An Eagle Flight

I.

The House on the Pasig.

It was toward the end of October. Don Santiago de los Santos, better known as Captain Tiago, was giving a dinner; and though, contrary to custom, he had not announced it until that very afternoon, it had become before evening the sole topic of conversation, not only at Binondo, but in the other suburbs of Manila, and even in the city itself. Captain Tiago passed for the most lavish of entertainers, and it was well known that the doors of his home, like those of his country, were closed to nobody and nothing save commerce and all new or audacious ideas. The news spread, therefore, with lightning rapidity in the world of the sycophants, the unemployed and idle, whom heaven has multiplied so generously at Manila.

The dinner was given in a house of the Calle de Anloague, which may yet be recognized, if an earthquake has not demolished it. This house, rather large and of a style common to the country, stood near an arm of the Pasig, called the Boco de Binondo, a rio which, like all others of Manila, washing along the multiple output of baths, sewers, and fishing grounds serves as a means of transport, and even furnishes drinking-water, if such be the humor of the Chinese carrier. Scarcely at intervals of a half-mile is this powerful artery of the quarter where the traffic is most important, the movement most active, dotted with bridges; and these, in ruins at one end six months of the year and inapproachable the remaining six at the other, give horses a pretext for plunging into the water, to the great surprise of preoccupied mortals in carriages dozing tranquilly or philosophizing on the progress of the century.

The house of Captain Tiago was rather low and on lines sufficiently incorrect. A grand staircase with green balustrades, carpeted at intervals, led from the vestibule, with its squares of colored faience, to the main floor, between Chinese pedestals ornamented with fantastic designs, supporting vases and jardinières of flowers.

At the top of the staircase was a large apartment, called here caida, which for this night served at once as dining- and music-room. In the centre, a long table, luxuriously set, seemed to promise to diners-out the most soothing satisfaction, at the same time threatening the timid girl—the dalaga—who for six mortal hours must submit to the companionship of strange and diverse people.

In contrast to these mundane preparations, richly colored pictures of religious subjects hung about the walls, and at the end of the apartment, imprisoned in ornate and splendid Renaissance carving, was a curious canvas of vast dimensions, bearing the inscription, “Our Lady of Peace and of Safe Journeys, Venerated at Antipolo.” The ceiling was prettily decorated with jewelled Chinese lamps, cages without birds, spheres of crystal faced with colored foil, faded air plants, botetes, etc. On the river side, through fantastic arches, half Chinese, half European, were glimpses of a terrace, with trellises and arbors, illuminated by little colored lanterns. Brilliant chandeliers, reflected in great mirrors, lighted the apartment. On a platform of pine was a superb grand piano. In a panel of the wall, a large portrait in oil represented a man of agreeable face, in frock coat, robust, straight, symmetrical as the gavel between his jewelled fingers.

The crowd of guests almost filled the room; the men separated from the women, as in Catholic churches and synagogues. An old cousin of Captain Tiago’s was receiving alone. Her appearance was kindly, but her tongue not very flexible to the Castilian. She filled her rôle by offering to the Spaniards trays of cigarettes and buyos, and giving the Filipinos her hand to kiss. The poor old lady, wearied at last, profited by the sound of breaking china to go out hurriedly, grumbling at maladroits. She did not reappear.

Whether the pictures roused a spirit of devotion, whether the women of the Philippines are exceptional, the feminine part of the assembly remained silent. Scarcely was heard even a yawn, stifled behind a fan. The men made more stir. The most interesting and animated group was formed by two monks, two Spanish provincials, and an officer, seated round a little table, on which were wine and English biscuits.

The officer, an old lieutenant, tall and morose, looked a Duke of Alba, retired into the Municipal Guard. He spoke little and dryly. One of the monks was a young Dominican, handsome, brilliant, precociously grave; it was the curate of Binondo. Consummate dialectician, he could escape from a distinguo like an eel from a fisherman’s nets. He spoke seldom, and seemed to weigh his words.

The other monk talked much and gestured more. Though his hair was turning gray, he seemed to have preserved all his vigor. His carriage, his glance, his large jaws, his herculean frame, gave him the air of a Roman patrician in disguise. Yet he seemed genial, and if the timbre of his voice was autocratic, his frank and merry laugh removed any disagreeable impression, so far even that one pardoned his appearing in the salon with unshod feet.

One of the provincials, a little man with a black beard, had nothing remarkable about him but his nose, which, to judge from its size, ought not to have belonged to him entire. The other, young and blond, seemed newly arrived in the country. The Franciscan was conversing with him somewhat warmly.

“You will see,” said he, “when you have been here several months; you will be convinced that to legislate at Madrid and to execute in the Philippines is not one and the same thing.”

“But——”

“I, for example,” continued Brother Dámaso, raising his voice to cut off the words of his objector, “I, who count twenty-three years of plane and palm, can speak with authority. I spent twenty years in one pueblo. In twenty years one gets acquainted with a town. San Diego had six thousand souls. I knew each inhabitant as if I’d borne and reared him—with which foot this one limped, how that one’s pot boiled—and I tell you the reforms proposed by the Ministers are absurd. The Indian is too indolent!”

“Ah, pardon me,” said the young man, speaking low and drawing nearer; “that word rouses all my interest. Does it really exist from birth, this indolence of the native, or is it, as some travellers say, only an excuse of our own for the lack of advancement in our colonial policy?”

“Bah! ask Señor Laruja, who also knows the country well; ask him if the ignorance and idleness of the Indians are not unparalleled?”

“In truth!” the little dark man made haste to affirm; “nowhere will you find men more careless.”

“Nor more corrupt, nor more ungrateful.”

“Nor more ill-bred.”

The young man looked about uneasily. “Gentlemen,” said he, still speaking low, “it seems to me we are the guests of Indians, and that these young ladies——”

“Bah, you are too timid: Santiago does not consider himself an Indian, besides, he isn’t here. These are the scruples of a newcomer. Wait a little. When you have slept in our strapped beds, eaten the tinola, and seen our balls and fêtes, you’ll change your tone. And more, you will find that the country is going to ruin; she is ruined already!”

