, their accounts
+expanded, corrected, and mutilated by the attorney-general, talked
+about it with much mystery and no little menace. Meanwhile the private
+accounts, coming out of the convents, had gone from mouth to mouth,
+to the great alarm of those who heard them. The fact, distorted in
+countless versions, was accepted as true with more or less readiness,
+according to its fitness to the passions and ideas of the different
+hearers.
+
+Though public tranquillity was not disturbed, the peace of the
+hearthstones became like that of a fish-pond, all on top; underneath
+was commotion. Crosses, gold lace, office, power, honors of all kinds
+began to hover over one part of the population, like butterflies in
+a golden sunshine. For the others a dark cloud rose on the horizon,
+and against this ashy background stood in relief bars, chains, and
+the fateful arms of the gibbet. Destiny presented the event to the
+Manila imagination, like certain Chinese fans: one face painted black,
+the other gilded, and gorgeous with birds and flowers.
+
+There was great agitation in the convents. The provincials ordered
+their carriages, and held secret conferences; then presented themselves
+at the palace, to offer their support to the imperiled government.
+
+"A Te Deum, a Te Deum!" said a monk in one convent. "Through the
+goodness of God, our worth is made manifest in these perilous times!"
+
+"This petty general, this prophet of evil, will gnaw his moustaches
+after this little lesson," said another.
+
+"What would have become of him without the religious orders?"
+
+"The papers almost go to the point of demanding a mitre for Brother
+Salvi."
+
+"And he will get it! He's consumed with desire for it!"
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Why shouldn't he be? In these days mitres are given for the asking."
+
+"If mitres had eyes, and could see on what craniums----"
+
+We spare our readers other comments of this nature. Let us enter the
+home of a private citizen, and as we know few people at Manila, we
+will knock at the door of Captain Tinong, the friendly and hospitable
+gentleman whom we saw inviting Ibarra, with so much insistence,
+to honor his house with a visit.
+
+In his rich and spacious drawing-room, at Tondo, Captain Tinong is
+seated in a great arm-chair, passing his hand despairingly across
+his brow; while his weeping wife, the Capitana Tinchang, reads him
+a sermon, listened to by their two daughters, who are seated in a
+corner, mute with stupefaction.
+
+"Ah, Virgin of Antipolo!" cried the wife. "Ah, Virgin of the Rosary;
+I told you so! I told you so! Ah, Virgin of Carmel! Ah!"
+
+"Why, no! You didn't tell me anything," Captain Tinong finally
+ventured to reply. "On the contrary, you said I did well to keep up the
+friendship with Captain Tiago, and to go to his house, because--because
+he was rich; and you said----"
+
+"What did I say? I didn't say it! I didn't say anything! Ah, if you
+had listened to me!"
+
+"Now you throw the blame back on me!" said the captain bitterly,
+striking the arm of his chair with his fist. "Didn't you say I did
+well to invite him to dinner, because, as he was rich----"
+
+"It is true I said that, because--because it couldn't be helped;
+you had already invited him; and you did nothing but praise him. Don
+Ibarra here, and Don Ibarra there, and Don Ibarra on all sides. But
+I didn't advise you to see him or to speak to him at the dinner. That
+you cannot deny!"
+
+"Did I know, for instance, that he was to be there?"
+
+"You ought to have known it!"
+
+"How, if I wasn't even acquainted with him?"
+
+"You ought to have been acquainted with him!"
+
+"But, Tinchang, if it was the first time I had ever seen him or heard
+him spoken of?"
+
+"You ought to have seen him before, you ought to have heard him
+spoken of; that's what you are a man for! And now, you will be sent
+into exile, our goods will be confiscated----Oh, if I were a man! if
+I were a man!"
+
+"And if you were a man," asked the vexed husband, "what would you do?"
+
+"What? Why, to-day, this very day, I should present myself to the
+captain-general, and offer to fight against the rebels, this very day!"
+
+"But didn't you read what the Diario says? Listen! 'The infamous and
+abortive treason has been repressed with energy, force, and vigor,
+and the rebellious enemies of the country and their accomplices will
+promptly feel all the weight and all the severity of the laws!' You
+see, there is no rebellion!"
+
+"That makes no difference, you should present yourself; many did it
+in 1872, and so nobody harmed them."
+
+"Yes! it was done also by Father Bug----" But his wife's hands were
+over his mouth.
+
+"Say it! Speak that name, so you may be hung to-morrow at
+Bagumbayan! Don't you know it is enough to get you executed without
+so much as a trial? Go on, say it!"
+
+But though Captain Tinong had wished, he couldn't have done it. His
+wife held his mouth with both her hands, squeezing his little head
+against the back of the chair. Perhaps the poor man would have died
+of asphyxia, had not a new person come on the stage.
+
+It was their cousin, Don Primitivo, who knew Amat by heart; a man of
+forty, large and corpulent, and dressed with the utmost care.
+
+"Quid video?" he cried, upon entering; "what is going on?"
+
+"Ah, cousin!" said the wife, weeping, and running to him, "I had
+you sent for, for I don't know what will become of us! What do you
+advise--you who have studied Latin and understand reasoning----"
+
+"But quid quæritis? Nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in
+sensu." And he sat down sedately. The Latin phrases seemed to have
+a tranquillizing effect; the husband and wife ceased to lament, and
+came nearer, awaiting the counsel of their cousin's lips, as once
+the Greeks awaited the saving phrase of the oracle.
+
+"Why are you mourning? Ubinam gentium sumus?"
+
+"You know the story of the uprising----"
+
+"Well, what of it? Don Crisóstomo owes you?"
+
+"No! but do you know that Tinong invited him to dinner, and that he
+bowed to him on the bridge----in the middle of the day? They will
+say he was a friend of ours!"
+
+"Friend?" cried the Latin, in alarm, rising; "tell me who your friends
+are, and I'll tell you who you are yourself! Malum est negotium et
+est timendum rerum istarum horrendissimum resultatum. Hum!"
+
+So many words in um terrified Captain Tinong. He became frightfully
+pale. His wife joined her hands in supplication.
+
+"Cousin, you speak to us now in Latin, but you know we haven't
+studied philosophy like you. Speak to us in Tagal or Castilian;
+give us your advice."
+
+"It is deplorable that you do not know Latin, my cousin: Latin verities
+are lies in Tagalo. Contra principi negantem fustibus est arguendum,
+is, in Latin, a truth as veritable as Noah's ark. I once put it
+in practice in Tagalo, and it was I who got beaten. It is indeed
+a misfortune that you do not know Latin! In Latin it might all be
+arranged. You have done wrong, very wrong, cousins, to make friends
+with this young man. The just pay the dues of sinners. I feel almost
+like advising you to make your will!" and he moved his head gloomily
+from side to side.
+
+"Saturnino, what ails you?" cried Capitana Tinchang,
+terrified. "Ah! Heaven! he is dead! A doctor! Tinong, Tinongy!"
+
+"He has only fainted, cousin; bring some water." Don Primitivo
+sprinkled his face, and the unfortunate man revived.
+
+"Come, come! don't weep! I've found a remedy. Put him in bed. Come,
+come! courage! I am with you, and all the wisdom of the ancients! Call
+a doctor, and this very day, cousin, go present yourself to the
+captain-general, and take him a present, a gold chain, a ring; say
+it's a Christmas present. Shut the windows and doors, and if any one
+asks for your husband, say he is seriously ill. Meanwhile I'll burn
+all the letters, papers, and books, as Don Crisóstomo did. Scripti
+testes sunt! Go on to the captain's. Leave me to myself. In extremis
+extrema. Give me the power of a Roman dictator, and see whether I
+save the coun--What am I saying--the cousin!"
+
+He commenced to upset the shelves of the library, and tear papers
+and letters. Then he lighted a fire on the kitchen hearth, and
+the auto-da-fé began. "'Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres,' by
+Copernicus. Whew! ite, maledicte, in ignem kalanis!" he cried, throwing
+it to the flames. "Revolution and Copernicus! Crime upon crime! If
+I don't get through soon enough! 'Liberty in the Philippines!' What
+books! Into the fire with them!" The most innocent works did not escape
+the common fate. Cousin Primitivo was right. The just pay for sinners.
+
+Four or five hours later, at a fashionable gathering, the events of
+the day were being discussed. There were present a number of elderly
+married ladies and spinsters, together with the wives and daughters
+of clerks of the administration, all in European costume, fanning and
+yawning. Among the men, who, by their manners, showed their position,
+as did the women, was a man advanced in age, small and one-armed,
+who was treated with distinction, and who kept a reserved distance.
+
+"I could never before suffer the monks and civil guards, because of
+their want of manners," a portly lady was saying, "but now that I
+see of what service they are, I could almost marry one of them. I
+am patriotic."
+
+"I am of the very same mind," said a very prim spinster. "But what
+a pity the former governor isn't with us!"
+
+"He would put an end to the race of filibusterillos!"
+
+"Don't they say there are many islands yet uninhabited?"
+
+"If I were the captain-general----"
+
+"Señoras," said the one-armed man, "the captain-general knows his
+duty. I understand he is greatly irritated, for he had loaded this
+Ibarra with favors."
+
+"Loaded him with favors!" repeated the slim gentlewoman, fanning
+furiously. "What ingrates these Indians are! Is it possible to treat
+them like human beings?"
+
+"Do you know what I've heard?" asked an officer.
+
+"No! What is it? What do they say?"
+
+"People worthy of confidence say that all this noise about building
+a school was a pure pretext; what he meant to make was a fort for
+his own defence when he had been attacked."
+
+"What infamy! Would any one but an Indian be capable of it?"
+
+"But they say this filibustero is the son of a Spaniard," said the
+one-armed man, without looking at anybody.
+
+"There it is again," cried the portly lady; "always these creoles! No
+Indian understands anything about revolution. Train crows, and they'll
+pick your eyes out!"
+
+"Do you know what I've heard?" asked a pretty creole, to turn the
+conversation. "The wife of Captain Tinong--you remember? We danced and
+dined at his house at the fête of Tondo--well, the wife of Captain
+Tinong gave the captain-general, this afternoon, a ring worth a
+thousand pesos. She said it was a Christmas present."
+
+"Christmas doesn't come for a month."
+
+"She must have feared a downpour," said the stout lady.
+
+"And so got under cover," said the slim.
+
+"That is evident," said the one-armed man, thoughtfully. "I fear
+there is something back of this."
+
+"I also," said the portly lady. "The wife of Captain Tinong is very
+parsimonious--she has never sent us presents, though we have been to
+her house. When such a person lets slip a little present of a thousand
+little pesos----"
+
+"But is it certain?" demanded the one-armed man.
+
+"Absolutely! His excellency's aide-de-camp told my cousin, to whom
+he is engaged. I'm tempted to believe it's a ring she wore the day
+of the fête. She's always covered with diamonds."
+
+"That's one way of advertising! Instead of buying a lay-figure or
+renting a shop----"
+
+The one-armed man found a pretext for leaving.
+
+Two hours later, when all the city was asleep, certain inhabitants of
+Tondo received an invitation through the medium of soldiers. Authority
+could not permit people of position and property to sleep in houses
+so ill guarded. In the fortress of Santiago, and in other government
+buildings, their sleep would be more tranquil and refreshing. Among
+these people was the unfortunate Captain Tinong.
+
+
+
+
+
+LII.
+
+MARIA CLARA MARRIES.
+
+
+Captain Tiago was very happy. During these troublous times, no one
+had paid any attention to him. He had not been arrested, he had
+not been subjected to cross-examination, to electrical machines, to
+repeated foot-baths in subterranean habitations, nor to any other of
+these pleasantries, well known to certain people who call themselves
+civilized. His friends, that is to say, those who had been--for he had
+repudiated his Filipino friends as soon as they had become suspects
+in the eyes of the Government--had returned home after several days
+of vacation in the edifices of the State. The captain-general had
+ordered them out of his possessions, to the great displeasure of
+the one-armed man, who would have liked to celebrate the approaching
+Christmas in so numerous a company of the rich.
+
+Captain Tinong returned to his home, ill, pale, another man. The
+excursion had not been for his good. He said nothing, not even to greet
+his family, who laughed and wept over him, mad with joy. The poor man
+no longer left the house, for fear of saluting a filibuster. Cousin
+Primitivo himself, with all the wisdom of the ancients, could not
+draw him out of his mutism.
+
+Stories like that of Captain Tinong's were numerous, and Captain Tiago
+was not ignorant of them. He overflowed with gratitude, without knowing
+exactly to whom he owed these signal favors. Aunt Isabel attributed
+the miracle to the Virgin of Antipolo.
+
+"I too, Isabel," said Captain Tiago, "but the Virgin of Antipolo has
+probably not done it alone; my friends have helped, and my future
+son-in-law, Señor Linares."
+
+It was whispered that Ibarra would be hung; that in spite of lack
+of proofs of his guilt, one thing had been found that confirmed the
+accusation; the experts had declared the school was so designed that
+it might pass for a rampart, faulty enough, to be sure, but what one
+might expect of ignorant Indians.
+
+In the midst of affairs, Doña Victorina, Don Tiburcio, and Linares
+arrived. As usual, Doña Victorina talked for the three men and herself;
+and her speech had undergone a remarkable change. She now claimed
+to have naturalized herself an Andalusian by suppressing d's and
+replacing the sound of s by that of z. No one had been able to get
+the idea out of her head; one would certainly have needed to get her
+frizzes off the outside first. She talked of visits of Linares to the
+captain-general, and made continual insinuations as to advantages a
+relative of position would bring.
+
+"As we say," she concluded, "he who sleeps in a good shade, leans on
+a good staff."
+
+"It's--it's the opposite, wife."
+
+Maria Clara was yet pale, though she had almost recovered from her
+illness. She kissed Doña Victorina, smiling rather sadly.
+
+"You have been saved, thanks to your connections!" said the doctora,
+with a significant look toward Linares.
+
+"God has protected my father," said Maria, in a low voice.
+
+"Yes, Clarita, but the time of miracles is past. We, the Spaniards say,
+trust not in the Virgin, and save yourself by running."
+
+"It's--it's--the contrary, wife!"
+
+"We must talk business," said Doña Victorina, glancing at Maria. Maria
+found a pretext for leaving, and went out, steadying herself by
+the furniture.
+
+What was said in this conference was so sordid and mean, that we prefer
+not to report it. Suffice it to say that when they parted, they were
+all satisfied. Captain Tiago said a little after to Aunt Isabel:
+
+"Have the caterer notified that we give a reception to-morrow. Maria
+must get ready for her marriage at once. When Señor Linares is our
+son-in-law, all the palaces will be open to us; and every one will
+die of envy."
+
+And so, toward eight o'clock the next evening, the house of Captain
+Tiago was once more full. This time, however, he had invited only
+Spaniards, peninsular and Philippine, and Chinese. Yet many of our
+acquaintances were there. Father Sibyla and Father Salvi, among
+numerous Franciscans and Dominicans; the old lieutenant of the
+Municipal Guard, more sombre than ever; the alférez, recounting his
+victory for the thousandth time, looking over the heads of everybody,
+now that he is lieutenant with grade of commandant; Dr. Espadaña,
+who looks upon him with respect and fear, and avoids his glance;
+Doña Victorina, who cannot see him without anger. Linares had not yet
+arrived; as a person of importance, he must arouse expectation. There
+are beings so simple, that an hour's waiting for a man suffices to
+make him great in their eyes.
+
+Maria Clara was the object of interest to all the women, and the
+subject of unveiled comments. She had received these ceremoniously,
+without losing her air of sadness.
+
+"Bah! the proud little thing!" said one.
+
+"Rather pretty," said another, "but he might have chosen some one
+with a more intelligent face."
+
+"But the money, my dear! The good fellow is selling himself."
+
+In another group some one was saying:
+
+"To marry when one's first fiancé is going to be hung!"
+
+"That is what is called prudent; having a substitute at hand."
+
+"Then, when one becomes a widow----"
+
+Possibly some of these remarks reached the ears of Maria Clara. She
+grew paler, her hand trembled, her lips seemed to move.
+
+In the circles of men the talk was loud, and naturally the recent
+events were the subject of conversation. Everybody talked, even
+Don Tiburcio.
+
+"I hear that your reverence is about to leave the pueblo," said the
+new lieutenant, whom his new star had made more amiable.
+
+"I have no more to do there; I am to be placed permanently at
+Manila. And you?" asked Father Salvi.
+
+"I also leave the pueblo," said he, throwing back his shoulders;
+"I am going with a flying column to rid the province of filibusters."
+
+Father Salvi surveyed his old enemy from top to toe, and turned away
+with a disdainful smile.
+
+"Is it known certainly what is to be done with the chief
+filibuster?" asked a clerk.
+
+"You are speaking of Don Crisóstomo Ibarra," replied another. "It is
+very probable that he will be hung, like those of 1872, and it will
+be very just."
+
+"He is to be exiled," said the old lieutenant dryly.
+
+"Exile! Nothing but exile?" cried numerous voices at once. "Then it
+must be for life!"
+
+"If the young man had been more prudent," went on Lieutenant Guevara,
+speaking so that all might hear, "if he had confided less in certain
+persons to whom he wrote, if our attorney-generals did not interpret
+too subtly what they read, it is certain he would have been released."
+
+This declaration of the old lieutenant's, and the tone of his voice,
+produced a great surprise among his auditors. No one knew what to
+say. Father Salvi looked away, perhaps to avoid the dark look the
+lieutenant gave him. Maria Clara dropped some flowers she had in her
+hand, and became a statue. Father Sibyla, who knew when to be silent,
+seemed the only one who knew how to question.
+
+"You speak of letters, Señor Guevara."
+
+"I speak of what I am told by Don Crisóstomo's advocate, who is
+greatly interested in his case, and defended him with zeal. Outside
+of a few ambiguous lines in a letter addressed to a woman before he
+left for Europe, in which the procurator found a project against the
+Government, and which the young man acknowledged as his, there was
+no evidence against him."
+
+"And the declaration made by the tulisan before he died?"
+
+"The defence destroyed that testimony. According to the witness
+himself, none of them had any communication with Ibarra, except
+one named José, who was his enemy, as was proven, and who afterward
+committed suicide, probably from remorse. It was shown that the papers
+found on his body were forgeries, for the writing was like Ibarra's
+seven years ago, but not like his hand of to-day. For this it was
+supposed that the accusing letter served as a model."
+
+"You tell us," said a Franciscan, "that Ibarra addressed this letter
+to a woman. How did it come into the hands of the attorney-general?"
+
+The lieutenant did not reply. He looked a moment at Father Salvi,
+and moved off, twisting the point of his gray beard. The others
+continued to discuss the matter.
+
+"Even women seem to have hated him," said one.
+
+"He burned his house, thinking to save himself, but he counted without
+his hostess!" said another, laughing.
+
+Meanwhile the old soldier approached Maria Clara. She had heard the
+whole conversation, sitting motionless, the flowers lying at her feet.
+
+"You are a prudent young woman," he said in a low voice; "by giving
+over the letter, you assured yourself a peaceful future." And he moved
+on, leaving Maria with blank eyes and a face rigid. Fortunately Aunt
+Isabel passed. Maria had strength to take her by the dress.
+
+"What is the matter?" cried the old lady, terrified at the face of
+her niece. "You are ill, my child. You are ready to faint. What is it?"
+
+"My heart--it's the crowd--so much light--I must rest. Tell my father
+I've gone to rest," and steadying herself by her aunt's arm, she went
+to her room.
+
+"You are cold! Do you want some tea?" asked Aunt Isabel at the door.
+
+Maria shook her head. "Go back, dear aunt, I only need to rest,"
+she said. She locked the door of her little room, and at the end of
+her strength, threw herself down before a statue, sobbing:
+
+"Mother, mother, my mother!"
+
+The moonlight came in through the window, and through the door leading
+to the balcony. The joyous music of the dance, peals of laughter
+and the hum of conversation, made their way to the chamber. Many
+times they knocked at her door--her father, her aunt, Doña Victorina,
+even Linares. Maria did not move or speak; now and then a hoarse sob
+escaped her.
+
+Hours passed. After the feast had come the ball. Maria's candle had
+burned out, and she lay in the moonlight at the foot of the statue. She
+had not moved. Little by little the house became quiet. Aunt Isabel
+came to knock once again at the door.
+
+"She must have gone to bed," the old lady called back to her
+brother. "At her age one sleeps like the dead."
+
+When all was still again, Maria rose slowly, and looked out on the
+terrace with its vines bathed in the white moonlight.
+
+"A peaceful future!--Sleep like the dead!" she said aloud; and she
+went out.
+
+The city was mute; only now and then a carriage could be heard
+crossing the wooden bridge. The girl raised her eyes toward the sky;
+then slowly she took off her rings, the pendants in her ears, the
+comb and jewelled pins in her hair, and put them on the balustrade
+of the terrace; then she looked toward the river.
+
+A little bark, loaded with zacate, drew up to the landing-place
+below the terrace. One of the two men in it climbed the stone steps,
+sprang over the wall, and in a moment was mounting the stairway of
+the terrace. At sight of Maria, he stopped, then approached slowly.
+
+Maria drew back.
+
+"Crisóstomo!" she said, speaking low. She was terrified.
+
+"Yes, I am Crisóstomo," replied the young man gravely. "An enemy, a
+man who has reason to hate me, Elias, has rescued me from the prison
+where my friends put me."
+
+A sad silence followed his words. Maria Clara bent her head. Ibarra
+went on:
+
+"By the dead body of my mother, I pledged myself, whatever my future,
+to try to make you happy. I have risked all that remains to me, to
+come and fulfil that promise. Chance lets me speak to you, Maria;
+we shall never see each other again. You are young now; some day your
+conscience may upbraid you. Before I go away forever, I have come to
+say that I forgive you. Be happy--farewell!" And he began to move away;
+she held him back.
+
+"Crisóstomo!" she said, "God has sent you to save me from
+despair. Listen and judge me!"
+
+Ibarra tried gently to release himself.
+
+"I did not come to call you to account; I came to bring you peace."
+
+"I want none of the peace you bring me. I shall find peace for
+myself. You scorn me and your scorn will make even death bitter."
+
+He saw despair in her poor, young face, and asked what she wished.
+
+"I wish you to believe that I have always loved you."
+
+He smiled bitterly.
+
+"Ah! you doubt me! you doubt your childhood's friend, who has never
+hidden a single thought from you! When you know my history, the sad
+story that was told me in my illness, you will pity me; you will no
+longer wear that smile. Why did they not let me die in the hands of
+my ignorant doctor! You and I should both have been happier!"
+
+She stopped a moment, then went on:
+
+"You force me to this, by your doubts; may my mother forgive me! In
+one of the most painful of my nights of suffering, a man revealed
+to me the name of my real father. If he had not been my father,
+this man said, he might have pardoned the injury you had done him."
+
+Crisóstomo looked at Maria in amazement.
+
+"What was I to do?" she went on. "Ought I to sacrifice to my love
+the memory of my mother, the honor of him who was supposed to be my
+father, and the good name of him who is? And could I have done this
+without bringing dishonor upon you too?"
+
+"But the proof--have you had proof? There must be proof!" said
+Crisóstomo, staggered.
+
+Maria drew from her breast two papers.
+
+"Here are two letters of my mother's," she said, "written in her
+remorse. Take them! Read them! My father left them in the house
+where he lived so many years. This man found them and kept them, and
+only gave them up to me in exchange for your letter, as assurance,
+he said, that I would not marry you without my father's consent. I
+sacrificed my love! Who would not for a mother dead and two fathers
+living? Could I foresee what use they would make of your letter? Could
+I know I was sacrificing you too?"
+
+Ibarra was speechless. Maria went on:
+
+"What remained for me to do? Could I tell you who my father was? Could
+I bid you ask his pardon, when he had so made your father suffer? Could
+I say to my father, who perhaps would have pardoned you--could I say I
+was his daughter? Nothing remained but to suffer, to guard my secret,
+and die suffering! Now, my friend, now that you know the sad story
+of your poor Maria, have you still for her that disdainful smile?"
+
+"Maria, you are a saint!"
+
+"I am blessed, because you believe in me----"
+
+"And yet," said Crisóstomo, remembering, "I heard you were to
+marry----"
+
+"Yes," sobbed the poor child, "my father demands this sacrifice; he
+has loved me, nourished me, and it did not belong to him to do it. I
+shall pay him my debt of gratitude by assuring him peace through this
+new connection, but----"
+
+"But?"
+
+"I shall not forget my vows to you."
+
+"What is your thought?" asked Ibarra, trying to read in her clear eyes.
+
+"The future is obscure. I do not know what I shall do; but I know
+this, that I can love but once, and that I shall not belong to one
+I do not love. And you? What will you do?"
+
+"I am no longer anything but a fugitive--I shall fly, and my flight
+will soon be overtaken, Maria----"
+
+Maria took his head in her hands, kissed his lips again and again,
+then pushed him away with all her strength.
+
+"Fly, fly!" she said. "Adieu!"
+
+Ibarra looked at her with shining eyes, but she made a sign, and he
+went, reeling for an instant like a drunken man. He leaped the wall
+again, and was back in the little bark. Maria Clara, leaning on the
+balustrade, watched till it disappeared in the distance.
+
+
+
+
+
+LIII.
+
+THE CHASE ON THE LAKE.
+
+
+"Listen, señor, to the plan I have made," said Elias, as he pulled
+toward San Gabriel. "I will hide you, for the present, at the house
+of a friend of mine at Mandaluyong. I will bring you there your gold,
+that I hid in the tomb of your great-grandfather. You will leave
+the country----"
+
+"To live among strangers?" interrupted Ibarra.
+
+"To live in peace. You have friends in Spain; you may get amnesty."
+
+Crisóstomo did not reply; he reflected in silence.
+
+They arrived at the Pasig, and the little bark began to go up
+stream. On the bridge was a horseman, hastening his course, and a
+whistle long and shrill was heard.
+
+"Elias," said Ibarra at length, "your misfortunes are due to my
+family, and you have twice saved my life. I owe you both gratitude
+and restitution of property. You advise me to leave the country;
+well, come with me. We will live as brothers."
+
+Elias shook his head.
+
+"It is true that I can never be happy in my country, but I can live and
+die there, perhaps die for my country. That is always something. But
+you can do nothing for her, here and now. Perhaps some day----"
+
+"Unless I, too, should become a tulisan," mused Ibarra.
+
+"Señor, a month ago we sat in this same boat, under the light of this
+same moon. You could not have said such a thing then."
+
+"No, Elias. Man seems to be an animal who varies with circumstances. I
+was blind then, unreasonable, I know not what. Now the bandage has
+been torn from my eyes; the wretchedness and solitude of my prison has
+taught me better. I see the cancer that is eating into our society;
+perhaps, after all, it must be torn out by violence."
+
+They came in sight of the governor-general's palace, and thought they
+saw unusual movement among the guards.
+
+"Your escape must have been discovered," said Elias. "Lie down, señor,
+so I can cover you with the zacate, for the sentinel at the magazine
+may stop us."
+
+As Elias had anticipated, the sentinel challenged him, and asked him
+where he came from.
+
+"From Manila, with zacate for the iodores and curates," said he,
+imitating the accent of the people of Pandakan.
+
+A sergeant came out.
+
+"Sulung," said he to Elias, "I warn you not to take any one into your
+boat. A prisoner has just escaped. If you capture him and bring him
+to me, I will give you a fine reward."
+
+"Good, señor; what is his description?"
+
+"He wears a long coat, and speaks Spanish. Look out for him!"
+
+The bark moved off. Elias turned and saw the sentinel still standing
+by the bank.
+
+"We shall lose a few minutes," he said; "we shall have to go into
+the rio Beata, to make him think I'm from Peña Francia. You shall
+see the rio of which Francisco Baltazar sang."
+
+The pueblo was asleep in the moonlight. Crisóstomo sat up to admire
+the death-like peace of nature. The rio was narrow, and its banks were
+plains strewn with zacate. Elias discharged his cargo, and from the
+grass where they were hidden, drew some of those sacks of palm leaves
+that are called bayones. Then they pushed off again, and soon were
+back on the Pasig. From time to time they talked of indifferent things.
+
+"Santa Ana!" said Ibarra, speaking low; "do you know that
+building?" They were passing the country house of the Jesuits.
+
+"I've spent many happy days there," said Elias. "When I was a child,
+we came here every month. Then I was like other people; had a family,
+a fortune; dreamed, thought I saw a future."
+
+They were silent until they came to Malapad-na-batô. Those who have
+sometimes cut a wake in the Pasig, on one of these magnificent nights
+of the Philippines, when from the limpid azure the moon pours out a
+poetic melancholy, when shadows hide the miseries of men and silence
+puts out their sordid words--those who have done this will know some
+of the thoughts of these two young men.
+
+At Malapad-na-batô, the rifleman was sleepy, and seeing no hope of
+plunder in the little bark, according to the tradition of his corps
+and the habit of this post, he let it pass. The guard at Pasig was
+no more disquieting.
+
+The moonlight was growing pale, and dawn was beginning to tint the east
+with roses, when they arrived at the lake, smooth and placid as a great
+mirror. At a distance they saw a gray mass, advancing little by little.
+
+"It's the falúa," said Elias under his breath. "Lie down, señor,
+and I will cover you with these bags."
+
+The outlines of the government boat grew more and more distinct.
+
+"She's getting between us and the shore," said Elias, uneasily; and
+very gradually he changed the direction of his bark. To his terror
+he saw the falúa make the same change, and heard a voice hailing
+him. He stopped and thought. The shore was yet some distance away;
+they would soon be within range of the ship's guns. He thought he would
+go back to Pasig, his boat could escape the other in that direction;
+but fate was against him. Another boat was coming from Pasig, and in
+it glittered the helmets and bayonets of the Civil Guards.
+
+"We are caught!" he said, and the color left his face. He looked at
+his sturdy arms, and took the only resolution possible; he began to
+row with all his might toward the island of Talim. The sun was coming
+up. The bark shot rapidly over the water; on the falúa, which changed
+its tack, Elias saw men signalling.
+
+"Do you know how to manage a bark?" he demanded of Ibarra.
+
+"Yes. Why?"
+
+"Because we are lost unless I take to the water to throw them off the
+track. They will pursue me. I swim and dive well. That will turn them
+away from you, and you must try to save yourself."
+
+"No, stay, and let us sell our lives dear!"
+
+"It is useless; we have no arms; they would shoot us down like birds."
+
+As he spoke, they heard a hiss in the water, followed by a report.
+
+"You see!" said Elias, laying down his oar. "We will meet, Christmas
+night, at the tomb of your grandfather. Save yourself! God has drawn
+me out of greater perils than this!"
+
+He took off his shirt; a ball picked it out of his hands, and two
+reports followed. Without showing alarm, he grasped the hand Ibarra
+stretched up from the bottom of the boat, then stood upright and
+leaped into the water, pushing off the little craft with his foot.
+
+Outcries were heard from the falúa. Promptly, and at some distance,
+appeared the head of the young man, returning to the surface to
+breathe, then disappearing immediately.
+
+"There, there he is," cried several voices, and balls whistled.
+
+The falúa and the bark from Pasig set out in pursuit of the swimmer. A
+slight wake showed his direction, more and more removed from Ibarra's
+little bark, which drifted as if abandoned. Every time Elias raised
+his head to breathe, the guards and the men of the falúa fired on him.
+
+The chase went on. The little bark with Ibarra was left far
+behind. Elias was not more than a hundred yards from the shore. The
+rowers were getting tired, but so was Elias, for he repeatedly
+raised his head above the water, but always in a new direction, to
+disconcert his pursuers. The deceiving wake no longer told the place
+of the swimmer. For the last time they saw him, sixty feet from the
+shore. The soldiers fired--minutes and minutes passed. Nothing again
+disturbed the tranquil surface of the lake.
+
+A half hour later, one of the rowers claimed to have seen traces of
+blood near the shore, but his comrades shook their heads in doubt.
+
+
+
+
+
+LIV.
+
+FATHER DÁMASO EXPLAINS HIMSELF.
+
+
+In vain the precious wedding presents heaped up; not the brilliants
+in their velvet cases, not embroideries of piña nor pieces of silk,
+drew the eyes of Maria Clara. She saw nothing but the journal in
+which was told the death of Ibarra, drowned in the lake.
+
+Suddenly she felt two hands over her eyes, clasping her head, while
+a merry voice said to her:
+
+"Who is it? Who is it?"
+
+Maria sprang up in fright.
+
+"Little goose! Did I scare you, eh? You weren't expecting me, eh? Why,
+I've come from the province to be at your marriage----" And with a
+satisfied smile, Father Dámaso gave her his hand to kiss. She took it,
+trembling, and carried it respectfully to her lips.
+
+"What is it, Maria?" demanded the Franciscan, troubled, and losing
+his gay smile. "Your hand is cold, you are pale--are you ill, little
+girl?" And he drew her tenderly to him, took both her hands and
+questioned her with his eyes.
+
+"Won't you confide in your godfather?" he asked in a tone of
+reproach. "Come, sit down here and tell me your griefs, as you
+used to do when you were little, and wanted some tapers to make
+wax dolls. You know I've always loved you--never scolded you----"
+and his voice became very tender. Maria began to cry.
+
+"Why do you cry, my child? Have you quarrelled with Linares?"
+
+Maria put her hands over her eyes.
+
+"No; it's not about him--now!"
+
+Father Dámaso looked startled. "And you won't tell me your
+secrets? Have I not always tried to satisfy your slightest wish?"
+
+Maria raised to him her eyes full of tears, looked at him a moment,
+then sobbed afresh.
+
+"My child!"
+
+Maria came slowly to him, fell on her knees at his feet, and raising
+her face wet with tears, asked in a voice scarcely audible:
+
+"Do you still love me?"
+
+"Child!"
+
+"Then--protect my father and make him break off my marriage." And
+she told him of her last interview with Ibarra, omitting everything
+about the secret of her birth.
+
+Father Dámaso could scarcely believe what he heard. She was talking
+calmly now, without tears.
+
+"So long as he lived," she went on, "I could struggle, I could hope,
+I had confidence; I wished to live to hear about him; but now--that
+they have killed him, I have no longer any reason to live and suffer."
+
+"And--Linares----"
+
+"If he had lived, I might have married--for my father's sake; but
+now that he is dead, I want the convent--or the grave."
+
+"You loved him so?" stammered Father Dámaso. Maria did not reply. The
+father bent his head on his breast.
+
+"My child," he said at last in a broken voice, "forgive me for
+having made you unhappy; I did not know I was doing it! I thought
+of your future. How could I let you marry a man of this country, to
+see you, later on, an unhappy wife and mother? I set myself with all
+my strength to get this love out of your mind, I used all means--for
+you, only for you. If you had been his wife, you would have wept for
+the unfortunate position of your husband, exposed to all sorts of
+dangers, and without defence; a mother, you would have wept for your
+children; had you educated them, you would have prepared them a sad
+future; they would have become enemies of religion; the gallows or
+exile would have been their portion; had you left them in ignorance,
+you would have seen them tyrannized over and degraded. I could not
+consent to this. That is why I found for you a husband whose children
+should command, not obey; punish, not suffer--I knew your childhood's
+friend was good, and I liked him, as I did his father; but I hated
+them both for your sake, because I love you as one loves a daughter,
+because I idolize you--I have no other love; I have seen you grow up,
+there isn't an hour in which I do not think of you, you are my one
+joy----" And Father Dámaso began to cry like a child.
+
+"Then if you love me, do not make me forever miserable; he is dead,
+I wish to be a nun."
+
+The old man rested his forehead in his hand.
+
+"A nun, a nun!" he repeated. "You do not know, my child, all that
+is hidden behind the walls of a convent, you do not know! I would
+a thousand times rather see you unhappy in the world than in the
+cloister. Here your complaints can be heard; there you have only the
+walls! You are beautiful, very beautiful; you were not made to renounce
+the world. Believe me, my child, time alters all things; later you
+will forget, you will love, you will love your husband--Linares."
+
+"Either the convent or--death," repeated Maria, with no sign of
+yielding.
+
+"Maria," said the father, "I am not young. I cannot watch over you
+always; choose something else, find another love, another husband,
+anything, what you will!"
+
+"I choose the convent."
+
+"My God, my God!" cried the priest, burying his face in his hands. "You
+punish me, be it so! But watch over my daughter!--Maria, you shall
+be a nun. I cannot have you die."
+
+Maria took his hands, pressed them, kissed them as she knelt.
+
+"Godfather, my godfather," she said.
+
+"Oh, God!" cried the heart of the father, "thou dost exist, because
+thou dost chastise! Take vengeance upon me, but do not strike the
+innocent; save my daughter!"
+
+
+
+
+
+LV.
+
+THE NOCHEBUENA.
+
+
+Up on the side of the mountain, where a torrent springs, a cabin hides
+under the trees, built on their gnarled trunks. Over its thatched roof
+creep the branches of the gourd, heavy with fruit and flowers. Antlers
+and wild boars' heads, some of them bearing their long tusks, ornament
+the rustic hearth. It is the home of a Tagalo family living from the
+chase and the cup of the woods.
+
+Under the shade of a tree, the grandfather is making brooms from the
+veins of palm leaves, while a girl fills a basket with eggs, lemons,
+and vegetables. Two children, a boy and a girl, are playing beside
+another boy, pale and serious, with great, deep eyes. We know him. It
+is Sisa's son, Basilio.
+
+"When your foot is well," said the little boy, "you will go with us
+to the top of the mountain and drink deer's blood and lemon juice;
+then you'll grow fat; then I'll show you how to jump from one rock
+to another, over the torrent."
+
+Basilio smiled sadly, examined the wound in his foot, and looked at
+the sun, which was shining splendidly.
+
+"Sell these brooms, Lucia," said the grandfather to the young girl,
+"and buy something for your brothers. To-day is Christmas."
+
+"Fire-crackers, I want fire-crackers!" cried the little boy.
+
+"And what do you want?" the grandfather asked Basilio. The boy got
+up and went to the old man.
+
+"Señor," he said, "have I been ill more than a month?"
+
+"Since we found you, faint and covered with wounds, two moons have
+passed. We thought you were going to die----"
+
+"May God reward you; we are very poor," said Basilio; "but as to-day
+is Christmas, I want to go to the pueblo to see my mother and my
+little brother. They must have been looking everywhere for me."
+
+"But, son, you aren't well yet, and it is far to your pueblo. You
+would not get there till midnight. My sons will want to see you when
+they come from the forest."
+
+"You have many children, but my mother has only us two; perhaps she
+thinks me dead already. I want to give her a present to-night--a son!"
+
+The grandfather felt his eyes grow dim.
+
+"You are as sensible as an old man! Go, find your mother, give her
+her present! Go, my son. God and the Lord Jesus go with you!"
+
+"What, you're not going to stay and see my fire-crackers?" said the
+little boy.
+
+"I want you to play hide and seek!" pouted the little girl; "nothing
+else is so much fun."
+
+Basilio smiled and his eyes filled with tears.
+
+"I shall come back soon," he said, "and bring my little brother;
+then you can play with him. But I must go away now with Lucia."
+
+"Don't forget us!" said the old man, "and come back when you are
+well." The children all accompanied him to the bridge of bamboo over
+the rushing torrent. Lucia, who was going to the first pueblo with
+her basket, made him lean on her arm; the other children watched them
+both out of sight.
+
+
+
+The north wind was blowing, and the dwellers in San Diego were
+trembling with cold. It was the Nochebuena, and yet the pueblo was
+sad. Not a paper lantern hung in the windows, no noise in the houses
+announcing the joyful time, as in other years.
+
+At the home of Captain Basilio, the master of the house is talking
+with Don Filipo; the troubles of these times have made them friends.
+
+"You are in rare luck, to be released at just this moment," Captain
+Basilio was saying to his guest. "They've burned your books, that's
+true; but others have fared worse."
+
+A woman came up to the window and looked in. Her eyes were brilliant,
+her face haggard, her hair loose; the moon made her uncanny.
+
+"Sisa?" asked Don Filipo, in surprise. "I thought she was with
+a physician."
+
+Captain Basilio smiled bitterly.
+
+"The doctor feared he might be taken for a friend of Don Crisóstomo's,
+so he drove her out!"
+
+"What else has happened since I went away? I know we have a new curate
+and a new alférez----"
+
+"Well, the head sacristan was found dead, hung in the garret of his
+house. And old Tasio is dead. They buried him in the Chinese cemetery."
+
+"Poor Don Astasio!" sighed Don Filipo. "And his books?"
+
+"The devout thought it would be pleasing to God if they should
+burn them; nothing escaped, not even the works of Cicero. The
+gobernadorcillo was no check whatsoever."
+
+They were both silent. At that moment, the melancholy song of Sisa
+was heard. A child passed, limping, and running toward the place from
+which the song came; it was Basilio. The little fellow had found
+his home deserted and in ruins. He had been told about his mother;
+of Crispin he had not heard a word. He had dried his tears, smothered
+his grief, and without resting, started out to find Sisa.
+
+She had come to the house of the new alférez. As usual, a sentinel
+was pacing up and down. When she saw the soldier, she took to flight,
+and ran as only a wild thing can. Basilio saw her, and fearing to
+lose sight of her, forgot his wounded foot, and followed in hot
+pursuit. Dogs barked, geese cackled, windows opened here and there,
+to give passage to the heads of the curious; others banged to, from
+fear of a new night of trouble. At this rate, the runners were soon
+outside the pueblo, and Sisa began to moderate her speed. There was
+a long distance between her and her pursuer.
+
+"Mother!" he cried, when he could distinguish her.
+
+No sooner did Sisa hear the voice than she again began to run madly.
+
+"Mother, it's I," cried the child in despair. Sisa paid no
+attention. The poor little fellow followed breathless. They were now
+on the border of the wood.
+
+Bushes, thorny twigs, and the roots of trees hindered their
+progress. The child followed the vision of his mother, made clear now
+and then by the moon's rays across the heavy foliage. They were in the
+mysterious wood of the family of Ibarra. Basilio often stumbled and
+fell, but he got up again, without feeling his hurts, or remembering
+his lameness. All his life was concentrated in his eyes, which never
+lost the beloved figure from view.
+
+They crossed the brook, which was singing gently, and to his great
+surprise, Basilio saw his mother press through the thicket and
+enter the wooden door that closed the tomb of the old Spaniard. He
+tried to follow her, but the door was fast. Sisa was defending the
+entrance--holding the door closed with all her strength.
+
+"Mother, it's I, it's I, Basilio, your son!" cried the child, falling
+from fatigue. But Sisa would not budge. Her feet braced against the
+ground, she offered an energetic resistance. Basilio examined the wall,
+but could not scale it. Then he made the tour of the grave. He saw a
+branch of the great tree, crossed by a branch of another. He began
+to climb, and his filial love did miracles. He went from branch to
+branch, and came over the tomb at last.
+
+The noise he made in the branches startled Sisa. She turned and
+would have fled, but her son, letting himself drop from the tree,
+seized her in his arms and covered her with kisses; then, worn out,
+he fainted away.
+
+Sisa saw his forehead bathed in blood. She bent over him, and her
+eyes, almost out of their sockets, were fixed on his face, which
+stirred the sleeping cells of her brain. Then something like a spark
+flashed through them. Sisa recognized her son, and with a cry fell
+on his senseless body, pressing it to her heart, kissing him and
+weeping. Then mother and son were both motionless.
+
+When Basilio came to himself, he found his mother without
+consciousness. He called her, lavished tender names on her, and seeing
+she did not wake, ran for water and sprinkled her pale face. But the
+eyes remained closed. In terror, Basilio put his ear to her heart,
+but her heart no longer beat. The poor child embraced the dead body
+of his mother, weeping bitterly.
+
+On this night of joy for so many children, who, by the warm hearth,
+celebrate the feast which recalls the first loving look Heaven gave
+to earth; on this night when all good Christian families eat, laugh,
+and dance, 'mid love and kisses; on this night which, for the children
+of cold countries, is magical with its Christmas trees, Basilio sits
+in solitude and grief. Who knows? Perhaps around the hearth of the
+silent Father Salvi are children playing; perhaps they are singing:
+
+
+    "Christmas comes,
+    And Christmas goes."
+
+
+The child was sobbing. When he raised his head, a man was looking
+silently down at him.
+
+"You are her son?" he asked.
+
+Basilio nodded his head.
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"Bury her."
+
+"In the cemetery?"
+
+"I have no money--if you would help me----"
+
+"I am too weak," said the man, sinking gradually to the ground. "I am
+wounded. For two days I have not eaten or slept. Has no one been here
+to-night?" And the man sat still, watching the child's attractive face.
+
+"Listen," said he, in a voice growing feebler, "I too shall be dead
+before morning. Twenty paces from here, beyond the spring, is a pile
+of wood; put our two bodies on it, and light the fire."
+
+Basilio listened.
+
+"Then, if nobody comes, you are to dig here; you will find a lot of
+gold, and it will be all yours. Study!"
+
+The voice of the unknown man sank lower and lower. Then he turned
+his head toward the east, and said softly, as though praying:
+
+"I die without seeing the light of dawn on my country. You who shall
+see it and greet it, do not forget those who fell in the night!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Archbishop and the Lady
+
+By Mrs. Schuyler Crowninshield
+
+A story of modern society which only a writer of very wide and very
+exceptional social experience could have written. It is cosmopolitan,
+yet full of romance; modern, yet informed with a delicate old-world
+charm. The characters are put before us with a consummate knowledge
+of the world and a penetrating insight into human nature.
+
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+April's Sowing
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+By GERTRUDE HALL
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+Illustrated by Orson Lowell. With decorative cover, frontispiece,
+title page in color, and ornamental head and tail pieces. Cloth. 12mo;
+5-1/8 × 7-3/4. $1.50.
+
+
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+The Darlingtons
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+By ELMORE ELLIOTT PEAKE
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+A novel of American life in the middle West which deals principally
+with the fortunes of a family whose members are the social and
+financial leaders of their section. The heroine is a girl whose
+education is broad enough to enable her to assist her father in
+managing a railroad. The hero is a Methodist minister of liberal
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+Cloth. 12mo; 5-1/8 × 7-3/4. About $1.50.
+
+
+
+Two Unknown Phases of Life Made Known in Fiction
+
+
+The Powers That Prey
+
+By Josiah Flynt and Francis Walton
+
+The authors of the ten closely related stories which make up this
+volume have spent most of their lives studying the sociological
+problems of tramp and criminal life. Mr. Flynt writes: "So far as I
+am concerned, the book is the result of ten years of wandering with
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+Fully Illustrated. Cloth. 12mo; 5-1/8 × 7-3/4. $1.25.
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+The Soul of the Street
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+By NORMAN DUNCAN
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+"The Soul of the Street" has a unity lacking in many volumes of short
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+and Mr. Duncan has gotten at them with such sympathetic insight as only
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+Cloth. 12mo; 5-1/8 × 7-3/4. About $1.00.
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Eagle Flight, by José Rizal
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: An Eagle Flight
+       A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere
+
+Author: José Rizal
+
+Release Date: December 22, 2008 [EBook #27594]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN EAGLE FLIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Distributed
+Proofreaders Team at https://www.pgdp.net/
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="front">
+<div class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><p class="aligncenter">An Eagle Flight
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e98" href="#xd0e98">3</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><div class="&#xA; poem&#xA; ">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>I have in this rough work shaped out a man</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Whom this beneath-world doth embrace and hug</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>With amplest entertainment: my free drift</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Halts not particularly, but moves itself</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>In a wide sea of wax; no levell&#8217;d malice</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Infects one comma in the course I hold;</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Leaving no track behind.</span></p>
+</div>
+<p class="alignright"><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2262"><span class="smallcaps">Timon of Athens</span></a>&#8212;<i>Act 1, Scene 1.</i>
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e125" href="#xd0e125">4</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="titlePage">
+<h1 class="docTitle">An Eagle Flight</h1>
+<h2 class="docTitle">A Filipino Novel</h2>
+<h2 class="docTitle">Adapted from</h2>
+<h2 class="docTitle">&#8220;Noli Me Tangere&#8221;</h2>
+<h2 class="byline">By
+<br>
+<span class="docAuthor">Dr. Jos&eacute; Rizal</span></h2>
+<h2 class="docImprint"><i>New York</i>
+<br>
+McClure, Phillips &amp; Co.
+<br>
+MCMI
+</h2>
+</div><span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e154" href="#xd0e154">5</a>]</span><div class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><p class="aligncenter"><span class="smallcaps">Copyright</span>, 1900,<br>
+By McCLURE, PHILLIPS &amp; CO.
+
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e162" href="#xd0e162">6</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="toc" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="normal">Contents.</h2>
+<ol class="lsoff">
+<li>Chapter <span class="tocPagenum">Page</span></li>
+<li>I.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch1">The House on the Pasig</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">1</span></li>
+<li>II.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch2">Cris&oacute;stomo Ibarra</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">7</span></li>
+<li>III.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch3">The Dinner</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">9</span></li>
+<li>IV.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch4">Heretic and Filibuster</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">12</span></li>
+<li>V.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch5">A Star in the Dark Night</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">15</span></li>
+<li>VI.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch6">Captain Tiago and Maria</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">17</span></li>
+<li>VII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch7">Idylle</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">20</span></li>
+<li>VIII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch8">Reminiscences</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">23</span></li>
+<li>IX.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch9">Affairs of the Country</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">25</span></li>
+<li>X.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch10">The Pueblo</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">30</span></li>
+<li>XI.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch11">The Sovereigns</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">32</span></li>
+<li>XII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch12">All Saints&#8217; Day</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">35</span></li>
+<li>XIII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch13">The Little Sacristans</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">40</span></li>
+<li>XIV.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch14">Sisa</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">44</span></li>
+<li>XV.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch15">Basilio</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">47</span></li>
+<li>XVI.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch16">At the Manse</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">50</span></li>
+<li>XVII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch17">Story of a Schoolmaster</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">53</span></li>
+<li>XVIII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch18">The Story of a Mother</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">57</span></li>
+<li>XIX.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch19">The Fishing Party</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">63</span></li>
+<li>XX.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch20">In the Woods</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">71</span></li>
+<li>XXI.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch21">With the Philosopher</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">79</span></li>
+<li>XXII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch22">The Meeting at the Town Hall</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">87</span></li>
+<li>XXIII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch23">The Eve of the F&eacute;te</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">94</span></li>
+<li>XXIV.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch24">In the Church</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">102</span></li>
+<li>XXV.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch25">The Sermon</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">105</span></li>
+<li>XXVI.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch26">The Crane</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">109</span></li>
+<li>XXVII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch27">Free Thought</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">116</span></li>
+<li>XXVIII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch28">The Banquet</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">119</span></li>
+<li>XXIX.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch29">Opinions</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">126</span></li>
+<li>XXX.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch30">The First Cloud</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">130</span></li>
+<li>XXXI.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch31">His Excellency</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">134</span></li>
+<li>XXXII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch32">The Procession</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">142</span></li>
+<li>XXXIII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch33">Do&ntilde;a Consolacion</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">145</span><span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e435" href="#xd0e435">7</a>]</span></li>
+<li>XXXIV.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch34">Right and Might</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">150</span></li>
+<li>XXXV.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch35">Husband and Wife</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">156</span></li>
+<li>XXXVI.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch36">Projects</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">163</span></li>
+<li>XXXVII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch37">Scrutiny and Conscience</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">165</span></li>
+<li>XXXVIII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch38">The Two Women</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">170</span></li>
+<li>XXXIX.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch39">The Outlawed</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">176</span></li>
+<li>XL.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch40">The Enigma</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">181</span></li>
+<li>XLI.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch41">The Voice of the Persecuted</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">183</span></li>
+<li>XLII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch42">The Family of Elias</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">187</span></li>
+<li>XLIII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch43">Il Buon di si Conosce da Mattina</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">193</span></li>
+<li>XLIV.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch44">La Gallera</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">196</span></li>
+<li>XLV.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch45">A Call</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">201</span></li>
+<li>XLVI.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch46">A Conspiracy</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">204</span></li>
+<li>XLVII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch47">The Catastrophe</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">208</span></li>
+<li>XLVIII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch48">Gossip</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">212</span></li>
+<li>XLIX.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch49">V&aelig; Victis</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">217</span></li>
+<li>L.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch50">Accurst</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">221</span></li>
+<li>LI.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch51">Patriotism and Interest</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">224</span></li>
+<li>LII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch52">Marie Clara Marries</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">232</span></li>
+<li>LIII.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch53">The Chase on the Lake</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">242</span></li>
+<li>LIV.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch54">Father D&aacute;maso Explains Himself</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">247</span></li>
+<li>LV.&#8212;<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#ch55">The Nochebuena</a></span> <span class="tocPagenum">251</span></li>
+</ol><span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e612" href="#xd0e612">8</a>]</span></div>
+<div class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="normal">Introduction</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Jos&eacute; Rizal</h2>
+<p>In that horrible drama, the Philippine revolution, one man of the purest and noblest character stands out pre-eminently&#8212;Jos&eacute;
+Rizal&#8212;poet, artist, philologue, novelist, above all, patriot; his influence might have changed the whole course of events
+in the islands, had not a blind and stupid policy brought about the crime of his death.
+
+</p>
+<p>This man, of almost pure Tagalo race, was born in 1861, at Calamba, in the island of Luzon, on the southern shore of the Laguna
+de Bay, where he grew up in his father&#8217;s home, under the tutorage of a wise and learned native priest, Leontio.
+
+</p>
+<p>The child&#8217;s fine nature, expanding in the troublous latter days of a long race bondage, was touched early with the fire of
+genuine patriotism. He was eleven when the tragic consequences of the Cavit&eacute; insurrection destroyed any lingering illusions
+of his people, and stirred in them a spirit that has not yet been allayed.
+
+</p>
+<p>The rising at Cavit&eacute;, like many others in the islands, was a protest against the holding of benefices by friars&#8212;a thing forbidden
+by a decree of the Council of Trent, but authorized in the Philippines, by papal bulls, until such time as there should be
+a sufficiency of native priests. This time never came. As the friars held the best agricultural lands, and had a voice&#8212;and
+that the most authoritative&#8212;in civil affairs, there developed in the rural districts a veritable feudal system, bringing in
+its train the arrogance and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e626" href="#xd0e626">9</a>]</span>tyranny that like conditions develop. It became impossible for the civil authorities to carry out measures in opposition to
+the friars. &#8220;The Government is an arm, the head is the convent,&#8221; says the old philosopher of Rizal&#8217;s story.
+
+</p>
+<p>The rising at Cavit&eacute; miscarried, and vengeance fell. Dr. Joseph Burgos, a saintly old priest, was put to death, and three
+other native priests with him, while many prominent native families were banished. Never had the better class of Filipinos
+been so outraged and aroused, and from this time on their purpose was fixed, not to free themselves from Spain, not to secede
+from the church they loved, but to agitate ceaselessly for reforms which none of them longer believed could be realized without
+the expulsion of the friars. In the school of this purpose, and with the belief on the part of his father and Leontio that
+he was destined to use his life and talents in its behalf, Jos&eacute; was trained, until he left his home to study in Manila. At
+the College of the Jesuits he carried off all the honors, with special distinction in literary work. He wrote a number of
+odes; and a melodrama in verse, the work of his thirteenth year, was successfully played at Manila. But he had to wear his
+honors as an Indian among white men, and they made life hard for him. He specially aroused the dislike of his Spanish college
+mates by an ode in which he spoke of his patria. A Tagalo had no native land, they contended&#8212;only a country.
+
+</p>
+<p>At twenty Rizal finished his course at Manila, and a few months later went to Madrid, where he speedily won the degrees of
+Ph.D. and M.D.; then to Germany&#8212;taking here another degree, doing his work in the new language, which he mastered as he went
+along; to Austria, where he gained great skill as an oculist; to France, Italy, England&#8212;absorbing the languages and literature
+of these countries, doing some fine sculpture by way of diversion. But in all this he was single-minded; he never lost the
+voice of his call; he felt more and more keenly the contrast between the hard lot of his country and the freedom of these
+lands, and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e632" href="#xd0e632">10</a>]</span>he bore it ill that no one of them even knew about her, and the cancer eating away her beauty and strength. At the end of
+this period of study he settled in Berlin, and began his active work for his country.
+
+</p>
+<p>Four years of the socialism and license of the universities had not distorted Rizal&#8217;s political vision; he remained, as he
+had grown up, an opportunist. Not then, nor at any time, did he think his country ready for self-government. He saw as her
+best present good her continued union to Spain, &#8220;through a stable policy based upon justice and community of interests.&#8221; He
+asked only for the reforms promised again and again by the ministry, and as often frustrated. To plead for the lifting of
+the hand of oppression from the necks of his people, he now wrote his first novel, &#8220;Noli Me Tangere.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The next year he returned to the Philippines to find himself the idol of the natives and a thorn in the flesh of friars and
+greedy officials. The reading of his book was proscribed. He stayed long enough to concern himself in a dispute of his townspeople
+with the Dominicans over titles to lands; then finding his efforts vain and his safety doubtful, he left for Japan. Here he
+pursued for some time his usual studies; came thence to America, and then crossed to England, where he made researches in
+the British Museum, and edited in Spanish, &#8220;Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas,&#8221; by Dr. Antonio de Morga, an important work, neglected
+by the Spaniards, but already edited in English by Dean Stanley.
+
+</p>
+<p>After publishing this work, in Paris, Rizal returned to Spain, where, in 1890, he began a series of brilliant pleas for the
+Philippines, in the <i>Solidaridad</i>, a liberal journal published at Barcelona and afterward at Madrid. But he roused little sympathy or interest in Spain, and
+his articles, repeated in pamphlets in the Philippines, served to make his position more dangerous at home.
+
+</p>
+<p>Disheartened but steadfast, he retired to Belgium, to write his second novel, &#8220;El Filibusterismo.&#8221; &#8220;Noli Me <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e645" href="#xd0e645">11</a>]</span>Tangere&#8221; is a poet&#8217;s story of his people&#8217;s loves, faults, aspirations, and wrongs; &#8220;El Filibusterismo&#8221; is the work of a student
+of statecraft, pointing out the way to political justice and the development of national life. Inspired, it would seem, by
+his own creation of a future for his country, he returned to the <i>Solidaridad</i>, where, in a series of remarkable articles, he forecast the ultimate downfall of Spain in the Philippines and the rise of
+his people. This was his crime against the Government: for the spirit which in a Spanish boy would not permit a Tagalo to
+have a patria, in a Spaniard grown could not brook the suggestion of colonial independence, even in the far future.
+
+</p>
+<p>And now having poured out these passionate pleas and splendid forecasts, Rizal was homesick for this land of his. He went
+to Hong-Kong. Calamba was in revolt. His many friends at the English port did everything to keep him; but the call was too
+persistent. December 23d, 1891, he wrote to Despujols, then governor-general of the Philippines: &#8220;If Your Excellency thinks
+my slight services could be of use in pointing out the evils of my country and helping heal the wounds reopened by the recent
+injustices, you need but to say so, and trusting in your honor as a gentleman, I will immediately put myself at your disposal.
+If you decline my offer, ... I shall at least be conscious of having done all in my power, while seeking the good of my country,
+to preserve her union to Spain through a stable policy based upon justice and community of interests.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The governor expressed his gratitude, promised protection, and Rizal sailed for Manila. But immediately after his landing
+he was arrested on a charge of sedition, whose source made the governor&#8217;s promise impotent. Nothing could be proved against
+Rizal; but it was not the purpose of his enemies to have him acquitted. A half-way sentence was imposed, and he was banished
+to Dapidan, on the island of Mindanao. Despujols was recalled to Spain.
+
+</p>
+<p>In this exile Rizal spent four years, beloved by the natives, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e656" href="#xd0e656">12</a>]</span>teaching them agriculture, treating their sick (the poor without charge), improving their schools, and visited from time to
+time by patients from abroad, drawn here by his fame as an oculist. Among these last came a Mr. Taufer, a resident of Hong-Kong,
+and with him his foster-child, Josephine Bracken, the daughter of an Irish sergeant. The pretty and adventurous girl and the
+banished patriot fell in love with each other.
+
+</p>
+<p>These may well have been among the happiest years of Rizal&#8217;s life. He had always been an exile in fact: now that he was one
+in name, strangely enough he was able for the first time to live in peace among his brothers under the skies he loved. He
+sang, in his pathetic content:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="&#xA; poem&#xA; ">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>&#8220;Thou dear illusion with thy soothing cup!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>I taste, and think I am a child again.</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="&#xA; poem&#xA; ">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Oh! kindly tempest, favoring winds of heaven,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>That knew the hour to check my shifting flight,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>And beat me down upon my native soil,...&#8221;</span></p>
+</div>
+<p>Always about his philological studies, he began here a work that should be of peculiar interest to us: a treatise on Tagalog
+verbs, in the English language. Did his knowledge of America&#8217;s growing feeling toward Cuba lead him to foresee&#8212;as no one else
+seems to have done&#8212;her appearance in the Philippines, or was he thinking of England?
+
+</p>
+<p>At Hong-Kong, and in his brief stays at Manila, Rizal had established the Liga Filipina, a society of educated and progressive
+islanders, whose ideas of needed reforms and methods of attaining them were at one with his own. His banishment was a warning
+of danger and checked the society&#8217;s activity.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Liga was succeeded, in the sense only of followed, by the Katipunan,&#8212;a native word also meaning league. The makers of
+this &#8220;league,&#8221; though avowing the same <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e678" href="#xd0e678">13</a>]</span>purpose as the members of the other, were men of very different stamp. Their initiation was a blood-rite: they sought immediate
+independence; they preached a campaign of force, if not of violence. That a recent reviewer should have connected Dr. Rizal&#8217;s
+name with the Katipunan is difficult to understand. Not alone are his writings, acts, and character against such a possibility,
+but so also is the testimony of the Spanish archives: for not only was it admitted at his final trial that he was not suspected
+of any connection with the Katipunan, but his well-known disapproval of that society&#8217;s premature and violent action was even
+made a point against him. He was so much the more dangerous to the state because he had the sagacity to know that the times
+were not yet ripe for independence, and the honesty and purity of purpose to make only demands which the state herself well
+knew to be just.
+
+</p>
+<p>When the rebellion of 1896 broke out, Rizal, still at Dapidan, knew that his life would not long be worth a breath of his
+beloved Philippine air. He asked, therefore, of the Government permission to go to Cuba as an army surgeon. It was granted,
+and he was taken to Manila&#8212;ovations all along his route&#8212;and embarked on the <i>Isla de Panay</i> for Barcelona. He carried with him the following letter from General Blanco, then governor-general of the Philippines, to
+the Minister of War at Madrid:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p><span class="smallcaps">Manila</span>, August 30th, 1896.
+
+
+</p>
+<p><span class="smallcaps">Esteemed General and Distinguished Friend:</span>
+
+
+
+</p>
+<p>I recommend to you with genuine interest, Dr. Jos&eacute; Rizal, who is leaving for the Peninsula, to place himself at the disposal
+of the Government as volunteer army surgeon to Cuba. During the four years of his exile at Dapidan, he has conducted himself
+in the most exemplary manner, and he is in my opinion the more worthy of pardon and consideration, in that he is in no way
+connected with the extravagant attempts we are now deploring, neither those of conspirators nor of the secret societies that
+have been formed.
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e696" href="#xd0e696">14</a>]</span></p>
+<p>I have the pleasure to reassure you of my high esteem, and remain,
+
+
+
+</p>
+<p>Your affectionate friend and comrade,
+
+
+</p>
+<p><span class="smallcaps">Ramon Blanco.</span></p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+</p>
+<p>But as soon as the <i>Isla</i> was on the seas, despatches began to pass between Manila and Madrid, and before she reached her port the promises, acceptances,
+and recommendations of the Government officials were void. Upon landing, Rizal was immediately arrested and confined in the
+infamous Montjuich prison. Despujols was now military governor of Barcelona. The interview of hours which he is said to have
+had with his Filipino prisoner must have been dramatic. Rizal was at once re-embarked, on the <i>Colon,</i> and returned to Manila, a state prisoner. Blanco was recalled, and Poliavieja, a sworn friend of the clericals, was sent
+out.
+
+</p>
+<p>Rizal was tried by court-martial, on a charge of sedition and rebellion. His guilt was manifestly impossible. Except as a
+prisoner of the state, he had spent only a few weeks in the Philippines since his boyhood. His life abroad had been perfectly
+open, as were all his writings. The facts stated in General Blanco&#8217;s letter to the Minister of War were well known to all
+Rizal&#8217;s accusers. The best they could do was to aver that he had written &#8220;depreciative words&#8221; against the Government and the
+Church. Some testimony was given against him by men who, since the American occupation, have made affidavit that it was false
+and forced from them by torture. Rizal made a splendid defence, but he was condemned, and sentenced to the death of a traitor.
+On that day Jos&eacute; Rizal y Mercado and Josephine Bracken were married. Then the sweetness and strength of his character and
+his singleness of purpose made a beautiful showing. In the night, which his bride spent on her knees outside his prison, he
+wrote a long poem of farewell to his patria adorado, fine in its abnegation and exquisite in the wanderings of its fancy.
+He received the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e715" href="#xd0e715">15</a>]</span>ministrations of a Jesuit priest. He was perfectly calm. &#8220;What is death to me?&#8221; he said; &#8220;I have sown, others are left to
+reap.&#8221; At dawn he was shot.
+</p>
+<hr class="tb"><p>
+
+</p>
+<p>The poem in which he left a record of his last thoughts was the following:
+
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="&#xA; poem&#xA; ">
+<h4 class="&#xA; lghead&#xA; ">My Last Thought.</h4>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Land I adore, farewell! thou land of the southern sun&#8217;s choosing!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Pearl of the Orient seas! our forfeited Garden of Eden!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Joyous I yield up for thee my sad life, and were it far brighter,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Young, rose-strewn, for thee and thy happiness still would I give it.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Far afield, in the din and rush of maddening battle,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Others have laid down their lives, nor wavered nor paused in the giving.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>What matters way or place&#8212;the cyprus, the lily, the laurel,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Gibbet or open field, the sword or inglorious torture,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>When &#8217;tis the hearth and the country that call for the life&#8217;s immolation?</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="&#xA; poem&#xA; ">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Dawn&#8217;s faint lights bar the east, she smiles through the cowl of the darkness,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Just as I die. Hast thou need of purple to garnish her pathway?
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Here is my blood, on the hour! pour it out, and the sun in his rising
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Mayhap will touch it with gold, will lend it the sheen of his glory.</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="&#xA; poem&#xA; ">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Dreams of my childhood and youth, and dreams of my strong young manhood,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>What were they all but to see, thou gem of the Orient ocean!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Tearless thine eyes so deep, unbent, unmarred thy sweet forehead.</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="&#xA; poem&#xA; ">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Vision I followed from far, desire that spurred on and consumed me!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Greeting! my parting soul cries, and greeting again!... O my country!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Beautiful is it to fall, that the vision may rise to fulfilment,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Giving my life for thy life, and breathing thine air in the death-throe;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Sweet to eternally sleep in thy lap, O land of enchantment!</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="&#xA; poem&#xA; ">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>If in the deep, rich grass that covers my rest in thy bosom,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Some day thou seest upspring a lowly, tremulous blossom,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Lay there thy lips, &#8217;tis my soul; may I feel on my forehead descending,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Deep in the chilly tomb, the soft, warm breath of thy kisses.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e778" href="#xd0e778">16</a>]</span></span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Let the calm light of the moon fall around me, and dawn&#8217;s fleeting splendor;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Let the winds murmur and sigh, on my cross let some bird tell its message;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Loosed from the rain by the brazen sun, let clouds of soft vapor
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Bear to the skies, as they mount again, the chant of my spirit.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>There may some friendly heart lament my parting untimely,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>And if at eventide a soul for my tranquil sleep prayeth,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Pray thou too, O my fatherland! for my peaceful reposing.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Pray for those who go down to death through unspeakable torments;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Pray for those who remain to suffer such torture in prisons;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Pray for the bitter grief of our mothers, our widows, our orphans;
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Oh, pray too for thyself, on the way to thy final redemption.</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="&#xA; poem&#xA; ">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>When our still dwelling-place wraps night&#8217;s dusky mantle about her,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Leaving the dead alone with the dead, to watch till the morning,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Break not our rest, and seek not to lay death&#8217;s mystery open.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>If now and then thou shouldst hear the string of a lute or a zithern,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Mine is the hand, dear country, and mine is the voice that is singing.</span></p>
+</div>
+<div class="&#xA; poem&#xA; ">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>When my tomb, that all have forgot, no cross nor stone marketh,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>There let the laborer guide his plough, there cleave the earth open.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>So shall my ashes at last be one with thy hills and thy valleys.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Little &#8217;twill matter then, my country, that thou shouldst forget me!
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>I shall be air in thy streets, and I shall be space in thy meadows.
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>I shall be vibrant speech in thine ears, shall be fragrance and color,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>Light and shout, and loved song forever repeating my message.</span></p>
+</div>
+<p>Rizal&#8217;s own explanation of the lofty purpose of his searching story of his Tagalog fatherland was in these words of his dedicatory
+preface:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<div class="body">
+<div class="div1">
+<h2 class="normal">To My Country</h2>
+<p>The records of human suffering make known to us the existence of ailments of such nature that the slightest touch irritates
+and causes tormenting pains. Whenever, in the midst of modern civilizations, I have tried to call up thy dear image, O my
+country! either for the comradeship of remembrance or to compare thy life with that about me, I have seen thy fair face disfigured
+and distorted by a hideous social cancer.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e837" href="#xd0e837">17</a>]</span></p>
+<p>Eager for thy health, which is our happiness, and seeking the best remedy for thy pain, I am about to do with thee what the
+ancients did with their sick: they exposed them on the steps of their temples, that every one who came to adore the divinity
+within might offer a remedy.
+
+</p>
+<p>So I shall strive to describe faithfully thy state without extenuation; to lift a corner of the covering that hides thy sore;
+sacrificing everything to truth, even the love of thy glory, while loving, as thy son, even thy frailties and sins.
+
+</p>
+<p><span class="smallcaps">Jos&eacute; Rizal.</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+</div><span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e847" href="#xd0e847">18</a>]</span><div class="body">
+<div id="ch1" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="super">An Eagle Flight</h2>
+<h2 class="label">I.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The House on the Pasig.</h2>
+<p>It was toward the end of October. Don Santiago de los Santos, better known as Captain Tiago, was giving a dinner; and though,
+contrary to custom, he had not announced it until that very afternoon, it had become before evening the sole topic of conversation,
+not only at Binondo, but in the other suburbs of Manila, and even in the city itself. Captain Tiago passed for the most lavish
+of entertainers, and it was well known that the doors of his home, like those of his country, were closed to nobody and nothing
+save commerce and all new or audacious ideas. The news spread, therefore, with lightning rapidity in the world of the sycophants,
+the unemployed and idle, whom heaven has multiplied so generously at Manila.
+
+</p>
+<p>The dinner was given in a house of the Calle de Anloague, which may yet be recognized, if an earthquake has not demolished
+it. This house, rather large and of a style common to the country, stood near an arm of the Pasig, called the Boco de Binondo,
+a rio which, like all others of Manila, washing along the multiple output of baths, sewers, and fishing grounds serves as
+a means of transport, and even furnishes drinking-water, if such be the humor of the Chinese carrier. Scarcely at intervals
+of a half-mile is <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e860" href="#xd0e860">19</a>]</span>this powerful artery of the quarter where the traffic is most important, the movement most active, dotted with bridges; and
+these, in ruins at one end six months of the year and inapproachable the remaining six at the other, give horses a pretext
+for plunging into the water, to the great surprise of preoccupied mortals in carriages dozing tranquilly or philosophizing
+on the progress of the century.
+
+</p>
+<p>The house of Captain Tiago was rather low and on lines sufficiently incorrect. A grand staircase with green balustrades, carpeted
+at intervals, led from the vestibule, with its squares of colored faience, to the main floor, between Chinese pedestals ornamented
+with fantastic designs, supporting vases and jardini&egrave;res of flowers.
+
+</p>
+<p>At the top of the staircase was a large apartment, called here <i>caida</i>, which for this night served at once as dining- and music-room. In the centre, a long table, luxuriously set, seemed to promise
+to diners-out the most soothing satisfaction, at the same time threatening the timid girl&#8212;the dalaga&#8212;who for six mortal hours
+must submit to the companionship of strange and diverse people.
+
+</p>
+<p>In contrast to these mundane preparations, richly colored pictures of religious subjects hung about the walls, and at the
+end of the apartment, imprisoned in ornate and splendid Renaissance carving, was a curious canvas of vast dimensions, bearing
+the inscription, &#8220;Our Lady of Peace and of Safe Journeys, Venerated at Antipolo.&#8221; The ceiling was prettily decorated with
+jewelled Chinese lamps, cages without birds, spheres of crystal faced with colored foil, faded air plants, <i>botetes</i>, etc. On the river side, through fantastic arches, half Chinese, half European, were glimpses of a terrace, with trellises
+and arbors, illuminated by little colored lanterns. Brilliant chandeliers, reflected in great mirrors, lighted the apartment.
+On a platform of pine was a superb grand piano. In a panel of the wall, a large portrait in oil <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e874" href="#xd0e874">20</a>]</span>represented a man of agreeable face, in frock coat, robust, straight, symmetrical as the gavel between his jewelled fingers.
+
+</p>
+<p>The crowd of guests almost filled the room; the men separated from the women, as in Catholic churches and synagogues. An old
+cousin of Captain Tiago&#8217;s was receiving alone. Her appearance was kindly, but her tongue not very flexible to the Castilian.
+She filled her r&ocirc;le by offering to the Spaniards trays of cigarettes and <i>buyos</i>, and giving the Filipinos her hand to kiss. The poor old lady, wearied at last, profited by the sound of breaking china to
+go out hurriedly, grumbling at maladroits. She did not reappear.
+
+</p>
+<p>Whether the pictures roused a spirit of devotion, whether the women of the Philippines are exceptional, the feminine part
+of the assembly remained silent. Scarcely was heard even a yawn, stifled behind a fan. The men made more stir. The most interesting
+and animated group was formed by two monks, two Spanish provincials, and an officer, seated round a little table, on which
+were wine and English biscuits.
+
+</p>
+<p>The officer, an old lieutenant, tall and morose, looked a Duke of Alba, retired into the Municipal Guard. He spoke little
+and dryly. One of the monks was a young Dominican, handsome, brilliant, precociously grave; it was the curate of Binondo.
+Consummate dialectician, he could escape from a <i>distinguo</i> like an eel from a fisherman&#8217;s nets. He spoke seldom, and seemed to weigh his words.
+
+</p>
+<p>The other monk talked much and gestured more. Though his hair was turning gray, he seemed to have preserved all his vigor.
+His carriage, his glance, his large jaws, his herculean frame, gave him the air of a Roman patrician in disguise. Yet he seemed
+genial, and if the timbre of his voice was autocratic, his frank and merry laugh removed <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e890" href="#xd0e890">21</a>]</span>any disagreeable impression, so far even that one pardoned his appearing in the salon with unshod feet.
+
+</p>
+<p>One of the provincials, a little man with a black beard, had nothing remarkable about him but his nose, which, to judge from
+its size, ought not to have belonged to him entire. The other, young and blond, seemed newly arrived in the country. The Franciscan
+was conversing with him somewhat warmly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will see,&#8221; said he, &#8220;when you have been here several months; you will be convinced that to legislate at Madrid and to
+execute in the Philippines is not one and the same thing.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I, for example,&#8221; continued Brother D&aacute;maso, raising his voice to cut off the words of his objector, &#8220;I, who count twenty-three
+years of plane and palm, can speak with authority. I spent twenty years in one pueblo. In twenty years one gets acquainted
+with a town. San Diego had six thousand souls. I knew each inhabitant as if I&#8217;d borne and reared him&#8212;with which foot this
+one limped, how that one&#8217;s pot boiled&#8212;and I tell you the reforms proposed by the Ministers are absurd. The Indian is too indolent!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, pardon me,&#8221; said the young man, speaking low and drawing nearer; &#8220;that word rouses all my interest. Does it really exist
+from birth, this indolence of the native, or is it, as some travellers say, only an excuse of our own for the lack of advancement
+in our colonial policy?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bah! ask Se&ntilde;or Laruja, who also knows the country well; ask him if the ignorance and idleness of the Indians are not unparalleled?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;In truth!&#8221; the little dark man made haste to affirm; &#8220;nowhere will you find men more careless.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nor more corrupt, nor more ungrateful.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nor more ill-bred.&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e910" href="#xd0e910">22</a>]</span></p>
+<p>The young man looked about uneasily. &#8220;Gentlemen,&#8221; said he, still speaking low, &#8220;it seems to me we are the guests of Indians,
+and that these young ladies&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bah, you are too timid: Santiago does not consider himself an Indian, besides, he isn&#8217;t here. These are the scruples of a
+newcomer. Wait a little. When you have slept in our strapped beds, eaten the tinola, and seen our balls and f&ecirc;tes, you&#8217;ll
+change your tone. And more, you will find that the country is going to ruin; she is ruined already!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What does your reverence mean?&#8221; cried the lieutenant and Dominican together.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The evil all comes from the fact that the Government sustains wrong-doers in the face of the ministers of God,&#8221; continued
+the Franciscan, raising his voice and facing about. &#8220;When a curate rids his cemetery of a malefactor, no one, not even the
+king, has the right to interfere; and a wretched general, a petty general from nowhere&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Father, His Excellency is viceroy,&#8221; said the officer, rising. &#8220;His Excellency represents His Majesty the king.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What Excellency?&#8221; retorted the Franciscan, rising in turn. &#8220;Who is this king? For us there is but one King, the legitimate&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you do not retract that, Father, I shall make it known to the governor-general,&#8221; cried the lieutenant.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go to him now, go!&#8221; retorted Father D&aacute;maso; &#8220;I&#8217;ll loan you my carriage.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The Dominican interposed.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;ores,&#8221; said he in a tone of authority, &#8220;you should not confuse things, nor seek offence where there is none intended.
+We must distinguish in the words of Father D&aacute;maso those of the man from those of the priest. The latter per se can never offend,
+because they are infallible. In the words of the man, a sub-distinction must be made, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e931" href="#xd0e931">23</a>]</span>into those said ab irato, those said ex ore, but not in corde, and those said in corde. It is these last only that can offend,
+and even then everything depends. If they were not premeditated in mente, but simply arose per accidens in the heat of the
+conversation&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>At this interesting point there joined the group an old Spaniard, gentle and inoffensive of aspect. He was lame, and leaned
+on the arm of an old native woman, smothered in curls and frizzes, preposterously powdered, and in European dress. With relief
+every one turned to salute them. It was Doctor de Espada&ntilde;a and his wife, the Doctora Do&ntilde;a Victorina. The atmosphere cleared.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Which, Se&ntilde;or Laruja, is the master of the house?&#8221; asked the young provincial. &#8220;I haven&#8217;t been presented.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They say he has gone out.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No presentations are necessary here,&#8221; said Brother D&aacute;maso; &#8220;Santiago is a good fellow.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p><i lang="de">Er hat das <span class="corr" id="xd0e944" title="Source: Pulfernicht">Pulfer nicht</span> erfunden</i>. &#8220;He didn&#8217;t invent gunpowder,&#8221; added Laruja.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What, you too, Se&ntilde;or de Laruja?&#8221; said Do&ntilde;a Victorina over her fan. &#8220;How could the poor man have invented gunpowder when,
+if what they say is true, the Chinese made it centuries ago?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The Chinese? &#8217;Twas a Franciscan who invented it,&#8221; said Brother D&aacute;maso.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A Franciscan, no doubt; he must have been a missionary to China,&#8221; said the Se&ntilde;ora, not disposed to abandon her idea.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who is this with Santiago?&#8221; asked the lieutenant. Every one looked toward the door, where two men had just entered. They
+came up to the group around the table.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e956" href="#xd0e956">24</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch2" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">II.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal"><span class="corr" id="xd0e961" title="Source: Crisostomo">Cris&oacute;stomo</span> Ibarra.
+</h2>
+<p>One was the original of the portrait in oil, and he led by the hand a young man in deep black. &#8220;Good evening, se&ntilde;ores; good
+evening, fathers,&#8221; said Captain Tiago, kissing the hands of the priests, &#8220;I have the honor of presenting to you Don <span class="corr" id="xd0e966" title="Source: Crisostomo">Cris&oacute;stomo</span> Ibarra.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>At the name of Ibarra there were smothered exclamations. The lieutenant, forgetting to salute the master of the house, surveyed
+the young man from head to foot. Brother D&aacute;maso seemed petrified. The arrival was evidently unexpected. Se&ntilde;or Ibarra exchanged
+the usual phrases with members of the group. Nothing marked him from other guests save his black attire. His fine height,
+his manner, his movements, denoted sane and vigorous youth. His face, frank and engaging, of a rich brown, and lightly furrowed&#8212;trace
+of Spanish blood&#8212;was rosy from a sojourn in the north.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; he cried, surprised and delighted, &#8220;my father&#8217;s old friend, Brother D&aacute;maso!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>All eyes turned toward the Franciscan, who did not stir.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pardon,&#8221; said Ibarra, puzzled. &#8220;I am mistaken.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are not mistaken,&#8221; said the priest at last, in an odd voice; &#8220;but your father was not my friend.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra, astonished, drew slowly back the hand he had offered, and turned to find himself facing the lieutenant, whose eyes
+had never left him.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Young man, are you the son of Don Rafael Ibarra?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p><span class="corr" id="xd0e984" title="Source: Crisostomo">Cris&oacute;stomo</span> bowed.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e987" href="#xd0e987">25</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Then welcome to your country! I knew your father well, one of the most honorable men of the Philippines.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or,&#8221; replied Ibarra, &#8220;what you say dispels my doubts as to his fate, of which as yet I know nothing.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The old man&#8217;s eyes filled with tears. He turned away to hide them, and moved off into the crowd.
+
+</p>
+<p>The master of the house had disappeared. Ibarra was left alone in the middle of the room. No one presented him to the ladies.
+He hesitated a moment, then went up to them and said:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Permit me to forget formalities, and salute the first of my countrywomen I have seen for years.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>No one spoke, though many eyes regarded him with interest. Ibarra turned away, and a jovial man, in native dress, with studs
+of brilliants down his shirt-front, almost ran up to say:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or Ibarra, I wish to know you. I am Captain Tinong, and live near you at Tondo. Will you honor us at dinner to-morrow?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thank you,&#8221; said Ibarra, pleased with the kindness, &#8220;but to-morrow I must leave for San Diego.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a pity! Well then, on your return&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dinner is served,&#8221; announced a waiter of the Caf&eacute; La Campana.
+
+</p>
+<p>The guests began to move toward the table, not without much ceremony on the part of the ladies, especially the natives, who
+required a great deal of polite urging.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1010" href="#xd0e1010">26</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch3" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">III.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Dinner.</h2>
+<p>The two monks finding themselves near the head of the table, like two candidates for a vacant office, began politely resigning
+in each other&#8217;s favor.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is your place, Brother D&aacute;maso.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, yours, Brother Sibyla.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are so much the older friend of the family.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you are the curate of the quarter.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>This polite contention settled, the guests sat down, no one but Ibarra seeming to think of the master of the house.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What,&#8221; said he, &#8220;you&#8217;re not to be with us, Don Santiago?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>But there was no place: Lucullus was not dining with Lucullus.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t trouble yourself,&#8221; said Captain Tiago, laying his hand on the young man&#8217;s shoulder. &#8220;This feast is a thank-offering
+for your safe return. Ho, there! bring the tinola! I&#8217;ve ordered the tinola expressly for you, <span class="corr" id="xd0e1034" title="Source: Crisostomo">Cris&oacute;stomo</span>.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When did you leave the country?&#8221; Laruja asked Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Seven years ago.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then you must have almost forgotten it.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;On the contrary, it has been always in my thoughts; but my country seems to have forgotten me.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why do you say that?&#8221; asked the old lieutenant.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Because for several months I have had no news, so that I do not even know how and when my father died.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The lieutenant could not repress a groan.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1051" href="#xd0e1051">27</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;And where were you that they couldn&#8217;t telegraph you?&#8221; asked Do&ntilde;a Victorina. &#8220;When we were married, we sent despatches to
+the peninsula.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;ora, I was in the far north,&#8221; said Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have travelled much,&#8221; said the blond provincial; &#8220;which of the European countries pleased you most?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;After Spain, my second country, the nations that are free.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And what struck you as most interesting, most surprising, in the general life of nations&#8212;the genius of each, so to put it?&#8221;
+asked Laruja.
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra reflected.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Before visiting a country I carefully studied its history, and, except the different motives for national pride, there seems
+to me nothing surprisingly characteristic in any nation. Given its history, everything appears natural; each people&#8217;s wealth
+and misery seem in direct proportion to its freedom and its prejudices, and in consequence, in proportion to the self-sacrifice
+or selfishness of its progenitors.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did you discover nothing more startling than that?&#8221; demanded the Franciscan, with a mocking laugh. &#8220;It was hardly worth while
+squandering money for so slight returns. Not a schoolboy but knows as much.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The guests eyed one another, fearful of what might follow. Ibarra, astonished, remained silent a moment, then said quietly:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;ores, do not wonder at these words of Brother D&aacute;maso. He was my curate when I was a little boy, and with his reverence
+the years don&#8217;t count. I thank him for thus recalling the time when he was often an honored guest at my father&#8217;s table.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Brother Sibyla furtively observed the Franciscan, who was trembling slightly. At the first possible opportunity Ibarra rose.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1074" href="#xd0e1074">28</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;You will pardon me if I excuse myself,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I arrived only a few hours ago, and have matters of importance to attend
+to. The dinner is over. I drink little wine, and scarcely taste liquors.&#8221; And raising a glass as yet untouched, &#8220;Se&ntilde;ores,&#8221;
+he said, &#8220;Spain and the Philippines forever!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re not going!&#8221; said Santiago in amazement. &#8220;Maria Clara and her friends will be with us in a moment. What shall I say
+to her?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That I was obliged to go,&#8221; said Ibarra, &#8220;and that I&#8217;m coming early in the morning.&#8221; And he went out.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Franciscan unburdened himself.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You saw his arrogance,&#8221; he said to the blond provincial. &#8220;These young fellows won&#8217;t take reproof from a priest. That comes
+of sending them to Europe. The Government ought to prohibit it.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>That night the young provincial added to his &#8220;Colonial Studies,&#8221; this paragraph: &#8220;In the Philippines, the least important
+person at a feast is he who gives it. You begin by showing your host to the door, and all goes merrily.... In the present
+state of affairs, it would be almost a kindness to prohibit young Filipinos from leaving their country, if not even from learning
+to read.&#8221;
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1087" href="#xd0e1087">29</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch4" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">IV.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Heretic and Filibuster.</h2>
+<p>Ibarra stood outside the house of Captain Tiago. The night wind, which at this season brings a bit of freshness to Manila,
+seemed to blow away the cloud that had darkened his face. Carriages passed him like streaks of light, hired calashes rolled
+slowly by, and foot-passengers of all nationalities jostled one another. With the rambling gait of the preoccupied or the
+idle, he took his way toward the Plaza de Binondo. Nothing was changed. It was the same street, with the same blue and white
+houses, the same white walls with their slate-colored fresco, poor imitations of granite. The church tower showed the same
+clock with transparent face. The Chinese shop had the same soiled curtains, the same iron triangles. One day, long ago, imitating
+the street urchins of Manila, he had twisted one of these triangles: nobody had ever straightened it. &#8220;How little progress!&#8221;
+he murmured; and he followed the Calle de la Sacristia, pursued by the cry of sherbet venders.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Marvellous!&#8221; he thought; &#8220;one would say my voyage was a dream. Santo Dios! the street is as bad as when I went away.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>While he contemplated this marvel of urban stability in an unstable country, a hand fell lightly on his shoulder. He looked
+up and recognized the old lieutenant. His face had put off its expression of sternness, and he smiled kindly at <span class="corr" id="xd0e1099" title="Source: Crisostomo">Cris&oacute;stomo</span>.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1102" href="#xd0e1102">30</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Young man,&#8221; he said, &#8220;I was your father&#8217;s friend: I wish you to consider me yours.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You seem to have known my father well,&#8221; said <span class="corr" id="xd0e1107" title="Source: Crisostomo">Cris&oacute;stomo</span>; &#8220;perhaps you can tell me something of his death.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You do not know about it?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nothing at all, and Don Santiago would not talk with me till to-morrow.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You know, of course, where he died.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not even that.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Lieutenant Guevara hesitated.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am an old soldier,&#8221; he said at last, in a voice full of compassion, &#8220;and only know how to say bluntly what I have to tell.
+Your father died in prison.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra sprang back, his eyes fixed on the lieutenant&#8217;s.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Died in prison? Who died in prison?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your father,&#8221; said the lieutenant, his voice still gentler.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My father&#8212;in prison? What are you saying? Do you know who my father was?&#8221; and he seized the old man&#8217;s arm.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think I&#8217;m not mistaken: Don Rafael Ibarra.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Don Rafael Ibarra,&#8221; <span class="corr" id="xd0e1134" title="Source: Crisostomo">Cris&oacute;stomo</span> repeated mechanically.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will soon learn that for an honest man to keep out of prison is a difficult matter in the Philippines.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You mock me! Why did he die in prison?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come with me; we will talk on the way.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>They walked along in silence, the officer stroking his beard in search of inspiration.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;As you know,&#8221; he began, &#8220;your father was the richest man of the province, and if he had many friends he had also enemies.
+We Spaniards who come to the Philippines are seldom what we should be. I say this as truthfully of some of your ancestors
+as of others. Most of us come to make a fortune without regard to the means. Well, your <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1147" href="#xd0e1147">31</a>]</span>father was a man to make enemies among these adventurers, and he made enemies among the monks. I never knew exactly the ground
+of the trouble with Brother D&aacute;maso, but it came to a point where the priest almost denounced him from the pulpit.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You remember the old ex-artilleryman who collected taxes? He became the laughing-stock of the pueblo, and grew brutal and
+churlish accordingly. One day he chased some boys who were annoying him, and struck one down. Unfortunately your father interfered.
+There was a struggle and the man fell. He died within a few hours.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Naturally your father was arrested, and then his enemies unmasked. He was called heretic, filibustero, his papers were seized,
+everything was made to accuse him. Any one else in his place would have been set at liberty, the physicians finding that the
+man died of apoplexy; but your father&#8217;s fortune, his honesty, and his scorn of everything illegal undid him. When his advocate,
+by the most brilliant pleading, had exposed these calumnies, new accusations arose. He had taken lands unjustly, owed men
+for imaginary wrongs, had relations with the tulisanes, by which his plantations and herds were unmolested. The affair became
+so complicated that no one could unravel it. Your father gave way under the strain, and died suddenly&#8212;alone&#8212;in prison.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>They had reached the quarters.
+
+</p>
+<p>The lieutenant hesitated. Ibarra said nothing, but grasped the old man&#8217;s long, thin hand; then turned away, caught sight of
+a coach, and signalled the driver.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Fonda de Lala,&#8221; he said, and his words were scarcely audible.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1159" href="#xd0e1159">32</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch5" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">V.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">A Star in the Dark Night.</h2>
+<p>Ibarra went up to his chamber, which faced the river, threw himself down, and looked out through the open window. Across the
+river a brilliantly lighted house was ringing with joyous music. Had the young man been so minded, with the aid of a glass
+he might have seen, in that radiant atmosphere, a vision. It was a young girl, of exceeding beauty, wearing the picturesque
+costume of the Philippines. A semicircle of courtiers was round her. Spaniards, Chinese, natives, soldiers, curates, old and
+young, intoxicated with the light and music, were talking, gesturing, disputing with animation. Even Brother Sibyla deigned
+to address this queen, in whose splendid hair Do&ntilde;a Victorina was wreathing a diadem of pearls and brilliants. She was white,
+too white perhaps, and her deep eyes, often lowered, when she raised them showed the purity of her soul. About her fair and
+rounded neck, through the transparent tissue of the pi&ntilde;a, winked, as say the Tagals, the joyous eyes of a necklace of brilliants.
+One man alone seemed unreached by all this light and loveliness; it was a young Franciscan, slim, gaunt, pale, who watched
+all from a distance, still as a statue.
+
+</p>
+<p>But Ibarra sees none of this. Another spectacle appears to his fancy, commands his eyes. Four walls, bare and dank, enclose
+a narrow cell, lighted by a single streak of day. On the moist and noisome floor is a mat; on the mat an old man dying. Beaten
+down by fever, he lies and looks <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1169" href="#xd0e1169">33</a>]</span>about him, calling a name, in strangling voice, with tears. No one&#8212;a clanking chain, an echoed groan somewhere; that was all.
+And away off in the bright world, laughing, singing, drenching flowers with wine, a young man.... One by one the lights go
+out in the festal house: no more of noise, or song, or harp; but in Ibarra&#8217;s ears always the agonizing cry.
+
+</p>
+<p>Silence has drawn her deep breath over Manila; all its life seems gone out, save that a cock&#8217;s crow alternates with the bells
+of clock towers and the melancholy watch-cry of the guard. A quarter moon comes up, flooding with its pale light the universal
+sleep. Even Ibarra, wearied more perhaps with his sad thoughts than his long voyage, sleeps too. Only the young Franciscan,
+silent and motionless just now at the feast, awake still. His elbow on the window-place of his little cell, his chin sunk
+in his palm, he watches a glittering star. The star pales, goes out, the slender moon loses her gentle light, but the monk
+stays on; motionless, he looks toward the horizon, lost now behind the morning mists, over the field of Bagumbayan, over the
+sleeping sea.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1173" href="#xd0e1173">34</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch6" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">VI.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Captain Tiago and Maria.</h2>
+<p>While our friends are still asleep or breakfasting, we will sketch the portrait of Captain Tiago. We have no reason to ignore
+him, never having been among his guests. Short, less dark than most of his compatriots, of full face and slightly corpulent,
+Captain Tiago seemed younger than his age. His rounded cranium, very small and elongated behind, was covered with hair black
+as ebony. His eyes, small and straight set, kept always the same expression. His nose was straight and finely cut, and if
+his mouth had not been deformed by the use of tobacco and buyo, he had not been wrong in thinking himself a handsome man.
+
+</p>
+<p>He was reputed the richest resident of Binondo, and had large estates in La Pampanga, on the Laguna de Bay, and at San Diego.
+From its baths, its famous gallera, and his recollections of the place, San Diego was his favorite pueblo, and here he passed
+two months every year. He had also properties at Santo Cristo, in the Calle de Anloague, and in the Calle Rosario; the exploitation
+of the opium traffic was shared between him and a Chinese, and, needless to say, brought him great gains. He was purveyor
+to the prisoners at Bilibid, and furnished zacate to many Manila houses. On good terms with all authority, shrewd, pliant,
+daring in speculation, he was the sole rival of a certain Perez in the awards of divers contracts which the Philippine Government
+always places in privileged hands. From all of which it resulted that Captain Tiago was as happy <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1183" href="#xd0e1183">35</a>]</span>as can be a man whose small head announces his native origin. He was rich, and at peace with God, with the Government, and
+with men.
+
+</p>
+<p>That he was at peace with God could not be doubted. One has no motive for being at enmity with Him when one is well in the
+land, and has never had to ask Him for anything. From the grand salon of the Manila home, a little door, hid behind a silken
+curtain, led to a chapel&#8212;something obligatory in a Filipino house. There were Santiago&#8217;s Lares, and if we use this word, it
+is because the master of the house was rather a poly- than a monotheist. Here, in sculpture and oils, were saints, martyrdoms,
+and miracles; a chapter could scarcely enumerate them all. Before these images Santiago burned his candles and made his requests
+known.
+
+</p>
+<p>That he was at peace with the Government, however difficult the problem, could not be doubted either. Incapable of a new idea,
+and contented with his lot, he was disposed to obey even to the lowest functionary, and to offer him capons, hams, and Chinese
+fruits at all seasons. If he heard the natives maligned, not considering himself one, he chimed in and said worse: one criticised
+the Chinese merchants or the Spaniards, he, who thought himself pure Iberian, did it too. He was for two years gobernadorcillo
+of the rich association of half-breeds, in the face of protestations from many who considered him a native. The impious called
+him fool; the poor, pitiless and cruel; his inferiors, a tyrant.
+
+</p>
+<p>As to his past, he was the only son of a rich sugar merchant, who died when Santiago was still at school. He had then to quit
+his studies and give himself to business. He married a young girl of Santa Cruz, who brought him social rank and helped his
+fortunes.
+
+</p>
+<p>The absence of an heir in the first six years of marriage <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1193" href="#xd0e1193">36</a>]</span>made Captain Tiago&#8217;s thirst for riches almost blameworthy. In vain all this time did Do&ntilde;a Pia make novenas and pilgrimages
+and scatter alms. But at length she was to become a mother. Alas! like Shakespeare&#8217;s fisherman who lost his songs when he
+found a treasure, she never smiled again, and died, leaving a beautiful baby girl, whom Brother D&aacute;maso presented at the font.
+The child was called Maria Clara.
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara grew, thanks to the care of good Aunt Isabel. Her eyes, like her mother&#8217;s, were large, black, and shaded by long
+lashes; sparkling and mirthful when she laughed; when she did not, thoughtful and profound, even sad. Her curly hair was almost
+blond, her nose perfect; and her mouth, small and sweet like her mother&#8217;s, was flanked by charming dimples. The little thing,
+idol of every one, lived amid smiles and love. The monks f&ecirc;ted her. They dressed her in white for their processions, mingled
+jasmine and lilies in her hair, gave her little silver wings, and in her hands blue ribbons, the reins of fluttering white
+doves. She was so joyous, had such a candid baby speech, that Captain Tiago, enraptured with her, passed his time in blessing
+the saints.
+
+</p>
+<p>In the lands of the sun, at thirteen or fourteen, the child becomes a woman. At this age full of mysteries, Maria Clara entered
+the convent of Santa Catalina, to remain several years. With tears she parted from the sole companion of her childish games,
+<span class="corr" id="xd0e1199" title="Source: Crisostomo">Cris&oacute;stomo</span> Ibarra, who in turn was soon to leave his home. Some years after his departure, Don Rafael and Captain Tiago, knowing the
+inclinations of their children, agreed upon their marriage. This arrangement was received with eager joy by two hearts beating
+at two extremities of the world.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1202" href="#xd0e1202">37</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch7" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">VII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Idylle.</h2>
+<p>The sky was blue. A fresh breeze stirred the leaves and shook the nodding &#8220;angels&#8217; heads,&#8221; the aerial plants, and the many
+other adornments of the terrace. Maria and <span class="corr" id="xd0e1210" title="Source: Crisostomo">Cris&oacute;stomo</span> were there, alone together for the first time since his return. They began with charming futilities, so sweet to those who
+understand, so meaningless to others. She is sister to Cain, a little jealous; she says to her lover: &#8220;Did you never forget
+me among the many beautiful women you have seen?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He too, he is brother to Cain, a bit subtle.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Could I ever forget you!&#8221; he answered, gazing into the dark eyes. &#8220;Your remembrance made powerless that lotus flower, Europe,
+which steeps out of the memory of many of my countrymen the hopes and wrongs of our land. It seemed as if the spirit, the
+poetic incarnation of my country was you, frank and lovely daughter of the Philippines! My love for you and that for her fused
+in one.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know only your pueblo, Manila and Antipolo,&#8221; replied the young girl, radiant; &#8220;but I have always thought of you, and though
+my confessor commanded it, I was never able to forget you. I used to think over all our childish plays and quarrels. Do you
+remember the day you were really angry? Your mother had taken us to wade in the brook, behind the reeds. You put a crown of
+orange flowers on my head and called me Chloe. But your mother took the flowers and ground them with a stone, to mix with
+<i>gogo</i>, for <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1222" href="#xd0e1222">38</a>]</span>washing our hair. You cried. &#8216;Stupid,&#8217; said she, &#8216;you shall see how good your hair smells!&#8217; I laughed; at that you were angry
+and wouldn&#8217;t speak to me, while I wanted to cry. On the way home, when the sun was very hot, I picked some sage leaves for
+your head. You smiled your thanks, and we were friends again.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra opened his pocketbook and took out a paper in which were some leaves, blackened and dry, but fragrant still.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your sage leaves,&#8221; he replied to her questioning look.
