are in these cabinets. My father's letters might compromise me. You
will know them by the addresses." And he tore open one drawer after
another. Elias worked to better purpose, choosing here, rejecting
there. Suddenly he stopped, his pupils dilated; he turned a paper
over and over in his hand, then in a trembling voice he asked:
"Your family knew Don Pedro Eibarramendia?"
"He was my great-grandfather."
"Your great-grandfather?" repeated Elias, livid.
"Yes," said Ibarra mechanically, and totally unobservant of Elias. "The
name was too long; we cut it."
"Was he a Basque?" asked Elias slowly.
"Yes; but what ails you?" said Crisostomo, looking round and recoiling
before the hard face and clenched fists of Elias.
"Do you know who Don Pedro Eibarramendia was? Don Pedro Eibarramendia
was the wretch who caused all our misfortune! I have long been
searching for his descendants; God has delivered you into my
hands! Look at me! Do you think I have suffered? And you live, and
you love, and have a fortune and a home; you live, you live!" and,
beside himself, he ran toward a collection of arms on the wall. But
no sooner had he reached down two poniards than he dropped them,
looking blindly at Ibarra, who stood rigid.
"What was I going to do?" he said under his breath, and he fled like
a madman.
XLVII.
THE CATASTROPHE.
Captain Tiago, Aunt Isabel, and Linares were dining. Maria Clara
had said she was not hungry, and was at the piano with Sinang. The
two girls had arranged this moment for meeting Ibarra away from too
watchful eyes. The clock struck eight.
"He's coming! Listen!" cried the laughing Sinang.
He entered, white and sad. Maria Clara, in alarm, started toward him,
but before any one could speak a fusilade sounded in the street; then
random pistol shots, and cries and clamor. Crisostomo seemed glued
to the floor. The diners came running in crying: "The tulisanes! The
tulisanes!" Aunt Isabel fell on her knees half dead from fright,
Captain Tiago was weeping. Some one rushed about fastening the
windows. The tumult continued outside; then little by little there
fell a dreadful silence. Presently the alferez was heard crying out
as he ran through the street:
"Father Salvi! Father Salvi!"
"Mercy!" exclaimed Aunt Isabel. "The alferez is asking for confession!"
"The alferez is wounded!" murmured Linares, with an expression of
the utmost relief.
"The tulisanes have killed the alferez! Maria, Sinang, into your
chamber! Barricade the door!"
In spite of the protests of Aunt Isabel, Ibarra went out into the
street. Everything seemed turning round and round him; his ears rang;
he could scarcely move his limbs. Spots of blood, flashes of light and
darkness alternated before his eyes. The streets were deserted, but the
barracks were in confusion, and voices came from the tribunal, that of
the alferez dominating all the others. Ibarra passed unchallenged, and
reached his home, where his servants were anxiously watching for him.
"Saddle me the best horse and go to bed," he said to them.
He entered his cabinet and began to pack a valise. He had put in his
money and jewels and Maria's picture and was gathering up his papers
when there came three resounding knocks at the house door.
"Open in the name of the King! Open or we force the door!" said an
imperious voice. Ibarra armed himself and looked toward the window;
then changed his mind, threw down his revolver, and went to the
door. Three guards immediately seized him.
"I make you prisoner in the name of the King!" said the sergeant.
"Why?"
"You will learn at the tribunal; I am forbidden to talk with you."
"I am at your disposition. It will not be for, I suppose, long."
"If you promise not to try to escape us, we may leave your hands free;
the alferez grants you that favor."
Crisostomo took his hat and followed the guards, leaving his servants
in consternation.
Elias, after leaving the house of Ibarra, ran like a madman, not
knowing whither. He crossed the fields and reached the wood. He was
fleeing from men and their habitations; he was fleeing from light;
the moon made him suffer. He buried himself in the mysterious silence
of the wood. The birds stirred, wakened from their sleep; owls flew
from branch to branch, screeching or looking at him with great, round
eyes. Elias did not see or hear them; he thought he was followed by
the irate shades of his ancestors. From every branch hung the bleeding
head of Balat. At the foot of every tree he stumbled against the cold
body of his grandmother; among the shadows swung the skeleton of his
infamous grandfather; and the skeleton, the body, and the bleeding
head cried out: "Coward! Coward!"