“What does your reverence mean?” cried the lieutenant and Dominican together.

“The evil all comes from the fact that the Government sustains wrong-doers in the face of the ministers of God,” continued the Franciscan, raising his voice and facing about. “When a curate rids his cemetery of a malefactor, no one, not even the king, has the right to interfere; and a wretched general, a petty general from nowhere——”

“Father, His Excellency is viceroy,” said the officer, rising. “His Excellency represents His Majesty the king.”

“What Excellency?” retorted the Franciscan, rising in turn. “Who is this king? For us there is but one King, the legitimate——”

“If you do not retract that, Father, I shall make it known to the governor-general,” cried the lieutenant.

“Go to him now, go!” retorted Father Dámaso; “I’ll loan you my carriage.”

The Dominican interposed.

“Señores,” said he in a tone of authority, “you should not confuse things, nor seek offence where there is none intended. We must distinguish in the words of Father Dámaso those of the man from those of the priest. The latter per se can never offend, because they are infallible. In the words of the man, a sub-distinction must be made, into those said ab irato, those said ex ore, but not in corde, and those said in corde. It is these last only that can offend, and even then everything depends. If they were not premeditated in mente, but simply arose per accidens in the heat of the conversation——”

At this interesting point there joined the group an old Spaniard, gentle and inoffensive of aspect. He was lame, and leaned on the arm of an old native woman, smothered in curls and frizzes, preposterously powdered, and in European dress. With relief every one turned to salute them. It was Doctor de Espadaña and his wife, the Doctora Doña Victorina. The atmosphere cleared.

“Which, Señor Laruja, is the master of the house?” asked the young provincial. “I haven’t been presented.”

“They say he has gone out.”

“No presentations are necessary here,” said Brother Dámaso; “Santiago is a good fellow.”

Er hat das Pulfer nicht erfunden. “He didn’t invent gunpowder,” added Laruja.

“What, you too, Señor de Laruja?” said Doña Victorina over her fan. “How could the poor man have invented gunpowder when, if what they say is true, the Chinese made it centuries ago?”

“The Chinese? ’Twas a Franciscan who invented it,” said Brother Dámaso.

“A Franciscan, no doubt; he must have been a missionary to China,” said the Señora, not disposed to abandon her idea.

“Who is this with Santiago?” asked the lieutenant. Every one looked toward the door, where two men had just entered. They came up to the group around the table.

II.

Crisóstomo Ibarra.

One was the original of the portrait in oil, and he led by the hand a young man in deep black. “Good evening, señores; good evening, fathers,” said Captain Tiago, kissing the hands of the priests, “I have the honor of presenting to you Don Crisóstomo Ibarra.”

At the name of Ibarra there were smothered exclamations. The lieutenant, forgetting to salute the master of the house, surveyed the young man from head to foot. Brother Dámaso seemed petrified. The arrival was evidently unexpected. Señor Ibarra exchanged the usual phrases with members of the group. Nothing marked him from other guests save his black attire. His fine height, his manner, his movements, denoted sane and vigorous youth. His face, frank and engaging, of a rich brown, and lightly furrowed—trace of Spanish blood—was rosy from a sojourn in the north.

“Ah!” he cried, surprised and delighted, “my father’s old friend, Brother Dámaso!”

All eyes turned toward the Franciscan, who did not stir.

“Pardon,” said Ibarra, puzzled. “I am mistaken.”

“You are not mistaken,” said the priest at last, in an odd voice; “but your father was not my friend.”

Ibarra, astonished, drew slowly back the hand he had offered, and turned to find himself facing the lieutenant, whose eyes had never left him.

“Young man, are you the son of Don Rafael Ibarra?”

Crisóstomo bowed.

“Then welcome to your country! I knew your father well, one of the most honorable men of the Philippines.”

“Señor,” replied Ibarra, “what you say dispels my doubts as to his fate, of which as yet I know nothing.”

The old man’s eyes filled with tears. He turned away to hide them, and moved off into the crowd.

The master of the house had disappeared. Ibarra was left alone in the middle of the room. No one presented him to the ladies. He hesitated a moment, then went up to them and said:

“Permit me to forget formalities, and salute the first of my countrywomen I have seen for years.”

No one spoke, though many eyes regarded him with interest. Ibarra turned away, and a jovial man, in native dress, with studs of brilliants down his shirt-front, almost ran up to say:

“Señor Ibarra, I wish to know you. I am Captain Tinong, and live near you at Tondo. Will you honor us at dinner to-morrow?”

“Thank you,” said Ibarra, pleased with the kindness, “but to-morrow I must leave for San Diego.”

“What a pity! Well then, on your return——”

“Dinner is served,” announced a waiter of the Café La Campana.

The guests began to move toward the table, not without much ceremony on the part of the ladies, especially the natives, who required a great deal of polite urging.

III.

The Dinner.

The two monks finding themselves near the head of the table, like two candidates for a vacant office, began politely resigning in each other’s favor.

“This is your place, Brother Dámaso.”

“No, yours, Brother Sibyla.”

“You are so much the older friend of the family.”

“But you are the curate of the quarter.”

This polite contention settled, the guests sat down, no one but Ibarra seeming to think of the master of the house.

“What,” said he, “you’re not to be with us, Don Santiago?”

But there was no place: Lucullus was not dining with Lucullus.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” said Captain Tiago, laying his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “This feast is a thank-offering for your safe return. Ho, there! bring the tinola! I’ve ordered the tinola expressly for you, Crisóstomo.”

“When did you leave the country?” Laruja asked Ibarra.

“Seven years ago.”

“Then you must have almost forgotten it.”

“On the contrary, it has been always in my thoughts; but my country seems to have forgotten me.”

“Why do you say that?” asked the old lieutenant.