+
+</p>
+<p>In her turn, she drew out a little white satin purse.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hands off!&#8221; as he reached out for it, &#8220;there&#8217;s a letter in it!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My letter of good-by?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you written me any others, se&ntilde;or mio?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is in it?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Lots of fibs, excuses of a bad debtor,&#8221; she laughed. &#8220;If you&#8217;re good I will read it to you, suppressing the gallantries,
+though, so you won&#8217;t suffer too much.&#8221; And lifting the paper to hide her face, she began:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;My&#8212;&#8212;&#8217; I&#8217;ll not read what follows, because it&#8217;s a fib&#8221;; and she ran her eyes over several lines. &#8220;In spite of my prayers,
+I must go. &#8216;You are no longer a boy,&#8217; my father said, &#8216;you must think of the future. You have to learn things your own country
+cannot teach you, if you would be useful to her some day. What, almost a man and I see you in tears?&#8217; Upon that I confessed
+my love for you. He was silent, then placing his hand on my shoulder he said in a voice full of emotion: &#8216;Do you think you
+alone know how to love; that it costs your father nothing to let you go away from him? It is not long since we lost your mother,
+and I am growing old, yet I accept my solitude and run the risk of never seeing you again. For you the future opens, for me
+it shuts; the fire of youth is yours, frost touches <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1242" href="#xd0e1242">39</a>]</span>me, and it is you who weep, you who do not know how to sacrifice the present to a to-morrow good for you and for your country.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra&#8217;s agitation stopped the reading; he had become very pale and was walking back and forth.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it? You are ill!&#8221; cried Maria, going toward him.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;With you I have forgotten my duty; I should be on my way to the pueblo. To-morrow is the Feast of the Dead.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria was silent. She fixed on him her great, thoughtful eyes, then turned to pick some flowers.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go,&#8221; she said, and her voice was deep and sweet; &#8220;I keep you no longer. In a few days we shall see each other again. Put
+these flowers on your father&#8217;s grave.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>A little later, Captain Tiago found Maria in the chapel, at the foot of a statue of the Virgin, weeping. &#8220;Come, come,&#8221; said
+he, to console her; &#8220;burn some candles to St. Roch and St. Michael, patrons of travellers, for the tulisanes are numerous:
+better spend four r&eacute;ales for wax than pay a ransom.&#8221;
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1256" href="#xd0e1256">40</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch8" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">VIII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Reminiscences.</h2>
+<p>Ibarra&#8217;s carriage was crossing one of the most animated quarters of Manila. The street life that had saddened him the night
+before, now, in spite of his sorrow, made him smile. Everything awakened a world of sleeping recollections.
+
+</p>
+<p>These streets were not yet paved, so if the sun shone two days continuously, they turned to powder which covered everything.
+But let it rain a day, you had a mire, reflecting at night the shifting lamps of the carriages and bespattering the foot-passengers
+on the narrow walks. How many women had lost their embroidered slippers in these muddy waves!
+
+</p>
+<p>The good and honorable pontoon bridge, so characteristically Filipino, doing its best to be useful in spite of natural faults,
+and rising or falling with the caprices of the Pasig,&#8212;that brave bridge was no more. The new Spanish bridge drew Ibarra&#8217;s
+attention. Carriages passed continuously, drawn by groups of dwarf horses, in splendid harness. In these sat at ease government
+clerks going to their bureaus, officers, Chinese, self-satisfied and ridiculously grave monks, canons. In an elegant victoria,
+Ibarra thought he recognized Father D&aacute;maso, deep in thought. From an open carriage, where his wife and two daughters accompanied
+him, Captain Tinong waved a friendly greeting.
+
+</p>
+<p>Then came the Botanical Gardens, then old Manila, still enclosed in its ditches and walls; beyond that the sea; beyond <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1270" href="#xd0e1270">41</a>]</span>that, Europe, thought Ibarra. But the little hill of Bagumbayan drove away all fancies. He remembered the man who had opened
+the eyes of his intelligence, taught him to find out the true and the just. It was an old priest, and the holy man had died
+there, on that field of execution!
+
+</p>
+<p>To these thoughts he replied by murmuring: &#8220;No, after all, first the country, first the Philippines, daughters of Spain, first
+the Spanish home-land!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>His carriage rolled on. It passed a cart drawn by two horses whose hempen harness told of the back country. Sometimes there
+sounded the slow and heavy tread of a pensive carabao, drawing a great tumbrel; its conductor, on his buffalo skin, accompanying,
+with a monotonous and melancholy chant, the strident creaking of the wheels. Sometimes there was the dull sound of a native
+sledge&#8217;s worn runners. In the fields grazed the herds, and among them white herons gravely promenaded, or sat tranquil on
+the backs of sleepy oxen beatifically chewing their cuds of prairie grass. Let us leave the young man, wholly occupied now
+with his thoughts. The sun which makes the tree-tops burn, and sends the peasants running, when they feel the hot ground through
+their thick shoes; the sun which halts the countrywoman under a clump of great reeds, and makes her think of things vague
+and strange&#8212;that sun has no enchantment for him.
+
+</p>
+<p>While the carriage, staggering like a drunken man over the uneven ground, passes a bamboo bridge, mounts a rough hillside
+or descends its steep slope, let us return to Manila.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1278" href="#xd0e1278">42</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch9" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">IX.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Affairs of the Country.</h2>
+<p>Ibarra had not been mistaken. It was indeed Father D&aacute;maso he had seen, on his way to the house which he himself had just left.
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara and Aunt Isabel were entering their carriage when the monk arrived. &#8220;Where are you going?&#8221; he asked, and in his
+preoccupation he gently tapped the young girl&#8217;s cheek.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To the convent to get my things,&#8221; said she.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah! ah! well, well! we shall see who is the stronger, we shall see!&#8221; he murmured, as he left the two women somewhat surprised
+and went up the steps.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s probably committing his sermon,&#8221; said Aunt Isabel. &#8220;Come, we are late!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>We cannot say whether Father D&aacute;maso was committing a sermon, but he must have been absorbed in important things, for he did
+not offer his hand to Captain Tiago.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Santiago,&#8221; he said, &#8220;we must have a serious talk. Come into your office.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Captain Tiago felt uneasy. He answered nothing, but followed the gigantic priest, who closed the door behind them.
+
+</p>
+<p>While they talk, let us see what has become of Father Sibyla.
+
+</p>
+<p>The learned Dominican, his mass once said, had set out for the convent of his order, which stands at the entrance <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1304" href="#xd0e1304">43</a>]</span>to the city, near the gate bearing alternately, according to the family reigning at Madrid, the name of Magellan or Isabella
+II.
+
+</p>
+<p>Brother Sibyla entered, crossed several halls, and knocked at a door.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come in,&#8221; said a faint voice.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;God give health to your reverence,&#8221; said the young Dominican, entering. Seated in a great armchair was an old priest, meagre,
+jaundiced, like Rivera&#8217;s saints. His eyes, deep-sunken in their orbits, were arched with heavy brows, intensifying the flashes
+of their dying light.
+
+</p>
+<p>Brother Sibyla was moved. He inclined his head, and seemed to wait.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; gasped the sick man, &#8220;they recommend an operation! An operation at my age! Oh, this country, this terrible country!
+You see what it does for all of us, Hernando!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And what has your reverence decided?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To die! Could I do otherwise? I suffer too much, but&#8212;I&#8217;ve made others suffer. I&#8217;m paying my debt. And you? How are you? What
+do you bring me?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I came to talk of the mission you gave me.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah! and what is there to say?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ve told us fairy tales,&#8221; answered Brother Sibyla wearily. &#8220;Young Ibarra seems a sensible fellow. He is not stupid at
+all, and thoroughly manly.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is it so!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hostilities began yesterday.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah! and how?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Brother Sibyla briefly recounted what had passed between Brother D&aacute;maso and <span class="corr" id="xd0e1334" title="Source: Crisostomo">Cris&oacute;stomo</span>.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Besides,&#8221; he said in conclusion, &#8220;the young man is going to marry the daughter of Captain Tiago, who was educated at the
+convent of our sisters. He is rich; he would <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1339" href="#xd0e1339">44</a>]</span>not go about making himself enemies and compromise at once his happiness and his fortune.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The sick man moved his hand in sign of assent.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, you are right. He should be ours, body and soul. But if he declare himself our enemy, so much the better!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Brother Sibyla looked at the old man in surprise.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;For the good of our sacred order, you understand,&#8221; he added, breathing with difficulty; &#8220;I prefer attack to the flatteries
+and adulations of friends; besides, those are bought.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your reverence believes that?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The old man looked at him sadly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Remember this well,&#8221; he went on, catching his breath; &#8220;our power lasts as long as it&#8217;s believed in. If we&#8217;re attacked, the
+Government reasons: &#8216;They are assailed because in them is seen an obstacle to liberty: therefore we must support them!&#8217;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But if the Government should listen to our enemies, if it should come to covet what we have amassed&#8212;if there should be a
+man hardy enough&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah! then beware!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Both were silent.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And too,&#8221; the sick man continued, &#8220;we have need of attack to show us our faults and make us better them. Too much flattery
+deceives us; we sleep; and more, it makes us ridiculous, and the day we become ridiculous we fall as we have fallen in Europe.
+Money will no longer come to our churches. No one will buy scapulary, penitential cords, anything; and when we cease to be
+rich, we can no longer convince the conscience. And the worst is, that we&#8217;re working our own destruction. For one thing, this
+immoderate thirst for gain, which I&#8217;ve combated in vain in all our chapters, this thirst will be our ruin. I fear we are already
+declining. God blinds whom He will destroy.&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1363" href="#xd0e1363">45</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;We shall always have our lands.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But every year we raise their price, and force the Indian to buy of others. The people are beginning to murmur. We ought
+not to increase the burdens we&#8217;ve already laid on their shoulders.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So your reverence believes that the revenues&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Talk no more of money,&#8221; interrupted the old man with aversion. &#8220;You say the lieutenant threatened Father D&aacute;maso?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Father,&#8221; replied Sibyla, half smiling; &#8220;but this morning he told me the sherry had mounted to his head, and he thought
+it must have been the same with Brother D&aacute;maso. &#8216;And your threat?&#8217; I asked jestingly. &#8216;Father,&#8217; said he, &#8216;I know how to keep
+my word when it doesn&#8217;t smirch my honor; I was never an informer&#8212;and that&#8217;s why I am only a lieutenant.&#8217;&#8221;
+</p>
+<hr class="tb"><p>
+
+</p>
+<p>Though the lieutenant had not carried out his threat to go to <span class="corr" id="xd0e1378" title="Source: Malacanan">Malaca&ntilde;ang</span>, the captain-general none the less knew what had happened. A young officer told the story.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;From whom do you have it?&#8221; demanded His Excellency, smiling.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;From De Laruja.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The captain-general smiled again, and added:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Woman&#8217;s tongue, monk&#8217;s tongue doesn&#8217;t wound. I don&#8217;t wish to get entangled with these men in skirts. Besides, the provincial
+made light of my orders; to punish this priest I demanded that his parish be changed. Well, they gave him a better. Monkishness!
+as we say in Spain.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Alone, His Excellency ceased to smile.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh! if the people were not so dense, how easy to bridle their reverences! But every nation merits its lot!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile Captain Tiago finished his conference with Father D&aacute;maso.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1395" href="#xd0e1395">46</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;And now you are warned,&#8221; said the Franciscan upon leaving. &#8220;This would have been avoided if you hadn&#8217;t equivocated when I
+asked you how the matter stood. Don&#8217;t make any more false moves, and trust her godfather.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Captain Tiago took two or three turns about the room, reflecting and sighing. Then suddenly, as if a happy thought had struck
+him, running to the oratory, he extinguished the two candles lighted for the safeguard of Ibarra.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1400" href="#xd0e1400">47</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch10" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">X.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Pueblo.</h2>
+<p>Almost on the banks of the lake, in the midst of meadows and streams, is the pueblo of San Diego. It exports sugar, rice,
+coffee, and fruits, or sells these articles of merchandise at low prices to Chinese traders.
+
+</p>
+<p>When, on a clear day, the children climb to the top stage of the moss-grown and vine-clad church tower, there are joyous exclamations.
+Each picks out his own little roof of <i>nipa</i>, tile, zinc, or palm. Beyond they see the rio, a monstrous crystal serpent asleep on a carpet of green. Trunks of palm trees,
+dipping and swaying, join the two banks, and if, as bridges, they leave much to be desired for trembling old men and poor
+women who must cross with heavy baskets on their heads, on the other hand they make fine gymnastic apparatus for the young.
+
+</p>
+<p>But what besides the rio the children never fail to talk about is a certain wooded peninsula in this sea of cultivated land.
+Its ancient trees never die, unless the lightning strikes their high tops. Dust gathers layer on layer in their hollow trunks,
+the rain makes soil of it, the birds bring seeds, a tropical vegetation grows there in wild freedom: bushes, briers, curtains
+of netted bind-weed, spring from the roots, reach from tree to tree, hang swaying from the branches, and Flora, as if yet
+unsatisfied, sows on the trees themselves; mosses and fungi live on the creased bark, and graceful aerial guests pierce with
+their tendrils the hospitable branches.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1415" href="#xd0e1415">48</a>]</span></p>
+<p>This wood is the subject of a legend.
+
+</p>
+<p>When the pueblo was but a group of poor cabins, there arrived one day a strange old Spaniard with marvellous eyes, who scarcely
+spoke the Tagal. He wished to buy lands having thermal springs, and did so, paying in money, dress, and jewelry. Suddenly
+he disappeared, leaving no trace. The people of the pueblo had begun to think of him as a magician, when one day his body
+was found hanging high to the branch of a giant fig tree. After it had been buried at the foot of the tree, no one cared much
+to venture in that quarter.
+
+</p>
+<p>A few months later there arrived a young Spanish halfbreed, who claimed to be the old man&#8217;s son. He settled, and gave himself
+to agriculture. Don Saturnino was taciturn and of violent temper, but very industrious. Late in life he married a woman of
+Manila, who bore him Don Rafael, the father of <span class="corr" id="xd0e1422" title="Source: Crisostomo">Cris&oacute;stomo</span>.
+
+</p>
+<p>Don Rafael, from his youth, was much beloved. He rapidly developed his father&#8217;s lands, the population multiplied, the Chinese
+came, the hamlet grew to a pueblo, the native curate died and was replaced by Father D&aacute;maso. And all this time the people
+respected the sepulchre of the old Spaniard, and held it in superstitious awe. Sometimes, armed with sticks and stones, the
+children dared run near it to gather wild fruits; but while they were busy at this, or stood gazing at the bit of rope still
+dangling from the limb, a stone or two would fall from no one knew where. Then with cries of &#8220;The old man! the old man!&#8221; they
+threw down sticks and fruit, ran in all directions, between the rocks and bushes, and did not stop till they were out of the
+woods, all pale and breathless, some crying, few daring to laugh.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1427" href="#xd0e1427">49</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch11" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XI.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Sovereigns.</h2>
+<p>Who was the ruler of the pueblo? Not Don Rafael during his lifetime, though he possessed the most land, and nearly every one
+owed him. As he was modest, and gave little value to his deeds, no party formed around him, and we have seen how he was deserted
+and attacked when his fortunes fell.
+
+</p>
+<p>Was it Captain Tiago? It is true his arrival was always heralded with music, he was given banquets by his debtors, and loaded
+with presents; but he was laughed at in secret, and called Sacristan Tiago.
+
+</p>
+<p>Was it by chance the town mayor, the gobernadorcillo? Alas! he was an unfortunate, who governed not, but obeyed; did not dispose,
+but was disposed of. And yet he had to answer to the alcalde for all these dispositions, as if they emanated from his own
+brain. Be it said in his favor that he had neither stolen nor usurped his honors, but that they cost him five thousand pesos
+and much humiliation.
+
+</p>
+<p>Perhaps then it was God? But to most of these good people, God seemed one of those poor kings surrounded by favorites to whom
+their subjects always take their supplications, never to them.
+
+</p>
+<p>No, San Diego was a sort of modern Rome. The curate was the pope at the Vatican; the alf&eacute;rez of the civil guard, the King
+in the Quirinal. Here as there, difficulties arose from the situation.
+
+</p>
+<p>The present curate, Brother Bernardo Salvi, was the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1445" href="#xd0e1445">50</a>]</span>young and silent Franciscan we have already seen. In mode of life and in appearance he was very unlike his predecessor, Brother
+D&aacute;maso. He seemed ill, was always thoughtful, accomplished strictly his religious duties, and was careful of his reputation.
+Through his zeal, almost all his parishioners had speedily become members of the Third Order of St. Francis, to the great
+dismay of the rival order, that of the Holy Rosary. Four or five scapularies were suspended around every neck, knotted cords
+encircled all the waists, and the innumerable processions of the order were a joy to see. The head sacristan took in a small
+fortune, selling&#8212;or giving as alms, to put it more correctly&#8212;all the paraphernalia necessary to save the soul and combat the
+devil. It is well known that this evil spirit, who once dared attack God face to face, and accuse His divine word, as the
+book of Job tells us, is now so cowardly and feeble that he flees at sight of a bit of painted cloth, and fears a knotted
+cord.
+
+</p>
+<p>Brother Salvi again greatly differed from Brother D&aacute;maso&#8212;who set everything right with fists or ferrule, believing it the
+only way to reach the Indian&#8212;in that he punished with fines the faults of his subordinates, rarely striking them.
+
+</p>
+<p>From his struggles with the curate, the alf&eacute;rez had a bad reputation among the devout, which he deserved, and shared with
+his wife, a hideous and vile old Filipino woman named Do&ntilde;a Consolacion. The husband avenged his conjugal woes on himself by
+drinking like a fish; on his subordinates, by making them exercise in the sun; and most frequently on his wife, by kicks and
+drubbings. The two fought famously between themselves, but were of one mind when it was a question of the curate. Inspired
+by his wife, the officer ordered that no one be abroad in the streets after nine at night. The priest, who did not like this
+restriction, retorted in lengthy sermons, whenever the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1451" href="#xd0e1451">51</a>]</span>alf&eacute;rez went to church. Like all impenitents, the alf&eacute;rez did not mend his ways for that, but went out swearing under his
+breath, arrested the first sacristan he met, and made him clean the yard of the barracks. So the war went on. All this, however,
+did not prevent the alf&eacute;rez and the curate chatting courteously enough when they met.
+
+</p>
+<p>And they were the rulers of the pueblo of San Diego.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1455" href="#xd0e1455">52</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch12" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">All Saints&#8217; Day.</h2>
+<p>The cemetery of San Diego is in the midst of rice-fields. It is approached by a narrow path, powdery on sunny days, navigable
+on rainy. A wooden gate and a wall half stone, half bamboo stalks, succeed in keeping out men, but not the curate&#8217;s goats,
+nor the pigs of his neighbors. In the middle of the enclosure is a stone pedestal supporting a great wooden cross. Storms
+have bent the strip of tin on which were the I. N. R. I., and the rain has washed off the letters. At the foot of the cross
+is a confused heap of bones and skulls thrown out by the grave-digger. Everywhere grow in all their vigor the bitter-sweet
+and rose-bay. Some tiny flowerets, too, tint the ground&#8212;blossoms which, like the mounded bones, are known to their Creator
+only. They are like little pale smiles, and their odor scents of the tomb. Grass and climbing plants fill the corners, cover
+the walls, adorning this otherwise bare ugliness; they even penetrate the tombs, through earthquake fissures, and fill their
+yawning gaps.
+
+</p>
+<p>At this hour two men are digging near the crumbling wall. One, the grave-digger, works with the utmost indifference, throwing
+aside a skull as a gardener would a stone. The other is preoccupied; he perspires, he breathes hard.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; he says at length in Tagalo. &#8220;Hadn&#8217;t we better dig in some other place? This grave is too recent.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;All the graves are the same, one is as recent as another.&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1469" href="#xd0e1469">53</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t endure this!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a woman! You should go and be a clerk! If you had dug up, as I did, a boy of twenty days, at night, in the rain&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uh-h-h! And why did you do that?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The grave-digger seemed surprised.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why? How do I know, I was ordered to.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who ordered you?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>At this question the grave-digger straightened himself, and examined the rash young man from head to foot.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come! come! You&#8217;re curious as a Spaniard. A Spaniard asked me the same question, but in secret. I&#8217;m going to say to you what
+I said to him: the curate ordered it.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh! and what did you do with the body?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The devil! if I didn&#8217;t know you, I should take you for the police. The curate told me to bury it in the Chinese cemetery,
+but it&#8217;s a long way there, and the body was heavy. &#8216;Better be drowned,&#8217; I said to myself, &#8216;than lie with the Chinese,&#8217; and
+I threw it into the lake.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, no, stop digging!&#8221; interrupted the younger man, with a cry of horror, and throwing down his spade he sprang out of the
+grave.
+
+</p>
+<p>The grave-digger watched him run off signing himself, laughed, and went to work again.
+
+</p>
+<p>The cemetery began to fill with men and women in mourning. Some of them came for a moment to the open grave, discussed some
+matter, seemed not to be agreed, and separated, kneeling here and there. Others were lighting candles; all began to pray devoutly.
+One heard sighing and sobs, and over all a confused murmur of &#8220;<i lang="la">requiem &aelig;ternam</i>.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>A little old man, with piercing eyes, entered uncovered. At sight of him some laughed, others frowned. The old <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1501" href="#xd0e1501">54</a>]</span>man seemed to take no account of this. He went to the heap of skulls, knelt, and searched with his eyes. Then with the greatest
+care he lifted the skulls one by one, wrinkling his brows, shaking his head, and looking on all sides. At length he rose and
+approached the grave-digger.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ho!&#8221; said he.
+
+</p>
+<p>The other raised his eyes.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did you see a beautiful skull, white as the inside of a cocoanut?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The grave-digger shrugged his shoulders.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Look,&#8221; said the old man, showing a piece of money; &#8220;it&#8217;s all I have, but I&#8217;ll give it to you if you find it.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The gleam of silver made the man reflect. He looked toward the heap and said:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It isn&#8217;t there? No? Then I don&#8217;t know where it is.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t know? When those who owe me pay, I&#8217;ll give you more. &#8217;Twas the skull of my wife, and if you find it&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It isn&#8217;t there? Then I know nothing about it, but I can give you another.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are like the grave you dig,&#8221; cried the old man, furious. &#8220;You know not the value of what you destroy! For whom is this
+<span class="corr" id="xd0e1523" title="Source: gave">grave</span>?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How do I know? For a dead man!&#8221; replied the other with temper.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Like the grave, like the grave,&#8221; the old man repeated with a dry laugh. &#8220;You know neither what you cast out nor what you
+keep. Dig! dig!&#8221; And he went toward the gate.
+
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile the grave-digger had finished his task, and two mounds of fresh, reddish earth rose beside the grave. Drawing from
+his pocket some buyo, he regarded dully what was going on around him, sat down, and began to chew.
+
+</p>
+<p>At that moment a carriage, which had apparently made <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1534" href="#xd0e1534">55</a>]</span>a long journey, stopped at the entrance to the cemetery. Ibarra got out, followed by an old servant, and silently made his
+way along the path.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is there, behind the great cross, se&ntilde;or,&#8221; said the servant, as they approached the spot where the grave-digger was sitting.
+
+</p>
+<p>Arrived at the cross, the old servant looked on all sides, and became greatly confused. &#8220;It was there,&#8221; he muttered; &#8220;no,
+there, but the ground has been broken.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra looked at him in anguish.
+
+</p>
+<p>The servant appealed to the grave-digger.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where is the grave that was marked with a cross like this?&#8221; he demanded; and stooping, he traced a Byzantine cross on the
+ground.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Were there flowers growing on it?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, jasmine and pansies.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The grave-digger scratched his ear and said with a yawn:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, the cross I burned.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Burned! and why?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Because the curate ordered it.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra drew his hand across his forehead.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But at least you can show us the grave.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The body&#8217;s no longer there,&#8221; said the grave-digger calmly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you saying!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; the man went on, with a smile, &#8220;I put a woman in its place, eight days ago.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you mad?&#8221; cried the servant; &#8220;it isn&#8217;t a year since he was buried.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Father D&aacute;maso ordered it; he told me to take the body to the Chinese cemetery; I&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He got no farther, and started back in terror at sight of <span class="corr" id="xd0e1574" title="Source: Crisostomo&#8217;s">Cris&oacute;stomo&#8217;s</span> face. <span class="corr" id="xd0e1577" title="Source: Crisostomo">Cris&oacute;stomo</span> seized his arm. &#8220;And you did it?&#8221; he demanded, in a terrible voice.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1580" href="#xd0e1580">56</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be angry, se&ntilde;or,&#8221; replied the grave-digger, pale and trembling. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t bury him with the Chinese. Better be drowned
+than that, I thought to myself, and I threw him into the water.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra stared at him like a madman. &#8220;You&#8217;re only a poor fool!&#8221; he said at length, and pushing him away, he rushed headlong
+for the gate, stumbling over graves and bones, and painfully followed by the old servant.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what the dead bring us,&#8221; grumbled the gravedigger. &#8220;The curate orders me to dig the man up, and this fellow breaks
+my arm for doing it. That&#8217;s the way with the Spaniards. I shall lose my place!&#8221;
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1587" href="#xd0e1587">57</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch13" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XIII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Little Sacristans.</h2>
+<p>The little old man of the cemetery wandered absent-minded along the streets.
+
+</p>
+<p>He was a character of the pueblo. He had once been a student in philosophy, but abandoned his course at the demands of his
+mother. The good woman, finding that her son had talent, feared lest he become a savant and forget God; she let him choose,
+therefore, between studying for the priesthood and leaving the college of San Jos&eacute;. He was in love, took the latter course,
+and married. Widowed and orphaned within a year, he found in books a deliverance from sadness, idleness, and the <i>gallera</i>. Unhappily he studied too much, bought too many books, neglected to care for his fortune, and came to financial ruin. Some
+people called him Don Astasio, or Tasio the philosopher; others, and by far the greater number, Tasio the fool.
+
+</p>
+<p>The afternoon threatened a tempest. Pale flashes of lightning illumined the leaden sky; the atmosphere was heavy and close.
+
+</p>
+<p>Arrived at the church door, Tasio entered and spoke to two little boys, one ten years old perhaps, the other seven.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Coming with me?&#8221; he asked. &#8220;Your mother has ready a dinner fit for curates.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The head sacristan won&#8217;t let us leave yet,&#8221; said the elder. &#8220;We&#8217;re going into the tower to ring the bells.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Take care! don&#8217;t go too near the bells in the storm,&#8221; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1610" href="#xd0e1610">58</a>]</span>said Tasio, and, head down, he went off, thinking, toward the outskirts of the town.
+
+</p>
+<p>Soon the rain came down in torrents, the thunder echoed clap on clap, each detonation preceded by an awful zig-zag of fire.
+The tempest grew in fury, and, scarce able to ride on the shifting wind, the plaintive voices of the bells rang out a lamentation.
+
+</p>
+<p>The boys were in the tower, the younger, timid, in spite of his great black eyes, hugging close to his brother. They resembled
+one another, but the elder had the stronger and more thoughtful face. Their dress was poor, patched, and darned. The wind
+beat in the rain a little, where they were, and set the flame of their candle dancing.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pull your rope, Crispin,&#8221; said the elder to his little brother.
+
+</p>
+<p>Crispin pulled, and heard a feeble plaint, quickly silenced by a thunder crash. &#8220;If we were only home with mama,&#8221; he mourned,
+&#8220;I shouldn&#8217;t be afraid.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The other did not answer. He watched the candle melt, and seemed thoughtful.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;At least, no one there would call me a thief; mama would not have it. If she knew they had beaten me&#8212;&#8212;&#8221; The elder gave the
+great cord a sharp pull; a deep, sonorous tone trembled out.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pay what they say I stole! Pay it, brother!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you mad, Crispin? Mama would have nothing to eat; they say you stole two onces, and two onces make thirty-two pesos.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The little fellow counted thirty-two on his fingers.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Six hands and two fingers. And each finger makes a peso, and each peso how many cuartos?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A hundred sixty.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And how much is a hundred sixty?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thirty-two hands.&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1638" href="#xd0e1638">59</a>]</span></p>
+<p>Crispin regarded his little paws.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thirty-two hands,&#8221; he said, <span class="corr" id="xd0e1643" title="Not in source">&#8220;</span>and each finger a cuarto! O mama! how many cuartos! and with them one could buy shoes, and a hat for the sun, and an umbrella
+for the rain, and clothes for mama.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Crispin became pensive.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What I&#8217;m afraid of is that mama will be angry with you when she hears about it.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You think so?&#8221; said Crispin, surprised. &#8220;But I&#8217;ve never had a cuarto except the one they gave me at Easter. Mama won&#8217;t believe
+I stole; she won&#8217;t believe it!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But if the curate says so&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Crispin began to cry, and said through his sobs:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then go alone, I won&#8217;t go. Tell mama I&#8217;m sick.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Crispin, don&#8217;t cry,&#8221; said his brother. &#8220;If mama seems to believe what they say, you&#8217;ll tell her that the sacristan lies,
+that the curate believes him, that they say we are thieves because our father&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>A head came out of the shadows in the little stairway, and as if it had been Medusa&#8217;s, it froze the words on the children&#8217;s
+lips.
+
+</p>
+<p>The head was long and lean, with a shock of black hair. Blue glasses concealed one sightless eye. It was the chief sacristan
+who had thus stolen upon the children.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You, Basilio, are fined two r&eacute;ales for not ringing regularly. And you, Crispin, stay to-night till you find what you&#8217;ve stolen.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We have permission,&#8221; began Basilio; &#8220;our mother expects us at nine.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You won&#8217;t go at nine o&#8217;clock either; you shall stay till ten.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But, se&ntilde;or, after nine one can&#8217;t pass through the streets&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1672" href="#xd0e1672">60</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you trying to dictate to me?&#8221; demanded the sacristan, and he seized Crispin&#8217;s arm.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or, we have not seen our mother for a week,&#8221; entreated Basilio, taking hold of his brother as if to protect him.
+
+</p>
+<p>With a stroke on the cheek the sacristan made him let go, and dragged off Crispin, who commenced to cry, let himself fall,
+tried to cling to the floor, and besought Basilio to keep him. But the sacristan, dragging the child, disappeared in the shadows.
+
+</p>
+<p>Basilio stood mute. He heard his little brother&#8217;s body strike against the stairs; he heard a cry, blows, heart-rending words,
+growing fainter and fainter, lost at last in the distance.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When shall I be strong enough?&#8221; he murmured, and dashed down the stairs.
+
+</p>
+<p>He reached the choir and listened. He could still hear his little brother&#8217;s voice; then over the cry, &#8220;Mama!&#8212;Brother!&#8221; a door
+shut. Trembling, damp with sweat, holding his mouth with his hand to stifle a cry, he stood a moment looking about in the
+dim church. The doors were closed, the windows barred. He went back to the tower, did not stop at the second stage, where
+the bells were rung, but climbed to the third, loosed the ropes that held the tongues of the bells, then went down again,
+pale, his eyes gleaming, but without tears.
+
+</p>
+<p>The rain commenced to slacken and the sky to clear. Basilio knotted the ropes, fastened an end to a beam of the balcony, and,
+forgetting to blow out the candle, glided down into the darkness.
+
+</p>
+<p>Some minutes later voices were heard in a street of the pueblo, and two rifle shots rang out; but it raised no alarm, and
+all again became silent.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1689" href="#xd0e1689">61</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch14" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XIV.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Sisa.</h2>
+<p>Nearly an hour&#8217;s walk from the pueblo lived the mother of Basilio and Crispin, wife of a man who passed his time in lounging
+or watching cock-fights while she struggled to bring up their children. The husband and wife saw each other rarely, and their
+interviews were painful. To feed his vices, he had robbed her of her few trinkets, and when the unhappy Sisa had nothing more
+with which to satisfy his caprices he began to abuse her. Without much strength of will, dowered with more heart than reason,
+she only knew how to love and to weep. Her husband was a god, her children were angels. He, who knew how much he was adored
+and feared, like other false gods, grew more and more arbitrary and cruel.
+
+</p>
+<p>The stars were glittering in the sky cleared by the tempest. Sisa sat on the wooden bench, her chin in her hand, watching
+some branches smoulder on her hearth of uncut stones. On these stones was a little pan where rice was cooking, and among the
+cinders were three dry sardines.
+
+</p>
+<p>She was still young, and one saw she had been beautiful. Her eyes, which, with her soul, she had given to her sons, were fine,
+deep, and fringed with dark lashes; her face was regular; her skin pure olive. In spite of her youth, suffering, hunger sometimes,
+had begun to hollow her cheeks. Her abundant hair, once her glory, was still carefully dressed&#8212;but from habit, not coquetry.
+
+</p>
+<p>All day Sisa had been thinking of the pleasure coming at <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1703" href="#xd0e1703">62</a>]</span>night. She picked the finest tomatoes in her garden&#8212;favorite dish of little Crispin; from her neighbor, Tasio, she got a fillet
+of wild boar and a wild duck&#8217;s thigh for Basilio, and she chose and cooked the whitest rice on the threshing-floor.
+
+</p>
+<p>Alas! the father arrived. Good-by to the dinner! He ate the rice, the filet of wild boar, the duck&#8217;s thigh, and the tomatoes.
+Sisa said nothing, happy to see her husband satisfied, and so much happier that, having eaten, he remembered he had children
+and asked where they were. The poor mother smiled. She had promised herself to eat nothing&#8212;there was not enough left for three;
+but the father had thought of his sons, that was better than food.
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa, left alone, wept a little; but she thought of her children, and dried her tears. She cooked the little rice she had
+left, and the three sardines.
+
+</p>
+<p>Attentive to every sound, she now sat listening: a footfall strong and regular, it was Basilio&#8217;s; light and unsteady, Crispin&#8217;s.
+
+</p>
+<p>But the children did not come.
+
+</p>
+<p>To pass the time, she hummed a song. Her voice was beautiful, and when her children heard her sing &#8220;Kundiman&#8221; they cried,
+without knowing why. To-night her voice trembled, and the notes came tardily.
+
+</p>
+<p>She went to the door and scanned the road. A black dog was there, searching about. It frightened Sisa, and she threw a stone,
+sending the dog off howling.
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa was not superstitious, but she had so often heard of black dogs and presentiments that terror seized her. She shut the
+door in haste and sat down by the light. She prayed to the Virgin, to God Himself, to take care of her boys, and most for
+the little Crispin. Then, drawn away from prayer by her sole preoccupation, she thought no longer of aught but her children,
+of all their ways, which seemed <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1719" href="#xd0e1719">63</a>]</span>to her so pleasing. Then the terror returned. Vision or reality, Crispin stood by the hearth, where he often sat to chatter
+to her. He said nothing, but looked at her with great, pensive eyes, and smiled.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother, open! Open the door, mother!&#8221; said Basilio&#8217;s voice outside.
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa shuddered, and the vision disappeared.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1725" href="#xd0e1725">64</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch15" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XV.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Basilio.</h2>
+<div class="epigraph">
+<p>Life is a Dream.</p>
+</div>
+<p>Basilio had scarcely strength to enter and fall into his mother&#8217;s arms. A strange cold enveloped Sisa when she saw him come
+alone. She wished to speak, but found no words; to caress her son, but found no force. Yet at the sight of blood on his forehead,
+her voice came, and she cried in a tone which seemed to tell of a breaking heartstring:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My children!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be frightened, mama; Crispin stayed at the convent.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;At the convent? He stayed at the convent? Living?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The child raised his eyes to hers.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; she cried, passing from the greatest anguish to the utmost joy. She wept, embraced her child, covered with kisses his
+wounded forehead.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And why are you hurt, my son? Did you fall?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Basilio told her he had been challenged by the guard, ran, was shot at, and a ball had grazed his forehead.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;O God! I thank Thee that Thou didst save him!&#8221; murmured the mother.
+
+</p>
+<p>She went for lint and vinegar water, and while she bandaged his wound:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why,&#8221; she asked, &#8220;did Crispin stay at the convent?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Basilio looked at her, kissed her, then little by little told the story of the lost money; he said nothing of the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1758" href="#xd0e1758">65</a>]</span>torture of his little brother. Mother and child mingled their tears.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Accuse my good Crispin! It&#8217;s because we are poor, and the poor must bear everything,&#8221; murmured Sisa. Both were silent a moment.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you have not eaten,&#8221; said the mother. &#8220;Here are sardines and rice.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not hungry, mama; I only want some water.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, eat,&#8221; said the mother. &#8220;I know you don&#8217;t like dry sardines, and I had something else for you; but your father came,
+my poor child.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My father came?&#8221; and Basilio instinctively examined his mother&#8217;s face and hands.
+
+</p>
+<p>The question pained the mother; she sighed.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You won&#8217;t eat? Then we must go to bed; it is late.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa barred the door and covered the fire. Basilio murmured his prayers, and crept on the mat near his mother, who was still
+on her knees. She was warm, he was cold. He thought of his little brother, who had hoped to sleep this night close to his
+mother&#8217;s side, trembling with fear in some dark corner of the convent. He heard his cries as he had heard them in the tower;
+but Nature soon confused his ideas and he slept.
+
+</p>
+<p>In the middle of the night Sisa wakened him.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it, Basilio? Why are you crying?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was dreaming. O mama! it was a dream, wasn&#8217;t it? Say it was nothing but a dream!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What were you dreaming?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He did not answer, but sat up to dry his tears.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tell me the dream,&#8221; said Sisa, when he had lain down again. &#8220;I cannot sleep.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is gone now, mama; I don&#8217;t remember it all.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa did not insist: she attached no importance to dreams.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mama,&#8221; said Basilio after a moment of silence, &#8220;I&#8217;m <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1794" href="#xd0e1794">66</a>]</span>not sleepy either. I had a project last evening. I don&#8217;t want to be a sacristan.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Listen, mama. The son of Don Rafael came home from Spain to-day; he should be as kind as his father. Well, to-morrow I find
+Crispin, get my pay, and say I&#8217;m not going to be a sacristan. Then I&#8217;ll go see Don Cris&oacute;stomo and ask him to make me a buffalo-keeper.
+Crispin could go on studying with old Tasio. Tasio&#8217;s better than the curate thinks; I&#8217;ve often seen him praying in the church
+when no one else was there. What shall I lose in not being a sacristan? One earns little and loses it all in fines. I&#8217;ll be
+a herdsman, mama, and take good care of the cows and <i>carabaos</i>, and make my master love me; then perhaps he&#8217;ll let us have a cow to milk: Crispin loves milk. And I could fish in the rivers
+and go hunting when I get big. And by and by perhaps I could have a little land and sow sugar-cane. We could all live together,
+then. And old Tasio says Crispin is very bright. By and by we would send him to study at Manila, and I would work for him.
+Shall we, mama? He might be a doctor; what do you say?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What can I say, except that you are right,&#8221; answered Sisa, kissing her son.
+
+</p>
+<p>Basilio went on with his projects, talking with the confidence of a child. Sisa said yes to everything. But little by little
+sleep came back to the child&#8217;s lids, and this time he did not cry in his dreams: that Ole-Luk-Oie, of whom Andersen tells
+us, unfurled over his head the umbrella with its lining of gay pictures. But the mother, past the age of careless slumbers,
+did not sleep.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1807" href="#xd0e1807">67</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch16" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XVI.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">At the Manse.</h2>
+<p>It was seven o&#8217;clock when Brother Salvi finished his last mass. He took off his priestly robes without a word to any one.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Look out!&#8221; whispered the sacristans; &#8220;it is going to rain fines! And all for the fault of those children!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The father came out of the sacristy and crossed to the manse. On the porch six or seven women sat waiting for him, and a man
+was walking to and fro. The woman rose, and one bent to kiss his hand, but the priest made such a gesture of impatience that
+she stopped short.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He must have lost a real miser,&#8221; she cried mockingly, when he had passed. &#8220;This is something unheard of: refuse his hand
+to the zealous Sister Rufa?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He was not in the confessional this morning,&#8221; said a toothless old woman, Sister Sipa. &#8220;I wanted to confess, so as to get
+some indulgences.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have gained three plenary indulgences,&#8221; said a young woman of pleasing face, &#8220;and applied them all to the soul of my husband.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have done wrong,&#8221; said Sister Rufa, &#8220;one plenary is enough; you should not squander the holy indulgences. Do as I do.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I said to myself, the more there are the better,&#8221; replied young sister Juana, smiling; &#8220;but what do you do?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Sister Rufa did not respond at once; she chewed her <i>buyo</i>, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1834" href="#xd0e1834">68</a>]</span>and scanned her audience attentively; at length she decided to speak.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, this is what I do. Suppose I gain a year of indulgences; I say: Blessed Se&ntilde;or Saint Dominic, have the kindness to see
+if there is some one in purgatory who has need of precisely a year. Then I play heads or tails. If it falls heads, no; if
+tails, yes. If it falls heads, I keep the indulgence, and so I make groups of a hundred years, for which there is always use.
+It&#8217;s a pity one can&#8217;t loan indulgences at interest. But do as I do, it&#8217;s the best plan.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>At this point Sisa appeared. She said good morning to the women, and entered the manse.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s gone in, let us go too,&#8221; said the sisters, and they followed her.
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa felt her heart beat violently. She did not know what to say to the curate in defence of her child. She had risen at daybreak,
+picked all the fine vegetables left in her garden, and arranged them in a basket with platane leaves and flowers, and had
+been to the river to get a fresh salad of <i>pak&ocirc;</i>. Then, dressed in the best she had, the basket on her head, without waking her son, she had set out for the pueblo.
+
+</p>
+<p>She went slowly through the manse, listening if by chance she might hear a well-known voice, fresh and childish. But she met
+no one, heard nothing, and went on to the kitchen.
+
+</p>
+<p>The servants and sacristans received her coldly, scarcely answering her greetings.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where may I put these vegetables?&#8221; she asked, without showing offence.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There&#8212;wherever you want to,&#8221; replied the cook curtly.
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa, half-smiling, placed all in order on the table, and laid on top the flowers and the tender shoots of the <i>pak&ocirc;</i>; then she asked a servant who seemed more friendly than the cook:
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1860" href="#xd0e1860">69</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know if Crispin is in the sacristy?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The servant looked at her in surprise.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Crispin?&#8221; said he, wrinkling his brows; &#8220;isn&#8217;t he at home?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Basilio is, but Crispin stayed here.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, he stayed, but he ran off afterward with all sorts of things he&#8217;d stolen. The curate sent me to report it at the
+quarters. The guards must be on their way to your house by this time.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa could not believe it; she opened her mouth, but her lips moved in vain.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go find your children,&#8221; said the cook. &#8220;Everybody sees you&#8217;re a faithful woman; the children are like their father!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa stifled a sob, and, at the end of her strength, sat down.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t cry here,&#8221; said the cook still more roughly, &#8220;the curate is ill; don&#8217;t bother him! Go cry in the street!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The poor woman got up, almost by force, and went down the steps with the sisters, who were still gossiping of the curate&#8217;s
+illness. Once on the street she looked about uncertain; then, as if from a sudden resolution, moved rapidly away.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1881" href="#xd0e1881">70</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch17" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XVII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Story of a Schoolmaster.</h2>
+<p>The lake, girt with hills, lies tranquil, as if it had not been shaken by yesterday&#8217;s tempest. At the first gleam of light
+which wakes the phosphorescent spirits of the water, almost on the bounds of the horizon, gray silhouettes slowly take shape.
+These are the barks of fishermen drawing in their nets; <i>cascos</i> and <i>paraos</i> shaking out their sails.
+
+</p>
+<p>From a height, two men in black are silently surveying the lake. One is Ibarra, the other a young man of humble dress and
+melancholy face.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is the place,&#8221; said the stranger, &#8220;where the gravedigger brought us, Lieutenant Guevara and me.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra uncovered, and stood a long time as if in prayer.
+
+</p>
+<p>When the first horror at the story of his father&#8217;s desecrated grave had passed, he had bravely accepted what could not be
+undone. Private wrongs must go unavenged, if one would not add to the wrongs of the country: Ibarra had been trained to live
+for these islands, daughters of Spain. In his country, too, a charge against a monk was a charge against the Church, and Cris&oacute;stomo
+was a loyal Catholic; if he knew how in his mind to separate the Church from her unworthy sons, most of his fellow-countrymen
+did not. And, again, his intimate life was all here. The last of his race, his home was his family; he loved ideally, and
+he loved the goddaughter of the malevolent priest. He was rich, and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1903" href="#xd0e1903">71</a>]</span>therefore powerful still&#8212;and he was young. Ibarra had taken up his life again as he had found it.
+
+</p>
+<p>His prayer finished, he warmly grasped the young man&#8217;s hand.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do not thank me,&#8221; said the other; &#8220;I owe everything to your father. I came here unknown; your father protected me, encouraged
+my work, furnished the poor children with books. How far away that good time seems!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And now?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah! now we get along as best we can.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra was silent.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How many pupils have you?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;More than two hundred on the list&#8212;in the classes, fifty-five.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And how is that?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The schoolmaster smiled sadly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is a long story.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t think I ask from curiosity,&#8221; said Ibarra. &#8220;I have thought much about it, and it seems to me better to try to carry
+out my father&#8217;s ideas than to weep or to avenge his death. I wish to inspire myself with his spirit. That is why I ask this
+question.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The country will bless your memory, se&ntilde;or, if you carry out the splendid projects of your father. You wish to know the obstacles
+I meet? In a word, the plan of instruction is hopeless. The children read, write, learn by heart passages, sometimes whole
+books, in Castilian, without understanding a single word. Of what use is such a school to the children of our peasants!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You see the evil, what remedy do you propose?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have none,&#8221; said the young man; &#8220;one cannot struggle alone against so many needs and against certain influences. I tried
+to remedy the evil of which I just spoke; I tried to carry out the order of the Government, and began <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1933" href="#xd0e1933">72</a>]</span>to teach the children Spanish. The beginning was excellent, but one day Brother D&aacute;maso sent for me. I went up immediately,
+and I said good-day to him in Castilian. Without replying, he burst into laughter. At length he said, with a sidelong glance:
+&#8216;What <i lang="es">buenos dias! buenos dias!</i> It&#8217;s very pretty. You know Spanish?&#8217; and he began to laugh again.<span class="corr" id="xd0e1938" title="Not in source">&#8221;</span>
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra could not repress a smile.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You laugh,&#8221; said the teacher, &#8220;and I, too, now; but I assure you I had no desire to then. I started to reply, I don&#8217;t know
+what, but Brother D&aacute;maso interrupted:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Don&#8217;t wear clothes that are not your own,&#8217; he said in Tagal; &#8216;be content to speak your own language. Do you know about Ciruela?
+Well, Ciruela was a master who could neither read nor write, yet he kept school.&#8217; And he left the room, slamming the door
+behind him. What was I to do? What could I, against him, the highest authority of the pueblo, moral, political, and civil;
+backed by his order, feared by the Government, rich, powerful, always obeyed and believed. To withstand him was to lose my
+place, and break off my career without hope of another. Every one would have sided with the priest. I should have been called
+proud, insolent, no Christian, perhaps even anti-Spanish and <i>filibustero</i>. Heaven forgive me if I denied my conscience and my reason, but I was born here, must live here, I have a mother, and I abandoned
+myself to my fate, as a cadaver to the wave that rolls it.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you lost all hope? You have tried nothing since?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was rash enough to try two more experiments, one after our change of curates; but both proved offensive to the same authority.
+Since then I have done my best to convert the poor babies into parrots.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, I have cheerful news for you,&#8221; said Ibarra. &#8220;I <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1956" href="#xd0e1956">73</a>]</span>am soon to present to the Government a project that will help you out of your difficulties, if it is approved.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The school-teacher shook his head.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will see, Se&ntilde;or Ibarra, that your projects&#8212;I&#8217;ve heard something of them&#8212;will no more be realized than were mine!&#8221;
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1962" href="#xd0e1962">74</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch18" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XVIII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Story of a Mother.</h2>
+<p>Sisa was running toward her poor little home. She had experienced one of those convulsions of being which we know at the hour
+of a great misfortune, when we see no possible refuge and all our hopes take flight. If then a ray of light illumine some
+little corner, we fly toward it without stopping to question.
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa ran swiftly, pursued by many fears and dark presentiments. Had they already taken her Basilio? Where had her Crispin
+hidden?
+
+</p>
+<p>As she neared her home, she saw two soldiers coming out of the little garden. She lifted her eyes to heaven; heaven was smiling
+in its ineffable light; little white clouds swam in the transparent blue.
+
+</p>
+<p>The soldiers had left her house; they were coming away without her children. Sisa breathed once more; her senses came back.
+
+</p>
+<p>She looked again, this time with grateful eyes, at the sky, furrowed now by a band of <i>garzas</i>, those clouds of airy gray peculiar to the Philippines; confidence sprang again in her heart; she walked on. Once past those
+dreadful men, she would have run, but prudence checked her. She had not gone far, when she heard herself called imperiously.
+She turned, pale and trembling in spite of herself. One of the guards beckoned her.
+
+</p>
+<p>Mechanically she obeyed: she felt her tongue grow paralyzed, her throat parch.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e1983" href="#xd0e1983">75</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Speak the truth, or we&#8217;ll tie you to this tree and shoot you,&#8221; said one of the guards.
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa could do nothing but look at the tree.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are the mother of the thieves?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The mother of the thieves?&#8221; repeated Sisa, without comprehending.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where is the money your sons brought home last night?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah! the money&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Give us the money, and we&#8217;ll let you alone.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;ores,&#8221; said the unhappy woman, gathering her senses again, &#8220;my boys do not steal, even when they&#8217;re hungry; we are used
+to suffering. I have not seen my Crispin for a week, and Basilio did not bring home a cuarto. Search the house, and if you
+find a r&eacute;al, do what you will with us; the poor are not all thieves.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well then,&#8221; said one of the soldiers, fixing his eyes on Sisa&#8217;s, &#8220;follow us!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8212;follow you?&#8221; And she drew back in terror, her eyes on the uniforms of the guards. &#8220;Oh, have pity on me! I&#8217;m very poor,
+I&#8217;ve nothing to give you, neither gold nor jewelry. Take everything you find in my miserable cabin, but let me&#8212;let me&#8212;die
+here in peace!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;March! do you hear? and if you don&#8217;t go without making trouble, we&#8217;ll tie your hands.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let me walk a little way in front of you, at least,&#8221; she cried, as they laid hold of her.
+
+</p>
+<p>The soldiers spoke together apart.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Very well,&#8221; said one, &#8220;when we get to the pueblo, you may. March on now, and quick!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Poor Sisa thought she must die of shame. There was no one on the road, it is true; but the air? and the light? She covered
+her face, in her humiliation, and wept silently. She was indeed very miserable; every one, even her husband, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2014" href="#xd0e2014">76</a>]</span>had abandoned her; but until now she had always felt herself respected.
+
+</p>
+<p>As they neared the pueblo, fear seized her. In her agony she looked on all sides, seeking some succor in nature&#8212;death in the
+river would be so sweet. But no! She thought of her children; here was a light in the darkness of her soul.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Afterward,&#8221; she said to herself,&#8212;&#8220;afterward, we will go to live in the heart of the forest.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>She dried her eyes, and turning to the guards:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We are at the pueblo,&#8221; she said. Her tone was indescribable; at once a complaint, an argument, and a prayer.
+
+</p>
+<p>The soldiers took pity on her; they replied with a gesture. Sisa went rapidly forward, then forced herself to walk tranquilly.
+
+</p>
+<p>A tolling of bells announced the end of the high mass. Sisa hastened, in the hope of avoiding the crowd from the church, but
+in vain. Two women she knew passed, looked at her questioningly; she bowed with an anguished smile, then, to avoid new mortifications,
+she fixed her eyes on the ground.
+
+</p>
+<p>At sight of her people turned, whispered, followed with their eyes, and though her eyes were turned away, she divined, she
+felt, she saw it all. A woman who by her bare head, her dress, and her manners showed what she was, cried boldly to the soldiers:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where did you find her? Did you get the money?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa seemed to have taken a blow in the face. The ground gave way under her feet.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This way!&#8221; cried a guard.
+
+</p>
+<p>Like an automaton whose mechanism is broken she turned quickly, and, seeing nothing, feeling nothing but instinct, tried to
+hide herself. A gate was before her; she would have entered but a voice still more imperious checked her. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2038" href="#xd0e2038">77</a>]</span>While she sought to find whence the voice came, she felt herself pushed along by the shoulders. She closed her eyes, took
+two steps, then her strength left her and she fell.
+
+</p>
+<p>It was the barracks. In the yard were soldiers, women, pigs, and chickens. Some of the women were helping the men mend their
+clothes or clean their arms, and humming ribald songs.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where is the sergeant?&#8221; demanded one of the guards angrily. &#8220;Has the alf&eacute;rez been informed?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>A shrug of the shoulders was the sole response; no one would take any trouble for the poor woman.
+
+</p>
+<p>Two long hours she stayed there, half mad, crouched in a corner, her face hidden in her hands, her hair undone. At noon the
+alf&eacute;rez arrived. He refused to believe the curate&#8217;s accusations.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bah! monks&#8217; tricks!&#8221; said he; and ordered that the woman be released and the affair dropped.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If he wants to find what he&#8217;s lost,&#8221; he added, &#8220;let him complain to the nuncio! That&#8217;s all I have to say.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa, who could scarcely move, was almost carried out of the barracks. When she found herself in the street, she set out as
+fast as she could for her home, her head bare, her hair loose, her eyes fixed. The sun, then in the zenith, burned with all
+his fire: not a cloud veiled his resplendent disc. The wind just moved the leaves of the trees; not a bird dared venture from
+the shade of the branches.
+
+</p>
+<p>At length Sisa arrived. Troubled, silent, she entered her poor cabin, ran all about it, went out, came in, went out again.
+Then she ran to old Tasio&#8217;s, knocked at the door. Tasio was not there. The poor thing went back and commenced to call, &#8220;Basilio!
+Crispin!&#8221; standing still, listening attentively. An echo repeating her calls, the sweet murmur of water from the river, the
+music of the reeds stirred by the breeze, were the sole voices of the solitude. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2056" href="#xd0e2056">78</a>]</span>She called anew, mounted a hill, went down into a ravine; her wandering eyes took a sinister expression; from time to time
+sharp lights flashed in them, then they were obscured, like the sky in a tempest. One might have said the light of reason,
+ready to go out, revived and died down in turn.
+
+</p>
+<p>She went back, and sat down on the mat where they had slept the night before&#8212;she and Basilio&#8212;and raised her eyes. Caught in
+the bamboo fence on the edge of the precipice, she saw a piece of Basilio&#8217;s blouse. She got up, took it, and examined it in
+the sunlight. There were blood spots on it, but Sisa did not seem to see them. She bent over and continued to look at this
+rag from her child&#8217;s clothing, raised it in the air, bathing it in the brazen rays. Then, as if the last gleam of light within
+her had finally gone out, she looked straight at the sun, with wide-staring eyes.
+
+</p>
+<p>At length she began to wander about, crying out strange sounds. One hearing her would have been frightened; her voice had
+a quality the human larynx would hardly know how to produce.
+
+</p>
+<p>The sun went down; night surprised her. Perhaps Heaven gave her sleep, and an angel&#8217;s wing, brushing her pale forehead, took
+away that memory which no longer recalled anything but griefs. The next day Sisa roamed about, smiling, singing, and conversing
+with all the beings of great Nature.
+</p>
+<hr class="tb"><p>
+
+</p>
+<p>Three days passed, and the inhabitants of San Diego had ceased to talk or think of unhappy Sisa and her boys. Maria Clara,
+who, accompanied by Aunt Isabel, had just arrived from Manila, was the chief subject of conversation. Every one rejoiced to
+see her, for every one loved her. They marvelled at her beauty, and speculated about her marriage with Ibarra. On this evening,
+Cris&oacute;stomo presented himself at the home of his fianc&eacute;e; the curate arrived at the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2068" href="#xd0e2068">79</a>]</span>same moment. The house was a delicious little nest among orange-trees and ylang-ylang. They found Maria by an open window,
+overlooking the lake, surrounded by the fresh foliage and delicate perfume of vines and flowers.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The winds blow fresh,&#8221; said the curate; &#8220;aren&#8217;t you afraid of taking cold?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t feel the wind, father,&#8221; said Maria.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We Filipinos,&#8221; said Cris&oacute;stomo, &#8220;find this season of autumn and spring together delicious. Falling leaves and budding trees
+in February, and ripe fruit in March, with no cold winter between, is very agreeable. And when the hot months come we know
+where to go.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The priest smiled, and the conversation turned to the pueblo and the festival of its patron saint, which was near.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Speaking of f&ecirc;tes,&#8221; said Cris&oacute;stomo to the curate, &#8220;we hope you will join us in a picnic to-morrow, near the great fig-tree
+in the wood. The arrangements are all made as you wished, Maria. A small party is to start for the fishing-ground before sunrise,&#8221;
+he went on to the curate, &#8220;and later we hope to be joined by all our friends of the pueblo.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The curate said he should be happy to come after his services were said. They chatted a few moments longer, and then Ibarra
+excused himself to finish giving his invitations and make his final arrangements.
+
+</p>
+<p>As he left the house a man saluted him respectfully.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who are you?&#8221; asked Cris&oacute;stomo.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You would not know my name, se&ntilde;or; I have been trying to see you for three days.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And what do you want?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or, my wife has gone mad, my children are lost, and no one will help me find them. I want your aid.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come with me,&#8221; said Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>The man thanked him, and they disappeared together in the darkness of the unlighted streets.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2096" href="#xd0e2096">80</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch19" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XIX.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Fishing Party.</h2>
+<p>The stars were yet brilliant in the sapphire vault, and in the branches the birds were still asleep when a merry party went
+through the streets of the pueblo, toward the lake, lighted by the glimmer of the pitch torches here called huepes.
+
+</p>
+<p>There were five young girls, walking rapidly, holding each other by the hand or waist, followed by several elderly ladies,
+and servants bearing gracefully on their heads baskets of provisions. To see these girls&#8217; faces, laughing with youth, to judge
+by their abundant black hair flying free in the wind, and the ample folds of their garments, we might take them for divinities
+of the night fleeing at the approach of day; but they were Maria Clara and her four friends, the merry Sinang, her cousin,
+the calm Victoria, beautiful Iday, and pensive Neneng. They talked with animation, pinched each other, whispered in each other&#8217;s
+ears, and pealed out merry rounds of laughter.
+
+</p>
+<p>After a while there came to meet the party a group of young men, carrying torches of reeds. They were walking, silent, to
+the sound of a guitar.
+
+</p>
+<p>When the two groups met, the girls became serious and grave. The men, on the contrary, talked, laughed, and asked six questions
+to get half a reply.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is the lake smooth? Do you think we shall have a fine day?&#8221; demanded the mamas.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be disturbed, se&ntilde;oras, I&#8217;m a splendid swimmer,&#8221; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2114" href="#xd0e2114">81</a>]</span>said a tall, slim fellow, a merry-looking rascal with an air of mock gravity.
+
+</p>
+<p>But they were already at the borders of the lake, and cries of delight escaped the lips of the women. They saw two great barks,
+bound together, picturesquely decked with garlands of flowers and various-colored festoons of fluffy drapery. Little paper
+lanterns hung alternating with roses, pinks, pineapples, bananas, and guavas. Rudders and oars were decorated too, and there
+were mats, rugs, and cushions to make comfortable seats for the ladies. In the boat, most beautifully trimmed, were a harp,
+guitars, accordeons, and a carabao&#8217;s horn; in the other burned a ship&#8217;s fire; and tea, coffee and salabat&#8212;a tea of ginger
+sweetened with honey&#8212;were making for the first breakfast.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The women here, the men there,&#8221; said the mamas, embarking; &#8220;move carefully, don&#8217;t stir the boat or we shall capsize!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And we&#8217;re to be in here all alone?&#8221; pouted Sinang.
+
+</p>
+<p>Slowly the boats left the beach, reflecting in the mirror of the lake the many lights of their lanterns. In the east were
+the first streaks of dawn.
+
+</p>
+<p>Comparative silence reigned. The separation established by the ladies seemed to have dedicated youth to meditation. The water
+was perfectly tranquil, the fishing-grounds were near; it was soon decided to abandon the oars, and breakfast. Day had come,
+and the lanterns were put out.
+
+</p>
+<p>It was a beautiful morning. The light falling from the sky and reflected from the water made radiant the surface of the lake,
+and bathed everything in an atmosphere of clearness saturated with color, such as some marines suggest. Everybody, even the
+mamas, laughed and grew merry. &#8220;Do you remember, when we were girls&#8212;&#8221; they began to each other; and Maria and her young companions
+exchanged smiling glances.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2128" href="#xd0e2128">82</a>]</span></p>
+<p>One man alone remained a stranger to this gayety&#8212;it was the helmsman. Young, of athletic build, his melancholy eyes and the
+severe lines of his lips gave an interest to his face, and this was heightened by his long black hair falling naturally about
+his muscular neck. His wrists of steel managed like a feather the large and heavy oar which served as rudder to guide the
+two barks.
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara had several times met his eyes, but he quickly turned them away to the shores or the mountains. Pitying his solitude,
+she offered him some cakes. With a certain surprise he took one, refusing the others, and thanked her in a voice scarcely
+audible. No one else seemed to think of him.
+
+</p>
+<p>The early breakfast done, the party moved off toward the fishing enclosures. There were two, a little distance apart, both
+the property of Captain Tiago. In advance, a flock of white herons could be seen, some moving among the reeds, some flying
+here and there, skimming the water with their wings, and filling the air with their strident cries. Maria Clara followed them
+with her eyes, as, at the approach of the two barks, they flew away from the shore.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do these birds have their nests in the mountains?&#8221; she asked the helmsman, less perhaps from the wish to know than to make
+the silent fellow talk.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Probably, se&ntilde;ora,&#8221; he replied, &#8220;but no one has ever yet seen them.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They have no nests, then?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I suppose they must have; if not, they are unhappy indeed.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara did not catch the note of sadness in his voice.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They say, se&ntilde;ora, that the nests of these birds are invisible, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2149" href="#xd0e2149">83</a>]</span>and have the power to render invisible whoever holds them; that as the soul can be seen only in the mirror of the eyes, so
+these nests can be seen only in the mirror of the water.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara became pensive. But they had come to the first baklad, as the enclosures are called. The old sailor in charge
+attached the boats to the reeds, while his son prepared to mount with lines and nets.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wait a moment,&#8221; cried Aunt Isabel, &#8220;the fish must come directly out of the water into the pan.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What, good Aunt Isabel!&#8221; said Albino reproachfully, &#8220;won&#8217;t you give the poor things a moment in the air?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Andeng, Maria&#8217;s foster-sister, was a famous cook. She began to prepare rice water, the tomatoes, and the camias; the young
+men, perhaps to win her good graces, aided her, while the other girls arranged the melons, and cut paayap into cigarette-like
+strips.
+
+</p>
+<p>To while away the time Iday took up the harp, the instrument most often played in this part of the islands. She played well,
+and was much applauded. Maria thanked her with a kiss.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sing, Victoria, sing the &#8216;Marriage Song,&#8217;&#8221; demanded the ladies. This is a beautiful Tagal elegy of married life, but sad,
+painting its miseries rather than its joys. The men clamored for it too, and Victoria had a lovely voice; but she was hoarse.
+So Maria Clara was begged to sing.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;All my songs are sad,&#8221; she said.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Never mind,&#8221; said her companions, and without more urging she took the harp and sang in a rich and vibrant voice, full of
+feeling.
+
+</p>
+<p>The chant ceased, the harp became mute; yet no one applauded; they seemed listening still. The young girls felt <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2169" href="#xd0e2169">84</a>]</span>their eyes fill with tears; Ibarra seemed disturbed; the helmsman, motionless, was gazing far away.
+
+</p>
+<p>Suddenly there came a crash like thunder. The women cried out and stopped their ears. It was Albino, filling with all the
+force of his lungs the carabao&#8217;s horn. There needed nothing more to bring back laughter, and dry tears.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you wish to make us deaf, pagan?&#8221; cried Aunt Isabel.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;ora,&#8221; he replied, &#8220;I&#8217;ve heard of a poor trumpeter who, from simply playing on his instrument, became the husband of a
+rich and noble lady.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So he did&#8212;the Trumpeter of S&auml;ckingen!&#8221; laughed Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Albino, &#8220;we shall see if I am as happy!&#8221; and he began to blow again with still more force. There was a panic:
+the mamas attacked him hand and foot.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ouch! ouch!&#8221; he cried, rubbing his hurts; &#8220;the Philippines are far from the borders of the Rhine! For the same deed one is
+knighted, another put in the san-benito!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>At last Andeng announced the kettle ready for the fish.
+
+</p>
+<p>The fisherman&#8217;s son now climbed the weir or &#8220;purse&#8221; of the enclosure. It was almost circular, a yard across, so arranged that
+a man could stand on top to draw out the fish with a little net or with a line.
+
+</p>
+<p>All watched him, some thinking they saw already the quiver of the little fishes and the shimmer of their silver scales.
+
+</p>
+<p>The net was drawn up; nothing in it; the line, no fish adorned it. The water fell back in a shower of drops, and laughed a
+silvery laugh. A cry of disappointment escaped from every mouth.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t understand your business,&#8221; said Albino, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2193" href="#xd0e2193">85</a>]</span>climbing up by the young man; and he took the net. &#8220;Look now! Ready, Andeng!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>But Albino was no better fisherman. Everybody laughed.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t make a noise, you&#8217;ll drive away the fish. The net must be broken.&#8221; But every mesh was intact.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let me try,&#8221; said L&eacute;on, the fianc&eacute;e of Iday. &#8220;Are you sure no one has been here for five days?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Absolutely sure.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then either the lake is enchanted or I draw out something.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He cast the line, looked annoyed, dragged the hook along in the water and murmured:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A crocodile!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A crocodile!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The word passed from mouth to mouth amid general stupefaction.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s to be done?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Capture him!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>But nobody offered to go down. The water was deep.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We ought to drag him in triumph at our stern,&#8221; said Sinang; &#8220;he has eaten our fish!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve never seen a crocodile alive,&#8221; mused Maria Clara.
+
+</p>
+<p>The helmsman got up, took a rope, lithely climbed the little platform, and in spite of warning cries dived into the weir.
+The water, troubled an instant, became smooth; the abyss closed mysteriously.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Heaven!&#8221; cried the women, &#8220;we are going to have a catastrophe!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The water was agitated: a combat seemed to be going on below. Above, there was absolute silence. Ibarra held his blade in
+a convulsive grasp. Then the struggle seemed to end, and the young man&#8217;s head appeared. He was saluted with joyous cries.
+He climbed the platform, holding in one hand an end of the rope. Then he pulled with <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2229" href="#xd0e2229">86</a>]</span>all his strength, and the monster came in view. The rope was round its neck and the fore part of its body; it was large, and
+on its back could be seen green moss&#8212;to a crocodile what white hair is to man. It bellowed like an ox, beat the reeds with
+its tail, crouched, and opened its jaws, black and terrifying, showing its long and saw-like teeth. No one thought of aiding
+the helmsman. When he had drawn the reptile out of the water he put his foot on it, closed with his robust hand the redoubtable
+jaws, and tried to tie the muzzle. The creature made a last effort, arched its body, beat about with its powerful tail, and
+escaping, plunged outside the enclosure into the lake, dragging its vanquisher after it. The helmsman was a dead man. A cry
+of horror escaped from every mouth.
+
+</p>
+<p>Like a flash, another body disappeared in the water. There scarce was time to see it was Ibarra&#8217;s. If Maria Clara did not
+faint, it was that the natives of the Philippines do not yet know how.
+
+</p>
+<p>The waters grew red. Then the young fisherman leaped in, his father followed him. But they had scarcely disappeared, when
+Ibarra and the helmsman came to the surface, clinging to the crocodile&#8217;s body. Its white belly was lacerated, Ibarra&#8217;s knife
+was in the gorge.
+
+</p>
+<p>Many arms stretched out to help the two young men from the water. The mamas, hysterical, wept, laughed, and prayed. Ibarra
+was unharmed. The helmsman had a slight scratch on the arm.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I owe you my life,&#8221; said he to Ibarra, who was being wrapped in mantles and rugs.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are too intrepid,&#8221; said Ibarra. &#8220;Another time do not tempt God.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you had not come back!&#8221; murmured Maria Clara, pale and trembling.
+
+</p>
+<p>The ladies did not approve of going to the second baklad; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2245" href="#xd0e2245">87</a>]</span>to their minds the day had begun ill; there could not fail to be other misfortunes; it were better to go home.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But what misfortune have we had?&#8221; said Ibarra. &#8220;The crocodile alone has the right to complain.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>At length the mamas were persuaded, and the barks took their course toward the second baklad.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2251" href="#xd0e2251">88</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch20" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XX.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">In the Woods.</h2>
+<p>There had not been much hope in this second baklad. Every one expected to find there the crocodile&#8217;s mate; but the net always
+came up full. The fishing ended, the boats were turned toward the shore. There was the party of the townspeople whom Ibarra
+had invited to meet his guests of the morning, and lunch with them under improvised tents beside a brook, in the shade of
+the ancient trees of the wooded peninsula. Music was resounding in the place, and water sang in the kettles. The body of the
+crocodile, in tow of the boats, turned from side to side; sometimes presenting its belly, white and torn, sometimes its spotted
+back and mossy shoulders. Man, the favorite of nature, is little disturbed by his many fratricides.
+
+</p>
+<p>The party dispersed, some going to the baths, some wandering among the trees. The silent young helmsman disappeared. A path
+with many windings crossed the thicket of the wood and led to the upper course of the warm brook, formed from some of the
+many thermal springs on the flanks of the Makiling. Along the banks of the stream grew wood flowers, many of which have no
+Latin names, but are none the less known to golden bugs, to butterflies, shaded, jewelled, and bronzed, and to thousands of
+coleopters powdered with gold and gleaming with facets of steel. The hum of these insects, the song of birds, or the dry sound
+of dead branches catching in their fall, alone broke the mysterious silence. Suddenly the tones of fresh, young voices <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2261" href="#xd0e2261">89</a>]</span>were added to the wood notes. They seemed to come down the brook.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We shall see if I find a nest!&#8221; said a sweet and resonant voice. &#8220;I should like to see him without his seeing me. I should
+like to follow him everywhere.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t believe in heron&#8217;s nests,&#8221; said another voice; &#8220;but if I were in love, I should know how at once to see and to be
+invisible.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>It was Maria Clara, Victoria, and Sinang walking in the brook. Their eyes were on the water, where they were searching for
+the mysterious nest. In blouses striped with dainty colors, their full bath skirts wet to the knees, outlining the graceful
+curves of their bodies, they moved along, seeking the impossible, meanwhile picking flowers along the banks. Soon the little
+stream bent its course, and the tall reeds hid the charming trio and cut off the sound of their voices.
+
+</p>
+<p>A little farther on, in the middle of the stream, was a sort of bath, well enclosed, its roof of leafy bamboo; palm leaves,
+flowers, and streamers decked its sides. From here, too, came girls&#8217; voices. Farther on was a bamboo bridge, and beyond that
+the men were bathing, while a multitude of servants were busy plucking fowls, washing rice, roasting pigs. In the clearing
+on the opposite bank a group of men and women had formed under a great canvas roof, attached in part to the branches of the
+ancient trees, in part to pickets. There chatted the curate, the alf&eacute;rez, the vicar, the gobernadorcillo, the lieutenant,
+all the chief men of the town, including the famous orator, Captain Basilio, father of Sinang and opponent of Don Rafael Ibarra
+in a lawsuit not yet ended.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We dispute a point at law,&#8221; Cris&oacute;stomo had said in inviting him, &#8220;but to dispute is not to be enemies,&#8221; and the famous orator
+had accepted the invitation.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2273" href="#xd0e2273">90</a>]</span></p>
+<p>Bottles of lemonade were opened and green cocoanut shells were broken, so that those who came from the baths might drink the
+fresh water; the girls were given wreaths of ylang-ylang and roses to perfume their unbound hair.
+
+</p>
+<p>The lunch hour came. The curate, the alf&eacute;rez, the gobernadorcillo, some captains, and the lieutenant sat at a table with Ibarra.
+The mamas allowed no men at the table with the girls.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you learned anything, se&ntilde;or alf&eacute;rez, about the criminal who attacked Brother D&aacute;maso?&#8221; said Brother Salvi.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of what criminal are you speaking?&#8221; asked the alf&eacute;rez, looking at the father over his glass of wine.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What? Why, the one who attacked Brother D&aacute;maso on the highway day before yesterday.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Father D&aacute;maso has been attacked?&#8221; asked several voices.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes; he is in bed yet. It is thought the maker of the assault is Elias, the one who threw you into the swamp some time ago,
+se&ntilde;or alf&eacute;rez.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The alf&eacute;rez reddened with shame, if it were not from emptying his glass of wine.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But I supposed you were informed,&#8221; the curate went on; &#8220;I said to myself that the alf&eacute;rez of the Municipal Guard&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The officer bit his lip.
+
+</p>
+<p>At that moment a woman, pale, thin, miserably dressed, appeared, like a phantom, in the midst of the feast.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Give the poor woman something to eat,&#8221; said the ladies.
+
+</p>
+<p>She kept on toward the table where the curate was seated. He turned, recognized her, and the knife fell from his hand.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Give the woman something to eat,&#8221; ordered Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The night is dark and the children are gone,&#8221; murmured the poor woman. But at sight of the alf&eacute;rez she <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2304" href="#xd0e2304">91</a>]</span>became frightened and ran, disappearing among the trees.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who is it?&#8221; demanded several voices.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t her name Sisa?&#8221; asked Ibarra with interest.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your soldiers arrested her,&#8221; said the lieutenant to the alf&eacute;rez, with some bitterness; &#8220;they brought her all the way across
+the pueblo for some story about her sons that nobody could clear up.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What!&#8221; demanded the alf&eacute;rez, turning to the curate. &#8220;It is perhaps the mother of your sacristans?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The curate nodded assent.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They have disappeared, and there hasn&#8217;t been the slightest effort to find them,&#8221; said Don Filipo severely, looking at the
+gobernadorcillo, who lowered his eyes.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bring back the woman,&#8221; Cris&oacute;stomo ordered his servants.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They have disappeared, did you say?&#8221; demanded the alf&eacute;rez. &#8220;Your sacristans have disappeared, Father Salvi?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The curate emptied his glass and made another affirmative sign.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ho, ho! father,&#8221; cried the alf&eacute;rez with a mocking laugh, rejoiced at the prospect of revenge. &#8220;Your reverence loses a few
+pesos, and my sergeant is routed out to find them; your two sacristans disappear, your reverence says nothing; and you also,
+se&ntilde;or gobernadorcillo, you also&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He did not finish, but broke off laughing, and buried his spoon in the red flesh of a papaw.
+
+</p>
+<p>The curate began with some confusion:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was responsible for the money.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Excellent reply, reverend pastor of souls!&#8221; interrupted the alf&eacute;rez, his mouth full. &#8220;Excellent reply, holy man!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra was on the point of interfering, but the priest recovered himself.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2336" href="#xd0e2336">92</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know, se&ntilde;or alf&eacute;rez,&#8221; he asked, &#8220;what is said about the disappearance of these children? No? Then ask your soldiers.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What!&#8221; cried the alf&eacute;rez, thus challenged, abandoning his mocking tone.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They say that on the night when they disappeared shots were heard in the pueblo.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shots?&#8221; repeated the alf&eacute;rez, looking at the faces around him. There were several signs of assent.
+
+</p>
+<p>Brother Salvi went on with a sarcastic smile:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come! I see that you do not know how to arrest criminals, that you are unaware of what your soldiers do, but that you are
+ready to turn yourself into a preacher and teach others their duty.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;ores,&#8221; interrupted Ibarra, seeing the alf&eacute;rez grow pale, &#8220;I wish to know what you think of a project I&#8217;ve formed. I should
+like to give the mother into the care of a good physician. I&#8217;ve promised the father to try to find his children.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The return of the servants without Sisa gave a new turn to the conversation. The luncheon was finished. While the tea and
+coffee were being served the guests separated into groups, the elders to play cards or chess, while the girls, curious to
+learn their destiny, posed questions to the &#8220;Wheel of Fortune.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come, Se&ntilde;or Ibarra!&#8221; cried Captain Basilio, a little gayer than usual; &#8220;we&#8217;ve had a case in court for fifteen years and no
+judge is able to solve it; let&#8217;s see if we cannot end it at chess.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;In a moment, with great pleasure,&#8221; said Ibarra; &#8220;the alf&eacute;rez is leaving us.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>As soon as the officer had gone the men grouped around the two players. It was to be an interesting game. The elder ladies
+meanwhile had surrounded the curate, to talk <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2359" href="#xd0e2359">93</a>]</span>with him of the things of religion; but Brother Salvi seemed to judge the time unfitting and made but vague replies, his rather
+irritated glance being directed almost everywhere except toward his questioners.
+
+</p>
+<p>The chess players began with much solemnity.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If the game is a tie, the affair is forgotten!&#8221; said Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>In the midst of the play he received a despatch. His eyes shone and he became pale, but he put the message in his pocket without
+opening it.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Check!&#8221; he cried. Captain Basilio had no recourse but to hide his king behind the queen.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Check!&#8221; said Ibarra, threatening with his castle.
+
+</p>
+<p>Captain Basilio asked a moment to reflect.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Willingly,&#8221; said Ibarra; &#8220;I, too, should like a moment,&#8221; and excusing himself he went toward the group round the &#8220;Wheel of
+Fortune.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Iday had the disc on which were the forty-eight questions, Albino the book of replies.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ask something,&#8221; they all cried to Ibarra, as he came up. &#8220;The one who has the best answer is to receive a present from the
+others.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And who has had the best so far?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maria Clara!&#8221; cried Sinang. &#8220;We made her ask whether her lover is constant and true, and the book said&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>But Maria, all blushes, put her hand over Sinang&#8217;s mouth.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Give me the &#8216;Wheel&#8217; then,&#8221; said Cris&oacute;stomo, smiling. And he asked:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shall I succeed in my present undertaking?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a stupid question!&#8221; pouted Sinang.
+
+</p>
+<p>The corresponding answer was found in the book. &#8220;&#8216;Dreams are dreams,&#8217;&#8221; read Albino.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2393" href="#xd0e2393">94</a>]</span></p>
+<p>Ibarra brought out his telegram and opened it, trembling.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This time your wheel lies!&#8221; he cried. &#8220;Read!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Project for school approved.&#8217; What does that mean?&#8221; they asked.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This is my present,&#8221; said he, giving the despatch to Maria Clara. &#8220;I&#8217;m to build a school in the pueblo; the school is my
+offering.&#8221; And the young fellow ran back to his game of chess.
+
+</p>
+<p>After making this present to his fianc&eacute;e, Ibarra was so happy that he played without reflection, and, thanks to his many false
+moves, the captain re-established himself, and the game was a draw. The two men shook hands with effusion.
+
+</p>
+<p>While they were thus making an end of the long and tedious suit, the sudden appearance of a sergeant and four armed guards,
+bayonets fixed, broke rudely in upon the merry-makers.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whoever stirs is a dead man!&#8221; cried the sergeant.
+
+</p>
+<p>In spite of this bluster, Ibarra went up to him and asked what he wanted.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We want a criminal named Elias, who was your helmsman this morning,&#8221; replied the officer, still threatening.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A criminal? The helmsman? You must be mistaken.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, se&ntilde;or, this Elias is accused of having raised his hand against a priest. You admit questionable people to your f&ecirc;tes.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra looked him over from head to foot and replied with great coldness.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am in no way accountable to you for my actions. Every one is welcome at my f&ecirc;tes.&#8221; And he turned away.
+
+</p>
+<p>The sergeant, finding he was making no headway, ordered his men to search on all sides. They had the helmsman&#8217;s description
+on paper.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Notice that this description answers well for nine-tenths <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2424" href="#xd0e2424">95</a>]</span>of the natives,&#8221; said Don Filipo; &#8220;see that you make no mistakes!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Quiet came back little by little. There were no end of questions.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So this is the Elias who threw the alf&eacute;rez into the swamp,&#8221; said L&eacute;on.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s a tulisane then?&#8221; asked Victoria, trembling.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think not, for I know that he once fought against the tulisanes.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He hasn&#8217;t the face of a criminal,&#8221; said Sinang.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No; but his face is very sad,&#8221; said Maria. &#8220;I did not see him smile all the morning.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The day was ending, and in the last rays of the setting sun everybody left the wood, passing in silence the tomb of Ibarra&#8217;s
+ancestor. Farther on conversation again became animated, gay, full of warmth, under these branches little used to merry-making.
+But the trees appeared sad, and the swaying bindweed seemed to say: &#8220;Adieu, youth! Adieu, dream of a day!&#8221;
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2440" href="#xd0e2440">96</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch21" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXI.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">With the Philosopher.</h2>
+<p>The next morning, Juan Cris&oacute;stomo Ibarra, after visiting his land, turned his horse toward old Tasio&#8217;s.
+
+</p>
+<p>Complete quiet reigned in the old man&#8217;s garden; scarcely did the swallows make a sound as they flew round the roof. The old
+walls of the house were mossy, and ivy framed the windows. It seemed the abode of silence.
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra tied his horse, crossed the neat garden, almost on tiptoe, and entered the open door. He found the old man in his study,
+surrounded by his collections of insects and leaves, his maps, manuscript, and books. He was writing, and so absorbed in his
+work that he did not notice the entrance of Ibarra until the young man, loath to disturb him, was leaving as quietly as he
+had come.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What! you were there?&#8221; he cried, looking at Cris&oacute;stomo with a certain astonishment.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t disturb yourself; I see you are busy&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was writing a little, but it is not at all pressing. Can I be of service to you?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Of great service,&#8221; said Ibarra, approaching; &#8220;but&#8212;you are deciphering hieroglyphics!&#8221; he exclaimed in surprise, catching
+sight of the old man&#8217;s work.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, I&#8217;m writing in hieroglyphics.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Writing in hieroglyphics? And why?&#8221; demanded the young man, doubting his senses.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So that no one can read me.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra looked at him attentively, wondering if he were not a little mad after all.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2468" href="#xd0e2468">97</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;And why do you write if you do not wish to be read?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I write not for this generation, but for future ages. If the men of to-day could read my books, they would burn them; the
+generation that deciphers these characters will understand, and will say: &#8216;Our ancestors did not all sleep.&#8217; But you have
+something to ask of me, and we are talking of other things.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra drew out some papers.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know,&#8221; he said, &#8220;that my father greatly valued your advice, and I have come to ask it for myself.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>And he briefly explained his project for the school, unrolling before the stupefied philosopher plans sent from Manila. &#8220;Whom
+shall I consult first, in the pueblo, whose support will avail me most? You know them all, I am almost a stranger.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Old Tasio examined with tearful eyes the drawings before him.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are going to realize my dream,&#8221; he said, greatly moved; &#8220;the dream of a poor fool. And now the first advice I give you
+is never to ask advice of me.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra looked at him in surprise.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Because, if you do,&#8221; he continued with bitter irony, &#8220;all sensible people will take you for a fool, too. For all sensible
+people think those who differ with them fools; they think me one, and I am grateful for it, because the day they see in me
+a reasonable being woe is me! That day I shall lose the little liberty I now enjoy at the expense of my reputation. The gobernadorcillo
+passes with them for a wise man because having learned nothing but to serve chocolate and to suffer the caprices of Brother
+D&aacute;maso, he is now rich and has the right to trouble the life of his fellow-citizens. &#8216;There is a man of talent!&#8217; says the
+crowd. &#8216;He has sprung from nothing to greatness.&#8217; But perhaps <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2487" href="#xd0e2487">98</a>]</span>I am really the fool and they are the wise men. Who can say?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>And the old man shook his head as though to dismiss an unwelcome thought.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The second thing I advise is to consult the curate, the gobernadorcillo, all the people of position in the pueblo. They will
+give you bad advice, unintelligible, useless. But to ask advice is not to follow it. All you need is to make it understood
+that you are working in accordance with their ideas.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra reflected, then replied:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No doubt your counsel is good, but it is very hard to take. May I not offer my own ideas to the light of day? Cannot the
+good make its way anywhere? Has truth need of the dross of error?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No one likes the naked truth,&#8221; replied the old man. &#8220;It is good in theory, easy in the ideal world of which youth dreams.
+You say you are a stranger to your country; I believe it. The day that you arrived here, you began by wounding the self-esteem
+of a priest. God grant this seemingly small thing has not decided your future. If it has, all your efforts will break against
+the convent walls, without disturbing the monk, swaying his girdle, or making his robe tremble. The alcalde, under one pretext
+or another, will deny you to-morrow what he grants you to-day; not a mother will let her child go to your school, and the
+result of all your efforts will be simply negative.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I cannot help feeling your fears exaggerated,&#8221; said Ibarra. &#8220;In spite of all you say, I cannot believe in this power; but
+even admitting it to be so great, the most intelligent of the people would be on my side, and also the Government, which is
+animated by the best intentions, and wishes the veritable good of the Philippines.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The Government! the Government!&#8221; murmured the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2503" href="#xd0e2503">99</a>]</span>philosopher, raising his eyes. &#8220;However great its desire to better the country, however generous may have been the spirit
+of the Catholic kings, the Government sees, hears, judges nothing more than the curate or the provincial gives it to see,
+hear, or judge. The Government is convinced that its tranquillity comes through the monks; that if it is upheld, it is because
+they uphold it; that if it live, is it because they consent to let it, and that the day when they fail it, it will fall like
+a manikin that has lost its base. The monks hold the Government in hand by threatening a revolt of the people they control;
+the people, by displaying the power of the Government. So long as the Government has not an understanding with the country,
+it will not free itself from this tutelage. The Government looks to no vigorous future; it&#8217;s an arm, the head is the convent.
+Through its inertia, it allows itself to be dragged from abyss to abyss; its existence is no more than a shadow. Compare our
+system of government with the systems of countries you have visited&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; interrupted Ibarra, &#8220;that is going far. Let us be satisfied that, thanks to religion and the humanity of our rulers,
+our people do not complain, do not suffer like those of other countries.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The people do not complain because they have no voice; if they don&#8217;t revolt, it is because they are lethargic; if you say
+they do not suffer, it is because you have not seen their heart&#8217;s blood. But the day will come when you will see and hear.
+Then woe to those who base their strength on ignorance and fanaticism; woe to those who govern through falsehood, and work
+in the night, thinking that all sleep! When the sun&#8217;s light shows the sham of all these phantoms, there will be a frightful
+reaction; all this strength conserved for centuries, all this poison distilled drop by drop, all these sighs strangled, will
+find the light and the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2509" href="#xd0e2509">100</a>]</span>air. Who pay these accounts which the people from time to time present, and which History preserves for us in its bloody pages?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;God will never permit such a day to come!&#8221; replied Ibarra, impressed in spite of himself. &#8220;The Filipinos are religious, and
+they love Spain. There are abuses, yes, but Spain is preparing reforms to correct them; her projects are now ripening.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I know; but the reforms which come from the head are annulled lower down, thanks to the greedy desire of officials to enrich
+themselves in a short time, and to the ignorance of the people, who accept everything. Abuses are not to be corrected by royal
+decrees, not where the liberty of speech, which permits the denunciation of petty tyrants, does not exist. Projects remain
+projects; abuses, abuses. Moreover, if by chance some one coming to occupy an office begins to show high and generous ideas,
+immediately he hears on all sides&#8212;while to his back he is held a fool: &#8216;Your Excellency does not know the country, Your Excellency
+does not know the character of the Indians, Your Excellency will ruin them, Your Excellency will do well to consult this one
+and that one,&#8217; and so forth, and so on. And as in truth His Excellency does not know the country, which hitherto he had supposed
+to be in America, and since, like all men, he has his faults and weaknesses, he allows himself to be convinced. Don&#8217;t ask
+for miracles; don&#8217;t ask that he who comes here a stranger to make his fortune should interest himself in the welfare of the
+country. What does it mean to him, the gratitude or the execration of a people he does not know, among whom he has neither
+attachments nor hopes? To make glory sweet to us, its plaudits must resound in the ears of those we love, in the atmosphere
+of our home, of the country that is to preserve our ashes; we wish this glory seated on our tomb, to warm a little with <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2515" href="#xd0e2515">101</a>]</span>its rays the cold of death, to keep us from being reduced to nothingness quite. But we wander from the question.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is true I did not come to argue this point; I came to ask advice, and you tell me to bow before grotesque idols.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, and I repeat it; you must either lower your head or lose it.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Lower my head or lose it!&#8217;&#8221; repeated Ibarra, thoughtful. &#8220;The dilemma is hard. Is it impossible to reconcile love of my
+country and love of Spain? Must one abase himself to be a good Christian; prostitute his conscience to achieve a good work?
+I love my country; I love Spain; I am a Catholic, and keep pure the faith of my fathers; but I see in all this no reason for
+delivering myself into the hands of my enemies.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But the field where you would sow is in the keeping of your enemies. You must begin by kissing the hand which&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra did not let him finish.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Kiss their hands! You forget that among them are those who killed my father and tore his body from the grave; but I, his
+son, do not forget, and if I do not avenge, it is because of my allegiance to religion!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The old philosopher lowered his eyes.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or Ibarra,&#8221; he said slowly, &#8220;if you are going to keep the remembrance of these things, things I cannot counsel you to
+forget, abandon this enterprise and find some other means of benefiting your compatriots. This work demands another man.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra saw the force of these words, but he could not give up his project. The remembrance of Maria Clara was in his heart;
+he must make good his offering to her.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I go on, does your experience suggest nothing but this hard road?&#8221; he asked in a low voice.
+
+</p>
+<p>Old Tasio took his arm and led him to the window. A <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2539" href="#xd0e2539">102</a>]</span>fresh breeze was blowing, courier of the north wind. Below lay the garden.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why must we do as does that slender stalk, charged with buds and blossoms?&#8221; said the philosopher, pointing out a superb rose-tree.
+&#8220;The wind makes it tremble, and it bends, as if to hide its precious charge. If the stalk stood rigid, it would break, the
+wind would scatter the flowers, and the buds would die without opening. The gust of wind passed, the stalk rises again, proudly
+wearing her treasure. Who accuses her for having bowed to necessity? To lower the head when a ball whistles is not cowardice.
+What is reprehensible is defying the shot, to fall and rise no more.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And will this sacrifice bear the fruit I seek? Will they have faith in me? Can the priest forget his own offence? Will they
+sincerely aid me to spread that instruction which is sure to dispute with the convents the wealth of the country? Might they
+not feign friendship, simulate protection, and, underneath, wound my enterprise in the heel, that it fall more promptly than
+if attacked face to face? Admitting your views, one might expect anything.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The old man reflected, then he said:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If this happens, if the enterprise fails, you will have the consolation of having done what you could. Something will have
+been gained. Your example will embolden others, who fear only to commence.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra weighed these reasonings, examined the situation, and saw that with all his pessimism the old man was right.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I believe you,&#8221; he said, grasping his hand. &#8220;It was not in vain that I came to you for counsel. I will go straight to the
+curate, who, after all, may be a fair-minded man. They are not all like the persecutor of my father. I go with faith in God
+and man.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He took leave of Tasio, mounted, and rode away, followed <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2555" href="#xd0e2555">103</a>]</span>by the regard of the pessimistic old philosopher, who stood muttering to himself:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We shall see, we shall see how the fates unroll the drama begun in the cemetery!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>This time the wise Tasio was wrong; the drama had begun long before.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2561" href="#xd0e2561">104</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch22" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Meeting at the Town Hall.</h2>
+<p>It was a room of twelve or fifteen by eight or ten yards. The whitewashed walls were covered with charcoal drawings, more
+or less ugly, more or less decent. In the corner were a dozen old shot-guns and some rusty swords, the arms of the cuadrilleros.
+
+</p>
+<p>At one end, draped with soiled red curtains, was a portrait of His Majesty the King, and on the platform underneath an old
+fauteuil opened its worn arms; before this was a great table, daubed with ink, carved and cut with inscriptions and monograms,
+like the tables of a German students&#8217; inn. Lame chairs and tottering benches completed the furniture.
+
+</p>
+<p>In this hall meetings were held, courts sat, tortures were inflicted. At the moment the authorities of the pueblo and its
+vicinity were met there. The party of the old did not mingle with the party of the young; the two represented the Conservatives
+and Liberals.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My friends,&#8221; Don Filipo, the chief of the Liberals, was saying to a little group, &#8220;we shall vanquish the old men this time;
+I&#8217;m going to present their plan myself, with exaggerations, you may imagine.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you saying?&#8221; demanded his surprised auditors.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Listen,&#8221; said Don Filipo. &#8220;This morning I ran across old Tasio. He said to me: &#8216;Your enemies are more opposed to your person
+than to your ideas. Is there something you <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2579" href="#xd0e2579">105</a>]</span>don&#8217;t want to have go through? Propose it yourself. If it&#8217;s as desirable as a mitre, they will reject it. Then let the most
+modest young fellow among you present what you really want. To humiliate you, your enemies will help to carry it.&#8217; Hush! Keep
+the secret.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The gobernadorcillo had come in. Conversation ceased, all took places, and silence reigned.
+
+</p>
+<p>The captain, as the gobernadorcillo is called, sat down in the chair under the king&#8217;s portrait. His look was harried. He coughed,
+passed his hand over his cranium, coughed again, and at length began in a failing voice:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;ores, I&#8217;ve taken the risk of convening you all&#8212;hem, hem!&#8212;because we are to celebrate, the twelfth of this month, the feast
+of our patron, San Diego&#8212;hem, hem!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>At this point of his discourse a cough, dry and regular, reduced him to silence.
+
+</p>
+<p>Then from among the elders arose Captain Basilio:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will your honors permit me,&#8221; said he, &#8220;to speak a word under these interesting circumstances? I speak first, though many
+of those present have more right than I, but the things I have to say are of such importance that they should neither be left
+aside nor said last, and for that reason I wish to speak first, to give them the place they merit. Your honors will, then,
+permit me to speak first in this assembly, where I see very distinguished people, like the se&ntilde;or, the present gobernadorcillo;
+his predecessor, my distinguished friend, Don Valentine; his other predecessor, Don Julio; our renowned captain of the cuadrilleros,
+Don Melchior, and so many others, whom, for brevity, I will not mention, and whom you see here present. I entreat your honors
+to give me the floor before any one else speaks. Am I happy enough to have the assembly accede to my humble request?&#8221; And
+the speaker bowed respectfully, half smiling.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You may speak, we shall hear you with pleasure!&#8221; cried <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2595" href="#xd0e2595">106</a>]</span>his flattering friends, who held him a great orator. The old men hemmed with satisfaction and rubbed their hands.
+
+</p>
+<p>Captain Basilio wiped the sweat from his brow and continued:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Since your honors have been so kind and complaisant toward my humble self as to grant me the right of speech before all others
+here present, I shall profit by this permission, so generously accorded, and I shall speak. I imagine in my imagination that
+I find myself in the midst of the very venerable Roman senate&#8212;senatus populusque Romanus, as we said in those good old times
+which, unhappily for humanity, will never come back,&#8212;and I will ask the patres conscripti&#8212;as the sage Cicero would say if
+he were in my place&#8212;I would ask them, since time presses, and time is golden as Solomon says, that in this important matter
+each one give his opinion clearly, briefly, and simply. I have done.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>And satisfied with himself and with the attention of the house the orator sat down, not without directing toward his friends
+a look which plainly said: &#8220;Ha! Did I speak well? Ha!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now the floor belongs to any one who&#8212;hem!&#8221; said the gobernadorcillo, without being able to finish his sentence.
+
+</p>
+<p>To judge by the general silence, no one wished to be one of the patres conscripti. Don Filipo profited thereby and rose.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Conservatives looked at one another with significant nods and gestures.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;ores, I will present my project for the f&ecirc;te,&#8221; he began.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We cannot accept it!&#8221; said an uncompromising Conservative.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We vote against it!&#8221; cried another adversary.
+
+</p>
+<p>Don Filipo could not repress a smile.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2617" href="#xd0e2617">107</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;We have a budget of 3,500 pesos. With this sum we can assure a f&ecirc;te that will surpass any we have yet seen in our own province
+or in others.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>There were cries of &#8220;Impossible!&#8221; Such a pueblo spent 4,000 pesos; another, 5,000!
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Listen, se&ntilde;ores, and you will be convinced,&#8221; continued Don Filipo, unshaken. &#8220;I propose that in the middle of the plaza we
+erect a grand theatre, costing 150 pesos.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Not enough! Say 160!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Observe, gentlemen, 200 pesos for the theatre. I propose that arrangements be made with the Comedy Company of Tondo for seven
+representations, seven consecutive evenings, at 200 pesos an evening. Seven representations, at 200 pesos each, makes 1,400
+pesos. Observe, se&ntilde;or director, 1,400 pesos.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Old and young looked at one another in surprise. Only those in the secret remained unmoved.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I further propose magnificent fireworks; not those little rockets and crackers that amuse nobody but children and old maids,
+but great bombs, colossal rockets. I propose, then, 200 bombs at two pesos each, and 200 rockets at the same price. Observe,
+se&ntilde;ores, 1,000 pesos for bombs and&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The Conservatives could not contain themselves. They got up and conferred with one another.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And further, to show our neighbors that we are not people who must count their expenditures, I propose, first, four great
+preachers for the two feast days; second, that each day we throw into the lake 200 roasted fowls, 100 stuffed capons, and
+50 sucking pigs, as did Sylla, contemporary of Cicero, to whom Captain Basilio alluded.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s it! Like Sylla!&#8221; repeated Captain Basilio, flattered.
+
+</p>
+<p>The astonishment grew.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2640" href="#xd0e2640">108</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;As many rich people will come to the f&ecirc;tes, each bringing thousands of pesos and his best cocks, I propose fifteen days of
+the gallera, the liberty of open gaming houses&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Cries rising from all sides drowned his voice; there was a veritable tumult. The gobernadorcillo, more crushed than ever,
+did nothing to quell it; he waited for order to establish itself.
+
+</p>
+<p>Happily Captain Valentine, most moderate of the Conservatives, rose and said:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What the lieutenant proposes seems to us extravagant. So many bombs and so much comedy could only be proposed by a young
+man, like the lieutenant, who could pass all his evenings at the theatre and hear countless detonations without becoming deaf.
+And what of these fowls thrown into the lake? Why should we imitate Sylla and the Romans? Did they ever invite us to their
+f&ecirc;tes? I&#8217;m an old man, and I&#8217;ve never received any summons from them!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The Romans live at Rome with the Pope,&#8221; Captain Basilio whispered.
+
+</p>
+<p>This did not disconcert Don Valentine.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;At all events,&#8221; he went on, &#8220;the project is inadmissible, impossible; it&#8217;s a folly!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Don Filipo must needs retire his project.
+
+</p>
+<p>Satisfied with the defeat of their enemy, the Conservatives were not displeased to see another young man rise, the municipal
+head of a group of fifty or sixty families, known as a balangay.
+
+</p>
+<p>He modestly excused himself for speaking. With delicate blandishments he referred to the &#8220;ideas so elegantly expressed by
+Captain Basilio,&#8221; upon which the delighted captain made signs to show him how to gesture and to change position: then he unfolded
+his project: to have something absolutely new, and to spend the 3,500 pesos in such a way as to benefit their own province.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2661" href="#xd0e2661">109</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s it!&#8221; interrupted the young men; &#8220;that&#8217;s what we want!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>What did they care about seeing the King of Bohemia cut off the heads of his daughters! They were neither kings nor barbarians,
+and if they did such things themselves, would be hung high on the field of Bagumbayan. He proposed that two native plays be
+given which dealt with the manners of the times. There were two he had in mind, works of their best writers. They demanded
+only native costumes, and could be played by amateurs of talent, of whom the province had no lack.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A good idea!&#8221; some of the Conservatives began to murmur.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll pay for the theatre!&#8221; cried Captain Basilio, with enthusiasm.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Accepted! Accepted!&#8221; cried numerous voices. The young man went on:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A part of the money taken at the theatre might be distributed in prizes: to the best pupil in the school, the best shepherd,
+the best fisherman. We might have boat races, and games, and fireworks, of course.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Almost all were agreed, though some talked about &#8220;innovations.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>When silence was established, only the decision of the gobernadorcillo was wanting.
+
+</p>
+<p>The poor man passed his hand across his forehead, he fidgeted, he perspired; finally he stammered, lowering his eyes:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I also; I approve; but, hem!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The assembly listened in silence.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But&#8212;&#8212;&#8221; demanded Captain Basilio.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I approve entirely,&#8221; repeated the functionary, &#8220;that is to say, I do not approve; I say yes, but&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2690" href="#xd0e2690">110</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; continued the unhappy man, coming to the point at last, &#8220;the curate wants something else.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is the curate to pay for the festival? Has he given even a cuarto?&#8221; cried a penetrating voice.
+
+</p>
+<p>Every one turned. It was Tasio. The lieutenant remained immovable, his eyes on the gobernadorcillo.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And what does the curate want?&#8221; demanded Don Basilio.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The curate wants six processions, three sermons, three solemn masses, and if any money is left, a comedy with songs between
+the acts.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But we don&#8217;t want it!&#8221; cried the young men and some of their elders.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The curate wishes it,&#8221; repeated the gobernadorcillo, &#8220;and I&#8217;ve promised that his wishes shall be carried out.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then why did you call us together?&#8221; asked one, impatient.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why didn&#8217;t you say so in the beginning?&#8221; demanded another.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wished to, se&ntilde;ores, but, Captain Basilio, I did not have a chance. We must obey the curate!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We must obey!&#8221; repeated some of the Conservatives.