He ran on. He left the mountain and went down to the lake, moving
feverishly along the shore; his wandering eyes became fixed upon a
point on the tranquil surface, and there, surrounded by a silver
nimbus and rocked by the tide, stood a shade which he seemed to
recognize. Yes, that was her hair, so long and beautiful; yes, that
was her breast, gaping from the poniard stroke. And the wretched man,
kneeling in the sand, stretched out his arms to the cherished vision:
"Thou! Thou, too!" he cried.
His eyes fixed on the apparition, he rose, entered the water and
descended the gentle slope of the beach. Already he was far from the
bank; the waves lapped his waist; but he went on fascinated. The water
reached his breast. Did he know it? Suddenly a volley tore the air;
the night was so calm that the rifle shots sounded clear and sharp. He
stopped, listened, came to himself; the shade vanished; the dream
was gone. He perceived that he was in the lake, level with his eyes
across the tranquil water he saw the lights in the poor cabins of
fishermen. Everything came back to him. He made for the shore and
went rapidly toward the pueblo.
San Diego was deserted; the houses were closed; even the dogs had
hidden themselves. The glittering light that bathed everything detached
the shadows boldly, making the solitude still more dreary.
Fearing to encounter the guards, Elias scaled fences and hedges,
and so, making his way through the gardens, reached the home of
Ibarra. The servants were around the door lamenting the arrest of their
master. Elias learned what had happened, and made feint of going away,
but returned to the back of the house, jumped the wall, climbed into a
window and made his way to the laboratory. He saw the papers, the arms
taken down, the bags of money and jewels, Maria's picture, and had a
vision of Ibarra surprised by the soldiers. He meditated a moment and
decided to bury the things of value in the garden. He gathered them
up, went to the window, and saw gleaming in the moonlight the casques
and bayonets of the guard. His plans were quickly laid. He hid about
his person the money and jewels, and, after an instant's hesitation,
the picture of Maria. Then, heaping all the papers in the middle of the
room, he saturated them with oil from a lamp, threw the lighted candle
in the midst, and sprang out of the window. It was none too soon:
the guards were forcing entrance against the protests of the servants.
But dense smoke made its way through the house and tongues of flame
began to break out. Soldiers and servants together cried fire and
rushed toward the cabinet, but the flames had reached the chemicals,
and their explosion drove every one back. The water the servants
could bring was useless, and the house stood so apart that their cries
brought no aid. The flames leaped upward amid great spirals of smoke;
the house, long respected by the elements, was now their prisoner.
XLVIII.
GOSSIP.
It was not yet dawn. The street in which were the barracks and tribunal
was still deserted; none of its houses gave a sign of life. Suddenly
the shutter of a window opened with a bang and a child's head
appeared, looking in all directions, the little neck stretched to
its utmost--plas! It was the sound of a smart slap in contact with
the fresh human skin. The child screwed up his face, shut his eyes,
and disappeared from the window, which was violently closed again.
But the example had been given: the two bangs of the shutter had
been heard. Another window opened, this time with precaution, and the
wrinkled and toothless head of an old woman looked stealthily out. It
was Sister Puta, the old dame who had caused such a commotion during
Father Damaso's sermon. Children and old women are the representatives
of curiosity in the world; the children want to know, the old women
to live over again. The old sister stayed longer than the child,
and gazed into the distance with contracted brows. Timidly a skylight
opened in the house opposite, giving passage to the head and shoulders
of sister Rufa. The two old women looked across at each other, smiled,
exchanged gestures, and signed themselves.
"Since the sack of the pueblo by Balat I've not known such a
night!" said Sister Puta.
"What a firing! They say it was the band of old Pablo."
"Tulisanes? Impossible! I heard it was the cuadrilleros against the
guards; that's why Don Filipo was arrested."
"They say at least fourteen are dead."
Other windows opened and people were seen exchanging greetings
and gossip.
By the light of the dawn, which promised a splendid day, soldiers
could now be seen dimly at the end of the street, like gray silhouettes
coming and going.
"Do you know what it was?" asked a man, with a villainous face.
"Yes, the cuadrilleros."
"No, senor, a revolt!"
"What revolt? The curate against the alferez?"
"Oh, no; nothing of that kind. It was an uprising of the Chinese."
"The Chinese!" repeated all the listeners, with great disappointment.
"That's why we don't see one!"
"They are all dead!"
"I--I suspected they had something on foot!"