“Because for several months I have had no news, so that I do not even know how and when my father died.”

The lieutenant could not repress a groan.

“And where were you that they couldn’t telegraph you?” asked Doña Victorina. “When we were married, we sent despatches to the peninsula.”

“Señora, I was in the far north,” said Ibarra.

“You have travelled much,” said the blond provincial; “which of the European countries pleased you most?”

“After Spain, my second country, the nations that are free.”

“And what struck you as most interesting, most surprising, in the general life of nations—the genius of each, so to put it?” asked Laruja.

Ibarra reflected.

“Before visiting a country I carefully studied its history, and, except the different motives for national pride, there seems to me nothing surprisingly characteristic in any nation. Given its history, everything appears natural; each people’s wealth and misery seem in direct proportion to its freedom and its prejudices, and in consequence, in proportion to the self-sacrifice or selfishness of its progenitors.”

“Did you discover nothing more startling than that?” demanded the Franciscan, with a mocking laugh. “It was hardly worth while squandering money for so slight returns. Not a schoolboy but knows as much.”

The guests eyed one another, fearful of what might follow. Ibarra, astonished, remained silent a moment, then said quietly:

“Señores, do not wonder at these words of Brother Dámaso. He was my curate when I was a little boy, and with his reverence the years don’t count. I thank him for thus recalling the time when he was often an honored guest at my father’s table.”

Brother Sibyla furtively observed the Franciscan, who was trembling slightly. At the first possible opportunity Ibarra rose.

“You will pardon me if I excuse myself,” he said. “I arrived only a few hours ago, and have matters of importance to attend to. The dinner is over. I drink little wine, and scarcely taste liquors.” And raising a glass as yet untouched, “Señores,” he said, “Spain and the Philippines forever!”

“You’re not going!” said Santiago in amazement. “Maria Clara and her friends will be with us in a moment. What shall I say to her?”

“That I was obliged to go,” said Ibarra, “and that I’m coming early in the morning.” And he went out.

The Franciscan unburdened himself.

“You saw his arrogance,” he said to the blond provincial. “These young fellows won’t take reproof from a priest. That comes of sending them to Europe. The Government ought to prohibit it.”

That night the young provincial added to his “Colonial Studies,” this paragraph: “In the Philippines, the least important person at a feast is he who gives it. You begin by showing your host to the door, and all goes merrily.... In the present state of affairs, it would be almost a kindness to prohibit young Filipinos from leaving their country, if not even from learning to read.”

IV.

Heretic and Filibuster.

Ibarra stood outside the house of Captain Tiago. The night wind, which at this season brings a bit of freshness to Manila, seemed to blow away the cloud that had darkened his face. Carriages passed him like streaks of light, hired calashes rolled slowly by, and foot-passengers of all nationalities jostled one another. With the rambling gait of the preoccupied or the idle, he took his way toward the Plaza de Binondo. Nothing was changed. It was the same street, with the same blue and white houses, the same white walls with their slate-colored fresco, poor imitations of granite. The church tower showed the same clock with transparent face. The Chinese shop had the same soiled curtains, the same iron triangles. One day, long ago, imitating the street urchins of Manila, he had twisted one of these triangles: nobody had ever straightened it. “How little progress!” he murmured; and he followed the Calle de la Sacristia, pursued by the cry of sherbet venders.

“Marvellous!” he thought; “one would say my voyage was a dream. Santo Dios! the street is as bad as when I went away.”

While he contemplated this marvel of urban stability in an unstable country, a hand fell lightly on his shoulder. He looked up and recognized the old lieutenant. His face had put off its expression of sternness, and he smiled kindly at Crisóstomo.

“Young man,” he said, “I was your father’s friend: I wish you to consider me yours.”

“You seem to have known my father well,” said Crisóstomo; “perhaps you can tell me something of his death.”

“You do not know about it?”

“Nothing at all, and Don Santiago would not talk with me till to-morrow.”

“You know, of course, where he died.”

“Not even that.”

Lieutenant Guevara hesitated.

“I am an old soldier,” he said at last, in a voice full of compassion, “and only know how to say bluntly what I have to tell. Your father died in prison.”

Ibarra sprang back, his eyes fixed on the lieutenant’s.

“Died in prison? Who died in prison?”

“Your father,” said the lieutenant, his voice still gentler.

“My father—in prison? What are you saying? Do you know who my father was?” and he seized the old man’s arm.

“I think I’m not mistaken: Don Rafael Ibarra.”

“Yes, Don Rafael Ibarra,” Crisóstomo repeated mechanically.

“You will soon learn that for an honest man to keep out of prison is a difficult matter in the Philippines.”

“You mock me! Why did he die in prison?”

“Come with me; we will talk on the way.”

They walked along in silence, the officer stroking his beard in search of inspiration.

“As you know,” he began, “your father was the richest man of the province, and if he had many friends he had also enemies. We Spaniards who come to the Philippines are seldom what we should be. I say this as truthfully of some of your ancestors as of others. Most of us come to make a fortune without regard to the means. Well, your father was a man to make enemies among these adventurers, and he made enemies among the monks. I never knew exactly the ground of the trouble with Brother Dámaso, but it came to a point where the priest almost denounced him from the pulpit.

“You remember the old ex-artilleryman who collected taxes? He became the laughing-stock of the pueblo, and grew brutal and churlish accordingly. One day he chased some boys who were annoying him, and struck one down. Unfortunately your father interfered. There was a struggle and the man fell. He died within a few hours.

“Naturally your father was arrested, and then his enemies unmasked. He was called heretic, filibustero, his papers were seized, everything was made to accuse him. Any one else in his place would have been set at liberty, the physicians finding that the man died of apoplexy; but your father’s fortune, his honesty, and his scorn of everything illegal undid him. When his advocate, by the most brilliant pleading, had exposed these calumnies, new accusations arose. He had taken lands unjustly, owed men for imaginary wrongs, had relations with the tulisanes, by which his plantations and herds were unmolested. The affair became so complicated that no one could unravel it. Your father gave way under the strain, and died suddenly—alone—in prison.”