+
+</p>
+<p>Don Filipo approached the gobernadorcillo and said bitterly:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I <span class="corr" id="xd0e2717" title="Source: sacrified">sacrificed</span> my pride in a good cause; you sacrifice your manliness in a bad one; you spoil every good thing that might be done!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra said to the schoolmaster:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you any commission for the capital? I leave immediately.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>On the way home the old philosopher said to Don Filipo, who was cursing his fate:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The fault is ours. You didn&#8217;t protest when they gave you a slave for mayor, and I, fool that I am, forgot about him!&#8221;
+
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2728" href="#xd0e2728">111</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch23" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXIII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Eve of the F&ecirc;te.</h2>
+<p>It is the 10th of November, the eve of the f&ecirc;te. The pueblo of San Diego is stirred by an incredible activity; in the houses,
+the streets, the church, the gallera, all is unwonted movement. From windows flags and rugs are hanging; the air, resounding
+with bombs and music, seems saturated with gayety. Inside on little tables covered with bordered cloths the dalaga arranges
+in jars of tinted crystal the confitures made from the native fruits. Servants come and go; orders, whispers, comments, conjectures
+are everywhere. And all this activity and labor are for guests as often unknown as known; the stranger, the friend, the Filipino,
+the Spaniard, the rich man, the poor man, will be equally fortunate; and no one will ask his gratitude, nor even demand that
+he speak well of his host till the end of his dinner.
+
+</p>
+<p>The red covers which all the year protect the lamps are taken off, and the swinging prisms and crystal pendants strike out
+harmonies from one another and throw dancing rainbow colors on the white walls. The glass globes, precious heirlooms, are
+rubbed and polished; the dainty handiwork of the young girls of the house is brought out. Floors shine like mirrors, curtains
+of pi&ntilde;a or silk jusi ornament the doors, and in the windows hang lanterns of crystal or of colored paper. The vases on the
+Chinese pedestals are heaped with flowers, the saints themselves in their reliquaries are dusted and wreathed with blossoms.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2738" href="#xd0e2738">112</a>]</span></p>
+<p>At intervals along the streets rise graceful arches of reed; around the parvis of the church is the costly covered passageway,
+supported by trunks of bamboos, under which the procession is to pass, and in the centre of the plaza rises the platform of
+the theatre, with its stage of reed, of nipa, or of wood. The native pyrotechnician, who learns his art from no one knows
+what master, is getting ready his castles, balloons, and fiery wheels; all the bells of the pueblo are ringing gaily. There
+are sounds of music in the distance, and the gamins run to meet the bands and give them escort. In comes the fanfare with
+spirited marches, followed by the ragged and half-naked urchins, who, the moment a number is ended, know it by heart, hum
+it, whistle it with wonderful accuracy, and are ready to pass judgment on it.
+
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile the people of the mountains, the kasam&agrave;, in gala dress, bring down to the rich of the pueblo wild game and fruits,
+and the rarest plants of the woods, the biga, with its great leaves, and the tikas-tikas, whose flaming flowers will ornament
+the doorways of the houses. And from all sides, in all sorts of vehicles, arrive the guests, known and unknown, many bringing
+with them their best cocks and sacks of gold to risk in the gallera, or on the green cloth.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The alf&eacute;rez has fifty pesos a night,&#8221; a little plump man is murmuring in the ears of his guests. &#8220;Captain Tiago will hold
+the bank; Captain Joaquin brings eighteen thousand. There will be liam-p&ocirc;; the Chinese Carlo puts up the game, with a capital
+of ten thousand. Sporting men are coming from Lipa and Batanzos and Santa Cruz. There will be big play! big play!&#8212;but will
+you take chocolate?&#8212;Captain Tiago won&#8217;t fleece us this year as he did last; and how is your family?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Very well, very well, thank you! And Father D&aacute;maso?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The father will preach in the morning and be with us at the games in the evening.&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2749" href="#xd0e2749">113</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s out of danger now?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Without question! Ah, it&#8217;s the Chinese who will let their hands go!&#8221; And in dumb show the little man counted money with his
+hands.
+
+</p>
+<p>But the greatest animation of all was at the outskirts of the crowd, around a sort of platform a few paces from the home of
+Ibarra. Pulleys creaked, cries went up, one heard the metallic ring of stone-cutting, of nail-driving; a band of workmen were
+opening a long, deep trench; others were placing in line great stones from the quarries of the pueblo, emptying carts, dumping
+sand, placing capstans.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This way! That&#8217;s it! Quick about it!&#8221; a little old man of intelligent and animated face was crying. It was the foreman, Se&ntilde;or
+Juan, architect, mason, carpenter, metalworker, stonecutter, and on occasions sculptor. To each stranger he repeated what
+he had already said a thousand times.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know what we are going to build? A model school, like those of Germany, and even better. The plans were traced by
+Se&ntilde;or R&#8212;&#8212;. I direct the work. Yes, se&ntilde;or, you see it is to be a palace with two wings, one for the boys, the other for the
+girls. Here in the centre will be a great garden with three fountains, and at the sides little gardens for the children to
+cultivate plants. That great space you see there is for playgrounds. It will be magnificent!&#8221; And the Se&ntilde;or Juan rubbed his
+hands, thinking of his fame to come. Soothed by its contemplation, he went back and forth, passing everything in review.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s too much wood for a crane,&#8221; he said to a Mongol, who was directing a part of the work. &#8220;The three beams that make
+the tripod and the three joining them would be enough for me.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But not for me,&#8221; replied the Mongol, with a peculiar smile, &#8220;the more ornament, the more imposing the effect. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2764" href="#xd0e2764">114</a>]</span>You will see! I shall trim it, too, with wreaths and streamers. You will say in the end that you were right to give the work
+into my hands, and Se&ntilde;or Ibarra will have nothing left to desire.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The man smiled still, and Se&ntilde;or Juan laughed and threw back his head.
+
+</p>
+<p>In truth, Ibarra&#8217;s project had found an echo almost everywhere. The curate had asked to be a patron and to bless the cornerstone,
+a ceremony that was to take place the last day of the f&ecirc;te, and to be one of its chief solemnities. One of the most conservative
+papers of Manila had dedicated to Ibarra on its first page an article entitled, &#8220;Imitate Him!&#8221; He was therein called &#8220;the
+young and rich capitalist, already a marked man,&#8221; &#8220;the distinguished philanthropist,&#8221; &#8220;the Spanish Filipino,&#8221; and so forth.
+The students who had come from Manila for the f&ecirc;te were full of admiration for Ibarra, and ready to take him for their model.
+But, as almost always when we try to imitate a man who towers above the crowd, we ape his weaknesses, if not his faults, many
+of these admirers of Cris&oacute;stomo&#8217;s held rigorously to the tie of his cravat, or the shape of his collar; almost all to the
+number of buttons on his vest. Even Captain Tiago burned with generous emulation, and asked himself if he ought not to build
+a convent.
+
+</p>
+<p>The dark presentiments of old Tasio seemed dissipated. When Ibarra said so to him, the old pessimist replied: &#8220;<span lang="la">Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes</span>.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Toward evening Captain Tiago arrived from Manila, bringing Maria Clara, in honor of the f&ecirc;te, a beautiful reliquary of gold,
+set with emeralds and diamonds, enshrining a splinter from the fishing-boat of St. Peter. Scarcely had he come when a party
+of Maria&#8217;s friends came to take her out to see the streets.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go,&#8221; said Captain Tiago, &#8220;but come back soon. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2779" href="#xd0e2779">115</a>]</span>Father D&aacute;maso, you know, is to dine with us. You, too, Cris&oacute;stomo, must join us.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;With the greatest pleasure,&#8221; stammered Ibarra, avoiding Maria Clara&#8217;s eyes, &#8220;if I did not feel that I must be at home to
+receive whoever may come.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bring your friends here; there is always room at my table,&#8221; said Captain Tiago, somewhat coldly. &#8220;I wish Father D&aacute;maso and
+you to come to an understanding.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There is yet time,&#8221; said Ibarra, forcing a smile.
+
+</p>
+<p>As they descended to the street, Aunt Isabel following, people moved aside to let them pass. Maria Clara was a vision of loveliness:
+her pallor had disappeared, and if her eyes remained pensive, her mouth seemed to know only smiles. With the amiability characteristic
+of happy young womanhood she saluted the people she had known as a child, and they smiled back their admiration. In these
+few days of freedom she had regained the frank friendliness, the gracious speech, which seemed to have slumbered inside the
+narrow walls of her convent. She felt a new, intense life within her, and everything without seemed good and beautiful. She
+showed her love for Ibarra with that maiden sweetness which comes from pure thoughts and knows no reason for false blushes.
+
+</p>
+<p>At regular intervals in the streets were kindled great clustered lights with bamboo supports, like candelabra. People were
+beginning to illuminate their houses, and through the open windows one could see the guests moving about in the radiance among
+the flowers to the music of harp, piano, or orchestra. Outside, in gala costume, native or European, Chinese, Spaniards, and
+Filipinos were moving in all directions, escaping with difficulty the crush of carriages and calashes.
+
+</p>
+<p>When the party reached Captain Basilio&#8217;s house, Sinang saw them, and ran down the steps.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2793" href="#xd0e2793">116</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Come up till I&#8217;m ready to go out with you,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I&#8217;m weary of all these strangers who talk of nothing but cocks and
+cards.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The house was full of people. Many came up to greet Cris&oacute;stomo, and all admired Maria Clara. &#8220;Beautiful as the Virgin!&#8221; the
+old dames whispered, chewing their buyo.
+
+</p>
+<p>Here they must take chocolate. As they were leaving, Captain Basilio said in Ibarra&#8217;s ear:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Won&#8217;t you join us this evening? Father D&aacute;maso is going to make up a little purse.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra smiled and answered by a movement of the head, which might have meant anything.
+
+</p>
+<p>Chatting and laughing, the merry party went on past the brilliantly illuminated houses. At length they came to one fast closed
+and dark. It was the home of the alf&eacute;rez. Maria was astonished.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s that old sorceress. The Muse of the Municipal Guard, as Tasio calls her,&#8221; said Sinang. &#8220;Her house is in mourning because
+the people are gay.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>At a corner of the plaza, where a blind man was singing, an uncommon sight offered itself. A man stood there, miserably dressed,
+his head covered by a great salakot of palm leaves, which completely hid his face, though from its shadow two lights gleamed
+and went out fitfully. He was tall, and, from his figure, young. He pushed forward a basket, and after speaking some unintelligible
+words drew back and stood completely isolated. Women passing put fruit and rice into his basket, and at this he came forward
+a little, speaking what seemed to be his thanks.
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara felt the presence of some great suffering. &#8220;Who is it?&#8221; she asked Iday.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a leper. He lives outside the pueblo, near the Chinese cemetery; every one fears to go near him. If you <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2814" href="#xd0e2814">117</a>]</span>could see his cabin! The wind, the rain, and the sun must visit him as they like.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Poor man!&#8221; murmured Maria Clara, and hardly knowing what she did, she went up and put into the basket the reliquary her father
+had just given her.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maria!&#8221; exclaimed her friends.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I had nothing else,&#8221; she said, forcing back the tears.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What will he do with the reliquary? He can&#8217;t sell it! Nobody will touch it now! If only it could be eaten!&#8221; said Sinang.
+
+</p>
+<p>But the leper went to the basket, took the glittering thing in his hands, fell on his knees, kissed it, and bent his head
+to the ground, uncovering humbly. Maria Clara turned her face to hide the tears.
+
+</p>
+<p>As the leper knelt, a woman crept up and knelt beside him. By her long, loose hair and emaciated face the people recognized
+Sisa. The leper, feeling her touch, sprang up with a cry; but, to the horror of the crowd, she clung to his arm.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pray! Pray!&#8221; said she. &#8220;It is the Feast of the Dead! These lights are the souls of men. Pray for my sons!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Separate them! Separate them!&#8221; cried the crowd; but no one dared do it.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you see the light in the tower? That is my son Basilio, ringing the bells. Do you see that other in the manse? That is
+my son Crispin; but I cannot go to them, because the curate is ill, and his money is lost. I carried the curate fruit from
+my garden. My garden was full of flowers, and I had two sons. I had a garden, I tended my flowers, and I had two sons.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>And leaving the leper she moved away, singing:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I had a garden and flowers. I had two sons, a garden and flowers.&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2838" href="#xd0e2838">118</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;What have you done for that poor woman?&#8221; Maria asked Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nothing yet,&#8221; he replied, somewhat confused. &#8220;But don&#8217;t be troubled; the curate has promised to aid me.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>As they spoke, a soldier came dragging Sisa back, rather than leading her. She was resisting.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where are you taking her? What has she done?&#8221; asked Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What has she done? Didn&#8217;t you hear the noise she made?&#8221; said the guardian of public tranquillity.
+
+</p>
+<p>The leper took up his basket and vanished. Maria Clara asked to go home. She had lost all her gayety. Her sadness increased
+when, arrived at her door, her fianc&eacute; refused to go in.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It must be so to-night,&#8221; he said as he bade her good-by.
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria, mounting the steps, thought how tiresome were f&ecirc;te days, when one must receive so many strangers.
+
+</p>
+<p>The next evening a little perfumed note came to Ibarra by the hand of Andeng, Maria&#8217;s foster sister.
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p>&#8220;Cris&oacute;stomo, for a whole day I have not seen you. They tell me you are ill. I have lighted two candles and prayed for you.
+I&#8217;m so tired of being asked to play and dance. I did not know there were so many tiresome people in the world. If Father D&aacute;maso
+had not tried to amuse me with stories, I should have left them all and gone away to sleep. Write me how you are, and if I
+shall send papa to see you. I send you Andeng now to make your tea; she will do it better than your servants. If you don&#8217;t
+come to-morrow, I shall not go to the ceremony.
+
+
+</p>
+<p class="alignright"><span class="smallcaps">Maria Clara</span>.&#8221;
+</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2865" href="#xd0e2865">119</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch24" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXIV.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">In the Church.</h2>
+<p>The orchestras sounded the reveille at the first rays of the sun, waking with joyous airs the tired inhabitants of the pueblo.
+
+</p>
+<p>It was the last day of the f&ecirc;te&#8212;indeed, the f&ecirc;te itself. Every one expected much more than on the eve, when the Brothers of
+the Sacred Rosary had had their sermon and procession; for the Brothers of the Third Order were more numerous, and counted
+on humiliating their rivals. The Chinese candle merchants had reaped a rich harvest.
+
+</p>
+<p>Everybody put on his gala dress; all the jewels came out of their coffers; the fops and sporting men wore rows of diamond
+buttons on their shirt fronts, heavy gold chains, and white jipijapa hats, as the Indians call Panamas. No one but old Tasio
+was in everyday costume.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You seem even sadder than usual,&#8221; the lieutenant said to him. &#8220;Because we have so many reasons to weep, may we not laugh
+once in a while?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, laugh, but not play the fool! It&#8217;s the same insane orgy every year, the same waste of money when there&#8217;s so much need
+and so much suffering! But I see! It&#8217;s the orgy, the bacchanal, that is to still the lamentations of the poor!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You know I share your opinion,&#8221; said Don Filipo, half serious, half laughing, &#8220;and that I defended it; but what can I do
+against the gobernadorcillo and the curate?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Resign!&#8221; cries the irate old man, leaving him.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2885" href="#xd0e2885">120</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Resign!&#8221; muttered Don Filipo, going on toward the church. &#8220;Resign? Yes, certainly, if my post were an honor and not a charge.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>There was a crowd in the parvis, and men, women, and children in a stream were coming and going through the narrow doors of
+the church. The smell of powder mingled with that of flowers and incense. Rockets, bombs, and serpents made women run and
+scream and delighted the children. An orchestra was playing before the convent; bands accompanied dignitaries on their way
+to the church, or paraded the streets under innumerable floating and dipping flags. Light and color distracted the eye, music
+and explosions the ear.
+
+</p>
+<p>High mass was about to be celebrated. Among the congregation were to be the chief alcalde of the province and other Spanish
+notables; and last, the sermon would be given by Brother D&aacute;maso, who had the greatest renown as a preacher.
+
+</p>
+<p>The church was crammed. People were jostled, crushed, trampled on, and cried out at each encounter. From far they stretched
+their arms to dip their fingers in the holy water, but getting nearer, saw its color, and the hands retired. They scarcely
+breathed; the heat and atmosphere were insupportable; but the preacher was worth the endurance of all these miseries; besides,
+his sermon was to cost the pueblo two hundred and fifty pesos. Fans, hats, and handkerchiefs agitated the air; children cried,
+and gave the sacristans a hard enough task getting them out.
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra was in a corner. Maria Clara knelt near the high altar, where the curate had reserved a place for her. Captain Tiago,
+in frock coat, sat on the bench of authorities, and the children, who did not know him, taking him for another gobernadorcillo,
+dared not go near him.
+
+</p>
+<p>At length the alcalde arrived with his suite. He came <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2898" href="#xd0e2898">121</a>]</span>from the sacristy, and sat down in a splendid fauteuil, beneath which was spread a rich carpet. He was in full dress, and
+wore the cordon of Charles III., with four or five other decorations.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ha!&#8221; cried a countryman. &#8220;A citizen in fancy dress!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Imbecile!&#8221; replied his neighbor. &#8220;It&#8217;s Prince Villardo whom we saw last night in the play!&#8221; And the alcalde, in the character
+of giant-slayer, rose accordingly in the popular estimation.
+
+</p>
+<p>Presently those seated arose, those sleeping awoke, the mass had begun. Brother Salvi celebrated, attended by two Augustins.
+At length came the long-looked-for moment of the sermon. The three priests sat down, the alcalde and other notables followed
+them, the music ceased. The people made themselves as comfortable as possible, those who had no benches sitting outright on
+the pavement, or arranging themselves tailor fashion.
+
+</p>
+<p>Preceded by two sacristans and followed by another monk, who bore a great book, Father D&aacute;maso made his way through the crowd.
+He disappeared a moment in the spiral staircase of the pulpit, then his great head reappeared and his herculean bust. He looked
+over his audience, and, the review terminated, said to his companion, hidden at his feet:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Attention, brother!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The monk opened his book.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2912" href="#xd0e2912">122</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch25" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXV.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Sermon.</h2>
+<p>The first part of the sermon was to be in Castilian, the remainder in Tagalo. Brother D&aacute;maso began slowly and in ordinary
+voice:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;<i lang="la">Et spiritum tuum bonum dedisti qui docevet eos, et manna tuum non prohibuisti ab ore eorum, et aquam dedisti eis in siti.</i> Words of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Esdras, Book II., chapter ix., verse 20.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Most worshipful se&ntilde;or (to the alcalde), very reverend priests, brothers in Christ!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Here an impressive pose and a new glance round the audience, then, his eyes on the alcalde, the father majestically extended
+his right hand toward the altar, slowly crossed his arms, without saying a word, and, passing from this calm to action, threw
+back his head, pointed toward the main entrance, and, impetuously cutting the air with the edge of his hand, began to speak
+in a voice strong, full, and resonant.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Brilliant and splendid is the altar, wide the door, the air is the vehicle of the sacred word which shall spring from my
+lips. Hear, then, with the ears of the soul and the heart, that the words of the Lord may not fall on a stony ground, but
+that they may grow and shoot upward in the field of our seraphic father, St. Francis. You, sinners, captives of those Moors
+of the soul who infest the seas of the eternal life, in the doughty ships of the flesh and the world; you who row in the galleys
+of Satan, behold with reverent compunction him <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2931" href="#xd0e2931">123</a>]</span>who redeems souls from the captivity of the demon&#8212;the intrepid Gideon, the courageous David, the victorious Roland of Christianity!
+the celestial guard, more valiant than all the civil guards of past and future. (The alf&eacute;rez frowned.) Yes, Se&ntilde;or Alf&eacute;rez,
+more valiant and more powerful than all! This conqueror, who, without other weapon than a wooden cross, vanquished the eternal
+tulisanes of darkness, and would have utterly destroyed them were spirits not immortal. This marvel, this incredible phenomenon,
+is the blessed Diego of Alcala!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The &#8220;rude Indians,&#8221; as the correspondents say, fished out of this paragraph only the words civil guard, tulisane, San Diego,
+and San Francisco. They had noticed the grimace of the alf&eacute;rez and the militant gesture of the preacher, and had from this
+deduced that the father was angry with the guard for not pursuing the tulisanes, and that San Diego and San Francisco had
+taken upon themselves to do it. They were enchanted, not doubting that, the tulisanes once dispersed, St. Francis would also
+destroy the municipal guard. Their attention, therefore, redoubled.
+
+</p>
+<p>The monk continued so long his eulogy of San Diego that his auditors, not even excepting Captain Tiago, began to yawn a little.
+Then he reproached them with living like the Protestants and heretics, who respect not the ministers of God; like the Chinese,
+for which condemnation be upon them!
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is he telling us, the Pal&eacute; L&aacute;maso?&#8221; murmured the Chinese Carlos, looking angrily at the preacher, who went on improvising
+a series of apostrophes and imprecations.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will die in impenitence, race of heretics! Your punishment is already being meted out to you in jails and prisons. The
+family and its women should flee you; rulers should destroy you. If you have a member that causeth you to offend, cut it off
+and cast it into the fire!&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2941" href="#xd0e2941">124</a>]</span></p>
+<p>Brother D&aacute;maso was nervous. He had forgotten his sermon and was improvising. Ibarra became restless; he looked about in search
+of some corner, but the church was full. Maria Clara no longer heard the sermon. She was analyzing a picture of the souls
+of the &#8220;Blessed in Purgatory.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>In the improvisation the monk who played the part of prompter lost his place and skipped some paragraphs. The text returned
+to San Diego, and with a long series of exclamations and contrasts the father brought to a close the first part of his sermon.
+
+</p>
+<p>The second part was entirely improvised; not that Brother D&aacute;maso knew Tagalo better than Castilian; but, considering the natives
+of the province entirely ignorant of rhetoric, he did not mind making errors before them. Yet the second part of his discourse
+had for certain people graver consequences than the first.
+
+</p>
+<p>He began with a &#8220;Man&aacute; capatir concristians,&#8221; &#8220;My Christian brothers,&#8221; followed by an avalanche of untranslatable phrases about
+the soul, sin, and the patron saint. Then he launched a new series of maledictions against lack of respect and growing irreligion.
+On this point he seemed to be inspired, and expressed himself with force and clearness. He spoke of sinners who die in prison
+without confession or the sacraments; of accursed families, of petty students, and of toy philosophers.
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra listened and understood. He kept a calm exterior, but his eyes turned toward the bench of magistrates. No one seemed
+to pay attention; as to the alcalde, he was asleep.
+
+</p>
+<p>The inspiration of the preacher increased. He spoke of the early times when every Filipino encountering a priest uncovered,
+knelt, and kissed his hand. Now, he said, there were those who, because they had studied in Manila or in Europe, thought fit
+to shake the hand of a priest instead of kissing it.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2954" href="#xd0e2954">125</a>]</span></p>
+<p>But in spite of the cries and gestures of the orator, by this time many of his auditors slept, and few listened. Some of the
+devout would have wept over the sins of the ungodly, but nobody joined them, and they were forced to give it up. A man seated
+beside an old woman went so sound asleep that he fell over against her. The good woman took her slipper and tried to waken
+him, at the same time crying out:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Get away! Savage, animal, demon, carabao!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Naturally this raised a tumult. The preacher elevated his brows, struck dumb by such a scandal; indignation strangled the
+words in his throat; he could only strike the pulpit with his fists. This had its effect. The old woman dropped the shoe and,
+still grumbling and signing herself, sank on her knees.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, ah, ah, ah!&#8221; the irate priest could at last articulate. &#8220;It is for this that I have preached to you all the morning!
+Savages! You respect nothing! Behold the work of the incontinence of the century!&#8221; And launched again upon this theme, he
+preached a half hour longer. The alcalde breathed loud. Maria Clara, having studied all the pictures in sight, had dropped
+her head. Cris&oacute;stomo had ceased to be moved by the sermon. He was picturing a little house, high up among the mountains, with
+Maria Clara in the garden. Why concern himself with men, dragging out their lives in the miserable pueblos of the valley?
+
+</p>
+<p>At length the sermon ended, and the mass went on. At the moment when all were kneeling and the priests bowed their heads at
+the &#8220;<span lang="la">Incarnatus est</span>,&#8221; a man murmured in Ibarra&#8217;s ear: &#8220;At the blessing of the cornerstone do not separate yourself from the curate; do not go
+down into the trench. Your life is at stake!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>It was the helmsman.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2970" href="#xd0e2970">126</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch26" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXVI.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Crane.</h2>
+<p>It was indeed not an ordinary crane that the Mongol had built for letting the enormous cornerstone of the school into the
+trench. The framework was complicated and the cables passed over extraordinary pulleys. Flags, streamers, and garlands of
+flowers, however, hid the mechanism. By means of a cleverly contrived capstan, the enormous stone held suspended over the
+open trench could be raised or lowered with ease by a single man.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;See!&#8221; said the Mongol to Se&ntilde;or Juan, inserting the bar and turning it. &#8220;See how I can manipulate the thing up here and unaided!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Se&ntilde;or Juan was full of admiration.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who taught you mechanics?&#8221; he asked.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My father, my late father,&#8221; replied the man, with his peculiar smile, &#8220;and Don Saturnino, the grandfather of Don Cris&oacute;stomo,
+taught him.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You must know then about Don Saturnino&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, many things! Not only did he beat his workmen and expose them to the sun, but he knew how to awaken sleepers and put
+waking men to sleep. Ah, you will see presently what he could teach! You will see!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>On a table with Persian spread, beside the trench, were the things to be put into the cornerstone, and the glass box and leaden
+cylinder which were to preserve for the future these souvenirs, this mummy of an epoch.
+
+</p>
+<p>Under two long booths near at hand were sumptuous <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e2994" href="#xd0e2994">127</a>]</span>tables, one for the school-children, without wine, and heaped with fruits; the other for the distinguished visitors. The booths
+were joined by a sort of bower of leafy branches, where were chairs for the musicians, and tables with cakes, confitures,
+and carafes of water, for the public in general.
+
+</p>
+<p>The crowd, gay in garments of many colors, was massed under the trees to avoid the ardent rays of the sun, and the children,
+to better see the ceremony of the dedication, had climbed up among the branches.
+
+</p>
+<p>Soon bands were heard in the distance. The Mongol carefully examined his construction; he seemed nervous. A man with the appearance
+of a peasant standing near him on the edge of the excavation and close beside the capstan watched all his movements. It was
+Elias, well disguised by his salakot and rustic costume.
+
+</p>
+<p>The musicians arrived, preceded by a crowd of old and young in motley array. Behind came the alcalde, the municipal guard
+officers, the monks, and the Spanish Government clerks. Ibarra was talking with the alcalde; Captain Tiago, the alf&eacute;rez, the
+curate and a number of the rich country gentlemen accompanied the ladies, whose gay parasols gleamed in the sunshine.
+
+</p>
+<p>As they approached the trench, Ibarra felt his heart beat. Instinctively he raised his eyes to the strange scaffolding. The
+Mongol saluted him respectfully, and looked at him intently a moment. Ibarra recognized Elias through his disguise, and the
+mysterious helmsman, by a significant glance, recalled the warning in the church.
+
+</p>
+<p>The curate put on his robes and began the office. The one-eyed sacristan held his book; a choir boy had in charge the holy
+water and sprinkler. The men uncovered, and the crowd stood so silent that, though the father read low, his voice was heard
+to tremble.
+
+</p>
+<p>The manuscripts, journals, money, and medals to be preserved <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3008" href="#xd0e3008">128</a>]</span>in remembrance of this day had been placed in the glass box and the box itself hermetically sealed within the leaden cylinder.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or Ibarra, will you place the box in the stone? The curate is waiting for you,&#8221; said the alcalde in Ibarra&#8217;s ear.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I should do so with great pleasure,&#8221; said Ibarra, &#8220;but it would be a usurpation of the honor; that belongs to the notary,
+who must draw up the written process.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The notary gravely took the box, descended the carpeted stairway which led to the bottom of the trench, and with due solemnity
+deposited his burden in the hollow of the stone already laid. The curate took the sprinkler and sprinkled the stone with holy
+water.
+
+</p>
+<p>Each one was now to deposit his trowel of cement on the surface of the lower stone, to seal it to the stone held suspended
+by the crane when that should be lowered.
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra offered the alcalde a silver trowel, on which was engraved the date of the f&ecirc;te, but before using it His Excellency
+pronounced a short allocution in Castilian.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Citizens of San Diego,&#8221; he said, &#8220;we have the honor of presiding at a ceremony whose importance you know without explanations.
+We are founding a school, and the school is the basis of society, the book wherein is written the future of each race.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Citizens of San Diego! Thank God, who has given you these priests! Thank the Mother Country, who spreads civilization in
+these fertile isles and protects them with the covering of her glorious mantle. Thank God, again, who has enlightened you
+by his priests from his divine Word.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And now that the first stone of this building has been blessed, we, the alcalde of this province, in the name of His Majesty
+the King, whom God guard; in the name of the illustrious Spanish Government, and under the protection <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3026" href="#xd0e3026">129</a>]</span>of its spotless and ever-victorious flag, consecrate this act and begin the building of this school!
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Citizens of San Diego, long live the king! Long live Spain! Long live the religious orders! Long live the Catholic church!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Long live the Se&ntilde;or Alcalde!&#8221; replied many voices.
+
+</p>
+<p>Then the high official descended majestically, to the strains of the orchestras, put his trowel of cement on the stone, and
+came back as majestically as he had gone down.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Government clerks applauded.
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra offered the trowel to the curate, who descended slowly in his turn. In the middle of the staircase he raised his eyes
+to the great stone suspended above, but he stopped only a second, and continued the descent. This time the applause was a
+little warmer, Captain Tiago and the monks adding theirs to that of the clerks.
+
+</p>
+<p>The notary followed. He gallantly offered the trowel to Maria Clara, but she refused, with a smile. The monks, the alf&eacute;rez,
+and others descended in turn, Captain Tiago not being forgotten.
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra was left. He had ordered the stone to be lowered when the curate remembered him.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You do not put on your trowelful, Se&ntilde;or Ibarra?&#8221; said the curate, with a familiar and jocular air.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I should be Juan Palomo, who made the soup and then ate it,&#8221; replied Cris&oacute;stomo in the same light tone.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You go down, of course,&#8221; said the alcalde, taking him by the arm in friendly fashion. &#8220;If not, I shall order that the stone
+be kept suspended, and we shall stay here till the Day of Judgment!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Such a menace forced Ibarra to obey. He exchanged the silver trowel for a larger one of iron, as some people noticed, and
+started out calmly. Elias gave him an indefinable <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3050" href="#xd0e3050">130</a>]</span>look; his whole being seemed in it. The Mongol&#8217;s eyes were on the abyss at his feet.
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra, after glancing rapidly at the block over his head, at Elias, and at the Mongol, said to Se&ntilde;or Juan, in a voice that
+trembled:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Give me the tray and bring me the other trowel.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He stood alone. Elias no longer looked at him, his eyes were riveted on the hands of the Mongol, who, bending over, was anxiously
+following the movements of Ibarra. Then the sound of Ibarra&#8217;s trowel was heard, accompanied by the low murmur of the clerks&#8217;
+voices as they felicitated the alcalde on his speech.
+
+</p>
+<p>Suddenly a frightful noise rent the air. A pulley attached to the base of the crane sprang out, dragging after it the capstan,
+which struck the crane like a lever. The beams tottered, the cables broke, and the whole fabric collapsed with a deafening
+roar and in a whirlwind of dust.
+
+</p>
+<p>A thousand voices filled the place with cries of horror. People fled in all directions. Only Maria Clara and Brother Salvi
+remained where they were, pale, mute, incapable of motion.
+
+</p>
+<p>As the cloud of dust thinned, Ibarra was seen upright among the beams, joists and cables, between the capstan and the great
+stone that had fallen. He still held the trowel in his hand. With eyes frightful to look at, he regarded a corpse half buried
+under the beams at his feet.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you unhurt? Are you alive? For God&#8217;s sake, speak!&#8221; cried some one at last.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A miracle! A miracle!&#8221; cried others.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come, take out the body of this man,&#8221; said Ibarra, as if waking from a dream. At the sound of his voice Maria Clara would
+have fallen but for the arms of her friends.
+
+</p>
+<p>Then everything was confusion. All talked at once, gestured, went hither and thither, and knew not what to do.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3072" href="#xd0e3072">131</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Who is killed?&#8221; demanded the alf&eacute;rez.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Arrest the head builder!&#8221; were the first words the alcalde could pronounce.
+
+</p>
+<p>They brought up the body and examined it. It was that of the Mongol. The heart no longer beat.
+
+</p>
+<p>The priests shook Ibarra&#8217;s hand, and warmly congratulated him.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When I think that I was there a moment before!&#8221; said one of the clerks.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is well they gave the trowel to you instead of me,&#8221; said a trembling old man.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don Pascal!&#8221; cried some of the Spaniards.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;ores, the Se&ntilde;or Ibarra lives, while I, if I had not been crushed, should have died of fright.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra had been to inform himself of Maria Clara.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let the f&ecirc;te continue, Se&ntilde;or Ibarra,&#8221; said the alcalde, as he came back. &#8220;Thank God, the dead is neither priest nor Spaniard!
+You ought to celebrate your escape! What if the stone had fallen on you!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He had presentiments!&#8221; cried the notary. &#8220;He did not want to go down, that was plain to be seen!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s only an Indian!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let the f&ecirc;te go on! Give us music! Mourning won&#8217;t raise the dead. Captain, let the inquest be held! Arrest the head builder!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shall he be put in the stocks?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, in the stocks! Music, music! The head builder in the stocks!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or Alcalde,&#8221; said Ibarra, &#8220;if mourning won&#8217;t raise the dead, neither will the imprisonment of a man whose guilt is not
+proven. I go security for his person and ask his liberty, for these f&ecirc;te days at least.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Very well! But let him not repeat it!&#8221; said the alcalde.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3107" href="#xd0e3107">132</a>]</span></p>
+<p>All kinds of rumors circulated among the people. The idea of a miracle was generally accepted. Many said they had seen descend
+into the trench at the fatal moment a figure in a dark costume, like that of the Franciscans. &#8217;Twas no doubt San Diego himself.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A bad beginning,&#8221; muttered old Tasio, shaking his head as he moved away.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3112" href="#xd0e3112">133</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch27" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXVII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Free Thought.</h2>
+<p>Ibarra, who had gone home for a change of clothing, had just finished dressing when a servant announced that a peasant wished
+to see him. Supposing it to be one of his laborers, he had him taken to his work room, which was at the same time his library
+and chemical laboratory. To his great surprise he found himself face to face with the mysterious Elias.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You saved my life,&#8221; said the man, speaking in Tagalo, and understanding the movement of Ibarra. &#8220;I have not half paid my
+debt. Do not thank me. It is I who should thank you. I have come to ask a favor.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Speak!&#8221; said his listener.
+
+</p>
+<p>Elias fixed his melancholy eyes on Ibarra&#8217;s and went on:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When the justice of man tries to clear up this mystery, and your testimony is taken, I entreat you not to speak to any one
+of the warning I gave you.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do not be alarmed,&#8221; said Cris&oacute;stomo, losing interest; &#8220;I know you are pursued, but I&#8217;m not an informer.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t speak for myself, but for you,&#8221; said Elias, with some haughtiness. &#8220;I have no fear of men.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra grew surprised. This manner of speaking was new, and did not comport with the state or fortunes of the helmsman.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Explain yourself!&#8221; he demanded.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am not speaking enigmas. To insure your safety, it <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3138" href="#xd0e3138">134</a>]</span>is necessary that your enemies believe you blind and confiding.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To insure my safety?&#8221; said Ibarra, thoroughly aroused.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You undertake a great enterprise,&#8221; Elias went on. &#8220;You have a past. Your grandfather and your father had enemies. It is not
+criminals who provoke the most hatred; it is honorable men.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You know my enemies, then?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Elias hesitated.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I knew one; the dead man.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I regret his death,&#8221; said Ibarra; &#8220;from him I might have learned more.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Had he lived, he would have escaped the trembling hand of men&#8217;s justice. God has judged him!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you also believe in the miracle of which the people talk?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I believed in such a miracle, I should not believe in God, and I believe in Him; I have more than once felt His hand.
+At the moment when the scaffolding gave way I placed myself beside the criminal.&#8221; Elias looked at Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You&#8212;you mean that you&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, when his deadly work was about to be done, he was going to flee; I held him there; I had seen his crime! Let God be
+the only one who has the right over life!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And yet, this time you&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No!&#8221; cried Elias. &#8220;I exposed the criminal to the risk he had prepared for others; I ran the risk myself; and I did not strike
+him; I left him to be struck by the hand of God!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra regarded the man in silence.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are not a peasant,&#8221; he said at last. &#8220;Who are you? Have you studied?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve need of much belief in God, since I&#8217;ve lost faith in men,&#8221; said Elias, evading the question.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3172" href="#xd0e3172">135</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;But God cannot speak to resolve each of the countless contests our passions raise; it is necessary, it is just, that man
+should sometimes judge his kind.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;For good, yes; not for evil. To correct and ameliorate, not to destroy; because, if man&#8217;s judgments are erroneous, he has
+not the power to remedy the evil he has done. But this discussion is over my head, and I am detaining you. Do not forget what
+I came to entreat; save yourself for the good of your country!&#8221; And he started to go.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And when shall I see you again?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whenever you wish; whenever I can be of use to you; I am always your debtor!&#8221;
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3181" href="#xd0e3181">136</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch28" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXVIII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Banquet.</h2>
+<p>All the distinguished people of the province were united in the carpeted and decorated booth. The alcalde was at one end of
+the table, Ibarra at the other. The talk was animated, even gay. The meal was half finished when a despatch was handed to
+Captain Tiago. He asked permission to read it; his face paled; then lighted up. &#8220;Se&ntilde;ores,&#8221; he cried, quite beside himself,
+&#8220;His Excellency the captain-general is to honor my house with his presence!&#8221; And he started off running, carrying his despatch
+and his napkin, forgetting his hat, and pursued by exclamations and questions. The announcement of the tulisanes could not
+have put him to greater confusion.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wait a moment! When is he coming? Tell us?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Captain Tiago was already in the distance.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;His Excellency asks the hospitality of Captain Tiago!&#8221; the guests exclaimed, apparently forgetting that they spoke before
+his daughter and his future son-in-law.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He could hardly make a better choice,&#8221; said Ibarra, with dignity.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This was spoken of yesterday,&#8221; said the alcalde, &#8220;but His Excellency had not fully decided.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know how long he is to stay?&#8221; asked the alf&eacute;rez, uneasily.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not at all sure! His Excellency is fond of surprising people.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Three other despatches were brought. They were for the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3205" href="#xd0e3205">137</a>]</span>alcalde, the alf&eacute;rez, and the gobernadorcillo, and identical, announcing the coming of the governor. It was remarked that
+there was none for the curate.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;His Excellency arrives at four this afternoon,&#8221; said the alcalde, solemnly. &#8220;We can finish our repast.&#8221; It might have been
+Leonidas saying: &#8220;To-night we sup with Pluto!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The conversation returned to its former course.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I notice the absence of our great preacher,&#8221; said one of the clerks, an honest, inoffensive fellow, who had not yet said
+a word. Those who knew the story of Ibarra&#8217;s father looked significantly at one another. &#8220;Fools rush in,&#8221; said the glances
+of some; but others, more considerate, tried to cover the error.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He must be somewhat fatigued&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Somewhat!&#8221; cried the alf&eacute;rez. &#8220;He must be spent, as they say here, malunqueado. What a sermon!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Superb! Herculean!&#8221; was the opinion of the notary.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Magnificent! Profound!&#8221; said a newspaper correspondent.
+
+</p>
+<p>In the other booth the children were more noisy than little Filipinos are wont to be, for at table or before strangers they
+are usually rather too timid than too bold. If one of them did not eat with propriety, his neighbor corrected him. To one
+a certain article was a spoon; to others a fork or a knife; and as nobody settled their questions, they were in continual
+uproar.
+
+</p>
+<p>Their fathers and mothers, simple peasants, looked in ravishment to see their children eating on a white cloth, and doing
+it almost as well as the curate or the alcalde. It was better to them than a banquet.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said a young peasant woman to an old man grinding his buyo, &#8220;whatever my husband says, my Andoy shall be a priest.
+It is true, we are poor; but Father Mateo says Pope Sixtu was once a keeper of carabaos at Batanzas! <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3227" href="#xd0e3227">138</a>]</span>Look at my Andoy; hasn&#8217;t he a face like St. Vincent?&#8221; and the good mother&#8217;s mouth watered at the sight of her son with his
+fork in both hands!
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;God help us!&#8221; said the old man, munching his sapa. &#8220;If Andoy gets to be pope, we will go to Rome! I can walk yet! Ho! Ho!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Another peasant came up.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s decided, neighbor,&#8221; he said, &#8220;my son is to be a doctor.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A doctor! Don&#8217;t speak of it!&#8221; replied Petra. &#8220;There&#8217;s nothing like being a curate! He has only to make two or three turns
+and say &#8216;d&eacute;minos pabiscum&#8217; and he gets his money.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And isn&#8217;t it work to confess?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Work! Think of the trouble we take to find out the affairs of our neighbors! The curate has only to sit down, and they tell
+him everything!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And preaching? Don&#8217;t you call that work?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Preaching? Where is your head? To scold half a day from the pulpit without any one&#8217;s daring to reply and be paid for it into
+the bargain! Look, look at Father D&aacute;maso! See how fat he gets with his shouting and pounding!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>In truth, Father D&aacute;maso was that moment passing the children&#8217;s booth in the gait peculiar to men of his size. As he entered
+the other booth, he was half smiling, but so maliciously that at sight of it Ibarra, who was talking, lost the thread of his
+speech.
+
+</p>
+<p>The guests were astonished to see the father, but every one except Ibarra received him with signs of pleasure. They were at
+the dessert, and the champagne was sparkling in the cups.
+
+</p>
+<p>Father D&aacute;maso&#8217;s smile became nervous when he saw Maria Clara sitting next Cris&oacute;stomo, but, taking a chair beside the alcalde,
+he said in the midst of a significant silence:
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3251" href="#xd0e3251">139</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;You were talking of something, se&ntilde;ores; continue!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We had come to the toasts,&#8221; said the alcalde. &#8220;Se&ntilde;or Ibarra was mentioning those who had aided him in his philanthropic enterprise,
+and he was speaking of the architect when your reverence&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, well! I know nothing about architecture,&#8221; interrupted Father D&aacute;maso, &#8220;but I scorn architects and the simpletons who make
+use of them.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Nevertheless,&#8221; said the alcalde, as Ibarra was silent, &#8220;when certain buildings are in question, like a school, for example,
+an expert is needed&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;An expert!&#8221; cried the father, with sarcasm. &#8220;One needs be more stupid than the Indians, who build their own houses, not to
+know how to raise four walls and put a roof on them. Nothing else is needed for a school!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Every one looked at Ibarra, but, though he grew a little pale, he pursued his conversation with Maria Clara.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But does your reverence consider&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;See here!&#8221; continued the Franciscan, again cutting off the alcalde. &#8220;See how one of our lay brothers, the most stupid one
+we have, built a hospital. He paid the workmen eight cuartos a day, and got them from other pueblos, too. Not much like these
+young feather-brains who ruin workmen, paying them three or four r&eacute;ales!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Does your reverence say he paid but eight cuartos? Impossible!&#8221; said the alcalde, hoping to change the course of the conversation.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, se&ntilde;or, and so should those do who pride themselves upon being good Spaniards. Since the opening of the Suez Canal, corruption
+has reached even here! When the Cape had to be doubled, not so many ruined men came here, and fewer went abroad to ruin themselves!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But Father D&aacute;maso&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You know the Indian; as soon as he has learned anything, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3276" href="#xd0e3276">140</a>]</span>he takes a title. All these beardless youths who go to Europe&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But, your reverence, listen&#8212;&#8212;&#8221; began the alcalde, alarmed by the harshness of these words.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Finish as they merit,&#8221; continued the priest. &#8220;The hand of God is in it; he is blind who does not see that. Already even the
+fathers of these reptiles receive their chastisement; they die in prison! Ah&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He did not finish. Ibarra, livid, had been watching him. At these words he rose, gave one bound, and struck out with his strong
+hand. The monk, stunned by the blow, fell backward.
+
+</p>
+<p>Surprised and terrified, not one of the spectators moved.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let no one come near!&#8221; said the young man in a terrible voice, drawing his slender blade, and holding the neck of the priest
+with his foot. &#8220;Let no one come, unless he wishes to die.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra was beside himself, his whole body trembled, his threatening eyes were big with rage. Father D&aacute;maso, regaining his
+senses, made an effort to rise, but Cris&oacute;stomo, grasping his neck, shook him till he had brought him to his knees.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or de Ibarra! Se&ntilde;or de Ibarra!&#8221; stammered one and another. But nobody, not even the alf&eacute;rez, risked a movement. They saw
+the knife glitter; they calculated Cris&oacute;stomo&#8217;s strength, unleashed by anger; they were paralyzed.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;All you here, you have said nothing. Now it rests with me. I avoided him; God brings him to me. Let God judge!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra breathed with effort, but his arm of iron kept harsh hold of the Franciscan, who struggled in vain to free himself.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My heart beats true, my hand is firm&#8212;&#8212;&#8221; And he looked about him.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3298" href="#xd0e3298">141</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I ask you first, is there among you any one who has not loved his father, who has not loved his father&#8217;s memory; any one
+born in shame and abasement? See, hear this silence! Priest of a God of peace, thy mouth full of sanctity and religion, thy
+heart of corruption! Thou canst not know what it is to be a father; thou shouldst have thought of thy own! See, in all this
+crowd that you scorn there is not one like you! You are judged!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The guests, believing he was going to strike, made their first movement.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do not come near us!&#8221; he cried again in the same threatening voice. &#8220;What? You fear I shall stain my hand in impure blood?
+Did I not tell you that my heart beats true? Away from us, and listen, priests, believing yourselves different from other
+men, giving yourselves other rights! My father was an honorable man. Ask the country which venerates his memory. My father
+was a good citizen, who <span class="corr" id="xd0e3305" title="Source: sacrified">sacrificed</span> himself for me and for his country&#8217;s good. His house was open, his table set for the stranger or the exile who should turn
+to him! He was a Christian; always doing good, never pressing the weak, nor forcing tears from the wretched. As to this man,
+he opened his door to him, made him sit down at his table, and called him friend. And how did the man respond? He falsely
+accused him; he pursued him; he armed ignorance against him! Confiding in the sanctity of his office, he outraged his tomb,
+dishonored his memory; his hate troubled even the rest of the dead. And not yet satisfied, he now pursues the son. I fled
+from him, avoided his presence. You heard him this morning profane the chair, point me out to the people&#8217;s fanaticism; but
+I said nothing. Now, he comes here to seek a quarrel; I suffer in silence, until he again insults a memory sacred to all sons.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You who are here, priests, magistrates, have you seen <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3310" href="#xd0e3310">142</a>]</span>your old father give himself for you, part from you for your good, die of grief in a prison, looking for your embrace, looking
+for consolation from any one who would bring it, sick, alone; while you in a foreign land? Then have you heard his name dishonored,
+found his tomb empty when you went there to pray? No? You are silent; then you condemn him!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He raised his arm. But a girl, rapid as light, threw herself between him and the priest, and with her fragile hands held the
+avenging arm. It was Maria Clara. Ibarra looked at her with eyes like a madman&#8217;s. Then, little by little, his tense fingers
+relaxed; he let fall the knife, and, covering his face with his hands, he fled.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3314" href="#xd0e3314">143</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch29" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXIX.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Opinions.</h2>
+<p>The noise of the affair spread rapidly. At first no one believed it, but when there was no longer room for doubt, each made
+his comments, according to the degree of his moral elevation.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Father D&aacute;maso is dead,&#8221; said some. &#8220;When he was carried away, his face was congested with blood, and he no longer breathed.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;May he rest in peace, but he has only paid his debt!&#8221; said a young stranger.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why do you say that?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;One of us students who came from Manila for the f&ecirc;te left the church when the sermon in Tagalo began, saying it was Greek
+to him. Father D&aacute;maso sent for him afterward, and they came to blows.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are we returning to the times of Nero?&#8221; asked another student.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You mistake,&#8221; replied the first. &#8220;Nero was an artist, and Father D&aacute;maso is a jolly poor preacher!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The men of more years talked otherwise.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To say which was wrong and which right is not easy,&#8221; said the gobernadorcillo, &#8220;and yet, if Se&ntilde;or Ibarra had been more moderate&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You probably mean, if Father D&aacute;maso had shown half the moderation of Se&ntilde;or Ibarra,&#8221; interrupted Don Filipo. &#8220;The pity is
+that the r&ocirc;les were interchanged: the youth <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3340" href="#xd0e3340">144</a>]</span>conducted himself like an old man, and the old man like a youth.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you say nobody but the daughter of Captain Tiago came between them? Not a monk, nor the alcalde?&#8221; asked Captain Martin.
+&#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t like to be in the young man&#8217;s shoes. None of those who were afraid of him will ever forgive him. Hah, that&#8217;s the
+worst of it!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You think so?&#8221; demanded Captain Basilio, with interest.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hope,&#8221; said Don Filipo, exchanging glances with Captain Basilio, &#8220;that the pueblo isn&#8217;t going to desert him. His friends
+at least&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But, se&ntilde;ores,&#8221; interrupted the gobernadorcillo, &#8220;what can we do? What can the pueblo? Whatever happens, the monks are always
+in the right&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They are always in the right, because we always say they&#8217;re in the right. Let us say we are in the right for once, and then
+we shall have something to talk about!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The gobernadorcillo shook his head.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, the young blood!&#8221; he said. &#8220;You don&#8217;t seem to know what country you live in; you don&#8217;t know your compatriots. The monks
+are rich; they are united; we are poor and divided. Try to defend him and you will see how you are left to compromise yourself
+alone!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; cried Don Filipo bitterly, &#8220;and it will be so as long as fear and prudence are supposed to be synonymous. Each thinks
+of himself, nobody of any one else; that is why we are weak!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Very well! Think of others and see how soon the others will let you hang!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve had enough of it!&#8221; cried the exasperated lieutenant. &#8220;I shall give my resignation to the alcalde to-day.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The women had still other thoughts.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aye!&#8221; said one of them. &#8220;Young people are always <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3366" href="#xd0e3366">145</a>]</span>the same. If his good mother were living, what would she say? When I think that my son, who is a young hothead, too, might
+have done the same thing&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not with you,&#8221; said another woman. &#8220;I should have nothing against my two sons if they did as Don Cris&oacute;stomo.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you saying, Capitana Maria?&#8221; cried the first woman, clasping her hands.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m a poor stupid,&#8221; said a third, the Capitana Tinay, &#8220;but I know what I&#8217;m going to do. I&#8217;m going to tell my son not to study
+any more. They say men of learning all die on the gallows. Holy Mary, and my son wants to go to Europe!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I were rich as you, my children should travel,&#8221; said the Capitana Maria. &#8220;Our sons ought to aspire to be more than their
+fathers. I have not long to live, and we shall meet again in the other world.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your ideas, Capitana Maria, are little Christian,&#8221; said Sister Rufa severely. &#8220;Make yourself a sister of the Sacred Rosary,
+or of St. Francis.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sister Rufa, when I&#8217;m a worthy sister of men, I will think about being a sister of the saints,&#8221; said the capitana, smiling.
+
+</p>
+<p>Under the booth where the children had their feast the father of the one who was to be a doctor was talking.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What troubles me most,&#8221; said he, &#8220;is that the school will not be finished; my son will not be a doctor, but a carter.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who said there wouldn&#8217;t be a school?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I say so. The White Fathers have called Don Cris&oacute;stomo plibastiero. There won&#8217;t be any school.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The peasants questioned each other&#8217;s faces. The word was new to them.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And is that a bad name?&#8221; one at last ventured to ask.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3392" href="#xd0e3392">146</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the worst one Christian can give another.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Worse than tarantado and saragate?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If it weren&#8217;t, it wouldn&#8217;t amount to much.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come now. It can&#8217;t be worse than indio, as the alf&eacute;rez says.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He whose son was to be a carter looked gloomy. The other shook his head and reflected.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then is it as bad as betalapora, that the old woman of the alf&eacute;rez says?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You remember the word <i>ispichoso</i> (suspect), which had only to be said of a man to have the guards lead him off to prison? Well, plibastiero is worse yet;
+if any one calls you plibastiero, you can confess and pay your debts, for there&#8217;s nothing else left to do but get yourself
+hanged. That&#8217;s what the telegrapher and the sub-director say, and you know whether the telegrapher and the sub-director ought
+to know: one talks with iron wires, and the other knows Spanish, and handles nothing but the pen.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The last hope fled.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3412" href="#xd0e3412">147</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch30" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXX.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The First Cloud.</h2>
+<p>The home of Captain Tiago was naturally not less disturbed than the minds of the crowd. Maria Clara refused to be comforted
+by her aunt and her foster-sister. Her father had forbidden her to speak to Cris&oacute;stomo until the ban of excommunication should
+be raised.
+
+</p>
+<p>In the midst of his preparations for receiving the governor-general Captain Tiago was summoned to the convent.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t cry, my child,&#8221; said Aunt Isabel, as she polished the mirrors with a chamois skin, &#8220;the ban will be raised. They will
+write to the holy father. We will make a big offering. Father D&aacute;maso only fainted; he isn&#8217;t dead!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t cry,&#8221; whispered Andeng; &#8220;I will arrange to meet Cris&oacute;stomo.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>At last Captain Tiago came back. They scanned his face for answers to many questions; but the face of Captain Tiago spoke
+discouragement. The poor man passed his hand across his brow and seemed unable to frame a word.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, Santiago?&#8221; demanded the anxious aunt.
+
+</p>
+<p>He wiped away a tear and replied by a sigh.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Speak, for heaven&#8217;s sake! What is it?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What I all the time feared,&#8221; he said at last, conquering his tears. &#8220;Everything is lost! Father D&aacute;maso orders me to break
+the promise of marriage. They all say the same thing, even Father Sibyla. I must shut the doors of my house to him, and&#8212;I
+owe him more than fifty thousand pesos! I told the fathers so, but they wouldn&#8217;t take it into account. &#8216;Which would you rather
+lose,&#8217; they said, &#8216;fifty <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3436" href="#xd0e3436">148</a>]</span>thousand pesos or your soul?&#8217; Ah, St. Anthony, if I had known, if I had known!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara was sobbing.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t cry, my child,&#8221; he said, turning to her; &#8220;you aren&#8217;t like your mother; she never cried. Father D&aacute;maso told me that
+a young friend of his is coming from Spain; he intends him for your fianc&eacute;&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara stopped her ears.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But, Santiago, are you mad?&#8221; cried Aunt Isabel. &#8220;Speak to her of another fianc&eacute; now? Do you think your daughter changes them
+as she does her gloves?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have thought about it, Isabel; but what would you have me do? They threaten me, too, with excommunication.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you do nothing but distress your daughter! Aren&#8217;t you the friend of the archbishop? Why don&#8217;t you write to him?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The archbishop is a monk, too. He will do only what the monks say. But don&#8217;t cry, Maria; the governor-general is coming.
+He will want to see you, and your eyes will be red. Alas, I thought I was going to have such a good afternoon! Without this
+misfortune I should be the happiest of men, with everybody envying me! Be calm, my child, I am more unhappy than you, and
+I don&#8217;t cry. You may find a better fianc&eacute;; but as for me, I lose fifty thousand pesos! Ah, Virgin of Antipolo, if only I have
+luck tonight!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Salvos, the sound of wheels and of horses galloping, the band playing the Royal March, announced the arrival of His Excellency
+the governor-general of the Philippine Islands. Maria Clara ran to hide in her chamber. Poor girl! Her heart was at the mercy
+of rude hands that had no sense of its delicate fibres.
+
+</p>
+<p>While the house was filling with people, while heavy footsteps, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3456" href="#xd0e3456">149</a>]</span>words of command, and the hurling of sabres and spurs resounded all about, the poor child, heart-broken, was half-lying, half-kneeling
+before that picture of the Virgin where Delaroche represents her in a grievous solitude, as though he had surprised her returning
+from the sepulchre of her son. Maria Clara did not think of the grief of this mother; she thought only of her own. Her head
+bent on her breast, her hands pressed against the floor, she seemed a lily broken by the storm. A future for years caressed
+in dreams, illusions born in childhood, fostered in youth, grown a part of her being, they thought to shatter all these with
+a word, to drive it all out of her mind and heart. A devout Catholic, a loving daughter, the excommunication terrified her.
+Not so much her father&#8217;s commands as her desire for his peace of mind demanded from her the sacrifice of her love. And in
+this moment she felt for the first time the full strength of her affection for Cris&oacute;stomo. The peaceful river glides over
+its sandy bed under the nodding flowers along its banks; the wind scarcely ridges its current; it seems to sleep; but farther
+down the banks close in, rough rocks choke the channel, a heap of knotty trunks forms a dyke; then the river roars, revolts,
+its waters whirl, and shake their plumes of spray, and, raging, beat the rocks and rush on madly. So this tranquil love was
+now transformed and the tempests were let loose.
+
+</p>
+<p>She would have prayed; but who can pray without hope? &#8220;O God!&#8221; her heart complained. &#8220;Why refuse a man the love of others?
+Thou givest him the sunshine and the air; thou dost not hide from him the sight of heaven. Why take away that love without
+which he cannot live?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The poor child, who had never known a mother of her own, had brought her grief to that pure heart which knew only filial and
+maternal love, to that divine image of womanhood of whose tenderness we dream, whom we call Mary.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3462" href="#xd0e3462">150</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother, mother!&#8221; she sobbed.
+
+</p>
+<p>Aunt Isabel came to find her; her friends were there, and the governor-general had asked for her.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dear aunt, tell them I am ill!&#8221; she begged in terror. &#8220;They will want me to play and sing!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your father has promised. Would you make your father break his word?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara rose, looked at her aunt, threw out her beautiful arms with a sob, then stood still till she was outwardly calm,
+and went to obey.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3473" href="#xd0e3473">151</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch31" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXXI.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">His Excellency.</h2>
+<p>&#8220;I want to talk with that young man,&#8221; said the general to one of his aids; &#8220;he rouses all my interest.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He has been sent for, my general; but there is here another young man of Manila who insists upon seeing you. We told him
+you have not the time; that you did not come to give audiences. He replied that Your Excellency has always the time to do
+justice.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The general, perplexed, turned to the alcalde.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I am not mistaken,&#8221; said the alcalde, with an inclination of the head, &#8220;it is a student who this morning had trouble with
+Father D&aacute;maso about the sermon.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Another still? Has this monk started out to put the province to revolt, or does he think he commands here? Admit the young
+man!&#8221; And the governor got up and walked nervously back and forth.
+
+</p>
+<p>In the ante-chamber some Spanish officers and all the functionaries of the pueblo were talking in groups. All the monks, too,
+except Father D&aacute;maso, had come to pay their respects to the governor.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;His Excellency begs your reverences to attend a moment,&#8221; said the aide-de-camp. &#8220;Enter, young man!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The young Manilian who confounded the Tagalo with the Greek entered, trembling.
+
+</p>
+<p>Every one was greatly astonished. His Excellency must be much annoyed to make the monks wait this way. Said Brother Sibyla:
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3497" href="#xd0e3497">152</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I have nothing to say to him, and I&#8217;m wasting my time here.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I also,&#8221; said an Augustin. &#8220;Shall we go?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Would it not be better to find out what he thinks?&#8221; asked Brother Salvi. &#8220;We should avoid a scandal, and we could remind
+him&#8212;of his duty&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your reverences may enter,&#8221; said the aid, conducting back the young man, who came out radiant.
+
+</p>
+<p>The fathers went in and saluted the governor.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who among your reverences is the Brother D&aacute;maso?&#8221; demanded His Excellency at once, without asking them to be seated or inquiring
+for their health, and without any of those complimentary phrases which form the repertory of dignitaries.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or, Father D&aacute;maso is not with us,&#8221; replied Father Sibyla, in a tone almost as dry.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your Excellency&#8217;s servant is ill,&#8221; added the humble Brother Salvi. &#8220;We come, after saluting Your Excellency and inquiring
+for his health, to speak in the name of Your Excellency&#8217;s respectful servant, who has had the misfortune&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; interrupted the captain-general, with a nervous smile, while he twirled a chair on one leg. &#8220;If all the servants of
+my Excellency were like the Father D&aacute;maso, I should prefer to serve my Excellency myself!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Their reverences did not seem to know what to reply.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Won&#8217;t your reverences sit down?&#8221; added the governor in more conventional tone.
+
+</p>
+<p>Captain Tiago, in evening dress and walking on tiptoe, came in, leading by the hand Maria Clara, hesitating, timid. Overcoming
+her agitation, she made her salute, at once ceremonial and graceful.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This sig&ntilde;orita is your daughter!&#8221; exclaimed the surprised governor. &#8220;Happy the fathers whose daughters are <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3524" href="#xd0e3524">153</a>]</span>like you, sig&ntilde;orita. They have told me about you, and I wish to thank you in the name of His Majesty the King, who loves the
+peace and tranquillity of his subjects, and in my own name, in that of a father who has daughters. If there is anything you
+would wish, sig&ntilde;orita&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or!&#8221; protested Maria, trembling.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The Se&ntilde;or Don Juan Cris&oacute;stomo Ibarra awaits Your Excellency&#8217;s orders,&#8221; announced the ringing voice of the aide-de-camp.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Permit me, sig&ntilde;orita, to see you again before I leave the pueblo. I have yet things to say to you. Se&ntilde;or acalde, Your Highness
+will accompany me on the walk I wish to take after the private conference I shall have with the Se&ntilde;or Ibarra.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your Excellency,&#8221; said Father Salvi humbly, &#8220;will permit us to inform him that the Se&ntilde;or Ibarra is excommunicated&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The general broke in.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am happy,&#8221; he said, &#8220;in being troubled about nothing but the state of Father D&aacute;maso. I sincerely desire his complete recovery,
+for, at his age, a voyage to Spain in search of health would be somewhat disagreeable. But all depends upon him. Meanwhile,
+God preserve the health of your reverences!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>All retired.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;In his own case also everything depends upon him,&#8221; murmured Brother Salvi as he went out.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We shall see who makes the earliest voyage to Spain!&#8221; added another Franciscan.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I shall go immediately,&#8221; said Father Sibyla, in vexation.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We, too,&#8221; grumbled the Augustins.
+
+</p>
+<p>Both parties bore it ill that for the fault of a Franciscan His Excellency should have received them so coldly.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3550" href="#xd0e3550">154</a>]</span></p>
+<p>In the ante-chamber they encountered Ibarra, who a few hours before had been their host. There was no exchange of greetings,
+but there were eloquent looks. The alcalde, on the contrary, gave Ibarra his hand. On the threshold Cris&oacute;stomo met Maria coming
+out. Looks spoke again, but very differently this time.
+
+</p>
+<p>Though this encounter with the monks had seemed to him of bad augury, Ibarra presented himself in the utmost calm. He bowed
+profoundly. The captain-general came forward.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It gives me the greatest satisfaction, Se&ntilde;or Ibarra, to take you by the hand. I hope for your entire confidence.&#8221; And he
+examined the young man with evident satisfaction.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or, so much kindness&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your surprise shows that you did not expect a friendly reception; that was to doubt my fairness.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A friendly reception, se&ntilde;or, for an insignificant subject of His Majesty, like myself, is not fairness, but favor.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, well!&#8221; said the general, sitting down and motioning Cris&oacute;stomo to a seat. &#8220;Let us have a moment of open hearts. I am
+much gratified by what you are doing, and have proposed you to the Government of His Majesty for a decoration in recompense
+for your project of the school. Had you invited me, I should have found it a pleasure to be here for the ceremony. Perhaps
+I should have been able to save you an annoyance. But as to what happened between you and Father D&aacute;maso, have neither fear
+nor regrets. Not a hair of your head shall be harmed so long as I govern the islands; and in regard to the excommunication,
+I will talk with the archbishop. We must conform ourselves to our circumstances. We cannot laugh at it here, as we might in
+Europe. But be more prudent in the future. You have weighted yourself with the religious orders, who, from their office and
+their wealth, must be respected. I protect <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3565" href="#xd0e3565">155</a>]</span>you, because I like a good son. By heaven, I don&#8217;t know what I should have done in your place!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Then, quickly changing the subject, he said:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They tell me you have just returned from Europe. You were in Madrid?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, se&ntilde;or, several months.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How happens it that you return without bringing me a letter of recommendation?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or,&#8221; replied Ibarra, bowing, &#8220;because, having heard there of the character of Your Excellency, I thought a letter of recommendation
+would not only be unnecessary, but might even offend you; the Filipinos are all recommended to you.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>A smile curled the lips of the old soldier, who replied slowly, as though meditating and weighing his words:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I cannot help being flattered that you think so. And yet, young man, you should know what a weight rests on our shoulders.
+Here we old soldiers have to be all&#8212;king, ministers of state, of war, of justice, of everything; and yet, in every event,
+we have to consult the far-off mother country, which often must approve or reject our propositions with blind justice. If
+in Spain itself, with the advantage of everything near and familiar, all is imperfect and defective, the wonder is that all
+here is not revolution. It is not lack of good will in the governors, but we must use the eyes and arms of strangers, of whom,
+for the most part, we can know nothing, and who, instead of serving their country, may be serving only their own interests.
+The monks are a powerful aid, but they are not sufficient. You inspire great interest in me, and I would not have the imperfection
+of our governmental system tell in anyway against you. I cannot watch over any one; every one cannot come to me. Tell me,
+can I be useful to you in any way? Have you any request to make?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra reflected.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3583" href="#xd0e3583">156</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or,&#8221; he replied, &#8220;my great desire is for the happiness of my country, and I would that happiness might be due to the efforts
+of our mother country and of my fellow-citizens united to her and united among themselves by the eternal bonds of common views
+and interests. What I would ask, the Government alone can give, and that after many continuous years of labor and of well-conceived
+reforms.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The general gave him a long look, which Ibarra bore naturally, without timidity, without boldness.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are the first man with whom I&#8217;ve spoken in this country,&#8221; cried His Excellency, stretching out his hand.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your Excellency has seen only those who while away their lives in cities; he has not visited the falsely maligned cabins
+of our villages. There Your Excellency would be able to see veritable men, if to be a man a noble heart and simple manners
+are enough.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The captain-general rose and walked up and down the room.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or Ibarra,&#8221; he said, stopping before Cris&oacute;stomo, &#8220;your education and manner of thinking are not for this country. Sell
+what you own and come with me when I go back to Europe; the climate will be better for you.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I shall remember all my life this kindness of Your Excellency,&#8221; replied Ibarra, moved; &#8220;but I must live in the country where
+my parents lived&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where they died, you would say more justly. Believe me, I, perhaps, know your country better than you do yourself. Ah, but
+I forget! You are to marry an adorable girl, and I&#8217;m keeping you from her all this time! Go&#8212;go to her! And that you may have
+more freedom, send the father to me,&#8221; he added, smiling. &#8220;Don&#8217;t forget, though, that I want your company for the promenade.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra saluted, and went out.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3602" href="#xd0e3602">157</a>]</span></p>
+<p>The general called his aide-de-camp.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am pleased,&#8221; said he, giving him a light tap on the shoulder; &#8220;I have seen to-day for the first time how one may be a good
+Spaniard without ceasing to be a good Filipino. What a pity that this Ibarra some day or other&#8212;&#8212;but call the alcalde.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The judge at once presented himself.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or alcalde,&#8221; said the general, &#8220;to avoid a repetition of scenes like those of which you were a spectator to-day&#8212;scenes,
+I deplore, because they reflect upon the Government and upon all Spaniards&#8212;I recommend the Se&ntilde;or Ibarra to your utmost care
+and consideration.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The alcalde perceived the reprimand and lowered his eyes.
+
+</p>
+<p>Captain Tiago presented himself, stiff and unnatural.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don Santiago,&#8221; the general said affectionately, &#8220;a moment ago I congratulated you upon having a daughter like the Se&ntilde;orita
+de los Santos. Now I make you my compliments upon your future son-in-law. The most virtuous of daughters is worthy of the
+first citizen of the Philippines. May I know the day of the wedding?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or&#8212;&#8212;&#8221; stammered Captain Tiago, wiping drops of sweat from his brow.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then nothing is settled, I see. If witnesses are lacking, it will give me the greatest pleasure to be one of them.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, se&ntilde;or,&#8221; said Captain Tiago, with a smile to stir compassion.
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra had gone off almost running to find Maria Clara. He had so much to talk over with her. Through a door he heard the
+murmur of girls&#8217; voices. He knocked.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who is there?&#8221; asked Maria.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The voices were hushed, but the door did not open.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3631" href="#xd0e3631">158</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s I. May I come in?&#8221; demanded Cris&oacute;stomo, his heart beginning to beat violently.
+
+</p>
+<p>The silence continued. After some moments, light foot-steps approached the door, and the voice of Sinang said through the
+keyhole:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Cris&oacute;stomo, we&#8217;re going to the theatre to-night. Write what you have to say to Maria Clara.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What does that mean?&#8221; said Ibarra to himself as he slowly left the door.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3640" href="#xd0e3640">159</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch32" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXXII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Procession.</h2>
+<p>That evening, in the light of countless lanterns, to the sound of bells and of continuous detonations, the procession started
+for the fourth time.
+
+</p>
+<p>The captain-general, who had set out on foot, accompanied by his two aides-de-camp, Captain Tiago, the alcalde, the alf&eacute;rez,
+and Ibarra, and preceded by the guards, to open a passage, was to view the procession from the house of the gobernadorcillo.
+This functionary had built a platform for the recitation of a loa, a religious poem in honor of the patron saint.
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra would gladly have renounced the hearing of this composition, but His Excellency had ordered his attendance, and Cris&oacute;stomo
+must console himself with the thought of seeing his fianc&eacute;e at the theatre.
+
+</p>
+<p>The procession began by the march of the silver candelabra, borne by three sacristans. Then came the school children and their
+master, then other children, all with paper lanterns, shaped and ornamented according to the taste of each child&#8212;for each
+was his own lantern-maker&#8212;hoisted on bamboo poles of various lengths and lighted by bits of candles. An effigy of St. John
+the Baptist followed, borne on a litter, and then came St. Francis, surrounded by crystal lamps. A band followed, and then
+the standard of the saint, borne by the brothers of the Third Order, praying aloud in a sort of lamentation. San Diego came
+next, his car drawn by six brothers of the Third Order, probably fulfilling <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3654" href="#xd0e3654">160</a>]</span>some vow. St. Mary Magdalen followed him, a beautiful image with splendid hair, wearing a costume of silk spangled with gold,
+and holding a handkerchief of embroidered pi&ntilde;a in her jewelled hands. Lights and incense surrounded her, and her glass tears
+reflected the varied colors of Bengal lights. St. John the Baptist moved far ahead, as if ashamed of his camel&#8217;s hair beside
+all this gold and glitter.
+
+</p>
+<p>After the Magdalen came the women of the order, the elder first, so that the young girls should surround the car of the Virgin;
+behind them was the curate under his dais. The car of the Virgin was preceded by men dressed as phantoms, to the great terror
+of the children; the women wore habits like those of religious orders. In the midst of this obscure mass of robes and cowls
+and cordons one saw, like dainty jasmines, like fresh sampages amid old rags, twelve little girls in white, their hair free.
+Their eyes shone like their necklaces. One might have thought them little genii of the light taken prisoner by spectres. By
+two wide blue ribbons they were attached to the car of the Virgin, like the doves which draw the car of Spring.
+
+</p>
+<p>At the gobernadorcillo&#8217;s the procession stopped, all the images and their attendants were drawn up around the platform, and
+all eyes were fixed on the half-open curtain. At length it parted, and a young man appeared, winged, booted like a cavalier,
+with sash and belt and plumed hat, and in Latin, Castilian, and Tagal recited a poem as extraordinary as his attire. The verses
+ended, St. John pursued his bitter way.
+
+</p>
+<p>At the moment when the figure of the Virgin passed the house of Captain Tiago, a celestial song greeted it. It was a voice,
+sweet and tender, almost weeping out the Gounod &#8220;Ave Maria.&#8221; The music of the procession died away, the prayers ceased. Father
+Salvi himself stood still. The <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3662" href="#xd0e3662">161</a>]</span>voice trembled; it drew tears; it was more than a salutation: it was a supplication and a complaint.
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra heard, and fear and darkness entered his heart. He felt the suffering in the voice and dared not ask himself whence
+it came.
+
+</p>
+<p>The captain-general was speaking to him.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I should like your company at table. We will talk to those children who have disappeared,&#8221; he said.
+
+</p>
+<p>Cris&oacute;stomo, looking at the general without seeing him, asked himself under his breath: &#8220;Can I be the cause?&#8221; And he followed
+the governor mechanically.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3672" href="#xd0e3672">162</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch33" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXXIII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Do&ntilde;a Consolacion.</h2>
+<p>Why were the windows of the house of the alf&eacute;rez not only without lanterns, but shuttered? Where, when the procession passed,
+were the masculine head with its great veins and purple lips, the flannel shirt, and the big cigar of the &#8220;Muse of the Municipal
+Guard&#8221;?
+
+</p>
+<p>The house was sad, as Sinang said, because the people were gay. Had not a sentinel paced as usual before the door one might
+have thought the place uninhabited.
+
+</p>
+<p>A feeble light showed the disorder of the room, where the alf&eacute;reza was sitting, and pierced the dusty and spider-webbed conches
+of the windows. The dame, according to her idle custom, was dozing in a fauteuil. To deaden the sound of the bombs, she had
+coifed her head in a handkerchief, from which escaped her tangled hair, short and thin. This morning she had not been to mass,
+not because she did not wish it, but because her husband had not permitted it, accompanying his prohibition with oaths and
+threats of blows. Do&ntilde;a Consolacion was now dreaming of revenge. She bestirred herself at last and ran over the house from
+one end to the other, her dark face disquieting to look at. A spark flashed from her eyes like that from the pupil of a serpent
+trapped and about to be crushed. It was cold, luminous, penetrating; it was viscous, cruel, repulsive. The smallest error
+on the part of a servant, the least noise, drew forth words injurious enough to smirch the soul; but nobody replied; to offer
+excuse would have been to commit another crime.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3684" href="#xd0e3684">163</a>]</span></p>
+<p>In this way the day passed. Meeting no opposition&#8212;her husband had been invited to the gobernadorcillo&#8217;s&#8212;she stored up spleen;
+the cells of her organism seemed slowly charging with electric force, which burst out, later on, in a tempest.
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa had been in the barracks since her arrest the day before. The alf&eacute;rez, fearing she might become the sport of the crowd,
+had ordered her to be kept until the f&ecirc;te was over.
+
+</p>
+<p>This evening, whether she had heard the song of Maria Clara, whether the bands had recalled airs that she knew, for some reason
+she began to chant, in her sympathetic voice, the songs of her youth. The soldiers heard and became still; they knew these
+airs, had sung them themselves when they were young and free and innocent. Do&ntilde;a Consolacion heard, too, and inquired for the
+singer.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have her come up at once,&#8221; she said, after a moment&#8217;s reflection, something like a smile flickering on her dry lips.
+
+</p>
+<p>The soldiers brought Sisa, who came without fear or question. When she entered she seemed to see no one, which wounded the
+vanity of the dreadful muse. Do&ntilde;a Consolacion coughed, motioned the soldiers to withdraw, and, taking down her husband&#8217;s riding
+whip, said in a sinister voice:
+
+</p>
+<p lang="tl">&#8220;Vamos, magcanter icau!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>It was an order to sing, in a mixture of Castilian and Tagalo. Do&ntilde;a Consolacion affected ignorance of her native tongue, thinking
+thus to give herself the air of a veritable <i>Orofea</i>, as she said in her attempt at Europea. For if she martyred the Tagalo, she treated Castilian worse, though her husband,
+and chairs and shoes, had contributed to giving her lessons.
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa had been happy enough not to understand. The forehead of the shrew unknotted a bit, and a look of satisfaction animated
+her face.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3704" href="#xd0e3704">164</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Tell this woman to sing!&#8221; she said to the orderly. &#8220;She doesn&#8217;t understand; she doesn&#8217;t know Spanish!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The orderly spoke to Sisa, and she began at once the &#8220;Night Song.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>At first Do&ntilde;a Consolacion listened with a mocking smile, but little by little it left her lips. She became attentive, then
+serious. Her dry and withered heart received the rain. &#8220;The sadness, the cold, the dew come down from the sky in the mantle
+of the night,&#8221; seemed to fall upon her heart; she understood &#8220;the flower, full of vanity, and prodigal with its splendors
+in the sun, now, at the fall of day, withered and stained, repentant and disillusioned, trying to raise its poor petals toward
+heaven, begging a shade to hide it from the mockery of the sun, who had seen it in its pomp, and was laughing at the impotence
+of its pride; begging also a drop of dew to be let fall upon it.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No! Stop singing!&#8221; she cried in perfect Tagal. &#8220;Stop! These verses bore me!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa stopped. The orderly thought: &#8220;Ah, she knows the Tagal!&#8221; And he regarded his mistress with admiration.
+
+</p>
+<p>She saw she had betrayed herself, became ashamed, and shame in her unfeminine nature meant rage. She showed the door to the
+imprudent orderly, and shut it behind him with a blow. Then she took several turns around the room, wringing the whip in her
+nervous hands. At last, planting herself before Sisa, she said to her in Spanish: &#8220;Dance!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa did not move.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dance! Dance!&#8221; she repeated in a threatening voice. The poor thing looked at her with vacant eyes. The vixen took hold of
+one of her arms and then the other, raising them and swaying them about. It was of no use. Sisa did not understand.
+
+</p>
+<p>In vain Do&ntilde;a Consolacion began to leap about, making signs for Sisa to imitate her. In the distance a band was <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3723" href="#xd0e3723">165</a>]</span>playing a slow and majestic march; but the creature leaped furiously to another measure, beating within herself. Sisa looked
+on, motionless. A faint curiosity rose in her eyes, a feeble smile moved her pale lips; the alf&eacute;reza&#8217;s dance pleased her.
+
+</p>
+<p>The dancer stopped, as if ashamed, and raised the terrible whip, well known to thieves and soldiers.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now,&#8221; said she, &#8220;it&#8217;s your turn! Dance!&#8221; And she began to give light taps to the bare feet of bewildered Sisa, whose face
+contracted with pain; the poor thing tried to ward off the blows with her hands.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah! You&#8217;re beginning, are you?&#8221; cried Do&ntilde;a Consolacion, with savage joy, and from lento, she passed to allegro vivace.
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa cried out and drew up first one foot and then the other.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Will you dance, accursed Indian!&#8221; and the whip whistled.
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa let herself fall to the floor, trying to cover her feet, and looking at her tormenter with haggard eyes. Two lashes on
+the shoulders forced her to rise with screams.
+
+</p>
+<p>Her thin chemise was torn, the skin broken and the blood flowing.
+
+</p>
+<p>This excited Do&ntilde;a Consolacion still more.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Dance! Dance!&#8221; she howled, and seizing Sisa with one hand, while she beat her with the other, she commenced to leap about
+again.
+
+</p>
+<p>At length Sisa understood, and followed, moving her arms without rhythm or measure. A smile of satisfaction came to the lips
+of the horrible woman&#8212;the smile of a female Mephistopheles who has found an apt pupil: hate, scorn, mockery, and cruelty were
+in it; a burst of demoniacal laughter could not have said more.
+
+</p>
+<p>Absorbed by her delight in this spectacle, the alf&eacute;reza did <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3747" href="#xd0e3747">166</a>]</span>not know that her husband had arrived until the door was violently thrown open with a kick.
+
+</p>
+<p>The alf&eacute;rez was pale and morose. When he saw what was going on, he darted a terrible glance at his wife, then quietly put
+his hand on the shoulder of the strange dancer, and stopped her motion. Sisa, breathing hard, sat down on the floor. He called
+the orderly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Take this woman away,&#8221; he said; &#8220;see that she is properly cared for, and has a good dinner and a good bed. To-morrow she
+is to be taken to Se&ntilde;or Ibarra&#8217;s.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Then he carefully closed the door after them, pushed the bolt, and approached his wife.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3755" href="#xd0e3755">167</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch34" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXXIV.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Right and Might.</h2>
+<p>It was ten o&#8217;clock in the evening. The first rockets were slowly going up in the dark sky, where bright-colored balloons shone
+like new stars. On the ridge-poles of the houses men were seen armed with bamboo poles, with pails of water at hand. Their
+dark silhouettes against the clear gray of the night seemed phantoms come to share in the gayety of men. They were there to
+look out for balloons that might fall burning.
+
+</p>
+<p>Crowds of people were going toward the plaza to see the last play at the theatre. Bengal fires burned here and there, grouping
+the merry-makers fantastically.
+
+</p>
+<p>The grand estrade was magnificently illuminated. Thousands of lights were fixed round the pillars, hung from the roof and
+clustered near the ground.
+
+</p>
+<p>In front of the stage the orchestra was tuning its instruments. The dignitaries of the pueblo, the Spaniards, and wealthy
+strangers occupied seats in rows. The people filled the rest of the place; some had brought benches, rather to mount them
+than to sit on them, and others noisily protested against this.
+
+</p>
+<p>Comings and goings, cries, exclamations, bursts of laughter, jokes, a whistle, swelled the tumult. Here the leg of a bench
+gave way and precipitated those on it, to the delight of the spectators; there was a dispute for place; and a little beyond
+a fracas of glasses and bottles. It was Andeng, carrying a great tray of drinks, and unfortunately she had <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3771" href="#xd0e3771">168</a>]</span>encountered her fianc&eacute;, who was disposed to profit by the occasion.
+
+</p>
+<p>The lieutenant, Don Filipo, was in charge of the spectacle, for the gobernadorcillo was playing monte, of which he was a passionate
+devotee. Don Filipo was talking with old Tasio, who was on the point of leaving.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aren&#8217;t you going to see the play?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, thank you! My own mind suffices for rambling and dreaming,&#8221; replied the philosopher, laughing. &#8220;But I have a question
+to propose. Have you ever observed the strange nature of our people? Pacific, they love warlike spectacles; democratic, they
+adore emperors, kings, and princes; irreligious, they ruin themselves in the pomps of the ritual; the nature of our women
+is gentle, but they have deliriums of delight when a princess brandishes a lance. Do you know the cause of all this? Well&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The arrival of Maria Clara and her friends cut short the conversation. Don Filipo accompanied them to their places. Then came
+the curate, with his usual retinue.
+
+</p>
+<p>The evening began with Chananay and Marianito in &#8220;Crispino and the Gossip.&#8221; The scene fixed the attention of every one. The
+act was ending when Ibarra entered. His coming excited a murmur, and eyes turned from him to the curate. But Cris&oacute;stomo observed
+nothing. He gracefully saluted Maria and her friends and sat down. The only one who spoke to him was Sinang.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have you been watching the fireworks?&#8221; she asked.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, little friend, I had to accompany the governor-general.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That was too bad!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Brother Salvi had risen, gone to Don Filipo, and appeared to be having with him a serious discussion. He spoke with heat,
+the lieutenant calmly and quietly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am sorry not to be able to satisfy your reverence, but <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3793" href="#xd0e3793">169</a>]</span>Se&ntilde;or Ibarra is one of the chief contributors to the f&ecirc;te, and has a perfect right to be here so long as he creates no disturbance.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But is it not creating a disturbance to scandalize all good Christians?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Father,&#8221; replied Don Filipo, &#8220;my slight authority does not permit me to interfere in religious matters. Let those who fear
+Se&ntilde;or Ibarra&#8217;s contact avoid him: he forces himself upon no one; the se&ntilde;or alcalde and the captain-general have been in his
+company all the afternoon; it hardly becomes me to give them a lesson.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you do not put him out of the place, we shall go.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I should be very sorry, but I have no authority to remove him.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The curate repented of his threat, but there was now no remedy. He motioned to his companions, who rose reluctantly, and all
+went out, not without hostile glances toward Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>The whisperings and murmurs began again. Several people came up to Cris&oacute;stomo and said:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We are with you; pay no attention to them!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To whom?&#8221; he asked in astonishment.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Those who have gone out because you are here; they say you are excommunicated.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra, surprised, not knowing what to say, looked about him. Maria&#8217;s face was hidden.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is it possible? Are we yet in the middle ages?&#8221; he began. But he checked himself and said to the girls:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I must excuse myself; I will be back to go home with you.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, stay!&#8221; said Sinang. &#8220;Yeyeng is going to dance!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I cannot, little friend.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>While Yeyeng was coming forward, two soldiers of the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3825" href="#xd0e3825">170</a>]</span>guard approached Don Filipo and demanded that the representation be stopped.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And why?&#8221; he asked in surprise.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Because the alf&eacute;rez and his wife have been fighting; they want to sleep.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tell the alf&eacute;rez we have the permission of the alcalde of the province, and nobody in the pueblo can overrule that, not even
+the gobernadorcillo.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But we have our orders to stop the performance.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Don Filipo shrugged his shoulders and turned his back. The Comedy Company of Tondo was about to give a play, and the audience
+was settling for its enjoyment.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Filipino is passionately fond of the theatre; he listens in silence, never hisses, and applauds with measure. Does not
+the spectacle please him? He chews his buyo and goes out quietly, not to trouble those who may like it. He expects in his
+plays a combat every fifteen seconds, and all the rest of the time repartee between comic personages, or terrifying metamorphoses.
+The comedy chosen for this f&ecirc;te was &#8220;Prince Villardo, or the Nails Drawn from the Cellar of Infamy,&#8221; comedy with sorcery and
+fireworks.
+
+</p>
+<p>Prince Villardo presented himself, defying the Moors, who held his father prisoner. He threatened to cut off all their heads
+at a single stroke and send them into the moon.
+
+</p>
+<p>Fortunately for the Moors, as they were preparing for the combat, a tumult arose. The music stopped, and the musicians assailed
+the theatre with their instruments, which went flying in all directions. The valiant Villardo, unprepared for so many foes,
+threw down his sword and buckler and took to flight, and the Moors, seeing the hasty leave of so terrible a Christian, made
+bold to follow him. Cries, exclamations, and imprecations rose on all sides, people ran against one another, lights went out,
+children screamed, and <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3843" href="#xd0e3843">171</a>]</span>benches were overturned in a hurly-burly. Some cried fire, some cried &#8220;The tulisanes!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>What had happened? The two guards had driven off the musicians, and the lieutenant and some of the cuadrilleros were vainly
+trying to check their flight.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Take those two men to the tribunal!&#8221; cried Don Filipo. &#8220;Don&#8217;t let them escape!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>When the crowd had recovered from its fright and taken account of what had happened, indignation broke forth.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s why they are for!&#8221; cried a woman, brandishing her arms; &#8220;to trouble the pueblo! They are the real tulisanes! Fire
+the barracks!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Stones rained on the group of cuadrilleros leading off the guards, and the cry to fire the barracks was repeated. Chananay
+in her costume of Leonora in &#8220;Il Trovatore&#8221; was talking with Ratia, in schoolmaster&#8217;s dress; Yeyeng, wrapped in a shawl, was
+attended by Prince Villardo, while the Moors tried to console the mortified musicians; but already the crowd had determined
+upon action, and Don Filipo was doing his best to hold them in check.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do nothing rash!&#8221; he cried. &#8220;To-morrow we will demand satisfaction; we shall have justice; I promise you justice!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; replied some; &#8220;that&#8217;s what they did at Calamba: they promised justice, and the alcalde didn&#8217;t do a thing! We will take
+justice for ourselves! To the barracks!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Don Filipo, looking about for some one to aid him, saw Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;For heaven&#8217;s sake, Se&ntilde;or Ibarra, keep the people here while I go for the cuadrilleros!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What can I do?&#8221; demanded the perplexed young fellow; but Don Filipo was already in the distance.
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra, in his turn, looked about for aid, and saw Elias. He ran to him, took him by the arm, and, speaking in Spanish, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3867" href="#xd0e3867">172</a>]</span>begged him to do what he could for order. The helmsman disappeared in the crowd. Animated discussions were heard, and rapid
+questions; then, little by little, the mass began to dissolve and to wear a less hostile attitude. It was time; the soldiers
+arrived with bayonets fixed.
+
+</p>
+<p>As Ibarra was about to enter his house that night a little man in mourning, having a great scar on his left cheek, placed
+himself in front of him and bowed humbly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What can I do for you?&#8221; asked Cris&oacute;stomo.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or, my name is Jos&eacute;; I am the brother of the man killed this morning.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah,&#8221; said Ibarra, &#8220;I assure you I am not insensible to your loss. What do you wish of me?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or, I wish to know how much you are going to pay my brother&#8217;s family.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pay!&#8221; repeated Cris&oacute;stomo, not without annoyance. &#8220;We will talk of this again; come to me to-morrow.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But tell me simply what you will give,&#8221; insisted Jos&eacute;.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I tell you we will talk of it another day, not now,&#8221; said Ibarra, more impatiently.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah! You think because we are poor&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra interrupted him.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t try my patience too far,&#8221; he said, moving on. Jos&eacute; looked after him with a smile full of hatred.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is easy to see he is a grandson of the man who exposed my father to the sun,&#8221; he murmured between his teeth. &#8220;The same
+blood!&#8221; Then in a changed tone he added: &#8220;But if you pay well&#8212;friends!&#8221;
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3893" href="#xd0e3893">173</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch35" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXXV.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Husband and Wife.</h2>
+<p>The f&ecirc;te was over, and the inhabitants of the pueblo now perceived, as they did every year, that their purses were empty,
+that in the sweat of their faces they had earned scant pleasure, and paid dear for noise and headaches. But what of that?
+The next year they would begin again; the next century it would still be the same, for it had been so up to this time, and
+there is nothing which can make people renounce a custom.
+
+</p>
+<p>The house of Captain Tiago is sad. All the windows are closed; one scarcely dares make a sound; and nowhere but in the kitchen
+do they speak aloud. Maria Clara, the soul of the house, is sick in bed. The state of her health could be read on all faces,
+as our actions betray the griefs of our hearts.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What do you think, Isabel, ought I to make a gift to the cross at Tunasan, or that at Matahong?&#8221; asks the unhappy father.
+&#8220;The cross at Tunasan grows, but that at Matahong perspires. Which do you call the more miraculous?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Aunt Isabel reflected, nodded her head, and whispered:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To grow is more miraculous; we all perspire, but we don&#8217;t all grow.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s so, yes, Isabel; but, after all, for wood to perspire&#8212;well, then, the best thing is to make offerings to both.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>A carriage stopping before the house cut short the conversation. Captain Tiago, followed by Aunt Isabel, ran down <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3913" href="#xd0e3913">174</a>]</span>the steps to receive the coming guests. They were the doctor, Don Tiburcio de Espada&ntilde;a, his wife, the Doctora Do&ntilde;a Victorina
+de Los Reyes de de Espada&ntilde;a, and a young Spaniard of attractive face and fine appearance.
+
+</p>
+<p>The doctora wore a silk dress bordered with flowers, and a hat with a large parrot perched among bows of red and blue ribbons.
+The dust of the journey mingling with the rice powder on her cheeks, exaggerated her wrinkles; as when we saw her at Manila,
+she had given her arm to her lame husband.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have the pleasure of presenting to you our cousin, Don Alfonso Linares de Espada&ntilde;a,&#8221; said Do&ntilde;a Victorina, indicating the
+young man; &#8220;the adopted son of a relative of Father D&aacute;maso&#8217;s, and private secretary of all the ministers&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The young man bowed low; Captain Tiago barely escaped kissing his hand.
+
+</p>
+<p>While the countless trunks, valises, and bags are being cared for and Captain Tiago is conducting his guests to their apartments,
+let us make a nearer acquaintance with these people whom we have not seen since the opening chapters.
+
+</p>
+<p>Do&ntilde;a Victorina is a woman of forty-five summers, which, according to her arithmetic, are equivalent to thirty-two springs.
+In her youth she had been very pretty, but, enraptured in her own contemplation, she had looked with the utmost disdain on
+her numerous Filipino adorers, even scorning the vows of love once murmured in her ears or chanted under her balcony by Captain
+Tiago. Her aspirations bore her toward another race.
+
+</p>
+<p>Her first youth, then her second, then her third, having passed in tending nets to catch in the ocean of the world the object
+of her dreams, Do&ntilde;a Victorina must in the end content herself with what fate willed her. It was a poor man <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3930" href="#xd0e3930">175</a>]</span>torn from his native Estramadure, who, after wandering six or seven years about the world, a modern Ulysses, found at length,
+in the island of Luzon, hospitality, money, and a faded Calypso.
+
+</p>
+<p>Don Tiburcio was a modest man, without force, who would not willingly have injured a fly. He started for the Philippines as
+under-clerk of customs, but after breaking his leg was forced to give up his position. For a while he lived at the expense
+of some compatriots, but he found their bread bitter. As he had neither profession nor money, his advisers counselled him
+to go into the provinces and offer himself as a physician. At first he refused, but, necessity becoming pressing, his friends
+convinced him of the vanity of his scruples. He started out, kept by his conscience from asking more than small fees, and
+was on the road to prosperity when a jealous doctor called him to the attention of the College of Physicians at Manila. Nothing
+would have come of it, but the affair reached the ears of the people; loss of confidence followed, and then loss of patrons.
+Misery again stared him in the face when he heard of the affliction of Do&ntilde;a Victorina. Don Tiburcio saw here a patch of blue
+sky, and asked to be presented.
+
+</p>
+<p>They met, and after a half-hour of conversation, reached an understanding. Without doubt she would have preferred a Spaniard
+less halting, less bald, without impediment of speech, and with more teeth; but such a Spaniard had never asked her hand,
+and at thirty-two what woman is not prudent?
+
+</p>
+<p>For his part, Don Tiburcio resigned himself when he saw the spectre of famine raise its head. Not that he had ever had great
+ambitions or great pretensions; but his heart, virgin till now, had pictured a different divinity. He was, however, somewhat
+of a philosopher. He said to himself: &#8220;All that was a dream! Is the reality powdered and wrinkled, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3938" href="#xd0e3938">176</a>]</span>homely and ridiculous? Well, I am bald and lame and toothless.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>They were married then, and Do&ntilde;a Victorina was enchanted with her husband. She had him fitted out with false teeth, attired
+by the best tailors of the city, and ordered carriages and horses for the professional visits she intended him again to make.
+
+</p>
+<p>While thus transforming her husband, she did not forget herself. She discarded the silk skirt and jacket of pi&ntilde;a for European
+costume, loaded her head with false hair, and her person with such extravagances generally as to disturb the peace of a whole
+idle and tranquil neighborhood.
+
+</p>
+<p>The glamour around the husband first began to dim when he tried to approach the subject of the rice powder by remarking that
+nothing is so ugly as the false or so admirable as the natural. Do&ntilde;a Victorina looked unpleasantly at his teeth, and he was
+silent. Indeed, at the end of a very short time the doctora had arrived at the complete subjugation of her husband, who no
+longer offered any more resistance than a little lap-dog. If he did anything to annoy her, she forbade his going out, and
+in her moments of greatest rage she tore out his false teeth, and left him, sometimes for days, horribly disfigured.
+
+</p>
+<p>When they were well settled in Manila, Rodoreda received orders to engrave on a plate of black marble:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p class="aligncenter">&#8220;Dr. De Espada&ntilde;a,<br>
+Specialist in All Kinds of Diseases.&#8221;
+</p>
+</div><p>
+
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you wish me to be put in prison?&#8221; asked Don Tiburcio in terror.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wish people to call you doctor and me doctora,&#8221; said Do&ntilde;a Victorina, &#8220;but it must be understood that you treat only very
+rare cases.&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3958" href="#xd0e3958">177</a>]</span></p>
+<p>The <span class="corr" id="xd0e3961" title="Source: senora">se&ntilde;ora</span> signed her own name, Victorina de los Reyes de de Espada&ntilde;a. Neither the engraver of her visiting cards nor her husband could
+make her renounce that second &#8220;de.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I use only one &#8216;de,&#8217; people will think you haven&#8217;t any, imbecile!&#8221; she said to Don Tiburcio.
+
+</p>
+<p>Then the number of gewgaws grew, the layer of rice powder was thickened, the ribbons and laces were piled higher, and Do&ntilde;a
+Victorina regarded with more and more disdain her poor compatriots who had not had the fortune to marry husbands of so high
+estate as her own.
+
+</p>
+<p>All this sublimity, however, did not prevent her being each day older and more ridiculous. Every time Captain Tiago was with
+her, and remembered that she had once really inspired him with love, he sent a peso to the church for a mass of thanksgiving.
+But he had much respect for Don Tiburcio, because of his title of specialist, and listened attentively to the rare sentences
+the doctor&#8217;s impediment of speech let him pronounce. For this reason and because the doctor did not lavish his visits on people
+at large he had chosen him to treat Maria.
+
+</p>
+<p>As to young Linares, Do&ntilde;a Victorina, wishing a steward from the peninsula, her husband remembered a cousin of his, a law student
+at Madrid, who was considered the most astute of the family. They sent for him, and the young man had just arrived.
+
+</p>
+<p>Father Salvi entered while Don Santiago and his guests were at the second breakfast. They talked of Maria Clara, who was sleeping;
+they talked of the journey, and Do&ntilde;a Victorina exclaimed loudly at the costumes of the provincials, their houses of nipa,
+and their bamboo bridges. She did not omit to inform the curate of her friendly relations with the &#8220;Segundo Cabo,&#8221; with this
+alcalde, with that councillor, all people of distinction, who had for her the greatest consideration.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e3974" href="#xd0e3974">178</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;If you had come two days earlier, Do&ntilde;a Victorina,&#8221; said Captain Tiago, profiting by a slight pause in the lady&#8217;s brilliant
+loquacity, &#8220;you would have found His Excellency the governor general seated in this very place.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What! His Excellency was here? And at your house? Impossible!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I repeat that he was seated exactly here. If you had come two days ago&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah! What a pity Clarita did not fall ill sooner!&#8221; she cried. &#8220;You hear, cousin! His Excellency was here! You know, Don Santiago,
+that at Madrid our cousin was the friend of ministers and dukes, and that he dined with the Count del Campanario.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The Duke de la Torre, Victorina,&#8221; suggested her husband.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is the same thing!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Shall I find Father D&aacute;maso at his pueblo to-day?&#8221; Linares asked Brother Salvi.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Father D&aacute;maso is here, and may be with us at any moment.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very glad! I have a letter for him, and if a happy chance had not brought me here, I should have come expressly to see
+him.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile the &#8220;happy chance,&#8221; that is to say, poor Maria Clara, had awakened.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come, de <span class="corr" id="xd0e3997" title="Source: Espa&ntilde;ada">Espada&ntilde;a</span>, come, see Clarita,&#8221; said Do&ntilde;a Victorina. &#8220;It is for you he does this,&#8221; she went on, turning to Captain Tiago; &#8220;my husband
+attends only people of quality.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The sick-room was almost in obscurity, the windows closed, for fear of draughts; two candles, burning before an image of the
+Virgin of Antipolo, sent out feeble glimmers.
+
+</p>
+<p>Enveloped in multiple folds of white, the lovely figure of Maria lay on her bed of kamagon, behind curtains of jusi <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4004" href="#xd0e4004">179</a>]</span>and pi&ntilde;a. Her abundant hair about her face increased its transparent pallor, as did the radiance of her great, sad eyes. Beside
+her were her two friends, and Andeng holding a lily branch.
+
+</p>
+<p>De Espada&ntilde;a felt her pulse, examined her tongue, asked a question or two, and nodded his head.
+
+</p>
+<p><span class="corr" id="xd0e4009" title="Not in source">&#8220;</span>Sh&#8212;she is s&#8212;sick, but she can be c&#8212;cured.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Do&ntilde;a Victorina looked proudly at their audience.
+
+</p>
+<p><span class="corr" id="xd0e4015" title="Not in source">&#8220;</span>Lichen with m&#8212;m&#8212;milk, for the m&#8212;m&#8212;morning, syrup of m&#8212;m&#8212;marshmallow, and two tablets of cynoglossum.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Take courage, Clarita,&#8221; said Do&ntilde;a Victorina, approaching the bed, &#8220;we have come to cure you. I&#8217;m going to present to you
+our cousin.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Linares, absorbed, was gazing at those eloquent eyes, which seemed to be searching for some one; he did not hear Do&ntilde;a Victorina.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or Linares,&#8221; said the curate, drawing him out of his abstraction, &#8220;here is Father D&aacute;maso.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>It was indeed he; but it was not the Father D&aacute;maso of heretofore, so vigorous and alert. He walked uncertainly, and he was
+pale and sad.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4026" href="#xd0e4026">180</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch36" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXXVI.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Projects.</h2>
+<p>With no word for any one else, Father D&aacute;maso went straight to Maria&#8217;s bed and took her hand.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maria,&#8221; he said with great tenderness, and tears gushed from his eyes, &#8220;Maria, my child, you must not die!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara looked at him with some astonishment. No one of those who knew the Franciscan would have believed him capable
+of such display of feeling.