"I saw it, too. Last night----"
"What a pity they are all dead before Christmas!" cried Sister
Rufa. "We shall not get their presents!"
The streets began to show signs of life. First the dogs, pigs, and
chickens began to circulate; then some little ragged boys, keeping
hold of each other's hands, ventured to approach the barracks. Two or
three old women crept after them, their heads wrapt in handkerchiefs
knotted under their chins, pretending to tell their beads, so as
not to be driven back by the soldiers. When it was certain that one
might come and go without risking a pistol shot, the men commenced
to stroll out. Affecting indifference and stroking their cocks,
they finally got as far as the tribunal.
Every quarter hour a new version of the affair was circulated. Ibarra
with his servants had tried to carry off Maria Clara, and in defending
her, Captain Tiago had been wounded. The number of dead was no longer
fourteen, but thirty. At half-past seven the version which received
most credit was clear and detailed.
"I've just come from the tribunal," said a passer, "where I saw Don
Filipo and Don Crisostomo prisoners. Well, Bruno, son of the man who
was beaten to death, has confessed everything. You know, Captain Tiago
is to marry his daughter to the young Spaniard. Don Crisostomo wanted
revenge, and planned to massacre all the Spaniards. His band attacked
the convent and the barracks. They say many of them escaped. The
guards burned Don Crisostomo's house, and if he hadn't been arrested,
they would have burned him, too."
"They burned the house?"
"You can still see the smoke from here," said the narrator.
Everybody looked: a column of smoke was rising against the sky. Then
the comments began, some pitying, some accusing.
"Poor young man!" cried the husband of Sister Puta.
"What!" cried the sister. "You are ready to defend a man that heaven
has so plainly punished? You'll find yourself arrested too. You uphold
a falling house!"
The husband was silent; the argument had told.
"Yes," went on the old woman. "After striking down Father Damaso,
there was nothing left but to kill Father Salvi!"
"But you can't deny he was a good child."
"Yes, he was good," replied the old woman; "but he went to Europe,
and those who go to Europe come back heretics, the curates say."
"Oho!" said the husband, taking his advantage. "And the curate, and
all the curates, and the archbishop, and the pope, aren't they all
Spaniards? What? And are they heretics?"
Happily for Sister Puta, the conversation was cut short. A servant
came running, pale and horror-stricken.
"A man hung--in our neighbor's garden!" she gasped.
A man hung! Nobody stirred.
"Let's come and see," said the old man, rising.
"Don't go near him," cried Sister Puta, "'twill bring us misfortune. If
he's hung, so much the worse for him!"
"Let me see him, woman. You, Juan, go and inform them at the tribunal;
he may not be dead." And the old man went off, the women, even Sister
Puta, following at a distance, full of fear, but also of curiosity.
Hanging from the branch of a sandal tree in the garden a human body
met their gaze. The brave man examined it.
"We must wait for the authorities; he's been dead a long time,"
he said.
Little by little the women drew near.
"It's the new neighbor," they whispered. "See the scar on his face?"
In half an hour the authorities arrived.
"People are in a great hurry to die!" said the directorcillo, cocking
his pen behind his ear, and he began his investigation.
Meanwhile a peasant wearing a great salakat on his head and having
his neck muffled was examining the body and the cord. He noticed
several evidences that the man was dead before he was hung. The
curious countryman noticed also that the clothing seemed recently
torn and was covered with dust.
"What are you looking at?" demanded the directorcillo, who had gathered
all his evidence.
"I was looking, senor, to see if I knew him," stammered the man, half
uncovering, in which he managed to lower his salakat even farther
over his eyes.
"But didn't you hear that it is a certain Jose? You must be asleep!"
Everybody laughed. The confused countryman stammered something else
and went away. When he had reached a safe distance, he took off his
disguise and resumed the stature and gait of Elias.
XLIX.
VAE VICTIS.
With threatening air the guards marched back and forth before the door
of the town hall, menacing with the butt of their rifles intrepid
small boys, who came and raised themselves on tiptoe to see through
the gratings.
The court room had not the same appearance as the day of the discussion
of the fete. The guards and the cuadrilleros spoke low; the alferez
paced the room, looking angrily at the door from time to time. In
a corner yawned Dona Consolacion, her steely eyes riveted on the
door leading into the prison. The arm-chair under the picture of His
Majesty was empty.