They had reached the quarters.

The lieutenant hesitated. Ibarra said nothing, but grasped the old man’s long, thin hand; then turned away, caught sight of a coach, and signalled the driver.

“Fonda de Lala,” he said, and his words were scarcely audible.

V.

A Star in the Dark Night.

Ibarra went up to his chamber, which faced the river, threw himself down, and looked out through the open window. Across the river a brilliantly lighted house was ringing with joyous music. Had the young man been so minded, with the aid of a glass he might have seen, in that radiant atmosphere, a vision. It was a young girl, of exceeding beauty, wearing the picturesque costume of the Philippines. A semicircle of courtiers was round her. Spaniards, Chinese, natives, soldiers, curates, old and young, intoxicated with the light and music, were talking, gesturing, disputing with animation. Even Brother Sibyla deigned to address this queen, in whose splendid hair Doña Victorina was wreathing a diadem of pearls and brilliants. She was white, too white perhaps, and her deep eyes, often lowered, when she raised them showed the purity of her soul. About her fair and rounded neck, through the transparent tissue of the piña, winked, as say the Tagals, the joyous eyes of a necklace of brilliants. One man alone seemed unreached by all this light and loveliness; it was a young Franciscan, slim, gaunt, pale, who watched all from a distance, still as a statue.

But Ibarra sees none of this. Another spectacle appears to his fancy, commands his eyes. Four walls, bare and dank, enclose a narrow cell, lighted by a single streak of day. On the moist and noisome floor is a mat; on the mat an old man dying. Beaten down by fever, he lies and looks about him, calling a name, in strangling voice, with tears. No one—a clanking chain, an echoed groan somewhere; that was all. And away off in the bright world, laughing, singing, drenching flowers with wine, a young man.... One by one the lights go out in the festal house: no more of noise, or song, or harp; but in Ibarra’s ears always the agonizing cry.

Silence has drawn her deep breath over Manila; all its life seems gone out, save that a cock’s crow alternates with the bells of clock towers and the melancholy watch-cry of the guard. A quarter moon comes up, flooding with its pale light the universal sleep. Even Ibarra, wearied more perhaps with his sad thoughts than his long voyage, sleeps too. Only the young Franciscan, silent and motionless just now at the feast, awake still. His elbow on the window-place of his little cell, his chin sunk in his palm, he watches a glittering star. The star pales, goes out, the slender moon loses her gentle light, but the monk stays on; motionless, he looks toward the horizon, lost now behind the morning mists, over the field of Bagumbayan, over the sleeping sea.

VI.

Captain Tiago and Maria.

While our friends are still asleep or breakfasting, we will sketch the portrait of Captain Tiago. We have no reason to ignore him, never having been among his guests. Short, less dark than most of his compatriots, of full face and slightly corpulent, Captain Tiago seemed younger than his age. His rounded cranium, very small and elongated behind, was covered with hair black as ebony. His eyes, small and straight set, kept always the same expression. His nose was straight and finely cut, and if his mouth had not been deformed by the use of tobacco and buyo, he had not been wrong in thinking himself a handsome man.

He was reputed the richest resident of Binondo, and had large estates in La Pampanga, on the Laguna de Bay, and at San Diego. From its baths, its famous gallera, and his recollections of the place, San Diego was his favorite pueblo, and here he passed two months every year. He had also properties at Santo Cristo, in the Calle de Anloague, and in the Calle Rosario; the exploitation of the opium traffic was shared between him and a Chinese, and, needless to say, brought him great gains. He was purveyor to the prisoners at Bilibid, and furnished zacate to many Manila houses. On good terms with all authority, shrewd, pliant, daring in speculation, he was the sole rival of a certain Perez in the awards of divers contracts which the Philippine Government always places in privileged hands. From all of which it resulted that Captain Tiago was as happy as can be a man whose small head announces his native origin. He was rich, and at peace with God, with the Government, and with men.

That he was at peace with God could not be doubted. One has no motive for being at enmity with Him when one is well in the land, and has never had to ask Him for anything. From the grand salon of the Manila home, a little door, hid behind a silken curtain, led to a chapel—something obligatory in a Filipino house. There were Santiago’s Lares, and if we use this word, it is because the master of the house was rather a poly- than a monotheist. Here, in sculpture and oils, were saints, martyrdoms, and miracles; a chapter could scarcely enumerate them all. Before these images Santiago burned his candles and made his requests known.

That he was at peace with the Government, however difficult the problem, could not be doubted either. Incapable of a new idea, and contented with his lot, he was disposed to obey even to the lowest functionary, and to offer him capons, hams, and Chinese fruits at all seasons. If he heard the natives maligned, not considering himself one, he chimed in and said worse: one criticised the Chinese merchants or the Spaniards, he, who thought himself pure Iberian, did it too. He was for two years gobernadorcillo of the rich association of half-breeds, in the face of protestations from many who considered him a native. The impious called him fool; the poor, pitiless and cruel; his inferiors, a tyrant.

As to his past, he was the only son of a rich sugar merchant, who died when Santiago was still at school. He had then to quit his studies and give himself to business. He married a young girl of Santa Cruz, who brought him social rank and helped his fortunes.

The absence of an heir in the first six years of marriage made Captain Tiago’s thirst for riches almost blameworthy. In vain all this time did Doña Pia make novenas and pilgrimages and scatter alms. But at length she was to become a mother. Alas! like Shakespeare’s fisherman who lost his songs when he found a treasure, she never smiled again, and died, leaving a beautiful baby girl, whom Brother Dámaso presented at the font. The child was called Maria Clara.