+
+</p>
+<p>He could not say another word, but moved aside the draperies and went out among the plants of Maria&#8217;s balcony, crying like
+a child.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How he loves his god-daughter!&#8221; every one thought.
+
+</p>
+<p>Father Salvi, motionless and silent, watched him intently.
+
+</p>
+<p>When the father&#8217;s grief seemed more controlled, Do&ntilde;a Victorino presented young Linares. Father D&aacute;maso, saying nothing, looked
+him over from head to foot, took the letter, read it without appearing to comprehend, and asked:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, who are you?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Alfonso Linares, the godson of your brother-in-law&#8212;&#8212;&#8221; stammered the young fellow. Father D&aacute;maso threw back his head and examined
+him anew, his face clearing.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What! It&#8217;s the godson of Carlicos!&#8221; he cried, clasping him in his arms. &#8220;I had a letter from him some days ago. And it is
+you? You were not born when I left the country. I did not know you!&#8221; And Father D&aacute;maso still held in his strong arms the young
+man, whose face began to color, perhaps from embarrassment, perhaps from suffocation. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4052" href="#xd0e4052">181</a>]</span>Father D&aacute;maso appeared to have completely forgotten his grief.
+
+</p>
+<p>After the first moments of effusion and questions about Carlicos and Pepa, Father D&aacute;maso asked:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s see, what is it Carlicos wishes me to do for you?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think he says something about it in the letter,&#8221; stammered Linares again.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;In the letter? Yes, that&#8217;s so! He wishes me to find you employment and a wife. Ah, the employment is easy enough, but as
+for the wife!&#8212;hem!&#8212;a wife&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Father, that is not so urgent,&#8221; said Linares, with confusion.
+
+</p>
+<p>But Father D&aacute;maso was walking back and forth murmuring: &#8220;A wife! A wife!&#8221; His face was no longer sad or joyful, but serious
+and preoccupied. From a distance Father Salvi watched the scene.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I did not think the thing could cause me so much pain,&#8221; Father D&aacute;maso murmured plaintively; &#8220;but of two evils choose the
+least!&#8221; Then approaching Linares:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come with me, my boy,&#8221; he said, &#8220;we will talk with Don Santiago.&#8221; Linares paled and followed the priest.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4070" href="#xd0e4070">182</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch37" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXXVII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Scrutiny of Conscience.</h2>
+<p>Long days followed by weary nights were passed by the pillow of the sick girl. After a confession to Father Salvi, Maria Clara
+had had a relapse, and in her delirium she pronounced no name but that of her mother, whom she had never known. Her friends,
+her father, her aunt, watched her, and heaped with gifts and with silver for masses the altars of miraculous images. At last,
+slowly and regularly, the fever began to abate.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Doctor de Espada&ntilde;a was stupefied at the virtues of the syrup of marshmallow and the decoction of lichen, prescriptions
+he had never varied. Do&ntilde;a Victorina was so satisfied with her husband that one day when he stepped on her train, in a rare
+state of clemency she did not apply to him the usual penal code by pulling out his teeth.
+
+</p>
+<p>One afternoon, Sinang and Victorina were with Maria; the curate, Captain Tiago, and the Espada&ntilde;as were talking in the dining-room.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m distressed to hear it,&#8221; the doctor was saying; &#8220;and Father D&aacute;maso must be greatly disturbed.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where did you say he is to be sent?&#8221; asked Linares.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Into the province of Tabayas,&#8221; replied the curate carelessly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maria Clara will be very sorry too,&#8221; said Captain Tiago; &#8220;she loves him like a father.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Father Salvi looked at him from the corner of his eye.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Father,&#8221; continued Captain Tiago, &#8220;I believe her <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4094" href="#xd0e4094">183</a>]</span>sickness came from nothing but that trouble the day of the f&ecirc;te.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am of the same opinion, so you have done well in not permitting Se&ntilde;or Ibarra to talk with her; that would only have aggravated
+her condition.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And it is thanks to us alone,&#8221; interrupted Do&ntilde;a Victorina, &#8220;that Clarita is not already in heaven singing praises with the
+angels.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Amen!&#8221; Captain Tiago felt moved to say.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I think I know whereof I speak,&#8221; said the curate, &#8220;when I say that the confession of Maria Clara brought about the favorable
+crisis that saved her life. I do not deny the power of science, but a pure conscience&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pardon,&#8221; objected Do&ntilde;a Victorina, piqued; &#8220;then cure the wife of the alf&eacute;rez with a confession!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A hurt, se&ntilde;ora, is not a malady, to be influenced by the conscience,&#8221; replied Father Salvi severely; &#8220;but a good confession
+would preserve her in future from such blows as she got this morning.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She deserved them!&#8221; said Do&ntilde;a Victorina. &#8220;She is an insolent woman. In church she did nothing but look at me. I had a mind
+to ask her what there was curious about my face; but who would soil her lips speaking to these people of no standing?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The curate, as if he had not heard this tirade, continued: &#8220;To finish the cure of your daughter, she should receive the communion
+to-morrow, Don Santiago. I think she does not need to confess, and yet, if she will once more, this evening&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; said Do&ntilde;a Victorina, profiting by the pause to continue her reflections, &#8220;I don&#8217;t understand how men can marry
+such frights. One easily sees where that woman came from. She is dying of envy, that shows in her eyes. What does an alf&eacute;rez
+get?&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4114" href="#xd0e4114">184</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;So prepare Maria for confession,&#8221; the curate continued, turning to Aunt Isabel.
+
+</p>
+<p>The good aunt left the group and went to her niece&#8217;s room. Maria Clara was still in bed, and pale, very pale; beside her were
+her two friends.
+
+</p>
+<p>Sinang was giving her her medicine.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He has not written to you again?&#8221; asked Maria, softly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He gave you no message for me?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No; he only said he was going to make every effort to have the archbishop raise the ban of excommunication&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The arrival of Aunt Isabel interrupted the conversation.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The father says you are to prepare yourself for confession, my child,&#8221; said she. &#8220;Sinang, leave her to examine her conscience.
+Shall I bring you the &#8216;Anchor,&#8217; the &#8216;Bouquet,&#8217; or the &#8216;Straight Road to Heaven,&#8217; Maria?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara did not reply.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, we mustn&#8217;t fatigue you,&#8221; said the good aunt consolingly; &#8220;I will read you the examination myself, and you will only
+have to remember your sins.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Write him to think of me no more,&#8221; murmured the sick girl in Sinang&#8217;s ear.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>But Aunt Isabel came back with her book, and Sinang had to go.
+
+</p>
+<p>The good aunt drew her chair up to the light, settled her glasses on the tip of her nose, and opened a little book.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Give good attention, my child: I will begin with the commandments of God; I shall go slowly, so that you may meditate: if
+you don&#8217;t hear well, you must tell me, and I will repeat; you know I&#8217;m never weary of working for your good.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>In a voice monotonous and nasal, she began to read. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4149" href="#xd0e4149">185</a>]</span>Maria Clara gazed vaguely into space. The first commandment finished, Aunt Isabel observed her listener over her glasses,
+and appeared satisfied with her sad and meditative air. She coughed piously, and after a long pause began the second. The
+good old woman read with unction. The terms of the second commandment finished, she again looked at her niece, who slowly
+turned away her head.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bah!&#8221; said Aunt Isabel within herself, &#8220;as to taking His holy name in vain, the poor thing has nothing to question: pass
+on to the third.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>And the third commandment sifted and commentated, all the causes of sin against it droned out, she again looked toward the
+bed. This time she lifted her glasses and rubbed her eyes; she had seen her niece raise her handkerchief, as if to wipe away
+tears.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hm!&#8221; said she; &#8220;hm! the poor child must have fallen asleep during the sermon.&#8221; And putting back her glasses on the tip of
+her nose, she reflected:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We shall see if besides not keeping the holy feast days, she has not honored her father and her mother.&#8221; And slowly, in a
+voice more nasal than ever, she read the fourth commandment.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a pure soul!&#8221; thought the old lady; &#8220;she who is so obedient, so submissive! I&#8217;ve sinned much more deeply than that,
+and I&#8217;ve never been able to really cry!&#8221; And she began the fifth commandment with such enthusiasm that she did not hear the
+stifled sobs of her niece. It was only when she stopped after the commentaries on wilful homicide, that she perceived the
+groanings of the sinner. Then in a voice that passed description, and a manner she strove to make menacing, she finished the
+commentary, and seeing that Maria had not ceased to weep:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Cry, my child, cry!&#8221; she said, going to her bedside; &#8220;the more you cry the more quickly will God pardon you. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4163" href="#xd0e4163">186</a>]</span>Cry, my child, cry; and beat your breast, but not too hard, for you are ill yet, you know.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>But as if grief had need of mystery and solitude, Maria Clara, finding herself surprised, stopped sobbing little by little
+and dried her eyes. Aunt Isabel returned to her reading, but the plaint of her audience having ceased, she lost her enthusiasm;
+the second table of the law made her sleepy, and a yawn broke the nasal monotony.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No one would have believed it without seeing it,&#8221; thought the good woman; &#8220;the child sins like a soldier against the first
+five commandments, and from the sixth to the tenth not so much as a peccadillo. That is contrary to the custom of the rest
+of us. One sees queer things in these days!&#8221; And she lighted a great candle for the Virgin of Antipolo, and two smaller ones
+for Our Lady of the Rosary and Our Lady of the Pillar. The Virgin of Delaroche was excluded from this illumination: she was
+to Aunt Isabel an unknown foreigner.
+
+</p>
+<p>We may not know what passed during the confession in the evening. It was long, and Aunt Isabel, who at a distance was watching
+over her niece, could see that instead of offering his ear to the sick girl, the curate had his face turned toward her. He
+went out, pale, with compressed lips. At the sight of his brow, darkened and moist with sweat, one would have said it was
+he who had confessed, and absolution had been denied him.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maria! Joseph!&#8221; said the good aunt, crossing herself, &#8220;who can comprehend the girls of to-day!&#8221;
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4173" href="#xd0e4173">187</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch38" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXXVIII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Two Women.</h2>
+<p>Do&ntilde;a Victorina was taking a walk through the pueblo, to see of what sort were the dwellings and the advancement of the indolent
+Indians. She had put on her most elegant adornments, to impress the provincials, and to show what distance separated them
+from her sacred person. Giving her arm to her limping husband, she paraded the streets of the pueblo, to the profound amazement
+of its inhabitants.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What ugly houses these Indians have!&#8221; she began, with a grimace. &#8220;One must needs be an Indian to live in them! And how ill-bred
+the people are! They pass us without uncovering. Knock off their hats, as the curates do, and the lieutenants of the Civil
+Guard.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And if they attack me?&#8221; stammered the doctor.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you not a man?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, but&#8212;but&#8212;I am lame.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Do&ntilde;a Victorina grew cross. There were no sidewalks in these streets, and the dust was soiling the train of her dress. Some
+young girls who passed dropped their eyes, and did not admire at all as they should her luxurious attire. Sinang&#8217;s coachman,
+who was driving Sinang and her cousin in an elegant tres-por-ciento, had the effrontery to cry out to her &#8220;Tabi!&#8221; in so audacious
+a voice that she moved out of the way.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a brute of a coachman!&#8221; she protested; &#8220;I shall tell his master he had better train his servants. Come along, Tiburcio!&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4193" href="#xd0e4193">188</a>]</span></p>
+<p>Her husband, fearing a tempest, turned on his heels, and they found themselves face to face with the alf&eacute;rez. Greetings were
+exchanged, but Do&ntilde;a Victorina&#8217;s discontent grew. Not only had the officer said nothing complimentary of her costume, but she
+believed she detected mockery in his look.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You ought not to give your hand to a simple alf&eacute;rez,&#8221; she said to her husband, when the officer had passed. &#8220;You don&#8217;t know
+how to preserve your rank.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;H&#8212;here he is the chief.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What does that mean to us? Do we happen to be Indians?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are right,&#8221; said Don Tiburcio, not minded to dispute.
+
+</p>
+<p>They passed the barracks. Do&ntilde;a Consolacion was at the window, as usual dressed in flannel, and puffing her puro. As the house
+was low, the two women faced each other. The muse examined Do&ntilde;a Victorina from head to foot, protruded her lip, ejected tobacco
+juice, and turned away her head. This affectation of contempt brought the patience of the doctora to an end. Leaving her husband
+without support, she went, trembling with rage, powerless to utter a word, and placed herself in front of the alf&eacute;reza&#8217;s window.
+Do&ntilde;a Consolacion turned her head slowly back, regarded her antagonist with the utmost calm, and spat again with the same cool
+contempt.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s the matter with you, do&ntilde;a?&#8221; she asked.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Could you tell me, se&ntilde;ora, why you stare at me in this fashion? Are you jealous?&#8221; Do&ntilde;a Victorina was at last able to say.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I jealous? And of you?&#8221; replied the alf&eacute;reza calmly. &#8220;Yes, I&#8217;m jealous of your frizzes.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come away there!&#8221; broke in the doctor; &#8220;d&#8212;d&#8212;don&#8217;t pay at&#8212;t&#8212;t&#8212;tention to these f&#8212;f&#8212;follies!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let me alone! I have to give a lesson to this brazenface!&#8221; <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4216" href="#xd0e4216">189</a>]</span>replied the doctora, joggling her husband, who just missed sprawling in the dust.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Consider to whom you are speaking!&#8221; she said haughtily, turning back to Do&ntilde;a Consolacion. &#8220;Don&#8217;t think I am a provincial
+or a woman of your class. With us, at Manila, the alf&eacute;rezas are not received; they wait at the door.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ho! ho! most worshipful se&ntilde;ora, the alf&eacute;rezas wait at the door! But you receive such paralytics as this gentleman! Ha! ha!
+ha!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Had she been less powdered Do&ntilde;a Victorina might have been seen to blush. She started to rush on her enemy, but the sentinel
+stood in the way. The street was filling with a curious crowd.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Know that I demean myself in speaking to you; persons of position like me ought not! Will you wash my clothes? I will pay
+you well. Do you suppose I do not know you are a washerwoman?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Do&ntilde;a Consolacion sat erect. To be called a washerwoman had wounded her.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And do you think we don&#8217;t know who you are?&#8221; she retorted. &#8220;My husband has told me! Se&ntilde;ora, I, at least&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>But she could not be heard. Do&ntilde;a Victorina, wildly shaking her fists, screamed out:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come down, you old hussy, come down and let me tear your beautiful eyes out!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Rapidly the medusa disappeared from the window; more rapidly yet she came running down the steps, brandishing her husband&#8217;s
+terrible whip. Don Tiburcio, supplicating both, threw himself between, but he could not have prevented the combat, had not
+the alf&eacute;rez arrived.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, well, se&ntilde;oras!&#8212;Don Tiburcio!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Give your wife a little more breeding, buy her more <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4240" href="#xd0e4240">190</a>]</span>beautiful clothes, and if you haven&#8217;t the money, steal it from the people of the pueblo; you have soldiers for that!&#8221; cried
+Do&ntilde;a Victorina.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;ora,&#8221; said the alf&eacute;rez, furious, &#8220;it is fortunate that I remember you are a woman; if I didn&#8217;t, I should trample you down,
+with all your curls and ribbons!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&#8212;se&ntilde;or alf&eacute;rez!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Move on, charlatan! It&#8217;s not you who wear the breeches!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Armed with words and gestures, with cries, insults, and injuries, the two women hurled at each other all there was in them
+of soil and shame. All four talked at once, and in the multitude of words numerous verities were paraded in the light. If
+they did not hear all, the crowd of the curious did not fail to be diverted. They were looking forward to battle, but, unhappily
+for these amateurs of sport, the curate came by and established peace.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;oras! se&ntilde;oras! what a scandal! Se&ntilde;or alf&eacute;rez!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you doing here, hypocrite, carlist!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don Tiburcio, take away your wife! Se&ntilde;ora, restrain your tongue!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Little by little the dictionary of sounding epithets became exhausted. The shameless shrews found nothing left to say to each
+other, and still threatening, the two couples drew slowly apart, the curate going from one to the other, lavishing himself
+on both.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We shall leave for Manila this very day and present ourselves to the captain-general!&#8221; said the infuriated Do&ntilde;a Victorina
+to her husband. &#8220;You are no man!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But&#8212;but, wife, the guards, and I am lame.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are to challenge him, with swords or pistols, or else&#8212;or else&#8212;&#8212;&#8221; And she looked at his teeth.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Woman, I&#8217;ve never handled&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Do&ntilde;a Victorina let him go no farther; with a sublime <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4268" href="#xd0e4268">191</a>]</span>movement she snatched out his teeth, threw them in the dust, and trampled them under her feet. The doctor almost crying, the
+doctora pelting him with sarcasms, they arrived at the house of Captain Tiago. Linares, who was talking with Maria Clara,
+was no little disquieted by the abrupt arrival of his cousins. Maria, amid the pillows of her fauteuil, was not less surprised
+at the new physiognomy of her doctor.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Cousin,&#8221; said Do&ntilde;a Victorina, &#8220;you are to go and challenge the alf&eacute;rez this instant; if not&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why?&#8221; demanded the astonished Linares.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are to go and challenge him this instant; if not, I shall say here, and to everybody, who you are.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do&ntilde;a Victorina!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The three friends looked at each other.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The alf&eacute;rez has insulted us. The old sorceress came down with a whip to assault us, and this creature did nothing to prevent
+it! A man!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hear that!&#8221; said Sinang regretfully. &#8220;There was a fight, and we didn&#8217;t see it!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The alf&eacute;rez broke the doctor&#8217;s teeth!&#8221; added Do&ntilde;a Victorina.
+
+</p>
+<p>Captain Tiago entered, but he wasn&#8217;t given time to get his breath. In few words, with an intermingling of spicy language,
+Do&ntilde;a Victorina narrated what had passed, naturally trying to put herself in a good light.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Linares is going to challenge him, do you hear? Or don&#8217;t let him marry your daughter. If he isn&#8217;t courageous, he doesn&#8217;t
+merit Clarita.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What! you are going to marry this gentleman?&#8221; Sinang asked Maria, her laughing eyes filling with tears. &#8220;I know you are discreet,
+but I didn&#8217;t think you inconstant.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara, white as alabaster, looked with great, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4294" href="#xd0e4294">192</a>]</span>frightened eyes from her father to Do&ntilde;a Victorina, from Do&ntilde;a Victorina to Linares. The young man reddened; Captain Tiago dropped
+his head.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Help me to my room,&#8221; Maria said to her friends, and steadied by their round arms, her head on the shoulder of Victorina,
+she went out.
+
+</p>
+<p>That night the husband and wife packed their trunks, and presented their account&#8212;no trifle&#8212;to Captain Tiago. The next morning
+they set out for Manila, leaving to the pacific Linares the r&ocirc;le of avenger.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4300" href="#xd0e4300">193</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch39" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XXXIX.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Outlawed.</h2>
+<p>By the feeble moonlight that penetrates the thick foliage of forest trees, a man was making his way through the woods. His
+movement was slow but assured. From time to time, as if to get his bearings, he whistled an air, to which another whistler
+in the distance replied by repeating it.
+
+</p>
+<p>At last, after struggling long against the many obstacles a virgin forest opposes to the march of man, and most obstinately
+at night, he arrived at a little clearing, bathed in the light of the moon in its first quarter. Scarcely had he entered it
+when another man came carefully out from behind a great rock, a revolver in his hand.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who are you?&#8221; he demanded with authority in Tagalo.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is old Pablo with you?&#8221; asked the newcomer tranquilly; &#8220;if so, tell him Elias is searching for him.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are Elias?&#8221; said the other, with a certain respect, yet keeping his revolver cocked. &#8220;Follow me!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>They penetrated a cavern, the guide warning the helmsman when to lower his head, when to crawl on all fours. After a short
+passage they arrived at a sort of room, dimly lighted by pitch torches, where twelve or fifteen men, dirty, ragged, and sinister,
+were talking low among themselves. His elbows resting on a stone, an old man of sombre face sat apart, looking toward the
+smoky torches. It was a cavern of tulisanes. When Elias arrived, the men started <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4318" href="#xd0e4318">194</a>]</span>to rise, but at a gesture from the old man they remained quiet, contenting themselves with examining the newcomer.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is it thou, then?&#8221; said the old chief, his sad eyes lighting a little at sight of the young man.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you are here!&#8221; exclaimed Elias, half to himself.
+
+</p>
+<p>The old man bent his head in silence, making at the same time a sign to the men, who rose and went out, not without taking
+the helmsman&#8217;s measure with their eyes.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said the old man to Elias when they were alone, &#8220;six months ago I gave you hospitality in my home; now it is I who
+receive compassion from you. But sit down and tell me how you found me.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;As soon as I heard of your misfortunes,&#8221; replied Elias slowly, &#8220;I set out, and searched from mountain to mountain. I&#8217;ve gone
+over nearly two provinces.&#8221; After a short pause in which he tried to read the old man&#8217;s thoughts in his sombre face, he went
+on:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have come to make you a proposition. After vainly trying to find some representative of the family which caused the ruin
+of my own, I have decided to go North, and live among the savage tribes. Will you leave this life you are beginning, and come
+with me? Let me be a son to you?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The old man shook his head.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;At my age,&#8221; he said, &#8220;when one has taken a desperate resolution it is final. When such a man as I, who passed his youth and
+ripe age laboring to assure his future and that of his children, who submitted always to the will of superiors, whose conscience
+is clear&#8212;when such a man, almost on the border of the tomb, renounces all his past, it is because after ripe reflection he
+concludes that there is no such thing as peace. Why go to a strange land to drag out my miserable days? I had two sons, a
+daughter, a home, a fortune. I enjoyed consideration and respect; now I am like a tree stripped of its branches, bare and
+desolate. And <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4336" href="#xd0e4336">195</a>]</span>why? Because a man dishonored my daughter; because my sons wished to seek satisfaction from this man, placed above other by
+his office; because this man, fearing them, sought their destruction and accomplished it. And I have survived; but if I did
+not know how to defend my sons, I shall know how to avenge them. The day my band is strong enough, I shall go down into the
+plain and wipe out my vengeance and my life in fire! Either this day will come or there is no God!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The old man rose, and, his eyes glittering, his voice cavernous, he cried, fastening his hands in his long hair:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Malediction, malediction upon me, who held the avenging hands of my sons! I was their assassin!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I understand you,&#8221; said Elias; &#8220;I too have a vengeance to satisfy; and yet, from fear of striking the innocent, I choose
+to forego that.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You can; you are young; you have not lost your last hope. I too, I swear it, would not strike the innocent. You see this
+wound? I got it rather than harm a cuadrillero who was doing his duty.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And yet,&#8221; said Elias, &#8220;if you carry out your purpose, you will bring dreadful woes to our unhappy country. If with your own
+hands you satisfy your vengeance, your enemies will take terrible reprisals&#8212;not from you, not from those who are armed, but
+from the people, who are always the ones accused. When I knew you in other days, you gave me wise counsels: will you permit
+me&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The old man crossed his arms and seemed to attend.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or,&#8221; continued Elias, &#8220;I have had the fortune to do a great service to a young man, rich, kind of heart, upright, wishing
+the good of his country. It is said he has relations at Madrid; of that I know nothing, but I know he is the friend of the
+governor-general. What do you think of interesting <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4352" href="#xd0e4352">196</a>]</span>him in the cause of the miserable and making him their voice?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The old man shook his head.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He is rich, you say. The rich think only of increasing their riches. Not one of them would compromise his peace to go to
+the aid of those who suffer. I know it, I who was rich myself.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But he is not like the others. And he is a young man about to marry, who wishes the tranquillity of his country for the sake
+of his children&#8217;s children.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He is a man, then, who is going to be happy. Our cause is not that of fortunate men.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, but it is that of men of courage!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;True,&#8221; said the old man, seating himself again. &#8220;Let us suppose he consents to be our mouthpiece. Let us suppose he wins
+the captain-general, and finds at Madrid deputies who can plead for us; do you believe we shall have justice?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let us try it before we try measures of blood,&#8221; said Elias. &#8220;It must surprise you that I, an outlaw too, and young and strong,
+propose pacific measures. It is because I see the number of miseries which we ourselves cause, as well as our tyrants. It
+is always the unarmed who pay the penalty.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And if nothing result from our steps?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If we are not heard, if our grievances are made light of, I shall be the first to put myself under your orders.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The old man embraced Elias, a strange light in his eyes.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I accept the proposition,&#8221; he said; &#8220;I know you will keep your word. I will help you to avenge your parents; you shall help
+me to avenge my sons!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Meanwhile, se&ntilde;or, you will do nothing violent.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And you will set forth the wrongs of the people; you know them. When shall I have the response?&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4380" href="#xd0e4380">197</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;In four days send me a man to the lake shore of San Diego. I will tell him the decision, and name the person on whom I count.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Elias will be chief when Captain Pablo is fallen,&#8221; said the old man. And he himself accompanied the helmsman out of the cave.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4385" href="#xd0e4385">198</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch40" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XL.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Enigma.</h2>
+<p>The day after the departure of the doctor and the doctora, Ibarra returned to the pueblo. He hastened to the house of Captain
+Tiago to tell Maria he had been reconciled to the Church. Aunt Isabel, who was fond of the young fellow, and anxious for his
+marriage with her niece, was filled with joy. Captain Tiago was not at home.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come in!&#8221; Aunt Isabel cried in her bad Castilian. &#8220;Maria, Cris&oacute;stomo has returned to favor with the Church; the <span class="corr" id="xd0e4395" title="Source: archibshop">archbishop</span> has disexcommunicated him!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>But <span class="corr" id="xd0e4400" title="Source: Cris&ograve;stomo">Cris&oacute;stomo</span> stood still, the smile froze on his lips, the words he was to say to Maria fled from his mind. Leaning against the balcony
+beside her was Linares; on the floor lay leafless roses and sampagas. The Spaniard was making garlands with the flowers and
+leaves from the vines; Maria Clara, buried in her fauteuil, pale and thoughtful, was playing with an ivory fan, less white
+than her slender hands.
+
+</p>
+<p>At sight of Ibarra Linares paled, and carmine tinted the cheeks of Maria Clara. She tried to rise, but was not strong enough;
+she lowered her eyes and let her fan fall.
+
+</p>
+<p>For some seconds there was an embarrassing silence; then Ibarra spoke.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have this moment arrived, and came straight here. You are better than I thought you were.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>One would have said Maria had become mute: her eyes still lowered, she did not say a word in reply. Ibarra looked searchingly
+at Linares; the timid young man bore the scrutiny with haughtiness.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4411" href="#xd0e4411">199</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I see my arrival was not expected,&#8221; he went on slowly. &#8220;Pardon me, Maria, that I did not have myself announced. Some day
+I can explain to you&#8212;for we shall still see each other&#8212;surely!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>At these last words the girl raised toward her fianc&eacute; her beautiful eyes full of purity and sadness, so suppliant and so sweet
+that Ibarra stood still in confusion.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;May I come to-morrow?&#8221; he asked after a moment.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You know that to me you are always welcome,&#8221; she said in a weak voice.
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra left, calm in appearance, but a tempest was in his brain and freezing cold in his heart. What he had just seen and
+comprehended seemed to him incomprehensible. Was it doubt, inconstancy, betrayal?
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, woman!&#8221; he murmured.
+
+</p>
+<p>Without knowing where he went, he arrived at the ground where the school was going up. Se&ntilde;or Juan hailed him with delight,
+and showed him what had been done since he went away.
+
+</p>
+<p>With surprise Ibarra saw Elias among the workmen; the helmsman saluted him, as did the others, and at the same time made him
+understand that he had something to say to him.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or Juan,&#8221; said Ibarra, &#8220;will you bring me the list of workmen?&#8221; Se&ntilde;or Juan disappeared, and Ibarra approached Elias, who
+was lifting a great stone and loading it on a cart.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you can, se&ntilde;or,&#8221; said the helmsman, &#8220;give me an hour of conversation, there is something grave of which I want to talk
+with you. Will you go on the lake early this evening in my boat?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra gave a sign of assent and Elias moved away. Se&ntilde;or Juan brought the list, but Ibarra searched it in vain for the name
+of the helmsman.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4434" href="#xd0e4434">200</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch41" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XLI.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Voice of the Persecuted.</h2>
+<p>The sun was just setting when Ibarra stepped into the little boat on the lake shore. He appeared disturbed.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Pardon me, se&ntilde;or,&#8221; said Elias, &#8220;for having asked this favor; I wished to speak to you freely, with no possibility of listeners.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And what have you to say?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>They had already shot away from the bank. The sun had disappeared behind the crest of the mountains, and as twilight is of
+short duration in this latitude, the night was descending rapidly, lighted by a brilliant moon.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or,&#8221; replied Elias, &#8220;I am the spokesman of many unfortunates.&#8221; And briefly he told of his conversation with the chief
+of the tulisanes, omitting the old man&#8217;s doubts and threats.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And they wish?&#8221; asked Ibarra, when he had finished.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Radical reforms in the guard, the clergy, and the administration of justice.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Elias,&#8221; said Ibarra, &#8220;I know little of you, but I believe you will understand me when I say that though I have friends at
+Madrid whom I might influence, and though I might interest the captain-general in these people, neither they nor he could
+bring about such a revolution. And more, I would not take a step in this direction, because I believe what you want reformed
+is at present a necessary evil.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You also, se&ntilde;or, believe in necessary evil?&#8221; said Elias <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4458" href="#xd0e4458">201</a>]</span>with a tremor in his voice. &#8220;You think one must go through evil to arrive at good?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No; but I look at evil as a violent remedy we sometimes use to cure ourselves of illness.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is a bad medicine, se&ntilde;or, that does away with the symptoms without searching out the cause of the disease. The Municipal
+Guard exists only to suppress crime by force and terrorizing.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The institution may be imperfect, but the terror it inspires keeps down the number of criminals.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Rather say that this terror creates new criminals every day,&#8221; said Elias. &#8220;There are those who have become tulisanes for
+life. A first offence punished inhumanly, and the fear of further torture separates them forever from society and condemns
+them to kill or to be killed. The terrorism of the Municipal Guard shuts the doors of repentance, and as a tulisan, defending
+himself in the mountains, fights to much better advantage than the soldier he mocks, we cannot remedy the evil we have made.
+Terrorism may serve when a people is enslaved, and the mountains have no caverns; but when a desperate man feels the strength
+of his arm, and anger possesses him, terrorism cannot put out the fire for which it has itself heaped the fuel.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You would seem to speak reasonably, Elias, if one had not already his own convictions. But let me ask you, Who demand these
+reforms? You know I except you, whom I cannot class with these others; but are they not all criminals, or men ready to become
+so?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go from pueblo to pueblo, se&ntilde;or, from house to house, and listen to the stifled groanings, and you will find that if you
+think that, you are mistaken.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But the Government must have a body of unlimited power, to make itself respected and its authority felt.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is true, se&ntilde;or, when the Government is at war with <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4476" href="#xd0e4476">202</a>]</span>the country; but is it not unfortunate that in times of peace the people should be made to feel they are at strife with their
+rulers? If, however, we prefer force to authority, we should at least be careful to whom we give unlimited power. Such a force
+in the hands of men ignorant, passionate, without moral training or tried honor, is a weapon thrown to a madman in the middle
+of an unarmed crowd. I grant the Government must have an arm, but let it choose this arm well; and since it prefers the power
+it assumes to that the people might give it, let it at least show that it knows how to assume it!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Elias spoke with passion; his eyes were brilliant, his voice was resonant. His words were followed by silence; the boat, no
+longer driven forward by the oars, seemed motionless on the surface of the lake; the moon shone resplendent in the sapphire
+sky; above the far banks the stars glittered.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And what else do they ask?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Reform of the religious orders,&#8212;they demand better protection&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Against the religious orders?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Against their oppression, se&ntilde;or.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do the Philippines forget the debt they owe those men who led them out of error into the true faith? It is a pity we are
+not taught the history of our country!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We must not forget this debt, no! But were not our nationality and independence a dear price with which to cancel it? We
+have also given the priests our best pueblos, our most fertile fields, and we still give them our savings, for the purchase
+of all sorts of religious objects. I realize that a pure faith and a veritable love of humanity moved the first missionaries
+who came to our shores. I acknowledge the debt we owe those noble men; I know that in those days Spain abounded in heroes,
+of politics as well as religion. But because the ancestors were true men, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4492" href="#xd0e4492">203</a>]</span>must we consent to the excesses of their unworthy descendants? Because a great good has been done us, may we not protest against
+being done a great wrong? The missionaries conquered the country, it is true; but do you think it is through the monks that
+Spain will keep the Philippines?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, and through them only. It is the opinion of all those who have written on the islands.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or,&#8221; said Elias in dejection, &#8220;I thank you for your patience. I will take you back to the shore.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Ibarra, &#8220;go on; we should know which is right in so important a question.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will excuse me, se&ntilde;or,&#8221; said Elias, &#8220;I have not eloquence enough to convince you. If I have some education, I am an Indian,
+and my words would always be suspected. Those who have expressed opinions contrary to mine are Spaniards, and as such disarm
+in advance all contradiction. Besides, when I see that you, who love your country, you, whose father sleeps below this calm
+water, you who have been attacked and wronged yourself, have these opinions, I commence to doubt my own convictions, I acknowledge
+that the people may be mistaken. I must tell these unfortunates who have placed their confidence in men to put it in God or
+in their own strength.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Elias, your words hurt me, and make me, too, have doubts. I have not grown up with the people, and cannot know their needs.
+I only know what books have taught me. If I take your words with caution, it is because I fear you may be prejudiced by your
+personal wrongs. If I could know something of your story, perhaps it would alter my judgment. I am mistrustful of theories,
+am guided rather by facts.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Elias thought a moment, then he said:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If this is so, se&ntilde;or, I will briefly tell you my history.&#8221;
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4508" href="#xd0e4508">204</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch42" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XLII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Family of Elias.</h2>
+<p>&#8220;It is about sixty years since my grandfather was employed as accountant by a Spanish merchant. Although still young, he was
+married, and had a son. One night the warehouse took fire, and was burned with the surrounding property. The loss was great,
+incendiarism was suspected, and my grandfather was accused. He had no money to pay for his defence, and he was convicted and
+condemned to be publicly flogged in the streets of his pueblo. Attached to a horse, he was beaten as he passed each street
+corner by men, his brothers. The curates, you know, advocate nothing but blows for the discipline of the Indian. When the
+unhappy man, marked forever with infamy, was liberated, his poor young wife went about seeking work to keep alive her disabled
+husband and their little child. Failing in this, she was forced to see them suffer, or to live herself a life of shame.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra rose to his feet.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, don&#8217;t be disturbed! There was no longer honor or dishonor for her or hers. When the husband&#8217;s wounds were healed, they
+went to hide themselves in the mountains, where they lived for a time, shunned and feared. But my grandfather, less courageous
+than his wife, could not endure this existence and hung himself. When his body was found, by chance, my grandmother was accused
+for not reporting his death, and was in turn condemned to be flogged; but in consideration of her state her punishment was
+deferred. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4520" href="#xd0e4520">205</a>]</span>She gave birth to another son, unhappily sound and strong; two months later her sentence was carried out. Then she took her
+two children and fled into a neighboring province.
+
+</p>
+<p><span class="corr" id="xd0e4523" title="Not in source">&#8220;</span>The elder of the sons remembered that he had once been happy. As soon as he was old enough he became a tulisan to avenge his
+wrongs, and the name of B&acirc;lat spread terror in many provinces. The younger son, endowed by nature with a gentle disposition,
+stayed with his mother, both living on the fruits of the forest and dressing in the cast-off rags of those charitable enough
+to give. At length the famous B&acirc;lat fell into the hands of justice, and paid a dreadful penalty for his crimes, to that society
+which had never done anything to teach him better than to commit them. One morning the young brother, who had been in the
+forest gathering fruits, came back to find the dead body of his mother in front of their cabin, the horror-stricken eyes staring
+upward; and following them with his own, the unhappy boy saw suspended from a limb the bloody head of his brother.<span class="corr" id="xd0e4526" title="Not in source">&#8221;</span>
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My God!&#8221; cried Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is perhaps the cry that escaped the lips of my father,&#8221; said Elias coldly. &#8220;Like a condemned criminal, he fled across
+mountains and valleys. When he thought himself far enough away to have lost his identity, he found work with a rich man of
+the province of Tayabas. His industry and the sweetness of his disposition gained him favor. Here he stayed, economized, got
+a little capital, and as he was yet young, thought to be happy. He won the love of a girl of the pueblo, but delayed asking
+for her hand, fearing that his past might be uncovered. At length, when love&#8217;s indiscretion bore fruit, to save her reputation
+he was obliged to risk everything. He asked to marry her, his papers were demanded, and the truth was learned. As <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4533" href="#xd0e4533">206</a>]</span>the father was rich, he instituted a prosecution. The unhappy young man made no defence, and was sent to the garrison.
+
+</p>
+<p><span class="corr" id="xd0e4536" title="Not in source">&#8220;</span>Our mother bore twins, my sister and me. She died while we were yet young, and we were told that our father was dead also.
+As our grandfather was rich, we had a happy childhood; we were always together, and loved each other as only twins can. I
+was sent very early to the college of the Jesuits, and my sister to La Concordia, that we might not be completely separated.
+In time we returned to take possession of our grandfather&#8217;s property. We had many servants and rich fields. We were both happy,
+and my sister was affianced to a man she adored.
+
+</p>
+<p><span class="corr" id="xd0e4540" title="Not in source">&#8220;</span>By my haughtiness, perhaps, and for pecuniary reasons, I had won the dislike of a distant relative. He threw in my face the
+obscurity of our origin and the dishonor of our race. Believing it calumny, I demanded satisfaction; the tomb where so many
+miseries sleep was opened, and the truth came forth to confound me. To crown all, there had been with us many years an old
+servant, who had suffered all my caprices without complaint. I do not know how our relative found it out, but he brought the
+old man before the court and made him declare the truth: he was our father. Our happiness was ended. I gave up my inheritance,
+my sister lost her fianc&eacute;, and with our father we left the pueblo, to live where he might. The thought of the unhappiness
+he had brought upon us shortened our father&#8217;s days, and my sister and I were left alone. She could not forget her lover, and
+little by little I saw her droop. One day she disappeared, and I searched everywhere for her in vain. Six months afterward,
+I learned that at the time I lost her there had been found on the lake shore of Calamba the body of a young woman drowned
+or assassinated. A knife, they said, was buried in her breast. From what they told <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4543" href="#xd0e4543">207</a>]</span>me of her dress and her beauty, I recognized my sister. Since then I have wandered from province to province, my reputation
+and my story following in time. Many things are attributed to me, often unjustly, but I continue my way and take little account
+of men. You have my story, and that of one of the judgments of our brothers!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Elias rowed on in a silence which was for some time unbroken.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I believe you are not wrong when you say that justice should interest herself in the education of criminals,&#8221; said Cris&oacute;stomo
+at length; &#8220;but it is impossible, it is Utopia; where get the money necessary to create so many new offices?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why not use the priests, who vaunt their mission of peace and love? Can it be more meritorious to sprinkle a child&#8217;s head
+with water than to wake, in the darkened conscience of a criminal, that spark lighted by God in every soul to guide it in
+the search for truth? Can it be more humane to accompany a condemned man to the gallows than to help him in the hard path
+that leads from vice to virtue? And the spies, the executioners, the guards, do not they too cost money?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My friend, if I believed all this, what could I do?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Alone, nothing; but if the people sustained you?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I shall never be the one to lead the people when they try to obtain by force what the Government does not think it time to
+give them. If I should see the people armed, I should range myself on the side of the Government. I do not recognize my country
+in a mob. I desire her good; that is why I build a school. I seek this good through instruction; without light there is no
+route.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Without struggle, no liberty; without liberty, no light. You say you know your country little. I believe you. You do not
+see the conflict coming, the cloud on the horizon: <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4559" href="#xd0e4559">208</a>]</span>the struggle begun in the sphere of the mind is going to descend to the arena of blood. Listen to the voice of God; woe to
+those who resist it! History shall not be theirs!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Elias was transfigured. He stood uncovered, his manly face illumined by the white light of the moon. He shook his mane of
+hair and continued:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you not see how everything is waking? The sleep has lasted centuries, but some day the lightning will strike, and the
+bolt, instead of bringing ruin, will bring life. Do you not see minds in travail with new tendencies, and know that these
+tendencies, diverse now, will some day be guided by God into one way? God has not failed other peoples; He will not fail us!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The words were followed by solemn silence. The boat, drawn on by the waves, was nearing the bank. Elias was the first to speak.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What shall I say to those who sent me?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That they must wait. I pity their situation, but progress is slow, and there is always much of our own fault in our misfortunes.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Elias said no more. He lowered his eyes and continued to row. When the boat touched the shore, he took leave of Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thank you, se&ntilde;or,&#8221; he said, &#8220;for your kindness to me, and, in your own interest, I ask you to forget me from this day.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>When Ibarra was gone, Elias guided his boat toward a clump of reeds along the shore. His attention seemed absorbed in the
+thousands of diamonds that rose with the oar, and fell back and disappeared in the mystery of the gentle azure waves. When
+he touched land, a man came out from among the reeds.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What shall I say to the captain?&#8221; he asked.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4579" href="#xd0e4579">209</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Tell him Elias, if he lives, will keep his word,&#8221; replied the helmsman sadly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And when will you join us?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When your captain thinks the hour has come.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That is well; adieu!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I live!&#8221; repeated Elias, under his breath.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4590" href="#xd0e4590">210</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch43" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XLIII.</h2>
+<h2 lang="it" class="normal">Il Buon Di si Conosce da Mattina.</h2>
+<p>While Ibarra and Elias were on the lake, old Tasio, ill in his solitary little house, and Don Filipo, who had come to see
+him, were also talking of the country. For several days the old philosopher, or fool&#8212;as you find him&#8212;prostrated by a rapidly
+increasing feebleness, had not left his bed.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The country,&#8221; he was saying to Don Filipo, &#8220;isn&#8217;t what it was twenty years ago.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you think so?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you see it?&#8221; asked the old man, sitting up. &#8220;Ah! you did not know the past. Hear the students of to-day talking. New
+names are spoken under the arches that once heard only those of Saint Thomas, Suarez, Amat, and the other idols of my day.
+In vain the monks cry from the chair against the demoralization of the times; in vain the convents extend their ramifications
+to strangle the new ideas. The roots of a tree may influence the parasites growing on it, but they are powerless against the
+bird, which, from the branches, mounts triumphant toward the sky!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The old man spoke with animation, and his eye shone.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And yet the new germ is very feeble,&#8221; said the lieutenant. &#8220;If they all set about it, the progress already so dearly paid
+for may yet be choked.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Choke it? Who? The weak dwarf, man, to choke progress, the powerful child of time and energy? When <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4610" href="#xd0e4610">211</a>]</span>has he done that? He has tried dogma, the scaffold, and the stake, but <i lang="it">E pur si muove</i> is the device of progress. Wills are thwarted, individuals sacrificed. What does that mean to progress? She goes her way,
+and the blood of those who fall enriches the soil whence spring her new shoots. The Dominicans themselves do not escape this
+law, and they are beginning to imitate the Jesuits, their irreconcilable enemies.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you hold that the Jesuits move with progress?&#8221; asked the astonished Don Filipo. &#8220;Then why are they so attacked in Europe?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I reply as did once an ecclesiastic of old,&#8221; said the philosopher, laying his head back on the pillow and putting on his
+mocking air, &#8220;that there are three ways of moving with progress: ahead, beside, behind; the first guide, the second follow,
+the third are dragged. The Jesuits are of these last. At present, in the Philippines, we are about three centuries behind
+the van of the general movement. The Jesuits, who in Europe are the reaction, viewed from here represent progress. For instance,
+the Philippines owe to them the introduction of the natural sciences, the soul of the nineteenth century. As for ourselves,
+at this moment we are entering a period of strife: strife between the past which grapples to itself the tumbling feudal castle,
+and the future whose song may be heard afar off, bringing us from distant lands the tidings of good news.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The old man stopped, but seeing the expression of Don Filipo he smiled and went on.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can almost divine what you are thinking.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Can you?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are thinking that I may easily be wrong; to-day I have the fever, and I am never infallible. But it is permitted us to
+dream. Why not make the dreams agreeable in the last hours of life? You are right: I do dream! Our <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4627" href="#xd0e4627">212</a>]</span>young men think of nothing but loves and pleasures; our men of riper years have no activity but in vice, serve only to corrupt
+youth with their example; youth spends its best years without ideal, and childhood wakes to life in rust and darkness. It
+is well to die. Claudite jam rivos, pueri.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is it time for your medicine?&#8221; asked Don Filipo, seeing the cloud on the old man&#8217;s face.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The parting have no need of medicine, but those who stay. In a few days I shall be gone. The Philippines are in the shadows.&#8221;
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4633" href="#xd0e4633">213</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch44" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XLIV.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">La Gallera.</h2>
+<p>To keep holy the afternoon of Sunday in Spain, one goes ordinarily to the plaza de toros; in the Philippines, to the gallera.
+Cock-fights, introduced in the country about a century ago, are to-day one of the vices of the people. The Chinese can more
+easily deprive themselves of opium than the Filipinos of this bloody sport.
+
+</p>
+<p>The poor, wishing to get money without work, risks here the little he has; the rich seeks a distraction at the price of whatever
+loose coin feasts and masses leave him. The education of their cocks costs both much pains, often more than that of their
+sons.
+
+</p>
+<p>Since the Government permits and almost recommends it, let us take our part in the sport, sure of meeting friends.
+
+</p>
+<p>The gallera of San Diego, like most others, is divided into three courts. In the entry is taken the sa pint&ucirc;, that is, the
+price of admission. Of this price the Government has a share, and its revenues from this source are some hundred thousand
+pesos a year. It is said this license fee of vice serves to build schools, open roads, span rivers, and establish prizes for
+the encouragement of industry. Blessed be vice when it produces so happy results! In this entry are found girls selling buyo,
+cigars, and cakes. Here gather numerous children, brought by their fathers or uncles, whose duty it is to initiate them into
+the ways of life.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4647" href="#xd0e4647">214</a>]</span></p>
+<p>In the second court are most of the cocks. Here the contracts are made, amid recriminations, oaths, and peals of laughter.
+One caresses his cock, while another counts the scales on the feet of his, and extends the wings. See this fellow, rage in
+his face and heart, carrying by the legs his cock, deplumed and dead. The animal which for months has been tended night and
+day, on which such brilliant hopes were built, will bring a peseta and make a stew. Sic transit gloria mundi! The ruined man
+goes home to his anxious wife and ragged children. He has lost at once his cock and the price of his industry. Here the least
+intelligent discuss the sport; those least given to thought extend the wings of cocks, feel their muscles, weigh, and ponder.
+Some are dressed in elegance, followed and surrounded by the partisans of their cocks; others, ragged and dirty, the stigma
+of vice on their blighted faces, follow anxiously the movements of the rich; the purse may get empty, the passion remains.
+Here not a face that is not animated; in this the Filipino is not indolent, nor apathetic, nor silent; all is movement, passion.
+One would say they were all devoured by a thirst always more and more excited by muddy water.
+
+</p>
+<p>From this court one passes to the pit, a circle with seats terraced to the roof, filled during the combats with a mass of
+men and children; scarcely ever does a woman risk herself so far. Here it is that destiny distributes smiles and tears, hunger
+and joyous feasts.
+
+</p>
+<p>Entering, we recognize at once the gobernadorcillo, Captain Basilio, and Jos&eacute;, the man with the scar, so cast down by the
+death of his brother. And here comes Captain Tiago, dressed like the sporting man, in a canton flannel shirt, woollen trousers,
+and a jipijapa hat. He is followed by two servants with his cocks. A combat is soon arranged between one of these and a famous
+cock of Captain Basilio&#8217;s. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4654" href="#xd0e4654">215</a>]</span>The news spreads, and a crowd gathers round, examining, considering, forecasting, betting.
+
+</p>
+<p>While men were searching their pockets for their last cuarto, or in lieu of it were engaging their word, promising to sell
+the carabao, the next crop, and so forth, two young fellows, brothers apparently, looked on with envious eyes. Jos&eacute; watched
+them by stealth, smiling evilly. Then making the pesos sound in his pocket, he passed the brothers, looking the other way
+and crying:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I pay fifty; fifty against twenty for the l&aacute;sak!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The brothers looked at each other discontentedly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I told you not to risk all the money,&#8221; said the elder. &#8220;If you had listened to me&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The younger approached Jos&eacute; and timidly touched his arm.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What! It&#8217;s you?&#8221; he cried, turning and feigning surprise. &#8220;Does your brother accept my proposition?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He won&#8217;t do it. But if you would lend us something, as you say you know us&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Jos&eacute; shook his head, shifted his position, and replied:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I know you; you are T&aacute;rsilo and Bruno; and I know that your valiant father died from the club strokes of these soldiers.
+I know you don&#8217;t think of vengeance&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t concern yourself with our history,&#8221; said the elder brother, joining them; &#8220;that brings misfortune. If we hadn&#8217;t a sister,
+we should have been hanged long ago!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Hanged! Only cowards are hanged. Besides, the mountain isn&#8217;t so far.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A hundred against fifty for the b&ucirc;lik!&#8221; cried some one passing.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Loan us four pesos&#8212;three&#8212;two,&#8221; begged Bruno. Jos&eacute; again shook his head.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sh! the money isn&#8217;t mine. Don Cris&oacute;stomo gave it to me for those who are willing to serve him. But I see you <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4684" href="#xd0e4684">216</a>]</span>are not like your father; he was courageous. The man who is not must not expect to divert himself.&#8221; And he moved away.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;See!&#8221; said Bruno, &#8220;he&#8217;s talking with Pedro; he&#8217;s giving him a lot of money!&#8221; And in truth Jos&eacute; was counting silver pieces
+into the palm of Sisa&#8217;s husband.
+
+</p>
+<p>T&aacute;rsilo was moody and thoughtful; with his shirt sleeve he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Brother,&#8221; said Bruno, &#8220;I&#8217;m going, if you don&#8217;t; our father must be avenged!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Wait,&#8221; said T&aacute;rsilo, gazing into his eyes&#8212;they were both pale&#8212;&#8220;I&#8217;m going with you. You are right: our father must be avenged!&#8221;
+But he did not move, and again wiped his brow.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you waiting for?&#8221; demanded Bruno impatiently.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you think&#8212;our poor sister&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bah! Isn&#8217;t Don Cris&oacute;stomo the chief, and haven&#8217;t we seen him with the governor-general? What risk do we run?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And if we die?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did not our poor father die under their clubs?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are right!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The brothers set out to find Jos&eacute;, but hesitation again possessed T&aacute;rsilo.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No; come away! we&#8217;re going to ruin ourselves!&#8221; he cried.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go on if you want to. I shall accept!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bruno!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Unhappily a man came up and asked:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you betting? I&#8217;m for the l&aacute;sak.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How much?&#8221; demanded Bruno.
+
+</p>
+<p>The man counted his pieces.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have two hundred; fifty against forty!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No!&#8221; said Bruno resolutely.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4726" href="#xd0e4726">217</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Good! Fifty against thirty!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Double it if you will.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A hundred against sixty, then!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Agreed! Wait while I go for the money,&#8221; and turning to his brother he said:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Go away if you want to; I shall stay!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>T&aacute;rsilo reflected. He loved Bruno, and he loved sport.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am with you,&#8221; he said. They found Jos&eacute;.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Uncle,&#8221; said T&aacute;rsilo, &#8220;how much will you give?&#8221; &#8220;I&#8217;ve told you already; if you will promise to find others to help surprise
+the quarters, I&#8217;ll give you thirty pesos each, and ten to each companion. If all goes well, they will each receive a hundred,
+and you double. Don Cris&oacute;stomo is rich!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Agreed!&#8221; cried Bruno; &#8220;give us the money!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I knew you were like your father! Come this way, so that those who killed him cannot hear us,&#8221; said Jos&eacute;. And drawing them
+into a corner, he added as he counted out the money:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don Cris&oacute;stomo has come and brought the arms. To-morrow night at eight o&#8217;clock meet me in the cemetery. I will give you the
+final word. Go find your companions.&#8221; And he left them.
+
+</p>
+<p>The brothers appeared to have exchanged r&ocirc;les. T&aacute;rsilo now seemed undisturbed; Bruno was pale. They went back to the crowd,
+which was leaving the circle for the raised seats. Little by little the place became silent. Only the soltadores were left
+in the ring holding two cocks, with exaggerated care, looking out for wounds. The silence became solemn; the spectators became
+mere caricatures of men; the fight was about to begin.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4751" href="#xd0e4751">218</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch45" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XLV.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">A Call.</h2>
+<p>Two days later Brother Salvi presented himself at the house of Captain Tiago. The Franciscan was more gaunt and pale than
+usual; but as he went up the steps a strange light shone in his eyes, and his lips parted in a strange smile. Captain Tiago
+kissed his hand, and took his hat and cane, smiling beatifically.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I bring good news,&#8221; said the curate as he entered the drawing-room; &#8220;good news for everybody. I have letters from Manila
+confirming the one Se&ntilde;or Ibarra brought me, so that I believe, Don Santiago, the obstacle is quite removed.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara, seated at the piano, made a movement to rise, but her strength failed her and she had to sit down again. Linares
+grew pale; Captain Tiago lowered his eyes.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The young man seems to me very sympathetic,&#8221; said the curate. &#8220;At first I misjudged him. He is impulsive, but when he commits
+a fault, he knows so well how to atone for it that one is forced to forgive him. If it were not for Father D&aacute;maso&#8212;&#8212;&#8221; And the
+curate flashed a glance at Maria Clara. She was listening with all her being, but did not take her eyes off her music, in
+spite of the pinches that were expressing Sinang&#8217;s joy. Had they been alone they would have danced.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But Father D&aacute;maso has said,&#8221; continued the curate, without losing sight of Maria Clara, &#8220;that as godfather he could <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4767" href="#xd0e4767">219</a>]</span>not permit; but, indeed, I believe if Se&ntilde;or Ibarra will ask his pardon everything will arrange itself.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria rose, made an excuse, and with Victorina left the room.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And if Father D&aacute;maso does not pardon him?&#8221; asked Don Santiago in a low voice.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then Maria Clara must decide. But I believe the matter can be arranged.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The sound of an arrival was heard, and Ibarra entered. His coming made a strange impression. Captain Tiago did not know whether
+to smile or weep. Father Salvi rose and offered his hand so affectionately that Cris&oacute;stomo could scarcely repress a look of
+surprise.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where have you been all day?&#8221; demanded wicked Sinang. &#8220;We asked each other: &#8216;What can have taken that soul newly rescued
+from perdition?&#8217; and each of us had her opinion.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And am I to know what each opinion was?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, not yet! Tell me where you went, so I can see who made the best guess.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s a secret too; but I can tell you by yourself if these gentlemen will permit.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Certainly, certainly?&#8221; said Father Salvi. Sinang drew Cris&oacute;stomo to the other end of the great room.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tell me, little friend,&#8221; said he, &#8220;is Maria angry with me?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know. She says you had best forget her, and then she cries. This morning when we were wondering where you were I
+said to tease her: &#8216;Perhaps he has gone a-courting.&#8217; But she was quite grave, and said: &#8216;It is God&#8217;s will!&#8217;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tell Maria I must see her alone,&#8221; said Ibarra, troubled.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It will be difficult, but I&#8217;ll try to manage it.&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4795" href="#xd0e4795">220</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;And when shall I know?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To-morrow. But you are going without telling me the secret!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So I am. Well, I went to the pueblo of Los Ba&ntilde;os to see about some cocoanut trees!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a secret!&#8221; cried Sinang aloud in a tone of a usurer despoiled.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Take care, I really don&#8217;t want you to speak of it.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve no desire to,&#8221; said Sinang scornfully. &#8220;If it had been really of importance I should have told my friends; but cocoanuts,
+cocoanuts, who cares about cocoanuts!&#8221; and she ran off to find Maria.
+
+</p>
+<p>Conversation languished, and Ibarra soon took his leave. Captain Tiago was torn between the bitter and the sweet. Linares
+said nothing. Only the curate affected gayety and recounted tales.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4810" href="#xd0e4810">221</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch46" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XLVI.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">A Conspiracy.</h2>
+<p>The bell was announcing the time of prayer the evening after. At its sound every one stopped his work and uncovered. The laborer
+coming from the fields checked his song; the woman in the streets crossed herself; the man caressed his cock and said the
+Angelus, that chance might favor him. And yet the curate, to the great scandal of pious old ladies, was running through the
+street toward the house of the alf&eacute;rez. He dashed up the steps and knocked impatiently. The alf&eacute;rez opened.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, father, I was just going to see you; your young buck&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve something very important&#8212;&#8212;&#8221; began the breathless curate.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t allow the fences to be broken; if he comes back, I shall fire on him.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who knows whether to-morrow you will be alive,&#8221; said the curate, going on toward the reception-room.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What? You think that youngster is going to kill me?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or alf&eacute;rez, the lives of all of us are in danger!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The curate pointed to the door, which the alf&eacute;rez closed in his customary fashion.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now, go ahead,&#8221; he said calmly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did you see how I ran? When I thus forget myself, there is some grave reason.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And this time it is&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4840" href="#xd0e4840">222</a>]</span></p>
+<p>The curate approached him and spoke low.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you&#8212;know&#8212;of nothing&#8212;new?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The alf&eacute;rez shrugged his shoulders.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Are you speaking of Elias?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, no! I&#8217;m speaking of a great peril!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, finish then!&#8221; cried the exasperated alf&eacute;rez.
+
+</p>
+<p>The curate lowered his voice mysteriously:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have discovered a conspiracy!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The alf&eacute;rez gave a spring and looked at the curate in stupefaction.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A terrible conspiracy, well organized, that is to break out to-night!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The alf&eacute;rez rushed across the room, took down his sabre from the wall, and grasped his revolver.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Whom shall I arrest?&#8221; he cried.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Be calm! There is plenty of time, thanks to the haste with which I came. At eight o&#8217;clock&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They shall be shot, all of them!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Listen! It is a secret of the confessional, discovered to me by a woman. At eight o&#8217;clock they are to surprise the barracks,
+sack the convent, and assassinate all the Spaniards.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The alf&eacute;rez stood dumbfounded.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Be ready for them; ambush your soldiers; send me four guards for the convent! You will earn your promotion to-night! I only
+ask you to make it known that it was I who warned you.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It shall be known, father; it shall be known, and, perhaps, it will bring down a mitre!&#8221; replied the alf&eacute;rez, his eyes on
+the sleeves of his uniform.
+
+</p>
+<p>While this conversation was in progress, Elias was running toward the house of Ibarra. He entered and was shown to the laboratory,
+where Cris&oacute;stomo was passing the time until the hour of his appointment with Maria Clara.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4879" href="#xd0e4879">223</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah! It is you, Elias?&#8221; he said, without noticing the tremor of the helmsman. &#8220;See here! I&#8217;ve just made a discovery: this
+piece of bamboo is non-combustible.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or, there is no time to talk of that; take your papers and flee!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra looked up amazed, and, seeing the gravity of the helmsman&#8217;s face, let fall the piece of bamboo.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Leave nothing behind that could compromise you, and may an hour from this time find you in a safer place than this!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What does all this mean?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That there is a conspiracy on foot which will be attributed to you. I have this moment been talking with a man hired to take
+part in it.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did he tell you who paid him?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He said it was you.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra stared in stupid amazement.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or, you <span class="corr" id="xd0e4900" title="Source: havn&#8217;t">haven&#8217;t</span> a moment to lose. The plot is to be carried out to-night.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Cris&oacute;stomo still gazed at Elias, as if he did not understand.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I learned of it too late; I don&#8217;t know the leaders; I can do nothing. Save yourself, se&ntilde;or!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Where can I go? I am due now at Captain Tiago&#8217;s,&#8221; said Ibarra, beginning to come out of his trance.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To another pueblo, to Manila, anywhere! Destroy your papers! Fly, and await events!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And Maria Clara? No! Better die!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Elias wrung his hands.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Prepare for the accusation, at all events. Destroy your papers!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Aid me then,&#8221; said Cris&oacute;stomo, in almost helpless bewilderment. &#8220;They are in these cabinets. My father&#8217;s letters might compromise
+me. You will know them by the <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4919" href="#xd0e4919">224</a>]</span>addresses.&#8221; And he tore open one drawer after another. Elias worked to better purpose, choosing here, rejecting there. Suddenly
+he stopped, his pupils dilated; he turned a paper over and over in his hand, then in a trembling voice he asked:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your family knew Don Pedro Eibarramendia?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He was my great-grandfather.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your great-grandfather?&#8221; repeated Elias, livid.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Ibarra mechanically, and totally unobservant of Elias. &#8220;The name was too long; we cut it.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Was he a Basque?&#8221; asked Elias slowly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes; but what ails you?&#8221; said Cris&oacute;stomo, looking round and recoiling before the hard face and clenched fists of Elias.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know who Don Pedro Eibarramendia was? Don Pedro Eibarramendia was the wretch who caused all our misfortune! I have
+long been searching for his descendants; God has delivered you into my hands! Look at me! Do you think I have suffered? And
+you live, and you love, and have a fortune and a home; you live, you live!&#8221; and, beside himself, he ran toward a collection
+of arms on the wall. But no sooner had he reached down two poniards than he dropped them, looking blindly at Ibarra, who stood
+rigid.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What was I going to do?&#8221; he said under his breath, and he fled like a madman.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4937" href="#xd0e4937">225</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch47" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XLVII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Catastrophe.</h2>
+<p>Captain Tiago, Aunt Isabel, and Linares were dining. Maria Clara had said she was not hungry, and was at the piano with Sinang.
+The two girls had arranged this moment for meeting Ibarra away from too watchful eyes. The clock struck eight.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s coming! Listen!&#8221; cried the laughing Sinang.
+
+</p>
+<p>He entered, white and sad. Maria Clara, in alarm, started toward him, but before any one could speak a fusilade sounded in
+the street; then random pistol shots, and cries and clamor. Cris&oacute;stomo seemed glued to the floor. The diners came running
+in crying: &#8220;The tulisanes! The tulisanes!&#8221; Aunt Isabel fell on her knees half dead from fright, Captain Tiago was weeping.
+Some one rushed about fastening the windows. The tumult continued outside; then little by little there fell a dreadful silence.
+Presently the alf&eacute;rez was heard crying out as he ran through the street:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Father Salvi! Father Salvi!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mercy!&#8221; exclaimed Aunt Isabel. &#8220;The alf&eacute;rez is asking for confession!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The alf&eacute;rez is wounded!&#8221; murmured Linares, with an expression of the utmost relief.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The tulisanes have killed the alf&eacute;rez! Maria, Sinang, into your chamber! Barricade the door!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>In spite of the protests of Aunt Isabel, Ibarra went out into the street. Everything seemed turning round and round him; his
+ears rang; he could scarcely move his limbs. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4959" href="#xd0e4959">226</a>]</span>Spots of blood, flashes of light and darkness alternated before his eyes. The streets were deserted, but the barracks were
+in confusion, and voices came from the tribunal, that of the alf&eacute;rez dominating all the others. Ibarra passed unchallenged,
+and reached his home, where his servants were anxiously watching for him.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Saddle me the best horse and go to bed,&#8221; he said to them.
+
+</p>
+<p>He entered his cabinet and began to pack a valise. He had put in his money and jewels and Maria&#8217;s picture and was gathering
+up his papers when there came three resounding knocks at the house door.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Open in the name of the King! Open or we force the door!&#8221; said an imperious voice. Ibarra armed himself and looked toward
+the window; then changed his mind, threw down his revolver, and went to the door. Three guards immediately seized him.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I make you prisoner in the name of the King!&#8221; said the sergeant.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will learn at the tribunal; I am forbidden to talk with you.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am at your disposition. It will not be for, I suppose, long.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If you promise not to try to escape us, we may leave your hands free; the alf&eacute;rez grants you that favor.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Cris&oacute;stomo took his hat and followed the guards, leaving his servants in consternation.
+
+</p>
+<p>Elias, after leaving the house of Ibarra, ran like a madman, not knowing whither. He crossed the fields and reached the wood.
+He was fleeing from men and their habitations; he was fleeing from light; the moon made him suffer. He buried himself in the
+mysterious silence of the wood. The birds stirred, wakened from their sleep; owls <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4981" href="#xd0e4981">227</a>]</span>flew from branch to branch, screeching or looking at him with great, round eyes. Elias did not see or hear them; he thought
+he was followed by the irate shades of his ancestors. From every branch hung the bleeding head of B&acirc;lat. At the foot of every
+tree he stumbled against the cold body of his grandmother; among the shadows swung the skeleton of his infamous grandfather;
+and the skeleton, the body, and the bleeding head cried out: &#8220;Coward! Coward!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He ran on. He left the mountain and went down to the lake, moving feverishly along the shore; his wandering eyes became fixed
+upon a point on the tranquil surface, and there, surrounded by a silver nimbus and rocked by the tide, stood a shade which
+he seemed to recognize. Yes, that was her hair, so long and beautiful; yes, that was her breast, gaping from the poniard stroke.
+And the wretched man, kneeling in the sand, stretched out his arms to the cherished vision:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Thou! Thou, too!&#8221; he cried.
+
+</p>
+<p>His eyes fixed on the apparition, he rose, entered the water and descended the gentle slope of the beach. Already he was far
+from the bank; the waves lapped his waist; but he went on fascinated. The water reached his breast. Did he know it? Suddenly
+a volley tore the air; the night was so calm that the rifle shots sounded clear and sharp. He stopped, listened, came to himself;
+the shade vanished; the dream was gone. He perceived that he was in the lake, level with his eyes across the tranquil water
+he saw the lights in the poor cabins of fishermen. Everything came back to him. He made for the shore and went rapidly toward
+the pueblo.
+
+</p>
+<p>San Diego was deserted; the houses were closed; even the dogs had hidden themselves. The glittering light that bathed everything
+detached the shadows boldly, making the solitude still more dreary.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4991" href="#xd0e4991">228</a>]</span></p>
+<p>Fearing to encounter the guards, Elias scaled fences and hedges, and so, making his way through the gardens, reached the home
+of Ibarra. The servants were around the door lamenting the arrest of their master. Elias learned what had happened, and made
+feint of going away, but returned to the back of the house, jumped the wall, climbed into a window and made his way to the
+laboratory. He saw the papers, the arms taken down, the bags of money and jewels, Maria&#8217;s picture, and had a vision of Ibarra
+surprised by the soldiers. He meditated a moment and decided to bury the things of value in the garden. He gathered them up,
+went to the window, and saw gleaming in the moonlight the casques and bayonets of the guard. His plans were quickly laid.
+He hid about his person the money and jewels, and, after an instant&#8217;s hesitation, the picture of Maria. Then, heaping all
+the papers in the middle of the room, he saturated them with oil from a lamp, threw the lighted candle in the midst, and sprang
+out of the window. It was none too soon: the guards were forcing entrance against the protests of the servants.
+
+</p>
+<p>But dense smoke made its way through the house and tongues of flame began to break out. Soldiers and servants together cried
+fire and rushed toward the cabinet, but the flames had reached the chemicals, and their explosion drove every one back. The
+water the servants could bring was useless, and the house stood so apart that their cries brought no aid. The flames leaped
+upward amid great spirals of smoke; the house, long respected by the elements, was now their prisoner.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e4996" href="#xd0e4996">229</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch48" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XLVIII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Gossip.</h2>
+<p>It was not yet dawn. The street in which were the barracks and tribunal was still deserted; none of its houses gave a sign
+of life. Suddenly the shutter of a window opened with a bang and a child&#8217;s head appeared, looking in all directions, the little
+neck stretched to its utmost&#8212;plas! It was the sound of a smart slap in contact with the fresh human skin. The child screwed
+up his face, shut his eyes, and disappeared from the window, which was violently closed again.
+
+</p>
+<p>But the example had been given: the two bangs of the shutter had been heard. Another window opened, this time with precaution,
+and the wrinkled and toothless head of an old woman looked stealthily out. It was Sister Put&aacute;, the old dame who had caused
+such a commotion during Father D&aacute;maso&#8217;s sermon. Children and old women are the representatives of curiosity in the world;
+the children want to know, the old women to live over again. The old sister stayed longer than the child, and gazed into the
+distance with contracted brows. Timidly a skylight opened in the house opposite, giving passage to the head and shoulders
+of sister Rufa. The two old women looked across at each other, smiled, exchanged gestures, and signed themselves.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Since the sack of the pueblo by B&acirc;lat I&#8217;ve not known such a night!&#8221; said Sister Put&aacute;.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a firing! They say it was the band of old Pablo.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Tulisanes? Impossible! I heard it was the cuadrilleros <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5012" href="#xd0e5012">230</a>]</span>against the guards; that&#8217;s why Don Filipo was arrested.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They say at least fourteen are dead.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Other windows opened and people were seen exchanging greetings and gossip.
+
+</p>
+<p>By the light of the dawn, which promised a splendid day, soldiers could now be seen dimly at the end of the street, like gray
+silhouettes coming and going.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know what it was?&#8221; asked a man, with a villainous face.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, the cuadrilleros.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, se&ntilde;or, a revolt!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What revolt? The curate against the alf&eacute;rez?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, no; nothing of that kind. It was an uprising of the Chinese.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The Chinese!&#8221; repeated all the listeners, with great disappointment.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s why we don&#8217;t see one!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They are all dead!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8212;I suspected they had something on foot!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I saw it, too. Last night&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What a pity they are all dead before Christmas!&#8221; cried Sister Rufa. &#8220;We shall not get their presents!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The streets began to show signs of life. First the dogs, pigs, and chickens began to circulate; then some little ragged boys,
+keeping hold of each other&#8217;s hands, ventured to approach the barracks. Two or three old women crept after them, their heads
+wrapt in handkerchiefs knotted under their chins, pretending to tell their beads, so as not to be driven back by the soldiers.
+When it was certain that one might come and go without risking a pistol shot, the men commenced to stroll out. Affecting indifference
+and stroking their cocks, they finally got as far as the tribunal.
+
+</p>
+<p>Every quarter hour a new version of the affair was circulated. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5046" href="#xd0e5046">231</a>]</span>Ibarra with his servants had tried to carry off Maria Clara, and in defending her, <span class="corr" id="xd0e5048" title="Source: Capain">Captain</span> Tiago had been wounded. The number of dead was no longer fourteen, but thirty. At half-past seven the version which received
+most credit was clear and detailed.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve just come from the tribunal,&#8221; said a passer, &#8220;where I saw Don Filipo and Don Cris&oacute;stomo prisoners. Well, Bruno, son
+of the man who was beaten to death, has confessed everything. You know, Captain Tiago is to marry his daughter to the young
+Spaniard. Don Cris&oacute;stomo wanted revenge, and planned to massacre all the Spaniards. His band attacked the convent and the
+barracks. They say many of them escaped. The guards burned Don Cris&oacute;stomo&#8217;s house, and if he hadn&#8217;t been arrested, they would
+have burned him, too.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;They burned the house?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You can still see the smoke from here,&#8221; said the narrator.
+
+</p>
+<p>Everybody looked: a column of smoke was rising against the sky. Then the comments began, some pitying, some accusing.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Poor young man!&#8221; cried the husband of Sister Put&aacute;.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What!&#8221; cried the sister. &#8220;You are ready to defend a man that heaven has so plainly punished? You&#8217;ll find yourself arrested
+too. You uphold a falling house!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The husband was silent; the argument had told.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; went on the old woman. &#8220;After striking down Father D&aacute;maso, there was nothing left but to kill Father Salvi!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But you can&#8217;t deny he was a good child.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, he was good,&#8221; replied the old woman; &#8220;but he went to Europe, and those who go to Europe come back heretics, the curates
+say.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oho!&#8221; said the husband, taking his advantage. &#8220;And <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5073" href="#xd0e5073">232</a>]</span>the curate, and all the curates, and the archbishop, and the pope, aren&#8217;t they all Spaniards? What? And are they heretics?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Happily for Sister Put&aacute;, the conversation was cut short. A servant came running, pale and horror-stricken.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A man hung&#8212;in our neighbor&#8217;s garden!&#8221; she gasped.
+
+</p>
+<p>A man hung! Nobody stirred.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s come and see,&#8221; said the old man, rising.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t go near him,&#8221; cried Sister Put&aacute;, &#8220;&#8217;twill bring us misfortune. If he&#8217;s hung, so much the worse for him!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let me see him, woman. You, Juan, go and inform them at the tribunal; he may not be dead.&#8221; And the old man went off, the
+women, even Sister Put&aacute;, following at a distance, full of fear, but also of curiosity.
+
+</p>
+<p>Hanging from the branch of a sandal tree in the garden a human body met their gaze. The brave man examined it.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We must wait for the authorities; he&#8217;s been dead a long time,&#8221; he said.
+
+</p>
+<p>Little by little the women drew near.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the new neighbor,&#8221; they whispered. &#8220;See the scar on his face?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>In half an hour the authorities arrived.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;People are in a great hurry to die!&#8221; said the directorcillo, cocking his pen behind his ear, and he began his investigation.
+
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile a peasant wearing a great salakat on his head and having his neck muffled was examining the body and the cord. He
+noticed several evidences that the man was dead before he was hung. The curious countryman noticed also that the clothing
+seemed recently torn and was covered with dust.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you looking at?&#8221; demanded the directorcillo, who had gathered all his evidence.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I was looking, se&ntilde;or, to see if I knew him,&#8221; stammered <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5105" href="#xd0e5105">233</a>]</span>the man, half uncovering, in which he managed to lower his salakat even farther over his eyes.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But didn&#8217;t you hear that it is a certain Jos&eacute;? You must be asleep!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Everybody laughed. The confused countryman stammered something else and went away. When he had reached a safe distance, he
+took off his disguise and resumed the stature and gait of Elias.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5111" href="#xd0e5111">234</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch49" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">XLIX.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">V&aelig; Victis.</h2>
+<p>With threatening air the guards marched back and forth before the door of the town hall, menacing with the butt of their rifles
+intrepid small boys, who came and raised themselves on tiptoe to see through the gratings.
+
+</p>
+<p>The court room had not the same appearance as the day of the discussion of the f&ecirc;te. The guards and the cuadrilleros spoke
+low; the alf&eacute;rez paced the room, looking angrily at the door from time to time. In a corner yawned Do&ntilde;a Consolacion, her steely
+eyes riveted on the door leading into the prison. The arm-chair under the picture of His Majesty was empty.
+
+</p>
+<p>It was almost nine o&#8217;clock when the curate arrived.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said the alf&eacute;rez, &#8220;you haven&#8217;t kept us waiting!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I did not wish to be here,&#8221; said the curate, ignoring the tone of the alf&eacute;rez. &#8220;I am very nervous.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I thought it best to wait for you,&#8221; said the alf&eacute;rez. &#8220;We have eight here,&#8221; he went on, pointing toward the door of the prison;
+&#8220;the one called Bruno died in the night. Are you ready to examine the two unknown prisoners?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The curate sat down in the arm-chair.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Let us go on,&#8221; he said.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bring out the two in the cepo!&#8221; ordered the alf&eacute;rez in as terrible a voice as he could command. Then turning to the curate:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We skipped two holes.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>For the benefit of those not acquainted with the instruments <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5139" href="#xd0e5139">235</a>]</span>of torture of the Philippines, we will say that the cepo, a form of stocks, is one of the most innocent; but by skipping enough
+holes, the position is made most trying. It is, however, a torture that can be long endured.
+
+</p>
+<p>The jailor drew the bolt and opened the door. A sickening odor escaped, and a match lighted by one of the guards went out
+in the vitiated air; when it was possible to take in a candle, one could see dimly, from the rooms outside, the forms of men
+crouching or standing. The cepo was opened.
+
+</p>
+<p>A dark figure came out between two soldiers; it was T&aacute;rsilo, the brother of Bruno. His torn clothing let his splendid muscles
+show. The other prisoner brought out was weeping and lamenting.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is your name?&#8221; the alf&eacute;rez demanded of T&aacute;rsilo.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;T&aacute;rsilo Alasigan.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What did Don Cris&oacute;stomo promise you for attacking the convent?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have never had any communication with Don Cris&oacute;stomo.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t attempt to deny it: what other reason had you for joining the conspiracy?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You had killed our father, we wished to avenge him, nothing more. Go find two of your guards. They&#8217;re at the foot of the
+precipice, where we threw them. You may kill me now, you will learn nothing more.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>There was silence and general surprise.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You will name your accomplices,&#8221; cried the alf&eacute;rez, brandishing his cane.
+
+</p>
+<p>The accused man smiled disdainfully. The alf&eacute;rez talked apart with the curate.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Take him where the bodies are,&#8221; he ordered.
+
+</p>
+<p>In a corner of the patio, on an old cart, five bodies were heaped under a piece of soiled matting.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5167" href="#xd0e5167">236</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know them?&#8221; asked the alf&eacute;rez, lifting the covering. T&aacute;rsilo did not reply. He saw the body of Sisa&#8217;s husband, and
+that of his brother, pierced through with bayonet strokes. His face grew darker, and a great sigh escaped him; but he was
+mute.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Beat him till he confesses or dies!&#8221; cried the exasperated alf&eacute;rez.
+
+</p>
+<p>They led him back where the other prisoner, with chattering teeth, was invoking the saints.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know this man?&#8221; demanded Father Salvi.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I never saw him before,&#8221; replied T&aacute;rsilo, looking at the poor wretch with faint compassion.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Fasten him to the bench; gag him!&#8221; ordered the alf&eacute;rez, trembling with rage. When this was done, a guard began his sad task.
+
+</p>
+<p>Father Salvi, pale and haggard, rose trembling, and left the tribunal. In the street he saw a girl, leaning against the wall,
+rigid, motionless, her eyes far away. The sun shone full down on her. She seemed not to breathe but to count, one after another,
+the muffled blows inside. It was T&aacute;rsilo&#8217;s sister.
+
+</p>
+<p>The torture continued until the soldier, breathless, let his arm fall, and the alf&eacute;rez ordered his victim released. But T&aacute;rsilo
+still refused to speak. Then Do&ntilde;a Consolacion whispered in her husband&#8217;s ear; he nodded.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To the well with him!&#8221; he said.
+
+</p>
+<p>The Filipinos know what that means. In Tagalo it is called timba&icirc;n. We do not know who invented this judiciary process, but
+it must belong to antiquity. Truth coming out of a well is perhaps a sarcastic interpretation.
+
+</p>
+<p>In the middle of the patio of the tribunal was a picturesque well curb of uncut stones. It had a rustic crank of bamboo; its
+water was slimy and putrid. All sorts of refuse had been thrown around it and in it.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5190" href="#xd0e5190">237</a>]</span></p>
+<p>Toward this T&aacute;rsilo was led. He was very pale, and his lips trembled, if he was not praying. The pride he had shown appeared
+now to be crushed out; he seemed resigned to suffer. The poor wretch looked enviously at the pile of bodies, and sighed heavily.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Speak then!&#8221; said the directorcillo. &#8220;You will be hung anyway. Why not die without so much suffering?&#8221; But T&aacute;rsilo remained
+mute.
+
+</p>
+<p>When the well was reached, they bound his feet. He was to be let down head foremost. He was fastened to the curb; the crank
+turned, and his body disappeared. The alf&eacute;rez noted the seconds with his watch. At the signal the body was drawn up, too pitiable
+to describe; but T&aacute;rsilo was still mute. Again he was let down, again he refused to speak; when he was drawn up the third
+time, he no longer breathed.
+
+</p>
+<p>His torturers looked at each other in consternation. The alf&eacute;rez ordered the body taken down, and they all examined it for
+signs of life; but there were none.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;See,&#8221; said a cuadrillero, at last, &#8220;he has strangled himself with his tongue!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Put the body with the others,&#8221; ordered the alf&eacute;rez nervously. &#8220;We must examine the other unknown prisoner.&#8221;
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5203" href="#xd0e5203">238</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch50" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">L.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Accurst.</h2>
+<p>The news spread that the prisoners were to be taken to the capital, and members of their families ran wildly from convent
+to barracks, from barracks to tribunal, but found no consolation anywhere. The curate was said to be ill. The guards dealt
+roughly with the supplicating women, and the gobernadorcillo was more useless than ever. The friends of the accused, therefore,
+had collected near the prison, waiting for them to be brought out. Doray, Don Filipo&#8217;s young wife, wandered back and forth,
+her child in her arms, both crying. The Capitana Tinay called on her son Antonio, and brave Capitana Maria watched the grating
+behind which were her twins, her only children.
+
+</p>
+<p>At two in the afternoon, an uncovered cart drawn by two oxen stopped in front of the tribunal. It was surrounded, and there
+were loud threats of breaking it.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t do that!&#8221; cried Capitana Maria; &#8220;do you wish them to go on foot?&#8221; In a few moments, twenty soldiers came out and surrounded
+the ox-cart; then the prisoners appeared. The first was Don Filipo, who smiled at his wife. Doray responded by bitter sobs,
+and would have rushed to her husband, had not the guards held her back. The son of Capitana Tinay was crying like a child,
+which did not help to check the lamentations of his family. The twins were calm and grave. Ibarra came last. He walked between
+two guards, his hand free; his eyes sought on all sides for a friendly face.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5215" href="#xd0e5215">239</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;He is the guilty one!&#8221; cried numerous voices. &#8220;He is the guilty one, and his hands are unbound!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bind my arms,&#8221; said Ibarra to his guards.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We have no orders.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bind me!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The soldiers obeyed.
+
+</p>
+<p>The alf&eacute;rez appeared on horseback, armed to the teeth, and followed by an escort of soldiers. The prisoners&#8217; friends saluted
+them with affectionate words; only Ibarra was friendless.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What has my husband done to you?&#8221; sobbed Doray. &#8220;See my child; you have robbed him of his father!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Grief began to turn to hate against the man who was said to have provoked the uprising.
+
+</p>
+<p>The alf&eacute;rez gave the order to start.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Coward!&#8221; cried a woman, as the cart moved off. &#8220;While the others fought, you were in hiding! Coward!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Curses on you!&#8221; cried an old man, running after. &#8220;Cursed be the gold heaped up by your family to take away our peace. Accurst!
+accurst!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;May you be hung, heretic!&#8221; cried a woman, picking up a stone and throwing it after him. Her example was promptly followed,
+and a shower of dust and pebbles beat against the unhappy man. Cris&oacute;stomo bore this injustice without a sign. It was the farewell
+of his beloved country. He bent his head and sat motionless. Perhaps he was thinking of a man beaten in the pueblo streets;
+perhaps of the body of a girl, washed up by the waves.
+
+</p>
+<p>The alf&eacute;rez felt obliged to drive away the crowd, but stones did not cease to fall, nor insult to sound. One mother only did
+not curse Ibarra; the Capitana Maria watched her sons go, with compressed lips and eyes full of silent tears.
+
+</p>
+<p>Of all the people in the open windows as he passed, none <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5244" href="#xd0e5244">240</a>]</span>but the indifferent and curious showed Ibarra the least compassion. All his friends had deserted him, even Captain Basilio,
+who had forbidden Sinang to weep. When Cris&oacute;stomo passed the smoking ruins of his home, that home where he was born, and spent
+his happy childhood and youth, the tears, long repressed, gushed from his eyes, and bound as he was, he had to experience
+the bitterness of showing a grief that could not rouse the slightest sympathy.
+
+</p>
+<p>From a hill, an old man, pale and thin, wrapped in a mantle, and leaning on a stick, watched the sad procession. At the news
+of what had happened, old Tasio had left his bed, and tried to go to the pueblo, but his strength had failed him. He followed
+the cart with his eyes, until it disappeared in the distance. Then, after resting a while in thought, he got up painfully,
+and started toward his home, halting for breath at almost every step. The next day some shepherds found him dead under the
+shadow of his solitary house.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5248" href="#xd0e5248">241</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch51" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">LI.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Patriotism and Interest.</h2>
+<p>The telegraph had secretly transmitted to Manila the news of the uprising, and thirty-six hours later, the newspapers, their
+accounts expanded, corrected, and mutilated by the attorney-general, talked about it with much mystery and no little menace.
+Meanwhile the private accounts, coming out of the convents, had gone from mouth to mouth, to the great alarm of those who
+heard them. The fact, distorted in countless versions, was accepted as true with more or less readiness, according to its
+fitness to the passions and ideas of the different hearers.
+
+</p>
+<p>Though public tranquillity was not disturbed, the peace of the hearthstones became like that of a fish-pond, all on top; underneath
+was commotion. Crosses, gold lace, office, power, honors of all kinds began to hover over one part of the population, like
+butterflies in a golden sunshine. For the others a dark cloud rose on the horizon, and against this ashy background stood
+in relief bars, chains, and the fateful arms of the gibbet. Destiny presented the event to the Manila imagination, like certain
+Chinese fans: one face painted black, the other gilded, and gorgeous with birds and flowers.
+
+</p>
+<p>There was great agitation in the convents. The provincials ordered their carriages, and held secret conferences; then presented
+themselves at the palace, to offer their support to the imperiled government.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A Te Deum, a Te Deum!&#8221; said a monk in one convent. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5262" href="#xd0e5262">242</a>]</span>&#8220;Through the goodness of God, our worth is made manifest in these perilous times!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;This petty general, this prophet of evil, will gnaw his moustaches after this little lesson,&#8221; said another.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What would have become of him without the religious orders?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The papers almost go to the point of demanding a mitre for Brother Salvi.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And he will get it! He&#8217;s consumed with desire for it!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you think so?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why shouldn&#8217;t he be? In these days mitres are given for the asking.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If mitres had eyes, and could see on what craniums&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>We spare our readers other comments of this nature. Let us enter the home of a private citizen, and as we know few people
+at Manila, we will knock at the door of Captain Tinong, the friendly and hospitable gentleman whom we saw inviting Ibarra,
+with so much insistence, to honor his house with a visit.
+
+</p>
+<p>In his rich and spacious drawing-room, at Tondo, Captain Tinong is seated in a great arm-chair, passing his hand despairingly
+across his brow; while his weeping wife, the Capitana Tinchang, reads him a sermon, listened to by their two daughters, who
+are seated in a corner, mute with stupefaction.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, Virgin of Antipolo!&#8221; cried the wife. &#8220;Ah, Virgin of the Rosary; I told you so! I told you so! Ah, Virgin of Carmel! Ah!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why, no! You didn&#8217;t tell me anything,&#8221; Captain Tinong finally ventured to reply. &#8220;On the contrary, you said I did well to
+keep up the friendship with Captain Tiago, and to go to his house, because&#8212;because he was rich; and you said&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5286" href="#xd0e5286">243</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;What did I say? I didn&#8217;t say it! I didn&#8217;t say anything! Ah, if you had listened to me!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Now you throw the blame back on me!&#8221; said the captain bitterly, striking the arm of his chair with his fist. &#8220;Didn&#8217;t you
+say I did well to invite him to dinner, because, as he was rich&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is true I said that, because&#8212;because it couldn&#8217;t be helped; you had already invited him; and you did nothing but praise
+him. Don Ibarra here, and Don Ibarra there, and Don Ibarra on all sides. But I didn&#8217;t advise you to see him or to speak to
+him at the dinner. That you cannot deny!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Did I know, for instance, that he was to be there?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You ought to have known it!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;How, if I wasn&#8217;t even acquainted with him?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You ought to have been acquainted with him!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But, Tinchang, if it was the first time I had ever seen him or heard him spoken of?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You ought to have seen him before, you ought to have heard him spoken of; that&#8217;s what you are a man for! And now, you will
+be sent into exile, our goods will be confiscated&#8212;&#8212;Oh, if I were a man! if I were a man!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And if you were a man,&#8221; asked the vexed husband, &#8220;what would you do?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What? Why, to-day, this very day, I should present myself to the captain-general, and offer to fight against the rebels,
+this very day!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But didn&#8217;t you read what the Diario says? Listen! &#8216;The infamous and abortive treason has been repressed with energy, force,
+and vigor, and the rebellious enemies of the country and their accomplices will promptly feel all the weight and all the severity
+of the laws!&#8217; You see, there is no rebellion!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That makes no difference, you should present yourself; many did it in 1872, and so nobody harmed them.&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5313" href="#xd0e5313">244</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes! it was done also by Father Bug&#8212;&#8212;&#8221; But his wife&#8217;s hands were over his mouth.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Say it! Speak that name, so you may be hung to-morrow at Bagumbayan! Don&#8217;t you know it is enough to get you executed without
+so much as a trial? Go on, say it!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>But though Captain Tinong had wished, he couldn&#8217;t have done it. His wife held his mouth with both her hands, squeezing his
+little head against the back of the chair. Perhaps the poor man would have died of asphyxia, had not a new person come on
+the stage.
+
+</p>
+<p>It was their cousin, Don Primitivo, who knew Amat by heart; a man of forty, large and corpulent, and dressed with the utmost
+care.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Quid video?&#8221; he cried, upon entering; &#8220;what is going on?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah, cousin!&#8221; said the wife, weeping, and running to him, &#8220;I had you sent for, for I don&#8217;t know what will become of us! What
+do you advise&#8212;you who have studied Latin and understand reasoning&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But <span lang="la">quid qu&aelig;ritis? Nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in sensu</span>.&#8221; And he sat down sedately. The Latin phrases seemed to have a tranquillizing effect; the husband and wife ceased to lament,
+and came nearer, awaiting the counsel of their cousin&#8217;s lips, as once the Greeks awaited the saving phrase of the oracle.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Why are you mourning? <span lang="la">Ubinam gentium sumus?</span>&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You know the story of the uprising&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, what of it? Don Cris&oacute;stomo owes you?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No! but do you know that Tinong invited him to dinner, and that he bowed to him on the bridge&#8212;&#8212;in the middle of the day?
+They will say he was a friend of ours!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Friend?&#8221; cried the Latin, in alarm, rising; &#8220;tell me who your friends are, and I&#8217;ll tell you who you are yourself! <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5344" href="#xd0e5344">245</a>]</span><span lang="la">Malum est negotium et est timendum rerum istarum horrendissimum resultatum. Hum!</span>&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>So many words in um terrified Captain Tinong. He became frightfully pale. His wife joined her hands in supplication.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Cousin, you speak to us now in Latin, but you know we haven&#8217;t studied philosophy like you. Speak to us in Tagal or Castilian;
+give us your advice.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is deplorable that you do not know Latin, my cousin: Latin verities are lies in Tagalo. <span lang="la">Contra principi negantem fustibus est arguendum</span>, is, in Latin, a truth as veritable as Noah&#8217;s ark. I once put it in practice in Tagalo, and it was I who got beaten. It is
+indeed a misfortune that you do not know Latin! In Latin it might all be arranged. You have done wrong, very wrong, cousins,
+to make friends with this young man. The just pay the dues of sinners. I feel almost like advising you to make your will!&#8221;
+and he moved his head gloomily from side to side.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Saturnino, what ails you?&#8221; cried Capitana Tinchang, terrified. &#8220;Ah! Heaven! he is dead! A doctor! Tinong, Tinongy!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He has only fainted, cousin; bring some water.&#8221; Don Primitivo sprinkled his face, and the unfortunate man revived.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Come, come! don&#8217;t weep! I&#8217;ve found a remedy. Put him in bed. Come, come! courage! I am with you, and all the wisdom of the
+ancients! Call a doctor, and this very day, cousin, go present yourself to the captain-general, and take him a present, a
+gold chain, a ring; say it&#8217;s a Christmas present. Shut the windows and doors, and if any one asks for your husband, say he
+is seriously ill. Meanwhile I&#8217;ll burn all the letters, papers, and books, as Don Cris&oacute;stomo did. Scripti testes sunt! Go on
+to the captain&#8217;s. Leave me to myself. In extremis extrema. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5363" href="#xd0e5363">246</a>]</span>Give me the power of a Roman dictator, and see whether I save the coun&#8212;What am I saying&#8212;the cousin!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He commenced to upset the shelves of the library, and tear papers and letters. Then he lighted a fire on the kitchen hearth,
+and the <i>auto-da-f&eacute;</i> began. &#8220;&#8216;Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres,&#8217; by Copernicus. Whew! <span lang="la">ite, maledicte, in ignem kalanis!</span>&#8221; he cried, throwing it to the flames. &#8220;Revolution and Copernicus! Crime upon crime! If I don&#8217;t get through soon enough! &#8216;Liberty
+in the Philippines!&#8217; What books! Into the fire with them!&#8221; The most innocent works did not escape the common fate. Cousin
+Primitivo was right. The just pay for sinners.
+
+</p>
+<p>Four or five hours later, at a fashionable gathering, the events of the day were being discussed. There were present a number
+of elderly married ladies and spinsters, together with the wives and daughters of clerks of the <span class="corr" id="xd0e5375" title="Source: adminstration">administration</span>, all in European costume, fanning and yawning. Among the men, who, by their manners, showed their position, as did the women,
+was a man advanced in age, small and one-armed, who was treated with distinction, and who kept a reserved distance.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I could never before suffer the monks and civil guards, because of their want of manners,&#8221; a portly lady was saying, &#8220;but
+now that I see of what service they are, I could almost marry one of them. I am patriotic.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am of the very same mind,&#8221; said a very prim spinster. &#8220;But what a pity the former governor isn&#8217;t with us!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He would put an end to the race of filibusterillos!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t they say there are many islands yet uninhabited?<span class="corr" id="xd0e5386" title="Not in source">&#8221;</span>
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If I were the captain-general&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;<span class="corr" id="xd0e5393" title="Source: Senoras">Se&ntilde;oras</span>,&#8221; said the one-armed man, &#8220;the captain-general knows his duty. I understand he is greatly irritated, for he had loaded this
+Ibarra with favors.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Loaded him with favors!&#8221; repeated the slim gentlewoman, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5398" href="#xd0e5398">247</a>]</span>fanning furiously. &#8220;What ingrates these Indians are! Is it possible to treat them like human beings?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know what I&#8217;ve heard?&#8221; asked an officer.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No! What is it? What do they say?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;People worthy of confidence say that all this noise about building a school was a pure pretext; what he meant to make was
+a fort for his own defence when he had been attacked.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What infamy! Would any one but an Indian be capable of it?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But they say this filibustero is the son of a Spaniard,&#8221; said the one-armed man, without looking at anybody.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There it is again,&#8221; cried the portly lady; &#8220;always these creoles! No Indian understands anything about revolution. Train
+crows, and they&#8217;ll pick your eyes out!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know what I&#8217;ve heard?&#8221; asked a pretty creole, to turn the conversation. &#8220;The wife of Captain Tinong&#8212;you remember?
+We danced and dined at his house at the f&ecirc;te of Tondo&#8212;well, the wife of Captain Tinong gave the captain-general, this afternoon,
+a ring worth a thousand pesos. She said it was a Christmas present.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Christmas doesn&#8217;t come for a month.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She must have feared a downpour,&#8221; said the stout lady.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And so got under cover,&#8221; said the slim.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That is evident,&#8221; said the one-armed man, thoughtfully. &#8220;I fear there is something back of this.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I also,&#8221; said the portly lady. &#8220;The wife of Captain Tinong is very parsimonious&#8212;she has never sent us presents, though we
+have been to her house. When such a person lets slip a little present of a thousand little pesos&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But is it certain?&#8221; demanded the one-armed man.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Absolutely! His excellency&#8217;s aide-de-camp told my cousin, to whom he is engaged. I&#8217;m tempted to believe it&#8217;s <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5428" href="#xd0e5428">248</a>]</span>a ring she wore the day of the f&ecirc;te. She&#8217;s always covered with diamonds.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s one way of advertising! Instead of buying a lay-figure or renting a shop&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The one-armed man found a pretext for leaving.
+
+</p>
+<p>Two hours later, when all the city was asleep, certain inhabitants of Tondo received an invitation through the medium of soldiers.
+Authority could not permit people of position and property to sleep in houses so ill guarded. In the fortress of Santiago,
+and in other government buildings, their sleep would be more tranquil and refreshing. Among these people was the unfortunate
+Captain Tinong.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5436" href="#xd0e5436">249</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch52" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">LII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Maria Clara Marries.</h2>
+<p>Captain Tiago was very happy. During these troublous times, no one had paid any attention to him. He had not been arrested,
+he had not been subjected to cross-examination, to electrical machines, to repeated foot-baths in subterranean habitations,
+nor to any other of these pleasantries, well known to certain people who call themselves civilized. His friends, that is to
+say, those who had been&#8212;for he had repudiated his Filipino friends as soon as they had become suspects in the eyes of the
+Government&#8212;had returned home after several days of vacation in the edifices of the State. The captain-general had ordered
+them out of his possessions, to the great displeasure of the one-armed man, who would have liked to celebrate the approaching
+Christmas in so numerous a company of the rich.
+
+</p>
+<p>Captain Tinong returned to his home, ill, pale, another man. The excursion had not been for his good. He said nothing, not
+even to greet his family, who laughed and wept over him, mad with joy. The poor man no longer left the house, for fear of
+saluting a filibuster. Cousin Primitivo himself, with all the wisdom of the ancients, could not draw him out of his mutism.
+
+</p>
+<p>Stories like that of Captain Tinong&#8217;s were numerous, and Captain Tiago was not ignorant of them. He overflowed with gratitude,
+without knowing exactly to whom he owed these signal favors. Aunt Isabel attributed the miracle to the Virgin of Antipolo.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5448" href="#xd0e5448">250</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I too, Isabel,&#8221; said Captain Tiago, &#8220;but the Virgin of Antipolo has probably not done it alone; my friends have helped, and
+my future son-in-law, Se&ntilde;or Linares.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>It was whispered that Ibarra would be hung; that in spite of lack of proofs of his guilt, one thing had been found that confirmed
+the accusation; the experts had declared the school was so designed that it might pass for a rampart, faulty enough, to be
+sure, but what one might expect of ignorant Indians.
+
+</p>
+<p>In the midst of affairs, Do&ntilde;a Victorina, Don Tiburcio, and Linares arrived. As usual, Do&ntilde;a Victorina talked for the three
+men and herself; and her speech had undergone a remarkable change. She now claimed to have naturalized herself an Andalusian
+by suppressing d&#8217;s and replacing the sound of s by that of z. No one had been able to get the idea out of her head; one would
+certainly have needed to get her frizzes off the outside first. She talked of visits of Linares to the captain-general, and
+made continual insinuations as to advantages a relative of position would bring.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;As we say,&#8221; she concluded, &#8220;he who sleeps in a good shade, leans on a good staff.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s&#8212;it&#8217;s the opposite, wife.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara was yet pale, though she had almost recovered from her illness. She kissed Do&ntilde;a Victorina, smiling rather sadly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have been saved, thanks to your connections!&#8221; said the doctora, with a significant look toward Linares.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;God has protected my father,&#8221; said Maria, in a low voice.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Clarita, but the time of miracles is past. We, the Spaniards say, trust not in the Virgin, and save yourself by running.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s&#8212;it&#8217;s&#8212;the contrary, wife!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We must talk business,&#8221; said Do&ntilde;a Victorina, glancing <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5471" href="#xd0e5471">251</a>]</span>at Maria. Maria found a pretext for leaving, and went out, steadying herself by the furniture.
+
+</p>
+<p>What was said in this conference was so sordid and mean, that we prefer not to report it. Suffice it to say that when they
+parted, they were all satisfied. Captain Tiago said a little after to Aunt Isabel:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Have the caterer notified that we give a reception to-morrow. Maria must get ready for her marriage at once. When Se&ntilde;or Linares
+is our son-in-law, all the palaces will be open to us; and every one will die of envy.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>And so, toward eight o&#8217;clock the next evening, the house of Captain Tiago was once more full. This time, however, he had invited
+only Spaniards, peninsular and Philippine, and Chinese. Yet many of our acquaintances were there. Father Sibyla and Father
+Salvi, among numerous Franciscans and Dominicans; the old lieutenant of the Municipal Guard, more sombre than ever; the alf&eacute;rez,
+recounting his victory for the thousandth time, looking over the heads of everybody, now that he is lieutenant with grade
+of commandant; Dr. Espada&ntilde;a, who looks upon him with respect and fear, and avoids his glance; Do&ntilde;a Victorina, who cannot see
+him without anger. Linares had not yet arrived; as a person of importance, he must arouse expectation. There are beings so
+simple, that an hour&#8217;s waiting for a man suffices to make him great in their eyes.