It was almost nine o'clock when the curate arrived.
"Well," said the alferez, "you haven't kept us waiting!"
"I did not wish to be here," said the curate, ignoring the tone of
the alferez. "I am very nervous."
"I thought it best to wait for you," said the alferez. "We have
eight here," he went on, pointing toward the door of the prison;
"the one called Bruno died in the night. Are you ready to examine
the two unknown prisoners?"
The curate sat down in the arm-chair.
"Let us go on," he said.
"Bring out the two in the cepo!" ordered the alferez in as terrible
a voice as he could command. Then turning to the curate:
"We skipped two holes."
For the benefit of those not acquainted with the instruments of torture
of the Philippines, we will say that the cepo, a form of stocks, is
one of the most innocent; but by skipping enough holes, the position is
made most trying. It is, however, a torture that can be long endured.
The jailor drew the bolt and opened the door. A sickening odor escaped,
and a match lighted by one of the guards went out in the vitiated
air; when it was possible to take in a candle, one could see dimly,
from the rooms outside, the forms of men crouching or standing. The
cepo was opened.
A dark figure came out between two soldiers; it was Tarsilo, the
brother of Bruno. His torn clothing let his splendid muscles show. The
other prisoner brought out was weeping and lamenting.
"What is your name?" the alferez demanded of Tarsilo.
"Tarsilo Alasigan."
"What did Don Crisostomo promise you for attacking the convent?"
"I have never had any communication with Don Crisostomo."
"Don't attempt to deny it: what other reason had you for joining
the conspiracy?"
"You had killed our father, we wished to avenge him, nothing more. Go
find two of your guards. They're at the foot of the precipice, where
we threw them. You may kill me now, you will learn nothing more."
There was silence and general surprise.
"You will name your accomplices," cried the alferez, brandishing
his cane.
The accused man smiled disdainfully. The alferez talked apart with
the curate.
"Take him where the bodies are," he ordered.
In a corner of the patio, on an old cart, five bodies were heaped
under a piece of soiled matting.
"Do you know them?" asked the alferez, lifting the covering. Tarsilo
did not reply. He saw the body of Sisa's husband, and that of his
brother, pierced through with bayonet strokes. His face grew darker,
and a great sigh escaped him; but he was mute.
"Beat him till he confesses or dies!" cried the exasperated alferez.
They led him back where the other prisoner, with chattering teeth,
was invoking the saints.
"Do you know this man?" demanded Father Salvi.
"I never saw him before," replied Tarsilo, looking at the poor wretch
with faint compassion.
"Fasten him to the bench; gag him!" ordered the alferez, trembling
with rage. When this was done, a guard began his sad task.
Father Salvi, pale and haggard, rose trembling, and left the
tribunal. In the street he saw a girl, leaning against the wall,
rigid, motionless, her eyes far away. The sun shone full down on
her. She seemed not to breathe but to count, one after another,
the muffled blows inside. It was Tarsilo's sister.
The torture continued until the soldier, breathless, let his arm
fall, and the alferez ordered his victim released. But Tarsilo still
refused to speak. Then Dona Consolacion whispered in her husband's ear;
he nodded.
"To the well with him!" he said.
The Filipinos know what that means. In Tagalo it is called timbain. We
do not know who invented this judiciary process, but it must belong
to antiquity. Truth coming out of a well is perhaps a sarcastic
interpretation.
In the middle of the patio of the tribunal was a picturesque well curb
of uncut stones. It had a rustic crank of bamboo; its water was slimy
and putrid. All sorts of refuse had been thrown around it and in it.
Toward this Tarsilo was led. He was very pale, and his lips trembled,
if he was not praying. The pride he had shown appeared now to be
crushed out; he seemed resigned to suffer. The poor wretch looked
enviously at the pile of bodies, and sighed heavily.
"Speak then!" said the directorcillo. "You will be hung anyway. Why
not die without so much suffering?" But Tarsilo remained mute.
When the well was reached, they bound his feet. He was to be let
down head foremost. He was fastened to the curb; the crank turned,
and his body disappeared. The alferez noted the seconds with his
watch. At the signal the body was drawn up, too pitiable to describe;
but Tarsilo was still mute. Again he was let down, again he refused
to speak; when he was drawn up the third time, he no longer breathed.