Maria Clara grew, thanks to the care of good Aunt Isabel. Her eyes, like her mother’s, were large, black, and shaded by long lashes; sparkling and mirthful when she laughed; when she did not, thoughtful and profound, even sad. Her curly hair was almost blond, her nose perfect; and her mouth, small and sweet like her mother’s, was flanked by charming dimples. The little thing, idol of every one, lived amid smiles and love. The monks fêted her. They dressed her in white for their processions, mingled jasmine and lilies in her hair, gave her little silver wings, and in her hands blue ribbons, the reins of fluttering white doves. She was so joyous, had such a candid baby speech, that Captain Tiago, enraptured with her, passed his time in blessing the saints.

In the lands of the sun, at thirteen or fourteen, the child becomes a woman. At this age full of mysteries, Maria Clara entered the convent of Santa Catalina, to remain several years. With tears she parted from the sole companion of her childish games, Crisóstomo Ibarra, who in turn was soon to leave his home. Some years after his departure, Don Rafael and Captain Tiago, knowing the inclinations of their children, agreed upon their marriage. This arrangement was received with eager joy by two hearts beating at two extremities of the world.

VII.

Idylle.

The sky was blue. A fresh breeze stirred the leaves and shook the nodding “angels’ heads,” the aerial plants, and the many other adornments of the terrace. Maria and Crisóstomo were there, alone together for the first time since his return. They began with charming futilities, so sweet to those who understand, so meaningless to others. She is sister to Cain, a little jealous; she says to her lover: “Did you never forget me among the many beautiful women you have seen?”

He too, he is brother to Cain, a bit subtle.

“Could I ever forget you!” he answered, gazing into the dark eyes. “Your remembrance made powerless that lotus flower, Europe, which steeps out of the memory of many of my countrymen the hopes and wrongs of our land. It seemed as if the spirit, the poetic incarnation of my country was you, frank and lovely daughter of the Philippines! My love for you and that for her fused in one.”

“I know only your pueblo, Manila and Antipolo,” replied the young girl, radiant; “but I have always thought of you, and though my confessor commanded it, I was never able to forget you. I used to think over all our childish plays and quarrels. Do you remember the day you were really angry? Your mother had taken us to wade in the brook, behind the reeds. You put a crown of orange flowers on my head and called me Chloe. But your mother took the flowers and ground them with a stone, to mix with gogo, for washing our hair. You cried. ‘Stupid,’ said she, ‘you shall see how good your hair smells!’ I laughed; at that you were angry and wouldn’t speak to me, while I wanted to cry. On the way home, when the sun was very hot, I picked some sage leaves for your head. You smiled your thanks, and we were friends again.”

Ibarra opened his pocketbook and took out a paper in which were some leaves, blackened and dry, but fragrant still.

“Your sage leaves,” he replied to her questioning look.

In her turn, she drew out a little white satin purse.

“Hands off!” as he reached out for it, “there’s a letter in it!”

“My letter of good-by?”

“Have you written me any others, señor mio?”

“What is in it?”

“Lots of fibs, excuses of a bad debtor,” she laughed. “If you’re good I will read it to you, suppressing the gallantries, though, so you won’t suffer too much.” And lifting the paper to hide her face, she began:

“‘My——’ I’ll not read what follows, because it’s a fib”; and she ran her eyes over several lines. “In spite of my prayers, I must go. ‘You are no longer a boy,’ my father said, ‘you must think of the future. You have to learn things your own country cannot teach you, if you would be useful to her some day. What, almost a man and I see you in tears?’ Upon that I confessed my love for you. He was silent, then placing his hand on my shoulder he said in a voice full of emotion: ‘Do you think you alone know how to love; that it costs your father nothing to let you go away from him? It is not long since we lost your mother, and I am growing old, yet I accept my solitude and run the risk of never seeing you again. For you the future opens, for me it shuts; the fire of youth is yours, frost touches me, and it is you who weep, you who do not know how to sacrifice the present to a to-morrow good for you and for your country.”

Ibarra’s agitation stopped the reading; he had become very pale and was walking back and forth.

“What is it? You are ill!” cried Maria, going toward him.

“With you I have forgotten my duty; I should be on my way to the pueblo. To-morrow is the Feast of the Dead.”

Maria was silent. She fixed on him her great, thoughtful eyes, then turned to pick some flowers.

“Go,” she said, and her voice was deep and sweet; “I keep you no longer. In a few days we shall see each other again. Put these flowers on your father’s grave.”

A little later, Captain Tiago found Maria in the chapel, at the foot of a statue of the Virgin, weeping. “Come, come,” said he, to console her; “burn some candles to St. Roch and St. Michael, patrons of travellers, for the tulisanes are numerous: better spend four réales for wax than pay a ransom.”

VIII.

Reminiscences.

Ibarra’s carriage was crossing one of the most animated quarters of Manila. The street life that had saddened him the night before, now, in spite of his sorrow, made him smile. Everything awakened a world of sleeping recollections.

These streets were not yet paved, so if the sun shone two days continuously, they turned to powder which covered everything. But let it rain a day, you had a mire, reflecting at night the shifting lamps of the carriages and bespattering the foot-passengers on the narrow walks. How many women had lost their embroidered slippers in these muddy waves!

The good and honorable pontoon bridge, so characteristically Filipino, doing its best to be useful in spite of natural faults, and rising or falling with the caprices of the Pasig,—that brave bridge was no more. The new Spanish bridge drew Ibarra’s attention. Carriages passed continuously, drawn by groups of dwarf horses, in splendid harness. In these sat at ease government clerks going to their bureaus, officers, Chinese, self-satisfied and ridiculously grave monks, canons. In an elegant victoria, Ibarra thought he recognized Father Dámaso, deep in thought. From an open carriage, where his wife and two daughters accompanied him, Captain Tinong waved a friendly greeting.

Then came the Botanical Gardens, then old Manila, still enclosed in its ditches and walls; beyond that the sea; beyond that, Europe, thought Ibarra. But the little hill of Bagumbayan drove away all fancies. He remembered the man who had opened the eyes of his intelligence, taught him to find out the true and the just. It was an old priest, and the holy man had died there, on that field of execution!