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria Clara was the object of interest to all the women, and the subject of unveiled comments. She had received these ceremoniously,
+without losing her air of sadness.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bah! the proud little thing!&#8221; said one.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Rather pretty,&#8221; said another, &#8220;but he might have chosen some one with a more intelligent face.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But the money, my dear! The good fellow is selling himself.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>In another group some one was saying:
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5489" href="#xd0e5489">252</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;To marry when one&#8217;s first fianc&eacute; is going to be hung!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;That is what is called prudent; having a substitute at hand.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then, when one becomes a widow&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Possibly some of these remarks reached the ears of Maria Clara. She grew paler, her hand trembled, her lips seemed to move.
+
+</p>
+<p>In the circles of men the talk was loud, and naturally the recent events were the subject of conversation. Everybody talked,
+even Don Tiburcio.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I hear that your reverence is about to leave the pueblo,&#8221; said the new lieutenant, whom his new star had made more amiable.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have no more to do there; I am to be placed permanently at Manila. And you?&#8221; asked Father Salvi.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I also leave the pueblo,&#8221; said he, throwing back his shoulders; &#8220;I am going with a flying column to rid the province of filibusters.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Father Salvi surveyed his old enemy from top to toe, and turned away with a disdainful smile.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Is it known certainly what is to be done with the chief filibuster?&#8221; asked a clerk.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are speaking of Don Cris&oacute;stomo Ibarra,&#8221; replied another. &#8220;It is very probable that he will be hung, like those of 1872,
+and it will be very just.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He is to be exiled,&#8221; said the old lieutenant dryly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Exile! Nothing but exile?&#8221; cried numerous voices at once. &#8220;Then it must be for life!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If the young man had been more prudent,&#8221; went on Lieutenant Guevara, speaking so that all might hear, &#8220;if he had confided
+less in certain persons to whom he wrote, if our attorney-generals did not interpret too subtly what they read, it is certain
+he would have been released.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>This declaration of the old lieutenant&#8217;s, and the tone of <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5520" href="#xd0e5520">253</a>]</span>his voice, produced a great surprise among his auditors. No one knew what to say. Father Salvi looked away, perhaps to avoid
+the dark look the lieutenant gave him. Maria Clara dropped some flowers she had in her hand, and became a statue. Father Sibyla,
+who knew when to be silent, seemed the only one who knew how to question.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You speak of letters, Se&ntilde;or Guevara.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I speak of what I am told by Don Cris&oacute;stomo&#8217;s advocate, who is greatly interested in his case, and defended him with zeal.
+Outside of a few ambiguous lines in a letter addressed to a woman before he left for Europe, in which the procurator found
+a project against the Government, and which the young man acknowledged as his, there was no evidence against him.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And the declaration made by the tulisan before he died?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The defence destroyed that testimony. According to the witness himself, none of them had any communication with Ibarra, except
+one named Jos&eacute;, who was his enemy, as was proven, and who afterward committed suicide, probably from remorse. It was shown
+that the papers found on his body were forgeries, for the writing was like Ibarra&#8217;s seven years ago, but not like his hand
+of to-day. For this it was supposed that the accusing letter served as a model.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You tell us,&#8221; said a Franciscan, &#8220;that Ibarra addressed this letter to a woman. How did it come into the hands of the attorney-general?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The lieutenant did not reply. He looked a moment at Father Salvi, and moved off, twisting the point of his gray beard. The
+others continued to discuss the matter.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Even women seem to have hated him,&#8221; said one.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He burned his house, thinking to save himself, but he counted without his hostess!&#8221; said another, laughing.
+
+</p>
+<p>Meanwhile the old soldier approached Maria Clara. She <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5540" href="#xd0e5540">254</a>]</span>had heard the whole conversation, sitting motionless, the flowers lying at her feet.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are a prudent young woman,&#8221; he said in a low voice; &#8220;by giving over the letter, you assured yourself a peaceful future.&#8221;
+And he moved on, leaving Maria with blank eyes and a face rigid. Fortunately Aunt Isabel passed. Maria had strength to take
+her by the dress.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is the matter?&#8221; cried the old lady, terrified at the face of her niece. &#8220;You are ill, my child. You are ready to faint.
+What is it?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My heart&#8212;it&#8217;s the crowd&#8212;so much light&#8212;I must rest. Tell my father I&#8217;ve gone to rest,&#8221; and steadying herself by her aunt&#8217;s
+arm, she went to her room.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are cold! Do you want some tea?&#8221; asked Aunt Isabel at the door.
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria shook her head. &#8220;Go back, dear aunt, I only need to rest,&#8221; she said. She locked the door of her little room, and at
+the end of her strength, threw herself down before a statue, sobbing:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother, mother, my mother!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The moonlight came in through the window, and through the door leading to the balcony. The joyous music of the dance, peals
+of laughter and the hum of conversation, made their way to the chamber. Many times they knocked at her door&#8212;her father, her
+aunt, Do&ntilde;a Victorina, even Linares. Maria did not move or speak; now and then a hoarse sob escaped her.
+
+</p>
+<p>Hours passed. After the feast had come the ball. Maria&#8217;s candle had burned out, and she lay in the moonlight at the foot of
+the statue. She had not moved. Little by little the house became quiet. Aunt Isabel came to knock once again at the door.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She must have gone to bed,&#8221; the old lady called back to her brother. &#8220;At her age one sleeps like the dead.&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5560" href="#xd0e5560">255</a>]</span></p>
+<p>When all was still again, Maria rose slowly, and looked out on the terrace with its vines bathed in the white moonlight.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A peaceful future!&#8212;Sleep like the dead!&#8221; she said aloud; and she went out.
+
+</p>
+<p>The city was mute; only now and then a carriage could be heard crossing the wooden bridge. The girl raised her eyes toward
+the sky; then slowly she took off her rings, the pendants in her ears, the comb and jewelled pins in her hair, and put them
+on the balustrade of the terrace; then she looked toward the river.
+
+</p>
+<p>A little bark, loaded with zacate, drew up to the landing-place below the terrace. One of the two men in it climbed the stone
+steps, sprang over the wall, and in a moment was mounting the stairway of the terrace. At sight of Maria, he stopped, then
+approached slowly.
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria drew back.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Cris&oacute;stomo!&#8221; she said, speaking low. She was terrified.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I am Cris&oacute;stomo,&#8221; replied the young man gravely. &#8220;An enemy, a man who has reason to hate me, Elias, has rescued me from
+the prison where my friends put me.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>A sad silence followed his words. Maria Clara bent her head. Ibarra went on:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;By the dead body of my mother, I pledged myself, whatever my future, to try to make you happy. I have risked all that remains
+to me, to come and fulfil that promise. Chance lets me speak to you, Maria; we shall never see each other again. You are young
+now; some day your conscience may upbraid you. Before I go away forever, I have come to say that I forgive you. Be happy&#8212;farewell!&#8221;
+And he began to move away; she held him back.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Cris&oacute;stomo!&#8221; she said, &#8220;God has sent you to save me from despair. Listen and judge me!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra tried gently to release himself.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5583" href="#xd0e5583">256</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;I did not come to call you to account; I came to bring you peace.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I want none of the peace you bring me. I shall find peace for myself. You scorn me and your scorn will make even death bitter.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He saw despair in her poor, young face, and asked what she wished.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I wish you to believe that I have always loved you.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He smiled bitterly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Ah! you doubt me! you doubt your childhood&#8217;s friend, who has never hidden a single thought from you! When you know my history,
+the sad story that was told me in my illness, you will pity me; you will no longer wear that smile. Why did they not let me
+die in the hands of my ignorant doctor! You and I should both have been happier!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>She stopped a moment, then went on:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You force me to this, by your doubts; may my mother forgive me! In one of the most painful of my nights of suffering, a man
+revealed to me the name of my real father. If he had not been my father, this man said, he might have pardoned the injury
+you had done him.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Cris&oacute;stomo looked at Maria in amazement.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What was I to do?&#8221; she went on. &#8220;Ought I to sacrifice to my love the memory of my mother, the honor of him who was supposed
+to be my father, and the good name of him who is? And could I have done this without bringing dishonor upon you too?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But the proof&#8212;have you had proof? There must be proof!&#8221; said Cris&oacute;stomo, staggered.
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria drew from her breast two papers.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Here are two letters of my mother&#8217;s,&#8221; she said, &#8220;written in her remorse. Take them! Read them! My father left them in the
+house where he lived so many years. This man found them and kept them, and only gave them up to me in <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5610" href="#xd0e5610">257</a>]</span>exchange for your letter, as assurance, he said, that I would not marry you without my father&#8217;s consent. I sacrificed my love!
+Who would not for a mother dead and two fathers living? Could I foresee what use they would make of your letter? Could I know
+I was sacrificing you too?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra was speechless. Maria went on:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What remained for me to do? Could I tell you who my father was? Could I bid you ask his pardon, when he had so made your
+father suffer? Could I say to my father, who perhaps would have pardoned you&#8212;could I say I was his daughter? Nothing remained
+but to suffer, to guard my secret, and die suffering! Now, my friend, now that you know the sad story of your poor Maria,
+have you still for her that disdainful smile?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Maria, you are a saint!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am blessed, because you believe in me&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And yet,&#8221; said Cris&oacute;stomo, remembering, &#8220;I heard you were to marry&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; sobbed the poor child, &#8220;my father demands this sacrifice; he has loved me, nourished me, and it did not belong to him
+to do it. I shall pay him my debt of gratitude by assuring him peace through this new connection, but&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I shall not forget my vows to you.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is your thought?&#8221; asked Ibarra, trying to read in her clear eyes.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The future is obscure. I do not know what I shall do; but I know this, that I can love but once, and that I shall not belong
+to one I do not love. And you? What will you do?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am no longer anything but a fugitive&#8212;I shall fly, and my flight will soon be overtaken, Maria&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria took his head in her hands, kissed his lips again and again, then pushed him away with all her strength.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5636" href="#xd0e5636">258</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Fly, fly!&#8221; she said. &#8220;Adieu!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Ibarra looked at her with shining eyes, but she made a sign, and he went, reeling for an instant like a drunken man. He leaped
+the wall again, and was back in the little bark. Maria Clara, leaning on the balustrade, watched till it disappeared in the
+distance.
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5641" href="#xd0e5641">259</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch53" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">LIII.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Chase on the Lake.</h2>
+<p>&#8220;Listen, se&ntilde;or, to the plan I have made,&#8221; said Elias, as he pulled toward San Gabriel. &#8220;I will hide you, for the present,
+at the house of a friend of mine at Mandaluyong. I will bring you there your gold, that I hid in the tomb of your great-grandfather.
+You will leave the country&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To live among strangers?&#8221; interrupted Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;To live in peace. You have friends in Spain; you may get amnesty.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Cris&oacute;stomo did not reply; he reflected in silence.
+
+</p>
+<p>They arrived at the Pasig, and the little bark began to go up stream. On the bridge was a horseman, hastening his course,
+and a whistle long and shrill was heard.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Elias,&#8221; said Ibarra at length, &#8220;your misfortunes are due to my family, and you have twice saved my life. I owe you both gratitude
+and restitution of property. You advise me to leave the country; well, come with me. We will live as brothers.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Elias shook his head.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is true that I can never be happy in my country, but I can live and die there, perhaps die for my country. That is always
+something. But you can do nothing for her, here and now. Perhaps some day&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Unless I, too, should become a tulisan,&#8221; mused Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or, a month ago we sat in this same boat, under the light of this same moon. You could not have said such a thing then.&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5667" href="#xd0e5667">260</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;No, Elias. Man seems to be an animal who varies with circumstances. I was blind then, unreasonable, I know not what. Now
+the bandage has been torn from my eyes; the wretchedness and solitude of my prison has taught me better. I see the cancer
+that is eating into our society; perhaps, after all, it must be torn out by violence.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>They came in sight of the governor-general&#8217;s palace, and thought they saw unusual movement among the guards.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Your escape must have been discovered,&#8221; said Elias. &#8220;Lie down, se&ntilde;or, so I can cover you with the zacate, for the sentinel
+at the magazine may stop us.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>As Elias had anticipated, the sentinel challenged him, and asked him where he came from.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;From Manila, with zacate for the iodores and curates,&#8221; said he, imitating the accent of the people of Pandakan.
+
+</p>
+<p>A sergeant came out.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sulung,&#8221; said he to Elias, &#8220;I warn you not to take any one into your boat. A prisoner has just escaped. If you capture him
+and bring him to me, I will give you a fine reward.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Good, se&ntilde;or; what is his description?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;He wears a long coat, and speaks Spanish. Look out for him!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The bark moved off. Elias turned and saw the sentinel still standing by the bank.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We shall lose a few minutes,&#8221; he said; &#8220;we shall have to go into the rio Beata, to make him think I&#8217;m from Pe&ntilde;a Francia.
+You shall see the rio of which Francisco Baltazar sang.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The pueblo was asleep in the moonlight. Cris&oacute;stomo sat up to admire the death-like peace of nature. The rio was narrow, and
+its banks were plains strewn with zacate. Elias discharged his cargo, and from the grass where they were hidden, drew some
+of those sacks of palm leaves that <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5692" href="#xd0e5692">261</a>]</span>are called bayones. Then they pushed off again, and soon were back on the Pasig. From time to time they talked of indifferent
+things.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Santa Ana!&#8221; said Ibarra, speaking low; &#8220;do you know that building?&#8221; They were passing the country house of the Jesuits.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve spent many happy days there,&#8221; said Elias. &#8220;When I was a child, we came here every month. Then I was like other people;
+had a family, a fortune; dreamed, thought I saw a future.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>They were silent until they came to Malapad-na-bat&ocirc;. Those who have sometimes cut a wake in the Pasig, on one of these magnificent
+nights of the Philippines, when from the limpid azure the moon pours out a poetic melancholy, when shadows hide the miseries
+of men and silence puts out their sordid words&#8212;those who have done this will know some of the thoughts of these two young
+men.
+
+</p>
+<p>At Malapad-na-bat&ocirc;, the rifleman was sleepy, and seeing no hope of plunder in the little bark, according to the tradition
+of his corps and the habit of this post, he let it pass. The guard at Pasig was no more disquieting.
+
+</p>
+<p>The moonlight was growing pale, and dawn was beginning to tint the east with roses, when they arrived at the lake, smooth
+and placid as a great mirror. At a distance they saw a gray mass, advancing little by little.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the fal&uacute;a,&#8221; said Elias under his breath. &#8220;Lie down, se&ntilde;or, and I will cover you with these bags.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The outlines of the government boat grew more and more distinct.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s getting between us and the shore,&#8221; said Elias, uneasily; and very gradually he changed the direction of his bark. To
+his terror he saw the fal&uacute;a make the same change, and heard a voice hailing him. He stopped and thought. The shore was yet
+some distance away; they <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5710" href="#xd0e5710">262</a>]</span>would soon be within range of the ship&#8217;s guns. He thought he would go back to Pasig, his boat could escape the other in that
+direction; but fate was against him. Another boat was coming from Pasig, and in it glittered the helmets and bayonets of the
+Civil Guards.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;We are caught!&#8221; he said, and the color left his face. He looked at his sturdy arms, and took the only resolution possible;
+he began to row with all his might toward the island of Talim. The sun was coming up. The bark shot rapidly over the water;
+on the fal&uacute;a, which changed its tack, Elias saw men signalling.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you know how to manage a bark?&#8221; he demanded of Ibarra.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Yes. Why?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Because we are lost unless I take to the water to throw them off the track. They will pursue me. I swim and dive well. That
+will turn them away from you, and you must try to save yourself.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No, stay, and let us sell our lives dear!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;It is useless; we have no arms; they would shoot us down like birds.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>As he spoke, they heard a hiss in the water, followed by a report.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You see!&#8221; said Elias, laying down his oar. &#8220;We will meet, Christmas night, at the tomb of your grandfather. Save yourself!
+God has drawn me out of greater perils than this!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>He took off his shirt; a ball picked it out of his hands, and two reports followed. Without showing alarm, he grasped the
+hand Ibarra stretched up from the bottom of the boat, then stood upright and leaped into the water, pushing off the little
+craft with his foot.
+
+</p>
+<p>Outcries were heard from the fal&uacute;a. Promptly, and at some distance, appeared the head of the young man, returning <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5732" href="#xd0e5732">263</a>]</span>to the surface to breathe, then disappearing immediately.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;There, there he is,&#8221; cried several voices, and balls whistled.
+
+</p>
+<p>The fal&uacute;a and the bark from Pasig set out in pursuit of the swimmer. A slight wake showed his direction, more and more removed
+from Ibarra&#8217;s little bark, which drifted as if abandoned. Every time Elias raised his head to breathe, the guards and the
+men of the fal&uacute;a fired on him.
+
+</p>
+<p>The chase went on. The little bark with Ibarra was left far behind. Elias was not more than a hundred yards from the shore.
+The rowers were getting tired, but so was Elias, for he repeatedly raised his head above the water, but always in a new direction,
+to disconcert his pursuers. The deceiving wake no longer told the place of the swimmer. For the last time they saw him, sixty
+feet from the shore. The soldiers fired&#8212;minutes and minutes passed. Nothing again disturbed the tranquil surface of the lake.
+
+</p>
+<p>A half hour later, one of the rowers claimed to have seen traces of blood near the shore, but his comrades shook their heads
+in doubt.
+
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5742" href="#xd0e5742">264</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch54" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">LIV.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">Father D&aacute;maso Explains Himself.</h2>
+<p>In vain the precious wedding presents heaped up; not the brilliants in their velvet cases, not embroideries of pi&ntilde;a nor pieces
+of silk, drew the eyes of Maria Clara. She saw nothing but the journal in which was told the death of Ibarra, drowned in the
+lake.
+
+</p>
+<p>Suddenly she felt two hands over her eyes, clasping her head, while a merry voice said to her:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Who is it? Who is it?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria sprang up in fright.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Little goose! Did I scare you, eh? You weren&#8217;t expecting me, eh? Why, I&#8217;ve come from the province to be at your marriage&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+And with a satisfied smile, Father D&aacute;maso gave her his hand to kiss. She took it, trembling, and carried it respectfully to
+her lips.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What is it, Maria?&#8221; demanded the Franciscan, troubled, and losing his gay smile. &#8220;Your hand is cold, you are pale&#8212;are you
+ill, little girl?&#8221; And he drew her tenderly to him, took both her hands and questioned her with his eyes.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Won&#8217;t you confide in your godfather?&#8221; he asked in a tone of reproach. &#8220;Come, sit down here and tell me your griefs, as you
+used to do when you were little, and wanted some tapers to make wax dolls. You know I&#8217;ve always loved you&#8212;never scolded you&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+and his voice became very tender. Maria began to cry.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5762" href="#xd0e5762">265</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Why do you cry, my child? Have you quarrelled with Linares?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria put her hands over her eyes.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;No; it&#8217;s not about him&#8212;now!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Father D&aacute;maso looked startled. &#8220;And you won&#8217;t tell me your secrets? Have I not always tried to satisfy your slightest wish?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria raised to him her eyes full of tears, looked at him a moment, then sobbed afresh.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My child!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria came slowly to him, fell on her knees at his feet, and raising her face wet with tears, asked in a voice scarcely audible:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Do you still love me?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Child!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then&#8212;protect my father and make him break off my marriage.&#8221; And she told him of her last interview with Ibarra, omitting
+everything about the secret of her birth.
+
+</p>
+<p>Father D&aacute;maso could scarcely believe what he heard. She was talking calmly now, without tears.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;So long as he lived,&#8221; she went on, &#8220;I could struggle, I could hope, I had confidence; I wished to live to hear about him;
+but now&#8212;that they have killed him, I have no longer any reason to live and suffer.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And&#8212;Linares&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;If he had lived, I might have married&#8212;for my father&#8217;s sake; but now that he is dead, I want the convent&#8212;or the grave.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You loved him so?&#8221; stammered Father D&aacute;maso. Maria did not reply. The father bent his head on his breast.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My child,&#8221; he said at last in a broken voice, &#8220;forgive me for having made you <span class="corr" id="xd0e5795" title="Source: unhapppy">unhappy</span>; I did not know I was doing it! I thought of your future. How could I let you <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5798" href="#xd0e5798">266</a>]</span>marry a man of this country, to see you, later on, an unhappy wife and mother? I set myself with all my strength to get this
+love out of your mind, I used all means&#8212;for you, only for you. If you had been his wife, you would have wept for the unfortunate
+position of your husband, exposed to all sorts of dangers, and without defence; a mother, you would have wept for your children;
+had you educated them, you would have prepared them a sad future; they would have become enemies of religion; the gallows
+or exile would have been their portion; had you left them in ignorance, you would have seen them tyrannized over and degraded.
+I could not consent to this. That is why I found for you a husband whose children should command, not obey; punish, not suffer&#8212;I
+knew your childhood&#8217;s friend was good, and I liked him, as I did his father; but I hated them both for your sake, because
+I love you as one loves a daughter, because I idolize you&#8212;I have no other love; I have seen you grow up, there isn&#8217;t an hour
+in which I do not think of you, you are my one joy&#8212;&#8212;&#8221; And Father D&aacute;maso began to cry like a child.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then if you love me, do not make me forever miserable; he is dead, I wish to be a nun.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The old man rested his forehead in his hand.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;A nun, a nun!&#8221; he repeated. &#8220;You do not know, my child, all that is hidden behind the walls of a convent, you do not know!
+I would a thousand times rather see you unhappy in the world than in the cloister. Here your complaints can be heard; there
+you have only the walls! You are beautiful, very beautiful; you were not made to renounce the world. Believe me, my child,
+time alters all things; later you will forget, you will love, you will love your husband&#8212;Linares.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Either the convent or&#8212;death,&#8221; repeated Maria, with no sign of yielding.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5808" href="#xd0e5808">267</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Maria,&#8221; said the father, &#8220;I am not young. I cannot watch over you always; choose something else, find another love, another
+husband, anything, what you will!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I choose the convent.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;My God, my God!&#8221; cried the priest, burying his face in his hands. &#8220;You punish me, be it so! But watch over my daughter!&#8212;Maria,
+you shall be a nun. I cannot have you die.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Maria took his hands, pressed them, kissed them as she knelt.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Godfather, my godfather,&#8221; she said.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Oh, God!&#8221; cried the heart of the father, &#8220;thou dost exist, because thou dost chastise! Take vengeance upon me, but do not
+strike the innocent; save my daughter!&#8221;
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5821" href="#xd0e5821">268</a>]</span></p>
+</div>
+<div id="ch55" class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><h2 class="label">LV.</h2>
+<h2 class="normal">The Nochebuena.</h2>
+<p>Up on the side of the mountain, where a torrent springs, a cabin hides under the trees, <span class="corr" id="xd0e5829" title="Source: builded">built</span> on their gnarled trunks. Over its thatched roof creep the branches of the gourd, heavy with fruit and flowers. Antlers and
+wild boars&#8217; heads, some of them bearing their long tusks, ornament the rustic hearth. It is the home of a Tagalo family living
+from the chase and the cup of the woods.
+
+</p>
+<p>Under the shade of a tree, the grandfather is making brooms from the veins of palm leaves, while a girl fills a basket with
+eggs, lemons, and vegetables. Two children, a boy and a girl, are playing beside another boy, pale and serious, with great,
+deep eyes. We know him. It is Sisa&#8217;s son, Basilio.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;When your foot is well,&#8221; said the little boy, &#8220;you will go with us to the top of the mountain and drink deer&#8217;s blood and
+lemon juice; then you&#8217;ll grow fat; then I&#8217;ll show you how to jump from one rock to another, over the torrent.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Basilio smiled sadly, examined the wound in his foot, and looked at the sun, which was shining splendidly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sell these brooms, Lucia,&#8221; said the grandfather to the young girl, &#8220;and buy something for your brothers. To-day is Christmas.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Fire-crackers, I want fire-crackers!&#8221; cried the little boy.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;And what do you want?&#8221; the grandfather asked Basilio. The boy got up and went to the old man.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Se&ntilde;or,&#8221; he said, &#8220;have I been ill more than a month?&#8221;
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5846" href="#xd0e5846">269</a>]</span></p>
+<p>&#8220;Since we found you, faint and covered with wounds, two moons have passed. We thought you were going to die&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;May God reward you; we are very poor,&#8221; said Basilio; &#8220;but as to-day is Christmas, I want to go to the pueblo to see my mother
+and my little brother. They must have been looking everywhere for me.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;But, son, you aren&#8217;t well yet, and it is far to your pueblo. You would not get there till midnight. My sons will want to
+see you when they come from the forest.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You have many children, but my mother has only us two; perhaps she thinks me dead already. I want to give her a present to-night&#8212;a
+son!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The grandfather felt his eyes grow dim.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are as sensible as an old man! Go, find your mother, give her her present! Go, my son. God and the Lord Jesus go with
+you!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What, you&#8217;re not going to stay and see my fire-crackers?&#8221; said the little boy.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I want you to play hide and seek!&#8221; pouted the little girl; &#8220;nothing else is so much fun.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Basilio smiled and his eyes filled with tears.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I shall come back soon,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and bring my little brother; then you can play with him. But I must go away now with Lucia.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t forget us!&#8221; said the old man, &#8220;and come back when you are well.&#8221; The children all accompanied him to the bridge of
+bamboo over the rushing torrent. Lucia, who was going to the first pueblo with her basket, made him lean on her arm; the other
+children watched them both out of sight.
+</p>
+<hr class="tb"><p>
+
+</p>
+<p>The north wind was blowing, and the dwellers in San Diego were trembling with cold. It was the Nochebuena, <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5873" href="#xd0e5873">270</a>]</span>and yet the pueblo was sad. Not a paper lantern hung in the windows, no noise in the houses announcing the joyful time, as
+in other years.
+
+</p>
+<p>At the home of Captain Basilio, the master of the house is talking with Don Filipo; the troubles of these times have made
+them friends.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are in rare luck, to be released at just this moment,&#8221; Captain Basilio was saying to his guest. &#8220;They&#8217;ve burned your
+books, that&#8217;s true; but others have fared worse.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>A woman came up to the window and looked in. Her eyes were brilliant, her face haggard, her hair loose; the moon made her
+uncanny.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Sisa?&#8221; asked Don Filipo, in surprise. &#8220;I thought she was with a physician.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Captain Basilio smiled bitterly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The doctor feared he might be taken for a friend of Don Cris&oacute;stomo&#8217;s, so he drove her out!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What else has happened since I went away? I know we have a new curate and a new alf&eacute;rez&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Well, the head sacristan was found dead, hung in the garret of his house. And old Tasio is dead. They buried him in the Chinese
+cemetery.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Poor Don Astasio!&#8221; sighed Don Filipo. &#8220;And his books?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The devout thought it would be pleasing to God if they should burn them; nothing escaped, not even the works of Cicero. The
+gobernadorcillo was no check whatsoever.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>They were both silent. At that moment, the melancholy song of Sisa was heard. A child passed, limping, and running toward
+the place from which the song came; it was Basilio. The little fellow had found his home deserted and in ruins. He had been
+told about his mother; of Crispin he had not heard a word. He had dried his tears, smothered his grief, and without resting,
+started out to find Sisa.
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5897" href="#xd0e5897">271</a>]</span></p>
+<p>She had come to the house of the new alf&eacute;rez. As usual, a sentinel was pacing up and down. When she saw the soldier, she took
+to flight, and ran as only a wild thing can. Basilio saw her, and fearing to lose sight of her, forgot his wounded foot, and
+followed in hot pursuit. Dogs barked, geese cackled, windows opened here and there, to give passage to the heads of the curious;
+others banged to, from fear of a new night of trouble. At this rate, the runners were soon outside the pueblo, and Sisa began
+to moderate her speed. There was a long distance between her and her pursuer.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother!&#8221; he cried, when he could distinguish her.
+
+</p>
+<p>No sooner did Sisa hear the voice than she again began to run madly.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother, it&#8217;s I,&#8221; cried the child in despair. Sisa paid no attention. The poor little fellow followed breathless. They were
+now on the border of the wood.
+
+</p>
+<p>Bushes, thorny twigs, and the roots of trees hindered their progress. The child followed the vision of his mother, made clear
+now and then by the moon&#8217;s rays across the heavy foliage. They were in the mysterious wood of the family of Ibarra. Basilio
+often stumbled and fell, but he got up again, without feeling his hurts, or remembering his lameness. All his life was concentrated
+in his eyes, which never lost the beloved figure from view.
+
+</p>
+<p>They crossed the brook, which was singing gently, and to his great surprise, Basilio saw his mother press through the thicket
+and enter the wooden door that closed the tomb of the old Spaniard. He tried to follow her, but the door was fast. Sisa was
+defending the entrance&#8212;holding the door closed with all her strength.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Mother, it&#8217;s I, it&#8217;s I, Basilio, your son!&#8221; cried the child, falling from fatigue. But Sisa would not budge. Her feet braced
+against the ground, she offered an energetic resistance. <span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5912" href="#xd0e5912">272</a>]</span>Basilio examined the wall, but could not scale it. Then he made the tour of the grave. He saw a branch of the great tree,
+crossed by a branch of another. He began to climb, and his filial love did miracles. He went from branch to branch, and came
+over the tomb at last.
+
+</p>
+<p>The noise he made in the branches startled Sisa. She turned and would have fled, but her son, letting himself drop from the
+tree, seized her in his arms and covered her with kisses; then, worn out, he fainted away.
+
+</p>
+<p>Sisa saw his forehead bathed in blood. She bent over him, and her eyes, almost out of their sockets, were fixed on his face,
+which stirred the sleeping cells of her brain. Then something like a spark flashed through them. Sisa recognized her son,
+and with a cry fell on his senseless body, pressing it to her heart, kissing him and weeping. Then mother and son were both
+motionless.
+
+</p>
+<p>When Basilio came to himself, he found his mother without consciousness. He called her, lavished tender names on her, and
+seeing she did not wake, ran for water and sprinkled her pale face. But the eyes remained closed. In terror, Basilio put his
+ear to her heart, but her heart no longer beat. The poor child embraced the dead body of his mother, weeping bitterly.
+
+</p>
+<p>On this night of joy for so many children, who, by the warm hearth, celebrate the feast which recalls the first loving look
+Heaven gave to earth; on this night when all good Christian families eat, laugh, and dance, &#8217;mid love and kisses; on this
+night which, for the children of cold countries, is magical with its Christmas trees, Basilio sits in solitude and grief.
+Who knows? Perhaps around the hearth of the silent Father Salvi are children playing; perhaps they are singing:
+
+
+</p>
+<div class="&#xA; poem&#xA; ">
+<p class="line" style=""><span>&#8220;Christmas comes,
+</span></p>
+<p class="line" style=""><span>And Christmas goes.&#8221;</span></p>
+</div><span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5927" href="#xd0e5927">273</a>]</span><p>The child was sobbing. When he raised his head, a man was looking silently down at him.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;You are her son?&#8221; he asked.
+
+</p>
+<p>Basilio nodded his head.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;What are you going to do?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Bury her.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;In the cemetery?&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I have no money&#8212;if you would help me&#8212;&#8212;&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I am too weak,&#8221; said the man, sinking gradually to the ground. &#8220;I am wounded. For two days I have not eaten or slept. Has
+no one been here to-night?&#8221; And the man sat still, watching the child&#8217;s attractive face.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Listen,&#8221; said he, in a voice growing feebler, &#8220;I too shall be dead before morning. Twenty paces from here, beyond the spring,
+is a pile of wood; put our two bodies on it, and light the fire.&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>Basilio listened.
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;Then, if nobody comes, you are to dig here; you will find a lot of gold, and it will be all yours. Study!&#8221;
+
+</p>
+<p>The voice of the unknown man sank lower and lower. Then he turned his head toward the east, and said softly, as though praying:
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;I die without seeing the light of dawn on my country. You who shall see it and greet it, do not forget those who fell in
+the night!&#8221;
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+</div><span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e5954" href="#xd0e5954">274</a>]</span><div class="back">
+<div class="div1"><span class="pagenum">
+[<a href="#toc">Contents</a>]
+</span><p><b>The Archbishop and the Lady</b>
+
+</p>
+<p>By <span class="smallcaps">Mrs. Schuyler Crowninshield</span>
+
+</p>
+<p>A story of modern society which only a writer of very wide and very exceptional social experience could have written. It is
+cosmopolitan, yet full of romance; modern, yet informed with a delicate old-world charm. The characters are put before us
+with a consummate knowledge of the world and a penetrating insight into human nature.
+
+</p>
+<p>Cloth. <span class="smallcaps">12</span>mo; 5&#8539; &times; 7&frac34;. About $1.50.
+</p>
+<hr class="tb"><p>
+
+</p>
+<p><b>April&#8217;s Sowing</b>
+
+</p>
+<p>By GERTRUDE HALL
+
+</p>
+<p>Miss Gertrude Hall is known to the world as a poet and as a teller of tales, but with her first novel she reveals new gifts,
+for it is a modern story tuned to a note of light comedy that she has never struck before. &#8220;April&#8217;s Sowing&#8221; is that most widely
+appreciated thing in letters, a young love story.
+
+</p>
+<p>Illustrated by Orson Lowell. With decorative cover, frontispiece, title page in color, and ornamental head and tail pieces.
+Cloth. <span class="smallcaps">12</span>mo; 5&#8539; &times; 7&frac34;. $1.50.
+</p>
+<hr class="tb"><p>
+
+</p>
+<p><b>The Darlingtons</b>
+
+</p>
+<p>By ELMORE ELLIOTT PEAKE
+
+</p>
+<p>A novel of American life in the middle West which deals principally with the fortunes of a family whose members are the social
+and financial leaders of their section. The heroine is a girl whose education is broad enough to enable her to assist her
+father in managing a railroad. The hero is a Methodist minister of liberal tendencies. The story is told with remarkable fidelity
+and unusual dramatic interest.
+
+</p>
+<p>Cloth. <span class="smallcaps">12</span>mo; 5&#8539; &times; 7&frac34;. About $1.50.
+
+
+
+
+<span class="pagenum">[<a id="xd0e6003" href="#xd0e6003">275</a>]</span>
+
+</p>
+<p>Two Unknown Phases of Life Made Known in Fiction
+
+
+</p>
+<p><b>The Powers That Prey</b>
+
+</p>
+<p>By <span class="smallcaps">Josiah Flynt</span> and <span class="smallcaps">Francis Walton</span>
+
+</p>
+<p>The authors of the ten closely related stories which make up this volume have spent most of their lives studying the sociological
+problems of tramp and criminal life. Mr. Flynt writes: &#8220;So far as I am concerned, the book is the result of ten years of wandering
+with tramps and two years spent with various police organizations.&#8221; The stories are a decided contribution to sociology, and
+yet, viewed as stories, they have unusual interest because of their remarkable vigor and their intense realism.
+
+</p>
+<p>Fully Illustrated. Cloth. 12mo; 5&#8539; &times; 7&frac34;. $1.25.
+</p>
+<hr class="tb"><p>
+
+</p>
+<p>The Soul of the Street
+
+</p>
+<p>By NORMAN DUNCAN
+
+</p>
+<p>&#8220;The Soul of the Street&#8221; has a unity lacking in many volumes of short stories. They deal with Syrians and Turks, queer folk
+with queer ways, and Mr. Duncan has gotten at them with such sympathetic insight as only the poetic heart and the story-teller&#8217;s
+eye can possess. Character, humor, poignant pathos, and the sad grotesque conjunctions of old and new civilizations are expressed
+through the medium of a style that has distinction, and strikes a note of rare personality.
+
+</p>
+<p>Cloth. 12mo; 5&#8539; &times; 7&frac34;. About $1.00.
+
+
+
+
+</p>
+</div>
+<div class="transcribernote">
+<h2>Colophon</h2>
+<h3>Availability</h3>
+<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give
+it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/">www.gutenberg.org</a>.
+
+</p>
+<p>This eBook is produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at <a href="https://www.pgdp.net/">www.pgdp.net</a>.
+
+</p>
+<p>This book is an abbreviated translation of Jos&eacute; Rizal&#8217;s novel <i>Noli me T&aacute;ngere</i>, which appeared in 1901. This important work was translated from Spanish to English several times. An unabbreviated translation,
+by Charles E. Derbyshire was published in 1912, and is available under the title <i><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/6737">The Social Cancer</a></i>. A Tagalog translation, <i><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/20228">Noli me Tangere</a></i> was made by Pascual Hicaro Poblete (1857&#8211;1921). Finally, Project Gutenberg holds a Dutch translation, made by A. A. Fokker
+under the title <i lang="nl"><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21848">Noli me tangere: Filippijnsche roman</a></i>. Further translations are in preparation.
+
+
+</p>
+<h3>Encoding</h3>
+<p></p>
+<h3>Revision History</h3>
+<ol class="lsoff">
+<li>2008-12-20 Started.
+
+</li>
+</ol>
+<h3>External References</h3>
+<p>This Project Gutenberg eBook contains external references. These links may not work for you.</p>
+<h3>Corrections</h3>
+<p>The following corrections have been applied to the text:</p>
+<table width="75%">
+<tr>
+<th>Page</th>
+<th>Source</th>
+<th>Correction</th>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e944">23</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Pulfernicht</td>
+<td width="40%">Pulfer nicht</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e961">24</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Crisostomo</td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&oacute;stomo</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e966">24</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Crisostomo</td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&oacute;stomo</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e984">24</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Crisostomo</td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&oacute;stomo</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e1034">26</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Crisostomo</td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&oacute;stomo</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e1099">29</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Crisostomo</td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&oacute;stomo</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e1107">30</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Crisostomo</td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&oacute;stomo</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e1134">30</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Crisostomo</td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&oacute;stomo</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e1199">36</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Crisostomo</td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&oacute;stomo</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e1210">37</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Crisostomo</td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&oacute;stomo</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e1334">43</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Crisostomo</td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&oacute;stomo</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e1378">45</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Malacanan</td>
+<td width="40%">Malaca&ntilde;ang</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e1422">48</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Crisostomo</td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&oacute;stomo</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e1523">54</a></td>
+<td width="40%">gave</td>
+<td width="40%">grave</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e1574">55</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Crisostomo&#8217;s</td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&oacute;stomo&#8217;s</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e1577">55</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Crisostomo</td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&oacute;stomo</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e1643">59</a></td>
+<td width="40%">
+[<i>Not in source</i>]
+
+</td>
+<td width="40%">&#8220;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e1938">72</a></td>
+<td width="40%">
+[<i>Not in source</i>]
+
+</td>
+<td width="40%">&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e2717">110</a></td>
+<td width="40%">sacrified</td>
+<td width="40%">sacrificed</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e3305">141</a></td>
+<td width="40%">sacrified</td>
+<td width="40%">sacrificed</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e3961">177</a></td>
+<td width="40%">senora</td>
+<td width="40%">se&ntilde;ora</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e3997">178</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Espa&ntilde;ada</td>
+<td width="40%">Espada&ntilde;a</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e4009">179</a></td>
+<td width="40%">
+[<i>Not in source</i>]
+
+</td>
+<td width="40%">&#8220;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e4015">179</a></td>
+<td width="40%">
+[<i>Not in source</i>]
+
+</td>
+<td width="40%">&#8220;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e4395">198</a></td>
+<td width="40%">archibshop</td>
+<td width="40%">archbishop</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e4400">198</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&ograve;stomo</td>
+<td width="40%">Cris&oacute;stomo</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e4523">205</a></td>
+<td width="40%">
+[<i>Not in source</i>]
+
+</td>
+<td width="40%">&#8220;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e4526">205</a></td>
+<td width="40%">
+[<i>Not in source</i>]
+
+</td>
+<td width="40%">&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e4536">206</a></td>
+<td width="40%">
+[<i>Not in source</i>]
+
+</td>
+<td width="40%">&#8220;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e4540">206</a></td>
+<td width="40%">
+[<i>Not in source</i>]
+
+</td>
+<td width="40%">&#8220;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e4900">223</a></td>
+<td width="40%">havn&#8217;t</td>
+<td width="40%">haven&#8217;t</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e5048">231</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Capain</td>
+<td width="40%">Captain</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e5375">246</a></td>
+<td width="40%">adminstration</td>
+<td width="40%">administration</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e5386">246</a></td>
+<td width="40%">
+[<i>Not in source</i>]
+
+</td>
+<td width="40%">&#8221;</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e5393">246</a></td>
+<td width="40%">Senoras</td>
+<td width="40%">Se&ntilde;oras</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e5795">265</a></td>
+<td width="40%">unhapppy</td>
+<td width="40%">unhappy</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td width="20%"><a class="pageref" href="#xd0e5829">268</a></td>
+<td width="40%">builded</td>
+<td width="40%">built</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Eagle Flight, by José Rizal
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN EAGLE FLIGHT ***
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@@ -0,0 +1,9894 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Eagle Flight, by Jose Rizal
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: An Eagle Flight
+       A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere
+
+Author: Jose Rizal
+
+Release Date: December 22, 2008 [EBook #27594]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN EAGLE FLIGHT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Distributed
+Proofreaders Team at https://www.pgdp.net/
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        AN EAGLE FLIGHT
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+        I have in this rough work shaped out a man
+        Whom this beneath-world doth embrace and hug
+        With amplest entertainment: my free drift
+        Halts not particularly, but moves itself
+        In a wide sea of wax; no levell'd malice
+        Infects one comma in the course I hold;
+        But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,
+        Leaving no track behind.
+
+                            Timon of Athens--Act 1, Scene 1.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        An Eagle Flight
+
+                        A Filipino Novel
+
+                          Adapted from
+
+                       "NOLI ME TANGERE"
+
+
+                               By
+
+                         DR. JOSE RIZAL
+
+
+
+
+                            NEW YORK
+
+                    McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
+
+                              MCMI
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                        Copyright, 1900,
+                   By McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+    Chapter                                  Page
+
+    I.--The House on the Pasig                  1
+    II.--Crisostomo Ibarra                      7
+    III.--The Dinner                            9
+    IV.--Heretic and Filibuster                12
+    V.--A Star in the Dark Night               15
+    VI.--Captain Tiago and Maria               17
+    VII.--Idylle                               20
+    VIII.--Reminiscences                       23
+    IX.--Affairs of the Country                25
+    X.--The Pueblo                             30
+    XI.--The Sovereigns                        32
+    XII.--All Saints' Day                      35
+    XIII.--The Little Sacristans               40
+    XIV.--Sisa                                 44
+    XV.--Basilio                               47
+    XVI.--At the Manse                         50
+    XVII.--Story of a Schoolmaster             53
+    XVIII.--The Story of a Mother              57
+    XIX.--The Fishing Party                    63
+    XX.--In the Woods                          71
+    XXI.--With the Philosopher                 79
+    XXII.--The Meeting at the Town Hall        87
+    XXIII.--The Eve of the Fete                94
+    XXIV.--In the Church                      102
+    XXV.--The Sermon                          105
+    XXVI.--The Crane                          109
+    XXVII.--Free Thought                      116
+    XXVIII.--The Banquet                      119
+    XXIX.--Opinions                           126
+    XXX.--The First Cloud                     130
+    XXXI.--His Excellency                     134
+    XXXII.--The Procession                    142
+    XXXIII.--Dona Consolacion                 145
+    XXXIV.--Right and Might                   150
+    XXXV.--Husband and Wife                   156
+    XXXVI.--Projects                          163
+    XXXVII.--Scrutiny and Conscience          165
+    XXXVIII.--The Two Women                   170
+    XXXIX.--The Outlawed                      176
+    XL.--The Enigma                           181
+    XLI.--The Voice of the Persecuted         183
+    XLII.--The Family of Elias                187
+    XLIII.--Il Buon di si Conosce da Mattina  193
+    XLIV.--La Gallera                         196
+    XLV.--A Call                              201
+    XLVI.--A Conspiracy                       204
+    XLVII.--The Catastrophe                   208
+    XLVIII.--Gossip                           212
+    XLIX.--Vae Victis                          217
+    L.--Accurst                               221
+    LI.--Patriotism and Interest              224
+    LII.--Marie Clara Marries                 232
+    LIII.--The Chase on the Lake              242
+    LIV.--Father Damaso Explains Himself      247
+    LV.--The Nochebuena                       251
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+JOSE RIZAL
+
+
+In that horrible drama, the Philippine revolution, one man of
+the purest and noblest character stands out pre-eminently--Jose
+Rizal--poet, artist, philologue, novelist, above all, patriot; his
+influence might have changed the whole course of events in the islands,
+had not a blind and stupid policy brought about the crime of his death.
+
+This man, of almost pure Tagalo race, was born in 1861, at Calamba,
+in the island of Luzon, on the southern shore of the Laguna de Bay,
+where he grew up in his father's home, under the tutorage of a wise
+and learned native priest, Leontio.
+
+The child's fine nature, expanding in the troublous latter days
+of a long race bondage, was touched early with the fire of genuine
+patriotism. He was eleven when the tragic consequences of the Cavite
+insurrection destroyed any lingering illusions of his people, and
+stirred in them a spirit that has not yet been allayed.
+
+The rising at Cavite, like many others in the islands, was a protest
+against the holding of benefices by friars--a thing forbidden by a
+decree of the Council of Trent, but authorized in the Philippines, by
+papal bulls, until such time as there should be a sufficiency of native
+priests. This time never came. As the friars held the best agricultural
+lands, and had a voice--and that the most authoritative--in civil
+affairs, there developed in the rural districts a veritable feudal
+system, bringing in its train the arrogance and tyranny that like
+conditions develop. It became impossible for the civil authorities
+to carry out measures in opposition to the friars. "The Government
+is an arm, the head is the convent," says the old philosopher of
+Rizal's story.
+
+The rising at Cavite miscarried, and vengeance fell. Dr. Joseph Burgos,
+a saintly old priest, was put to death, and three other native priests
+with him, while many prominent native families were banished. Never
+had the better class of Filipinos been so outraged and aroused, and
+from this time on their purpose was fixed, not to free themselves
+from Spain, not to secede from the church they loved, but to agitate
+ceaselessly for reforms which none of them longer believed could be
+realized without the expulsion of the friars. In the school of this
+purpose, and with the belief on the part of his father and Leontio that
+he was destined to use his life and talents in its behalf, Jose was
+trained, until he left his home to study in Manila. At the College of
+the Jesuits he carried off all the honors, with special distinction
+in literary work. He wrote a number of odes; and a melodrama in
+verse, the work of his thirteenth year, was successfully played at
+Manila. But he had to wear his honors as an Indian among white men,
+and they made life hard for him. He specially aroused the dislike of
+his Spanish college mates by an ode in which he spoke of his patria. A
+Tagalo had no native land, they contended--only a country.
+
+At twenty Rizal finished his course at Manila, and a few months later
+went to Madrid, where he speedily won the degrees of Ph.D. and M.D.;
+then to Germany--taking here another degree, doing his work in the
+new language, which he mastered as he went along; to Austria, where he
+gained great skill as an oculist; to France, Italy, England--absorbing
+the languages and literature of these countries, doing some fine
+sculpture by way of diversion. But in all this he was single-minded;
+he never lost the voice of his call; he felt more and more keenly
+the contrast between the hard lot of his country and the freedom of
+these lands, and he bore it ill that no one of them even knew about
+her, and the cancer eating away her beauty and strength. At the end
+of this period of study he settled in Berlin, and began his active
+work for his country.
+
+Four years of the socialism and license of the universities had not
+distorted Rizal's political vision; he remained, as he had grown up,
+an opportunist. Not then, nor at any time, did he think his country
+ready for self-government. He saw as her best present good her
+continued union to Spain, "through a stable policy based upon justice
+and community of interests." He asked only for the reforms promised
+again and again by the ministry, and as often frustrated. To plead for
+the lifting of the hand of oppression from the necks of his people,
+he now wrote his first novel, "Noli Me Tangere."
+
+The next year he returned to the Philippines to find himself the
+idol of the natives and a thorn in the flesh of friars and greedy
+officials. The reading of his book was proscribed. He stayed long
+enough to concern himself in a dispute of his townspeople with the
+Dominicans over titles to lands; then finding his efforts vain and his
+safety doubtful, he left for Japan. Here he pursued for some time his
+usual studies; came thence to America, and then crossed to England,
+where he made researches in the British Museum, and edited in Spanish,
+"Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas," by Dr. Antonio de Morga, an important
+work, neglected by the Spaniards, but already edited in English by
+Dean Stanley.
+
+After publishing this work, in Paris, Rizal returned to Spain, where,
+in 1890, he began a series of brilliant pleas for the Philippines,
+in the Solidaridad, a liberal journal published at Barcelona and
+afterward at Madrid. But he roused little sympathy or interest in
+Spain, and his articles, repeated in pamphlets in the Philippines,
+served to make his position more dangerous at home.
+
+Disheartened but steadfast, he retired to Belgium, to write his second
+novel, "El Filibusterismo." "Noli Me Tangere" is a poet's story of his
+people's loves, faults, aspirations, and wrongs; "El Filibusterismo"
+is the work of a student of statecraft, pointing out the way to
+political justice and the development of national life. Inspired,
+it would seem, by his own creation of a future for his country, he
+returned to the Solidaridad, where, in a series of remarkable articles,
+he forecast the ultimate downfall of Spain in the Philippines and
+the rise of his people. This was his crime against the Government:
+for the spirit which in a Spanish boy would not permit a Tagalo to
+have a patria, in a Spaniard grown could not brook the suggestion of
+colonial independence, even in the far future.
+
+And now having poured out these passionate pleas and splendid
+forecasts, Rizal was homesick for this land of his. He went to
+Hong-Kong. Calamba was in revolt. His many friends at the English port
+did everything to keep him; but the call was too persistent. December
+23d, 1891, he wrote to Despujols, then governor-general of the
+Philippines: "If Your Excellency thinks my slight services could be
+of use in pointing out the evils of my country and helping heal the
+wounds reopened by the recent injustices, you need but to say so, and
+trusting in your honor as a gentleman, I will immediately put myself
+at your disposal. If you decline my offer, ... I shall at least be
+conscious of having done all in my power, while seeking the good of
+my country, to preserve her union to Spain through a stable policy
+based upon justice and community of interests."
+
+The governor expressed his gratitude, promised protection, and
+Rizal sailed for Manila. But immediately after his landing he was
+arrested on a charge of sedition, whose source made the governor's
+promise impotent. Nothing could be proved against Rizal; but it was
+not the purpose of his enemies to have him acquitted. A half-way
+sentence was imposed, and he was banished to Dapidan, on the island
+of Mindanao. Despujols was recalled to Spain.
+
+In this exile Rizal spent four years, beloved by the natives, teaching
+them agriculture, treating their sick (the poor without charge),
+improving their schools, and visited from time to time by patients from
+abroad, drawn here by his fame as an oculist. Among these last came
+a Mr. Taufer, a resident of Hong-Kong, and with him his foster-child,
+Josephine Bracken, the daughter of an Irish sergeant. The pretty and
+adventurous girl and the banished patriot fell in love with each other.
+
+These may well have been among the happiest years of Rizal's
+life. He had always been an exile in fact: now that he was one in
+name, strangely enough he was able for the first time to live in
+peace among his brothers under the skies he loved. He sang, in his
+pathetic content:
+
+
+    "Thou dear illusion with thy soothing cup!
+    I taste, and think I am a child again.
+
+    Oh! kindly tempest, favoring winds of heaven,
+    That knew the hour to check my shifting flight,
+    And beat me down upon my native soil,..."
+
+
+Always about his philological studies, he began here a work that
+should be of peculiar interest to us: a treatise on Tagalog verbs, in
+the English language. Did his knowledge of America's growing feeling
+toward Cuba lead him to foresee--as no one else seems to have done--her
+appearance in the Philippines, or was he thinking of England?
+
+At Hong-Kong, and in his brief stays at Manila, Rizal had established
+the Liga Filipina, a society of educated and progressive islanders,
+whose ideas of needed reforms and methods of attaining them were at
+one with his own. His banishment was a warning of danger and checked
+the society's activity.
+
+The Liga was succeeded, in the sense only of followed, by the
+Katipunan,--a native word also meaning league. The makers of this
+"league," though avowing the same purpose as the members of the other,
+were men of very different stamp. Their initiation was a blood-rite:
+they sought immediate independence; they preached a campaign of force,
+if not of violence. That a recent reviewer should have connected
+Dr. Rizal's name with the Katipunan is difficult to understand. Not
+alone are his writings, acts, and character against such a possibility,
+but so also is the testimony of the Spanish archives: for not only
+was it admitted at his final trial that he was not suspected of any
+connection with the Katipunan, but his well-known disapproval of that
+society's premature and violent action was even made a point against
+him. He was so much the more dangerous to the state because he had the
+sagacity to know that the times were not yet ripe for independence,
+and the honesty and purity of purpose to make only demands which the
+state herself well knew to be just.
+
+When the rebellion of 1896 broke out, Rizal, still at Dapidan,
+knew that his life would not long be worth a breath of his beloved
+Philippine air. He asked, therefore, of the Government permission to
+go to Cuba as an army surgeon. It was granted, and he was taken to
+Manila--ovations all along his route--and embarked on the Isla de
+Panay for Barcelona. He carried with him the following letter from
+General Blanco, then governor-general of the Philippines, to the
+Minister of War at Madrid:
+
+
+    Manila, August 30th, 1896.
+
+    Esteemed General and Distinguished Friend:
+
+
+    I recommend to you with genuine interest, Dr. Jose Rizal,
+    who is leaving for the Peninsula, to place himself at the
+    disposal of the Government as volunteer army surgeon to
+    Cuba. During the four years of his exile at Dapidan, he has
+    conducted himself in the most exemplary manner, and he is in
+    my opinion the more worthy of pardon and consideration, in
+    that he is in no way connected with the extravagant attempts
+    we are now deploring, neither those of conspirators nor of
+    the secret societies that have been formed.
+
+    I have the pleasure to reassure you of my high esteem,
+    and remain,
+
+
+    Your affectionate friend and comrade,
+
+    Ramon Blanco.
+
+
+But as soon as the Isla was on the seas, despatches began to pass
+between Manila and Madrid, and before she reached her port the
+promises, acceptances, and recommendations of the Government officials
+were void. Upon landing, Rizal was immediately arrested and confined
+in the infamous Montjuich prison. Despujols was now military governor
+of Barcelona. The interview of hours which he is said to have had
+with his Filipino prisoner must have been dramatic. Rizal was at
+once re-embarked, on the Colon, and returned to Manila, a state
+prisoner. Blanco was recalled, and Poliavieja, a sworn friend of the
+clericals, was sent out.
+
+Rizal was tried by court-martial, on a charge of sedition and
+rebellion. His guilt was manifestly impossible. Except as a prisoner
+of the state, he had spent only a few weeks in the Philippines since
+his boyhood. His life abroad had been perfectly open, as were all his
+writings. The facts stated in General Blanco's letter to the Minister
+of War were well known to all Rizal's accusers. The best they could
+do was to aver that he had written "depreciative words" against the
+Government and the Church. Some testimony was given against him by men
+who, since the American occupation, have made affidavit that it was
+false and forced from them by torture. Rizal made a splendid defence,
+but he was condemned, and sentenced to the death of a traitor. On that
+day Jose Rizal y Mercado and Josephine Bracken were married. Then
+the sweetness and strength of his character and his singleness of
+purpose made a beautiful showing. In the night, which his bride spent
+on her knees outside his prison, he wrote a long poem of farewell
+to his patria adorado, fine in its abnegation and exquisite in the
+wanderings of its fancy. He received the ministrations of a Jesuit
+priest. He was perfectly calm. "What is death to me?" he said;
+"I have sown, others are left to reap." At dawn he was shot.
+
+
+
+The poem in which he left a record of his last thoughts was the
+following:
+
+
+    MY LAST THOUGHT.
+
+    Land I adore, farewell! thou land of the southern sun's
+        choosing!
+    Pearl of the Orient seas! our forfeited Garden of Eden!
+    Joyous I yield up for thee my sad life, and were it far
+        brighter,
+    Young, rose-strewn, for thee and thy happiness still would
+        I give it.
+    Far afield, in the din and rush of maddening battle,
+    Others have laid down their lives, nor wavered nor paused in
+    the giving.
+    What matters way or place--the cyprus, the lily, the laurel,
+    Gibbet or open field, the sword or inglorious torture,
+    When 'tis the hearth and the country that call for the life's
+    immolation?
+
+    Dawn's faint lights bar the east, she smiles through the cowl
+        of the darkness,
+    Just as I die. Hast thou need of purple to garnish her pathway?
+    Here is my blood, on the hour! pour it out, and the sun in
+        his rising
+    Mayhap will touch it with gold, will lend it the sheen of
+        his glory.
+
+    Dreams of my childhood and youth, and dreams of my strong
+        young manhood,
+    What were they all but to see, thou gem of the Orient ocean!
+    Tearless thine eyes so deep, unbent, unmarred thy sweet
+        forehead.
+
+    Vision I followed from far, desire that spurred on and
+        consumed me!
+    Greeting! my parting soul cries, and greeting again!... O
+        my country!
+    Beautiful is it to fall, that the vision may rise to
+        fulfilment,
+    Giving my life for thy life, and breathing thine air in
+        the death-throe;
+    Sweet to eternally sleep in thy lap, O land of enchantment!
+
+    If in the deep, rich grass that covers my rest in thy bosom,
+    Some day thou seest upspring a lowly, tremulous blossom,
+    Lay there thy lips, 'tis my soul; may I feel on my forehead
+        descending,
+    Deep in the chilly tomb, the soft, warm breath of thy kisses.
+    Let the calm light of the moon fall around me, and dawn's
+    fleeting splendor;
+    Let the winds murmur and sigh, on my cross let some bird tell
+    its message;
+    Loosed from the rain by the brazen sun, let clouds of soft
+        vapor
+    Bear to the skies, as they mount again, the chant of my spirit.
+    There may some friendly heart lament my parting untimely,
+    And if at eventide a soul for my tranquil sleep prayeth,
+    Pray thou too, O my fatherland! for my peaceful reposing.
+    Pray for those who go down to death through unspeakable
+        torments;
+    Pray for those who remain to suffer such torture in prisons;
+    Pray for the bitter grief of our mothers, our widows,
+    our orphans;
+    Oh, pray too for thyself, on the way to thy final redemption.
+
+    When our still dwelling-place wraps night's dusky mantle
+        about her,
+    Leaving the dead alone with the dead, to watch till the
+        morning,
+    Break not our rest, and seek not to lay death's mystery open.
+    If now and then thou shouldst hear the string of a lute or
+        a zithern,
+    Mine is the hand, dear country, and mine is the voice that
+        is singing.
+
+    When my tomb, that all have forgot, no cross nor stone marketh,
+    There let the laborer guide his plough, there cleave the
+        earth open.
+    So shall my ashes at last be one with thy hills and thy
+        valleys.
+    Little 'twill matter then, my country, that thou shouldst
+        forget me!
+    I shall be air in thy streets, and I shall be space in thy
+        meadows.
+    I shall be vibrant speech in thine ears, shall be fragrance
+        and color,
+    Light and shout, and loved song forever repeating my message.
+
+
+Rizal's own explanation of the lofty purpose of his searching story
+of his Tagalog fatherland was in these words of his dedicatory preface:
+
+
+
+TO MY COUNTRY
+
+The records of human suffering make known to us the existence of
+ailments of such nature that the slightest touch irritates and causes
+tormenting pains. Whenever, in the midst of modern civilizations,
+I have tried to call up thy dear image, O my country! either for the
+comradeship of remembrance or to compare thy life with that about
+me, I have seen thy fair face disfigured and distorted by a hideous
+social cancer.
+
+Eager for thy health, which is our happiness, and seeking the best
+remedy for thy pain, I am about to do with thee what the ancients did
+with their sick: they exposed them on the steps of their temples, that
+every one who came to adore the divinity within might offer a remedy.
+
+So I shall strive to describe faithfully thy state without extenuation;
+to lift a corner of the covering that hides thy sore; sacrificing
+everything to truth, even the love of thy glory, while loving, as
+thy son, even thy frailties and sins.
+
+Jose Rizal.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+AN EAGLE FLIGHT
+
+I.
+
+THE HOUSE ON THE PASIG.
+
+
+It was toward the end of October. Don Santiago de los Santos, better
+known as Captain Tiago, was giving a dinner; and though, contrary to
+custom, he had not announced it until that very afternoon, it had
+become before evening the sole topic of conversation, not only at
+Binondo, but in the other suburbs of Manila, and even in the city
+itself. Captain Tiago passed for the most lavish of entertainers,
+and it was well known that the doors of his home, like those of his
+country, were closed to nobody and nothing save commerce and all
+new or audacious ideas. The news spread, therefore, with lightning
+rapidity in the world of the sycophants, the unemployed and idle,
+whom heaven has multiplied so generously at Manila.
+
+The dinner was given in a house of the Calle de Anloague, which
+may yet be recognized, if an earthquake has not demolished it. This
+house, rather large and of a style common to the country, stood near
+an arm of the Pasig, called the Boco de Binondo, a rio which, like
+all others of Manila, washing along the multiple output of baths,
+sewers, and fishing grounds serves as a means of transport, and even
+furnishes drinking-water, if such be the humor of the Chinese carrier.
+Scarcely at intervals of a half-mile is this powerful artery of the
+quarter where the traffic is most important, the movement most active,
+dotted with bridges; and these, in ruins at one end six months of
+the year and inapproachable the remaining six at the other, give
+horses a pretext for plunging into the water, to the great surprise of
+preoccupied mortals in carriages dozing tranquilly or philosophizing
+on the progress of the century.
+
+The house of Captain Tiago was rather low and on lines sufficiently
+incorrect. A grand staircase with green balustrades, carpeted at
+intervals, led from the vestibule, with its squares of colored faience,
+to the main floor, between Chinese pedestals ornamented with fantastic
+designs, supporting vases and jardinieres of flowers.
+
+At the top of the staircase was a large apartment, called here caida,
+which for this night served at once as dining- and music-room. In the
+centre, a long table, luxuriously set, seemed to promise to diners-out
+the most soothing satisfaction, at the same time threatening the
+timid girl--the dalaga--who for six mortal hours must submit to the
+companionship of strange and diverse people.
+
+In contrast to these mundane preparations, richly colored pictures
+of religious subjects hung about the walls, and at the end of the
+apartment, imprisoned in ornate and splendid Renaissance carving,
+was a curious canvas of vast dimensions, bearing the inscription,
+"Our Lady of Peace and of Safe Journeys, Venerated at Antipolo." The
+ceiling was prettily decorated with jewelled Chinese lamps, cages
+without birds, spheres of crystal faced with colored foil, faded air
+plants, botetes, etc. On the river side, through fantastic arches, half
+Chinese, half European, were glimpses of a terrace, with trellises and
+arbors, illuminated by little colored lanterns. Brilliant chandeliers,
+reflected in great mirrors, lighted the apartment. On a platform of
+pine was a superb grand piano. In a panel of the wall, a large portrait
+in oil represented a man of agreeable face, in frock coat, robust,
+straight, symmetrical as the gavel between his jewelled fingers.
+
+The crowd of guests almost filled the room; the men separated from
+the women, as in Catholic churches and synagogues. An old cousin
+of Captain Tiago's was receiving alone. Her appearance was kindly,
+but her tongue not very flexible to the Castilian. She filled her
+role by offering to the Spaniards trays of cigarettes and buyos, and
+giving the Filipinos her hand to kiss. The poor old lady, wearied at
+last, profited by the sound of breaking china to go out hurriedly,
+grumbling at maladroits. She did not reappear.
+
+Whether the pictures roused a spirit of devotion, whether the women
+of the Philippines are exceptional, the feminine part of the assembly
+remained silent. Scarcely was heard even a yawn, stifled behind a
+fan. The men made more stir. The most interesting and animated group
+was formed by two monks, two Spanish provincials, and an officer,
+seated round a little table, on which were wine and English biscuits.
+
+The officer, an old lieutenant, tall and morose, looked a Duke of Alba,
+retired into the Municipal Guard. He spoke little and dryly. One of the
+monks was a young Dominican, handsome, brilliant, precociously grave;
+it was the curate of Binondo. Consummate dialectician, he could escape
+from a distinguo like an eel from a fisherman's nets. He spoke seldom,
+and seemed to weigh his words.
+
+The other monk talked much and gestured more. Though his hair was
+turning gray, he seemed to have preserved all his vigor. His carriage,
+his glance, his large jaws, his herculean frame, gave him the air of a
+Roman patrician in disguise. Yet he seemed genial, and if the timbre
+of his voice was autocratic, his frank and merry laugh removed any
+disagreeable impression, so far even that one pardoned his appearing
+in the salon with unshod feet.
+
+One of the provincials, a little man with a black beard, had nothing
+remarkable about him but his nose, which, to judge from its size,
+ought not to have belonged to him entire. The other, young and blond,
+seemed newly arrived in the country. The Franciscan was conversing
+with him somewhat warmly.
+
+"You will see," said he, "when you have been here several months;
+you will be convinced that to legislate at Madrid and to execute in
+the Philippines is not one and the same thing."
+
+"But----"
+
+"I, for example," continued Brother Damaso, raising his voice to
+cut off the words of his objector, "I, who count twenty-three years
+of plane and palm, can speak with authority. I spent twenty years
+in one pueblo. In twenty years one gets acquainted with a town. San
+Diego had six thousand souls. I knew each inhabitant as if I'd borne
+and reared him--with which foot this one limped, how that one's pot
+boiled--and I tell you the reforms proposed by the Ministers are
+absurd. The Indian is too indolent!"
+
+"Ah, pardon me," said the young man, speaking low and drawing nearer;
+"that word rouses all my interest. Does it really exist from birth,
+this indolence of the native, or is it, as some travellers say, only an
+excuse of our own for the lack of advancement in our colonial policy?"
+
+"Bah! ask Senor Laruja, who also knows the country well; ask him if
+the ignorance and idleness of the Indians are not unparalleled?"
+
+"In truth!" the little dark man made haste to affirm; "nowhere will
+you find men more careless."
+
+"Nor more corrupt, nor more ungrateful."
+
+"Nor more ill-bred."
+
+The young man looked about uneasily. "Gentlemen," said he, still
+speaking low, "it seems to me we are the guests of Indians, and that
+these young ladies----"
+
+"Bah, you are too timid: Santiago does not consider himself an Indian,
+besides, he isn't here. These are the scruples of a newcomer. Wait a
+little. When you have slept in our strapped beds, eaten the tinola,
+and seen our balls and fetes, you'll change your tone. And more, you
+will find that the country is going to ruin; she is ruined already!"
+
+"What does your reverence mean?" cried the lieutenant and Dominican
+together.
+
+"The evil all comes from the fact that the Government sustains
+wrong-doers in the face of the ministers of God," continued the
+Franciscan, raising his voice and facing about. "When a curate rids
+his cemetery of a malefactor, no one, not even the king, has the right
+to interfere; and a wretched general, a petty general from nowhere----"
+
+"Father, His Excellency is viceroy," said the officer, rising. "His
+Excellency represents His Majesty the king."
+
+"What Excellency?" retorted the Franciscan, rising in turn. "Who is
+this king? For us there is but one King, the legitimate----"
+
+"If you do not retract that, Father, I shall make it known to the
+governor-general," cried the lieutenant.
+
+"Go to him now, go!" retorted Father Damaso; "I'll loan you my
+carriage."
+
+The Dominican interposed.
+
+"Senores," said he in a tone of authority, "you should not confuse
+things, nor seek offence where there is none intended. We must
+distinguish in the words of Father Damaso those of the man from those
+of the priest. The latter per se can never offend, because they are
+infallible. In the words of the man, a sub-distinction must be made,
+into those said ab irato, those said ex ore, but not in corde, and
+those said in corde. It is these last only that can offend, and even
+then everything depends. If they were not premeditated in mente,
+but simply arose per accidens in the heat of the conversation----"
+
+At this interesting point there joined the group an old Spaniard,
+gentle and inoffensive of aspect. He was lame, and leaned on
+the arm of an old native woman, smothered in curls and frizzes,
+preposterously powdered, and in European dress. With relief every
+one turned to salute them. It was Doctor de Espadana and his wife,
+the Doctora Dona Victorina. The atmosphere cleared.
+
+"Which, Senor Laruja, is the master of the house?" asked the young
+provincial. "I haven't been presented."
+
+"They say he has gone out."
+
+"No presentations are necessary here," said Brother Damaso; "Santiago
+is a good fellow."
+
+Er hat das Pulfer nicht erfunden. "He didn't invent gunpowder,"
+added Laruja.
+
+"What, you too, Senor de Laruja?" said Dona Victorina over her
+fan. "How could the poor man have invented gunpowder when, if what
+they say is true, the Chinese made it centuries ago?"
+
+"The Chinese? 'Twas a Franciscan who invented it," said Brother Damaso.
+
+"A Franciscan, no doubt; he must have been a missionary to China,"
+said the Senora, not disposed to abandon her idea.
+
+"Who is this with Santiago?" asked the lieutenant. Every one looked
+toward the door, where two men had just entered. They came up to the
+group around the table.
+
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+CRISOSTOMO IBARRA.
+
+
+One was the original of the portrait in oil, and he led by the hand
+a young man in deep black. "Good evening, senores; good evening,
+fathers," said Captain Tiago, kissing the hands of the priests,
+"I have the honor of presenting to you Don Crisostomo Ibarra."
+
+At the name of Ibarra there were smothered exclamations. The
+lieutenant, forgetting to salute the master of the house, surveyed
+the young man from head to foot. Brother Damaso seemed petrified. The
+arrival was evidently unexpected. Senor Ibarra exchanged the usual
+phrases with members of the group. Nothing marked him from other guests
+save his black attire. His fine height, his manner, his movements,
+denoted sane and vigorous youth. His face, frank and engaging, of a
+rich brown, and lightly furrowed--trace of Spanish blood--was rosy
+from a sojourn in the north.
+
+"Ah!" he cried, surprised and delighted, "my father's old friend,
+Brother Damaso!"
+
+All eyes turned toward the Franciscan, who did not stir.
+
+"Pardon," said Ibarra, puzzled. "I am mistaken."
+
+"You are not mistaken," said the priest at last, in an odd voice;
+"but your father was not my friend."
+
+Ibarra, astonished, drew slowly back the hand he had offered, and
+turned to find himself facing the lieutenant, whose eyes had never
+left him.
+
+"Young man, are you the son of Don Rafael Ibarra?"
+
+Crisostomo bowed.
+
+"Then welcome to your country! I knew your father well, one of the
+most honorable men of the Philippines."
+
+"Senor," replied Ibarra, "what you say dispels my doubts as to his
+fate, of which as yet I know nothing."
+
+The old man's eyes filled with tears. He turned away to hide them,
+and moved off into the crowd.
+
+The master of the house had disappeared. Ibarra was left alone in the
+middle of the room. No one presented him to the ladies. He hesitated
+a moment, then went up to them and said:
+
+"Permit me to forget formalities, and salute the first of my
+countrywomen I have seen for years."
+
+No one spoke, though many eyes regarded him with interest. Ibarra
+turned away, and a jovial man, in native dress, with studs of
+brilliants down his shirt-front, almost ran up to say:
+
+"Senor Ibarra, I wish to know you. I am Captain Tinong, and live near
+you at Tondo. Will you honor us at dinner to-morrow?"
+
+"Thank you," said Ibarra, pleased with the kindness, "but to-morrow
+I must leave for San Diego."
+
+"What a pity! Well then, on your return----"
+
+"Dinner is served," announced a waiter of the Cafe La Campana.
+
+The guests began to move toward the table, not without much ceremony
+on the part of the ladies, especially the natives, who required a
+great deal of polite urging.
+
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+THE DINNER.
+
+
+The two monks finding themselves near the head of the table, like
+two candidates for a vacant office, began politely resigning in each
+other's favor.
+
+"This is your place, Brother Damaso."
+
+"No, yours, Brother Sibyla."
+
+"You are so much the older friend of the family."
+
+"But you are the curate of the quarter."
+
+This polite contention settled, the guests sat down, no one but Ibarra
+seeming to think of the master of the house.
+
+"What," said he, "you're not to be with us, Don Santiago?"
+
+But there was no place: Lucullus was not dining with Lucullus.
+
+"Don't trouble yourself," said Captain Tiago, laying his hand on the
+young man's shoulder. "This feast is a thank-offering for your safe
+return. Ho, there! bring the tinola! I've ordered the tinola expressly
+for you, Crisostomo."
+
+"When did you leave the country?" Laruja asked Ibarra.
+
+"Seven years ago."
+
+"Then you must have almost forgotten it."
+
+"On the contrary, it has been always in my thoughts; but my country
+seems to have forgotten me."
+
+"Why do you say that?" asked the old lieutenant.
+
+"Because for several months I have had no news, so that I do not even
+know how and when my father died."
+
+The lieutenant could not repress a groan.
+
+"And where were you that they couldn't telegraph you?" asked Dona
+Victorina. "When we were married, we sent despatches to the peninsula."
+
+"Senora, I was in the far north," said Ibarra.
+
+"You have travelled much," said the blond provincial; "which of the
+European countries pleased you most?"
+
+"After Spain, my second country, the nations that are free."
+
+"And what struck you as most interesting, most surprising, in the
+general life of nations--the genius of each, so to put it?" asked
+Laruja.
+
+Ibarra reflected.
+
+"Before visiting a country I carefully studied its history, and,
+except the different motives for national pride, there seems to
+me nothing surprisingly characteristic in any nation. Given its
+history, everything appears natural; each people's wealth and misery
+seem in direct proportion to its freedom and its prejudices, and in
+consequence, in proportion to the self-sacrifice or selfishness of
+its progenitors."
+
+"Did you discover nothing more startling than that?" demanded
+the Franciscan, with a mocking laugh. "It was hardly worth while
+squandering money for so slight returns. Not a schoolboy but knows
+as much."
+
+The guests eyed one another, fearful of what might follow. Ibarra,
+astonished, remained silent a moment, then said quietly:
+
+"Senores, do not wonder at these words of Brother Damaso. He was my
+curate when I was a little boy, and with his reverence the years don't
+count. I thank him for thus recalling the time when he was often an
+honored guest at my father's table."
+
+Brother Sibyla furtively observed the Franciscan, who was trembling
+slightly. At the first possible opportunity Ibarra rose.
+
+"You will pardon me if I excuse myself," he said. "I arrived only
+a few hours ago, and have matters of importance to attend to. The
+dinner is over. I drink little wine, and scarcely taste liquors." And
+raising a glass as yet untouched, "Senores," he said, "Spain and the
+Philippines forever!"
+
+"You're not going!" said Santiago in amazement. "Maria Clara and her
+friends will be with us in a moment. What shall I say to her?"
+
+"That I was obliged to go," said Ibarra, "and that I'm coming early
+in the morning." And he went out.
+
+The Franciscan unburdened himself.
+
+"You saw his arrogance," he said to the blond provincial. "These young
+fellows won't take reproof from a priest. That comes of sending them
+to Europe. The Government ought to prohibit it."
+
+That night the young provincial added to his "Colonial Studies,"
+this paragraph: "In the Philippines, the least important person at a
+feast is he who gives it. You begin by showing your host to the door,
+and all goes merrily.... In the present state of affairs, it would
+be almost a kindness to prohibit young Filipinos from leaving their
+country, if not even from learning to read."
+
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+HERETIC AND FILIBUSTER.
+
+
+Ibarra stood outside the house of Captain Tiago. The night wind,
+which at this season brings a bit of freshness to Manila, seemed to
+blow away the cloud that had darkened his face. Carriages passed
+him like streaks of light, hired calashes rolled slowly by, and
+foot-passengers of all nationalities jostled one another. With the
+rambling gait of the preoccupied or the idle, he took his way toward
+the Plaza de Binondo. Nothing was changed. It was the same street,
+with the same blue and white houses, the same white walls with their
+slate-colored fresco, poor imitations of granite. The church tower
+showed the same clock with transparent face. The Chinese shop had
+the same soiled curtains, the same iron triangles. One day, long ago,
+imitating the street urchins of Manila, he had twisted one of these
+triangles: nobody had ever straightened it. "How little progress!" he
+murmured; and he followed the Calle de la Sacristia, pursued by the
+cry of sherbet venders.
+
+"Marvellous!" he thought; "one would say my voyage was a dream. Santo
+Dios! the street is as bad as when I went away."
+
+While he contemplated this marvel of urban stability in an unstable
+country, a hand fell lightly on his shoulder. He looked up and
+recognized the old lieutenant. His face had put off its expression
+of sternness, and he smiled kindly at Crisostomo.
+
+"Young man," he said, "I was your father's friend: I wish you to
+consider me yours."
+
+"You seem to have known my father well," said Crisostomo; "perhaps
+you can tell me something of his death."
+
+"You do not know about it?"
+
+"Nothing at all, and Don Santiago would not talk with me till
+to-morrow."
+
+"You know, of course, where he died."
+
+"Not even that."
+
+Lieutenant Guevara hesitated.
+
+"I am an old soldier," he said at last, in a voice full of compassion,
+"and only know how to say bluntly what I have to tell. Your father
+died in prison."
+
+Ibarra sprang back, his eyes fixed on the lieutenant's.
+
+"Died in prison? Who died in prison?"
+
+"Your father," said the lieutenant, his voice still gentler.
+
+"My father--in prison? What are you saying? Do you know who my father
+was?" and he seized the old man's arm.
+
+"I think I'm not mistaken: Don Rafael Ibarra."
+
+"Yes, Don Rafael Ibarra," Crisostomo repeated mechanically.
+
+"You will soon learn that for an honest man to keep out of prison is
+a difficult matter in the Philippines."
+
+"You mock me! Why did he die in prison?"
+
+"Come with me; we will talk on the way."
+
+They walked along in silence, the officer stroking his beard in search
+of inspiration.
+
+"As you know," he began, "your father was the richest man of the
+province, and if he had many friends he had also enemies. We Spaniards
+who come to the Philippines are seldom what we should be. I say this
+as truthfully of some of your ancestors as of others. Most of us come
+to make a fortune without regard to the means. Well, your father was a
+man to make enemies among these adventurers, and he made enemies among
+the monks. I never knew exactly the ground of the trouble with Brother
+Damaso, but it came to a point where the priest almost denounced him
+from the pulpit.
+
+"You remember the old ex-artilleryman who collected taxes? He became
+the laughing-stock of the pueblo, and grew brutal and churlish
+accordingly. One day he chased some boys who were annoying him, and
+struck one down. Unfortunately your father interfered. There was a
+struggle and the man fell. He died within a few hours.
+
+"Naturally your father was arrested, and then his enemies unmasked. He
+was called heretic, filibustero, his papers were seized, everything
+was made to accuse him. Any one else in his place would have been
+set at liberty, the physicians finding that the man died of apoplexy;
+but your father's fortune, his honesty, and his scorn of everything
+illegal undid him. When his advocate, by the most brilliant pleading,
+had exposed these calumnies, new accusations arose. He had taken
+lands unjustly, owed men for imaginary wrongs, had relations with the
+tulisanes, by which his plantations and herds were unmolested. The
+affair became so complicated that no one could unravel it. Your father
+gave way under the strain, and died suddenly--alone--in prison."
+
+They had reached the quarters.
+
+The lieutenant hesitated. Ibarra said nothing, but grasped the old
+man's long, thin hand; then turned away, caught sight of a coach,
+and signalled the driver.
+
+"Fonda de Lala," he said, and his words were scarcely audible.
+
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+A STAR IN THE DARK NIGHT.
+
+
+Ibarra went up to his chamber, which faced the river, threw himself
+down, and looked out through the open window. Across the river a
+brilliantly lighted house was ringing with joyous music. Had the young
+man been so minded, with the aid of a glass he might have seen, in that
+radiant atmosphere, a vision. It was a young girl, of exceeding beauty,
+wearing the picturesque costume of the Philippines. A semicircle
+of courtiers was round her. Spaniards, Chinese, natives, soldiers,
+curates, old and young, intoxicated with the light and music, were
+talking, gesturing, disputing with animation. Even Brother Sibyla
+deigned to address this queen, in whose splendid hair Dona Victorina
+was wreathing a diadem of pearls and brilliants. She was white,
+too white perhaps, and her deep eyes, often lowered, when she raised
+them showed the purity of her soul. About her fair and rounded neck,
+through the transparent tissue of the pina, winked, as say the Tagals,
+the joyous eyes of a necklace of brilliants. One man alone seemed
+unreached by all this light and loveliness; it was a young Franciscan,
+slim, gaunt, pale, who watched all from a distance, still as a statue.
+
+But Ibarra sees none of this. Another spectacle appears to his fancy,
+commands his eyes. Four walls, bare and dank, enclose a narrow
+cell, lighted by a single streak of day. On the moist and noisome
+floor is a mat; on the mat an old man dying. Beaten down by fever,
+he lies and looks about him, calling a name, in strangling voice,
+with tears. No one--a clanking chain, an echoed groan somewhere;
+that was all. And away off in the bright world, laughing, singing,
+drenching flowers with wine, a young man.... One by one the lights
+go out in the festal house: no more of noise, or song, or harp;
+but in Ibarra's ears always the agonizing cry.
+
+Silence has drawn her deep breath over Manila; all its life seems
+gone out, save that a cock's crow alternates with the bells of clock
+towers and the melancholy watch-cry of the guard. A quarter moon comes
+up, flooding with its pale light the universal sleep. Even Ibarra,
+wearied more perhaps with his sad thoughts than his long voyage, sleeps
+too. Only the young Franciscan, silent and motionless just now at the
+feast, awake still. His elbow on the window-place of his little cell,
+his chin sunk in his palm, he watches a glittering star. The star
+pales, goes out, the slender moon loses her gentle light, but the monk
+stays on; motionless, he looks toward the horizon, lost now behind
+the morning mists, over the field of Bagumbayan, over the sleeping sea.
+
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+CAPTAIN TIAGO AND MARIA.
+
+
+While our friends are still asleep or breakfasting, we will sketch
+the portrait of Captain Tiago. We have no reason to ignore him,
+never having been among his guests. Short, less dark than most of
+his compatriots, of full face and slightly corpulent, Captain Tiago
+seemed younger than his age. His rounded cranium, very small and
+elongated behind, was covered with hair black as ebony. His eyes,
+small and straight set, kept always the same expression. His nose
+was straight and finely cut, and if his mouth had not been deformed
+by the use of tobacco and buyo, he had not been wrong in thinking
+himself a handsome man.
+
+He was reputed the richest resident of Binondo, and had large estates
+in La Pampanga, on the Laguna de Bay, and at San Diego. From its
+baths, its famous gallera, and his recollections of the place,
+San Diego was his favorite pueblo, and here he passed two months
+every year. He had also properties at Santo Cristo, in the Calle de
+Anloague, and in the Calle Rosario; the exploitation of the opium
+traffic was shared between him and a Chinese, and, needless to say,
+brought him great gains. He was purveyor to the prisoners at Bilibid,
+and furnished zacate to many Manila houses. On good terms with all
+authority, shrewd, pliant, daring in speculation, he was the sole
+rival of a certain Perez in the awards of divers contracts which
+the Philippine Government always places in privileged hands. From
+all of which it resulted that Captain Tiago was as happy as can be
+a man whose small head announces his native origin. He was rich,
+and at peace with God, with the Government, and with men.
+
+That he was at peace with God could not be doubted. One has no
+motive for being at enmity with Him when one is well in the land,
+and has never had to ask Him for anything. From the grand salon
+of the Manila home, a little door, hid behind a silken curtain,
+led to a chapel--something obligatory in a Filipino house. There
+were Santiago's Lares, and if we use this word, it is because the
+master of the house was rather a poly- than a monotheist. Here, in
+sculpture and oils, were saints, martyrdoms, and miracles; a chapter
+could scarcely enumerate them all. Before these images Santiago burned
+his candles and made his requests known.
+
+That he was at peace with the Government, however difficult the
+problem, could not be doubted either. Incapable of a new idea, and
+contented with his lot, he was disposed to obey even to the lowest
+functionary, and to offer him capons, hams, and Chinese fruits at all
+seasons. If he heard the natives maligned, not considering himself one,
+he chimed in and said worse: one criticised the Chinese merchants or
+the Spaniards, he, who thought himself pure Iberian, did it too. He was
+for two years gobernadorcillo of the rich association of half-breeds,
+in the face of protestations from many who considered him a native. The
+impious called him fool; the poor, pitiless and cruel; his inferiors,
+a tyrant.
+
+As to his past, he was the only son of a rich sugar merchant, who died
+when Santiago was still at school. He had then to quit his studies
+and give himself to business. He married a young girl of Santa Cruz,
+who brought him social rank and helped his fortunes.
+
+The absence of an heir in the first six years of marriage made Captain
+Tiago's thirst for riches almost blameworthy. In vain all this time
+did Dona Pia make novenas and pilgrimages and scatter alms. But at
+length she was to become a mother. Alas! like Shakespeare's fisherman
+who lost his songs when he found a treasure, she never smiled again,
+and died, leaving a beautiful baby girl, whom Brother Damaso presented
+at the font. The child was called Maria Clara.
+
+Maria Clara grew, thanks to the care of good Aunt Isabel. Her
+eyes, like her mother's, were large, black, and shaded by long
+lashes; sparkling and mirthful when she laughed; when she did not,
+thoughtful and profound, even sad. Her curly hair was almost blond,
+her nose perfect; and her mouth, small and sweet like her mother's,
+was flanked by charming dimples. The little thing, idol of every one,
+lived amid smiles and love. The monks feted her. They dressed her
+in white for their processions, mingled jasmine and lilies in her
+hair, gave her little silver wings, and in her hands blue ribbons,
+the reins of fluttering white doves. She was so joyous, had such a
+candid baby speech, that Captain Tiago, enraptured with her, passed
+his time in blessing the saints.
+
+In the lands of the sun, at thirteen or fourteen, the child becomes a
+woman. At this age full of mysteries, Maria Clara entered the convent
+of Santa Catalina, to remain several years. With tears she parted from
+the sole companion of her childish games, Crisostomo Ibarra, who in
+turn was soon to leave his home. Some years after his departure, Don
+Rafael and Captain Tiago, knowing the inclinations of their children,
+agreed upon their marriage. This arrangement was received with eager
+joy by two hearts beating at two extremities of the world.
+
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+IDYLLE.
+
+
+The sky was blue. A fresh breeze stirred the leaves and shook the
+nodding "angels' heads," the aerial plants, and the many other
+adornments of the terrace. Maria and Crisostomo were there, alone
+together for the first time since his return. They began with charming
+futilities, so sweet to those who understand, so meaningless to
+others. She is sister to Cain, a little jealous; she says to her lover:
+"Did you never forget me among the many beautiful women you have seen?"
+
+He too, he is brother to Cain, a bit subtle.
+
+"Could I ever forget you!" he answered, gazing into the dark
+eyes. "Your remembrance made powerless that lotus flower, Europe,
+which steeps out of the memory of many of my countrymen the hopes and
+wrongs of our land. It seemed as if the spirit, the poetic incarnation
+of my country was you, frank and lovely daughter of the Philippines! My
+love for you and that for her fused in one."
+
+"I know only your pueblo, Manila and Antipolo," replied the young girl,
+radiant; "but I have always thought of you, and though my confessor
+commanded it, I was never able to forget you. I used to think over
+all our childish plays and quarrels. Do you remember the day you were
+really angry? Your mother had taken us to wade in the brook, behind
+the reeds. You put a crown of orange flowers on my head and called me
+Chloe. But your mother took the flowers and ground them with a stone,
+to mix with gogo, for washing our hair. You cried. 'Stupid,' said she,
+'you shall see how good your hair smells!' I laughed; at that you
+were angry and wouldn't speak to me, while I wanted to cry. On the
+way home, when the sun was very hot, I picked some sage leaves for
+your head. You smiled your thanks, and we were friends again."
+
+Ibarra opened his pocketbook and took out a paper in which were some
+leaves, blackened and dry, but fragrant still.
+
+"Your sage leaves," he replied to her questioning look.
+
+In her turn, she drew out a little white satin purse.
+
+"Hands off!" as he reached out for it, "there's a letter in it!"
+
+"My letter of good-by?"
+
+"Have you written me any others, senor mio?"
+
+"What is in it?"
+
+"Lots of fibs, excuses of a bad debtor," she laughed. "If you're good I
+will read it to you, suppressing the gallantries, though, so you won't
+suffer too much." And lifting the paper to hide her face, she began:
+
+"'My----' I'll not read what follows, because it's a fib"; and she
+ran her eyes over several lines. "In spite of my prayers, I must
+go. 'You are no longer a boy,' my father said, 'you must think of the
+future. You have to learn things your own country cannot teach you, if
+you would be useful to her some day. What, almost a man and I see you
+in tears?' Upon that I confessed my love for you. He was silent, then
+placing his hand on my shoulder he said in a voice full of emotion:
+'Do you think you alone know how to love; that it costs your father
+nothing to let you go away from him? It is not long since we lost your
+mother, and I am growing old, yet I accept my solitude and run the risk
+of never seeing you again. For you the future opens, for me it shuts;
+the fire of youth is yours, frost touches me, and it is you who weep,
+you who do not know how to sacrifice the present to a to-morrow good
+for you and for your country."
+
+Ibarra's agitation stopped the reading; he had become very pale and
+was walking back and forth.
+
+"What is it? You are ill!" cried Maria, going toward him.
+
+"With you I have forgotten my duty; I should be on my way to the
+pueblo. To-morrow is the Feast of the Dead."
+
+Maria was silent. She fixed on him her great, thoughtful eyes, then
+turned to pick some flowers.
+
+"Go," she said, and her voice was deep and sweet; "I keep you no
+longer. In a few days we shall see each other again. Put these flowers
+on your father's grave."
+
+A little later, Captain Tiago found Maria in the chapel, at the foot of
+a statue of the Virgin, weeping. "Come, come," said he, to console her;
+"burn some candles to St. Roch and St. Michael, patrons of travellers,
+for the tulisanes are numerous: better spend four reales for wax than
+pay a ransom."
+
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+REMINISCENCES.
+
+
+Ibarra's carriage was crossing one of the most animated quarters of
+Manila. The street life that had saddened him the night before, now,
+in spite of his sorrow, made him smile. Everything awakened a world
+of sleeping recollections.
+
+These streets were not yet paved, so if the sun shone two days
+continuously, they turned to powder which covered everything. But
+let it rain a day, you had a mire, reflecting at night the shifting
+lamps of the carriages and bespattering the foot-passengers on the
+narrow walks. How many women had lost their embroidered slippers in
+these muddy waves!
+
+The good and honorable pontoon bridge, so characteristically Filipino,
+doing its best to be useful in spite of natural faults, and rising
+or falling with the caprices of the Pasig,--that brave bridge was no
+more. The new Spanish bridge drew Ibarra's attention. Carriages passed
+continuously, drawn by groups of dwarf horses, in splendid harness. In
+these sat at ease government clerks going to their bureaus, officers,
+Chinese, self-satisfied and ridiculously grave monks, canons. In an
+elegant victoria, Ibarra thought he recognized Father Damaso, deep
+in thought. From an open carriage, where his wife and two daughters
+accompanied him, Captain Tinong waved a friendly greeting.
+
+Then came the Botanical Gardens, then old Manila, still enclosed in its
+ditches and walls; beyond that the sea; beyond that, Europe, thought
+Ibarra. But the little hill of Bagumbayan drove away all fancies. He
+remembered the man who had opened the eyes of his intelligence,
+taught him to find out the true and the just. It was an old priest,
+and the holy man had died there, on that field of execution!
+
+To these thoughts he replied by murmuring: "No, after all, first
+the country, first the Philippines, daughters of Spain, first the
+Spanish home-land!"
+
+His carriage rolled on. It passed a cart drawn by two horses whose
+hempen harness told of the back country. Sometimes there sounded the
+slow and heavy tread of a pensive carabao, drawing a great tumbrel;
+its conductor, on his buffalo skin, accompanying, with a monotonous and
+melancholy chant, the strident creaking of the wheels. Sometimes there
+was the dull sound of a native sledge's worn runners. In the fields
+grazed the herds, and among them white herons gravely promenaded, or
+sat tranquil on the backs of sleepy oxen beatifically chewing their
+cuds of prairie grass. Let us leave the young man, wholly occupied
+now with his thoughts. The sun which makes the tree-tops burn, and
+sends the peasants running, when they feel the hot ground through
+their thick shoes; the sun which halts the countrywoman under a clump
+of great reeds, and makes her think of things vague and strange--that
+sun has no enchantment for him.
+
+While the carriage, staggering like a drunken man over the uneven
+ground, passes a bamboo bridge, mounts a rough hillside or descends
+its steep slope, let us return to Manila.
+
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+AFFAIRS OF THE COUNTRY.
+
+
+Ibarra had not been mistaken. It was indeed Father Damaso he had seen,
+on his way to the house which he himself had just left.
+
+Maria Clara and Aunt Isabel were entering their carriage when the monk
+arrived. "Where are you going?" he asked, and in his preoccupation
+he gently tapped the young girl's cheek.
+
+"To the convent to get my things," said she.
+
+"Ah! ah! well, well! we shall see who is the stronger, we shall
+see!" he murmured, as he left the two women somewhat surprised and
+went up the steps.
+
+"He's probably committing his sermon," said Aunt Isabel. "Come,
+we are late!"
+
+We cannot say whether Father Damaso was committing a sermon, but he
+must have been absorbed in important things, for he did not offer
+his hand to Captain Tiago.
+
+"Santiago," he said, "we must have a serious talk. Come into your
+office."
+
+Captain Tiago felt uneasy. He answered nothing, but followed the
+gigantic priest, who closed the door behind them.
+
+While they talk, let us see what has become of Father Sibyla.
+
+The learned Dominican, his mass once said, had set out for the
+convent of his order, which stands at the entrance to the city,
+near the gate bearing alternately, according to the family reigning
+at Madrid, the name of Magellan or Isabella II.
+
+Brother Sibyla entered, crossed several halls, and knocked at a door.
+
+"Come in," said a faint voice.
+
+"God give health to your reverence," said the young Dominican,
+entering. Seated in a great armchair was an old priest, meagre,
+jaundiced, like Rivera's saints. His eyes, deep-sunken in their
+orbits, were arched with heavy brows, intensifying the flashes of
+their dying light.
+
+Brother Sibyla was moved. He inclined his head, and seemed to wait.
+
+"Ah!" gasped the sick man, "they recommend an operation! An operation
+at my age! Oh, this country, this terrible country! You see what it
+does for all of us, Hernando!"
+
+"And what has your reverence decided?"
+
+"To die! Could I do otherwise? I suffer too much, but--I've made
+others suffer. I'm paying my debt. And you? How are you? What do you
+bring me?"
+
+"I came to talk of the mission you gave me."
+
+"Ah! and what is there to say?"
+
+"They've told us fairy tales," answered Brother Sibyla wearily. "Young
+Ibarra seems a sensible fellow. He is not stupid at all, and thoroughly
+manly."
+
+"Is it so!"
+
+"Hostilities began yesterday."
+
+"Ah! and how?"
+
+Brother Sibyla briefly recounted what had passed between Brother
+Damaso and Crisostomo.
+
+"Besides," he said in conclusion, "the young man is going to marry
+the daughter of Captain Tiago, who was educated at the convent of
+our sisters. He is rich; he would not go about making himself enemies
+and compromise at once his happiness and his fortune."
+
+The sick man moved his hand in sign of assent.
+
+"Yes, you are right. He should be ours, body and soul. But if he
+declare himself our enemy, so much the better!"
+
+Brother Sibyla looked at the old man in surprise.
+
+"For the good of our sacred order, you understand," he added, breathing
+with difficulty; "I prefer attack to the flatteries and adulations
+of friends; besides, those are bought."
+
+"Your reverence believes that?"
+
+The old man looked at him sadly.
+
+"Remember this well," he went on, catching his breath; "our power lasts
+as long as it's believed in. If we're attacked, the Government reasons:
+'They are assailed because in them is seen an obstacle to liberty:
+therefore we must support them!'"
+
+"But if the Government should listen to our enemies, if it should
+come to covet what we have amassed--if there should be a man hardy
+enough----"
+
+"Ah! then beware!"
+
+Both were silent.
+
+"And too," the sick man continued, "we have need of attack to show
+us our faults and make us better them. Too much flattery deceives
+us; we sleep; and more, it makes us ridiculous, and the day we
+become ridiculous we fall as we have fallen in Europe. Money will no
+longer come to our churches. No one will buy scapulary, penitential
+cords, anything; and when we cease to be rich, we can no longer
+convince the conscience. And the worst is, that we're working our own
+destruction. For one thing, this immoderate thirst for gain, which I've
+combated in vain in all our chapters, this thirst will be our ruin. I
+fear we are already declining. God blinds whom He will destroy."
+
+"We shall always have our lands."
+
+"But every year we raise their price, and force the Indian to buy of
+others. The people are beginning to murmur. We ought not to increase
+the burdens we've already laid on their shoulders."
+
+"So your reverence believes that the revenues----"
+
+"Talk no more of money," interrupted the old man with aversion. "You
+say the lieutenant threatened Father Damaso?"
+
+"Yes, Father," replied Sibyla, half smiling; "but this morning he
+told me the sherry had mounted to his head, and he thought it must
+have been the same with Brother Damaso. 'And your threat?' I asked
+jestingly. 'Father,' said he, 'I know how to keep my word when it
+doesn't smirch my honor; I was never an informer--and that's why I
+am only a lieutenant.'"
+
+
+
+Though the lieutenant had not carried out his threat to go to
+Malacanang, the captain-general none the less knew what had happened. A
+young officer told the story.
+
+"From whom do you have it?" demanded His Excellency, smiling.
+
+"From De Laruja."
+
+The captain-general smiled again, and added:
+
+"Woman's tongue, monk's tongue doesn't wound. I don't wish to get
+entangled with these men in skirts. Besides, the provincial made
+light of my orders; to punish this priest I demanded that his parish
+be changed. Well, they gave him a better. Monkishness! as we say
+in Spain."
+
+Alone, His Excellency ceased to smile.
+
+"Oh! if the people were not so dense, how easy to bridle their
+reverences! But every nation merits its lot!"
+
+Meanwhile Captain Tiago finished his conference with Father Damaso.
+
+"And now you are warned," said the Franciscan upon leaving. "This
+would have been avoided if you hadn't equivocated when I asked you
+how the matter stood. Don't make any more false moves, and trust
+her godfather."
+
+Captain Tiago took two or three turns about the room, reflecting
+and sighing. Then suddenly, as if a happy thought had struck him,
+running to the oratory, he extinguished the two candles lighted for
+the safeguard of Ibarra.
+
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+THE PUEBLO.
+
+
+Almost on the banks of the lake, in the midst of meadows and streams,
+is the pueblo of San Diego. It exports sugar, rice, coffee, and
+fruits, or sells these articles of merchandise at low prices to
+Chinese traders.
+
+When, on a clear day, the children climb to the top stage
+of the moss-grown and vine-clad church tower, there are joyous
+exclamations. Each picks out his own little roof of nipa, tile, zinc,
+or palm. Beyond they see the rio, a monstrous crystal serpent asleep
+on a carpet of green. Trunks of palm trees, dipping and swaying, join
+the two banks, and if, as bridges, they leave much to be desired for
+trembling old men and poor women who must cross with heavy baskets
+on their heads, on the other hand they make fine gymnastic apparatus
+for the young.
+
+But what besides the rio the children never fail to talk about is a
+certain wooded peninsula in this sea of cultivated land. Its ancient
+trees never die, unless the lightning strikes their high tops. Dust
+gathers layer on layer in their hollow trunks, the rain makes soil of
+it, the birds bring seeds, a tropical vegetation grows there in wild
+freedom: bushes, briers, curtains of netted bind-weed, spring from
+the roots, reach from tree to tree, hang swaying from the branches,
+and Flora, as if yet unsatisfied, sows on the trees themselves; mosses
+and fungi live on the creased bark, and graceful aerial guests pierce
+with their tendrils the hospitable branches.
+
+This wood is the subject of a legend.
+
+When the pueblo was but a group of poor cabins, there arrived one
+day a strange old Spaniard with marvellous eyes, who scarcely spoke
+the Tagal. He wished to buy lands having thermal springs, and did
+so, paying in money, dress, and jewelry. Suddenly he disappeared,
+leaving no trace. The people of the pueblo had begun to think of him
+as a magician, when one day his body was found hanging high to the
+branch of a giant fig tree. After it had been buried at the foot of
+the tree, no one cared much to venture in that quarter.
+
+A few months later there arrived a young Spanish halfbreed, who
+claimed to be the old man's son. He settled, and gave himself to
+agriculture. Don Saturnino was taciturn and of violent temper,
+but very industrious. Late in life he married a woman of Manila,
+who bore him Don Rafael, the father of Crisostomo.
+
+Don Rafael, from his youth, was much beloved. He rapidly developed
+his father's lands, the population multiplied, the Chinese came, the
+hamlet grew to a pueblo, the native curate died and was replaced by
+Father Damaso. And all this time the people respected the sepulchre
+of the old Spaniard, and held it in superstitious awe. Sometimes,
+armed with sticks and stones, the children dared run near it to gather
+wild fruits; but while they were busy at this, or stood gazing at
+the bit of rope still dangling from the limb, a stone or two would
+fall from no one knew where. Then with cries of "The old man! the
+old man!" they threw down sticks and fruit, ran in all directions,
+between the rocks and bushes, and did not stop till they were out of
+the woods, all pale and breathless, some crying, few daring to laugh.
