XXIX.

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 youthconducted 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 alwaysthe 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 wordispichoso(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, ‘fiftythousand 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 arelike 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 protectyou, 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 fulfillingsome 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. Thevoice 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 veritableOrofea, 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 wasplaying 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 didnot 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 hadencountered 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, butSeñor 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 theguard 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, andbenches 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!”

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 youthconducted 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 alwaysthe 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 wordispichoso(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.

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 youthconducted 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 alwaysthe 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 wordispichoso(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, ‘fiftythousand 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.

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, ‘fiftythousand 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 arelike 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 protectyou, 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.

“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 arelike 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 protectyou, 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 fulfillingsome 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. Thevoice 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.

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 fulfillingsome 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. Thevoice 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 veritableOrofea, 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 wasplaying 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 didnot 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.

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 veritableOrofea, 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 wasplaying 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 didnot 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 hadencountered 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, butSeñor 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 theguard 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, andbenches 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!”

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 hadencountered 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, butSeñor 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 theguard 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, andbenches 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!”

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