To these thoughts he replied by murmuring: “No, after all, first the country, first the Philippines, daughters of Spain, first the Spanish home-land!”

His carriage rolled on. It passed a cart drawn by two horses whose hempen harness told of the back country. Sometimes there sounded the slow and heavy tread of a pensive carabao, drawing a great tumbrel; its conductor, on his buffalo skin, accompanying, with a monotonous and melancholy chant, the strident creaking of the wheels. Sometimes there was the dull sound of a native sledge’s worn runners. In the fields grazed the herds, and among them white herons gravely promenaded, or sat tranquil on the backs of sleepy oxen beatifically chewing their cuds of prairie grass. Let us leave the young man, wholly occupied now with his thoughts. The sun which makes the tree-tops burn, and sends the peasants running, when they feel the hot ground through their thick shoes; the sun which halts the countrywoman under a clump of great reeds, and makes her think of things vague and strange—that sun has no enchantment for him.

While the carriage, staggering like a drunken man over the uneven ground, passes a bamboo bridge, mounts a rough hillside or descends its steep slope, let us return to Manila.

IX.

Affairs of the Country.

Ibarra had not been mistaken. It was indeed Father Dámaso he had seen, on his way to the house which he himself had just left.

Maria Clara and Aunt Isabel were entering their carriage when the monk arrived. “Where are you going?” he asked, and in his preoccupation he gently tapped the young girl’s cheek.

“To the convent to get my things,” said she.

“Ah! ah! well, well! we shall see who is the stronger, we shall see!” he murmured, as he left the two women somewhat surprised and went up the steps.

“He’s probably committing his sermon,” said Aunt Isabel. “Come, we are late!”

We cannot say whether Father Dámaso was committing a sermon, but he must have been absorbed in important things, for he did not offer his hand to Captain Tiago.

“Santiago,” he said, “we must have a serious talk. Come into your office.”

Captain Tiago felt uneasy. He answered nothing, but followed the gigantic priest, who closed the door behind them.

While they talk, let us see what has become of Father Sibyla.

The learned Dominican, his mass once said, had set out for the convent of his order, which stands at the entrance to the city, near the gate bearing alternately, according to the family reigning at Madrid, the name of Magellan or Isabella II.

Brother Sibyla entered, crossed several halls, and knocked at a door.

“Come in,” said a faint voice.

“God give health to your reverence,” said the young Dominican, entering. Seated in a great armchair was an old priest, meagre, jaundiced, like Rivera’s saints. His eyes, deep-sunken in their orbits, were arched with heavy brows, intensifying the flashes of their dying light.

Brother Sibyla was moved. He inclined his head, and seemed to wait.

“Ah!” gasped the sick man, “they recommend an operation! An operation at my age! Oh, this country, this terrible country! You see what it does for all of us, Hernando!”

“And what has your reverence decided?”

“To die! Could I do otherwise? I suffer too much, but—I’ve made others suffer. I’m paying my debt. And you? How are you? What do you bring me?”

“I came to talk of the mission you gave me.”

“Ah! and what is there to say?”

“They’ve told us fairy tales,” answered Brother Sibyla wearily. “Young Ibarra seems a sensible fellow. He is not stupid at all, and thoroughly manly.”

“Is it so!”

“Hostilities began yesterday.”

“Ah! and how?”

Brother Sibyla briefly recounted what had passed between Brother Dámaso and Crisóstomo.

“Besides,” he said in conclusion, “the young man is going to marry the daughter of Captain Tiago, who was educated at the convent of our sisters. He is rich; he would not go about making himself enemies and compromise at once his happiness and his fortune.”

The sick man moved his hand in sign of assent.

“Yes, you are right. He should be ours, body and soul. But if he declare himself our enemy, so much the better!”

Brother Sibyla looked at the old man in surprise.

“For the good of our sacred order, you understand,” he added, breathing with difficulty; “I prefer attack to the flatteries and adulations of friends; besides, those are bought.”

“Your reverence believes that?”

The old man looked at him sadly.

“Remember this well,” he went on, catching his breath; “our power lasts as long as it’s believed in. If we’re attacked, the Government reasons: ‘They are assailed because in them is seen an obstacle to liberty: therefore we must support them!’”

“But if the Government should listen to our enemies, if it should come to covet what we have amassed—if there should be a man hardy enough——”

“Ah! then beware!”

Both were silent.

“And too,” the sick man continued, “we have need of attack to show us our faults and make us better them. Too much flattery deceives us; we sleep; and more, it makes us ridiculous, and the day we become ridiculous we fall as we have fallen in Europe. Money will no longer come to our churches. No one will buy scapulary, penitential cords, anything; and when we cease to be rich, we can no longer convince the conscience. And the worst is, that we’re working our own destruction. For one thing, this immoderate thirst for gain, which I’ve combated in vain in all our chapters, this thirst will be our ruin. I fear we are already declining. God blinds whom He will destroy.”

“We shall always have our lands.”

“But every year we raise their price, and force the Indian to buy of others. The people are beginning to murmur. We ought not to increase the burdens we’ve already laid on their shoulders.”

“So your reverence believes that the revenues——”

“Talk no more of money,” interrupted the old man with aversion. “You say the lieutenant threatened Father Dámaso?”

“Yes, Father,” replied Sibyla, half smiling; “but this morning he told me the sherry had mounted to his head, and he thought it must have been the same with Brother Dámaso. ‘And your threat?’ I asked jestingly. ‘Father,’ said he, ‘I know how to keep my word when it doesn’t smirch my honor; I was never an informer—and that’s why I am only a lieutenant.’”

---

Though the lieutenant had not carried out his threat to go to Malacañang, the captain-general none the less knew what had happened. A young officer told the story.

“From whom do you have it?” demanded His Excellency, smiling.

“From De Laruja.”