+
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+THE SOVEREIGNS.
+
+
+Who was the ruler of the pueblo? Not Don Rafael during his lifetime,
+though he possessed the most land, and nearly every one owed him. As
+he was modest, and gave little value to his deeds, no party formed
+around him, and we have seen how he was deserted and attacked when
+his fortunes fell.
+
+Was it Captain Tiago? It is true his arrival was always heralded with
+music, he was given banquets by his debtors, and loaded with presents;
+but he was laughed at in secret, and called Sacristan Tiago.
+
+Was it by chance the town mayor, the gobernadorcillo? Alas! he was
+an unfortunate, who governed not, but obeyed; did not dispose, but
+was disposed of. And yet he had to answer to the alcalde for all
+these dispositions, as if they emanated from his own brain. Be it
+said in his favor that he had neither stolen nor usurped his honors,
+but that they cost him five thousand pesos and much humiliation.
+
+Perhaps then it was God? But to most of these good people, God seemed
+one of those poor kings surrounded by favorites to whom their subjects
+always take their supplications, never to them.
+
+No, San Diego was a sort of modern Rome. The curate was the pope
+at the Vatican; the alferez of the civil guard, the King in the
+Quirinal. Here as there, difficulties arose from the situation.
+
+The present curate, Brother Bernardo Salvi, was the young and silent
+Franciscan we have already seen. In mode of life and in appearance
+he was very unlike his predecessor, Brother Damaso. He seemed ill,
+was always thoughtful, accomplished strictly his religious duties,
+and was careful of his reputation. Through his zeal, almost all
+his parishioners had speedily become members of the Third Order of
+St. Francis, to the great dismay of the rival order, that of the Holy
+Rosary. Four or five scapularies were suspended around every neck,
+knotted cords encircled all the waists, and the innumerable processions
+of the order were a joy to see. The head sacristan took in a small
+fortune, selling--or giving as alms, to put it more correctly--all
+the paraphernalia necessary to save the soul and combat the devil. It
+is well known that this evil spirit, who once dared attack God face
+to face, and accuse His divine word, as the book of Job tells us,
+is now so cowardly and feeble that he flees at sight of a bit of
+painted cloth, and fears a knotted cord.
+
+Brother Salvi again greatly differed from Brother Damaso--who set
+everything right with fists or ferrule, believing it the only way to
+reach the Indian--in that he punished with fines the faults of his
+subordinates, rarely striking them.
+
+From his struggles with the curate, the alferez had a bad reputation
+among the devout, which he deserved, and shared with his wife,
+a hideous and vile old Filipino woman named Dona Consolacion. The
+husband avenged his conjugal woes on himself by drinking like a fish;
+on his subordinates, by making them exercise in the sun; and most
+frequently on his wife, by kicks and drubbings. The two fought famously
+between themselves, but were of one mind when it was a question of
+the curate. Inspired by his wife, the officer ordered that no one
+be abroad in the streets after nine at night. The priest, who did
+not like this restriction, retorted in lengthy sermons, whenever
+the alferez went to church. Like all impenitents, the alferez did
+not mend his ways for that, but went out swearing under his breath,
+arrested the first sacristan he met, and made him clean the yard of
+the barracks. So the war went on. All this, however, did not prevent
+the alferez and the curate chatting courteously enough when they met.
+
+And they were the rulers of the pueblo of San Diego.
+
+
+
+
+
+XII.
+
+ALL SAINTS' DAY.
+
+
+The cemetery of San Diego is in the midst of rice-fields. It is
+approached by a narrow path, powdery on sunny days, navigable on
+rainy. A wooden gate and a wall half stone, half bamboo stalks,
+succeed in keeping out men, but not the curate's goats, nor the
+pigs of his neighbors. In the middle of the enclosure is a stone
+pedestal supporting a great wooden cross. Storms have bent the strip
+of tin on which were the I. N. R. I., and the rain has washed off
+the letters. At the foot of the cross is a confused heap of bones
+and skulls thrown out by the grave-digger. Everywhere grow in all
+their vigor the bitter-sweet and rose-bay. Some tiny flowerets, too,
+tint the ground--blossoms which, like the mounded bones, are known to
+their Creator only. They are like little pale smiles, and their odor
+scents of the tomb. Grass and climbing plants fill the corners, cover
+the walls, adorning this otherwise bare ugliness; they even penetrate
+the tombs, through earthquake fissures, and fill their yawning gaps.
+
+At this hour two men are digging near the crumbling wall. One, the
+grave-digger, works with the utmost indifference, throwing aside
+a skull as a gardener would a stone. The other is preoccupied; he
+perspires, he breathes hard.
+
+"Oh!" he says at length in Tagalo. "Hadn't we better dig in some
+other place? This grave is too recent."
+
+"All the graves are the same, one is as recent as another."
+
+"I can't endure this!"
+
+"What a woman! You should go and be a clerk! If you had dug up,
+as I did, a boy of twenty days, at night, in the rain----"
+
+"Uh-h-h! And why did you do that?"
+
+The grave-digger seemed surprised.
+
+"Why? How do I know, I was ordered to."
+
+"Who ordered you?"
+
+At this question the grave-digger straightened himself, and examined
+the rash young man from head to foot.
+
+"Come! come! You're curious as a Spaniard. A Spaniard asked me the
+same question, but in secret. I'm going to say to you what I said to
+him: the curate ordered it."
+
+"Oh! and what did you do with the body?"
+
+"The devil! if I didn't know you, I should take you for the police. The
+curate told me to bury it in the Chinese cemetery, but it's a long way
+there, and the body was heavy. 'Better be drowned,' I said to myself,
+'than lie with the Chinese,' and I threw it into the lake."
+
+"No, no, stop digging!" interrupted the younger man, with a cry of
+horror, and throwing down his spade he sprang out of the grave.
+
+The grave-digger watched him run off signing himself, laughed, and
+went to work again.
+
+The cemetery began to fill with men and women in mourning. Some
+of them came for a moment to the open grave, discussed some matter,
+seemed not to be agreed, and separated, kneeling here and there. Others
+were lighting candles; all began to pray devoutly. One heard sighing
+and sobs, and over all a confused murmur of "requiem aeternam."
+
+A little old man, with piercing eyes, entered uncovered. At sight
+of him some laughed, others frowned. The old man seemed to take no
+account of this. He went to the heap of skulls, knelt, and searched
+with his eyes. Then with the greatest care he lifted the skulls one
+by one, wrinkling his brows, shaking his head, and looking on all
+sides. At length he rose and approached the grave-digger.
+
+"Ho!" said he.
+
+The other raised his eyes.
+
+"Did you see a beautiful skull, white as the inside of a cocoanut?"
+
+The grave-digger shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Look," said the old man, showing a piece of money; "it's all I have,
+but I'll give it to you if you find it."
+
+The gleam of silver made the man reflect. He looked toward the heap
+and said:
+
+"It isn't there? No? Then I don't know where it is."
+
+"You don't know? When those who owe me pay, I'll give you more. 'Twas
+the skull of my wife, and if you find it----"
+
+"It isn't there? Then I know nothing about it, but I can give you
+another."
+
+"You are like the grave you dig," cried the old man, furious. "You
+know not the value of what you destroy! For whom is this grave?"
+
+"How do I know? For a dead man!" replied the other with temper.
+
+"Like the grave, like the grave," the old man repeated with
+a dry laugh. "You know neither what you cast out nor what you
+keep. Dig! dig!" And he went toward the gate.
+
+Meanwhile the grave-digger had finished his task, and two mounds of
+fresh, reddish earth rose beside the grave. Drawing from his pocket
+some buyo, he regarded dully what was going on around him, sat down,
+and began to chew.
+
+At that moment a carriage, which had apparently made a long journey,
+stopped at the entrance to the cemetery. Ibarra got out, followed by
+an old servant, and silently made his way along the path.
+
+"It is there, behind the great cross, senor," said the servant,
+as they approached the spot where the grave-digger was sitting.
+
+Arrived at the cross, the old servant looked on all sides, and became
+greatly confused. "It was there," he muttered; "no, there, but the
+ground has been broken."
+
+Ibarra looked at him in anguish.
+
+The servant appealed to the grave-digger.
+
+"Where is the grave that was marked with a cross like this?" he
+demanded; and stooping, he traced a Byzantine cross on the ground.
+
+"Were there flowers growing on it?"
+
+"Yes, jasmine and pansies."
+
+The grave-digger scratched his ear and said with a yawn:
+
+"Well, the cross I burned."
+
+"Burned! and why?"
+
+"Because the curate ordered it."
+
+Ibarra drew his hand across his forehead.
+
+"But at least you can show us the grave."
+
+"The body's no longer there," said the grave-digger calmly.
+
+"What are you saying!"
+
+"Yes," the man went on, with a smile, "I put a woman in its place,
+eight days ago."
+
+"Are you mad?" cried the servant; "it isn't a year since he was
+buried."
+
+"Father Damaso ordered it; he told me to take the body to the Chinese
+cemetery; I----"
+
+He got no farther, and started back in terror at sight of Crisostomo's
+face. Crisostomo seized his arm. "And you did it?" he demanded,
+in a terrible voice.
+
+"Don't be angry, senor," replied the grave-digger, pale and
+trembling. "I didn't bury him with the Chinese. Better be drowned
+than that, I thought to myself, and I threw him into the water."
+
+Ibarra stared at him like a madman. "You're only a poor fool!" he
+said at length, and pushing him away, he rushed headlong for the
+gate, stumbling over graves and bones, and painfully followed by the
+old servant.
+
+"That's what the dead bring us," grumbled the gravedigger. "The curate
+orders me to dig the man up, and this fellow breaks my arm for doing
+it. That's the way with the Spaniards. I shall lose my place!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XIII.
+
+THE LITTLE SACRISTANS.
+
+
+The little old man of the cemetery wandered absent-minded along
+the streets.
+
+He was a character of the pueblo. He had once been a student in
+philosophy, but abandoned his course at the demands of his mother. The
+good woman, finding that her son had talent, feared lest he become a
+savant and forget God; she let him choose, therefore, between studying
+for the priesthood and leaving the college of San Jose. He was in love,
+took the latter course, and married. Widowed and orphaned within a
+year, he found in books a deliverance from sadness, idleness, and
+the gallera. Unhappily he studied too much, bought too many books,
+neglected to care for his fortune, and came to financial ruin. Some
+people called him Don Astasio, or Tasio the philosopher; others,
+and by far the greater number, Tasio the fool.
+
+The afternoon threatened a tempest. Pale flashes of lightning illumined
+the leaden sky; the atmosphere was heavy and close.
+
+Arrived at the church door, Tasio entered and spoke to two little boys,
+one ten years old perhaps, the other seven.
+
+"Coming with me?" he asked. "Your mother has ready a dinner fit
+for curates."
+
+"The head sacristan won't let us leave yet," said the elder. "We're
+going into the tower to ring the bells."
+
+"Take care! don't go too near the bells in the storm," said Tasio, and,
+head down, he went off, thinking, toward the outskirts of the town.
+
+Soon the rain came down in torrents, the thunder echoed clap on clap,
+each detonation preceded by an awful zig-zag of fire. The tempest
+grew in fury, and, scarce able to ride on the shifting wind, the
+plaintive voices of the bells rang out a lamentation.
+
+The boys were in the tower, the younger, timid, in spite of his great
+black eyes, hugging close to his brother. They resembled one another,
+but the elder had the stronger and more thoughtful face. Their dress
+was poor, patched, and darned. The wind beat in the rain a little,
+where they were, and set the flame of their candle dancing.
+
+"Pull your rope, Crispin," said the elder to his little brother.
+
+Crispin pulled, and heard a feeble plaint, quickly silenced by
+a thunder crash. "If we were only home with mama," he mourned,
+"I shouldn't be afraid."
+
+The other did not answer. He watched the candle melt, and seemed
+thoughtful.
+
+"At least, no one there would call me a thief; mama would not have
+it. If she knew they had beaten me----" The elder gave the great cord
+a sharp pull; a deep, sonorous tone trembled out.
+
+"Pay what they say I stole! Pay it, brother!"
+
+"Are you mad, Crispin? Mama would have nothing to eat; they say you
+stole two onces, and two onces make thirty-two pesos."
+
+The little fellow counted thirty-two on his fingers.
+
+"Six hands and two fingers. And each finger makes a peso, and each
+peso how many cuartos?"
+
+"A hundred sixty."
+
+"And how much is a hundred sixty?"
+
+"Thirty-two hands."
+
+Crispin regarded his little paws.
+
+"Thirty-two hands," he said, "and each finger a cuarto! O mama! how
+many cuartos! and with them one could buy shoes, and a hat for the sun,
+and an umbrella for the rain, and clothes for mama."
+
+Crispin became pensive.
+
+"What I'm afraid of is that mama will be angry with you when she
+hears about it."
+
+"You think so?" said Crispin, surprised. "But I've never had a cuarto
+except the one they gave me at Easter. Mama won't believe I stole;
+she won't believe it!"
+
+"But if the curate says so----"
+
+Crispin began to cry, and said through his sobs:
+
+"Then go alone, I won't go. Tell mama I'm sick."
+
+"Crispin, don't cry," said his brother. "If mama seems to believe what
+they say, you'll tell her that the sacristan lies, that the curate
+believes him, that they say we are thieves because our father----"
+
+A head came out of the shadows in the little stairway, and as if it
+had been Medusa's, it froze the words on the children's lips.
+
+The head was long and lean, with a shock of black hair. Blue glasses
+concealed one sightless eye. It was the chief sacristan who had thus
+stolen upon the children.
+
+"You, Basilio, are fined two reales for not ringing regularly. And you,
+Crispin, stay to-night till you find what you've stolen."
+
+"We have permission," began Basilio; "our mother expects us at nine."
+
+"You won't go at nine o'clock either; you shall stay till ten."
+
+"But, senor, after nine one can't pass through the streets----"
+
+"Are you trying to dictate to me?" demanded the sacristan, and he
+seized Crispin's arm.
+
+"Senor, we have not seen our mother for a week," entreated Basilio,
+taking hold of his brother as if to protect him.
+
+With a stroke on the cheek the sacristan made him let go, and dragged
+off Crispin, who commenced to cry, let himself fall, tried to cling
+to the floor, and besought Basilio to keep him. But the sacristan,
+dragging the child, disappeared in the shadows.
+
+Basilio stood mute. He heard his little brother's body strike
+against the stairs; he heard a cry, blows, heart-rending words,
+growing fainter and fainter, lost at last in the distance.
+
+"When shall I be strong enough?" he murmured, and dashed down the
+stairs.
+
+He reached the choir and listened. He could still hear his little
+brother's voice; then over the cry, "Mama!--Brother!" a door
+shut. Trembling, damp with sweat, holding his mouth with his hand to
+stifle a cry, he stood a moment looking about in the dim church. The
+doors were closed, the windows barred. He went back to the tower, did
+not stop at the second stage, where the bells were rung, but climbed
+to the third, loosed the ropes that held the tongues of the bells,
+then went down again, pale, his eyes gleaming, but without tears.
+
+The rain commenced to slacken and the sky to clear. Basilio knotted
+the ropes, fastened an end to a beam of the balcony, and, forgetting
+to blow out the candle, glided down into the darkness.
+
+Some minutes later voices were heard in a street of the pueblo,
+and two rifle shots rang out; but it raised no alarm, and all again
+became silent.
+
+
+
+
+
+XIV.
+
+SISA.
+
+
+Nearly an hour's walk from the pueblo lived the mother of Basilio and
+Crispin, wife of a man who passed his time in lounging or watching
+cock-fights while she struggled to bring up their children. The
+husband and wife saw each other rarely, and their interviews were
+painful. To feed his vices, he had robbed her of her few trinkets,
+and when the unhappy Sisa had nothing more with which to satisfy
+his caprices he began to abuse her. Without much strength of will,
+dowered with more heart than reason, she only knew how to love
+and to weep. Her husband was a god, her children were angels. He,
+who knew how much he was adored and feared, like other false gods,
+grew more and more arbitrary and cruel.
+
+The stars were glittering in the sky cleared by the tempest. Sisa
+sat on the wooden bench, her chin in her hand, watching some branches
+smoulder on her hearth of uncut stones. On these stones was a little
+pan where rice was cooking, and among the cinders were three dry
+sardines.
+
+She was still young, and one saw she had been beautiful. Her eyes,
+which, with her soul, she had given to her sons, were fine, deep,
+and fringed with dark lashes; her face was regular; her skin pure
+olive. In spite of her youth, suffering, hunger sometimes, had begun
+to hollow her cheeks. Her abundant hair, once her glory, was still
+carefully dressed--but from habit, not coquetry.
+
+All day Sisa had been thinking of the pleasure coming at night. She
+picked the finest tomatoes in her garden--favorite dish of little
+Crispin; from her neighbor, Tasio, she got a fillet of wild boar and
+a wild duck's thigh for Basilio, and she chose and cooked the whitest
+rice on the threshing-floor.
+
+Alas! the father arrived. Good-by to the dinner! He ate the rice,
+the filet of wild boar, the duck's thigh, and the tomatoes. Sisa said
+nothing, happy to see her husband satisfied, and so much happier
+that, having eaten, he remembered he had children and asked where
+they were. The poor mother smiled. She had promised herself to eat
+nothing--there was not enough left for three; but the father had
+thought of his sons, that was better than food.
+
+Sisa, left alone, wept a little; but she thought of her children,
+and dried her tears. She cooked the little rice she had left, and
+the three sardines.
+
+Attentive to every sound, she now sat listening: a footfall strong
+and regular, it was Basilio's; light and unsteady, Crispin's.
+
+But the children did not come.
+
+To pass the time, she hummed a song. Her voice was beautiful, and when
+her children heard her sing "Kundiman" they cried, without knowing
+why. To-night her voice trembled, and the notes came tardily.
+
+She went to the door and scanned the road. A black dog was there,
+searching about. It frightened Sisa, and she threw a stone, sending
+the dog off howling.
+
+Sisa was not superstitious, but she had so often heard of black dogs
+and presentiments that terror seized her. She shut the door in haste
+and sat down by the light. She prayed to the Virgin, to God Himself,
+to take care of her boys, and most for the little Crispin. Then, drawn
+away from prayer by her sole preoccupation, she thought no longer
+of aught but her children, of all their ways, which seemed to her so
+pleasing. Then the terror returned. Vision or reality, Crispin stood
+by the hearth, where he often sat to chatter to her. He said nothing,
+but looked at her with great, pensive eyes, and smiled.
+
+"Mother, open! Open the door, mother!" said Basilio's voice outside.
+
+Sisa shuddered, and the vision disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+
+XV.
+
+BASILIO.
+
+Life is a Dream.
+
+
+Basilio had scarcely strength to enter and fall into his mother's
+arms. A strange cold enveloped Sisa when she saw him come alone. She
+wished to speak, but found no words; to caress her son, but found
+no force. Yet at the sight of blood on his forehead, her voice came,
+and she cried in a tone which seemed to tell of a breaking heartstring:
+
+"My children!"
+
+"Don't be frightened, mama; Crispin stayed at the convent."
+
+"At the convent? He stayed at the convent? Living?"
+
+The child raised his eyes to hers.
+
+"Ah!" she cried, passing from the greatest anguish to the utmost
+joy. She wept, embraced her child, covered with kisses his wounded
+forehead.
+
+"And why are you hurt, my son? Did you fall?"
+
+Basilio told her he had been challenged by the guard, ran, was shot
+at, and a ball had grazed his forehead.
+
+"O God! I thank Thee that Thou didst save him!" murmured the mother.
+
+She went for lint and vinegar water, and while she bandaged his wound:
+
+"Why," she asked, "did Crispin stay at the convent?"
+
+Basilio looked at her, kissed her, then little by little told the
+story of the lost money; he said nothing of the torture of his little
+brother. Mother and child mingled their tears.
+
+"Accuse my good Crispin! It's because we are poor, and the poor must
+bear everything," murmured Sisa. Both were silent a moment.
+
+"But you have not eaten," said the mother. "Here are sardines and
+rice."
+
+"I'm not hungry, mama; I only want some water."
+
+"Yes, eat," said the mother. "I know you don't like dry sardines,
+and I had something else for you; but your father came, my poor child."
+
+"My father came?" and Basilio instinctively examined his mother's
+face and hands.
+
+The question pained the mother; she sighed.
+
+"You won't eat? Then we must go to bed; it is late."
+
+Sisa barred the door and covered the fire. Basilio murmured his
+prayers, and crept on the mat near his mother, who was still on her
+knees. She was warm, he was cold. He thought of his little brother,
+who had hoped to sleep this night close to his mother's side, trembling
+with fear in some dark corner of the convent. He heard his cries as
+he had heard them in the tower; but Nature soon confused his ideas
+and he slept.
+
+In the middle of the night Sisa wakened him.
+
+"What is it, Basilio? Why are you crying?"
+
+"I was dreaming. O mama! it was a dream, wasn't it? Say it was nothing
+but a dream!"
+
+"What were you dreaming?"
+
+He did not answer, but sat up to dry his tears.
+
+"Tell me the dream," said Sisa, when he had lain down again. "I
+cannot sleep."
+
+"It is gone now, mama; I don't remember it all."
+
+Sisa did not insist: she attached no importance to dreams.
+
+"Mama," said Basilio after a moment of silence, "I'm not sleepy
+either. I had a project last evening. I don't want to be a sacristan."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Listen, mama. The son of Don Rafael came home from Spain to-day;
+he should be as kind as his father. Well, to-morrow I find Crispin,
+get my pay, and say I'm not going to be a sacristan. Then I'll go
+see Don Crisostomo and ask him to make me a buffalo-keeper. Crispin
+could go on studying with old Tasio. Tasio's better than the curate
+thinks; I've often seen him praying in the church when no one else was
+there. What shall I lose in not being a sacristan? One earns little and
+loses it all in fines. I'll be a herdsman, mama, and take good care of
+the cows and carabaos, and make my master love me; then perhaps he'll
+let us have a cow to milk: Crispin loves milk. And I could fish in the
+rivers and go hunting when I get big. And by and by perhaps I could
+have a little land and sow sugar-cane. We could all live together,
+then. And old Tasio says Crispin is very bright. By and by we would
+send him to study at Manila, and I would work for him. Shall we,
+mama? He might be a doctor; what do you say?"
+
+"What can I say, except that you are right," answered Sisa, kissing
+her son.
+
+Basilio went on with his projects, talking with the confidence of a
+child. Sisa said yes to everything. But little by little sleep came
+back to the child's lids, and this time he did not cry in his dreams:
+that Ole-Luk-Oie, of whom Andersen tells us, unfurled over his head
+the umbrella with its lining of gay pictures. But the mother, past
+the age of careless slumbers, did not sleep.
+
+
+
+
+
+XVI.
+
+AT THE MANSE.
+
+
+It was seven o'clock when Brother Salvi finished his last mass. He
+took off his priestly robes without a word to any one.
+
+"Look out!" whispered the sacristans; "it is going to rain fines! And
+all for the fault of those children!"
+
+The father came out of the sacristy and crossed to the manse. On the
+porch six or seven women sat waiting for him, and a man was walking
+to and fro. The woman rose, and one bent to kiss his hand, but the
+priest made such a gesture of impatience that she stopped short.
+
+"He must have lost a real miser," she cried mockingly, when he had
+passed. "This is something unheard of: refuse his hand to the zealous
+Sister Rufa?"
+
+"He was not in the confessional this morning," said a toothless
+old woman, Sister Sipa. "I wanted to confess, so as to get some
+indulgences."
+
+"I have gained three plenary indulgences," said a young woman of
+pleasing face, "and applied them all to the soul of my husband."
+
+"You have done wrong," said Sister Rufa, "one plenary is enough;
+you should not squander the holy indulgences. Do as I do."
+
+"I said to myself, the more there are the better," replied young
+sister Juana, smiling; "but what do you do?"
+
+Sister Rufa did not respond at once; she chewed her buyo, and scanned
+her audience attentively; at length she decided to speak.
+
+"Well, this is what I do. Suppose I gain a year of indulgences; I say:
+Blessed Senor Saint Dominic, have the kindness to see if there is some
+one in purgatory who has need of precisely a year. Then I play heads
+or tails. If it falls heads, no; if tails, yes. If it falls heads,
+I keep the indulgence, and so I make groups of a hundred years, for
+which there is always use. It's a pity one can't loan indulgences at
+interest. But do as I do, it's the best plan."
+
+At this point Sisa appeared. She said good morning to the women,
+and entered the manse.
+
+"She's gone in, let us go too," said the sisters, and they followed
+her.
+
+Sisa felt her heart beat violently. She did not know what to say to the
+curate in defence of her child. She had risen at daybreak, picked all
+the fine vegetables left in her garden, and arranged them in a basket
+with platane leaves and flowers, and had been to the river to get a
+fresh salad of pako. Then, dressed in the best she had, the basket
+on her head, without waking her son, she had set out for the pueblo.
+
+She went slowly through the manse, listening if by chance she might
+hear a well-known voice, fresh and childish. But she met no one,
+heard nothing, and went on to the kitchen.
+
+The servants and sacristans received her coldly, scarcely answering
+her greetings.
+
+"Where may I put these vegetables?" she asked, without showing offence.
+
+"There--wherever you want to," replied the cook curtly.
+
+Sisa, half-smiling, placed all in order on the table, and laid on
+top the flowers and the tender shoots of the pako; then she asked a
+servant who seemed more friendly than the cook:
+
+"Do you know if Crispin is in the sacristy?"
+
+The servant looked at her in surprise.
+
+"Crispin?" said he, wrinkling his brows; "isn't he at home?"
+
+"Basilio is, but Crispin stayed here."
+
+"Oh, yes, he stayed, but he ran off afterward with all sorts of things
+he'd stolen. The curate sent me to report it at the quarters. The
+guards must be on their way to your house by this time."
+
+Sisa could not believe it; she opened her mouth, but her lips moved
+in vain.
+
+"Go find your children," said the cook. "Everybody sees you're a
+faithful woman; the children are like their father!"
+
+Sisa stifled a sob, and, at the end of her strength, sat down.
+
+"Don't cry here," said the cook still more roughly, "the curate is ill;
+don't bother him! Go cry in the street!"
+
+The poor woman got up, almost by force, and went down the steps with
+the sisters, who were still gossiping of the curate's illness. Once
+on the street she looked about uncertain; then, as if from a sudden
+resolution, moved rapidly away.
+
+
+
+
+
+XVII.
+
+STORY OF A SCHOOLMASTER.
+
+
+The lake, girt with hills, lies tranquil, as if it had not been
+shaken by yesterday's tempest. At the first gleam of light which
+wakes the phosphorescent spirits of the water, almost on the bounds
+of the horizon, gray silhouettes slowly take shape. These are the
+barks of fishermen drawing in their nets; cascos and paraos shaking
+out their sails.
+
+From a height, two men in black are silently surveying the lake. One
+is Ibarra, the other a young man of humble dress and melancholy face.
+
+"This is the place," said the stranger, "where the gravedigger brought
+us, Lieutenant Guevara and me."
+
+Ibarra uncovered, and stood a long time as if in prayer.
+
+When the first horror at the story of his father's desecrated grave
+had passed, he had bravely accepted what could not be undone. Private
+wrongs must go unavenged, if one would not add to the wrongs of the
+country: Ibarra had been trained to live for these islands, daughters
+of Spain. In his country, too, a charge against a monk was a charge
+against the Church, and Crisostomo was a loyal Catholic; if he knew
+how in his mind to separate the Church from her unworthy sons, most of
+his fellow-countrymen did not. And, again, his intimate life was all
+here. The last of his race, his home was his family; he loved ideally,
+and he loved the goddaughter of the malevolent priest. He was rich,
+and therefore powerful still--and he was young. Ibarra had taken up
+his life again as he had found it.
+
+His prayer finished, he warmly grasped the young man's hand.
+
+"Do not thank me," said the other; "I owe everything to your father. I
+came here unknown; your father protected me, encouraged my work,
+furnished the poor children with books. How far away that good
+time seems!"
+
+"And now?"
+
+"Ah! now we get along as best we can."
+
+Ibarra was silent.
+
+"How many pupils have you?"
+
+"More than two hundred on the list--in the classes, fifty-five."
+
+"And how is that?"
+
+The schoolmaster smiled sadly.
+
+"It is a long story."
+
+"Don't think I ask from curiosity," said Ibarra. "I have thought much
+about it, and it seems to me better to try to carry out my father's
+ideas than to weep or to avenge his death. I wish to inspire myself
+with his spirit. That is why I ask this question."
+
+"The country will bless your memory, senor, if you carry out the
+splendid projects of your father. You wish to know the obstacles I
+meet? In a word, the plan of instruction is hopeless. The children
+read, write, learn by heart passages, sometimes whole books, in
+Castilian, without understanding a single word. Of what use is such
+a school to the children of our peasants!"
+
+"You see the evil, what remedy do you propose?"
+
+"I have none," said the young man; "one cannot struggle alone against
+so many needs and against certain influences. I tried to remedy
+the evil of which I just spoke; I tried to carry out the order
+of the Government, and began to teach the children Spanish. The
+beginning was excellent, but one day Brother Damaso sent for me. I
+went up immediately, and I said good-day to him in Castilian. Without
+replying, he burst into laughter. At length he said, with a sidelong
+glance: 'What buenos dias! buenos dias! It's very pretty. You know
+Spanish?' and he began to laugh again."
+
+Ibarra could not repress a smile.
+
+"You laugh," said the teacher, "and I, too, now; but I assure you
+I had no desire to then. I started to reply, I don't know what,
+but Brother Damaso interrupted:
+
+"'Don't wear clothes that are not your own,' he said in Tagal; 'be
+content to speak your own language. Do you know about Ciruela? Well,
+Ciruela was a master who could neither read nor write, yet he kept
+school.' And he left the room, slamming the door behind him. What
+was I to do? What could I, against him, the highest authority of the
+pueblo, moral, political, and civil; backed by his order, feared by the
+Government, rich, powerful, always obeyed and believed. To withstand
+him was to lose my place, and break off my career without hope of
+another. Every one would have sided with the priest. I should have
+been called proud, insolent, no Christian, perhaps even anti-Spanish
+and filibustero. Heaven forgive me if I denied my conscience and my
+reason, but I was born here, must live here, I have a mother, and I
+abandoned myself to my fate, as a cadaver to the wave that rolls it."
+
+"And you lost all hope? You have tried nothing since?"
+
+"I was rash enough to try two more experiments, one after our change
+of curates; but both proved offensive to the same authority. Since
+then I have done my best to convert the poor babies into parrots."
+
+"Well, I have cheerful news for you," said Ibarra. "I am soon to
+present to the Government a project that will help you out of your
+difficulties, if it is approved."
+
+The school-teacher shook his head.
+
+"You will see, Senor Ibarra, that your projects--I've heard something
+of them--will no more be realized than were mine!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+THE STORY OF A MOTHER.
+
+
+Sisa was running toward her poor little home. She had experienced
+one of those convulsions of being which we know at the hour of a
+great misfortune, when we see no possible refuge and all our hopes
+take flight. If then a ray of light illumine some little corner,
+we fly toward it without stopping to question.
+
+Sisa ran swiftly, pursued by many fears and dark presentiments. Had
+they already taken her Basilio? Where had her Crispin hidden?
+
+As she neared her home, she saw two soldiers coming out of the little
+garden. She lifted her eyes to heaven; heaven was smiling in its
+ineffable light; little white clouds swam in the transparent blue.
+
+The soldiers had left her house; they were coming away without her
+children. Sisa breathed once more; her senses came back.
+
+She looked again, this time with grateful eyes, at the sky, furrowed
+now by a band of garzas, those clouds of airy gray peculiar to
+the Philippines; confidence sprang again in her heart; she walked
+on. Once past those dreadful men, she would have run, but prudence
+checked her. She had not gone far, when she heard herself called
+imperiously. She turned, pale and trembling in spite of herself. One
+of the guards beckoned her.
+
+Mechanically she obeyed: she felt her tongue grow paralyzed, her
+throat parch.
+
+"Speak the truth, or we'll tie you to this tree and shoot you,"
+said one of the guards.
+
+Sisa could do nothing but look at the tree.
+
+"You are the mother of the thieves?"
+
+"The mother of the thieves?" repeated Sisa, without comprehending.
+
+"Where is the money your sons brought home last night?"
+
+"Ah! the money----"
+
+"Give us the money, and we'll let you alone."
+
+"Senores," said the unhappy woman, gathering her senses again,
+"my boys do not steal, even when they're hungry; we are used to
+suffering. I have not seen my Crispin for a week, and Basilio did
+not bring home a cuarto. Search the house, and if you find a real,
+do what you will with us; the poor are not all thieves."
+
+"Well then," said one of the soldiers, fixing his eyes on Sisa's,
+"follow us!"
+
+"I--follow you?" And she drew back in terror, her eyes on the uniforms
+of the guards. "Oh, have pity on me! I'm very poor, I've nothing to
+give you, neither gold nor jewelry. Take everything you find in my
+miserable cabin, but let me--let me--die here in peace!"
+
+"March! do you hear? and if you don't go without making trouble,
+we'll tie your hands."
+
+"Let me walk a little way in front of you, at least," she cried,
+as they laid hold of her.
+
+The soldiers spoke together apart.
+
+"Very well," said one, "when we get to the pueblo, you may. March on
+now, and quick!"
+
+Poor Sisa thought she must die of shame. There was no one on the
+road, it is true; but the air? and the light? She covered her face,
+in her humiliation, and wept silently. She was indeed very miserable;
+every one, even her husband, had abandoned her; but until now she
+had always felt herself respected.
+
+As they neared the pueblo, fear seized her. In her agony she looked
+on all sides, seeking some succor in nature--death in the river would
+be so sweet. But no! She thought of her children; here was a light
+in the darkness of her soul.
+
+"Afterward," she said to herself,--"afterward, we will go to live in
+the heart of the forest."
+
+She dried her eyes, and turning to the guards:
+
+"We are at the pueblo," she said. Her tone was indescribable; at once
+a complaint, an argument, and a prayer.
+
+The soldiers took pity on her; they replied with a gesture. Sisa went
+rapidly forward, then forced herself to walk tranquilly.
+
+A tolling of bells announced the end of the high mass. Sisa hastened,
+in the hope of avoiding the crowd from the church, but in vain. Two
+women she knew passed, looked at her questioningly; she bowed with
+an anguished smile, then, to avoid new mortifications, she fixed her
+eyes on the ground.
+
+At sight of her people turned, whispered, followed with their eyes,
+and though her eyes were turned away, she divined, she felt, she
+saw it all. A woman who by her bare head, her dress, and her manners
+showed what she was, cried boldly to the soldiers:
+
+"Where did you find her? Did you get the money?"
+
+Sisa seemed to have taken a blow in the face. The ground gave way
+under her feet.
+
+"This way!" cried a guard.
+
+Like an automaton whose mechanism is broken she turned quickly, and,
+seeing nothing, feeling nothing but instinct, tried to hide herself. A
+gate was before her; she would have entered but a voice still more
+imperious checked her. While she sought to find whence the voice came,
+she felt herself pushed along by the shoulders. She closed her eyes,
+took two steps, then her strength left her and she fell.
+
+It was the barracks. In the yard were soldiers, women, pigs, and
+chickens. Some of the women were helping the men mend their clothes
+or clean their arms, and humming ribald songs.
+
+"Where is the sergeant?" demanded one of the guards angrily. "Has
+the alferez been informed?"
+
+A shrug of the shoulders was the sole response; no one would take
+any trouble for the poor woman.
+
+Two long hours she stayed there, half mad, crouched in a corner,
+her face hidden in her hands, her hair undone. At noon the alferez
+arrived. He refused to believe the curate's accusations.
+
+"Bah! monks' tricks!" said he; and ordered that the woman be released
+and the affair dropped.
+
+"If he wants to find what he's lost," he added, "let him complain to
+the nuncio! That's all I have to say."
+
+Sisa, who could scarcely move, was almost carried out of the
+barracks. When she found herself in the street, she set out as fast
+as she could for her home, her head bare, her hair loose, her eyes
+fixed. The sun, then in the zenith, burned with all his fire: not a
+cloud veiled his resplendent disc. The wind just moved the leaves of
+the trees; not a bird dared venture from the shade of the branches.
+
+At length Sisa arrived. Troubled, silent, she entered her poor cabin,
+ran all about it, went out, came in, went out again. Then she ran
+to old Tasio's, knocked at the door. Tasio was not there. The poor
+thing went back and commenced to call, "Basilio! Crispin!" standing
+still, listening attentively. An echo repeating her calls, the sweet
+murmur of water from the river, the music of the reeds stirred by
+the breeze, were the sole voices of the solitude. She called anew,
+mounted a hill, went down into a ravine; her wandering eyes took a
+sinister expression; from time to time sharp lights flashed in them,
+then they were obscured, like the sky in a tempest. One might have said
+the light of reason, ready to go out, revived and died down in turn.
+
+She went back, and sat down on the mat where they had slept the night
+before--she and Basilio--and raised her eyes. Caught in the bamboo
+fence on the edge of the precipice, she saw a piece of Basilio's
+blouse. She got up, took it, and examined it in the sunlight. There
+were blood spots on it, but Sisa did not seem to see them. She bent
+over and continued to look at this rag from her child's clothing,
+raised it in the air, bathing it in the brazen rays. Then, as if
+the last gleam of light within her had finally gone out, she looked
+straight at the sun, with wide-staring eyes.
+
+At length she began to wander about, crying out strange sounds. One
+hearing her would have been frightened; her voice had a quality the
+human larynx would hardly know how to produce.
+
+The sun went down; night surprised her. Perhaps Heaven gave her
+sleep, and an angel's wing, brushing her pale forehead, took away
+that memory which no longer recalled anything but griefs. The next
+day Sisa roamed about, smiling, singing, and conversing with all the
+beings of great Nature.
+
+
+
+Three days passed, and the inhabitants of San Diego had ceased to talk
+or think of unhappy Sisa and her boys. Maria Clara, who, accompanied
+by Aunt Isabel, had just arrived from Manila, was the chief subject
+of conversation. Every one rejoiced to see her, for every one loved
+her. They marvelled at her beauty, and speculated about her marriage
+with Ibarra. On this evening, Crisostomo presented himself at the
+home of his fiancee; the curate arrived at the same moment. The house
+was a delicious little nest among orange-trees and ylang-ylang. They
+found Maria by an open window, overlooking the lake, surrounded by
+the fresh foliage and delicate perfume of vines and flowers.
+
+"The winds blow fresh," said the curate; "aren't you afraid of
+taking cold?"
+
+"I don't feel the wind, father," said Maria.
+
+"We Filipinos," said Crisostomo, "find this season of autumn and
+spring together delicious. Falling leaves and budding trees in
+February, and ripe fruit in March, with no cold winter between,
+is very agreeable. And when the hot months come we know where to go."
+
+The priest smiled, and the conversation turned to the pueblo and the
+festival of its patron saint, which was near.
+
+"Speaking of fetes," said Crisostomo to the curate, "we hope you will
+join us in a picnic to-morrow, near the great fig-tree in the wood. The
+arrangements are all made as you wished, Maria. A small party is to
+start for the fishing-ground before sunrise," he went on to the curate,
+"and later we hope to be joined by all our friends of the pueblo."
+
+The curate said he should be happy to come after his services were
+said. They chatted a few moments longer, and then Ibarra excused
+himself to finish giving his invitations and make his final
+arrangements.
+
+As he left the house a man saluted him respectfully.
+
+"Who are you?" asked Crisostomo.
+
+"You would not know my name, senor; I have been trying to see you
+for three days."
+
+"And what do you want?"
+
+"Senor, my wife has gone mad, my children are lost, and no one will
+help me find them. I want your aid."
+
+"Come with me," said Ibarra.
+
+The man thanked him, and they disappeared together in the darkness
+of the unlighted streets.
+
+
+
+
+
+XIX.
+
+THE FISHING PARTY.
+
+
+The stars were yet brilliant in the sapphire vault, and in the
+branches the birds were still asleep when a merry party went through
+the streets of the pueblo, toward the lake, lighted by the glimmer
+of the pitch torches here called huepes.
+
+There were five young girls, walking rapidly, holding each other by
+the hand or waist, followed by several elderly ladies, and servants
+bearing gracefully on their heads baskets of provisions. To see these
+girls' faces, laughing with youth, to judge by their abundant black
+hair flying free in the wind, and the ample folds of their garments,
+we might take them for divinities of the night fleeing at the approach
+of day; but they were Maria Clara and her four friends, the merry
+Sinang, her cousin, the calm Victoria, beautiful Iday, and pensive
+Neneng. They talked with animation, pinched each other, whispered in
+each other's ears, and pealed out merry rounds of laughter.
+
+After a while there came to meet the party a group of young men,
+carrying torches of reeds. They were walking, silent, to the sound
+of a guitar.
+
+When the two groups met, the girls became serious and grave. The men,
+on the contrary, talked, laughed, and asked six questions to get half
+a reply.
+
+"Is the lake smooth? Do you think we shall have a fine day?" demanded
+the mamas.
+
+"Don't be disturbed, senoras, I'm a splendid swimmer," said a tall,
+slim fellow, a merry-looking rascal with an air of mock gravity.
+
+But they were already at the borders of the lake, and cries of
+delight escaped the lips of the women. They saw two great barks,
+bound together, picturesquely decked with garlands of flowers and
+various-colored festoons of fluffy drapery. Little paper lanterns hung
+alternating with roses, pinks, pineapples, bananas, and guavas. Rudders
+and oars were decorated too, and there were mats, rugs, and cushions to
+make comfortable seats for the ladies. In the boat, most beautifully
+trimmed, were a harp, guitars, accordeons, and a carabao's horn; in
+the other burned a ship's fire; and tea, coffee and salabat--a tea
+of ginger sweetened with honey--were making for the first breakfast.
+
+"The women here, the men there," said the mamas, embarking; "move
+carefully, don't stir the boat or we shall capsize!"
+
+"And we're to be in here all alone?" pouted Sinang.
+
+Slowly the boats left the beach, reflecting in the mirror of the lake
+the many lights of their lanterns. In the east were the first streaks
+of dawn.
+
+Comparative silence reigned. The separation established by the ladies
+seemed to have dedicated youth to meditation. The water was perfectly
+tranquil, the fishing-grounds were near; it was soon decided to abandon
+the oars, and breakfast. Day had come, and the lanterns were put out.
+
+It was a beautiful morning. The light falling from the sky and
+reflected from the water made radiant the surface of the lake, and
+bathed everything in an atmosphere of clearness saturated with color,
+such as some marines suggest. Everybody, even the mamas, laughed and
+grew merry. "Do you remember, when we were girls--" they began to each
+other; and Maria and her young companions exchanged smiling glances.
+
+One man alone remained a stranger to this gayety--it was the
+helmsman. Young, of athletic build, his melancholy eyes and the severe
+lines of his lips gave an interest to his face, and this was heightened
+by his long black hair falling naturally about his muscular neck. His
+wrists of steel managed like a feather the large and heavy oar which
+served as rudder to guide the two barks.
+
+Maria Clara had several times met his eyes, but he quickly turned
+them away to the shores or the mountains. Pitying his solitude,
+she offered him some cakes. With a certain surprise he took one,
+refusing the others, and thanked her in a voice scarcely audible. No
+one else seemed to think of him.
+
+The early breakfast done, the party moved off toward the fishing
+enclosures. There were two, a little distance apart, both the property
+of Captain Tiago. In advance, a flock of white herons could be seen,
+some moving among the reeds, some flying here and there, skimming
+the water with their wings, and filling the air with their strident
+cries. Maria Clara followed them with her eyes, as, at the approach
+of the two barks, they flew away from the shore.
+
+"Do these birds have their nests in the mountains?" she asked the
+helmsman, less perhaps from the wish to know than to make the silent
+fellow talk.
+
+"Probably, senora," he replied, "but no one has ever yet seen them."
+
+"They have no nests, then?"
+
+"I suppose they must have; if not, they are unhappy indeed."
+
+Maria Clara did not catch the note of sadness in his voice.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"They say, senora, that the nests of these birds are invisible, and
+have the power to render invisible whoever holds them; that as the
+soul can be seen only in the mirror of the eyes, so these nests can
+be seen only in the mirror of the water."
+
+Maria Clara became pensive. But they had come to the first baklad, as
+the enclosures are called. The old sailor in charge attached the boats
+to the reeds, while his son prepared to mount with lines and nets.
+
+"Wait a moment," cried Aunt Isabel, "the fish must come directly out
+of the water into the pan."
+
+"What, good Aunt Isabel!" said Albino reproachfully, "won't you give
+the poor things a moment in the air?"
+
+Andeng, Maria's foster-sister, was a famous cook. She began to prepare
+rice water, the tomatoes, and the camias; the young men, perhaps to
+win her good graces, aided her, while the other girls arranged the
+melons, and cut paayap into cigarette-like strips.
+
+To while away the time Iday took up the harp, the instrument most
+often played in this part of the islands. She played well, and was
+much applauded. Maria thanked her with a kiss.
+
+"Sing, Victoria, sing the 'Marriage Song,'" demanded the ladies. This
+is a beautiful Tagal elegy of married life, but sad, painting its
+miseries rather than its joys. The men clamored for it too, and
+Victoria had a lovely voice; but she was hoarse. So Maria Clara was
+begged to sing.
+
+"All my songs are sad," she said.
+
+"Never mind," said her companions, and without more urging she took
+the harp and sang in a rich and vibrant voice, full of feeling.
+
+The chant ceased, the harp became mute; yet no one applauded; they
+seemed listening still. The young girls felt their eyes fill with
+tears; Ibarra seemed disturbed; the helmsman, motionless, was gazing
+far away.
+
+Suddenly there came a crash like thunder. The women cried out and
+stopped their ears. It was Albino, filling with all the force of his
+lungs the carabao's horn. There needed nothing more to bring back
+laughter, and dry tears.
+
+"Do you wish to make us deaf, pagan?" cried Aunt Isabel.
+
+"Senora," he replied, "I've heard of a poor trumpeter who, from
+simply playing on his instrument, became the husband of a rich and
+noble lady."
+
+"So he did--the Trumpeter of Saeckingen!" laughed Ibarra.
+
+"Well," said Albino, "we shall see if I am as happy!" and he began
+to blow again with still more force. There was a panic: the mamas
+attacked him hand and foot.
+
+"Ouch! ouch!" he cried, rubbing his hurts; "the Philippines are far
+from the borders of the Rhine! For the same deed one is knighted,
+another put in the san-benito!"
+
+At last Andeng announced the kettle ready for the fish.
+
+The fisherman's son now climbed the weir or "purse" of the
+enclosure. It was almost circular, a yard across, so arranged that
+a man could stand on top to draw out the fish with a little net or
+with a line.
+
+All watched him, some thinking they saw already the quiver of the
+little fishes and the shimmer of their silver scales.
+
+The net was drawn up; nothing in it; the line, no fish adorned it. The
+water fell back in a shower of drops, and laughed a silvery laugh. A
+cry of disappointment escaped from every mouth.
+
+"You don't understand your business," said Albino, climbing up by
+the young man; and he took the net. "Look now! Ready, Andeng!"
+
+But Albino was no better fisherman. Everybody laughed.
+
+"Don't make a noise, you'll drive away the fish. The net must be
+broken." But every mesh was intact.
+
+"Let me try," said Leon, the fiancee of Iday. "Are you sure no one
+has been here for five days?"
+
+"Absolutely sure."
+
+"Then either the lake is enchanted or I draw out something."
+
+He cast the line, looked annoyed, dragged the hook along in the water
+and murmured:
+
+"A crocodile!"
+
+"A crocodile!"
+
+The word passed from mouth to mouth amid general stupefaction.
+
+"What's to be done?"
+
+"Capture him!"
+
+But nobody offered to go down. The water was deep.
+
+"We ought to drag him in triumph at our stern," said Sinang; "he has
+eaten our fish!"
+
+"I've never seen a crocodile alive," mused Maria Clara.
+
+The helmsman got up, took a rope, lithely climbed the little platform,
+and in spite of warning cries dived into the weir. The water, troubled
+an instant, became smooth; the abyss closed mysteriously.
+
+"Heaven!" cried the women, "we are going to have a catastrophe!"
+
+The water was agitated: a combat seemed to be going on below. Above,
+there was absolute silence. Ibarra held his blade in a convulsive
+grasp. Then the struggle seemed to end, and the young man's head
+appeared. He was saluted with joyous cries. He climbed the platform,
+holding in one hand an end of the rope. Then he pulled with all his
+strength, and the monster came in view. The rope was round its neck
+and the fore part of its body; it was large, and on its back could be
+seen green moss--to a crocodile what white hair is to man. It bellowed
+like an ox, beat the reeds with its tail, crouched, and opened its
+jaws, black and terrifying, showing its long and saw-like teeth. No
+one thought of aiding the helmsman. When he had drawn the reptile
+out of the water he put his foot on it, closed with his robust hand
+the redoubtable jaws, and tried to tie the muzzle. The creature made
+a last effort, arched its body, beat about with its powerful tail,
+and escaping, plunged outside the enclosure into the lake, dragging
+its vanquisher after it. The helmsman was a dead man. A cry of horror
+escaped from every mouth.
+
+Like a flash, another body disappeared in the water. There scarce
+was time to see it was Ibarra's. If Maria Clara did not faint, it
+was that the natives of the Philippines do not yet know how.
+
+The waters grew red. Then the young fisherman leaped in, his father
+followed him. But they had scarcely disappeared, when Ibarra and the
+helmsman came to the surface, clinging to the crocodile's body. Its
+white belly was lacerated, Ibarra's knife was in the gorge.
+
+Many arms stretched out to help the two young men from the water. The
+mamas, hysterical, wept, laughed, and prayed. Ibarra was unharmed. The
+helmsman had a slight scratch on the arm.
+
+"I owe you my life," said he to Ibarra, who was being wrapped in
+mantles and rugs.
+
+"You are too intrepid," said Ibarra. "Another time do not tempt God."
+
+"If you had not come back!" murmured Maria Clara, pale and trembling.
+
+The ladies did not approve of going to the second baklad; to their
+minds the day had begun ill; there could not fail to be other
+misfortunes; it were better to go home.
+
+"But what misfortune have we had?" said Ibarra. "The crocodile alone
+has the right to complain."
+
+At length the mamas were persuaded, and the barks took their course
+toward the second baklad.
+
+
+
+
+
+XX.
+
+IN THE WOODS.
+
+
+There had not been much hope in this second baklad. Every one
+expected to find there the crocodile's mate; but the net always
+came up full. The fishing ended, the boats were turned toward the
+shore. There was the party of the townspeople whom Ibarra had
+invited to meet his guests of the morning, and lunch with them
+under improvised tents beside a brook, in the shade of the ancient
+trees of the wooded peninsula. Music was resounding in the place,
+and water sang in the kettles. The body of the crocodile, in tow of
+the boats, turned from side to side; sometimes presenting its belly,
+white and torn, sometimes its spotted back and mossy shoulders. Man,
+the favorite of nature, is little disturbed by his many fratricides.
+
+The party dispersed, some going to the baths, some wandering among
+the trees. The silent young helmsman disappeared. A path with many
+windings crossed the thicket of the wood and led to the upper course
+of the warm brook, formed from some of the many thermal springs on
+the flanks of the Makiling. Along the banks of the stream grew wood
+flowers, many of which have no Latin names, but are none the less
+known to golden bugs, to butterflies, shaded, jewelled, and bronzed,
+and to thousands of coleopters powdered with gold and gleaming with
+facets of steel. The hum of these insects, the song of birds, or the
+dry sound of dead branches catching in their fall, alone broke the
+mysterious silence. Suddenly the tones of fresh, young voices were
+added to the wood notes. They seemed to come down the brook.
+
+"We shall see if I find a nest!" said a sweet and resonant voice. "I
+should like to see him without his seeing me. I should like to follow
+him everywhere."
+
+"I don't believe in heron's nests," said another voice; "but if I
+were in love, I should know how at once to see and to be invisible."
+
+It was Maria Clara, Victoria, and Sinang walking in the brook. Their
+eyes were on the water, where they were searching for the mysterious
+nest. In blouses striped with dainty colors, their full bath skirts
+wet to the knees, outlining the graceful curves of their bodies,
+they moved along, seeking the impossible, meanwhile picking flowers
+along the banks. Soon the little stream bent its course, and the tall
+reeds hid the charming trio and cut off the sound of their voices.
+
+A little farther on, in the middle of the stream, was a sort of bath,
+well enclosed, its roof of leafy bamboo; palm leaves, flowers, and
+streamers decked its sides. From here, too, came girls' voices. Farther
+on was a bamboo bridge, and beyond that the men were bathing, while a
+multitude of servants were busy plucking fowls, washing rice, roasting
+pigs. In the clearing on the opposite bank a group of men and women
+had formed under a great canvas roof, attached in part to the branches
+of the ancient trees, in part to pickets. There chatted the curate,
+the alferez, the vicar, the gobernadorcillo, the lieutenant, all the
+chief men of the town, including the famous orator, Captain Basilio,
+father of Sinang and opponent of Don Rafael Ibarra in a lawsuit not
+yet ended.
+
+"We dispute a point at law," Crisostomo had said in inviting him,
+"but to dispute is not to be enemies," and the famous orator had
+accepted the invitation.
+
+Bottles of lemonade were opened and green cocoanut shells were broken,
+so that those who came from the baths might drink the fresh water;
+the girls were given wreaths of ylang-ylang and roses to perfume
+their unbound hair.
+
+The lunch hour came. The curate, the alferez, the gobernadorcillo,
+some captains, and the lieutenant sat at a table with Ibarra. The
+mamas allowed no men at the table with the girls.
+
+"Have you learned anything, senor alferez, about the criminal who
+attacked Brother Damaso?" said Brother Salvi.
+
+"Of what criminal are you speaking?" asked the alferez, looking at
+the father over his glass of wine.
+
+"What? Why, the one who attacked Brother Damaso on the highway day
+before yesterday."
+
+"Father Damaso has been attacked?" asked several voices.
+
+"Yes; he is in bed yet. It is thought the maker of the assault is
+Elias, the one who threw you into the swamp some time ago, senor
+alferez."
+
+The alferez reddened with shame, if it were not from emptying his
+glass of wine.
+
+"But I supposed you were informed," the curate went on; "I said to
+myself that the alferez of the Municipal Guard----"
+
+The officer bit his lip.
+
+At that moment a woman, pale, thin, miserably dressed, appeared,
+like a phantom, in the midst of the feast.
+
+"Give the poor woman something to eat," said the ladies.
+
+She kept on toward the table where the curate was seated. He turned,
+recognized her, and the knife fell from his hand.
+
+"Give the woman something to eat," ordered Ibarra.
+
+"The night is dark and the children are gone," murmured the poor
+woman. But at sight of the alferez she became frightened and ran,
+disappearing among the trees.
+
+"Who is it?" demanded several voices.
+
+"Isn't her name Sisa?" asked Ibarra with interest.
+
+"Your soldiers arrested her," said the lieutenant to the alferez,
+with some bitterness; "they brought her all the way across the pueblo
+for some story about her sons that nobody could clear up."
+
+"What!" demanded the alferez, turning to the curate. "It is perhaps
+the mother of your sacristans?"
+
+The curate nodded assent.
+
+"They have disappeared, and there hasn't been the slightest effort to
+find them," said Don Filipo severely, looking at the gobernadorcillo,
+who lowered his eyes.
+
+"Bring back the woman," Crisostomo ordered his servants.
+
+"They have disappeared, did you say?" demanded the alferez. "Your
+sacristans have disappeared, Father Salvi?"
+
+The curate emptied his glass and made another affirmative sign.
+
+"Ho, ho! father," cried the alferez with a mocking laugh, rejoiced at
+the prospect of revenge. "Your reverence loses a few pesos, and my
+sergeant is routed out to find them; your two sacristans disappear,
+your reverence says nothing; and you also, senor gobernadorcillo,
+you also----"
+
+He did not finish, but broke off laughing, and buried his spoon in
+the red flesh of a papaw.
+
+The curate began with some confusion:
+
+"I was responsible for the money."
+
+"Excellent reply, reverend pastor of souls!" interrupted the alferez,
+his mouth full. "Excellent reply, holy man!"
+
+Ibarra was on the point of interfering, but the priest recovered
+himself.
+
+"Do you know, senor alferez," he asked, "what is said about the
+disappearance of these children? No? Then ask your soldiers."
+
+"What!" cried the alferez, thus challenged, abandoning his mocking
+tone.
+
+"They say that on the night when they disappeared shots were heard
+in the pueblo."
+
+"Shots?" repeated the alferez, looking at the faces around him. There
+were several signs of assent.
+
+Brother Salvi went on with a sarcastic smile:
+
+"Come! I see that you do not know how to arrest criminals, that you
+are unaware of what your soldiers do, but that you are ready to turn
+yourself into a preacher and teach others their duty."
+
+"Senores," interrupted Ibarra, seeing the alferez grow pale, "I wish
+to know what you think of a project I've formed. I should like to
+give the mother into the care of a good physician. I've promised the
+father to try to find his children."
+
+The return of the servants without Sisa gave a new turn to the
+conversation. The luncheon was finished. While the tea and coffee
+were being served the guests separated into groups, the elders to
+play cards or chess, while the girls, curious to learn their destiny,
+posed questions to the "Wheel of Fortune."
+
+"Come, Senor Ibarra!" cried Captain Basilio, a little gayer than usual;
+"we've had a case in court for fifteen years and no judge is able to
+solve it; let's see if we cannot end it at chess."
+
+"In a moment, with great pleasure," said Ibarra; "the alferez is
+leaving us."
+
+As soon as the officer had gone the men grouped around the two
+players. It was to be an interesting game. The elder ladies meanwhile
+had surrounded the curate, to talk with him of the things of religion;
+but Brother Salvi seemed to judge the time unfitting and made but
+vague replies, his rather irritated glance being directed almost
+everywhere except toward his questioners.
+
+The chess players began with much solemnity.
+
+"If the game is a tie, the affair is forgotten!" said Ibarra.
+
+In the midst of the play he received a despatch. His eyes shone and he
+became pale, but he put the message in his pocket without opening it.
+
+"Check!" he cried. Captain Basilio had no recourse but to hide his
+king behind the queen.
+
+"Check!" said Ibarra, threatening with his castle.
+
+Captain Basilio asked a moment to reflect.
+
+"Willingly," said Ibarra; "I, too, should like a moment," and excusing
+himself he went toward the group round the "Wheel of Fortune."
+
+Iday had the disc on which were the forty-eight questions, Albino
+the book of replies.
+
+"Ask something," they all cried to Ibarra, as he came up. "The one
+who has the best answer is to receive a present from the others."
+
+"And who has had the best so far?"
+
+"Maria Clara!" cried Sinang. "We made her ask whether her lover is
+constant and true, and the book said----"
+
+But Maria, all blushes, put her hand over Sinang's mouth.
+
+"Give me the 'Wheel' then," said Crisostomo, smiling. And he asked:
+
+"Shall I succeed in my present undertaking?"
+
+"What a stupid question!" pouted Sinang.
+
+The corresponding answer was found in the book. "'Dreams are dreams,'"
+read Albino.
+
+Ibarra brought out his telegram and opened it, trembling.
+
+"This time your wheel lies!" he cried. "Read!"
+
+"'Project for school approved.' What does that mean?" they asked.
+
+"This is my present," said he, giving the despatch to Maria Clara. "I'm
+to build a school in the pueblo; the school is my offering." And the
+young fellow ran back to his game of chess.
+
+After making this present to his fiancee, Ibarra was so happy that
+he played without reflection, and, thanks to his many false moves,
+the captain re-established himself, and the game was a draw. The two
+men shook hands with effusion.
+
+While they were thus making an end of the long and tedious suit, the
+sudden appearance of a sergeant and four armed guards, bayonets fixed,
+broke rudely in upon the merry-makers.
+
+"Whoever stirs is a dead man!" cried the sergeant.
+
+In spite of this bluster, Ibarra went up to him and asked what
+he wanted.
+
+"We want a criminal named Elias, who was your helmsman this morning,"
+replied the officer, still threatening.
+
+"A criminal? The helmsman? You must be mistaken."
+
+"No, senor, this Elias is accused of having raised his hand against
+a priest. You admit questionable people to your fetes."
+
+Ibarra looked him over from head to foot and replied with great
+coldness.
+
+"I am in no way accountable to you for my actions. Every one is
+welcome at my fetes." And he turned away.
+
+The sergeant, finding he was making no headway, ordered his men to
+search on all sides. They had the helmsman's description on paper.
+
+"Notice that this description answers well for nine-tenths of the
+natives," said Don Filipo; "see that you make no mistakes!"
+
+Quiet came back little by little. There were no end of questions.
+
+"So this is the Elias who threw the alferez into the swamp," said Leon.
+
+"He's a tulisane then?" asked Victoria, trembling.
+
+"I think not, for I know that he once fought against the tulisanes."
+
+"He hasn't the face of a criminal," said Sinang.
+
+"No; but his face is very sad," said Maria. "I did not see him smile
+all the morning."
+
+The day was ending, and in the last rays of the setting sun
+everybody left the wood, passing in silence the tomb of Ibarra's
+ancestor. Farther on conversation again became animated, gay, full
+of warmth, under these branches little used to merry-making. But the
+trees appeared sad, and the swaying bindweed seemed to say: "Adieu,
+youth! Adieu, dream of a day!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XXI.
+
+WITH THE PHILOSOPHER.
+
+
+The next morning, Juan Crisostomo Ibarra, after visiting his land,
+turned his horse toward old Tasio's.
+
+Complete quiet reigned in the old man's garden; scarcely did the
+swallows make a sound as they flew round the roof. The old walls of
+the house were mossy, and ivy framed the windows. It seemed the abode
+of silence.
+
+Ibarra tied his horse, crossed the neat garden, almost on tiptoe, and
+entered the open door. He found the old man in his study, surrounded
+by his collections of insects and leaves, his maps, manuscript, and
+books. He was writing, and so absorbed in his work that he did not
+notice the entrance of Ibarra until the young man, loath to disturb
+him, was leaving as quietly as he had come.
+
+"What! you were there?" he cried, looking at Crisostomo with a certain
+astonishment.
+
+"Don't disturb yourself; I see you are busy----"
+
+"I was writing a little, but it is not at all pressing. Can I be of
+service to you?"
+
+"Of great service," said Ibarra, approaching; "but--you are deciphering
+hieroglyphics!" he exclaimed in surprise, catching sight of the old
+man's work.
+
+"No, I'm writing in hieroglyphics."
+
+"Writing in hieroglyphics? And why?" demanded the young man, doubting
+his senses.
+
+"So that no one can read me."
+
+Ibarra looked at him attentively, wondering if he were not a little
+mad after all.
+
+"And why do you write if you do not wish to be read?"
+
+"I write not for this generation, but for future ages. If the men
+of to-day could read my books, they would burn them; the generation
+that deciphers these characters will understand, and will say: 'Our
+ancestors did not all sleep.' But you have something to ask of me,
+and we are talking of other things."
+
+Ibarra drew out some papers.
+
+"I know," he said, "that my father greatly valued your advice, and
+I have come to ask it for myself."
+
+And he briefly explained his project for the school, unrolling before
+the stupefied philosopher plans sent from Manila. "Whom shall I consult
+first, in the pueblo, whose support will avail me most? You know them
+all, I am almost a stranger."
+
+Old Tasio examined with tearful eyes the drawings before him.
+
+"You are going to realize my dream," he said, greatly moved; "the
+dream of a poor fool. And now the first advice I give you is never
+to ask advice of me."
+
+Ibarra looked at him in surprise.
+
+"Because, if you do," he continued with bitter irony, "all sensible
+people will take you for a fool, too. For all sensible people think
+those who differ with them fools; they think me one, and I am grateful
+for it, because the day they see in me a reasonable being woe is
+me! That day I shall lose the little liberty I now enjoy at the
+expense of my reputation. The gobernadorcillo passes with them for
+a wise man because having learned nothing but to serve chocolate and
+to suffer the caprices of Brother Damaso, he is now rich and has the
+right to trouble the life of his fellow-citizens. 'There is a man of
+talent!' says the crowd. 'He has sprung from nothing to greatness.' But
+perhaps I am really the fool and they are the wise men. Who can say?"
+
+And the old man shook his head as though to dismiss an unwelcome
+thought.
+
+"The second thing I advise is to consult the curate, the
+gobernadorcillo, all the people of position in the pueblo. They will
+give you bad advice, unintelligible, useless. But to ask advice is
+not to follow it. All you need is to make it understood that you are
+working in accordance with their ideas."
+
+Ibarra reflected, then replied:
+
+"No doubt your counsel is good, but it is very hard to take. May I
+not offer my own ideas to the light of day? Cannot the good make its
+way anywhere? Has truth need of the dross of error?"
+
+"No one likes the naked truth," replied the old man. "It is good in
+theory, easy in the ideal world of which youth dreams. You say you
+are a stranger to your country; I believe it. The day that you arrived
+here, you began by wounding the self-esteem of a priest. God grant this
+seemingly small thing has not decided your future. If it has, all your
+efforts will break against the convent walls, without disturbing the
+monk, swaying his girdle, or making his robe tremble. The alcalde,
+under one pretext or another, will deny you to-morrow what he grants
+you to-day; not a mother will let her child go to your school, and
+the result of all your efforts will be simply negative."
+
+"I cannot help feeling your fears exaggerated," said Ibarra. "In spite
+of all you say, I cannot believe in this power; but even admitting it
+to be so great, the most intelligent of the people would be on my side,
+and also the Government, which is animated by the best intentions,
+and wishes the veritable good of the Philippines."
+
+"The Government! the Government!" murmured the philosopher,
+raising his eyes. "However great its desire to better the country,
+however generous may have been the spirit of the Catholic kings,
+the Government sees, hears, judges nothing more than the curate or
+the provincial gives it to see, hear, or judge. The Government is
+convinced that its tranquillity comes through the monks; that if
+it is upheld, it is because they uphold it; that if it live, is it
+because they consent to let it, and that the day when they fail it,
+it will fall like a manikin that has lost its base. The monks hold
+the Government in hand by threatening a revolt of the people they
+control; the people, by displaying the power of the Government. So
+long as the Government has not an understanding with the country,
+it will not free itself from this tutelage. The Government looks to
+no vigorous future; it's an arm, the head is the convent. Through
+its inertia, it allows itself to be dragged from abyss to abyss; its
+existence is no more than a shadow. Compare our system of government
+with the systems of countries you have visited----"
+
+"Oh!" interrupted Ibarra, "that is going far. Let us be satisfied that,
+thanks to religion and the humanity of our rulers, our people do not
+complain, do not suffer like those of other countries."
+
+"The people do not complain because they have no voice; if they
+don't revolt, it is because they are lethargic; if you say they do
+not suffer, it is because you have not seen their heart's blood. But
+the day will come when you will see and hear. Then woe to those who
+base their strength on ignorance and fanaticism; woe to those who
+govern through falsehood, and work in the night, thinking that all
+sleep! When the sun's light shows the sham of all these phantoms,
+there will be a frightful reaction; all this strength conserved for
+centuries, all this poison distilled drop by drop, all these sighs
+strangled, will find the light and the air. Who pay these accounts
+which the people from time to time present, and which History preserves
+for us in its bloody pages?"
+
+"God will never permit such a day to come!" replied Ibarra, impressed
+in spite of himself. "The Filipinos are religious, and they love
+Spain. There are abuses, yes, but Spain is preparing reforms to
+correct them; her projects are now ripening."
+
+"I know; but the reforms which come from the head are annulled
+lower down, thanks to the greedy desire of officials to enrich
+themselves in a short time, and to the ignorance of the people, who
+accept everything. Abuses are not to be corrected by royal decrees,
+not where the liberty of speech, which permits the denunciation of
+petty tyrants, does not exist. Projects remain projects; abuses,
+abuses. Moreover, if by chance some one coming to occupy an office
+begins to show high and generous ideas, immediately he hears on all
+sides--while to his back he is held a fool: 'Your Excellency does
+not know the country, Your Excellency does not know the character of
+the Indians, Your Excellency will ruin them, Your Excellency will do
+well to consult this one and that one,' and so forth, and so on. And
+as in truth His Excellency does not know the country, which hitherto
+he had supposed to be in America, and since, like all men, he has his
+faults and weaknesses, he allows himself to be convinced. Don't ask
+for miracles; don't ask that he who comes here a stranger to make his
+fortune should interest himself in the welfare of the country. What
+does it mean to him, the gratitude or the execration of a people he
+does not know, among whom he has neither attachments nor hopes? To
+make glory sweet to us, its plaudits must resound in the ears of
+those we love, in the atmosphere of our home, of the country that
+is to preserve our ashes; we wish this glory seated on our tomb,
+to warm a little with its rays the cold of death, to keep us from
+being reduced to nothingness quite. But we wander from the question."
+
+"It is true I did not come to argue this point; I came to ask advice,
+and you tell me to bow before grotesque idols."
+
+"Yes, and I repeat it; you must either lower your head or lose it."
+
+"'Lower my head or lose it!'" repeated Ibarra, thoughtful. "The dilemma
+is hard. Is it impossible to reconcile love of my country and love of
+Spain? Must one abase himself to be a good Christian; prostitute his
+conscience to achieve a good work? I love my country; I love Spain;
+I am a Catholic, and keep pure the faith of my fathers; but I see in
+all this no reason for delivering myself into the hands of my enemies."
+
+"But the field where you would sow is in the keeping of your
+enemies. You must begin by kissing the hand which----"
+
+Ibarra did not let him finish.
+
+"Kiss their hands! You forget that among them are those who killed my
+father and tore his body from the grave; but I, his son, do not forget,
+and if I do not avenge, it is because of my allegiance to religion!"
+
+The old philosopher lowered his eyes.
+
+"Senor Ibarra," he said slowly, "if you are going to keep the
+remembrance of these things, things I cannot counsel you to forget,
+abandon this enterprise and find some other means of benefiting your
+compatriots. This work demands another man."
+
+Ibarra saw the force of these words, but he could not give up his
+project. The remembrance of Maria Clara was in his heart; he must
+make good his offering to her.
+
+"If I go on, does your experience suggest nothing but this hard
+road?" he asked in a low voice.
+
+Old Tasio took his arm and led him to the window. A fresh breeze was
+blowing, courier of the north wind. Below lay the garden.
+
+"Why must we do as does that slender stalk, charged with buds and
+blossoms?" said the philosopher, pointing out a superb rose-tree. "The
+wind makes it tremble, and it bends, as if to hide its precious
+charge. If the stalk stood rigid, it would break, the wind would
+scatter the flowers, and the buds would die without opening. The
+gust of wind passed, the stalk rises again, proudly wearing her
+treasure. Who accuses her for having bowed to necessity? To lower the
+head when a ball whistles is not cowardice. What is reprehensible is
+defying the shot, to fall and rise no more."
+
+"And will this sacrifice bear the fruit I seek? Will they have faith
+in me? Can the priest forget his own offence? Will they sincerely
+aid me to spread that instruction which is sure to dispute with the
+convents the wealth of the country? Might they not feign friendship,
+simulate protection, and, underneath, wound my enterprise in the heel,
+that it fall more promptly than if attacked face to face? Admitting
+your views, one might expect anything."
+
+The old man reflected, then he said:
+
+"If this happens, if the enterprise fails, you will have the
+consolation of having done what you could. Something will have been
+gained. Your example will embolden others, who fear only to commence."
+
+Ibarra weighed these reasonings, examined the situation, and saw that
+with all his pessimism the old man was right.
+
+"I believe you," he said, grasping his hand. "It was not in vain
+that I came to you for counsel. I will go straight to the curate,
+who, after all, may be a fair-minded man. They are not all like the
+persecutor of my father. I go with faith in God and man."
+
+He took leave of Tasio, mounted, and rode away, followed by the regard
+of the pessimistic old philosopher, who stood muttering to himself:
+
+"We shall see, we shall see how the fates unroll the drama begun in
+the cemetery!"
+
+This time the wise Tasio was wrong; the drama had begun long before.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXII.
+
+THE MEETING AT THE TOWN HALL.
+
+
+It was a room of twelve or fifteen by eight or ten yards. The
+whitewashed walls were covered with charcoal drawings, more or less
+ugly, more or less decent. In the corner were a dozen old shot-guns
+and some rusty swords, the arms of the cuadrilleros.
+
+At one end, draped with soiled red curtains, was a portrait of His
+Majesty the King, and on the platform underneath an old fauteuil
+opened its worn arms; before this was a great table, daubed with ink,
+carved and cut with inscriptions and monograms, like the tables of
+a German students' inn. Lame chairs and tottering benches completed
+the furniture.
+
+In this hall meetings were held, courts sat, tortures were
+inflicted. At the moment the authorities of the pueblo and its vicinity
+were met there. The party of the old did not mingle with the party
+of the young; the two represented the Conservatives and Liberals.
+
+"My friends," Don Filipo, the chief of the Liberals, was saying to
+a little group, "we shall vanquish the old men this time; I'm going
+to present their plan myself, with exaggerations, you may imagine."
+
+"What are you saying?" demanded his surprised auditors.
+
+"Listen," said Don Filipo. "This morning I ran across old Tasio. He
+said to me: 'Your enemies are more opposed to your person than to your
+ideas. Is there something you don't want to have go through? Propose it
+yourself. If it's as desirable as a mitre, they will reject it. Then
+let the most modest young fellow among you present what you really
+want. To humiliate you, your enemies will help to carry it.' Hush! Keep
+the secret."
+
+The gobernadorcillo had come in. Conversation ceased, all took places,
+and silence reigned.
+
+The captain, as the gobernadorcillo is called, sat down in the chair
+under the king's portrait. His look was harried. He coughed, passed
+his hand over his cranium, coughed again, and at length began in a
+failing voice:
+
+"Senores, I've taken the risk of convening you all--hem, hem!--because
+we are to celebrate, the twelfth of this month, the feast of our
+patron, San Diego--hem, hem!"
+
+At this point of his discourse a cough, dry and regular, reduced him
+to silence.
+
+Then from among the elders arose Captain Basilio:
+
+"Will your honors permit me," said he, "to speak a word under these
+interesting circumstances? I speak first, though many of those present
+have more right than I, but the things I have to say are of such
+importance that they should neither be left aside nor said last,
+and for that reason I wish to speak first, to give them the place
+they merit. Your honors will, then, permit me to speak first in this
+assembly, where I see very distinguished people, like the senor, the
+present gobernadorcillo; his predecessor, my distinguished friend, Don
+Valentine; his other predecessor, Don Julio; our renowned captain of
+the cuadrilleros, Don Melchior, and so many others, whom, for brevity,
+I will not mention, and whom you see here present. I entreat your
+honors to give me the floor before any one else speaks. Am I happy
+enough to have the assembly accede to my humble request?" And the
+speaker bowed respectfully, half smiling.
+
+"You may speak, we shall hear you with pleasure!" cried his flattering
+friends, who held him a great orator. The old men hemmed with
+satisfaction and rubbed their hands.
+
+Captain Basilio wiped the sweat from his brow and continued:
+
+"Since your honors have been so kind and complaisant toward my humble
+self as to grant me the right of speech before all others here present,
+I shall profit by this permission, so generously accorded, and I shall
+speak. I imagine in my imagination that I find myself in the midst of
+the very venerable Roman senate--senatus populusque Romanus, as we said
+in those good old times which, unhappily for humanity, will never come
+back,--and I will ask the patres conscripti--as the sage Cicero would
+say if he were in my place--I would ask them, since time presses,
+and time is golden as Solomon says, that in this important matter
+each one give his opinion clearly, briefly, and simply. I have done."
+
+And satisfied with himself and with the attention of the house the
+orator sat down, not without directing toward his friends a look
+which plainly said: "Ha! Did I speak well? Ha!"
+
+"Now the floor belongs to any one who--hem!" said the gobernadorcillo,
+without being able to finish his sentence.
+
+To judge by the general silence, no one wished to be one of the patres
+conscripti. Don Filipo profited thereby and rose.
+
+The Conservatives looked at one another with significant nods and
+gestures.
+
+"Senores, I will present my project for the fete," he began.
+
+"We cannot accept it!" said an uncompromising Conservative.
+
+"We vote against it!" cried another adversary.
+
+Don Filipo could not repress a smile.
+
+"We have a budget of 3,500 pesos. With this sum we can assure a
+fete that will surpass any we have yet seen in our own province or
+in others."
+
+There were cries of "Impossible!" Such a pueblo spent 4,000 pesos;
+another, 5,000!
+
+"Listen, senores, and you will be convinced," continued Don Filipo,
+unshaken. "I propose that in the middle of the plaza we erect a grand
+theatre, costing 150 pesos."
+
+"Not enough! Say 160!"
+
+"Observe, gentlemen, 200 pesos for the theatre. I propose that
+arrangements be made with the Comedy Company of Tondo for seven
+representations, seven consecutive evenings, at 200 pesos an
+evening. Seven representations, at 200 pesos each, makes 1,400
+pesos. Observe, senor director, 1,400 pesos."
+
+Old and young looked at one another in surprise. Only those in the
+secret remained unmoved.
+
+"I further propose magnificent fireworks; not those little rockets
+and crackers that amuse nobody but children and old maids, but great
+bombs, colossal rockets. I propose, then, 200 bombs at two pesos each,
+and 200 rockets at the same price. Observe, senores, 1,000 pesos for
+bombs and----"
+
+The Conservatives could not contain themselves. They got up and
+conferred with one another.
+
+"And further, to show our neighbors that we are not people who must
+count their expenditures, I propose, first, four great preachers for
+the two feast days; second, that each day we throw into the lake 200
+roasted fowls, 100 stuffed capons, and 50 sucking pigs, as did Sylla,
+contemporary of Cicero, to whom Captain Basilio alluded."
+
+"That's it! Like Sylla!" repeated Captain Basilio, flattered.
+
+The astonishment grew.
+
+"As many rich people will come to the fetes, each bringing thousands
+of pesos and his best cocks, I propose fifteen days of the gallera,
+the liberty of open gaming houses----"
+
+Cries rising from all sides drowned his voice; there was a veritable
+tumult. The gobernadorcillo, more crushed than ever, did nothing to
+quell it; he waited for order to establish itself.
+
+Happily Captain Valentine, most moderate of the Conservatives, rose
+and said:
+
+"What the lieutenant proposes seems to us extravagant. So many bombs
+and so much comedy could only be proposed by a young man, like the
+lieutenant, who could pass all his evenings at the theatre and hear
+countless detonations without becoming deaf. And what of these fowls
+thrown into the lake? Why should we imitate Sylla and the Romans? Did
+they ever invite us to their fetes? I'm an old man, and I've never
+received any summons from them!"
+
+"The Romans live at Rome with the Pope," Captain Basilio whispered.
+
+This did not disconcert Don Valentine.
+
+"At all events," he went on, "the project is inadmissible, impossible;
+it's a folly!"
+
+Don Filipo must needs retire his project.
+
+Satisfied with the defeat of their enemy, the Conservatives were not
+displeased to see another young man rise, the municipal head of a
+group of fifty or sixty families, known as a balangay.
+
+He modestly excused himself for speaking. With delicate blandishments
+he referred to the "ideas so elegantly expressed by Captain Basilio,"
+upon which the delighted captain made signs to show him how to
+gesture and to change position: then he unfolded his project: to have
+something absolutely new, and to spend the 3,500 pesos in such a way
+as to benefit their own province.
+
+"That's it!" interrupted the young men; "that's what we want!"
+
+What did they care about seeing the King of Bohemia cut off the
+heads of his daughters! They were neither kings nor barbarians, and
+if they did such things themselves, would be hung high on the field
+of Bagumbayan. He proposed that two native plays be given which dealt
+with the manners of the times. There were two he had in mind, works
+of their best writers. They demanded only native costumes, and could
+be played by amateurs of talent, of whom the province had no lack.
+
+"A good idea!" some of the Conservatives began to murmur.
+
+"I'll pay for the theatre!" cried Captain Basilio, with enthusiasm.
+
+"Accepted! Accepted!" cried numerous voices. The young man went on:
+
+"A part of the money taken at the theatre might be distributed in
+prizes: to the best pupil in the school, the best shepherd, the
+best fisherman. We might have boat races, and games, and fireworks,
+of course."
+
+Almost all were agreed, though some talked about "innovations."
+
+When silence was established, only the decision of the gobernadorcillo
+was wanting.
+
+The poor man passed his hand across his forehead, he fidgeted, he
+perspired; finally he stammered, lowering his eyes:
+
+"I also; I approve; but, hem!"
+
+The assembly listened in silence.
+
+"But----" demanded Captain Basilio.
+
+"I approve entirely," repeated the functionary, "that is to say,
+I do not approve; I say yes, but----"
+
+He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.
+
+"But," continued the unhappy man, coming to the point at last,
+"the curate wants something else."
+
+"Is the curate to pay for the festival? Has he given even a
+cuarto?" cried a penetrating voice.
+
+Every one turned. It was Tasio. The lieutenant remained immovable,
+his eyes on the gobernadorcillo.
+
+"And what does the curate want?" demanded Don Basilio.
+
+"The curate wants six processions, three sermons, three solemn masses,
+and if any money is left, a comedy with songs between the acts."
+
+"But we don't want it!" cried the young men and some of their elders.
+
+"The curate wishes it," repeated the gobernadorcillo, "and I've
+promised that his wishes shall be carried out."
+
+"Then why did you call us together?" asked one, impatient.
+
+"Why didn't you say so in the beginning?" demanded another.
+
+"I wished to, senores, but, Captain Basilio, I did not have a
+chance. We must obey the curate!"
+
+"We must obey!" repeated some of the Conservatives.
+
+Don Filipo approached the gobernadorcillo and said bitterly:
+
+"I sacrificed my pride in a good cause; you sacrifice your manliness
+in a bad one; you spoil every good thing that might be done!"
+
+Ibarra said to the schoolmaster:
+
+"Have you any commission for the capital? I leave immediately."
+
+On the way home the old philosopher said to Don Filipo, who was
+cursing his fate:
+
+"The fault is ours. You didn't protest when they gave you a slave
+for mayor, and I, fool that I am, forgot about him!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XXIII.
+
+THE EVE OF THE FETE.
+
+
+It is the 10th of November, the eve of the fete. The pueblo of San
+Diego is stirred by an incredible activity; in the houses, the streets,
+the church, the gallera, all is unwonted movement. From windows flags
+and rugs are hanging; the air, resounding with bombs and music,
+seems saturated with gayety. Inside on little tables covered with
+bordered cloths the dalaga arranges in jars of tinted crystal the
+confitures made from the native fruits. Servants come and go; orders,
+whispers, comments, conjectures are everywhere. And all this activity
+and labor are for guests as often unknown as known; the stranger,
+the friend, the Filipino, the Spaniard, the rich man, the poor man,
+will be equally fortunate; and no one will ask his gratitude, nor
+even demand that he speak well of his host till the end of his dinner.
+
+The red covers which all the year protect the lamps are taken off,
+and the swinging prisms and crystal pendants strike out harmonies from
+one another and throw dancing rainbow colors on the white walls. The
+glass globes, precious heirlooms, are rubbed and polished; the dainty
+handiwork of the young girls of the house is brought out. Floors
+shine like mirrors, curtains of pina or silk jusi ornament the doors,
+and in the windows hang lanterns of crystal or of colored paper. The
+vases on the Chinese pedestals are heaped with flowers, the saints
+themselves in their reliquaries are dusted and wreathed with blossoms.
+
+At intervals along the streets rise graceful arches of reed; around
+the parvis of the church is the costly covered passageway, supported
+by trunks of bamboos, under which the procession is to pass, and
+in the centre of the plaza rises the platform of the theatre, with
+its stage of reed, of nipa, or of wood. The native pyrotechnician,
+who learns his art from no one knows what master, is getting ready
+his castles, balloons, and fiery wheels; all the bells of the pueblo
+are ringing gaily. There are sounds of music in the distance, and the
+gamins run to meet the bands and give them escort. In comes the fanfare
+with spirited marches, followed by the ragged and half-naked urchins,
+who, the moment a number is ended, know it by heart, hum it, whistle
+it with wonderful accuracy, and are ready to pass judgment on it.
+
+Meanwhile the people of the mountains, the kasama, in gala dress,
+bring down to the rich of the pueblo wild game and fruits, and the
+rarest plants of the woods, the biga, with its great leaves, and
+the tikas-tikas, whose flaming flowers will ornament the doorways of
+the houses. And from all sides, in all sorts of vehicles, arrive the
+guests, known and unknown, many bringing with them their best cocks
+and sacks of gold to risk in the gallera, or on the green cloth.
+
+"The alferez has fifty pesos a night," a little plump man is murmuring
+in the ears of his guests. "Captain Tiago will hold the bank; Captain
+Joaquin brings eighteen thousand. There will be liam-po; the Chinese
+Carlo puts up the game, with a capital of ten thousand. Sporting men
+are coming from Lipa and Batanzos and Santa Cruz. There will be big
+play! big play!--but will you take chocolate?--Captain Tiago won't
+fleece us this year as he did last; and how is your family?"
+
+"Very well, very well, thank you! And Father Damaso?"
+
+"The father will preach in the morning and be with us at the games
+in the evening."
+
+"He's out of danger now?"
+
+"Without question! Ah, it's the Chinese who will let their hands
+go!" And in dumb show the little man counted money with his hands.
+
+But the greatest animation of all was at the outskirts of the crowd,
+around a sort of platform a few paces from the home of Ibarra. Pulleys
+creaked, cries went up, one heard the metallic ring of stone-cutting,
+of nail-driving; a band of workmen were opening a long, deep trench;
+others were placing in line great stones from the quarries of the
+pueblo, emptying carts, dumping sand, placing capstans.
+
+"This way! That's it! Quick about it!" a little old man of
+intelligent and animated face was crying. It was the foreman, Senor
+Juan, architect, mason, carpenter, metalworker, stonecutter, and on
+occasions sculptor. To each stranger he repeated what he had already
+said a thousand times.
+
+"Do you know what we are going to build? A model school, like those
+of Germany, and even better. The plans were traced by Senor R----. I
+direct the work. Yes, senor, you see it is to be a palace with two
+wings, one for the boys, the other for the girls. Here in the centre
+will be a great garden with three fountains, and at the sides little
+gardens for the children to cultivate plants. That great space you
+see there is for playgrounds. It will be magnificent!" And the Senor
+Juan rubbed his hands, thinking of his fame to come. Soothed by its
+contemplation, he went back and forth, passing everything in review.
+
+"That's too much wood for a crane," he said to a Mongol, who was
+directing a part of the work. "The three beams that make the tripod
+and the three joining them would be enough for me."
+
+"But not for me," replied the Mongol, with a peculiar smile, "the
+more ornament, the more imposing the effect. You will see! I shall
+trim it, too, with wreaths and streamers. You will say in the end
+that you were right to give the work into my hands, and Senor Ibarra
+will have nothing left to desire."
+
+The man smiled still, and Senor Juan laughed and threw back his head.
+
+In truth, Ibarra's project had found an echo almost everywhere. The
+curate had asked to be a patron and to bless the cornerstone, a
+ceremony that was to take place the last day of the fete, and to be
+one of its chief solemnities. One of the most conservative papers of
+Manila had dedicated to Ibarra on its first page an article entitled,
+"Imitate Him!" He was therein called "the young and rich capitalist,
+already a marked man," "the distinguished philanthropist," "the Spanish
+Filipino," and so forth. The students who had come from Manila for
+the fete were full of admiration for Ibarra, and ready to take him
+for their model. But, as almost always when we try to imitate a man
+who towers above the crowd, we ape his weaknesses, if not his faults,
+many of these admirers of Crisostomo's held rigorously to the tie of
+his cravat, or the shape of his collar; almost all to the number of
+buttons on his vest. Even Captain Tiago burned with generous emulation,
+and asked himself if he ought not to build a convent.
+
+The dark presentiments of old Tasio seemed dissipated. When Ibarra said
+so to him, the old pessimist replied: "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes."
+
+Toward evening Captain Tiago arrived from Manila, bringing Maria
+Clara, in honor of the fete, a beautiful reliquary of gold, set with
+emeralds and diamonds, enshrining a splinter from the fishing-boat
+of St. Peter. Scarcely had he come when a party of Maria's friends
+came to take her out to see the streets.
+
+"Go," said Captain Tiago, "but come back soon. Father Damaso, you know,
+is to dine with us. You, too, Crisostomo, must join us."
+
+"With the greatest pleasure," stammered Ibarra, avoiding Maria Clara's
+eyes, "if I did not feel that I must be at home to receive whoever
+may come."
+
+"Bring your friends here; there is always room at my table," said
+Captain Tiago, somewhat coldly. "I wish Father Damaso and you to come
+to an understanding."
+
+"There is yet time," said Ibarra, forcing a smile.
+
+As they descended to the street, Aunt Isabel following, people moved
+aside to let them pass. Maria Clara was a vision of loveliness: her
+pallor had disappeared, and if her eyes remained pensive, her mouth
+seemed to know only smiles. With the amiability characteristic of
+happy young womanhood she saluted the people she had known as a child,
+and they smiled back their admiration. In these few days of freedom she
+had regained the frank friendliness, the gracious speech, which seemed
+to have slumbered inside the narrow walls of her convent. She felt a
+new, intense life within her, and everything without seemed good and
+beautiful. She showed her love for Ibarra with that maiden sweetness
+which comes from pure thoughts and knows no reason for false blushes.
+
+At regular intervals in the streets were kindled great clustered
+lights with bamboo supports, like candelabra. People were beginning
+to illuminate their houses, and through the open windows one could
+see the guests moving about in the radiance among the flowers to
+the music of harp, piano, or orchestra. Outside, in gala costume,
+native or European, Chinese, Spaniards, and Filipinos were moving
+in all directions, escaping with difficulty the crush of carriages
+and calashes.
+
+When the party reached Captain Basilio's house, Sinang saw them,
+and ran down the steps.
+
+"Come up till I'm ready to go out with you," she said. "I'm weary of
+all these strangers who talk of nothing but cocks and cards."
+
+The house was full of people. Many came up to greet Crisostomo, and
+all admired Maria Clara. "Beautiful as the Virgin!" the old dames
+whispered, chewing their buyo.
+
+Here they must take chocolate. As they were leaving, Captain Basilio
+said in Ibarra's ear:
+
+"Won't you join us this evening? Father Damaso is going to make up
+a little purse."
+
+Ibarra smiled and answered by a movement of the head, which might
+have meant anything.
+
+Chatting and laughing, the merry party went on past the brilliantly
+illuminated houses. At length they came to one fast closed and dark. It
+was the home of the alferez. Maria was astonished.
+
+"It's that old sorceress. The Muse of the Municipal Guard, as Tasio
+calls her," said Sinang. "Her house is in mourning because the people
+are gay."
+
+At a corner of the plaza, where a blind man was singing, an uncommon
+sight offered itself. A man stood there, miserably dressed, his
+head covered by a great salakot of palm leaves, which completely
+hid his face, though from its shadow two lights gleamed and went out
+fitfully. He was tall, and, from his figure, young. He pushed forward
+a basket, and after speaking some unintelligible words drew back and
+stood completely isolated. Women passing put fruit and rice into his
+basket, and at this he came forward a little, speaking what seemed
+to be his thanks.
+
+Maria Clara felt the presence of some great suffering. "Who is it?" she
+asked Iday.
+
+"It's a leper. He lives outside the pueblo, near the Chinese cemetery;
+every one fears to go near him. If you could see his cabin! The wind,
+the rain, and the sun must visit him as they like."
+
+"Poor man!" murmured Maria Clara, and hardly knowing what she did,
+she went up and put into the basket the reliquary her father had just
+given her.
+
+"Maria!" exclaimed her friends.
+
+"I had nothing else," she said, forcing back the tears.
+
+"What will he do with the reliquary? He can't sell it! Nobody will
+touch it now! If only it could be eaten!" said Sinang.
+
+But the leper went to the basket, took the glittering thing in his
+hands, fell on his knees, kissed it, and bent his head to the ground,
+uncovering humbly. Maria Clara turned her face to hide the tears.
+
+As the leper knelt, a woman crept up and knelt beside him. By her long,
+loose hair and emaciated face the people recognized Sisa. The leper,
+feeling her touch, sprang up with a cry; but, to the horror of the
+crowd, she clung to his arm.
+
+"Pray! Pray!" said she. "It is the Feast of the Dead! These lights
+are the souls of men. Pray for my sons!"
+
+"Separate them! Separate them!" cried the crowd; but no one dared
+do it.
+
+"Do you see the light in the tower? That is my son Basilio, ringing
+the bells. Do you see that other in the manse? That is my son Crispin;
+but I cannot go to them, because the curate is ill, and his money is
+lost. I carried the curate fruit from my garden. My garden was full
+of flowers, and I had two sons. I had a garden, I tended my flowers,
+and I had two sons."
+
+And leaving the leper she moved away, singing:
+
+"I had a garden and flowers. I had two sons, a garden and flowers."
+
+"What have you done for that poor woman?" Maria asked Ibarra.
+
+"Nothing yet," he replied, somewhat confused. "But don't be troubled;
+the curate has promised to aid me."
+
+As they spoke, a soldier came dragging Sisa back, rather than leading
+her. She was resisting.
+
+"Where are you taking her? What has she done?" asked Ibarra.
+
+"What has she done? Didn't you hear the noise she made?" said the
+guardian of public tranquillity.
+
+The leper took up his basket and vanished. Maria Clara asked to
+go home. She had lost all her gayety. Her sadness increased when,
+arrived at her door, her fiance refused to go in.
+
+"It must be so to-night," he said as he bade her good-by.
+
+Maria, mounting the steps, thought how tiresome were fete days,
+when one must receive so many strangers.
+
+The next evening a little perfumed note came to Ibarra by the hand
+of Andeng, Maria's foster sister.
+
+
+    "Crisostomo, for a whole day I have not seen you. They tell
+    me you are ill. I have lighted two candles and prayed for
+    you. I'm so tired of being asked to play and dance. I did not
+    know there were so many tiresome people in the world. If Father
+    Damaso had not tried to amuse me with stories, I should have
+    left them all and gone away to sleep. Write me how you are,
+    and if I shall send papa to see you. I send you Andeng now to
+    make your tea; she will do it better than your servants. If
+    you don't come to-morrow, I shall not go to the ceremony.
+
+    Maria Clara."
+
+
+
+
+
+XXIV.
+
+IN THE CHURCH.
+
+
+The orchestras sounded the reveille at the first rays of the sun,
+waking with joyous airs the tired inhabitants of the pueblo.
+
+It was the last day of the fete--indeed, the fete itself. Every one
+expected much more than on the eve, when the Brothers of the Sacred
+Rosary had had their sermon and procession; for the Brothers of the
+Third Order were more numerous, and counted on humiliating their
+rivals. The Chinese candle merchants had reaped a rich harvest.
+
+Everybody put on his gala dress; all the jewels came out of their
+coffers; the fops and sporting men wore rows of diamond buttons on
+their shirt fronts, heavy gold chains, and white jipijapa hats, as
+the Indians call Panamas. No one but old Tasio was in everyday costume.
+
+"You seem even sadder than usual," the lieutenant said to him. "Because
+we have so many reasons to weep, may we not laugh once in a while?"
+
+"Yes, laugh, but not play the fool! It's the same insane orgy every
+year, the same waste of money when there's so much need and so much
+suffering! But I see! It's the orgy, the bacchanal, that is to still
+the lamentations of the poor!"
+
+"You know I share your opinion," said Don Filipo, half serious,
+half laughing, "and that I defended it; but what can I do against
+the gobernadorcillo and the curate?"
+
+"Resign!" cries the irate old man, leaving him.
+
+"Resign!" muttered Don Filipo, going on toward the
+church. "Resign? Yes, certainly, if my post were an honor and not
+a charge."
+
+There was a crowd in the parvis, and men, women, and children
+in a stream were coming and going through the narrow doors of
+the church. The smell of powder mingled with that of flowers and
+incense. Rockets, bombs, and serpents made women run and scream and
+delighted the children. An orchestra was playing before the convent;
+bands accompanied dignitaries on their way to the church, or paraded
+the streets under innumerable floating and dipping flags. Light and
+color distracted the eye, music and explosions the ear.
+
+High mass was about to be celebrated. Among the congregation were
+to be the chief alcalde of the province and other Spanish notables;
+and last, the sermon would be given by Brother Damaso, who had the
+greatest renown as a preacher.
+
+The church was crammed. People were jostled, crushed, trampled on, and
+cried out at each encounter. From far they stretched their arms to dip
+their fingers in the holy water, but getting nearer, saw its color, and
+the hands retired. They scarcely breathed; the heat and atmosphere were
+insupportable; but the preacher was worth the endurance of all these
+miseries; besides, his sermon was to cost the pueblo two hundred and
+fifty pesos. Fans, hats, and handkerchiefs agitated the air; children
+cried, and gave the sacristans a hard enough task getting them out.
+
+Ibarra was in a corner. Maria Clara knelt near the high altar, where
+the curate had reserved a place for her. Captain Tiago, in frock coat,
+sat on the bench of authorities, and the children, who did not know
+him, taking him for another gobernadorcillo, dared not go near him.
+
+At length the alcalde arrived with his suite. He came from the
+sacristy, and sat down in a splendid fauteuil, beneath which was
+spread a rich carpet. He was in full dress, and wore the cordon of
+Charles III., with four or five other decorations.
+
+"Ha!" cried a countryman. "A citizen in fancy dress!"
+
+"Imbecile!" replied his neighbor. "It's Prince Villardo whom we
+saw last night in the play!" And the alcalde, in the character of
+giant-slayer, rose accordingly in the popular estimation.
+
+Presently those seated arose, those sleeping awoke, the mass had
+begun. Brother Salvi celebrated, attended by two Augustins. At length
+came the long-looked-for moment of the sermon. The three priests
+sat down, the alcalde and other notables followed them, the music
+ceased. The people made themselves as comfortable as possible, those
+who had no benches sitting outright on the pavement, or arranging
+themselves tailor fashion.
+
+Preceded by two sacristans and followed by another monk, who bore
+a great book, Father Damaso made his way through the crowd. He
+disappeared a moment in the spiral staircase of the pulpit, then
+his great head reappeared and his herculean bust. He looked over his
+audience, and, the review terminated, said to his companion, hidden
+at his feet:
+
+"Attention, brother!"
+
+The monk opened his book.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXV.
+
+THE SERMON.
+
+
+The first part of the sermon was to be in Castilian, the remainder
+in Tagalo. Brother Damaso began slowly and in ordinary voice:
+
+"Et spiritum tuum bonum dedisti qui docevet eos, et manna tuum non
+prohibuisti ab ore eorum, et aquam dedisti eis in siti. Words of the
+Lord spoken by the mouth of Esdras, Book II., chapter ix., verse 20.
+
+"Most worshipful senor (to the alcalde), very reverend priests,
+brothers in Christ!"
+
+Here an impressive pose and a new glance round the audience, then,
+his eyes on the alcalde, the father majestically extended his right
+hand toward the altar, slowly crossed his arms, without saying a word,
+and, passing from this calm to action, threw back his head, pointed
+toward the main entrance, and, impetuously cutting the air with the
+edge of his hand, began to speak in a voice strong, full, and resonant.
+
+"Brilliant and splendid is the altar, wide the door, the air is the
+vehicle of the sacred word which shall spring from my lips. Hear,
+then, with the ears of the soul and the heart, that the words of the
+Lord may not fall on a stony ground, but that they may grow and shoot
+upward in the field of our seraphic father, St. Francis. You, sinners,
+captives of those Moors of the soul who infest the seas of the eternal
+life, in the doughty ships of the flesh and the world; you who row
+in the galleys of Satan, behold with reverent compunction him who
+redeems souls from the captivity of the demon--the intrepid Gideon,
+the courageous David, the victorious Roland of Christianity! the
+celestial guard, more valiant than all the civil guards of past and
+future. (The alferez frowned.) Yes, Senor Alferez, more valiant and
+more powerful than all! This conqueror, who, without other weapon
+than a wooden cross, vanquished the eternal tulisanes of darkness,
+and would have utterly destroyed them were spirits not immortal. This
+marvel, this incredible phenomenon, is the blessed Diego of Alcala!"
+
+The "rude Indians," as the correspondents say, fished out of this
+paragraph only the words civil guard, tulisane, San Diego, and San
+Francisco. They had noticed the grimace of the alferez and the militant
+gesture of the preacher, and had from this deduced that the father
+was angry with the guard for not pursuing the tulisanes, and that
+San Diego and San Francisco had taken upon themselves to do it. They
+were enchanted, not doubting that, the tulisanes once dispersed,
+St. Francis would also destroy the municipal guard. Their attention,
+therefore, redoubled.
+
+The monk continued so long his eulogy of San Diego that his auditors,
+not even excepting Captain Tiago, began to yawn a little. Then
+he reproached them with living like the Protestants and heretics,
+who respect not the ministers of God; like the Chinese, for which
+condemnation be upon them!