His torturers looked at each other in consternation. The alferez
ordered the body taken down, and they all examined it for signs of
life; but there were none.
"See," said a cuadrillero, at last, "he has strangled himself with
his tongue!"
"Put the body with the others," ordered the alferez nervously. "We
must examine the other unknown prisoner."
L.
ACCURST.
The news spread that the prisoners were to be taken to the capital,
and members of their families ran wildly from convent to barracks, from
barracks to tribunal, but found no consolation anywhere. The curate
was said to be ill. The guards dealt roughly with the supplicating
women, and the gobernadorcillo was more useless than ever. The
friends of the accused, therefore, had collected near the prison,
waiting for them to be brought out. Doray, Don Filipo's young wife,
wandered back and forth, her child in her arms, both crying. The
Capitana Tinay called on her son Antonio, and brave Capitana Maria
watched the grating behind which were her twins, her only children.
At two in the afternoon, an uncovered cart drawn by two oxen stopped
in front of the tribunal. It was surrounded, and there were loud
threats of breaking it.
"Don't do that!" cried Capitana Maria; "do you wish them to go on
foot?" In a few moments, twenty soldiers came out and surrounded
the ox-cart; then the prisoners appeared. The first was Don Filipo,
who smiled at his wife. Doray responded by bitter sobs, and would
have rushed to her husband, had not the guards held her back. The
son of Capitana Tinay was crying like a child, which did not help
to check the lamentations of his family. The twins were calm and
grave. Ibarra came last. He walked between two guards, his hand free;
his eyes sought on all sides for a friendly face.
"He is the guilty one!" cried numerous voices. "He is the guilty one,
and his hands are unbound!"
"Bind my arms," said Ibarra to his guards.
"We have no orders."
"Bind me!"
The soldiers obeyed.
The alferez appeared on horseback, armed to the teeth, and followed
by an escort of soldiers. The prisoners' friends saluted them with
affectionate words; only Ibarra was friendless.
"What has my husband done to you?" sobbed Doray. "See my child;
you have robbed him of his father!"
Grief began to turn to hate against the man who was said to have
provoked the uprising.
The alferez gave the order to start.
"Coward!" cried a woman, as the cart moved off. "While the others
fought, you were in hiding! Coward!"
"Curses on you!" cried an old man, running after. "Cursed be the gold
heaped up by your family to take away our peace. Accurst! accurst!"
"May you be hung, heretic!" cried a woman, picking up a stone and
throwing it after him. Her example was promptly followed, and a shower
of dust and pebbles beat against the unhappy man. Crisostomo bore
this injustice without a sign. It was the farewell of his beloved
country. He bent his head and sat motionless. Perhaps he was thinking
of a man beaten in the pueblo streets; perhaps of the body of a girl,
washed up by the waves.
The alferez felt obliged to drive away the crowd, but stones did not
cease to fall, nor insult to sound. One mother only did not curse
Ibarra; the Capitana Maria watched her sons go, with compressed lips
and eyes full of silent tears.
Of all the people in the open windows as he passed, none but the
indifferent and curious showed Ibarra the least compassion. All his
friends had deserted him, even Captain Basilio, who had forbidden
Sinang to weep. When Crisostomo passed the smoking ruins of his home,
that home where he was born, and spent his happy childhood and youth,
the tears, long repressed, gushed from his eyes, and bound as he was,
he had to experience the bitterness of showing a grief that could
not rouse the slightest sympathy.
From a hill, an old man, pale and thin, wrapped in a mantle, and
leaning on a stick, watched the sad procession. At the news of what had
happened, old Tasio had left his bed, and tried to go to the pueblo,
but his strength had failed him. He followed the cart with his eyes,
until it disappeared in the distance. Then, after resting a while in
thought, he got up painfully, and started toward his home, halting
for breath at almost every step. The next day some shepherds found
him dead under the shadow of his solitary house.
LI.
PATRIOTISM AND INTEREST.
The telegraph had secretly transmitted to Manila the news of the
uprising, and thirty-six hours later, the newspapers, their accounts
expanded, corrected, and mutilated by the attorney-general, talked
about it with much mystery and no little menace. Meanwhile the private
accounts, coming out of the convents, had gone from mouth to mouth,
to the great alarm of those who heard them. The fact, distorted in
countless versions, was accepted as true with more or less readiness,
according to its fitness to the passions and ideas of the different
hearers.