The captain-general smiled again, and added:

“Woman’s tongue, monk’s tongue doesn’t wound. I don’t wish to get entangled with these men in skirts. Besides, the provincial made light of my orders; to punish this priest I demanded that his parish be changed. Well, they gave him a better. Monkishness! as we say in Spain.”

Alone, His Excellency ceased to smile.

“Oh! if the people were not so dense, how easy to bridle their reverences! But every nation merits its lot!”

Meanwhile Captain Tiago finished his conference with Father Dámaso.

“And now you are warned,” said the Franciscan upon leaving. “This would have been avoided if you hadn’t equivocated when I asked you how the matter stood. Don’t make any more false moves, and trust her godfather.”

Captain Tiago took two or three turns about the room, reflecting and sighing. Then suddenly, as if a happy thought had struck him, running to the oratory, he extinguished the two candles lighted for the safeguard of Ibarra.

X.

The Pueblo.

Almost on the banks of the lake, in the midst of meadows and streams, is the pueblo of San Diego. It exports sugar, rice, coffee, and fruits, or sells these articles of merchandise at low prices to Chinese traders.

When, on a clear day, the children climb to the top stage of the moss-grown and vine-clad church tower, there are joyous exclamations. Each picks out his own little roof of nipa, tile, zinc, or palm. Beyond they see the rio, a monstrous crystal serpent asleep on a carpet of green. Trunks of palm trees, dipping and swaying, join the two banks, and if, as bridges, they leave much to be desired for trembling old men and poor women who must cross with heavy baskets on their heads, on the other hand they make fine gymnastic apparatus for the young.

But what besides the rio the children never fail to talk about is a certain wooded peninsula in this sea of cultivated land. Its ancient trees never die, unless the lightning strikes their high tops. Dust gathers layer on layer in their hollow trunks, the rain makes soil of it, the birds bring seeds, a tropical vegetation grows there in wild freedom: bushes, briers, curtains of netted bind-weed, spring from the roots, reach from tree to tree, hang swaying from the branches, and Flora, as if yet unsatisfied, sows on the trees themselves; mosses and fungi live on the creased bark, and graceful aerial guests pierce with their tendrils the hospitable branches.

This wood is the subject of a legend.

When the pueblo was but a group of poor cabins, there arrived one day a strange old Spaniard with marvellous eyes, who scarcely spoke the Tagal. He wished to buy lands having thermal springs, and did so, paying in money, dress, and jewelry. Suddenly he disappeared, leaving no trace. The people of the pueblo had begun to think of him as a magician, when one day his body was found hanging high to the branch of a giant fig tree. After it had been buried at the foot of the tree, no one cared much to venture in that quarter.

A few months later there arrived a young Spanish halfbreed, who claimed to be the old man’s son. He settled, and gave himself to agriculture. Don Saturnino was taciturn and of violent temper, but very industrious. Late in life he married a woman of Manila, who bore him Don Rafael, the father of Crisóstomo.

Don Rafael, from his youth, was much beloved. He rapidly developed his father’s lands, the population multiplied, the Chinese came, the hamlet grew to a pueblo, the native curate died and was replaced by Father Dámaso. And all this time the people respected the sepulchre of the old Spaniard, and held it in superstitious awe. Sometimes, armed with sticks and stones, the children dared run near it to gather wild fruits; but while they were busy at this, or stood gazing at the bit of rope still dangling from the limb, a stone or two would fall from no one knew where. Then with cries of “The old man! the old man!” they threw down sticks and fruit, ran in all directions, between the rocks and bushes, and did not stop till they were out of the woods, all pale and breathless, some crying, few daring to laugh.

XI.

The Sovereigns.

Who was the ruler of the pueblo? Not Don Rafael during his lifetime, though he possessed the most land, and nearly every one owed him. As he was modest, and gave little value to his deeds, no party formed around him, and we have seen how he was deserted and attacked when his fortunes fell.

Was it Captain Tiago? It is true his arrival was always heralded with music, he was given banquets by his debtors, and loaded with presents; but he was laughed at in secret, and called Sacristan Tiago.

Was it by chance the town mayor, the gobernadorcillo? Alas! he was an unfortunate, who governed not, but obeyed; did not dispose, but was disposed of. And yet he had to answer to the alcalde for all these dispositions, as if they emanated from his own brain. Be it said in his favor that he had neither stolen nor usurped his honors, but that they cost him five thousand pesos and much humiliation.

Perhaps then it was God? But to most of these good people, God seemed one of those poor kings surrounded by favorites to whom their subjects always take their supplications, never to them.

No, San Diego was a sort of modern Rome. The curate was the pope at the Vatican; the alférez of the civil guard, the King in the Quirinal. Here as there, difficulties arose from the situation.

The present curate, Brother Bernardo Salvi, was the young and silent Franciscan we have already seen. In mode of life and in appearance he was very unlike his predecessor, Brother Dámaso. He seemed ill, was always thoughtful, accomplished strictly his religious duties, and was careful of his reputation. Through his zeal, almost all his parishioners had speedily become members of the Third Order of St. Francis, to the great dismay of the rival order, that of the Holy Rosary. Four or five scapularies were suspended around every neck, knotted cords encircled all the waists, and the innumerable processions of the order were a joy to see. The head sacristan took in a small fortune, selling—or giving as alms, to put it more correctly—all the paraphernalia necessary to save the soul and combat the devil. It is well known that this evil spirit, who once dared attack God face to face, and accuse His divine word, as the book of Job tells us, is now so cowardly and feeble that he flees at sight of a bit of painted cloth, and fears a knotted cord.

Brother Salvi again greatly differed from Brother Dámaso—who set everything right with fists or ferrule, believing it the only way to reach the Indian—in that he punished with fines the faults of his subordinates, rarely striking them.