+
+"What is he telling us, the Pale Lamaso?" murmured the Chinese Carlos,
+looking angrily at the preacher, who went on improvising a series of
+apostrophes and imprecations.
+
+"You will die in impenitence, race of heretics! Your punishment is
+already being meted out to you in jails and prisons. The family and its
+women should flee you; rulers should destroy you. If you have a member
+that causeth you to offend, cut it off and cast it into the fire!"
+
+Brother Damaso was nervous. He had forgotten his sermon and was
+improvising. Ibarra became restless; he looked about in search of
+some corner, but the church was full. Maria Clara no longer heard
+the sermon. She was analyzing a picture of the souls of the "Blessed
+in Purgatory."
+
+In the improvisation the monk who played the part of prompter lost his
+place and skipped some paragraphs. The text returned to San Diego,
+and with a long series of exclamations and contrasts the father
+brought to a close the first part of his sermon.
+
+The second part was entirely improvised; not that Brother Damaso
+knew Tagalo better than Castilian; but, considering the natives of
+the province entirely ignorant of rhetoric, he did not mind making
+errors before them. Yet the second part of his discourse had for
+certain people graver consequences than the first.
+
+He began with a "Mana capatir concristians," "My Christian brothers,"
+followed by an avalanche of untranslatable phrases about the
+soul, sin, and the patron saint. Then he launched a new series of
+maledictions against lack of respect and growing irreligion. On this
+point he seemed to be inspired, and expressed himself with force and
+clearness. He spoke of sinners who die in prison without confession
+or the sacraments; of accursed families, of petty students, and of
+toy philosophers.
+
+Ibarra listened and understood. He kept a calm exterior, but his eyes
+turned toward the bench of magistrates. No one seemed to pay attention;
+as to the alcalde, he was asleep.
+
+The inspiration of the preacher increased. He spoke of the early
+times when every Filipino encountering a priest uncovered, knelt,
+and kissed his hand. Now, he said, there were those who, because they
+had studied in Manila or in Europe, thought fit to shake the hand of
+a priest instead of kissing it.
+
+But in spite of the cries and gestures of the orator, by this time
+many of his auditors slept, and few listened. Some of the devout
+would have wept over the sins of the ungodly, but nobody joined them,
+and they were forced to give it up. A man seated beside an old woman
+went so sound asleep that he fell over against her. The good woman
+took her slipper and tried to waken him, at the same time crying out:
+
+"Get away! Savage, animal, demon, carabao!"
+
+Naturally this raised a tumult. The preacher elevated his brows,
+struck dumb by such a scandal; indignation strangled the words in
+his throat; he could only strike the pulpit with his fists. This had
+its effect. The old woman dropped the shoe and, still grumbling and
+signing herself, sank on her knees.
+
+"Ah, ah, ah, ah!" the irate priest could at last articulate. "It is for
+this that I have preached to you all the morning! Savages! You respect
+nothing! Behold the work of the incontinence of the century!" And
+launched again upon this theme, he preached a half hour longer. The
+alcalde breathed loud. Maria Clara, having studied all the pictures in
+sight, had dropped her head. Crisostomo had ceased to be moved by the
+sermon. He was picturing a little house, high up among the mountains,
+with Maria Clara in the garden. Why concern himself with men, dragging
+out their lives in the miserable pueblos of the valley?
+
+At length the sermon ended, and the mass went on. At the moment
+when all were kneeling and the priests bowed their heads at the
+"Incarnatus est," a man murmured in Ibarra's ear: "At the blessing
+of the cornerstone do not separate yourself from the curate; do not
+go down into the trench. Your life is at stake!"
+
+It was the helmsman.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXVI.
+
+THE CRANE.
+
+
+It was indeed not an ordinary crane that the Mongol had built for
+letting the enormous cornerstone of the school into the trench. The
+framework was complicated and the cables passed over extraordinary
+pulleys. Flags, streamers, and garlands of flowers, however, hid the
+mechanism. By means of a cleverly contrived capstan, the enormous
+stone held suspended over the open trench could be raised or lowered
+with ease by a single man.
+
+"See!" said the Mongol to Senor Juan, inserting the bar and turning
+it. "See how I can manipulate the thing up here and unaided!"
+
+Senor Juan was full of admiration.
+
+"Who taught you mechanics?" he asked.
+
+"My father, my late father," replied the man, with his peculiar smile,
+"and Don Saturnino, the grandfather of Don Crisostomo, taught him."
+
+"You must know then about Don Saturnino----"
+
+"Oh, many things! Not only did he beat his workmen and expose them
+to the sun, but he knew how to awaken sleepers and put waking men to
+sleep. Ah, you will see presently what he could teach! You will see!"
+
+On a table with Persian spread, beside the trench, were the things
+to be put into the cornerstone, and the glass box and leaden cylinder
+which were to preserve for the future these souvenirs, this mummy of
+an epoch.
+
+Under two long booths near at hand were sumptuous tables, one for the
+school-children, without wine, and heaped with fruits; the other for
+the distinguished visitors. The booths were joined by a sort of bower
+of leafy branches, where were chairs for the musicians, and tables with
+cakes, confitures, and carafes of water, for the public in general.
+
+The crowd, gay in garments of many colors, was massed under the trees
+to avoid the ardent rays of the sun, and the children, to better see
+the ceremony of the dedication, had climbed up among the branches.
+
+Soon bands were heard in the distance. The Mongol carefully examined
+his construction; he seemed nervous. A man with the appearance of a
+peasant standing near him on the edge of the excavation and close
+beside the capstan watched all his movements. It was Elias, well
+disguised by his salakot and rustic costume.
+
+The musicians arrived, preceded by a crowd of old and young in motley
+array. Behind came the alcalde, the municipal guard officers, the
+monks, and the Spanish Government clerks. Ibarra was talking with
+the alcalde; Captain Tiago, the alferez, the curate and a number of
+the rich country gentlemen accompanied the ladies, whose gay parasols
+gleamed in the sunshine.
+
+As they approached the trench, Ibarra felt his heart
+beat. Instinctively he raised his eyes to the strange scaffolding. The
+Mongol saluted him respectfully, and looked at him intently a
+moment. Ibarra recognized Elias through his disguise, and the
+mysterious helmsman, by a significant glance, recalled the warning
+in the church.
+
+The curate put on his robes and began the office. The one-eyed
+sacristan held his book; a choir boy had in charge the holy water
+and sprinkler. The men uncovered, and the crowd stood so silent that,
+though the father read low, his voice was heard to tremble.
+
+The manuscripts, journals, money, and medals to be preserved in
+remembrance of this day had been placed in the glass box and the box
+itself hermetically sealed within the leaden cylinder.
+
+"Senor Ibarra, will you place the box in the stone? The curate is
+waiting for you," said the alcalde in Ibarra's ear.
+
+"I should do so with great pleasure," said Ibarra, "but it would be
+a usurpation of the honor; that belongs to the notary, who must draw
+up the written process."
+
+The notary gravely took the box, descended the carpeted stairway which
+led to the bottom of the trench, and with due solemnity deposited
+his burden in the hollow of the stone already laid. The curate took
+the sprinkler and sprinkled the stone with holy water.
+
+Each one was now to deposit his trowel of cement on the surface of
+the lower stone, to seal it to the stone held suspended by the crane
+when that should be lowered.
+
+Ibarra offered the alcalde a silver trowel, on which was engraved
+the date of the fete, but before using it His Excellency pronounced
+a short allocution in Castilian.
+
+"Citizens of San Diego," he said, "we have the honor of presiding
+at a ceremony whose importance you know without explanations. We are
+founding a school, and the school is the basis of society, the book
+wherein is written the future of each race.
+
+"Citizens of San Diego! Thank God, who has given you these
+priests! Thank the Mother Country, who spreads civilization in these
+fertile isles and protects them with the covering of her glorious
+mantle. Thank God, again, who has enlightened you by his priests from
+his divine Word.
+
+"And now that the first stone of this building has been blessed, we,
+the alcalde of this province, in the name of His Majesty the King,
+whom God guard; in the name of the illustrious Spanish Government,
+and under the protection of its spotless and ever-victorious flag,
+consecrate this act and begin the building of this school!
+
+"Citizens of San Diego, long live the king! Long live Spain! Long
+live the religious orders! Long live the Catholic church!"
+
+"Long live the Senor Alcalde!" replied many voices.
+
+Then the high official descended majestically, to the strains of the
+orchestras, put his trowel of cement on the stone, and came back as
+majestically as he had gone down.
+
+The Government clerks applauded.
+
+Ibarra offered the trowel to the curate, who descended slowly in his
+turn. In the middle of the staircase he raised his eyes to the great
+stone suspended above, but he stopped only a second, and continued
+the descent. This time the applause was a little warmer, Captain
+Tiago and the monks adding theirs to that of the clerks.
+
+The notary followed. He gallantly offered the trowel to Maria Clara,
+but she refused, with a smile. The monks, the alferez, and others
+descended in turn, Captain Tiago not being forgotten.
+
+Ibarra was left. He had ordered the stone to be lowered when the
+curate remembered him.
+
+"You do not put on your trowelful, Senor Ibarra?" said the curate,
+with a familiar and jocular air.
+
+"I should be Juan Palomo, who made the soup and then ate it," replied
+Crisostomo in the same light tone.
+
+"You go down, of course," said the alcalde, taking him by the arm
+in friendly fashion. "If not, I shall order that the stone be kept
+suspended, and we shall stay here till the Day of Judgment!"
+
+Such a menace forced Ibarra to obey. He exchanged the silver trowel
+for a larger one of iron, as some people noticed, and started out
+calmly. Elias gave him an indefinable look; his whole being seemed
+in it. The Mongol's eyes were on the abyss at his feet.
+
+Ibarra, after glancing rapidly at the block over his head, at Elias,
+and at the Mongol, said to Senor Juan, in a voice that trembled:
+
+"Give me the tray and bring me the other trowel."
+
+He stood alone. Elias no longer looked at him, his eyes were riveted
+on the hands of the Mongol, who, bending over, was anxiously following
+the movements of Ibarra. Then the sound of Ibarra's trowel was heard,
+accompanied by the low murmur of the clerks' voices as they felicitated
+the alcalde on his speech.
+
+Suddenly a frightful noise rent the air. A pulley attached to the
+base of the crane sprang out, dragging after it the capstan, which
+struck the crane like a lever. The beams tottered, the cables broke,
+and the whole fabric collapsed with a deafening roar and in a whirlwind
+of dust.
+
+A thousand voices filled the place with cries of horror. People fled
+in all directions. Only Maria Clara and Brother Salvi remained where
+they were, pale, mute, incapable of motion.
+
+As the cloud of dust thinned, Ibarra was seen upright among the beams,
+joists and cables, between the capstan and the great stone that had
+fallen. He still held the trowel in his hand. With eyes frightful to
+look at, he regarded a corpse half buried under the beams at his feet.
+
+"Are you unhurt? Are you alive? For God's sake, speak!" cried some
+one at last.
+
+"A miracle! A miracle!" cried others.
+
+"Come, take out the body of this man," said Ibarra, as if waking from
+a dream. At the sound of his voice Maria Clara would have fallen but
+for the arms of her friends.
+
+Then everything was confusion. All talked at once, gestured, went
+hither and thither, and knew not what to do.
+
+"Who is killed?" demanded the alferez.
+
+"Arrest the head builder!" were the first words the alcalde could
+pronounce.
+
+They brought up the body and examined it. It was that of the
+Mongol. The heart no longer beat.
+
+The priests shook Ibarra's hand, and warmly congratulated him.
+
+"When I think that I was there a moment before!" said one of the
+clerks.
+
+"It is well they gave the trowel to you instead of me," said a
+trembling old man.
+
+"Don Pascal!" cried some of the Spaniards.
+
+"Senores, the Senor Ibarra lives, while I, if I had not been crushed,
+should have died of fright."
+
+Ibarra had been to inform himself of Maria Clara.
+
+"Let the fete continue, Senor Ibarra," said the alcalde, as he came
+back. "Thank God, the dead is neither priest nor Spaniard! You ought
+to celebrate your escape! What if the stone had fallen on you!"
+
+"He had presentiments!" cried the notary. "He did not want to go down,
+that was plain to be seen!"
+
+"It's only an Indian!"
+
+"Let the fete go on! Give us music! Mourning won't raise the
+dead. Captain, let the inquest be held! Arrest the head builder!"
+
+"Shall he be put in the stocks?"
+
+"Yes, in the stocks! Music, music! The head builder in the stocks!"
+
+"Senor Alcalde," said Ibarra, "if mourning won't raise the dead,
+neither will the imprisonment of a man whose guilt is not proven. I
+go security for his person and ask his liberty, for these fete days
+at least."
+
+"Very well! But let him not repeat it!" said the alcalde.
+
+All kinds of rumors circulated among the people. The idea of a miracle
+was generally accepted. Many said they had seen descend into the
+trench at the fatal moment a figure in a dark costume, like that of
+the Franciscans. 'Twas no doubt San Diego himself.
+
+"A bad beginning," muttered old Tasio, shaking his head as he moved
+away.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXVII.
+
+FREE THOUGHT.
+
+
+Ibarra, who had gone home for a change of clothing, had just finished
+dressing when a servant announced that a peasant wished to see
+him. Supposing it to be one of his laborers, he had him taken to
+his work room, which was at the same time his library and chemical
+laboratory. To his great surprise he found himself face to face with
+the mysterious Elias.
+
+"You saved my life," said the man, speaking in Tagalo, and
+understanding the movement of Ibarra. "I have not half paid my
+debt. Do not thank me. It is I who should thank you. I have come to
+ask a favor."
+
+"Speak!" said his listener.
+
+Elias fixed his melancholy eyes on Ibarra's and went on:
+
+"When the justice of man tries to clear up this mystery, and your
+testimony is taken, I entreat you not to speak to any one of the
+warning I gave you."
+
+"Do not be alarmed," said Crisostomo, losing interest; "I know you
+are pursued, but I'm not an informer."
+
+"I don't speak for myself, but for you," said Elias, with some
+haughtiness. "I have no fear of men."
+
+Ibarra grew surprised. This manner of speaking was new, and did not
+comport with the state or fortunes of the helmsman.
+
+"Explain yourself!" he demanded.
+
+"I am not speaking enigmas. To insure your safety, it is necessary
+that your enemies believe you blind and confiding."
+
+"To insure my safety?" said Ibarra, thoroughly aroused.
+
+"You undertake a great enterprise," Elias went on. "You have
+a past. Your grandfather and your father had enemies. It is not
+criminals who provoke the most hatred; it is honorable men."
+
+"You know my enemies, then?"
+
+Elias hesitated.
+
+"I knew one; the dead man."
+
+"I regret his death," said Ibarra; "from him I might have learned
+more."
+
+"Had he lived, he would have escaped the trembling hand of men's
+justice. God has judged him!"
+
+"Do you also believe in the miracle of which the people talk?"
+
+"If I believed in such a miracle, I should not believe in God, and I
+believe in Him; I have more than once felt His hand. At the moment when
+the scaffolding gave way I placed myself beside the criminal." Elias
+looked at Ibarra.
+
+"You--you mean that you----"
+
+"Yes, when his deadly work was about to be done, he was going to flee;
+I held him there; I had seen his crime! Let God be the only one who
+has the right over life!"
+
+"And yet, this time you----"
+
+"No!" cried Elias. "I exposed the criminal to the risk he had prepared
+for others; I ran the risk myself; and I did not strike him; I left
+him to be struck by the hand of God!"
+
+Ibarra regarded the man in silence.
+
+"You are not a peasant," he said at last. "Who are you? Have you
+studied?"
+
+"I've need of much belief in God, since I've lost faith in men,"
+said Elias, evading the question.
+
+"But God cannot speak to resolve each of the countless contests our
+passions raise; it is necessary, it is just, that man should sometimes
+judge his kind."
+
+"For good, yes; not for evil. To correct and ameliorate, not to
+destroy; because, if man's judgments are erroneous, he has not the
+power to remedy the evil he has done. But this discussion is over my
+head, and I am detaining you. Do not forget what I came to entreat;
+save yourself for the good of your country!" And he started to go.
+
+"And when shall I see you again?"
+
+"Whenever you wish; whenever I can be of use to you; I am always
+your debtor!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII.
+
+THE BANQUET.
+
+
+All the distinguished people of the province were united in the
+carpeted and decorated booth. The alcalde was at one end of the table,
+Ibarra at the other. The talk was animated, even gay. The meal was
+half finished when a despatch was handed to Captain Tiago. He asked
+permission to read it; his face paled; then lighted up. "Senores,"
+he cried, quite beside himself, "His Excellency the captain-general
+is to honor my house with his presence!" And he started off running,
+carrying his despatch and his napkin, forgetting his hat, and pursued
+by exclamations and questions. The announcement of the tulisanes
+could not have put him to greater confusion.
+
+"Wait a moment! When is he coming? Tell us?"
+
+Captain Tiago was already in the distance.
+
+"His Excellency asks the hospitality of Captain Tiago!" the guests
+exclaimed, apparently forgetting that they spoke before his daughter
+and his future son-in-law.
+
+"He could hardly make a better choice," said Ibarra, with dignity.
+
+"This was spoken of yesterday," said the alcalde, "but His Excellency
+had not fully decided."
+
+"Do you know how long he is to stay?" asked the alferez, uneasily.
+
+"I'm not at all sure! His Excellency is fond of surprising people."
+
+Three other despatches were brought. They were for the alcalde, the
+alferez, and the gobernadorcillo, and identical, announcing the coming
+of the governor. It was remarked that there was none for the curate.
+
+"His Excellency arrives at four this afternoon," said the alcalde,
+solemnly. "We can finish our repast." It might have been Leonidas
+saying: "To-night we sup with Pluto!"
+
+The conversation returned to its former course.
+
+"I notice the absence of our great preacher," said one of the clerks,
+an honest, inoffensive fellow, who had not yet said a word. Those
+who knew the story of Ibarra's father looked significantly at one
+another. "Fools rush in," said the glances of some; but others,
+more considerate, tried to cover the error.
+
+"He must be somewhat fatigued----"
+
+"Somewhat!" cried the alferez. "He must be spent, as they say here,
+malunqueado. What a sermon!"
+
+"Superb! Herculean!" was the opinion of the notary.
+
+"Magnificent! Profound!" said a newspaper correspondent.
+
+In the other booth the children were more noisy than little Filipinos
+are wont to be, for at table or before strangers they are usually
+rather too timid than too bold. If one of them did not eat with
+propriety, his neighbor corrected him. To one a certain article was
+a spoon; to others a fork or a knife; and as nobody settled their
+questions, they were in continual uproar.
+
+Their fathers and mothers, simple peasants, looked in ravishment to
+see their children eating on a white cloth, and doing it almost as well
+as the curate or the alcalde. It was better to them than a banquet.
+
+"Yes," said a young peasant woman to an old man grinding his buyo,
+"whatever my husband says, my Andoy shall be a priest. It is true,
+we are poor; but Father Mateo says Pope Sixtu was once a keeper
+of carabaos at Batanzas! Look at my Andoy; hasn't he a face like
+St. Vincent?" and the good mother's mouth watered at the sight of
+her son with his fork in both hands!
+
+"God help us!" said the old man, munching his sapa. "If Andoy gets
+to be pope, we will go to Rome! I can walk yet! Ho! Ho!"
+
+Another peasant came up.
+
+"It's decided, neighbor," he said, "my son is to be a doctor."
+
+"A doctor! Don't speak of it!" replied Petra. "There's nothing
+like being a curate! He has only to make two or three turns and say
+'deminos pabiscum' and he gets his money."
+
+"And isn't it work to confess?"
+
+"Work! Think of the trouble we take to find out the affairs of
+our neighbors! The curate has only to sit down, and they tell him
+everything!"
+
+"And preaching? Don't you call that work?"
+
+"Preaching? Where is your head? To scold half a day from the pulpit
+without any one's daring to reply and be paid for it into the
+bargain! Look, look at Father Damaso! See how fat he gets with his
+shouting and pounding!"
+
+In truth, Father Damaso was that moment passing the children's booth in
+the gait peculiar to men of his size. As he entered the other booth,
+he was half smiling, but so maliciously that at sight of it Ibarra,
+who was talking, lost the thread of his speech.
+
+The guests were astonished to see the father, but every one except
+Ibarra received him with signs of pleasure. They were at the dessert,
+and the champagne was sparkling in the cups.
+
+Father Damaso's smile became nervous when he saw Maria Clara sitting
+next Crisostomo, but, taking a chair beside the alcalde, he said in
+the midst of a significant silence:
+
+"You were talking of something, senores; continue!"
+
+"We had come to the toasts," said the alcalde. "Senor Ibarra was
+mentioning those who had aided him in his philanthropic enterprise,
+and he was speaking of the architect when your reverence----"
+
+"Ah, well! I know nothing about architecture," interrupted Father
+Damaso, "but I scorn architects and the simpletons who make use
+of them."
+
+"Nevertheless," said the alcalde, as Ibarra was silent, "when certain
+buildings are in question, like a school, for example, an expert
+is needed----"
+
+"An expert!" cried the father, with sarcasm. "One needs be more
+stupid than the Indians, who build their own houses, not to know how
+to raise four walls and put a roof on them. Nothing else is needed
+for a school!"
+
+Every one looked at Ibarra, but, though he grew a little pale, he
+pursued his conversation with Maria Clara.
+
+"But does your reverence consider----"
+
+"See here!" continued the Franciscan, again cutting off the
+alcalde. "See how one of our lay brothers, the most stupid one we
+have, built a hospital. He paid the workmen eight cuartos a day,
+and got them from other pueblos, too. Not much like these young
+feather-brains who ruin workmen, paying them three or four reales!"
+
+"Does your reverence say he paid but eight cuartos? Impossible!" said
+the alcalde, hoping to change the course of the conversation.
+
+"Yes, senor, and so should those do who pride themselves upon being
+good Spaniards. Since the opening of the Suez Canal, corruption has
+reached even here! When the Cape had to be doubled, not so many ruined
+men came here, and fewer went abroad to ruin themselves!"
+
+"But Father Damaso----"
+
+"You know the Indian; as soon as he has learned anything, he takes
+a title. All these beardless youths who go to Europe----"
+
+"But, your reverence, listen----" began the alcalde, alarmed by the
+harshness of these words.
+
+"Finish as they merit," continued the priest. "The hand of God is in
+it; he is blind who does not see that. Already even the fathers of
+these reptiles receive their chastisement; they die in prison! Ah----"
+
+He did not finish. Ibarra, livid, had been watching him. At these words
+he rose, gave one bound, and struck out with his strong hand. The monk,
+stunned by the blow, fell backward.
+
+Surprised and terrified, not one of the spectators moved.
+
+"Let no one come near!" said the young man in a terrible voice,
+drawing his slender blade, and holding the neck of the priest with
+his foot. "Let no one come, unless he wishes to die."
+
+Ibarra was beside himself, his whole body trembled, his threatening
+eyes were big with rage. Father Damaso, regaining his senses, made
+an effort to rise, but Crisostomo, grasping his neck, shook him till
+he had brought him to his knees.
+
+"Senor de Ibarra! Senor de Ibarra!" stammered one and another. But
+nobody, not even the alferez, risked a movement. They saw the knife
+glitter; they calculated Crisostomo's strength, unleashed by anger;
+they were paralyzed.
+
+"All you here, you have said nothing. Now it rests with me. I avoided
+him; God brings him to me. Let God judge!"
+
+Ibarra breathed with effort, but his arm of iron kept harsh hold of
+the Franciscan, who struggled in vain to free himself.
+
+"My heart beats true, my hand is firm----" And he looked about him.
+
+"I ask you first, is there among you any one who has not loved his
+father, who has not loved his father's memory; any one born in shame
+and abasement? See, hear this silence! Priest of a God of peace, thy
+mouth full of sanctity and religion, thy heart of corruption! Thou
+canst not know what it is to be a father; thou shouldst have thought
+of thy own! See, in all this crowd that you scorn there is not one
+like you! You are judged!"
+
+The guests, believing he was going to strike, made their first
+movement.
+
+"Do not come near us!" he cried again in the same threatening
+voice. "What? You fear I shall stain my hand in impure blood? Did I not
+tell you that my heart beats true? Away from us, and listen, priests,
+believing yourselves different from other men, giving yourselves other
+rights! My father was an honorable man. Ask the country which venerates
+his memory. My father was a good citizen, who sacrificed himself for
+me and for his country's good. His house was open, his table set for
+the stranger or the exile who should turn to him! He was a Christian;
+always doing good, never pressing the weak, nor forcing tears from
+the wretched. As to this man, he opened his door to him, made him
+sit down at his table, and called him friend. And how did the man
+respond? He falsely accused him; he pursued him; he armed ignorance
+against him! Confiding in the sanctity of his office, he outraged his
+tomb, dishonored his memory; his hate troubled even the rest of the
+dead. And not yet satisfied, he now pursues the son. I fled from him,
+avoided his presence. You heard him this morning profane the chair,
+point me out to the people's fanaticism; but I said nothing. Now,
+he comes here to seek a quarrel; I suffer in silence, until he again
+insults a memory sacred to all sons.
+
+"You who are here, priests, magistrates, have you seen your old
+father give himself for you, part from you for your good, die of
+grief in a prison, looking for your embrace, looking for consolation
+from any one who would bring it, sick, alone; while you in a foreign
+land? Then have you heard his name dishonored, found his tomb empty
+when you went there to pray? No? You are silent; then you condemn him!"
+
+He raised his arm. But a girl, rapid as light, threw herself between
+him and the priest, and with her fragile hands held the avenging
+arm. It was Maria Clara. Ibarra looked at her with eyes like a
+madman's. Then, little by little, his tense fingers relaxed; he let
+fall the knife, and, covering his face with his hands, he fled.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXIX.
+
+OPINIONS.
+
+
+The noise of the affair spread rapidly. At first no one believed it,
+but when there was no longer room for doubt, each made his comments,
+according to the degree of his moral elevation.
+
+"Father Damaso is dead," said some. "When he was carried away, his
+face was congested with blood, and he no longer breathed."
+
+"May he rest in peace, but he has only paid his debt!" said a young
+stranger.
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"One of us students who came from Manila for the fete left the church
+when the sermon in Tagalo began, saying it was Greek to him. Father
+Damaso sent for him afterward, and they came to blows."
+
+"Are we returning to the times of Nero?" asked another student.
+
+"You mistake," replied the first. "Nero was an artist, and Father
+Damaso is a jolly poor preacher!"
+
+The men of more years talked otherwise.
+
+"To say which was wrong and which right is not easy," said the
+gobernadorcillo, "and yet, if Senor Ibarra had been more moderate----"
+
+"You probably mean, if Father Damaso had shown half the moderation of
+Senor Ibarra," interrupted Don Filipo. "The pity is that the roles
+were interchanged: the youth conducted himself like an old man,
+and the old man like a youth."
+
+"And you say nobody but the daughter of Captain Tiago came between
+them? Not a monk, nor the alcalde?" asked Captain Martin. "I wouldn't
+like to be in the young man's shoes. None of those who were afraid
+of him will ever forgive him. Hah, that's the worst of it!"
+
+"You think so?" demanded Captain Basilio, with interest.
+
+"I hope," said Don Filipo, exchanging glances with Captain Basilio,
+"that the pueblo isn't going to desert him. His friends at least----"
+
+"But, senores," interrupted the gobernadorcillo, "what can we
+do? What can the pueblo? Whatever happens, the monks are always in
+the right----"
+
+"They are always in the right, because we always say they're in the
+right. Let us say we are in the right for once, and then we shall
+have something to talk about!"
+
+The gobernadorcillo shook his head.
+
+"Ah, the young blood!" he said. "You don't seem to know what country
+you live in; you don't know your compatriots. The monks are rich;
+they are united; we are poor and divided. Try to defend him and you
+will see how you are left to compromise yourself alone!"
+
+"Yes," cried Don Filipo bitterly, "and it will be so as long as fear
+and prudence are supposed to be synonymous. Each thinks of himself,
+nobody of any one else; that is why we are weak!"
+
+"Very well! Think of others and see how soon the others will let
+you hang!"
+
+"I've had enough of it!" cried the exasperated lieutenant. "I shall
+give my resignation to the alcalde to-day."
+
+The women had still other thoughts.
+
+"Aye!" said one of them. "Young people are always the same. If his
+good mother were living, what would she say? When I think that my son,
+who is a young hothead, too, might have done the same thing----"
+
+"I'm not with you," said another woman. "I should have nothing against
+my two sons if they did as Don Crisostomo."
+
+"What are you saying, Capitana Maria?" cried the first woman, clasping
+her hands.
+
+"I'm a poor stupid," said a third, the Capitana Tinay, "but I know
+what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell my son not to study any
+more. They say men of learning all die on the gallows. Holy Mary,
+and my son wants to go to Europe!"
+
+"If I were rich as you, my children should travel," said the Capitana
+Maria. "Our sons ought to aspire to be more than their fathers. I
+have not long to live, and we shall meet again in the other world."
+
+"Your ideas, Capitana Maria, are little Christian," said Sister
+Rufa severely. "Make yourself a sister of the Sacred Rosary, or of
+St. Francis."
+
+"Sister Rufa, when I'm a worthy sister of men, I will think about
+being a sister of the saints," said the capitana, smiling.
+
+Under the booth where the children had their feast the father of the
+one who was to be a doctor was talking.
+
+"What troubles me most," said he, "is that the school will not be
+finished; my son will not be a doctor, but a carter."
+
+"Who said there wouldn't be a school?"
+
+"I say so. The White Fathers have called Don Crisostomo
+plibastiero. There won't be any school."
+
+The peasants questioned each other's faces. The word was new to them.
+
+"And is that a bad name?" one at last ventured to ask.
+
+"It's the worst one Christian can give another."
+
+"Worse than tarantado and saragate?"
+
+"If it weren't, it wouldn't amount to much."
+
+"Come now. It can't be worse than indio, as the alferez says."
+
+He whose son was to be a carter looked gloomy. The other shook his
+head and reflected.
+
+"Then is it as bad as betalapora, that the old woman of the alferez
+says?"
+
+"You remember the word ispichoso (suspect), which had only to be said
+of a man to have the guards lead him off to prison? Well, plibastiero
+is worse yet; if any one calls you plibastiero, you can confess and
+pay your debts, for there's nothing else left to do but get yourself
+hanged. That's what the telegrapher and the sub-director say, and
+you know whether the telegrapher and the sub-director ought to know:
+one talks with iron wires, and the other knows Spanish, and handles
+nothing but the pen."
+
+The last hope fled.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXX.
+
+THE FIRST CLOUD.
+
+
+The home of Captain Tiago was naturally not less disturbed than the
+minds of the crowd. Maria Clara refused to be comforted by her aunt
+and her foster-sister. Her father had forbidden her to speak to
+Crisostomo until the ban of excommunication should be raised.
+
+In the midst of his preparations for receiving the governor-general
+Captain Tiago was summoned to the convent.
+
+"Don't cry, my child," said Aunt Isabel, as she polished the mirrors
+with a chamois skin, "the ban will be raised. They will write to the
+holy father. We will make a big offering. Father Damaso only fainted;
+he isn't dead!"
+
+"Don't cry," whispered Andeng; "I will arrange to meet Crisostomo."
+
+At last Captain Tiago came back. They scanned his face for answers to
+many questions; but the face of Captain Tiago spoke discouragement. The
+poor man passed his hand across his brow and seemed unable to frame
+a word.
+
+"Well, Santiago?" demanded the anxious aunt.
+
+He wiped away a tear and replied by a sigh.
+
+"Speak, for heaven's sake! What is it?"
+
+"What I all the time feared," he said at last, conquering his
+tears. "Everything is lost! Father Damaso orders me to break the
+promise of marriage. They all say the same thing, even Father Sibyla. I
+must shut the doors of my house to him, and--I owe him more than fifty
+thousand pesos! I told the fathers so, but they wouldn't take it into
+account. 'Which would you rather lose,' they said, 'fifty thousand
+pesos or your soul?' Ah, St. Anthony, if I had known, if I had known!"
+
+Maria Clara was sobbing.
+
+"Don't cry, my child," he said, turning to her; "you aren't like your
+mother; she never cried. Father Damaso told me that a young friend
+of his is coming from Spain; he intends him for your fiance----"
+
+Maria Clara stopped her ears.
+
+"But, Santiago, are you mad?" cried Aunt Isabel. "Speak to her of
+another fiance now? Do you think your daughter changes them as she
+does her gloves?"
+
+"I have thought about it, Isabel; but what would you have me do? They
+threaten me, too, with excommunication."
+
+"And you do nothing but distress your daughter! Aren't you the friend
+of the archbishop? Why don't you write to him?"
+
+"The archbishop is a monk, too. He will do only what the monks say. But
+don't cry, Maria; the governor-general is coming. He will want to
+see you, and your eyes will be red. Alas, I thought I was going to
+have such a good afternoon! Without this misfortune I should be the
+happiest of men, with everybody envying me! Be calm, my child, I am
+more unhappy than you, and I don't cry. You may find a better fiance;
+but as for me, I lose fifty thousand pesos! Ah, Virgin of Antipolo,
+if only I have luck tonight!"
+
+Salvos, the sound of wheels and of horses galloping, the band
+playing the Royal March, announced the arrival of His Excellency the
+governor-general of the Philippine Islands. Maria Clara ran to hide
+in her chamber. Poor girl! Her heart was at the mercy of rude hands
+that had no sense of its delicate fibres.
+
+While the house was filling with people, while heavy footsteps,
+words of command, and the hurling of sabres and spurs resounded all
+about, the poor child, heart-broken, was half-lying, half-kneeling
+before that picture of the Virgin where Delaroche represents her in a
+grievous solitude, as though he had surprised her returning from the
+sepulchre of her son. Maria Clara did not think of the grief of this
+mother; she thought only of her own. Her head bent on her breast,
+her hands pressed against the floor, she seemed a lily broken by
+the storm. A future for years caressed in dreams, illusions born in
+childhood, fostered in youth, grown a part of her being, they thought
+to shatter all these with a word, to drive it all out of her mind
+and heart. A devout Catholic, a loving daughter, the excommunication
+terrified her. Not so much her father's commands as her desire for
+his peace of mind demanded from her the sacrifice of her love. And
+in this moment she felt for the first time the full strength of her
+affection for Crisostomo. The peaceful river glides over its sandy bed
+under the nodding flowers along its banks; the wind scarcely ridges
+its current; it seems to sleep; but farther down the banks close in,
+rough rocks choke the channel, a heap of knotty trunks forms a dyke;
+then the river roars, revolts, its waters whirl, and shake their
+plumes of spray, and, raging, beat the rocks and rush on madly. So
+this tranquil love was now transformed and the tempests were let loose.
+
+She would have prayed; but who can pray without hope? "O God!" her
+heart complained. "Why refuse a man the love of others? Thou givest
+him the sunshine and the air; thou dost not hide from him the sight
+of heaven. Why take away that love without which he cannot live?"
+
+The poor child, who had never known a mother of her own, had brought
+her grief to that pure heart which knew only filial and maternal
+love, to that divine image of womanhood of whose tenderness we dream,
+whom we call Mary.
+
+"Mother, mother!" she sobbed.
+
+Aunt Isabel came to find her; her friends were there, and the
+governor-general had asked for her.
+
+"Dear aunt, tell them I am ill!" she begged in terror. "They will
+want me to play and sing!"
+
+"Your father has promised. Would you make your father break his word?"
+
+Maria Clara rose, looked at her aunt, threw out her beautiful arms with
+a sob, then stood still till she was outwardly calm, and went to obey.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXI.
+
+HIS EXCELLENCY.
+
+
+"I want to talk with that young man," said the general to one of his
+aids; "he rouses all my interest."
+
+"He has been sent for, my general; but there is here another young
+man of Manila who insists upon seeing you. We told him you have not
+the time; that you did not come to give audiences. He replied that
+Your Excellency has always the time to do justice."
+
+The general, perplexed, turned to the alcalde.
+
+"If I am not mistaken," said the alcalde, with an inclination of the
+head, "it is a student who this morning had trouble with Father Damaso
+about the sermon."
+
+"Another still? Has this monk started out to put the province to
+revolt, or does he think he commands here? Admit the young man!" And
+the governor got up and walked nervously back and forth.
+
+In the ante-chamber some Spanish officers and all the functionaries of
+the pueblo were talking in groups. All the monks, too, except Father
+Damaso, had come to pay their respects to the governor.
+
+"His Excellency begs your reverences to attend a moment," said the
+aide-de-camp. "Enter, young man!"
+
+The young Manilian who confounded the Tagalo with the Greek entered,
+trembling.
+
+Every one was greatly astonished. His Excellency must be much annoyed
+to make the monks wait this way. Said Brother Sibyla:
+
+"I have nothing to say to him, and I'm wasting my time here."
+
+"I also," said an Augustin. "Shall we go?"
+
+"Would it not be better to find out what he thinks?" asked Brother
+Salvi. "We should avoid a scandal, and we could remind him--of his
+duty----"
+
+"Your reverences may enter," said the aid, conducting back the young
+man, who came out radiant.
+
+The fathers went in and saluted the governor.
+
+"Who among your reverences is the Brother Damaso?" demanded His
+Excellency at once, without asking them to be seated or inquiring for
+their health, and without any of those complimentary phrases which
+form the repertory of dignitaries.
+
+"Senor, Father Damaso is not with us," replied Father Sibyla, in a
+tone almost as dry.
+
+"Your Excellency's servant is ill," added the humble Brother Salvi. "We
+come, after saluting Your Excellency and inquiring for his health,
+to speak in the name of Your Excellency's respectful servant, who
+has had the misfortune----"
+
+"Oh!" interrupted the captain-general, with a nervous smile, while he
+twirled a chair on one leg. "If all the servants of my Excellency were
+like the Father Damaso, I should prefer to serve my Excellency myself!"
+
+Their reverences did not seem to know what to reply.
+
+"Won't your reverences sit down?" added the governor in more
+conventional tone.
+
+Captain Tiago, in evening dress and walking on tiptoe, came in,
+leading by the hand Maria Clara, hesitating, timid. Overcoming her
+agitation, she made her salute, at once ceremonial and graceful.
+
+"This signorita is your daughter!" exclaimed the surprised
+governor. "Happy the fathers whose daughters are like you,
+signorita. They have told me about you, and I wish to thank you in the
+name of His Majesty the King, who loves the peace and tranquillity
+of his subjects, and in my own name, in that of a father who has
+daughters. If there is anything you would wish, signorita----"
+
+"Senor!" protested Maria, trembling.
+
+"The Senor Don Juan Crisostomo Ibarra awaits Your Excellency's orders,"
+announced the ringing voice of the aide-de-camp.
+
+"Permit me, signorita, to see you again before I leave the pueblo. I
+have yet things to say to you. Senor acalde, Your Highness will
+accompany me on the walk I wish to take after the private conference
+I shall have with the Senor Ibarra."
+
+"Your Excellency," said Father Salvi humbly, "will permit us to inform
+him that the Senor Ibarra is excommunicated----"
+
+The general broke in.
+
+"I am happy," he said, "in being troubled about nothing but the state
+of Father Damaso. I sincerely desire his complete recovery, for,
+at his age, a voyage to Spain in search of health would be somewhat
+disagreeable. But all depends upon him. Meanwhile, God preserve the
+health of your reverences!"
+
+All retired.
+
+"In his own case also everything depends upon him," murmured Brother
+Salvi as he went out.
+
+"We shall see who makes the earliest voyage to Spain!" added another
+Franciscan.
+
+"I shall go immediately," said Father Sibyla, in vexation.
+
+"We, too," grumbled the Augustins.
+
+Both parties bore it ill that for the fault of a Franciscan His
+Excellency should have received them so coldly.
+
+In the ante-chamber they encountered Ibarra, who a few hours before
+had been their host. There was no exchange of greetings, but there
+were eloquent looks. The alcalde, on the contrary, gave Ibarra his
+hand. On the threshold Crisostomo met Maria coming out. Looks spoke
+again, but very differently this time.
+
+Though this encounter with the monks had seemed to him of bad augury,
+Ibarra presented himself in the utmost calm. He bowed profoundly. The
+captain-general came forward.
+
+"It gives me the greatest satisfaction, Senor Ibarra, to take you
+by the hand. I hope for your entire confidence." And he examined the
+young man with evident satisfaction.
+
+"Senor, so much kindness----"
+
+"Your surprise shows that you did not expect a friendly reception;
+that was to doubt my fairness."
+
+"A friendly reception, senor, for an insignificant subject of His
+Majesty, like myself, is not fairness, but favor."
+
+"Well, well!" said the general, sitting down and motioning Crisostomo
+to a seat. "Let us have a moment of open hearts. I am much gratified
+by what you are doing, and have proposed you to the Government of
+His Majesty for a decoration in recompense for your project of the
+school. Had you invited me, I should have found it a pleasure to be
+here for the ceremony. Perhaps I should have been able to save you an
+annoyance. But as to what happened between you and Father Damaso, have
+neither fear nor regrets. Not a hair of your head shall be harmed so
+long as I govern the islands; and in regard to the excommunication,
+I will talk with the archbishop. We must conform ourselves to our
+circumstances. We cannot laugh at it here, as we might in Europe. But
+be more prudent in the future. You have weighted yourself with the
+religious orders, who, from their office and their wealth, must
+be respected. I protect you, because I like a good son. By heaven,
+I don't know what I should have done in your place!"
+
+Then, quickly changing the subject, he said:
+
+"They tell me you have just returned from Europe. You were in Madrid?"
+
+"Yes, senor, several months."
+
+"How happens it that you return without bringing me a letter of
+recommendation?"
+
+"Senor," replied Ibarra, bowing, "because, having heard there of the
+character of Your Excellency, I thought a letter of recommendation
+would not only be unnecessary, but might even offend you; the Filipinos
+are all recommended to you."
+
+A smile curled the lips of the old soldier, who replied slowly,
+as though meditating and weighing his words:
+
+"I cannot help being flattered that you think so. And yet, young
+man, you should know what a weight rests on our shoulders. Here we
+old soldiers have to be all--king, ministers of state, of war, of
+justice, of everything; and yet, in every event, we have to consult
+the far-off mother country, which often must approve or reject our
+propositions with blind justice. If in Spain itself, with the advantage
+of everything near and familiar, all is imperfect and defective,
+the wonder is that all here is not revolution. It is not lack of good
+will in the governors, but we must use the eyes and arms of strangers,
+of whom, for the most part, we can know nothing, and who, instead of
+serving their country, may be serving only their own interests. The
+monks are a powerful aid, but they are not sufficient. You inspire
+great interest in me, and I would not have the imperfection of our
+governmental system tell in anyway against you. I cannot watch over
+any one; every one cannot come to me. Tell me, can I be useful to
+you in any way? Have you any request to make?"
+
+Ibarra reflected.
+
+"Senor," he replied, "my great desire is for the happiness of my
+country, and I would that happiness might be due to the efforts
+of our mother country and of my fellow-citizens united to her and
+united among themselves by the eternal bonds of common views and
+interests. What I would ask, the Government alone can give, and that
+after many continuous years of labor and of well-conceived reforms."
+
+The general gave him a long look, which Ibarra bore naturally,
+without timidity, without boldness.
+
+"You are the first man with whom I've spoken in this country," cried
+His Excellency, stretching out his hand.
+
+"Your Excellency has seen only those who while away their lives
+in cities; he has not visited the falsely maligned cabins of our
+villages. There Your Excellency would be able to see veritable men,
+if to be a man a noble heart and simple manners are enough."
+
+The captain-general rose and walked up and down the room.
+
+"Senor Ibarra," he said, stopping before Crisostomo, "your education
+and manner of thinking are not for this country. Sell what you own
+and come with me when I go back to Europe; the climate will be better
+for you."
+
+"I shall remember all my life this kindness of Your Excellency,"
+replied Ibarra, moved; "but I must live in the country where my
+parents lived----"
+
+"Where they died, you would say more justly. Believe me, I, perhaps,
+know your country better than you do yourself. Ah, but I forget! You
+are to marry an adorable girl, and I'm keeping you from her all this
+time! Go--go to her! And that you may have more freedom, send the
+father to me," he added, smiling. "Don't forget, though, that I want
+your company for the promenade."
+
+Ibarra saluted, and went out.
+
+The general called his aide-de-camp.
+
+"I am pleased," said he, giving him a light tap on the shoulder;
+"I have seen to-day for the first time how one may be a good Spaniard
+without ceasing to be a good Filipino. What a pity that this Ibarra
+some day or other----but call the alcalde."
+
+The judge at once presented himself.
+
+"Senor alcalde," said the general, "to avoid a repetition of scenes
+like those of which you were a spectator to-day--scenes, I deplore,
+because they reflect upon the Government and upon all Spaniards--I
+recommend the Senor Ibarra to your utmost care and consideration."
+
+The alcalde perceived the reprimand and lowered his eyes.
+
+Captain Tiago presented himself, stiff and unnatural.
+
+"Don Santiago," the general said affectionately, "a moment ago I
+congratulated you upon having a daughter like the Senorita de los
+Santos. Now I make you my compliments upon your future son-in-law. The
+most virtuous of daughters is worthy of the first citizen of the
+Philippines. May I know the day of the wedding?"
+
+"Senor----" stammered Captain Tiago, wiping drops of sweat from
+his brow.
+
+"Then nothing is settled, I see. If witnesses are lacking, it will
+give me the greatest pleasure to be one of them."
+
+"Yes, senor," said Captain Tiago, with a smile to stir compassion.
+
+Ibarra had gone off almost running to find Maria Clara. He had so much
+to talk over with her. Through a door he heard the murmur of girls'
+voices. He knocked.
+
+"Who is there?" asked Maria.
+
+"I."
+
+The voices were hushed, but the door did not open.
+
+"It's I. May I come in?" demanded Crisostomo, his heart beginning to
+beat violently.
+
+The silence continued. After some moments, light foot-steps approached
+the door, and the voice of Sinang said through the keyhole:
+
+"Crisostomo, we're going to the theatre to-night. Write what you have
+to say to Maria Clara."
+
+"What does that mean?" said Ibarra to himself as he slowly left
+the door.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXII.
+
+THE PROCESSION.
+
+
+That evening, in the light of countless lanterns, to the sound of
+bells and of continuous detonations, the procession started for the
+fourth time.
+
+The captain-general, who had set out on foot, accompanied by his two
+aides-de-camp, Captain Tiago, the alcalde, the alferez, and Ibarra, and
+preceded by the guards, to open a passage, was to view the procession
+from the house of the gobernadorcillo. This functionary had built a
+platform for the recitation of a loa, a religious poem in honor of
+the patron saint.
+
+Ibarra would gladly have renounced the hearing of this composition,
+but His Excellency had ordered his attendance, and Crisostomo must
+console himself with the thought of seeing his fiancee at the theatre.
+
+The procession began by the march of the silver candelabra, borne
+by three sacristans. Then came the school children and their
+master, then other children, all with paper lanterns, shaped and
+ornamented according to the taste of each child--for each was
+his own lantern-maker--hoisted on bamboo poles of various lengths
+and lighted by bits of candles. An effigy of St. John the Baptist
+followed, borne on a litter, and then came St. Francis, surrounded by
+crystal lamps. A band followed, and then the standard of the saint,
+borne by the brothers of the Third Order, praying aloud in a sort of
+lamentation. San Diego came next, his car drawn by six brothers of the
+Third Order, probably fulfilling some vow. St. Mary Magdalen followed
+him, a beautiful image with splendid hair, wearing a costume of silk
+spangled with gold, and holding a handkerchief of embroidered pina
+in her jewelled hands. Lights and incense surrounded her, and her
+glass tears reflected the varied colors of Bengal lights. St. John
+the Baptist moved far ahead, as if ashamed of his camel's hair beside
+all this gold and glitter.
+
+After the Magdalen came the women of the order, the elder first, so
+that the young girls should surround the car of the Virgin; behind
+them was the curate under his dais. The car of the Virgin was preceded
+by men dressed as phantoms, to the great terror of the children;
+the women wore habits like those of religious orders. In the midst of
+this obscure mass of robes and cowls and cordons one saw, like dainty
+jasmines, like fresh sampages amid old rags, twelve little girls in
+white, their hair free. Their eyes shone like their necklaces. One
+might have thought them little genii of the light taken prisoner by
+spectres. By two wide blue ribbons they were attached to the car of
+the Virgin, like the doves which draw the car of Spring.
+
+At the gobernadorcillo's the procession stopped, all the images and
+their attendants were drawn up around the platform, and all eyes were
+fixed on the half-open curtain. At length it parted, and a young man
+appeared, winged, booted like a cavalier, with sash and belt and plumed
+hat, and in Latin, Castilian, and Tagal recited a poem as extraordinary
+as his attire. The verses ended, St. John pursued his bitter way.
+
+At the moment when the figure of the Virgin passed the house of Captain
+Tiago, a celestial song greeted it. It was a voice, sweet and tender,
+almost weeping out the Gounod "Ave Maria." The music of the procession
+died away, the prayers ceased. Father Salvi himself stood still. The
+voice trembled; it drew tears; it was more than a salutation: it was
+a supplication and a complaint.
+
+Ibarra heard, and fear and darkness entered his heart. He felt the
+suffering in the voice and dared not ask himself whence it came.
+
+The captain-general was speaking to him.
+
+"I should like your company at table. We will talk to those children
+who have disappeared," he said.
+
+Crisostomo, looking at the general without seeing him, asked himself
+under his breath: "Can I be the cause?" And he followed the governor
+mechanically.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII.
+
+DONA CONSOLACION.
+
+
+Why were the windows of the house of the alferez not only without
+lanterns, but shuttered? Where, when the procession passed, were the
+masculine head with its great veins and purple lips, the flannel shirt,
+and the big cigar of the "Muse of the Municipal Guard"?
+
+The house was sad, as Sinang said, because the people were gay. Had
+not a sentinel paced as usual before the door one might have thought
+the place uninhabited.
+
+A feeble light showed the disorder of the room, where the alfereza
+was sitting, and pierced the dusty and spider-webbed conches of the
+windows. The dame, according to her idle custom, was dozing in a
+fauteuil. To deaden the sound of the bombs, she had coifed her head
+in a handkerchief, from which escaped her tangled hair, short and
+thin. This morning she had not been to mass, not because she did not
+wish it, but because her husband had not permitted it, accompanying
+his prohibition with oaths and threats of blows. Dona Consolacion
+was now dreaming of revenge. She bestirred herself at last and ran
+over the house from one end to the other, her dark face disquieting
+to look at. A spark flashed from her eyes like that from the pupil
+of a serpent trapped and about to be crushed. It was cold, luminous,
+penetrating; it was viscous, cruel, repulsive. The smallest error on
+the part of a servant, the least noise, drew forth words injurious
+enough to smirch the soul; but nobody replied; to offer excuse would
+have been to commit another crime.
+
+In this way the day passed. Meeting no opposition--her husband had
+been invited to the gobernadorcillo's--she stored up spleen; the
+cells of her organism seemed slowly charging with electric force,
+which burst out, later on, in a tempest.
+
+Sisa had been in the barracks since her arrest the day before. The
+alferez, fearing she might become the sport of the crowd, had ordered
+her to be kept until the fete was over.
+
+This evening, whether she had heard the song of Maria Clara, whether
+the bands had recalled airs that she knew, for some reason she began to
+chant, in her sympathetic voice, the songs of her youth. The soldiers
+heard and became still; they knew these airs, had sung them themselves
+when they were young and free and innocent. Dona Consolacion heard,
+too, and inquired for the singer.
+
+"Have her come up at once," she said, after a moment's reflection,
+something like a smile flickering on her dry lips.
+
+The soldiers brought Sisa, who came without fear or question. When
+she entered she seemed to see no one, which wounded the vanity of
+the dreadful muse. Dona Consolacion coughed, motioned the soldiers
+to withdraw, and, taking down her husband's riding whip, said in a
+sinister voice:
+
+"Vamos, magcanter icau!"
+
+It was an order to sing, in a mixture of Castilian and Tagalo. Dona
+Consolacion affected ignorance of her native tongue, thinking thus to
+give herself the air of a veritable Orofea, as she said in her attempt
+at Europea. For if she martyred the Tagalo, she treated Castilian
+worse, though her husband, and chairs and shoes, had contributed to
+giving her lessons.
+
+Sisa had been happy enough not to understand. The forehead of the
+shrew unknotted a bit, and a look of satisfaction animated her face.
+
+"Tell this woman to sing!" she said to the orderly. "She doesn't
+understand; she doesn't know Spanish!"
+
+The orderly spoke to Sisa, and she began at once the "Night Song."
+
+At first Dona Consolacion listened with a mocking smile, but little
+by little it left her lips. She became attentive, then serious. Her
+dry and withered heart received the rain. "The sadness, the cold,
+the dew come down from the sky in the mantle of the night," seemed
+to fall upon her heart; she understood "the flower, full of vanity,
+and prodigal with its splendors in the sun, now, at the fall of day,
+withered and stained, repentant and disillusioned, trying to raise
+its poor petals toward heaven, begging a shade to hide it from the
+mockery of the sun, who had seen it in its pomp, and was laughing at
+the impotence of its pride; begging also a drop of dew to be let fall
+upon it."
+
+"No! Stop singing!" she cried in perfect Tagal. "Stop! These verses
+bore me!"
+
+Sisa stopped. The orderly thought: "Ah, she knows the Tagal!" And he
+regarded his mistress with admiration.
+
+She saw she had betrayed herself, became ashamed, and shame in her
+unfeminine nature meant rage. She showed the door to the imprudent
+orderly, and shut it behind him with a blow. Then she took several
+turns around the room, wringing the whip in her nervous hands. At last,
+planting herself before Sisa, she said to her in Spanish: "Dance!"
+
+Sisa did not move.
+
+"Dance! Dance!" she repeated in a threatening voice. The poor thing
+looked at her with vacant eyes. The vixen took hold of one of her
+arms and then the other, raising them and swaying them about. It was
+of no use. Sisa did not understand.
+
+In vain Dona Consolacion began to leap about, making signs for Sisa to
+imitate her. In the distance a band was playing a slow and majestic
+march; but the creature leaped furiously to another measure, beating
+within herself. Sisa looked on, motionless. A faint curiosity rose
+in her eyes, a feeble smile moved her pale lips; the alfereza's dance
+pleased her.
+
+The dancer stopped, as if ashamed, and raised the terrible whip,
+well known to thieves and soldiers.
+
+"Now," said she, "it's your turn! Dance!" And she began to give light
+taps to the bare feet of bewildered Sisa, whose face contracted with
+pain; the poor thing tried to ward off the blows with her hands.
+
+"Ah! You're beginning, are you?" cried Dona Consolacion, with savage
+joy, and from lento, she passed to allegro vivace.
+
+Sisa cried out and drew up first one foot and then the other.
+
+"Will you dance, accursed Indian!" and the whip whistled.
+
+Sisa let herself fall to the floor, trying to cover her feet,
+and looking at her tormenter with haggard eyes. Two lashes on the
+shoulders forced her to rise with screams.
+
+Her thin chemise was torn, the skin broken and the blood flowing.
+
+This excited Dona Consolacion still more.
+
+"Dance! Dance!" she howled, and seizing Sisa with one hand, while
+she beat her with the other, she commenced to leap about again.
+
+At length Sisa understood, and followed, moving her arms without
+rhythm or measure. A smile of satisfaction came to the lips of the
+horrible woman--the smile of a female Mephistopheles who has found
+an apt pupil: hate, scorn, mockery, and cruelty were in it; a burst
+of demoniacal laughter could not have said more.
+
+Absorbed by her delight in this spectacle, the alfereza did not know
+that her husband had arrived until the door was violently thrown open
+with a kick.
+
+The alferez was pale and morose. When he saw what was going on, he
+darted a terrible glance at his wife, then quietly put his hand on
+the shoulder of the strange dancer, and stopped her motion. Sisa,
+breathing hard, sat down on the floor. He called the orderly.
+
+"Take this woman away," he said; "see that she is properly cared for,
+and has a good dinner and a good bed. To-morrow she is to be taken
+to Senor Ibarra's."
+
+Then he carefully closed the door after them, pushed the bolt, and
+approached his wife.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV.
+
+RIGHT AND MIGHT.
+
+
+It was ten o'clock in the evening. The first rockets were slowly
+going up in the dark sky, where bright-colored balloons shone like new
+stars. On the ridge-poles of the houses men were seen armed with bamboo
+poles, with pails of water at hand. Their dark silhouettes against the
+clear gray of the night seemed phantoms come to share in the gayety of
+men. They were there to look out for balloons that might fall burning.
+
+Crowds of people were going toward the plaza to see the last play
+at the theatre. Bengal fires burned here and there, grouping the
+merry-makers fantastically.
+
+The grand estrade was magnificently illuminated. Thousands of lights
+were fixed round the pillars, hung from the roof and clustered near
+the ground.
+
+In front of the stage the orchestra was tuning its instruments. The
+dignitaries of the pueblo, the Spaniards, and wealthy strangers
+occupied seats in rows. The people filled the rest of the place;
+some had brought benches, rather to mount them than to sit on them,
+and others noisily protested against this.
+
+Comings and goings, cries, exclamations, bursts of laughter, jokes,
+a whistle, swelled the tumult. Here the leg of a bench gave way and
+precipitated those on it, to the delight of the spectators; there
+was a dispute for place; and a little beyond a fracas of glasses
+and bottles. It was Andeng, carrying a great tray of drinks, and
+unfortunately she had encountered her fiance, who was disposed to
+profit by the occasion.
+
+The lieutenant, Don Filipo, was in charge of the spectacle, for
+the gobernadorcillo was playing monte, of which he was a passionate
+devotee. Don Filipo was talking with old Tasio, who was on the point
+of leaving.
+
+"Aren't you going to see the play?"
+
+"No, thank you! My own mind suffices for rambling and dreaming,"
+replied the philosopher, laughing. "But I have a question
+to propose. Have you ever observed the strange nature of our
+people? Pacific, they love warlike spectacles; democratic, they adore
+emperors, kings, and princes; irreligious, they ruin themselves in
+the pomps of the ritual; the nature of our women is gentle, but they
+have deliriums of delight when a princess brandishes a lance. Do you
+know the cause of all this? Well----"
+
+The arrival of Maria Clara and her friends cut short the
+conversation. Don Filipo accompanied them to their places. Then came
+the curate, with his usual retinue.
+
+The evening began with Chananay and Marianito in "Crispino and the
+Gossip." The scene fixed the attention of every one. The act was
+ending when Ibarra entered. His coming excited a murmur, and eyes
+turned from him to the curate. But Crisostomo observed nothing. He
+gracefully saluted Maria and her friends and sat down. The only one
+who spoke to him was Sinang.
+
+"Have you been watching the fireworks?" she asked.
+
+"No, little friend, I had to accompany the governor-general."
+
+"That was too bad!"
+
+Brother Salvi had risen, gone to Don Filipo, and appeared to be having
+with him a serious discussion. He spoke with heat, the lieutenant
+calmly and quietly.
+
+"I am sorry not to be able to satisfy your reverence, but Senor Ibarra
+is one of the chief contributors to the fete, and has a perfect right
+to be here so long as he creates no disturbance."
+
+"But is it not creating a disturbance to scandalize all good
+Christians?"
+
+"Father," replied Don Filipo, "my slight authority does not permit me
+to interfere in religious matters. Let those who fear Senor Ibarra's
+contact avoid him: he forces himself upon no one; the senor alcalde
+and the captain-general have been in his company all the afternoon;
+it hardly becomes me to give them a lesson."
+
+"If you do not put him out of the place, we shall go."
+
+"I should be very sorry, but I have no authority to remove him."
+
+The curate repented of his threat, but there was now no remedy. He
+motioned to his companions, who rose reluctantly, and all went out,
+not without hostile glances toward Ibarra.
+
+The whisperings and murmurs began again. Several people came up to
+Crisostomo and said:
+
+"We are with you; pay no attention to them!"
+
+"To whom?" he asked in astonishment.
+
+"Those who have gone out because you are here; they say you are
+excommunicated."
+
+Ibarra, surprised, not knowing what to say, looked about him. Maria's
+face was hidden.
+
+"Is it possible? Are we yet in the middle ages?" he began. But he
+checked himself and said to the girls:
+
+"I must excuse myself; I will be back to go home with you."
+
+"Oh, stay!" said Sinang. "Yeyeng is going to dance!"
+
+"I cannot, little friend."
+
+While Yeyeng was coming forward, two soldiers of the guard approached
+Don Filipo and demanded that the representation be stopped.
+
+"And why?" he asked in surprise.
+
+"Because the alferez and his wife have been fighting; they want
+to sleep."
+
+"Tell the alferez we have the permission of the alcalde of the
+province, and nobody in the pueblo can overrule that, not even the
+gobernadorcillo."
+
+"But we have our orders to stop the performance."
+
+Don Filipo shrugged his shoulders and turned his back. The Comedy
+Company of Tondo was about to give a play, and the audience was
+settling for its enjoyment.
+
+The Filipino is passionately fond of the theatre; he listens in
+silence, never hisses, and applauds with measure. Does not the
+spectacle please him? He chews his buyo and goes out quietly, not
+to trouble those who may like it. He expects in his plays a combat
+every fifteen seconds, and all the rest of the time repartee between
+comic personages, or terrifying metamorphoses. The comedy chosen for
+this fete was "Prince Villardo, or the Nails Drawn from the Cellar
+of Infamy," comedy with sorcery and fireworks.
+
+Prince Villardo presented himself, defying the Moors, who held his
+father prisoner. He threatened to cut off all their heads at a single
+stroke and send them into the moon.
+
+Fortunately for the Moors, as they were preparing for the combat, a
+tumult arose. The music stopped, and the musicians assailed the theatre
+with their instruments, which went flying in all directions. The
+valiant Villardo, unprepared for so many foes, threw down his sword and
+buckler and took to flight, and the Moors, seeing the hasty leave of
+so terrible a Christian, made bold to follow him. Cries, exclamations,
+and imprecations rose on all sides, people ran against one another,
+lights went out, children screamed, and benches were overturned in
+a hurly-burly. Some cried fire, some cried "The tulisanes!"
+
+What had happened? The two guards had driven off the musicians,
+and the lieutenant and some of the cuadrilleros were vainly trying
+to check their flight.
+
+"Take those two men to the tribunal!" cried Don Filipo. "Don't let
+them escape!"
+
+When the crowd had recovered from its fright and taken account of
+what had happened, indignation broke forth.
+
+"That's why they are for!" cried a woman, brandishing her arms; "to
+trouble the pueblo! They are the real tulisanes! Fire the barracks!"
+
+Stones rained on the group of cuadrilleros leading off the guards,
+and the cry to fire the barracks was repeated. Chananay in her costume
+of Leonora in "Il Trovatore" was talking with Ratia, in schoolmaster's
+dress; Yeyeng, wrapped in a shawl, was attended by Prince Villardo,
+while the Moors tried to console the mortified musicians; but already
+the crowd had determined upon action, and Don Filipo was doing his
+best to hold them in check.
+
+"Do nothing rash!" he cried. "To-morrow we will demand satisfaction;
+we shall have justice; I promise you justice!"
+
+"No," replied some; "that's what they did at Calamba: they promised
+justice, and the alcalde didn't do a thing! We will take justice for
+ourselves! To the barracks!"
+
+Don Filipo, looking about for some one to aid him, saw Ibarra.
+
+"For heaven's sake, Senor Ibarra, keep the people here while I go
+for the cuadrilleros!"
+
+"What can I do?" demanded the perplexed young fellow; but Don Filipo
+was already in the distance.
+
+Ibarra, in his turn, looked about for aid, and saw Elias. He ran
+to him, took him by the arm, and, speaking in Spanish, begged him
+to do what he could for order. The helmsman disappeared in the
+crowd. Animated discussions were heard, and rapid questions; then,
+little by little, the mass began to dissolve and to wear a less hostile
+attitude. It was time; the soldiers arrived with bayonets fixed.
+
+As Ibarra was about to enter his house that night a little man in
+mourning, having a great scar on his left cheek, placed himself in
+front of him and bowed humbly.
+
+"What can I do for you?" asked Crisostomo.
+
+"Senor, my name is Jose; I am the brother of the man killed this
+morning."
+
+"Ah," said Ibarra, "I assure you I am not insensible to your loss. What
+do you wish of me?"
+
+"Senor, I wish to know how much you are going to pay my brother's
+family."
+
+"Pay!" repeated Crisostomo, not without annoyance. "We will talk of
+this again; come to me to-morrow."
+
+"But tell me simply what you will give," insisted Jose.
+
+"I tell you we will talk of it another day, not now," said Ibarra,
+more impatiently.
+
+"Ah! You think because we are poor----"
+
+Ibarra interrupted him.
+
+"Don't try my patience too far," he said, moving on. Jose looked
+after him with a smile full of hatred.
+
+"It is easy to see he is a grandson of the man who exposed my father
+to the sun," he murmured between his teeth. "The same blood!" Then
+in a changed tone he added: "But if you pay well--friends!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXV.
+
+HUSBAND AND WIFE.
+
+
+The fete was over, and the inhabitants of the pueblo now perceived,
+as they did every year, that their purses were empty, that in the
+sweat of their faces they had earned scant pleasure, and paid dear
+for noise and headaches. But what of that? The next year they would
+begin again; the next century it would still be the same, for it had
+been so up to this time, and there is nothing which can make people
+renounce a custom.
+
+The house of Captain Tiago is sad. All the windows are closed; one
+scarcely dares make a sound; and nowhere but in the kitchen do they
+speak aloud. Maria Clara, the soul of the house, is sick in bed. The
+state of her health could be read on all faces, as our actions betray
+the griefs of our hearts.
+
+"What do you think, Isabel, ought I to make a gift to the cross at
+Tunasan, or that at Matahong?" asks the unhappy father. "The cross
+at Tunasan grows, but that at Matahong perspires. Which do you call
+the more miraculous?"
+
+Aunt Isabel reflected, nodded her head, and whispered:
+
+"To grow is more miraculous; we all perspire, but we don't all grow."
+
+"That's so, yes, Isabel; but, after all, for wood to perspire--well,
+then, the best thing is to make offerings to both."
+
+A carriage stopping before the house cut short the
+conversation. Captain Tiago, followed by Aunt Isabel, ran down the
+steps to receive the coming guests. They were the doctor, Don Tiburcio
+de Espadana, his wife, the Doctora Dona Victorina de Los Reyes de de
+Espadana, and a young Spaniard of attractive face and fine appearance.
+
+The doctora wore a silk dress bordered with flowers, and a hat with a
+large parrot perched among bows of red and blue ribbons. The dust of
+the journey mingling with the rice powder on her cheeks, exaggerated
+her wrinkles; as when we saw her at Manila, she had given her arm to
+her lame husband.
+
+"I have the pleasure of presenting to you our cousin, Don Alfonso
+Linares de Espadana," said Dona Victorina, indicating the young man;
+"the adopted son of a relative of Father Damaso's, and private
+secretary of all the ministers----"
+
+The young man bowed low; Captain Tiago barely escaped kissing his hand.
+
+While the countless trunks, valises, and bags are being cared for and
+Captain Tiago is conducting his guests to their apartments, let us
+make a nearer acquaintance with these people whom we have not seen
+since the opening chapters.
+
+Dona Victorina is a woman of forty-five summers, which, according to
+her arithmetic, are equivalent to thirty-two springs. In her youth she
+had been very pretty, but, enraptured in her own contemplation, she
+had looked with the utmost disdain on her numerous Filipino adorers,
+even scorning the vows of love once murmured in her ears or chanted
+under her balcony by Captain Tiago. Her aspirations bore her toward
+another race.
+
+Her first youth, then her second, then her third, having passed in
+tending nets to catch in the ocean of the world the object of her
+dreams, Dona Victorina must in the end content herself with what fate
+willed her. It was a poor man torn from his native Estramadure, who,
+after wandering six or seven years about the world, a modern Ulysses,
+found at length, in the island of Luzon, hospitality, money, and a
+faded Calypso.
+
+Don Tiburcio was a modest man, without force, who would not willingly
+have injured a fly. He started for the Philippines as under-clerk
+of customs, but after breaking his leg was forced to give up his
+position. For a while he lived at the expense of some compatriots,
+but he found their bread bitter. As he had neither profession nor
+money, his advisers counselled him to go into the provinces and offer
+himself as a physician. At first he refused, but, necessity becoming
+pressing, his friends convinced him of the vanity of his scruples. He
+started out, kept by his conscience from asking more than small fees,
+and was on the road to prosperity when a jealous doctor called him to
+the attention of the College of Physicians at Manila. Nothing would
+have come of it, but the affair reached the ears of the people; loss
+of confidence followed, and then loss of patrons. Misery again stared
+him in the face when he heard of the affliction of Dona Victorina. Don
+Tiburcio saw here a patch of blue sky, and asked to be presented.
+
+They met, and after a half-hour of conversation, reached an
+understanding. Without doubt she would have preferred a Spaniard less
+halting, less bald, without impediment of speech, and with more teeth;
+but such a Spaniard had never asked her hand, and at thirty-two what
+woman is not prudent?
+
+For his part, Don Tiburcio resigned himself when he saw the spectre
+of famine raise its head. Not that he had ever had great ambitions
+or great pretensions; but his heart, virgin till now, had pictured a
+different divinity. He was, however, somewhat of a philosopher. He
+said to himself: "All that was a dream! Is the reality powdered
+and wrinkled, homely and ridiculous? Well, I am bald and lame and
+toothless."
+
+They were married then, and Dona Victorina was enchanted with her
+husband. She had him fitted out with false teeth, attired by the
+best tailors of the city, and ordered carriages and horses for the
+professional visits she intended him again to make.
+
+While thus transforming her husband, she did not forget herself. She
+discarded the silk skirt and jacket of pina for European costume,
+loaded her head with false hair, and her person with such extravagances
+generally as to disturb the peace of a whole idle and tranquil
+neighborhood.
+
+The glamour around the husband first began to dim when he tried to
+approach the subject of the rice powder by remarking that nothing is so
+ugly as the false or so admirable as the natural. Dona Victorina looked
+unpleasantly at his teeth, and he was silent. Indeed, at the end of a
+very short time the doctora had arrived at the complete subjugation of
+her husband, who no longer offered any more resistance than a little
+lap-dog. If he did anything to annoy her, she forbade his going out,
+and in her moments of greatest rage she tore out his false teeth,
+and left him, sometimes for days, horribly disfigured.
+
+When they were well settled in Manila, Rodoreda received orders to
+engrave on a plate of black marble:
+
+
+"Dr. De Espadana,
+Specialist in All Kinds of Diseases."
+
+
+
+"Do you wish me to be put in prison?" asked Don Tiburcio in terror.
+
+"I wish people to call you doctor and me doctora," said Dona Victorina,
+"but it must be understood that you treat only very rare cases."
+
+The senora signed her own name, Victorina de los Reyes de de
+Espadana. Neither the engraver of her visiting cards nor her husband
+could make her renounce that second "de."
+
+"If I use only one 'de,' people will think you haven't any,
+imbecile!" she said to Don Tiburcio.
+
+Then the number of gewgaws grew, the layer of rice powder was
+thickened, the ribbons and laces were piled higher, and Dona Victorina
+regarded with more and more disdain her poor compatriots who had not
+had the fortune to marry husbands of so high estate as her own.
+
+All this sublimity, however, did not prevent her being each day
+older and more ridiculous. Every time Captain Tiago was with her, and
+remembered that she had once really inspired him with love, he sent a
+peso to the church for a mass of thanksgiving. But he had much respect
+for Don Tiburcio, because of his title of specialist, and listened
+attentively to the rare sentences the doctor's impediment of speech
+let him pronounce. For this reason and because the doctor did not
+lavish his visits on people at large he had chosen him to treat Maria.
+
+As to young Linares, Dona Victorina, wishing a steward from the
+peninsula, her husband remembered a cousin of his, a law student at
+Madrid, who was considered the most astute of the family. They sent
+for him, and the young man had just arrived.
+
+Father Salvi entered while Don Santiago and his guests were at the
+second breakfast. They talked of Maria Clara, who was sleeping;
+they talked of the journey, and Dona Victorina exclaimed loudly
+at the costumes of the provincials, their houses of nipa, and
+their bamboo bridges. She did not omit to inform the curate of
+her friendly relations with the "Segundo Cabo," with this alcalde,
+with that councillor, all people of distinction, who had for her the
+greatest consideration.
+
+"If you had come two days earlier, Dona Victorina," said Captain
+Tiago, profiting by a slight pause in the lady's brilliant loquacity,
+"you would have found His Excellency the governor general seated in
+this very place."
+
+"What! His Excellency was here? And at your house? Impossible!"
+
+"I repeat that he was seated exactly here. If you had come two days
+ago----"
+
+"Ah! What a pity Clarita did not fall ill sooner!" she cried. "You
+hear, cousin! His Excellency was here! You know, Don Santiago, that
+at Madrid our cousin was the friend of ministers and dukes, and that
+he dined with the Count del Campanario."
+
+"The Duke de la Torre, Victorina," suggested her husband.
+
+"It is the same thing!"
+
+"Shall I find Father Damaso at his pueblo to-day?" Linares asked
+Brother Salvi.
+
+"Father Damaso is here, and may be with us at any moment."
+
+"I'm very glad! I have a letter for him, and if a happy chance had
+not brought me here, I should have come expressly to see him."
+
+Meanwhile the "happy chance," that is to say, poor Maria Clara,
+had awakened.
+
+"Come, de Espadana, come, see Clarita," said Dona Victorina. "It
+is for you he does this," she went on, turning to Captain Tiago;
+"my husband attends only people of quality."
+
+The sick-room was almost in obscurity, the windows closed, for fear
+of draughts; two candles, burning before an image of the Virgin of
+Antipolo, sent out feeble glimmers.
+
+Enveloped in multiple folds of white, the lovely figure of Maria lay
+on her bed of kamagon, behind curtains of jusi and pina. Her abundant
+hair about her face increased its transparent pallor, as did the
+radiance of her great, sad eyes. Beside her were her two friends,
+and Andeng holding a lily branch.
+
+De Espadana felt her pulse, examined her tongue, asked a question or
+two, and nodded his head.
+
+"Sh--she is s--sick, but she can be c--cured."
+
+Dona Victorina looked proudly at their audience.
+
+"Lichen with m--m--milk, for the m--m--morning, syrup of
+m--m--marshmallow, and two tablets of cynoglossum."
+
+"Take courage, Clarita," said Dona Victorina, approaching the bed,
+"we have come to cure you. I'm going to present to you our cousin."
+
+Linares, absorbed, was gazing at those eloquent eyes, which seemed
+to be searching for some one; he did not hear Dona Victorina.
+
+"Senor Linares," said the curate, drawing him out of his abstraction,
+"here is Father Damaso."
+
+It was indeed he; but it was not the Father Damaso of heretofore,
+so vigorous and alert. He walked uncertainly, and he was pale and sad.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI.
+
+PROJECTS.
+
+
+With no word for any one else, Father Damaso went straight to Maria's
+bed and took her hand.
+
+"Maria," he said with great tenderness, and tears gushed from his eyes,
+"Maria, my child, you must not die!"
+
+Maria Clara looked at him with some astonishment. No one of those who
+knew the Franciscan would have believed him capable of such display
+of feeling.
+
+He could not say another word, but moved aside the draperies and went
+out among the plants of Maria's balcony, crying like a child.
+
+"How he loves his god-daughter!" every one thought.
+
+Father Salvi, motionless and silent, watched him intently.
+
+When the father's grief seemed more controlled, Dona Victorino
+presented young Linares. Father Damaso, saying nothing, looked him
+over from head to foot, took the letter, read it without appearing
+to comprehend, and asked:
+
+"Well, who are you?"
+
+"Alfonso Linares, the godson of your brother-in-law----" stammered the
+young fellow. Father Damaso threw back his head and examined him anew,
+his face clearing.
+
+"What! It's the godson of Carlicos!" he cried, clasping him in his
+arms. "I had a letter from him some days ago. And it is you? You were
+not born when I left the country. I did not know you!" And Father
+Damaso still held in his strong arms the young man, whose face began
+to color, perhaps from embarrassment, perhaps from suffocation. Father
+Damaso appeared to have completely forgotten his grief.
+
+After the first moments of effusion and questions about Carlicos and
+Pepa, Father Damaso asked:
+
+"Let's see, what is it Carlicos wishes me to do for you?"
+
+"I think he says something about it in the letter," stammered Linares
+again.
+
+"In the letter? Yes, that's so! He wishes me to find you employment
+and a wife. Ah, the employment is easy enough, but as for the
+wife!--hem!--a wife----"
+
+"Father, that is not so urgent," said Linares, with confusion.
+
+But Father Damaso was walking back and forth murmuring: "A wife! A
+wife!" His face was no longer sad or joyful, but serious and
+preoccupied. From a distance Father Salvi watched the scene.
+
+"I did not think the thing could cause me so much pain," Father
+Damaso murmured plaintively; "but of two evils choose the least!" Then
+approaching Linares:
+
+"Come with me, my boy," he said, "we will talk with Don
+Santiago." Linares paled and followed the priest.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII.
+
+SCRUTINY OF CONSCIENCE.
+
+
+Long days followed by weary nights were passed by the pillow of the
+sick girl. After a confession to Father Salvi, Maria Clara had had a
+relapse, and in her delirium she pronounced no name but that of her
+mother, whom she had never known. Her friends, her father, her aunt,
+watched her, and heaped with gifts and with silver for masses the
+altars of miraculous images. At last, slowly and regularly, the fever
+began to abate.
+
+The Doctor de Espadana was stupefied at the virtues of the syrup of
+marshmallow and the decoction of lichen, prescriptions he had never
+varied. Dona Victorina was so satisfied with her husband that one
+day when he stepped on her train, in a rare state of clemency she
+did not apply to him the usual penal code by pulling out his teeth.
+
+One afternoon, Sinang and Victorina were with Maria; the curate,
+Captain Tiago, and the Espadanas were talking in the dining-room.
+
+"I'm distressed to hear it," the doctor was saying; "and Father Damaso
+must be greatly disturbed."
+
+"Where did you say he is to be sent?" asked Linares.
+
+"Into the province of Tabayas," replied the curate carelessly.
+
+"Maria Clara will be very sorry too," said Captain Tiago; "she loves
+him like a father."
+
+Father Salvi looked at him from the corner of his eye.
+
+"Father," continued Captain Tiago, "I believe her sickness came from
+nothing but that trouble the day of the fete."
+
+"I am of the same opinion, so you have done well in not permitting
+Senor Ibarra to talk with her; that would only have aggravated her
+condition."
+
+"And it is thanks to us alone," interrupted Dona Victorina, "that
+Clarita is not already in heaven singing praises with the angels."
+
+"Amen!" Captain Tiago felt moved to say.
+
+"I think I know whereof I speak," said the curate, "when I say that
+the confession of Maria Clara brought about the favorable crisis
+that saved her life. I do not deny the power of science, but a pure
+conscience----"
+
+"Pardon," objected Dona Victorina, piqued; "then cure the wife of
+the alferez with a confession!"
+
+"A hurt, senora, is not a malady, to be influenced by the conscience,"
+replied Father Salvi severely; "but a good confession would preserve
+her in future from such blows as she got this morning."
+
+"She deserved them!" said Dona Victorina. "She is an insolent woman. In
+church she did nothing but look at me. I had a mind to ask her what
+there was curious about my face; but who would soil her lips speaking
+to these people of no standing?"
+
+The curate, as if he had not heard this tirade, continued: "To finish
+the cure of your daughter, she should receive the communion to-morrow,
+Don Santiago. I think she does not need to confess, and yet, if she
+will once more, this evening----"
+
+"I don't know," said Dona Victorina, profiting by the pause to
+continue her reflections, "I don't understand how men can marry such
+frights. One easily sees where that woman came from. She is dying of
+envy, that shows in her eyes. What does an alferez get?"
+
+"So prepare Maria for confession," the curate continued, turning to
+Aunt Isabel.
+
+The good aunt left the group and went to her niece's room. Maria Clara
+was still in bed, and pale, very pale; beside her were her two friends.
+
+Sinang was giving her her medicine.
+
+"He has not written to you again?" asked Maria, softly.
+
+"No."
+
+"He gave you no message for me?"
+
+"No; he only said he was going to make every effort to have the
+archbishop raise the ban of excommunication----"
+
+The arrival of Aunt Isabel interrupted the conversation.
+
+"The father says you are to prepare yourself for confession, my child,"
+said she. "Sinang, leave her to examine her conscience. Shall I bring
+you the 'Anchor,' the 'Bouquet,' or the 'Straight Road to Heaven,'
+Maria?"
+
+Maria Clara did not reply.
+
+"Well, we mustn't fatigue you," said the good aunt consolingly;
+"I will read you the examination myself, and you will only have to
+remember your sins."
+
+"Write him to think of me no more," murmured the sick girl in
+Sinang's ear.
+
+"What!"
+
+But Aunt Isabel came back with her book, and Sinang had to go.
+
+The good aunt drew her chair up to the light, settled her glasses on
+the tip of her nose, and opened a little book.
+
+"Give good attention, my child: I will begin with the commandments of
+God; I shall go slowly, so that you may meditate: if you don't hear
+well, you must tell me, and I will repeat; you know I'm never weary
+of working for your good."
+
+In a voice monotonous and nasal, she began to read. Maria Clara
+gazed vaguely into space. The first commandment finished, Aunt Isabel
+observed her listener over her glasses, and appeared satisfied with
+her sad and meditative air. She coughed piously, and after a long
+pause began the second. The good old woman read with unction. The
+terms of the second commandment finished, she again looked at her
+niece, who slowly turned away her head.
+
+"Bah!" said Aunt Isabel within herself, "as to taking His holy name
+in vain, the poor thing has nothing to question: pass on to the third."
+
+And the third commandment sifted and commentated, all the causes of
+sin against it droned out, she again looked toward the bed. This time
+she lifted her glasses and rubbed her eyes; she had seen her niece
+raise her handkerchief, as if to wipe away tears.
+
+"Hm!" said she; "hm! the poor child must have fallen asleep during
+the sermon." And putting back her glasses on the tip of her nose,
+she reflected:
+
+"We shall see if besides not keeping the holy feast days, she has
+not honored her father and her mother." And slowly, in a voice more
+nasal than ever, she read the fourth commandment.
+
+"What a pure soul!" thought the old lady; "she who is so obedient,
+so submissive! I've sinned much more deeply than that, and I've never
+been able to really cry!" And she began the fifth commandment with such
+enthusiasm that she did not hear the stifled sobs of her niece. It
+was only when she stopped after the commentaries on wilful homicide,
+that she perceived the groanings of the sinner. Then in a voice that
+passed description, and a manner she strove to make menacing, she
+finished the commentary, and seeing that Maria had not ceased to weep:
+
+"Cry, my child, cry!" she said, going to her bedside; "the more
+you cry the more quickly will God pardon you. Cry, my child, cry;
+and beat your breast, but not too hard, for you are ill yet, you know."
+
+But as if grief had need of mystery and solitude, Maria Clara,
+finding herself surprised, stopped sobbing little by little and dried
+her eyes. Aunt Isabel returned to her reading, but the plaint of her
+audience having ceased, she lost her enthusiasm; the second table of
+the law made her sleepy, and a yawn broke the nasal monotony.
+
+"No one would have believed it without seeing it," thought the
+good woman; "the child sins like a soldier against the first five
+commandments, and from the sixth to the tenth not so much as a
+peccadillo. That is contrary to the custom of the rest of us. One sees
+queer things in these days!" And she lighted a great candle for the
+Virgin of Antipolo, and two smaller ones for Our Lady of the Rosary
+and Our Lady of the Pillar. The Virgin of Delaroche was excluded from
+this illumination: she was to Aunt Isabel an unknown foreigner.
+
+We may not know what passed during the confession in the evening. It
+was long, and Aunt Isabel, who at a distance was watching over her
+niece, could see that instead of offering his ear to the sick girl,
+the curate had his face turned toward her. He went out, pale, with
+compressed lips. At the sight of his brow, darkened and moist with
+sweat, one would have said it was he who had confessed, and absolution
+had been denied him.
+
+"Maria! Joseph!" said the good aunt, crossing herself, "who can
+comprehend the girls of to-day!"
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII.
+
+THE TWO WOMEN.
+
+
+Dona Victorina was taking a walk through the pueblo, to see of
+what sort were the dwellings and the advancement of the indolent
+Indians. She had put on her most elegant adornments, to impress the
+provincials, and to show what distance separated them from her sacred
+person. Giving her arm to her limping husband, she paraded the streets
+of the pueblo, to the profound amazement of its inhabitants.
+
+"What ugly houses these Indians have!" she began, with a grimace. "One
+must needs be an Indian to live in them! And how ill-bred the people
+are! They pass us without uncovering. Knock off their hats, as the
+curates do, and the lieutenants of the Civil Guard."
+
+"And if they attack me?" stammered the doctor.
+
+"Are you not a man?"
+
+"Yes, but--but--I am lame."
+
+Dona Victorina grew cross. There were no sidewalks in these streets,
+and the dust was soiling the train of her dress. Some young girls who
+passed dropped their eyes, and did not admire at all as they should
+her luxurious attire. Sinang's coachman, who was driving Sinang and
+her cousin in an elegant tres-por-ciento, had the effrontery to cry out
+to her "Tabi!" in so audacious a voice that she moved out of the way.
+
+"What a brute of a coachman!" she protested; "I shall tell his master
+he had better train his servants. Come along, Tiburcio!"
+
+Her husband, fearing a tempest, turned on his heels, and they found
+themselves face to face with the alferez. Greetings were exchanged,
+but Dona Victorina's discontent grew. Not only had the officer said
+nothing complimentary of her costume, but she believed she detected
+mockery in his look.
+
+"You ought not to give your hand to a simple alferez," she said to
+her husband, when the officer had passed. "You don't know how to
+preserve your rank."
+
+"H--here he is the chief."
+
+"What does that mean to us? Do we happen to be Indians?"
+
+"You are right," said Don Tiburcio, not minded to dispute.
+
+They passed the barracks. Dona Consolacion was at the window, as
+usual dressed in flannel, and puffing her puro. As the house was low,
+the two women faced each other. The muse examined Dona Victorina from
+head to foot, protruded her lip, ejected tobacco juice, and turned
+away her head. This affectation of contempt brought the patience of
+the doctora to an end. Leaving her husband without support, she went,
+trembling with rage, powerless to utter a word, and placed herself
+in front of the alfereza's window. Dona Consolacion turned her head
+slowly back, regarded her antagonist with the utmost calm, and spat
+again with the same cool contempt.
+
+"What's the matter with you, dona?" she asked.
+
+"Could you tell me, senora, why you stare at me in this fashion? Are
+you jealous?" Dona Victorina was at last able to say.
+
+"I jealous? And of you?" replied the alfereza calmly. "Yes, I'm
+jealous of your frizzes."
+
+"Come away there!" broke in the doctor; "d--d--don't pay
+at--t--t--tention to these f--f--follies!"
+
+"Let me alone! I have to give a lesson to this brazenface!" replied
+the doctora, joggling her husband, who just missed sprawling in
+the dust.
+
+"Consider to whom you are speaking!" she said haughtily, turning
+back to Dona Consolacion. "Don't think I am a provincial or a woman
+of your class. With us, at Manila, the alferezas are not received;
+they wait at the door."
+
+"Ho! ho! most worshipful senora, the alferezas wait at the door! But
+you receive such paralytics as this gentleman! Ha! ha! ha!"
+
+Had she been less powdered Dona Victorina might have been seen to
+blush. She started to rush on her enemy, but the sentinel stood in
+the way. The street was filling with a curious crowd.
+
+"Know that I demean myself in speaking to you; persons of position
+like me ought not! Will you wash my clothes? I will pay you well. Do
+you suppose I do not know you are a washerwoman?"
+
+Dona Consolacion sat erect. To be called a washerwoman had wounded her.
+
+"And do you think we don't know who you are?" she retorted. "My
+husband has told me! Senora, I, at least----"
+
+But she could not be heard. Dona Victorina, wildly shaking her fists,
+screamed out:
+
+"Come down, you old hussy, come down and let me tear your beautiful
+eyes out!"
+
+Rapidly the medusa disappeared from the window; more rapidly yet
+she came running down the steps, brandishing her husband's terrible
+whip. Don Tiburcio, supplicating both, threw himself between, but he
+could not have prevented the combat, had not the alferez arrived.
+
+"Well, well, senoras!--Don Tiburcio!"
+
+"Give your wife a little more breeding, buy her more beautiful clothes,
+and if you haven't the money, steal it from the people of the pueblo;
+you have soldiers for that!" cried Dona Victorina.
+
+"Senora," said the alferez, furious, "it is fortunate that I remember
+you are a woman; if I didn't, I should trample you down, with all
+your curls and ribbons!"
+
+"Se--senor alferez!"
+
+"Move on, charlatan! It's not you who wear the breeches!"
+
+Armed with words and gestures, with cries, insults, and injuries,
+the two women hurled at each other all there was in them of soil
+and shame. All four talked at once, and in the multitude of words
+numerous verities were paraded in the light. If they did not hear
+all, the crowd of the curious did not fail to be diverted. They were
+looking forward to battle, but, unhappily for these amateurs of sport,
+the curate came by and established peace.
+
+"Senoras! senoras! what a scandal! Senor alferez!"
+
+"What are you doing here, hypocrite, carlist!"
+
+"Don Tiburcio, take away your wife! Senora, restrain your tongue!"
+
+Little by little the dictionary of sounding epithets became
+exhausted. The shameless shrews found nothing left to say to each
+other, and still threatening, the two couples drew slowly apart,
+the curate going from one to the other, lavishing himself on both.
+
+"We shall leave for Manila this very day and present ourselves to
+the captain-general!" said the infuriated Dona Victorina to her
+husband. "You are no man!"
+
+"But--but, wife, the guards, and I am lame."
+
+"You are to challenge him, with swords or pistols, or else--or
+else----" And she looked at his teeth.
+
+"Woman, I've never handled----"
+
+Dona Victorina let him go no farther; with a sublime movement she
+snatched out his teeth, threw them in the dust, and trampled them
+under her feet. The doctor almost crying, the doctora pelting him
+with sarcasms, they arrived at the house of Captain Tiago. Linares,
+who was talking with Maria Clara, was no little disquieted by the
+abrupt arrival of his cousins. Maria, amid the pillows of her fauteuil,
+was not less surprised at the new physiognomy of her doctor.
+
+"Cousin," said Dona Victorina, "you are to go and challenge the
+alferez this instant; if not----"
+
+"Why?" demanded the astonished Linares.
+
+"You are to go and challenge him this instant; if not, I shall say
+here, and to everybody, who you are."
+
+"Dona Victorina!"
+
+The three friends looked at each other.
+
+"The alferez has insulted us. The old sorceress came down with a whip
+to assault us, and this creature did nothing to prevent it! A man!"
+
+"Hear that!" said Sinang regretfully. "There was a fight, and we
+didn't see it!"
+
+"The alferez broke the doctor's teeth!" added Dona Victorina.
+
+Captain Tiago entered, but he wasn't given time to get his breath. In
+few words, with an intermingling of spicy language, Dona Victorina
+narrated what had passed, naturally trying to put herself in a
+good light.
+
+"Linares is going to challenge him, do you hear? Or don't let him
+marry your daughter. If he isn't courageous, he doesn't merit Clarita."
+
+"What! you are going to marry this gentleman?" Sinang asked Maria,
+her laughing eyes filling with tears. "I know you are discreet,
+but I didn't think you inconstant."
+
+Maria Clara, white as alabaster, looked with great, frightened eyes
+from her father to Dona Victorina, from Dona Victorina to Linares. The
+young man reddened; Captain Tiago dropped his head.
+
+"Help me to my room," Maria said to her friends, and steadied by
+their round arms, her head on the shoulder of Victorina, she went out.
+
+That night the husband and wife packed their trunks, and presented
+their account--no trifle--to Captain Tiago. The next morning they
+set out for Manila, leaving to the pacific Linares the role of avenger.
+
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX.
+
+THE OUTLAWED.
+
+
+By the feeble moonlight that penetrates the thick foliage of forest
+trees, a man was making his way through the woods. His movement was
+slow but assured. From time to time, as if to get his bearings, he
+whistled an air, to which another whistler in the distance replied
+by repeating it.
+
+At last, after struggling long against the many obstacles a virgin
+forest opposes to the march of man, and most obstinately at night,
+he arrived at a little clearing, bathed in the light of the moon in
+its first quarter. Scarcely had he entered it when another man came
+carefully out from behind a great rock, a revolver in his hand.
+
+"Who are you?" he demanded with authority in Tagalo.
+
+"Is old Pablo with you?" asked the newcomer tranquilly; "if so,
+tell him Elias is searching for him."
+
+"You are Elias?" said the other, with a certain respect, yet keeping
+his revolver cocked. "Follow me!"
+
+They penetrated a cavern, the guide warning the helmsman when to
+lower his head, when to crawl on all fours. After a short passage
+they arrived at a sort of room, dimly lighted by pitch torches, where
+twelve or fifteen men, dirty, ragged, and sinister, were talking
+low among themselves. His elbows resting on a stone, an old man of
+sombre face sat apart, looking toward the smoky torches. It was a
+cavern of tulisanes. When Elias arrived, the men started to rise,
+but at a gesture from the old man they remained quiet, contenting
+themselves with examining the newcomer.
+
+"Is it thou, then?" said the old chief, his sad eyes lighting a little
+at sight of the young man.
+
+"And you are here!" exclaimed Elias, half to himself.
+
+The old man bent his head in silence, making at the same time a sign
+to the men, who rose and went out, not without taking the helmsman's
+measure with their eyes.
+
+"Yes," said the old man to Elias when they were alone, "six months ago
+I gave you hospitality in my home; now it is I who receive compassion
+from you. But sit down and tell me how you found me."
+
+"As soon as I heard of your misfortunes," replied Elias slowly,
+"I set out, and searched from mountain to mountain. I've gone over
+nearly two provinces." After a short pause in which he tried to read
+the old man's thoughts in his sombre face, he went on:
+
+"I have come to make you a proposition. After vainly trying to find
+some representative of the family which caused the ruin of my own,
+I have decided to go North, and live among the savage tribes. Will
+you leave this life you are beginning, and come with me? Let me be
+a son to you?"
+
+The old man shook his head.
+
+"At my age," he said, "when one has taken a desperate resolution it
+is final. When such a man as I, who passed his youth and ripe age
+laboring to assure his future and that of his children, who submitted
+always to the will of superiors, whose conscience is clear--when such
+a man, almost on the border of the tomb, renounces all his past, it is
+because after ripe reflection he concludes that there is no such thing
+as peace. Why go to a strange land to drag out my miserable days? I
+had two sons, a daughter, a home, a fortune. I enjoyed consideration
+and respect; now I am like a tree stripped of its branches, bare and
+desolate. And why? Because a man dishonored my daughter; because my
+sons wished to seek satisfaction from this man, placed above other by
+his office; because this man, fearing them, sought their destruction
+and accomplished it. And I have survived; but if I did not know how
+to defend my sons, I shall know how to avenge them. The day my band is
+strong enough, I shall go down into the plain and wipe out my vengeance
+and my life in fire! Either this day will come or there is no God!"
+
+The old man rose, and, his eyes glittering, his voice cavernous,
+he cried, fastening his hands in his long hair:
+
+"Malediction, malediction upon me, who held the avenging hands of my
+sons! I was their assassin!"
+
+"I understand you," said Elias; "I too have a vengeance to satisfy;
+and yet, from fear of striking the innocent, I choose to forego that."
+
+"You can; you are young; you have not lost your last hope. I too,
+I swear it, would not strike the innocent. You see this wound? I got
+it rather than harm a cuadrillero who was doing his duty."
+
+"And yet," said Elias, "if you carry out your purpose, you will bring
+dreadful woes to our unhappy country. If with your own hands you
+satisfy your vengeance, your enemies will take terrible reprisals--not
+from you, not from those who are armed, but from the people, who are
+always the ones accused. When I knew you in other days, you gave me
+wise counsels: will you permit me----"
+
+The old man crossed his arms and seemed to attend.
+
+"Senor," continued Elias, "I have had the fortune to do a great service
+to a young man, rich, kind of heart, upright, wishing the good of
+his country. It is said he has relations at Madrid; of that I know
+nothing, but I know he is the friend of the governor-general. What
+do you think of interesting him in the cause of the miserable and
+making him their voice?"
+
+The old man shook his head.
+
+"He is rich, you say. The rich think only of increasing their
+riches. Not one of them would compromise his peace to go to the aid
+of those who suffer. I know it, I who was rich myself."
+
+"But he is not like the others. And he is a young man about to
+marry, who wishes the tranquillity of his country for the sake of
+his children's children."
+
+"He is a man, then, who is going to be happy. Our cause is not that
+of fortunate men."
+
+"No, but it is that of men of courage!"
+
+"True," said the old man, seating himself again. "Let us suppose
+he consents to be our mouthpiece. Let us suppose he wins the
+captain-general, and finds at Madrid deputies who can plead for us;
+do you believe we shall have justice?"
+
+"Let us try it before we try measures of blood," said Elias. "It must
+surprise you that I, an outlaw too, and young and strong, propose
+pacific measures. It is because I see the number of miseries which
+we ourselves cause, as well as our tyrants. It is always the unarmed
+who pay the penalty."
+
+"And if nothing result from our steps?"
+
+"If we are not heard, if our grievances are made light of, I shall
+be the first to put myself under your orders."
+
+The old man embraced Elias, a strange light in his eyes.
+
+"I accept the proposition," he said; "I know you will keep your
+word. I will help you to avenge your parents; you shall help me to
+avenge my sons!"
+
+"Meanwhile, senor, you will do nothing violent."
+
+"And you will set forth the wrongs of the people; you know them. When
+shall I have the response?"
+
+"In four days send me a man to the lake shore of San Diego. I will
+tell him the decision, and name the person on whom I count."
+
+"Elias will be chief when Captain Pablo is fallen," said the old
+man. And he himself accompanied the helmsman out of the cave.
+
+
+
+
+
+XL.
+
+THE ENIGMA.
+
+
+The day after the departure of the doctor and the doctora, Ibarra
+returned to the pueblo. He hastened to the house of Captain Tiago to
+tell Maria he had been reconciled to the Church. Aunt Isabel, who was
+fond of the young fellow, and anxious for his marriage with her niece,
+was filled with joy. Captain Tiago was not at home.
+
+"Come in!" Aunt Isabel cried in her bad Castilian. "Maria,
+Crisostomo has returned to favor with the Church; the archbishop has
+disexcommunicated him!"
+
+But Crisostomo stood still, the smile froze on his lips, the words
+he was to say to Maria fled from his mind. Leaning against the
+balcony beside her was Linares; on the floor lay leafless roses and
+sampagas. The Spaniard was making garlands with the flowers and
+leaves from the vines; Maria Clara, buried in her fauteuil, pale
+and thoughtful, was playing with an ivory fan, less white than her
+slender hands.
+
+At sight of Ibarra Linares paled, and carmine tinted the cheeks of
+Maria Clara. She tried to rise, but was not strong enough; she lowered
+her eyes and let her fan fall.
+
+For some seconds there was an embarrassing silence; then Ibarra spoke.
+
+"I have this moment arrived, and came straight here. You are better
+than I thought you were."
+
+One would have said Maria had become mute: her eyes still lowered,
+she did not say a word in reply. Ibarra looked searchingly at Linares;
+the timid young man bore the scrutiny with haughtiness.
+
+"I see my arrival was not expected," he went on slowly. "Pardon me,
+Maria, that I did not have myself announced. Some day I can explain
+to you--for we shall still see each other--surely!"
+
+At these last words the girl raised toward her fiance her beautiful
+eyes full of purity and sadness, so suppliant and so sweet that Ibarra
+stood still in confusion.
+
+"May I come to-morrow?" he asked after a moment.
+
+"You know that to me you are always welcome," she said in a weak voice.
+
+Ibarra left, calm in appearance, but a tempest was in his brain and
+freezing cold in his heart. What he had just seen and comprehended
+seemed to him incomprehensible. Was it doubt, inconstancy, betrayal?
+
+"Oh, woman!" he murmured.
+
+Without knowing where he went, he arrived at the ground where the
+school was going up. Senor Juan hailed him with delight, and showed
+him what had been done since he went away.
+
+With surprise Ibarra saw Elias among the workmen; the helmsman saluted
+him, as did the others, and at the same time made him understand that
+he had something to say to him.
+
+"Senor Juan," said Ibarra, "will you bring me the list of
+workmen?" Senor Juan disappeared, and Ibarra approached Elias, who
+was lifting a great stone and loading it on a cart.
+
+"If you can, senor," said the helmsman, "give me an hour of
+conversation, there is something grave of which I want to talk with
+you. Will you go on the lake early this evening in my boat?"
+
+Ibarra gave a sign of assent and Elias moved away. Senor Juan brought
+the list, but Ibarra searched it in vain for the name of the helmsman.
+
+
+
+
+
+XLI.
+
+THE VOICE OF THE PERSECUTED.
+
+
+The sun was just setting when Ibarra stepped into the little boat on
+the lake shore. He appeared disturbed.
+
+"Pardon me, senor," said Elias, "for having asked this favor; I wished
+to speak to you freely, with no possibility of listeners."
+
+"And what have you to say?"
+
+They had already shot away from the bank. The sun had disappeared
+behind the crest of the mountains, and as twilight is of short
+duration in this latitude, the night was descending rapidly, lighted
+by a brilliant moon.
+
+"Senor," replied Elias, "I am the spokesman of many unfortunates." And
+briefly he told of his conversation with the chief of the tulisanes,
+omitting the old man's doubts and threats.
+
+"And they wish?" asked Ibarra, when he had finished.
+
+"Radical reforms in the guard, the clergy, and the administration
+of justice."
+
+"Elias," said Ibarra, "I know little of you, but I believe you will
+understand me when I say that though I have friends at Madrid whom
+I might influence, and though I might interest the captain-general
+in these people, neither they nor he could bring about such a
+revolution. And more, I would not take a step in this direction,
+because I believe what you want reformed is at present a necessary
+evil."
+
+"You also, senor, believe in necessary evil?" said Elias with a tremor
+in his voice. "You think one must go through evil to arrive at good?"
+
+"No; but I look at evil as a violent remedy we sometimes use to cure
+ourselves of illness."
+
+"It is a bad medicine, senor, that does away with the symptoms without
+searching out the cause of the disease. The Municipal Guard exists
+only to suppress crime by force and terrorizing."
+
+"The institution may be imperfect, but the terror it inspires keeps
+down the number of criminals."
+
+"Rather say that this terror creates new criminals every day,"
+said Elias. "There are those who have become tulisanes for life. A
+first offence punished inhumanly, and the fear of further torture
+separates them forever from society and condemns them to kill or to
+be killed. The terrorism of the Municipal Guard shuts the doors of
+repentance, and as a tulisan, defending himself in the mountains,
+fights to much better advantage than the soldier he mocks, we cannot
+remedy the evil we have made. Terrorism may serve when a people is
+enslaved, and the mountains have no caverns; but when a desperate
+man feels the strength of his arm, and anger possesses him, terrorism
+cannot put out the fire for which it has itself heaped the fuel."
+
+"You would seem to speak reasonably, Elias, if one had not already his
+own convictions. But let me ask you, Who demand these reforms? You
+know I except you, whom I cannot class with these others; but are
+they not all criminals, or men ready to become so?"
+
+"Go from pueblo to pueblo, senor, from house to house, and listen
+to the stifled groanings, and you will find that if you think that,
+you are mistaken."
+
+"But the Government must have a body of unlimited power, to make
+itself respected and its authority felt."
+
+"It is true, senor, when the Government is at war with the country;
+but is it not unfortunate that in times of peace the people should
+be made to feel they are at strife with their rulers? If, however,
+we prefer force to authority, we should at least be careful to whom
+we give unlimited power. Such a force in the hands of men ignorant,
+passionate, without moral training or tried honor, is a weapon
+thrown to a madman in the middle of an unarmed crowd. I grant the
+Government must have an arm, but let it choose this arm well; and
+since it prefers the power it assumes to that the people might give
+it, let it at least show that it knows how to assume it!"
+
+Elias spoke with passion; his eyes were brilliant, his voice was
+resonant. His words were followed by silence; the boat, no longer
+driven forward by the oars, seemed motionless on the surface of the
+lake; the moon shone resplendent in the sapphire sky; above the far
+banks the stars glittered.
+
+"And what else do they ask?"
+
+"Reform of the religious orders,--they demand better protection----"
+
+"Against the religious orders?"
+
+"Against their oppression, senor."
+
+"Do the Philippines forget the debt they owe those men who led them
+out of error into the true faith? It is a pity we are not taught the
+history of our country!"
+
+"We must not forget this debt, no! But were not our nationality
+and independence a dear price with which to cancel it? We have
+also given the priests our best pueblos, our most fertile fields,
+and we still give them our savings, for the purchase of all sorts of
+religious objects. I realize that a pure faith and a veritable love
+of humanity moved the first missionaries who came to our shores. I
+acknowledge the debt we owe those noble men; I know that in those
+days Spain abounded in heroes, of politics as well as religion. But
+because the ancestors were true men, must we consent to the excesses
+of their unworthy descendants? Because a great good has been done us,
+may we not protest against being done a great wrong? The missionaries
+conquered the country, it is true; but do you think it is through
+the monks that Spain will keep the Philippines?"
+
+"Yes, and through them only. It is the opinion of all those who have
+written on the islands."
+
+"Senor," said Elias in dejection, "I thank you for your patience. I
+will take you back to the shore."
+
+"No," said Ibarra, "go on; we should know which is right in so
+important a question."
+
+"You will excuse me, senor," said Elias, "I have not eloquence enough
+to convince you. If I have some education, I am an Indian, and my
+words would always be suspected. Those who have expressed opinions
+contrary to mine are Spaniards, and as such disarm in advance all
+contradiction. Besides, when I see that you, who love your country,
+you, whose father sleeps below this calm water, you who have been
+attacked and wronged yourself, have these opinions, I commence to doubt
+my own convictions, I acknowledge that the people may be mistaken. I
+must tell these unfortunates who have placed their confidence in men
+to put it in God or in their own strength."
+
+"Elias, your words hurt me, and make me, too, have doubts. I have not
+grown up with the people, and cannot know their needs. I only know
+what books have taught me. If I take your words with caution, it is
+because I fear you may be prejudiced by your personal wrongs. If
+I could know something of your story, perhaps it would alter my
+judgment. I am mistrustful of theories, am guided rather by facts."
+
+Elias thought a moment, then he said:
+
+"If this is so, senor, I will briefly tell you my history."
+
+
+
+
+
+XLII.
+
+THE FAMILY OF ELIAS.
+
+
+"It is about sixty years since my grandfather was employed as
+accountant by a Spanish merchant. Although still young, he was married,
+and had a son. One night the warehouse took fire, and was burned
+with the surrounding property. The loss was great, incendiarism was
+suspected, and my grandfather was accused. He had no money to pay
+for his defence, and he was convicted and condemned to be publicly
+flogged in the streets of his pueblo. Attached to a horse, he was
+beaten as he passed each street corner by men, his brothers. The
+curates, you know, advocate nothing but blows for the discipline
+of the Indian. When the unhappy man, marked forever with infamy,
+was liberated, his poor young wife went about seeking work to keep
+alive her disabled husband and their little child. Failing in this,
+she was forced to see them suffer, or to live herself a life of shame."
+
+Ibarra rose to his feet.
+
+"Oh, don't be disturbed! There was no longer honor or dishonor for
+her or hers. When the husband's wounds were healed, they went to hide
+themselves in the mountains, where they lived for a time, shunned
+and feared. But my grandfather, less courageous than his wife, could
+not endure this existence and hung himself. When his body was found,
+by chance, my grandmother was accused for not reporting his death, and
+was in turn condemned to be flogged; but in consideration of her state
+her punishment was deferred. She gave birth to another son, unhappily
+sound and strong; two months later her sentence was carried out. Then
+she took her two children and fled into a neighboring province.
+
+"The elder of the sons remembered that he had once been happy. As soon
+as he was old enough he became a tulisan to avenge his wrongs, and
+the name of Balat spread terror in many provinces. The younger son,
+endowed by nature with a gentle disposition, stayed with his mother,
+both living on the fruits of the forest and dressing in the cast-off
+rags of those charitable enough to give. At length the famous Balat
+fell into the hands of justice, and paid a dreadful penalty for
+his crimes, to that society which had never done anything to teach
+him better than to commit them. One morning the young brother, who
+had been in the forest gathering fruits, came back to find the dead
+body of his mother in front of their cabin, the horror-stricken eyes
+staring upward; and following them with his own, the unhappy boy saw
+suspended from a limb the bloody head of his brother."
+
+"My God!" cried Ibarra.
+
+"It is perhaps the cry that escaped the lips of my father," said
+Elias coldly. "Like a condemned criminal, he fled across mountains
+and valleys. When he thought himself far enough away to have lost
+his identity, he found work with a rich man of the province of
+Tayabas. His industry and the sweetness of his disposition gained
+him favor. Here he stayed, economized, got a little capital, and as
+he was yet young, thought to be happy. He won the love of a girl of
+the pueblo, but delayed asking for her hand, fearing that his past
+might be uncovered. At length, when love's indiscretion bore fruit,
+to save her reputation he was obliged to risk everything. He asked to
+marry her, his papers were demanded, and the truth was learned. As
+the father was rich, he instituted a prosecution. The unhappy young
+man made no defence, and was sent to the garrison.
+
+"Our mother bore twins, my sister and me. She died while we were
+yet young, and we were told that our father was dead also. As our
+grandfather was rich, we had a happy childhood; we were always
+together, and loved each other as only twins can. I was sent very
+early to the college of the Jesuits, and my sister to La Concordia,
+that we might not be completely separated. In time we returned to
+take possession of our grandfather's property. We had many servants
+and rich fields. We were both happy, and my sister was affianced to
+a man she adored.
+
+"By my haughtiness, perhaps, and for pecuniary reasons, I had won the
+dislike of a distant relative. He threw in my face the obscurity of our
+origin and the dishonor of our race. Believing it calumny, I demanded
+satisfaction; the tomb where so many miseries sleep was opened, and
+the truth came forth to confound me. To crown all, there had been
+with us many years an old servant, who had suffered all my caprices
+without complaint. I do not know how our relative found it out, but he
+brought the old man before the court and made him declare the truth:
+he was our father. Our happiness was ended. I gave up my inheritance,
+my sister lost her fiance, and with our father we left the pueblo,
+to live where he might. The thought of the unhappiness he had brought
+upon us shortened our father's days, and my sister and I were left
+alone. She could not forget her lover, and little by little I saw
+her droop. One day she disappeared, and I searched everywhere for
+her in vain. Six months afterward, I learned that at the time I lost
+her there had been found on the lake shore of Calamba the body of a
+young woman drowned or assassinated. A knife, they said, was buried
+in her breast. From what they told me of her dress and her beauty,
+I recognized my sister. Since then I have wandered from province to
+province, my reputation and my story following in time. Many things
+are attributed to me, often unjustly, but I continue my way and take
+little account of men. You have my story, and that of one of the
+judgments of our brothers!"
+
+Elias rowed on in a silence which was for some time unbroken.
+
+"I believe you are not wrong when you say that justice should interest
+herself in the education of criminals," said Crisostomo at length;
+"but it is impossible, it is Utopia; where get the money necessary
+to create so many new offices?"
+
+"Why not use the priests, who vaunt their mission of peace and
+love? Can it be more meritorious to sprinkle a child's head with water
+than to wake, in the darkened conscience of a criminal, that spark
+lighted by God in every soul to guide it in the search for truth? Can
+it be more humane to accompany a condemned man to the gallows than
+to help him in the hard path that leads from vice to virtue? And the
+spies, the executioners, the guards, do not they too cost money?"
+
+"My friend, if I believed all this, what could I do?"
+
+"Alone, nothing; but if the people sustained you?"
+
+"I shall never be the one to lead the people when they try to obtain
+by force what the Government does not think it time to give them. If I
+should see the people armed, I should range myself on the side of the
+Government. I do not recognize my country in a mob. I desire her good;
+that is why I build a school. I seek this good through instruction;
+without light there is no route."
+
+"Without struggle, no liberty; without liberty, no light. You say you
+know your country little. I believe you. You do not see the conflict
+coming, the cloud on the horizon: the struggle begun in the sphere
+of the mind is going to descend to the arena of blood. Listen to the
+voice of God; woe to those who resist it! History shall not be theirs!"
+
+Elias was transfigured. He stood uncovered, his manly face illumined by
+the white light of the moon. He shook his mane of hair and continued:
+
+"Do you not see how everything is waking? The sleep has lasted
+centuries, but some day the lightning will strike, and the bolt,
+instead of bringing ruin, will bring life. Do you not see minds in
+travail with new tendencies, and know that these tendencies, diverse
+now, will some day be guided by God into one way? God has not failed
+other peoples; He will not fail us!"
+
+The words were followed by solemn silence. The boat, drawn on by the
+waves, was nearing the bank. Elias was the first to speak.
+
+"What shall I say to those who sent me?"
+
+"That they must wait. I pity their situation, but progress is slow,
+and there is always much of our own fault in our misfortunes."
+
+Elias said no more. He lowered his eyes and continued to row. When
+the boat touched the shore, he took leave of Ibarra.
+
+"I thank you, senor," he said, "for your kindness to me, and, in your
+own interest, I ask you to forget me from this day."
+
+When Ibarra was gone, Elias guided his boat toward a clump of reeds
+along the shore. His attention seemed absorbed in the thousands of
+diamonds that rose with the oar, and fell back and disappeared in
+the mystery of the gentle azure waves. When he touched land, a man
+came out from among the reeds.
+
+"What shall I say to the captain?" he asked.
+
+"Tell him Elias, if he lives, will keep his word," replied the
+helmsman sadly.
+
+"And when will you join us?"
+
+"When your captain thinks the hour has come."
+
+"That is well; adieu!"
+
+"If I live!" repeated Elias, under his breath.
+
+
+
+
+
+XLIII.
+
+IL BUON DI SI CONOSCE DA MATTINA.
+
+
+While Ibarra and Elias were on the lake, old Tasio, ill in his
+solitary little house, and Don Filipo, who had come to see him, were
+also talking of the country. For several days the old philosopher, or
+fool--as you find him--prostrated by a rapidly increasing feebleness,
+had not left his bed.
+
+"The country," he was saying to Don Filipo, "isn't what it was twenty
+years ago."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Don't you see it?" asked the old man, sitting up. "Ah! you did not
+know the past. Hear the students of to-day talking. New names are
+spoken under the arches that once heard only those of Saint Thomas,
+Suarez, Amat, and the other idols of my day. In vain the monks cry
+from the chair against the demoralization of the times; in vain the
+convents extend their ramifications to strangle the new ideas. The
+roots of a tree may influence the parasites growing on it, but they
+are powerless against the bird, which, from the branches, mounts
+triumphant toward the sky!"
+
+The old man spoke with animation, and his eye shone.
+
+"And yet the new germ is very feeble," said the lieutenant. "If they
+all set about it, the progress already so dearly paid for may yet
+be choked."
+
+"Choke it? Who? The weak dwarf, man, to choke progress, the powerful
+child of time and energy? When has he done that? He has tried dogma,
+the scaffold, and the stake, but E pur si muove is the device of
+progress. Wills are thwarted, individuals sacrificed. What does
+that mean to progress? She goes her way, and the blood of those who
+fall enriches the soil whence spring her new shoots. The Dominicans
+themselves do not escape this law, and they are beginning to imitate
+the Jesuits, their irreconcilable enemies."
+
+"Do you hold that the Jesuits move with progress?" asked the astonished
+Don Filipo. "Then why are they so attacked in Europe?"
+
+"I reply as did once an ecclesiastic of old," said the philosopher,
+laying his head back on the pillow and putting on his mocking air,
+"that there are three ways of moving with progress: ahead, beside,
+behind; the first guide, the second follow, the third are dragged. The
+Jesuits are of these last. At present, in the Philippines, we are
+about three centuries behind the van of the general movement. The
+Jesuits, who in Europe are the reaction, viewed from here represent
+progress. For instance, the Philippines owe to them the introduction
+of the natural sciences, the soul of the nineteenth century. As for
+ourselves, at this moment we are entering a period of strife: strife
+between the past which grapples to itself the tumbling feudal castle,
+and the future whose song may be heard afar off, bringing us from
+distant lands the tidings of good news."
+
+The old man stopped, but seeing the expression of Don Filipo he smiled
+and went on.
+
+"I can almost divine what you are thinking."
+
+"Can you?"
+
+"You are thinking that I may easily be wrong; to-day I have the fever,
+and I am never infallible. But it is permitted us to dream. Why not
+make the dreams agreeable in the last hours of life? You are right:
+I do dream! Our young men think of nothing but loves and pleasures;
+our men of riper years have no activity but in vice, serve only to
+corrupt youth with their example; youth spends its best years without
+ideal, and childhood wakes to life in rust and darkness. It is well
+to die. Claudite jam rivos, pueri."
+
+"Is it time for your medicine?" asked Don Filipo, seeing the cloud
+on the old man's face.
+
+"The parting have no need of medicine, but those who stay. In a few
+days I shall be gone. The Philippines are in the shadows."
+
+
+
+
+
+XLIV.
+
+LA GALLERA.
+
+
+To keep holy the afternoon of Sunday in Spain, one goes ordinarily to
+the plaza de toros; in the Philippines, to the gallera. Cock-fights,
+introduced in the country about a century ago, are to-day one of the
+vices of the people. The Chinese can more easily deprive themselves
+of opium than the Filipinos of this bloody sport.
+
+The poor, wishing to get money without work, risks here the little
+he has; the rich seeks a distraction at the price of whatever loose
+coin feasts and masses leave him. The education of their cocks costs
+both much pains, often more than that of their sons.
+
+Since the Government permits and almost recommends it, let us take
+our part in the sport, sure of meeting friends.
+
+The gallera of San Diego, like most others, is divided into three
+courts. In the entry is taken the sa pintu, that is, the price of
+admission. Of this price the Government has a share, and its revenues
+from this source are some hundred thousand pesos a year. It is said
+this license fee of vice serves to build schools, open roads, span
+rivers, and establish prizes for the encouragement of industry. Blessed
+be vice when it produces so happy results! In this entry are found
+girls selling buyo, cigars, and cakes. Here gather numerous children,
+brought by their fathers or uncles, whose duty it is to initiate them
+into the ways of life.
+
+In the second court are most of the cocks. Here the contracts are made,
+amid recriminations, oaths, and peals of laughter. One caresses his
+cock, while another counts the scales on the feet of his, and extends
+the wings. See this fellow, rage in his face and heart, carrying by
+the legs his cock, deplumed and dead. The animal which for months has
+been tended night and day, on which such brilliant hopes were built,
+will bring a peseta and make a stew. Sic transit gloria mundi! The
+ruined man goes home to his anxious wife and ragged children. He has
+lost at once his cock and the price of his industry. Here the least
+intelligent discuss the sport; those least given to thought extend the
+wings of cocks, feel their muscles, weigh, and ponder. Some are dressed
+in elegance, followed and surrounded by the partisans of their cocks;
+others, ragged and dirty, the stigma of vice on their blighted faces,
+follow anxiously the movements of the rich; the purse may get empty,
+the passion remains. Here not a face that is not animated; in this the
+Filipino is not indolent, nor apathetic, nor silent; all is movement,
+passion. One would say they were all devoured by a thirst always more
+and more excited by muddy water.
+
+From this court one passes to the pit, a circle with seats terraced to
+the roof, filled during the combats with a mass of men and children;
+scarcely ever does a woman risk herself so far. Here it is that
+destiny distributes smiles and tears, hunger and joyous feasts.
+
+Entering, we recognize at once the gobernadorcillo, Captain Basilio,
+and Jose, the man with the scar, so cast down by the death of his
+brother. And here comes Captain Tiago, dressed like the sporting man,
+in a canton flannel shirt, woollen trousers, and a jipijapa hat. He
+is followed by two servants with his cocks. A combat is soon arranged
+between one of these and a famous cock of Captain Basilio's. The
+news spreads, and a crowd gathers round, examining, considering,
+forecasting, betting.
+
+While men were searching their pockets for their last cuarto, or in
+lieu of it were engaging their word, promising to sell the carabao,
+the next crop, and so forth, two young fellows, brothers apparently,
+looked on with envious eyes. Jose watched them by stealth, smiling
+evilly. Then making the pesos sound in his pocket, he passed the
+brothers, looking the other way and crying:
+
+"I pay fifty; fifty against twenty for the lasak!"
+
+The brothers looked at each other discontentedly.
+
+"I told you not to risk all the money," said the elder. "If you had
+listened to me----"
+
+The younger approached Jose and timidly touched his arm.
+
+"What! It's you?" he cried, turning and feigning surprise. "Does your
+brother accept my proposition?"
+
+"He won't do it. But if you would lend us something, as you say you
+know us----"
+
+Jose shook his head, shifted his position, and replied:
+
+"Yes, I know you; you are Tarsilo and Bruno; and I know that your
+valiant father died from the club strokes of these soldiers. I know
+you don't think of vengeance----"
+
+"Don't concern yourself with our history," said the elder brother,
+joining them; "that brings misfortune. If we hadn't a sister, we
+should have been hanged long ago!"
+
+"Hanged! Only cowards are hanged. Besides, the mountain isn't so far."
+
+"A hundred against fifty for the bulik!" cried some one passing.
+
+"Loan us four pesos--three--two," begged Bruno. Jose again shook
+his head.
+
+"Sh! the money isn't mine. Don Crisostomo gave it to me for those who
+are willing to serve him. But I see you are not like your father;
+he was courageous. The man who is not must not expect to divert
+himself." And he moved away.
+
+"See!" said Bruno, "he's talking with Pedro; he's giving him a lot
+of money!" And in truth Jose was counting silver pieces into the palm
+of Sisa's husband.
+
+Tarsilo was moody and thoughtful; with his shirt sleeve he wiped the
+sweat from his forehead.
+
+"Brother," said Bruno, "I'm going, if you don't; our father must
+be avenged!"
+
+"Wait," said Tarsilo, gazing into his eyes--they were both pale--"I'm
+going with you. You are right: our father must be avenged!" But he
+did not move, and again wiped his brow.
+
+"What are you waiting for?" demanded Bruno impatiently.
+
+"Don't you think--our poor sister----"
+
+"Bah! Isn't Don Crisostomo the chief, and haven't we seen him with
+the governor-general? What risk do we run?"
+
+"And if we die?"
+
+"Did not our poor father die under their clubs?"
+
+"You are right!"
+
+The brothers set out to find Jose, but hesitation again possessed
+Tarsilo.
+
+"No; come away! we're going to ruin ourselves!" he cried.
+
+"Go on if you want to. I shall accept!"
+
+"Bruno!"
+
+Unhappily a man came up and asked:
+
+"Are you betting? I'm for the lasak."
+
+"How much?" demanded Bruno.
+
+The man counted his pieces.
+
+"I have two hundred; fifty against forty!"
+
+"No!" said Bruno resolutely.
+
+"Good! Fifty against thirty!"
+
+"Double it if you will."
+
+"A hundred against sixty, then!"
+
+"Agreed! Wait while I go for the money," and turning to his brother
+he said:
+
+"Go away if you want to; I shall stay!"
+
+Tarsilo reflected. He loved Bruno, and he loved sport.
+
+"I am with you," he said. They found Jose.
+
+"Uncle," said Tarsilo, "how much will you give?" "I've told you
+already; if you will promise to find others to help surprise
+the quarters, I'll give you thirty pesos each, and ten to each
+companion. If all goes well, they will each receive a hundred, and
+you double. Don Crisostomo is rich!"
+
+"Agreed!" cried Bruno; "give us the money!"
+
+"I knew you were like your father! Come this way, so that those who
+killed him cannot hear us," said Jose. And drawing them into a corner,
+he added as he counted out the money:
+
+"Don Crisostomo has come and brought the arms. To-morrow night at
+eight o'clock meet me in the cemetery. I will give you the final
+word. Go find your companions." And he left them.
+
+The brothers appeared to have exchanged roles. Tarsilo now seemed
+undisturbed; Bruno was pale. They went back to the crowd, which was
+leaving the circle for the raised seats. Little by little the place
+became silent. Only the soltadores were left in the ring holding two
+cocks, with exaggerated care, looking out for wounds. The silence
+became solemn; the spectators became mere caricatures of men; the
+fight was about to begin.
+
+
+
+
+
+XLV.
+
+A CALL.
+
+
+Two days later Brother Salvi presented himself at the house of
+Captain Tiago. The Franciscan was more gaunt and pale than usual;
+but as he went up the steps a strange light shone in his eyes, and
+his lips parted in a strange smile. Captain Tiago kissed his hand,
+and took his hat and cane, smiling beatifically.
+
+"I bring good news," said the curate as he entered the drawing-room;
+"good news for everybody. I have letters from Manila confirming
+the one Senor Ibarra brought me, so that I believe, Don Santiago,
+the obstacle is quite removed."
+
+Maria Clara, seated at the piano, made a movement to rise, but her
+strength failed her and she had to sit down again. Linares grew pale;
+Captain Tiago lowered his eyes.
+
+"The young man seems to me very sympathetic," said the curate. "At
+first I misjudged him. He is impulsive, but when he commits a fault,
+he knows so well how to atone for it that one is forced to forgive
+him. If it were not for Father Damaso----" And the curate flashed a
+glance at Maria Clara. She was listening with all her being, but did
+not take her eyes off her music, in spite of the pinches that were
+expressing Sinang's joy. Had they been alone they would have danced.
+
+"But Father Damaso has said," continued the curate, without losing
+sight of Maria Clara, "that as godfather he could not permit; but,
+indeed, I believe if Senor Ibarra will ask his pardon everything will
+arrange itself."
+
+Maria rose, made an excuse, and with Victorina left the room.
+
+"And if Father Damaso does not pardon him?" asked Don Santiago in a
+low voice.
+
+"Then Maria Clara must decide. But I believe the matter can be
+arranged."
+
+The sound of an arrival was heard, and Ibarra entered. His coming made
+a strange impression. Captain Tiago did not know whether to smile or
+weep. Father Salvi rose and offered his hand so affectionately that
+Crisostomo could scarcely repress a look of surprise.
+
+"Where have you been all day?" demanded wicked Sinang. "We asked
+each other: 'What can have taken that soul newly rescued from
+perdition?' and each of us had her opinion."
+
+"And am I to know what each opinion was?"
+
+"No, not yet! Tell me where you went, so I can see who made the
+best guess."
+
+"That's a secret too; but I can tell you by yourself if these gentlemen
+will permit."
+
+"Certainly, certainly?" said Father Salvi. Sinang drew Crisostomo to
+the other end of the great room.
+
+"Tell me, little friend," said he, "is Maria angry with me?"
+
+"I don't know. She says you had best forget her, and then she
+cries. This morning when we were wondering where you were I said to
+tease her: 'Perhaps he has gone a-courting.' But she was quite grave,
+and said: 'It is God's will!'"
+
+"Tell Maria I must see her alone," said Ibarra, troubled.
+
+"It will be difficult, but I'll try to manage it."
+
+"And when shall I know?"
+
+"To-morrow. But you are going without telling me the secret!"
+
+"So I am. Well, I went to the pueblo of Los Banos to see about some
+cocoanut trees!"
+
+"What a secret!" cried Sinang aloud in a tone of a usurer despoiled.
+
+"Take care, I really don't want you to speak of it."
+
+"I've no desire to," said Sinang scornfully. "If it had been really
+of importance I should have told my friends; but cocoanuts, cocoanuts,
+who cares about cocoanuts!" and she ran off to find Maria.
+
+Conversation languished, and Ibarra soon took his leave. Captain Tiago
+was torn between the bitter and the sweet. Linares said nothing. Only
+the curate affected gayety and recounted tales.
+
+
+
+
+
+XLVI.
+
+A CONSPIRACY.
+
+
+The bell was announcing the time of prayer the evening after. At its
+sound every one stopped his work and uncovered. The laborer coming from
+the fields checked his song; the woman in the streets crossed herself;
+the man caressed his cock and said the Angelus, that chance might favor
+him. And yet the curate, to the great scandal of pious old ladies,
+was running through the street toward the house of the alferez. He
+dashed up the steps and knocked impatiently. The alferez opened.
+
+"Ah, father, I was just going to see you; your young buck----"
+
+"I've something very important----" began the breathless curate.
+
+"I can't allow the fences to be broken; if he comes back, I shall
+fire on him."
+
+"Who knows whether to-morrow you will be alive," said the curate,
+going on toward the reception-room.
+
+"What? You think that youngster is going to kill me?"
+
+"Senor alferez, the lives of all of us are in danger!"
+
+"What?"
+
+The curate pointed to the door, which the alferez closed in his
+customary fashion.
+
+"Now, go ahead," he said calmly.
+
+"Did you see how I ran? When I thus forget myself, there is some
+grave reason."
+
+"And this time it is----"
+
+The curate approached him and spoke low.
+
+"Do you--know--of nothing--new?"
+
+The alferez shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Are you speaking of Elias?"
+
+"No, no! I'm speaking of a great peril!"
+
+"Well, finish then!" cried the exasperated alferez.
+
+The curate lowered his voice mysteriously:
+
+"I have discovered a conspiracy!"
+
+The alferez gave a spring and looked at the curate in stupefaction.
+
+"A terrible conspiracy, well organized, that is to break out to-night!"
+
+The alferez rushed across the room, took down his sabre from the wall,
+and grasped his revolver.
+
+"Whom shall I arrest?" he cried.
+
+"Be calm! There is plenty of time, thanks to the haste with which I
+came. At eight o'clock----"
+
+"They shall be shot, all of them!"
+
+"Listen! It is a secret of the confessional, discovered to me by a
+woman. At eight o'clock they are to surprise the barracks, sack the
+convent, and assassinate all the Spaniards."
+
+The alferez stood dumbfounded.
+
+"Be ready for them; ambush your soldiers; send me four guards for
+the convent! You will earn your promotion to-night! I only ask you
+to make it known that it was I who warned you."
+
+"It shall be known, father; it shall be known, and, perhaps, it will
+bring down a mitre!" replied the alferez, his eyes on the sleeves of
+his uniform.
+
+While this conversation was in progress, Elias was running toward the
+house of Ibarra. He entered and was shown to the laboratory, where
+Crisostomo was passing the time until the hour of his appointment
+with Maria Clara.
+
+"Ah! It is you, Elias?" he said, without noticing the tremor of the
+helmsman. "See here! I've just made a discovery: this piece of bamboo
+is non-combustible."
+
+"Senor, there is no time to talk of that; take your papers and flee!"
+
+Ibarra looked up amazed, and, seeing the gravity of the helmsman's
+face, let fall the piece of bamboo.
+
+"Leave nothing behind that could compromise you, and may an hour from
+this time find you in a safer place than this!"
+
+"What does all this mean?"
+
+"That there is a conspiracy on foot which will be attributed to you. I
+have this moment been talking with a man hired to take part in it."
+
+"Did he tell you who paid him?"
+
+"He said it was you."
+
+Ibarra stared in stupid amazement.
+
+"Senor, you haven't a moment to lose. The plot is to be carried
+out to-night."
+
+Crisostomo still gazed at Elias, as if he did not understand.
+
+"I learned of it too late; I don't know the leaders; I can do
+nothing. Save yourself, senor!"
+
+"Where can I go? I am due now at Captain Tiago's," said Ibarra,
+beginning to come out of his trance.
+
+"To another pueblo, to Manila, anywhere! Destroy your papers! Fly,
+and await events!"
+
+"And Maria Clara? No! Better die!"
+
+Elias wrung his hands.
+
+"Prepare for the accusation, at all events. Destroy your papers!"
+
+"Aid me then," said Crisostomo, in almost helpless bewilderment. "They
+are in these cabinets. My father's letters might compromise me. You
+will know them by the addresses." And he tore open one drawer after
+another. Elias worked to better purpose, choosing here, rejecting
+there. Suddenly he stopped, his pupils dilated; he turned a paper
+over and over in his hand, then in a trembling voice he asked:
+
+"Your family knew Don Pedro Eibarramendia?"
+
+"He was my great-grandfather."
+
+"Your great-grandfather?" repeated Elias, livid.
+
+"Yes," said Ibarra mechanically, and totally unobservant of Elias. "The
+name was too long; we cut it."
+
+"Was he a Basque?" asked Elias slowly.
+
+"Yes; but what ails you?" said Crisostomo, looking round and recoiling
+before the hard face and clenched fists of Elias.
+
+"Do you know who Don Pedro Eibarramendia was? Don Pedro Eibarramendia
+was the wretch who caused all our misfortune! I have long been
+searching for his descendants; God has delivered you into my
+hands! Look at me! Do you think I have suffered? And you live, and
+you love, and have a fortune and a home; you live, you live!" and,
+beside himself, he ran toward a collection of arms on the wall. But
+no sooner had he reached down two poniards than he dropped them,
+looking blindly at Ibarra, who stood rigid.
+
+"What was I going to do?" he said under his breath, and he fled like
+a madman.
+
+
+
+
+
+XLVII.
+
+THE CATASTROPHE.
+
+
+Captain Tiago, Aunt Isabel, and Linares were dining. Maria Clara
+had said she was not hungry, and was at the piano with Sinang. The
+two girls had arranged this moment for meeting Ibarra away from too
+watchful eyes. The clock struck eight.
+
+"He's coming! Listen!" cried the laughing Sinang.
+
+He entered, white and sad. Maria Clara, in alarm, started toward him,
+but before any one could speak a fusilade sounded in the street; then
+random pistol shots, and cries and clamor. Crisostomo seemed glued
+to the floor. The diners came running in crying: "The tulisanes! The
+tulisanes!" Aunt Isabel fell on her knees half dead from fright,
+Captain Tiago was weeping. Some one rushed about fastening the
+windows. The tumult continued outside; then little by little there
+fell a dreadful silence. Presently the alferez was heard crying out
+as he ran through the street:
+
+"Father Salvi! Father Salvi!"
+
+"Mercy!" exclaimed Aunt Isabel. "The alferez is asking for confession!"
+
+"The alferez is wounded!" murmured Linares, with an expression of
+the utmost relief.
+
+"The tulisanes have killed the alferez! Maria, Sinang, into your
+chamber! Barricade the door!"
+
+In spite of the protests of Aunt Isabel, Ibarra went out into the
+street. Everything seemed turning round and round him; his ears rang;
+he could scarcely move his limbs. Spots of blood, flashes of light and
+darkness alternated before his eyes. The streets were deserted, but the
+barracks were in confusion, and voices came from the tribunal, that of
+the alferez dominating all the others. Ibarra passed unchallenged, and
+reached his home, where his servants were anxiously watching for him.
+
+"Saddle me the best horse and go to bed," he said to them.
+
+He entered his cabinet and began to pack a valise. He had put in his
+money and jewels and Maria's picture and was gathering up his papers
+when there came three resounding knocks at the house door.
+
+"Open in the name of the King! Open or we force the door!" said an
+imperious voice. Ibarra armed himself and looked toward the window;
+then changed his mind, threw down his revolver, and went to the
+door. Three guards immediately seized him.
+
+"I make you prisoner in the name of the King!" said the sergeant.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You will learn at the tribunal; I am forbidden to talk with you."
+
+"I am at your disposition. It will not be for, I suppose, long."
+
+"If you promise not to try to escape us, we may leave your hands free;
+the alferez grants you that favor."
+
+Crisostomo took his hat and followed the guards, leaving his servants
+in consternation.
+
+Elias, after leaving the house of Ibarra, ran like a madman, not
+knowing whither. He crossed the fields and reached the wood. He was
+fleeing from men and their habitations; he was fleeing from light;
+the moon made him suffer. He buried himself in the mysterious silence
+of the wood. The birds stirred, wakened from their sleep; owls flew
+from branch to branch, screeching or looking at him with great, round
+eyes. Elias did not see or hear them; he thought he was followed by
+the irate shades of his ancestors. From every branch hung the bleeding
+head of Balat. At the foot of every tree he stumbled against the cold
+body of his grandmother; among the shadows swung the skeleton of his
+infamous grandfather; and the skeleton, the body, and the bleeding
+head cried out: "Coward! Coward!"
+
+He ran on. He left the mountain and went down to the lake, moving
+feverishly along the shore; his wandering eyes became fixed upon a
+point on the tranquil surface, and there, surrounded by a silver
+nimbus and rocked by the tide, stood a shade which he seemed to
+recognize. Yes, that was her hair, so long and beautiful; yes, that
+was her breast, gaping from the poniard stroke. And the wretched man,
+kneeling in the sand, stretched out his arms to the cherished vision:
+
+"Thou! Thou, too!" he cried.
+
+His eyes fixed on the apparition, he rose, entered the water and
+descended the gentle slope of the beach. Already he was far from the
+bank; the waves lapped his waist; but he went on fascinated. The water
+reached his breast. Did he know it? Suddenly a volley tore the air;
+the night was so calm that the rifle shots sounded clear and sharp. He
+stopped, listened, came to himself; the shade vanished; the dream
+was gone. He perceived that he was in the lake, level with his eyes
+across the tranquil water he saw the lights in the poor cabins of
+fishermen. Everything came back to him. He made for the shore and
+went rapidly toward the pueblo.
+
+San Diego was deserted; the houses were closed; even the dogs had
+hidden themselves. The glittering light that bathed everything detached
+the shadows boldly, making the solitude still more dreary.
+
+Fearing to encounter the guards, Elias scaled fences and hedges,
+and so, making his way through the gardens, reached the home of
+Ibarra. The servants were around the door lamenting the arrest of their
+master. Elias learned what had happened, and made feint of going away,
+but returned to the back of the house, jumped the wall, climbed into a
+window and made his way to the laboratory. He saw the papers, the arms
+taken down, the bags of money and jewels, Maria's picture, and had a
+vision of Ibarra surprised by the soldiers. He meditated a moment and
+decided to bury the things of value in the garden. He gathered them
+up, went to the window, and saw gleaming in the moonlight the casques
+and bayonets of the guard. His plans were quickly laid. He hid about
+his person the money and jewels, and, after an instant's hesitation,
+the picture of Maria. Then, heaping all the papers in the middle of the
+room, he saturated them with oil from a lamp, threw the lighted candle
+in the midst, and sprang out of the window. It was none too soon:
+the guards were forcing entrance against the protests of the servants.
+
+But dense smoke made its way through the house and tongues of flame
+began to break out. Soldiers and servants together cried fire and
+rushed toward the cabinet, but the flames had reached the chemicals,
+and their explosion drove every one back. The water the servants
+could bring was useless, and the house stood so apart that their cries
+brought no aid. The flames leaped upward amid great spirals of smoke;
+the house, long respected by the elements, was now their prisoner.
+
+
+
+
+
+XLVIII.
+
+GOSSIP.
+
+
+It was not yet dawn. The street in which were the barracks and tribunal
+was still deserted; none of its houses gave a sign of life. Suddenly
+the shutter of a window opened with a bang and a child's head
+appeared, looking in all directions, the little neck stretched to
+its utmost--plas! It was the sound of a smart slap in contact with
+the fresh human skin. The child screwed up his face, shut his eyes,
+and disappeared from the window, which was violently closed again.
+
+But the example had been given: the two bangs of the shutter had
+been heard. Another window opened, this time with precaution, and the
+wrinkled and toothless head of an old woman looked stealthily out. It
+was Sister Puta, the old dame who had caused such a commotion during
+Father Damaso's sermon. Children and old women are the representatives
+of curiosity in the world; the children want to know, the old women
+to live over again. The old sister stayed longer than the child,
+and gazed into the distance with contracted brows. Timidly a skylight
+opened in the house opposite, giving passage to the head and shoulders
+of sister Rufa. The two old women looked across at each other, smiled,
+exchanged gestures, and signed themselves.
+
+"Since the sack of the pueblo by Balat I've not known such a
+night!" said Sister Puta.
+
+"What a firing! They say it was the band of old Pablo."
+
+"Tulisanes? Impossible! I heard it was the cuadrilleros against the
+guards; that's why Don Filipo was arrested."
+
+"They say at least fourteen are dead."
+
+Other windows opened and people were seen exchanging greetings
+and gossip.
+
+By the light of the dawn, which promised a splendid day, soldiers
+could now be seen dimly at the end of the street, like gray silhouettes
+coming and going.
+
+"Do you know what it was?" asked a man, with a villainous face.
+
+"Yes, the cuadrilleros."
+
+"No, senor, a revolt!"
+
+"What revolt? The curate against the alferez?"
+
+"Oh, no; nothing of that kind. It was an uprising of the Chinese."
+
+"The Chinese!" repeated all the listeners, with great disappointment.
+
+"That's why we don't see one!"
+
+"They are all dead!"
+
+"I--I suspected they had something on foot!"
+
+"I saw it, too. Last night----"
+
+"What a pity they are all dead before Christmas!" cried Sister
+Rufa. "We shall not get their presents!"
+
+The streets began to show signs of life. First the dogs, pigs, and
+chickens began to circulate; then some little ragged boys, keeping
+hold of each other's hands, ventured to approach the barracks. Two or
+three old women crept after them, their heads wrapt in handkerchiefs
+knotted under their chins, pretending to tell their beads, so as
+not to be driven back by the soldiers. When it was certain that one
+might come and go without risking a pistol shot, the men commenced
+to stroll out. Affecting indifference and stroking their cocks,
+they finally got as far as the tribunal.
+
+Every quarter hour a new version of the affair was circulated. Ibarra
+with his servants had tried to carry off Maria Clara, and in defending
+her, Captain Tiago had been wounded. The number of dead was no longer
+fourteen, but thirty. At half-past seven the version which received
+most credit was clear and detailed.
+
+"I've just come from the tribunal," said a passer, "where I saw Don
+Filipo and Don Crisostomo prisoners. Well, Bruno, son of the man who
+was beaten to death, has confessed everything. You know, Captain Tiago
+is to marry his daughter to the young Spaniard. Don Crisostomo wanted
+revenge, and planned to massacre all the Spaniards. His band attacked
+the convent and the barracks. They say many of them escaped. The
+guards burned Don Crisostomo's house, and if he hadn't been arrested,
+they would have burned him, too."
+
+"They burned the house?"
+
+"You can still see the smoke from here," said the narrator.
+
+Everybody looked: a column of smoke was rising against the sky. Then
+the comments began, some pitying, some accusing.
+
+"Poor young man!" cried the husband of Sister Puta.
+
+"What!" cried the sister. "You are ready to defend a man that heaven
+has so plainly punished? You'll find yourself arrested too. You uphold
+a falling house!"
+
+The husband was silent; the argument had told.
+
+"Yes," went on the old woman. "After striking down Father Damaso,
+there was nothing left but to kill Father Salvi!"
+
+"But you can't deny he was a good child."
+
+"Yes, he was good," replied the old woman; "but he went to Europe,
+and those who go to Europe come back heretics, the curates say."
+
+"Oho!" said the husband, taking his advantage. "And the curate, and
+all the curates, and the archbishop, and the pope, aren't they all
+Spaniards? What? And are they heretics?"
+
+Happily for Sister Puta, the conversation was cut short. A servant
+came running, pale and horror-stricken.
+
+"A man hung--in our neighbor's garden!" she gasped.
+
+A man hung! Nobody stirred.
+
+"Let's come and see," said the old man, rising.
+
+"Don't go near him," cried Sister Puta, "'twill bring us misfortune. If
+he's hung, so much the worse for him!"
+
+"Let me see him, woman. You, Juan, go and inform them at the tribunal;
+he may not be dead." And the old man went off, the women, even Sister
+Puta, following at a distance, full of fear, but also of curiosity.
+
+Hanging from the branch of a sandal tree in the garden a human body
+met their gaze. The brave man examined it.
+
+"We must wait for the authorities; he's been dead a long time,"
+he said.
+
+Little by little the women drew near.
+
+"It's the new neighbor," they whispered. "See the scar on his face?"
+
+In half an hour the authorities arrived.
+
+"People are in a great hurry to die!" said the directorcillo, cocking
+his pen behind his ear, and he began his investigation.
+
+Meanwhile a peasant wearing a great salakat on his head and having
+his neck muffled was examining the body and the cord. He noticed
+several evidences that the man was dead before he was hung. The
+curious countryman noticed also that the clothing seemed recently
+torn and was covered with dust.
+
+"What are you looking at?" demanded the directorcillo, who had gathered
+all his evidence.
+
+"I was looking, senor, to see if I knew him," stammered the man, half
+uncovering, in which he managed to lower his salakat even farther
+over his eyes.
+
+"But didn't you hear that it is a certain Jose? You must be asleep!"
+
+Everybody laughed. The confused countryman stammered something else
+and went away. When he had reached a safe distance, he took off his
+disguise and resumed the stature and gait of Elias.
+
+
+
+
+
+XLIX.
+
+VAE VICTIS.
+
+
+With threatening air the guards marched back and forth before the door
+of the town hall, menacing with the butt of their rifles intrepid
+small boys, who came and raised themselves on tiptoe to see through
+the gratings.
+
+The court room had not the same appearance as the day of the discussion
+of the fete. The guards and the cuadrilleros spoke low; the alferez
+paced the room, looking angrily at the door from time to time. In
+a corner yawned Dona Consolacion, her steely eyes riveted on the
+door leading into the prison. The arm-chair under the picture of His
+Majesty was empty.
+
+It was almost nine o'clock when the curate arrived.
+
+"Well," said the alferez, "you haven't kept us waiting!"
+
+"I did not wish to be here," said the curate, ignoring the tone of
+the alferez. "I am very nervous."
+
+"I thought it best to wait for you," said the alferez. "We have
+eight here," he went on, pointing toward the door of the prison;
+"the one called Bruno died in the night. Are you ready to examine
+the two unknown prisoners?"
+
+The curate sat down in the arm-chair.
+
+"Let us go on," he said.
+
+"Bring out the two in the cepo!" ordered the alferez in as terrible
+a voice as he could command. Then turning to the curate:
+
+"We skipped two holes."
+
+For the benefit of those not acquainted with the instruments of torture
+of the Philippines, we will say that the cepo, a form of stocks, is
+one of the most innocent; but by skipping enough holes, the position is
+made most trying. It is, however, a torture that can be long endured.
+
+The jailor drew the bolt and opened the door. A sickening odor escaped,
+and a match lighted by one of the guards went out in the vitiated
+air; when it was possible to take in a candle, one could see dimly,
+from the rooms outside, the forms of men crouching or standing. The
+cepo was opened.
+
+A dark figure came out between two soldiers; it was Tarsilo, the
+brother of Bruno. His torn clothing let his splendid muscles show. The
+other prisoner brought out was weeping and lamenting.
+
+"What is your name?" the alferez demanded of Tarsilo.
+
+"Tarsilo Alasigan."
+
+"What did Don Crisostomo promise you for attacking the convent?"
+
+"I have never had any communication with Don Crisostomo."
+
+"Don't attempt to deny it: what other reason had you for joining
+the conspiracy?"
+
+"You had killed our father, we wished to avenge him, nothing more. Go
+find two of your guards. They're at the foot of the precipice, where
+we threw them. You may kill me now, you will learn nothing more."
+
+There was silence and general surprise.
+
+"You will name your accomplices," cried the alferez, brandishing
+his cane.
+
+The accused man smiled disdainfully. The alferez talked apart with
+the curate.
+
+"Take him where the bodies are," he ordered.
+
+In a corner of the patio, on an old cart, five bodies were heaped
+under a piece of soiled matting.
+
+"Do you know them?" asked the alferez, lifting the covering. Tarsilo
+did not reply. He saw the body of Sisa's husband, and that of his
+brother, pierced through with bayonet strokes. His face grew darker,
+and a great sigh escaped him; but he was mute.
+
+"Beat him till he confesses or dies!" cried the exasperated alferez.
+
+They led him back where the other prisoner, with chattering teeth,
+was invoking the saints.
+
+"Do you know this man?" demanded Father Salvi.
+
+"I never saw him before," replied Tarsilo, looking at the poor wretch
+with faint compassion.
+
+"Fasten him to the bench; gag him!" ordered the alferez, trembling
+with rage. When this was done, a guard began his sad task.
+
+Father Salvi, pale and haggard, rose trembling, and left the
+tribunal. In the street he saw a girl, leaning against the wall,
+rigid, motionless, her eyes far away. The sun shone full down on
+her. She seemed not to breathe but to count, one after another,
+the muffled blows inside. It was Tarsilo's sister.
+
+The torture continued until the soldier, breathless, let his arm
+fall, and the alferez ordered his victim released. But Tarsilo still
+refused to speak. Then Dona Consolacion whispered in her husband's ear;
+he nodded.
+
+"To the well with him!" he said.
+
+The Filipinos know what that means. In Tagalo it is called timbain. We
+do not know who invented this judiciary process, but it must belong
+to antiquity. Truth coming out of a well is perhaps a sarcastic
+interpretation.
+
+In the middle of the patio of the tribunal was a picturesque well curb
+of uncut stones. It had a rustic crank of bamboo; its water was slimy
+and putrid. All sorts of refuse had been thrown around it and in it.
+
+Toward this Tarsilo was led. He was very pale, and his lips trembled,
+if he was not praying. The pride he had shown appeared now to be
+crushed out; he seemed resigned to suffer. The poor wretch looked
+enviously at the pile of bodies, and sighed heavily.
+
+"Speak then!" said the directorcillo. "You will be hung anyway. Why
+not die without so much suffering?" But Tarsilo remained mute.
+
+When the well was reached, they bound his feet. He was to be let
+down head foremost. He was fastened to the curb; the crank turned,
+and his body disappeared. The alferez noted the seconds with his
+watch. At the signal the body was drawn up, too pitiable to describe;
+but Tarsilo was still mute. Again he was let down, again he refused
+to speak; when he was drawn up the third time, he no longer breathed.
+
+His torturers looked at each other in consternation. The alferez
+ordered the body taken down, and they all examined it for signs of
+life; but there were none.
+
+"See," said a cuadrillero, at last, "he has strangled himself with
+his tongue!"
+
+"Put the body with the others," ordered the alferez nervously. "We
+must examine the other unknown prisoner."
+
+
+
+
+
+L.
+
+ACCURST.
+
+
+The news spread that the prisoners were to be taken to the capital,
+and members of their families ran wildly from convent to barracks, from
+barracks to tribunal, but found no consolation anywhere. The curate
+was said to be ill. The guards dealt roughly with the supplicating
+women, and the gobernadorcillo was more useless than ever. The
+friends of the accused, therefore, had collected near the prison,
+waiting for them to be brought out. Doray, Don Filipo's young wife,
+wandered back and forth, her child in her arms, both crying. The
+Capitana Tinay called on her son Antonio, and brave Capitana Maria
+watched the grating behind which were her twins, her only children.
+
+At two in the afternoon, an uncovered cart drawn by two oxen stopped
+in front of the tribunal. It was surrounded, and there were loud
+threats of breaking it.
+
+"Don't do that!" cried Capitana Maria; "do you wish them to go on
+foot?" In a few moments, twenty soldiers came out and surrounded
+the ox-cart; then the prisoners appeared. The first was Don Filipo,
+who smiled at his wife. Doray responded by bitter sobs, and would
+have rushed to her husband, had not the guards held her back. The
+son of Capitana Tinay was crying like a child, which did not help
+to check the lamentations of his family. The twins were calm and
+grave. Ibarra came last. He walked between two guards, his hand free;
+his eyes sought on all sides for a friendly face.
+
+"He is the guilty one!" cried numerous voices. "He is the guilty one,
+and his hands are unbound!"
+
+"Bind my arms," said Ibarra to his guards.
+
+"We have no orders."
+
+"Bind me!"
+
+The soldiers obeyed.
+
+The alferez appeared on horseback, armed to the teeth, and followed
+by an escort of soldiers. The prisoners' friends saluted them with
+affectionate words; only Ibarra was friendless.
+
+"What has my husband done to you?" sobbed Doray. "See my child;
+you have robbed him of his father!"
+
+Grief began to turn to hate against the man who was said to have
+provoked the uprising.
+
+The alferez gave the order to start.
+
+"Coward!" cried a woman, as the cart moved off. "While the others
+fought, you were in hiding! Coward!"
+
+"Curses on you!" cried an old man, running after. "Cursed be the gold
+heaped up by your family to take away our peace. Accurst! accurst!"
+
+"May you be hung, heretic!" cried a woman, picking up a stone and
+throwing it after him. Her example was promptly followed, and a shower
+of dust and pebbles beat against the unhappy man. Crisostomo bore
+this injustice without a sign. It was the farewell of his beloved
+country. He bent his head and sat motionless. Perhaps he was thinking
+of a man beaten in the pueblo streets; perhaps of the body of a girl,
+washed up by the waves.
+
+The alferez felt obliged to drive away the crowd, but stones did not
+cease to fall, nor insult to sound. One mother only did not curse
+Ibarra; the Capitana Maria watched her sons go, with compressed lips
+and eyes full of silent tears.
+
+Of all the people in the open windows as he passed, none but the
+indifferent and curious showed Ibarra the least compassion. All his
+friends had deserted him, even Captain Basilio, who had forbidden
+Sinang to weep. When Crisostomo passed the smoking ruins of his home,
+that home where he was born, and spent his happy childhood and youth,
+the tears, long repressed, gushed from his eyes, and bound as he was,
+he had to experience the bitterness of showing a grief that could
+not rouse the slightest sympathy.
+
+From a hill, an old man, pale and thin, wrapped in a mantle, and
+leaning on a stick, watched the sad procession. At the news of what had
+happened, old Tasio had left his bed, and tried to go to the pueblo,
+but his strength had failed him. He followed the cart with his eyes,
+until it disappeared in the distance. Then, after resting a while in
+thought, he got up painfully, and started toward his home, halting
+for breath at almost every step. The next day some shepherds found
+him dead under the shadow of his solitary house.
+
+
+
+
+
+LI.
+
+PATRIOTISM AND INTEREST.
+
+
+The telegraph had secretly transmitted to Manila the news of the
+uprising, and thirty-six hours later, the newspapers, their accounts
+expanded, corrected, and mutilated by the attorney-general, talked
+about it with much mystery and no little menace. Meanwhile the private
+accounts, coming out of the convents, had gone from mouth to mouth,
+to the great alarm of those who heard them. The fact, distorted in
+countless versions, was accepted as true with more or less readiness,
+according to its fitness to the passions and ideas of the different
+hearers.
+
+Though public tranquillity was not disturbed, the peace of the
+hearthstones became like that of a fish-pond, all on top; underneath
+was commotion. Crosses, gold lace, office, power, honors of all kinds
+began to hover over one part of the population, like butterflies in
+a golden sunshine. For the others a dark cloud rose on the horizon,
+and against this ashy background stood in relief bars, chains, and
+the fateful arms of the gibbet. Destiny presented the event to the
+Manila imagination, like certain Chinese fans: one face painted black,
+the other gilded, and gorgeous with birds and flowers.
+
+There was great agitation in the convents. The provincials ordered
+their carriages, and held secret conferences; then presented themselves
+at the palace, to offer their support to the imperiled government.
+
+"A Te Deum, a Te Deum!" said a monk in one convent. "Through the
+goodness of God, our worth is made manifest in these perilous times!"
+
+"This petty general, this prophet of evil, will gnaw his moustaches
+after this little lesson," said another.
+
+"What would have become of him without the religious orders?"
+
+"The papers almost go to the point of demanding a mitre for Brother
+Salvi."
+
+"And he will get it! He's consumed with desire for it!"
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Why shouldn't he be? In these days mitres are given for the asking."
+
+"If mitres had eyes, and could see on what craniums----"
+
+We spare our readers other comments of this nature. Let us enter the
+home of a private citizen, and as we know few people at Manila, we
+will knock at the door of Captain Tinong, the friendly and hospitable
+gentleman whom we saw inviting Ibarra, with so much insistence,
+to honor his house with a visit.
+
+In his rich and spacious drawing-room, at Tondo, Captain Tinong is
+seated in a great arm-chair, passing his hand despairingly across
+his brow; while his weeping wife, the Capitana Tinchang, reads him
+a sermon, listened to by their two daughters, who are seated in a
+corner, mute with stupefaction.
+
+"Ah, Virgin of Antipolo!" cried the wife. "Ah, Virgin of the Rosary;
+I told you so! I told you so! Ah, Virgin of Carmel! Ah!"
+
+"Why, no! You didn't tell me anything," Captain Tinong finally
+ventured to reply. "On the contrary, you said I did well to keep up the
+friendship with Captain Tiago, and to go to his house, because--because
+he was rich; and you said----"
+
+"What did I say? I didn't say it! I didn't say anything! Ah, if you
+had listened to me!"
+
+"Now you throw the blame back on me!" said the captain bitterly,
+striking the arm of his chair with his fist. "Didn't you say I did
+well to invite him to dinner, because, as he was rich----"
+
+"It is true I said that, because--because it couldn't be helped;
+you had already invited him; and you did nothing but praise him. Don
+Ibarra here, and Don Ibarra there, and Don Ibarra on all sides. But
+I didn't advise you to see him or to speak to him at the dinner. That
+you cannot deny!"
+
+"Did I know, for instance, that he was to be there?"
+
+"You ought to have known it!"
+
+"How, if I wasn't even acquainted with him?"
+
+"You ought to have been acquainted with him!"
+
+"But, Tinchang, if it was the first time I had ever seen him or heard
+him spoken of?"
+
+"You ought to have seen him before, you ought to have heard him
+spoken of; that's what you are a man for! And now, you will be sent
+into exile, our goods will be confiscated----Oh, if I were a man! if
+I were a man!"
+
+"And if you were a man," asked the vexed husband, "what would you do?"
+
+"What? Why, to-day, this very day, I should present myself to the
+captain-general, and offer to fight against the rebels, this very day!"
+
+"But didn't you read what the Diario says? Listen! 'The infamous and
+abortive treason has been repressed with energy, force, and vigor,
+and the rebellious enemies of the country and their accomplices will
+promptly feel all the weight and all the severity of the laws!' You
+see, there is no rebellion!"
+
+"That makes no difference, you should present yourself; many did it
+in 1872, and so nobody harmed them."
+
+"Yes! it was done also by Father Bug----" But his wife's hands were
+over his mouth.
+
+"Say it! Speak that name, so you may be hung to-morrow at
+Bagumbayan! Don't you know it is enough to get you executed without
+so much as a trial? Go on, say it!"
+
+But though Captain Tinong had wished, he couldn't have done it. His
+wife held his mouth with both her hands, squeezing his little head
+against the back of the chair. Perhaps the poor man would have died
+of asphyxia, had not a new person come on the stage.
+
+It was their cousin, Don Primitivo, who knew Amat by heart; a man of
+forty, large and corpulent, and dressed with the utmost care.
+
+"Quid video?" he cried, upon entering; "what is going on?"
+
+"Ah, cousin!" said the wife, weeping, and running to him, "I had
+you sent for, for I don't know what will become of us! What do you
+advise--you who have studied Latin and understand reasoning----"
+
+"But quid quaeritis? Nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in
+sensu." And he sat down sedately. The Latin phrases seemed to have
+a tranquillizing effect; the husband and wife ceased to lament, and
+came nearer, awaiting the counsel of their cousin's lips, as once
+the Greeks awaited the saving phrase of the oracle.
+
+"Why are you mourning? Ubinam gentium sumus?"
+
+"You know the story of the uprising----"
+
+"Well, what of it? Don Crisostomo owes you?"
+
+"No! but do you know that Tinong invited him to dinner, and that he
+bowed to him on the bridge----in the middle of the day? They will
+say he was a friend of ours!"
+
+"Friend?" cried the Latin, in alarm, rising; "tell me who your friends
+are, and I'll tell you who you are yourself! Malum est negotium et
+est timendum rerum istarum horrendissimum resultatum. Hum!"
+
+So many words in um terrified Captain Tinong. He became frightfully
+pale. His wife joined her hands in supplication.
+
+"Cousin, you speak to us now in Latin, but you know we haven't
+studied philosophy like you. Speak to us in Tagal or Castilian;
+give us your advice."
+
+"It is deplorable that you do not know Latin, my cousin: Latin verities
+are lies in Tagalo. Contra principi negantem fustibus est arguendum,
+is, in Latin, a truth as veritable as Noah's ark. I once put it
+in practice in Tagalo, and it was I who got beaten. It is indeed
+a misfortune that you do not know Latin! In Latin it might all be
+arranged. You have done wrong, very wrong, cousins, to make friends
+with this young man. The just pay the dues of sinners. I feel almost
+like advising you to make your will!" and he moved his head gloomily
+from side to side.
+
+"Saturnino, what ails you?" cried Capitana Tinchang,
+terrified. "Ah! Heaven! he is dead! A doctor! Tinong, Tinongy!"
+
+"He has only fainted, cousin; bring some water." Don Primitivo
+sprinkled his face, and the unfortunate man revived.
+
+"Come, come! don't weep! I've found a remedy. Put him in bed. Come,
+come! courage! I am with you, and all the wisdom of the ancients! Call
+a doctor, and this very day, cousin, go present yourself to the
+captain-general, and take him a present, a gold chain, a ring; say
+it's a Christmas present. Shut the windows and doors, and if any one
+asks for your husband, say he is seriously ill. Meanwhile I'll burn
+all the letters, papers, and books, as Don Crisostomo did. Scripti
+testes sunt! Go on to the captain's. Leave me to myself. In extremis
+extrema. Give me the power of a Roman dictator, and see whether I
+save the coun--What am I saying--the cousin!"
+
+He commenced to upset the shelves of the library, and tear papers
+and letters. Then he lighted a fire on the kitchen hearth, and
+the auto-da-fe began. "'Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres,' by
+Copernicus. Whew! ite, maledicte, in ignem kalanis!" he cried, throwing
+it to the flames. "Revolution and Copernicus! Crime upon crime! If
+I don't get through soon enough! 'Liberty in the Philippines!' What
+books! Into the fire with them!" The most innocent works did not escape
+the common fate. Cousin Primitivo was right. The just pay for sinners.
+
+Four or five hours later, at a fashionable gathering, the events of
+the day were being discussed. There were present a number of elderly
+married ladies and spinsters, together with the wives and daughters
+of clerks of the administration, all in European costume, fanning and
+yawning. Among the men, who, by their manners, showed their position,
+as did the women, was a man advanced in age, small and one-armed,
+who was treated with distinction, and who kept a reserved distance.
+
+"I could never before suffer the monks and civil guards, because of
+their want of manners," a portly lady was saying, "but now that I
+see of what service they are, I could almost marry one of them. I
+am patriotic."
+
+"I am of the very same mind," said a very prim spinster. "But what
+a pity the former governor isn't with us!"
+
+"He would put an end to the race of filibusterillos!"
+
+"Don't they say there are many islands yet uninhabited?"
+
+"If I were the captain-general----"
+
+"Senoras," said the one-armed man, "the captain-general knows his
+duty. I understand he is greatly irritated, for he had loaded this
+Ibarra with favors."
+
+"Loaded him with favors!" repeated the slim gentlewoman, fanning
+furiously. "What ingrates these Indians are! Is it possible to treat
+them like human beings?"
+
+"Do you know what I've heard?" asked an officer.
+
+"No! What is it? What do they say?"
+
+"People worthy of confidence say that all this noise about building
+a school was a pure pretext; what he meant to make was a fort for
+his own defence when he had been attacked."
+
+"What infamy! Would any one but an Indian be capable of it?"
+
+"But they say this filibustero is the son of a Spaniard," said the
+one-armed man, without looking at anybody.
+
+"There it is again," cried the portly lady; "always these creoles! No
+Indian understands anything about revolution. Train crows, and they'll
+pick your eyes out!"
+
+"Do you know what I've heard?" asked a pretty creole, to turn the
+conversation. "The wife of Captain Tinong--you remember? We danced and
+dined at his house at the fete of Tondo--well, the wife of Captain
+Tinong gave the captain-general, this afternoon, a ring worth a
+thousand pesos. She said it was a Christmas present."
+
+"Christmas doesn't come for a month."
+
+"She must have feared a downpour," said the stout lady.
+
+"And so got under cover," said the slim.
+
+"That is evident," said the one-armed man, thoughtfully. "I fear
+there is something back of this."
+
+"I also," said the portly lady. "The wife of Captain Tinong is very
+parsimonious--she has never sent us presents, though we have been to
+her house. When such a person lets slip a little present of a thousand
+little pesos----"
+
+"But is it certain?" demanded the one-armed man.
+
+"Absolutely! His excellency's aide-de-camp told my cousin, to whom
+he is engaged. I'm tempted to believe it's a ring she wore the day
+of the fete. She's always covered with diamonds."
+
+"That's one way of advertising! Instead of buying a lay-figure or
+renting a shop----"
+
+The one-armed man found a pretext for leaving.
+
+Two hours later, when all the city was asleep, certain inhabitants of
+Tondo received an invitation through the medium of soldiers. Authority
+could not permit people of position and property to sleep in houses
+so ill guarded. In the fortress of Santiago, and in other government
+buildings, their sleep would be more tranquil and refreshing. Among
+these people was the unfortunate Captain Tinong.
+
+
+
+
+
+LII.
+
+MARIA CLARA MARRIES.
+
+
+Captain Tiago was very happy. During these troublous times, no one
+had paid any attention to him. He had not been arrested, he had
+not been subjected to cross-examination, to electrical machines, to
+repeated foot-baths in subterranean habitations, nor to any other of
+these pleasantries, well known to certain people who call themselves
+civilized. His friends, that is to say, those who had been--for he had
+repudiated his Filipino friends as soon as they had become suspects
+in the eyes of the Government--had returned home after several days
+of vacation in the edifices of the State. The captain-general had
+ordered them out of his possessions, to the great displeasure of
+the one-armed man, who would have liked to celebrate the approaching
+Christmas in so numerous a company of the rich.
+
+Captain Tinong returned to his home, ill, pale, another man. The
+excursion had not been for his good. He said nothing, not even to greet
+his family, who laughed and wept over him, mad with joy. The poor man
+no longer left the house, for fear of saluting a filibuster. Cousin
+Primitivo himself, with all the wisdom of the ancients, could not
+draw him out of his mutism.
+
+Stories like that of Captain Tinong's were numerous, and Captain Tiago
+was not ignorant of them. He overflowed with gratitude, without knowing
+exactly to whom he owed these signal favors. Aunt Isabel attributed
+the miracle to the Virgin of Antipolo.
+
+"I too, Isabel," said Captain Tiago, "but the Virgin of Antipolo has
+probably not done it alone; my friends have helped, and my future
+son-in-law, Senor Linares."
+
+It was whispered that Ibarra would be hung; that in spite of lack
+of proofs of his guilt, one thing had been found that confirmed the
+accusation; the experts had declared the school was so designed that
+it might pass for a rampart, faulty enough, to be sure, but what one
+might expect of ignorant Indians.
+
+In the midst of affairs, Dona Victorina, Don Tiburcio, and Linares
+arrived. As usual, Dona Victorina talked for the three men and herself;
+and her speech had undergone a remarkable change. She now claimed
+to have naturalized herself an Andalusian by suppressing d's and
+replacing the sound of s by that of z. No one had been able to get
+the idea out of her head; one would certainly have needed to get her
+frizzes off the outside first. She talked of visits of Linares to the
+captain-general, and made continual insinuations as to advantages a
+relative of position would bring.
+
+"As we say," she concluded, "he who sleeps in a good shade, leans on
+a good staff."
+
+"It's--it's the opposite, wife."
+
+Maria Clara was yet pale, though she had almost recovered from her
+illness. She kissed Dona Victorina, smiling rather sadly.
+
+"You have been saved, thanks to your connections!" said the doctora,
+with a significant look toward Linares.
+
+"God has protected my father," said Maria, in a low voice.
+
+"Yes, Clarita, but the time of miracles is past. We, the Spaniards say,
+trust not in the Virgin, and save yourself by running."
+
+"It's--it's--the contrary, wife!"
+
+"We must talk business," said Dona Victorina, glancing at Maria. Maria
+found a pretext for leaving, and went out, steadying herself by
+the furniture.
+
+What was said in this conference was so sordid and mean, that we prefer
+not to report it. Suffice it to say that when they parted, they were
+all satisfied. Captain Tiago said a little after to Aunt Isabel:
+
+"Have the caterer notified that we give a reception to-morrow. Maria
+must get ready for her marriage at once. When Senor Linares is our
+son-in-law, all the palaces will be open to us; and every one will
+die of envy."
+
+And so, toward eight o'clock the next evening, the house of Captain
+Tiago was once more full. This time, however, he had invited only
+Spaniards, peninsular and Philippine, and Chinese. Yet many of our
+acquaintances were there. Father Sibyla and Father Salvi, among
+numerous Franciscans and Dominicans; the old lieutenant of the
+Municipal Guard, more sombre than ever; the alferez, recounting his
+victory for the thousandth time, looking over the heads of everybody,
+now that he is lieutenant with grade of commandant; Dr. Espadana,
+who looks upon him with respect and fear, and avoids his glance;
+Dona Victorina, who cannot see him without anger. Linares had not yet
+arrived; as a person of importance, he must arouse expectation. There
+are beings so simple, that an hour's waiting for a man suffices to
+make him great in their eyes.
+
+Maria Clara was the object of interest to all the women, and the
+subject of unveiled comments. She had received these ceremoniously,
+without losing her air of sadness.
+
+"Bah! the proud little thing!" said one.
+
+"Rather pretty," said another, "but he might have chosen some one
+with a more intelligent face."
+
+"But the money, my dear! The good fellow is selling himself."
+
+In another group some one was saying:
+
+"To marry when one's first fiance is going to be hung!"
+
+"That is what is called prudent; having a substitute at hand."
+
+"Then, when one becomes a widow----"
+
+Possibly some of these remarks reached the ears of Maria Clara. She
+grew paler, her hand trembled, her lips seemed to move.
+
+In the circles of men the talk was loud, and naturally the recent
+events were the subject of conversation. Everybody talked, even
+Don Tiburcio.
+
+"I hear that your reverence is about to leave the pueblo," said the
+new lieutenant, whom his new star had made more amiable.
+
+"I have no more to do there; I am to be placed permanently at
+Manila. And you?" asked Father Salvi.
+
+"I also leave the pueblo," said he, throwing back his shoulders;
+"I am going with a flying column to rid the province of filibusters."
+
+Father Salvi surveyed his old enemy from top to toe, and turned away
+with a disdainful smile.
+
+"Is it known certainly what is to be done with the chief
+filibuster?" asked a clerk.
+
+"You are speaking of Don Crisostomo Ibarra," replied another. "It is
+very probable that he will be hung, like those of 1872, and it will
+be very just."
+
+"He is to be exiled," said the old lieutenant dryly.
+
+"Exile! Nothing but exile?" cried numerous voices at once. "Then it
+must be for life!"
+
+"If the young man had been more prudent," went on Lieutenant Guevara,
+speaking so that all might hear, "if he had confided less in certain
+persons to whom he wrote, if our attorney-generals did not interpret
+too subtly what they read, it is certain he would have been released."
+
+This declaration of the old lieutenant's, and the tone of his voice,
+produced a great surprise among his auditors. No one knew what to
+say. Father Salvi looked away, perhaps to avoid the dark look the
+lieutenant gave him. Maria Clara dropped some flowers she had in her
+hand, and became a statue. Father Sibyla, who knew when to be silent,
+seemed the only one who knew how to question.
+
+"You speak of letters, Senor Guevara."
+
+"I speak of what I am told by Don Crisostomo's advocate, who is
+greatly interested in his case, and defended him with zeal. Outside
+of a few ambiguous lines in a letter addressed to a woman before he
+left for Europe, in which the procurator found a project against the
+Government, and which the young man acknowledged as his, there was
+no evidence against him."
+
+"And the declaration made by the tulisan before he died?"
+
+"The defence destroyed that testimony. According to the witness
+himself, none of them had any communication with Ibarra, except
+one named Jose, who was his enemy, as was proven, and who afterward
+committed suicide, probably from remorse. It was shown that the papers
+found on his body were forgeries, for the writing was like Ibarra's
+seven years ago, but not like his hand of to-day. For this it was
+supposed that the accusing letter served as a model."
+
+"You tell us," said a Franciscan, "that Ibarra addressed this letter
+to a woman. How did it come into the hands of the attorney-general?"
+
+The lieutenant did not reply. He looked a moment at Father Salvi,
+and moved off, twisting the point of his gray beard. The others
+continued to discuss the matter.
+
+"Even women seem to have hated him," said one.
+
+"He burned his house, thinking to save himself, but he counted without
+his hostess!" said another, laughing.
+
+Meanwhile the old soldier approached Maria Clara. She had heard the
+whole conversation, sitting motionless, the flowers lying at her feet.
+
+"You are a prudent young woman," he said in a low voice; "by giving
+over the letter, you assured yourself a peaceful future." And he moved
+on, leaving Maria with blank eyes and a face rigid. Fortunately Aunt
+Isabel passed. Maria had strength to take her by the dress.
+
+"What is the matter?" cried the old lady, terrified at the face of
+her niece. "You are ill, my child. You are ready to faint. What is it?"
+
+"My heart--it's the crowd--so much light--I must rest. Tell my father
+I've gone to rest," and steadying herself by her aunt's arm, she went
+to her room.
+
+"You are cold! Do you want some tea?" asked Aunt Isabel at the door.
+
+Maria shook her head. "Go back, dear aunt, I only need to rest,"
+she said. She locked the door of her little room, and at the end of
+her strength, threw herself down before a statue, sobbing:
+
+"Mother, mother, my mother!"
+
+The moonlight came in through the window, and through the door leading
+to the balcony. The joyous music of the dance, peals of laughter
+and the hum of conversation, made their way to the chamber. Many
+times they knocked at her door--her father, her aunt, Dona Victorina,
+even Linares. Maria did not move or speak; now and then a hoarse sob
+escaped her.
+
+Hours passed. After the feast had come the ball. Maria's candle had
+burned out, and she lay in the moonlight at the foot of the statue. She
+had not moved. Little by little the house became quiet. Aunt Isabel
+came to knock once again at the door.
+
+"She must have gone to bed," the old lady called back to her
+brother. "At her age one sleeps like the dead."
+
+When all was still again, Maria rose slowly, and looked out on the
+terrace with its vines bathed in the white moonlight.
+
+"A peaceful future!--Sleep like the dead!" she said aloud; and she
+went out.
+
+The city was mute; only now and then a carriage could be heard
+crossing the wooden bridge. The girl raised her eyes toward the sky;
+then slowly she took off her rings, the pendants in her ears, the
+comb and jewelled pins in her hair, and put them on the balustrade
+of the terrace; then she looked toward the river.
+
+A little bark, loaded with zacate, drew up to the landing-place
+below the terrace. One of the two men in it climbed the stone steps,
+sprang over the wall, and in a moment was mounting the stairway of
+the terrace. At sight of Maria, he stopped, then approached slowly.
+
+Maria drew back.
+
+"Crisostomo!" she said, speaking low. She was terrified.
+
+"Yes, I am Crisostomo," replied the young man gravely. "An enemy, a
+man who has reason to hate me, Elias, has rescued me from the prison
+where my friends put me."
+
+A sad silence followed his words. Maria Clara bent her head. Ibarra
+went on:
+
+"By the dead body of my mother, I pledged myself, whatever my future,
+to try to make you happy. I have risked all that remains to me, to
+come and fulfil that promise. Chance lets me speak to you, Maria;
+we shall never see each other again. You are young now; some day your
+conscience may upbraid you. Before I go away forever, I have come to
+say that I forgive you. Be happy--farewell!" And he began to move away;
+she held him back.
+
+"Crisostomo!" she said, "God has sent you to save me from
+despair. Listen and judge me!"
+
+Ibarra tried gently to release himself.
+
+"I did not come to call you to account; I came to bring you peace."
+
+"I want none of the peace you bring me. I shall find peace for
+myself. You scorn me and your scorn will make even death bitter."
+
+He saw despair in her poor, young face, and asked what she wished.
+
+"I wish you to believe that I have always loved you."
+
+He smiled bitterly.
+
+"Ah! you doubt me! you doubt your childhood's friend, who has never
+hidden a single thought from you! When you know my history, the sad
+story that was told me in my illness, you will pity me; you will no
+longer wear that smile. Why did they not let me die in the hands of
+my ignorant doctor! You and I should both have been happier!"
+
+She stopped a moment, then went on:
+
+"You force me to this, by your doubts; may my mother forgive me! In
+one of the most painful of my nights of suffering, a man revealed
+to me the name of my real father. If he had not been my father,
+this man said, he might have pardoned the injury you had done him."
+
+Crisostomo looked at Maria in amazement.
+
+"What was I to do?" she went on. "Ought I to sacrifice to my love
+the memory of my mother, the honor of him who was supposed to be my
+father, and the good name of him who is? And could I have done this
+without bringing dishonor upon you too?"
+
+"But the proof--have you had proof? There must be proof!" said
+Crisostomo, staggered.
+
+Maria drew from her breast two papers.
+
+"Here are two letters of my mother's," she said, "written in her
+remorse. Take them! Read them! My father left them in the house
+where he lived so many years. This man found them and kept them, and
+only gave them up to me in exchange for your letter, as assurance,
+he said, that I would not marry you without my father's consent. I
+sacrificed my love! Who would not for a mother dead and two fathers
+living? Could I foresee what use they would make of your letter? Could
+I know I was sacrificing you too?"
+
+Ibarra was speechless. Maria went on:
+
+"What remained for me to do? Could I tell you who my father was? Could
+I bid you ask his pardon, when he had so made your father suffer? Could
+I say to my father, who perhaps would have pardoned you--could I say I
+was his daughter? Nothing remained but to suffer, to guard my secret,
+and die suffering! Now, my friend, now that you know the sad story
+of your poor Maria, have you still for her that disdainful smile?"
+
+"Maria, you are a saint!"
+
+"I am blessed, because you believe in me----"
+
+"And yet," said Crisostomo, remembering, "I heard you were to
+marry----"
+
+"Yes," sobbed the poor child, "my father demands this sacrifice; he
+has loved me, nourished me, and it did not belong to him to do it. I
+shall pay him my debt of gratitude by assuring him peace through this
+new connection, but----"
+
+"But?"
+
+"I shall not forget my vows to you."
+
+"What is your thought?" asked Ibarra, trying to read in her clear eyes.
+
+"The future is obscure. I do not know what I shall do; but I know
+this, that I can love but once, and that I shall not belong to one
+I do not love. And you? What will you do?"
+
+"I am no longer anything but a fugitive--I shall fly, and my flight
+will soon be overtaken, Maria----"
+
+Maria took his head in her hands, kissed his lips again and again,
+then pushed him away with all her strength.
+
+"Fly, fly!" she said. "Adieu!"
+
+Ibarra looked at her with shining eyes, but she made a sign, and he
+went, reeling for an instant like a drunken man. He leaped the wall
+again, and was back in the little bark. Maria Clara, leaning on the
+balustrade, watched till it disappeared in the distance.
+
+
+
+
+
+LIII.
+
+THE CHASE ON THE LAKE.
+
+
+"Listen, senor, to the plan I have made," said Elias, as he pulled
+toward San Gabriel. "I will hide you, for the present, at the house
+of a friend of mine at Mandaluyong. I will bring you there your gold,
+that I hid in the tomb of your great-grandfather. You will leave
+the country----"
+
+"To live among strangers?" interrupted Ibarra.
+
+"To live in peace. You have friends in Spain; you may get amnesty."
+
+Crisostomo did not reply; he reflected in silence.
+
+They arrived at the Pasig, and the little bark began to go up
+stream. On the bridge was a horseman, hastening his course, and a
+whistle long and shrill was heard.
+
+"Elias," said Ibarra at length, "your misfortunes are due to my
+family, and you have twice saved my life. I owe you both gratitude
+and restitution of property. You advise me to leave the country;
+well, come with me. We will live as brothers."
+
+Elias shook his head.
+
+"It is true that I can never be happy in my country, but I can live and
+die there, perhaps die for my country. That is always something. But
+you can do nothing for her, here and now. Perhaps some day----"
+
+"Unless I, too, should become a tulisan," mused Ibarra.
+
+"Senor, a month ago we sat in this same boat, under the light of this
+same moon. You could not have said such a thing then."
+
+"No, Elias. Man seems to be an animal who varies with circumstances. I
+was blind then, unreasonable, I know not what. Now the bandage has
+been torn from my eyes; the wretchedness and solitude of my prison has
+taught me better. I see the cancer that is eating into our society;
+perhaps, after all, it must be torn out by violence."
+
+They came in sight of the governor-general's palace, and thought they
+saw unusual movement among the guards.
+
+"Your escape must have been discovered," said Elias. "Lie down, senor,
+so I can cover you with the zacate, for the sentinel at the magazine
+may stop us."
+
+As Elias had anticipated, the sentinel challenged him, and asked him
+where he came from.
+
+"From Manila, with zacate for the iodores and curates," said he,
+imitating the accent of the people of Pandakan.
+
+A sergeant came out.
+
+"Sulung," said he to Elias, "I warn you not to take any one into your
+boat. A prisoner has just escaped. If you capture him and bring him
+to me, I will give you a fine reward."
+
+"Good, senor; what is his description?"
+
+"He wears a long coat, and speaks Spanish. Look out for him!"
+
+The bark moved off. Elias turned and saw the sentinel still standing
+by the bank.
+
+"We shall lose a few minutes," he said; "we shall have to go into
+the rio Beata, to make him think I'm from Pena Francia. You shall
+see the rio of which Francisco Baltazar sang."
+
+The pueblo was asleep in the moonlight. Crisostomo sat up to admire
+the death-like peace of nature. The rio was narrow, and its banks were
+plains strewn with zacate. Elias discharged his cargo, and from the
+grass where they were hidden, drew some of those sacks of palm leaves
+that are called bayones. Then they pushed off again, and soon were
+back on the Pasig. From time to time they talked of indifferent things.
+
+"Santa Ana!" said Ibarra, speaking low; "do you know that
+building?" They were passing the country house of the Jesuits.
+
+"I've spent many happy days there," said Elias. "When I was a child,
+we came here every month. Then I was like other people; had a family,
+a fortune; dreamed, thought I saw a future."
+
+They were silent until they came to Malapad-na-bato. Those who have
+sometimes cut a wake in the Pasig, on one of these magnificent nights
+of the Philippines, when from the limpid azure the moon pours out a
+poetic melancholy, when shadows hide the miseries of men and silence
+puts out their sordid words--those who have done this will know some
+of the thoughts of these two young men.
+
+At Malapad-na-bato, the rifleman was sleepy, and seeing no hope of
+plunder in the little bark, according to the tradition of his corps
+and the habit of this post, he let it pass. The guard at Pasig was
+no more disquieting.
+
+The moonlight was growing pale, and dawn was beginning to tint the east
+with roses, when they arrived at the lake, smooth and placid as a great
+mirror. At a distance they saw a gray mass, advancing little by little.
+
+"It's the falua," said Elias under his breath. "Lie down, senor,
+and I will cover you with these bags."
+
+The outlines of the government boat grew more and more distinct.
+
+"She's getting between us and the shore," said Elias, uneasily; and
+very gradually he changed the direction of his bark. To his terror
+he saw the falua make the same change, and heard a voice hailing
+him. He stopped and thought. The shore was yet some distance away;
+they would soon be within range of the ship's guns. He thought he would
+go back to Pasig, his boat could escape the other in that direction;
+but fate was against him. Another boat was coming from Pasig, and in
+it glittered the helmets and bayonets of the Civil Guards.
+
+"We are caught!" he said, and the color left his face. He looked at
+his sturdy arms, and took the only resolution possible; he began to
+row with all his might toward the island of Talim. The sun was coming
+up. The bark shot rapidly over the water; on the falua, which changed
+its tack, Elias saw men signalling.
+
+"Do you know how to manage a bark?" he demanded of Ibarra.
+
+"Yes. Why?"
+
+"Because we are lost unless I take to the water to throw them off the
+track. They will pursue me. I swim and dive well. That will turn them
+away from you, and you must try to save yourself."
+
+"No, stay, and let us sell our lives dear!"
+
+"It is useless; we have no arms; they would shoot us down like birds."
+
+As he spoke, they heard a hiss in the water, followed by a report.
+
+"You see!" said Elias, laying down his oar. "We will meet, Christmas
+night, at the tomb of your grandfather. Save yourself! God has drawn
+me out of greater perils than this!"
+
+He took off his shirt; a ball picked it out of his hands, and two
+reports followed. Without showing alarm, he grasped the hand Ibarra
+stretched up from the bottom of the boat, then stood upright and
+leaped into the water, pushing off the little craft with his foot.
+
+Outcries were heard from the falua. Promptly, and at some distance,
+appeared the head of the young man, returning to the surface to
+breathe, then disappearing immediately.
+
+"There, there he is," cried several voices, and balls whistled.
+
+The falua and the bark from Pasig set out in pursuit of the swimmer. A
+slight wake showed his direction, more and more removed from Ibarra's
+little bark, which drifted as if abandoned. Every time Elias raised
+his head to breathe, the guards and the men of the falua fired on him.
+
+The chase went on. The little bark with Ibarra was left far
+behind. Elias was not more than a hundred yards from the shore. The
+rowers were getting tired, but so was Elias, for he repeatedly
+raised his head above the water, but always in a new direction, to
+disconcert his pursuers. The deceiving wake no longer told the place
+of the swimmer. For the last time they saw him, sixty feet from the
+shore. The soldiers fired--minutes and minutes passed. Nothing again
+disturbed the tranquil surface of the lake.
+
+A half hour later, one of the rowers claimed to have seen traces of
+blood near the shore, but his comrades shook their heads in doubt.
+
+
+
+
+
+LIV.
+
+FATHER DAMASO EXPLAINS HIMSELF.
+
+
+In vain the precious wedding presents heaped up; not the brilliants
+in their velvet cases, not embroideries of pina nor pieces of silk,
+drew the eyes of Maria Clara. She saw nothing but the journal in
+which was told the death of Ibarra, drowned in the lake.
+
+Suddenly she felt two hands over her eyes, clasping her head, while
+a merry voice said to her:
+
+"Who is it? Who is it?"
+
+Maria sprang up in fright.
+
+"Little goose! Did I scare you, eh? You weren't expecting me, eh? Why,
+I've come from the province to be at your marriage----" And with a
+satisfied smile, Father Damaso gave her his hand to kiss. She took it,
+trembling, and carried it respectfully to her lips.
+
+"What is it, Maria?" demanded the Franciscan, troubled, and losing
+his gay smile. "Your hand is cold, you are pale--are you ill, little
+girl?" And he drew her tenderly to him, took both her hands and
+questioned her with his eyes.
+
+"Won't you confide in your godfather?" he asked in a tone of
+reproach. "Come, sit down here and tell me your griefs, as you
+used to do when you were little, and wanted some tapers to make
+wax dolls. You know I've always loved you--never scolded you----"
+and his voice became very tender. Maria began to cry.
+
+"Why do you cry, my child? Have you quarrelled with Linares?"
+
+Maria put her hands over her eyes.
+
+"No; it's not about him--now!"
+
+Father Damaso looked startled. "And you won't tell me your
+secrets? Have I not always tried to satisfy your slightest wish?"
+
+Maria raised to him her eyes full of tears, looked at him a moment,
+then sobbed afresh.
+
+"My child!"
+
+Maria came slowly to him, fell on her knees at his feet, and raising
+her face wet with tears, asked in a voice scarcely audible:
+
+"Do you still love me?"
+
+"Child!"
+
+"Then--protect my father and make him break off my marriage." And
+she told him of her last interview with Ibarra, omitting everything
+about the secret of her birth.
+
+Father Damaso could scarcely believe what he heard. She was talking
+calmly now, without tears.
+
+"So long as he lived," she went on, "I could struggle, I could hope,
+I had confidence; I wished to live to hear about him; but now--that
+they have killed him, I have no longer any reason to live and suffer."
+
+"And--Linares----"
+
+"If he had lived, I might have married--for my father's sake; but
+now that he is dead, I want the convent--or the grave."
+
+"You loved him so?" stammered Father Damaso. Maria did not reply. The
+father bent his head on his breast.
+
+"My child," he said at last in a broken voice, "forgive me for
+having made you unhappy; I did not know I was doing it! I thought
+of your future. How could I let you marry a man of this country, to
+see you, later on, an unhappy wife and mother? I set myself with all
+my strength to get this love out of your mind, I used all means--for
+you, only for you. If you had been his wife, you would have wept for
+the unfortunate position of your husband, exposed to all sorts of
+dangers, and without defence; a mother, you would have wept for your
+children; had you educated them, you would have prepared them a sad
+future; they would have become enemies of religion; the gallows or
+exile would have been their portion; had you left them in ignorance,
+you would have seen them tyrannized over and degraded. I could not
+consent to this. That is why I found for you a husband whose children
+should command, not obey; punish, not suffer--I knew your childhood's
+friend was good, and I liked him, as I did his father; but I hated
+them both for your sake, because I love you as one loves a daughter,
+because I idolize you--I have no other love; I have seen you grow up,
+there isn't an hour in which I do not think of you, you are my one
+joy----" And Father Damaso began to cry like a child.
+
+"Then if you love me, do not make me forever miserable; he is dead,
+I wish to be a nun."
+
+The old man rested his forehead in his hand.
+
+"A nun, a nun!" he repeated. "You do not know, my child, all that
+is hidden behind the walls of a convent, you do not know! I would
+a thousand times rather see you unhappy in the world than in the
+cloister. Here your complaints can be heard; there you have only the
+walls! You are beautiful, very beautiful; you were not made to renounce
+the world. Believe me, my child, time alters all things; later you
+will forget, you will love, you will love your husband--Linares."
+
+"Either the convent or--death," repeated Maria, with no sign of
+yielding.
+
+"Maria," said the father, "I am not young. I cannot watch over you
+always; choose something else, find another love, another husband,
+anything, what you will!"
+
+"I choose the convent."
+
+"My God, my God!" cried the priest, burying his face in his hands. "You
+punish me, be it so! But watch over my daughter!--Maria, you shall
+be a nun. I cannot have you die."
+
+Maria took his hands, pressed them, kissed them as she knelt.
+
+"Godfather, my godfather," she said.
+
+"Oh, God!" cried the heart of the father, "thou dost exist, because
+thou dost chastise! Take vengeance upon me, but do not strike the
+innocent; save my daughter!"
+
+
+
+
+
+LV.
+
+THE NOCHEBUENA.
+
+
+Up on the side of the mountain, where a torrent springs, a cabin hides
+under the trees, built on their gnarled trunks. Over its thatched roof
+creep the branches of the gourd, heavy with fruit and flowers. Antlers
+and wild boars' heads, some of them bearing their long tusks, ornament
+the rustic hearth. It is the home of a Tagalo family living from the
+chase and the cup of the woods.
+
+Under the shade of a tree, the grandfather is making brooms from the
+veins of palm leaves, while a girl fills a basket with eggs, lemons,
+and vegetables. Two children, a boy and a girl, are playing beside
+another boy, pale and serious, with great, deep eyes. We know him. It
+is Sisa's son, Basilio.
+
+"When your foot is well," said the little boy, "you will go with us
+to the top of the mountain and drink deer's blood and lemon juice;
+then you'll grow fat; then I'll show you how to jump from one rock
+to another, over the torrent."
+
+Basilio smiled sadly, examined the wound in his foot, and looked at
+the sun, which was shining splendidly.
+
+"Sell these brooms, Lucia," said the grandfather to the young girl,
+"and buy something for your brothers. To-day is Christmas."
+
+"Fire-crackers, I want fire-crackers!" cried the little boy.
+
+"And what do you want?" the grandfather asked Basilio. The boy got
+up and went to the old man.
+
+"Senor," he said, "have I been ill more than a month?"
+
+"Since we found you, faint and covered with wounds, two moons have
+passed. We thought you were going to die----"
+
+"May God reward you; we are very poor," said Basilio; "but as to-day
+is Christmas, I want to go to the pueblo to see my mother and my
+little brother. They must have been looking everywhere for me."
+
+"But, son, you aren't well yet, and it is far to your pueblo. You
+would not get there till midnight. My sons will want to see you when
+they come from the forest."
+
+"You have many children, but my mother has only us two; perhaps she
+thinks me dead already. I want to give her a present to-night--a son!"
+
+The grandfather felt his eyes grow dim.
+
+"You are as sensible as an old man! Go, find your mother, give her
+her present! Go, my son. God and the Lord Jesus go with you!"
+
+"What, you're not going to stay and see my fire-crackers?" said the
+little boy.
+
+"I want you to play hide and seek!" pouted the little girl; "nothing
+else is so much fun."
+
+Basilio smiled and his eyes filled with tears.
+
+"I shall come back soon," he said, "and bring my little brother;
+then you can play with him. But I must go away now with Lucia."
+
+"Don't forget us!" said the old man, "and come back when you are
+well." The children all accompanied him to the bridge of bamboo over
+the rushing torrent. Lucia, who was going to the first pueblo with
+her basket, made him lean on her arm; the other children watched them
+both out of sight.
+
+
+
+The north wind was blowing, and the dwellers in San Diego were
+trembling with cold. It was the Nochebuena, and yet the pueblo was
+sad. Not a paper lantern hung in the windows, no noise in the houses
+announcing the joyful time, as in other years.
+
+At the home of Captain Basilio, the master of the house is talking
+with Don Filipo; the troubles of these times have made them friends.
+
+"You are in rare luck, to be released at just this moment," Captain
+Basilio was saying to his guest. "They've burned your books, that's
+true; but others have fared worse."
+
+A woman came up to the window and looked in. Her eyes were brilliant,
+her face haggard, her hair loose; the moon made her uncanny.
+
+"Sisa?" asked Don Filipo, in surprise. "I thought she was with
+a physician."
+
+Captain Basilio smiled bitterly.
+
+"The doctor feared he might be taken for a friend of Don Crisostomo's,
+so he drove her out!"
+
+"What else has happened since I went away? I know we have a new curate
+and a new alferez----"
+
+"Well, the head sacristan was found dead, hung in the garret of his
+house. And old Tasio is dead. They buried him in the Chinese cemetery."
+
+"Poor Don Astasio!" sighed Don Filipo. "And his books?"
+
+"The devout thought it would be pleasing to God if they should
+burn them; nothing escaped, not even the works of Cicero. The
+gobernadorcillo was no check whatsoever."
+
+They were both silent. At that moment, the melancholy song of Sisa
+was heard. A child passed, limping, and running toward the place from
+which the song came; it was Basilio. The little fellow had found
+his home deserted and in ruins. He had been told about his mother;
+of Crispin he had not heard a word. He had dried his tears, smothered
+his grief, and without resting, started out to find Sisa.
+
+She had come to the house of the new alferez. As usual, a sentinel
+was pacing up and down. When she saw the soldier, she took to flight,
+and ran as only a wild thing can. Basilio saw her, and fearing to
+lose sight of her, forgot his wounded foot, and followed in hot
+pursuit. Dogs barked, geese cackled, windows opened here and there,
+to give passage to the heads of the curious; others banged to, from
+fear of a new night of trouble. At this rate, the runners were soon
+outside the pueblo, and Sisa began to moderate her speed. There was
+a long distance between her and her pursuer.
+
+"Mother!" he cried, when he could distinguish her.
+
+No sooner did Sisa hear the voice than she again began to run madly.
+
+"Mother, it's I," cried the child in despair. Sisa paid no
+attention. The poor little fellow followed breathless. They were now
+on the border of the wood.
+
+Bushes, thorny twigs, and the roots of trees hindered their
+progress. The child followed the vision of his mother, made clear now
+and then by the moon's rays across the heavy foliage. They were in the
+mysterious wood of the family of Ibarra. Basilio often stumbled and
+fell, but he got up again, without feeling his hurts, or remembering
+his lameness. All his life was concentrated in his eyes, which never
+lost the beloved figure from view.
+
+They crossed the brook, which was singing gently, and to his great
+surprise, Basilio saw his mother press through the thicket and
+enter the wooden door that closed the tomb of the old Spaniard. He
+tried to follow her, but the door was fast. Sisa was defending the
+entrance--holding the door closed with all her strength.
+
+"Mother, it's I, it's I, Basilio, your son!" cried the child, falling
+from fatigue. But Sisa would not budge. Her feet braced against the
+ground, she offered an energetic resistance. Basilio examined the wall,
+but could not scale it. Then he made the tour of the grave. He saw a
+branch of the great tree, crossed by a branch of another. He began
+to climb, and his filial love did miracles. He went from branch to
+branch, and came over the tomb at last.
+
+The noise he made in the branches startled Sisa. She turned and
+would have fled, but her son, letting himself drop from the tree,
+seized her in his arms and covered her with kisses; then, worn out,
+he fainted away.
+
+Sisa saw his forehead bathed in blood. She bent over him, and her
+eyes, almost out of their sockets, were fixed on his face, which
+stirred the sleeping cells of her brain. Then something like a spark
+flashed through them. Sisa recognized her son, and with a cry fell
+on his senseless body, pressing it to her heart, kissing him and
+weeping. Then mother and son were both motionless.
+
+When Basilio came to himself, he found his mother without
+consciousness. He called her, lavished tender names on her, and seeing
+she did not wake, ran for water and sprinkled her pale face. But the
+eyes remained closed. In terror, Basilio put his ear to her heart,
+but her heart no longer beat. The poor child embraced the dead body
+of his mother, weeping bitterly.
+
+On this night of joy for so many children, who, by the warm hearth,
+celebrate the feast which recalls the first loving look Heaven gave
+to earth; on this night when all good Christian families eat, laugh,
+and dance, 'mid love and kisses; on this night which, for the children
+of cold countries, is magical with its Christmas trees, Basilio sits
+in solitude and grief. Who knows? Perhaps around the hearth of the
+silent Father Salvi are children playing; perhaps they are singing:
+
+
+    "Christmas comes,
+    And Christmas goes."
+
+
+The child was sobbing. When he raised his head, a man was looking
+silently down at him.
+
+"You are her son?" he asked.
+
+Basilio nodded his head.
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"Bury her."
+
+"In the cemetery?"
+
+"I have no money--if you would help me----"
+
+"I am too weak," said the man, sinking gradually to the ground. "I am
+wounded. For two days I have not eaten or slept. Has no one been here
+to-night?" And the man sat still, watching the child's attractive face.
+
+"Listen," said he, in a voice growing feebler, "I too shall be dead
+before morning. Twenty paces from here, beyond the spring, is a pile
+of wood; put our two bodies on it, and light the fire."
+
+Basilio listened.
+
+"Then, if nobody comes, you are to dig here; you will find a lot of
+gold, and it will be all yours. Study!"
+
+The voice of the unknown man sank lower and lower. Then he turned
+his head toward the east, and said softly, as though praying:
+
+"I die without seeing the light of dawn on my country. You who shall
+see it and greet it, do not forget those who fell in the night!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Archbishop and the Lady
+
+By Mrs. Schuyler Crowninshield
+
+A story of modern society which only a writer of very wide and very
+exceptional social experience could have written. It is cosmopolitan,
+yet full of romance; modern, yet informed with a delicate old-world
+charm. The characters are put before us with a consummate knowledge
+of the world and a penetrating insight into human nature.
+
+Cloth. 12mo; 5-1/8 x 7-3/4. About $1.50.
+
+
+
+April's Sowing
+
+By GERTRUDE HALL
+
+Miss Gertrude Hall is known to the world as a poet and as a teller
+of tales, but with her first novel she reveals new gifts, for it is
+a modern story tuned to a note of light comedy that she has never
+struck before. "April's Sowing" is that most widely appreciated thing
+in letters, a young love story.
+
+Illustrated by Orson Lowell. With decorative cover, frontispiece,
+title page in color, and ornamental head and tail pieces. Cloth. 12mo;
+5-1/8 x 7-3/4. $1.50.
+
+
+
+The Darlingtons
+
+By ELMORE ELLIOTT PEAKE
+
+A novel of American life in the middle West which deals principally
+with the fortunes of a family whose members are the social and
+financial leaders of their section. The heroine is a girl whose
+education is broad enough to enable her to assist her father in
+managing a railroad. The hero is a Methodist minister of liberal
+tendencies. The story is told with remarkable fidelity and unusual
+dramatic interest.
+
+Cloth. 12mo; 5-1/8 x 7-3/4. About $1.50.
+
+
+
+Two Unknown Phases of Life Made Known in Fiction
+
+
+The Powers That Prey
+
+By Josiah Flynt and Francis Walton
+
+The authors of the ten closely related stories which make up this
+volume have spent most of their lives studying the sociological
+problems of tramp and criminal life. Mr. Flynt writes: "So far as I
+am concerned, the book is the result of ten years of wandering with
+tramps and two years spent with various police organizations." The
+stories are a decided contribution to sociology, and yet, viewed as
+stories, they have unusual interest because of their remarkable vigor
+and their intense realism.
+
+Fully Illustrated. Cloth. 12mo; 5-1/8 x 7-3/4. $1.25.
+
+
+
+The Soul of the Street
+
+By NORMAN DUNCAN
+
+"The Soul of the Street" has a unity lacking in many volumes of short
+stories. They deal with Syrians and Turks, queer folk with queer ways,
+and Mr. Duncan has gotten at them with such sympathetic insight as only
+the poetic heart and the story-teller's eye can possess. Character,
+humor, poignant pathos, and the sad grotesque conjunctions of old
+and new civilizations are expressed through the medium of a style
+that has distinction, and strikes a note of rare personality.
+
+Cloth. 12mo; 5-1/8 x 7-3/4. About $1.00.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Eagle Flight, by Jose Rizal
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