From his struggles with the curate, the alférez had a bad reputation among the devout, which he deserved, and shared with his wife, a hideous and vile old Filipino woman named Doña Consolacion. The husband avenged his conjugal woes on himself by drinking like a fish; on his subordinates, by making them exercise in the sun; and most frequently on his wife, by kicks and drubbings. The two fought famously between themselves, but were of one mind when it was a question of the curate. Inspired by his wife, the officer ordered that no one be abroad in the streets after nine at night. The priest, who did not like this restriction, retorted in lengthy sermons, whenever the alférez went to church. Like all impenitents, the alférez did not mend his ways for that, but went out swearing under his breath, arrested the first sacristan he met, and made him clean the yard of the barracks. So the war went on. All this, however, did not prevent the alférez and the curate chatting courteously enough when they met.

And they were the rulers of the pueblo of San Diego.

XII.

All Saints’ Day.

The cemetery of San Diego is in the midst of rice-fields. It is approached by a narrow path, powdery on sunny days, navigable on rainy. A wooden gate and a wall half stone, half bamboo stalks, succeed in keeping out men, but not the curate’s goats, nor the pigs of his neighbors. In the middle of the enclosure is a stone pedestal supporting a great wooden cross. Storms have bent the strip of tin on which were the I. N. R. I., and the rain has washed off the letters. At the foot of the cross is a confused heap of bones and skulls thrown out by the grave-digger. Everywhere grow in all their vigor the bitter-sweet and rose-bay. Some tiny flowerets, too, tint the ground—blossoms which, like the mounded bones, are known to their Creator only. They are like little pale smiles, and their odor scents of the tomb. Grass and climbing plants fill the corners, cover the walls, adorning this otherwise bare ugliness; they even penetrate the tombs, through earthquake fissures, and fill their yawning gaps.

At this hour two men are digging near the crumbling wall. One, the grave-digger, works with the utmost indifference, throwing aside a skull as a gardener would a stone. The other is preoccupied; he perspires, he breathes hard.

“Oh!” he says at length in Tagalo. “Hadn’t we better dig in some other place? This grave is too recent.”

“All the graves are the same, one is as recent as another.”

“I can’t endure this!”

“What a woman! You should go and be a clerk! If you had dug up, as I did, a boy of twenty days, at night, in the rain——”

“Uh-h-h! And why did you do that?”

The grave-digger seemed surprised.

“Why? How do I know, I was ordered to.”

“Who ordered you?”

At this question the grave-digger straightened himself, and examined the rash young man from head to foot.

“Come! come! You’re curious as a Spaniard. A Spaniard asked me the same question, but in secret. I’m going to say to you what I said to him: the curate ordered it.”

“Oh! and what did you do with the body?”

“The devil! if I didn’t know you, I should take you for the police. The curate told me to bury it in the Chinese cemetery, but it’s a long way there, and the body was heavy. ‘Better be drowned,’ I said to myself, ‘than lie with the Chinese,’ and I threw it into the lake.”

“No, no, stop digging!” interrupted the younger man, with a cry of horror, and throwing down his spade he sprang out of the grave.

The grave-digger watched him run off signing himself, laughed, and went to work again.

The cemetery began to fill with men and women in mourning. Some of them came for a moment to the open grave, discussed some matter, seemed not to be agreed, and separated, kneeling here and there. Others were lighting candles; all began to pray devoutly. One heard sighing and sobs, and over all a confused murmur of “requiem æternam.”

A little old man, with piercing eyes, entered uncovered. At sight of him some laughed, others frowned. The old man seemed to take no account of this. He went to the heap of skulls, knelt, and searched with his eyes. Then with the greatest care he lifted the skulls one by one, wrinkling his brows, shaking his head, and looking on all sides. At length he rose and approached the grave-digger.

“Ho!” said he.

The other raised his eyes.

“Did you see a beautiful skull, white as the inside of a cocoanut?”

The grave-digger shrugged his shoulders.

“Look,” said the old man, showing a piece of money; “it’s all I have, but I’ll give it to you if you find it.”

The gleam of silver made the man reflect. He looked toward the heap and said:

“It isn’t there? No? Then I don’t know where it is.”

“You don’t know? When those who owe me pay, I’ll give you more. ’Twas the skull of my wife, and if you find it——”

“It isn’t there? Then I know nothing about it, but I can give you another.”

“You are like the grave you dig,” cried the old man, furious. “You know not the value of what you destroy! For whom is this grave?”

“How do I know? For a dead man!” replied the other with temper.

“Like the grave, like the grave,” the old man repeated with a dry laugh. “You know neither what you cast out nor what you keep. Dig! dig!” And he went toward the gate.

Meanwhile the grave-digger had finished his task, and two mounds of fresh, reddish earth rose beside the grave. Drawing from his pocket some buyo, he regarded dully what was going on around him, sat down, and began to chew.

At that moment a carriage, which had apparently made a long journey, stopped at the entrance to the cemetery. Ibarra got out, followed by an old servant, and silently made his way along the path.

“It is there, behind the great cross, señor,” said the servant, as they approached the spot where the grave-digger was sitting.

Arrived at the cross, the old servant looked on all sides, and became greatly confused. “It was there,” he muttered; “no, there, but the ground has been broken.”

Ibarra looked at him in anguish.

The servant appealed to the grave-digger.

“Where is the grave that was marked with a cross like this?” he demanded; and stooping, he traced a Byzantine cross on the ground.

“Were there flowers growing on it?”

“Yes, jasmine and pansies.”

The grave-digger scratched his ear and said with a yawn:

“Well, the cross I burned.”

“Burned! and why?”

“Because the curate ordered it.”

Ibarra drew his hand across his forehead.

“But at least you can show us the grave.”

“The body’s no longer there,” said the grave-digger calmly.

“What are you saying!”

“Yes,” the man went on, with a smile, “I put a woman in its place, eight days ago.”

“Are you mad?” cried the servant; “it isn’t a year since he was buried.”

“Father Dámaso ordered it; he told me to take the body to the Chinese cemetery; I——”

He got no farther, and started back in terror at sight of Crisóstomo’s face. Crisóstomo seized his arm. “And you did it?” he demanded, in a terrible voice.