Chương Chương 58 · Chapter LVIII

The Accursed

Soon the news spread through the town that the prisoners were about to

set out. At first it was heard with terror; afterward came the weeping

and wailing. The families of the prisoners ran about in distraction,

going from the convento to the barracks, from the barracks to the

town hall, and finding no consolation anywhere, filled the air with

cries and groans. The curate had shut himself up on a plea of illness;

the alferez had increased the guards, who received the supplicating

women with the butts of their rifles; the gobernadorcillo, at best

a useless creature, seemed to be more foolish and more useless than

ever. In front of the jail the women who still had strength enough

ran to and fro, while those who had not sat down on the ground and

called upon the names of their beloved.

Although the sun beat down fiercely, not one of these unfortunates

thought of going away. Doray, the erstwhile merry and happy wife of Don

Filipo, wandered about dejectedly, carrying in her arms their infant

son, both weeping. To the advice of friends that she go back home to

avoid exposing her baby to an attack of fever, the disconsolate woman

replied, "Why should he live, if he isn't going to have a father to

rear him?"

"Your husband is innocent. Perhaps he'll come back."

"Yes, after we're all dead!"

Capitana Tinay wept and called upon her son Antonio. The courageous

Capitana Maria gazed silently toward the small grating behind which

were her twin-boys, her only sons.

There was present also the mother-in-law of the pruner of

coco-palms, but she was not weeping; instead, she paced back and

forth, gesticulating with uplifted arms, and haranguing the crowd:

"Did you ever see anything like it? To arrest my Andong, to shoot at

him, to put him in the stocks, to take him to the capital, and only

because--because he had a new pair of pantaloons! This calls for

vengeance! The civil-guards are committing abuses! I swear that if

I ever again catch one of them in my garden, as has often happened,

I'll chop him up, I'll chop him up, or else--let him try to chop me

up!" Few persons, however, joined in the protests of the Mussulmanish

mother-in-law.

"Don Crisostomo is to blame for all this," sighed a woman.

The schoolmaster was also in the crowd, wandering about bewildered. Ñor

Juan did not rub his hands, nor was he carrying his rule and plumb-bob;

he was dressed in black, for he had heard the bad news and, true

to his habit of looking upon the future as already assured, was in

mourning for Ibarra's death.

At two o'clock in the afternoon an open cart drawn by two oxen stopped

in front of the town hall. This was at once set upon by the people,

who attempted to unhitch the oxen and destroy it. "Don't do that!" said

Capitana Maria. "Do you want to make them walk?" This consideration

acted as a restraint on the prisoners' relatives.

Twenty soldiers came out and surrounded the cart; then the prisoners

appeared. The first was Don Filipo, bound. He greeted his wife

smilingly, but Doray broke out into bitter weeping and two guards had

difficulty in preventing her from embracing her husband. Antonio, the

son of Capitana Tinay, appeared crying like a baby, which only added to

the lamentations of his family. The witless Andong broke out into tears

at sight of his mother-in-law, the cause of his misfortune. Albino,

the quondam theological student, was also bound, as were Capitana

Maria's twins. All three were grave and serious. The last to come

out was Ibarra, unbound, but conducted between two guards. The pallid

youth looked about him for a friendly face.

"He's the one that's to blame!" cried many voices. "He's to blame

and he goes loose!"

"My son-in-law hasn't done anything and he's got handcuffs on!" Ibarra

turned to the guards. "Bind me, and bind me well, elbow to elbow,"

he said.

"We haven't any order."

"Bind me!" And the soldiers obeyed.

The alferez appeared on horseback, armed to the teeth, ten or fifteen

more soldiers following him.

Each prisoner had his family there to pray for him, to weep for him,

to bestow on him the most endearing names--all save Ibarra, who had

no one, even Ñor Juan and the schoolmaster having disappeared.

"Look what you've done to my husband and my son!" Doray cried to

him. "Look at my poor son! You've robbed him of his father!"

So the sorrow of the families was converted into anger toward the

young man, who was accused of having started the trouble. The alferez

gave the order to set out.

"You're a coward!" the mother-in-law of Andong cried after

Ibarra. "While others were fighting for you, you hid yourself, coward!"

"May you be accursed!" exclaimed an old man, running along beside

him. "Accursed be the gold amassed by your family to disturb our

peace! Accursed! Accursed!"

"May they hang you, heretic!" cried a relative of Albino's. Unable

to restrain himself, he caught up a stone and threw it at the youth.

This example was quickly followed, and a rain of dirt and stones fell

on the wretched young man. Without anger or complaint, impassively he

bore the righteous vengeance of so many suffering hearts. This was the

parting, the farewell, offered to him by the people among whom were

all his affections. With bowed head, he was perhaps thinking of a man

whipped through the streets of Manila, of an old woman falling dead

at the sight of her son's head; perhaps Elias's history was passing

before his eyes.

The alferez found it necessary to drive the crowd back, but the

stone-throwing and the insults did not cease. One mother alone did not

wreak vengeance on him for her sorrows, Capitana Maria. Motionless,

with lips contracted and eyes full of silent tears, she saw her two

sons move away; her firmness, her dumb grief surpassed that of the

fabled Niobe.

So the procession moved on. Of the persons who appeared at the

few open windows those who showed most pity for the youth were the

indifferent and the curious. All his friends had hidden themselves,

even Capitan Basilio himself, who forbade his daughter Sinang to weep.

Ibarra saw the smoking ruins of his house--the home of his fathers,

where he was born, where clustered the fondest recollections of his

childhood and his youth. Tears long repressed started into his eyes,

and he bowed his head and wept without having the consolation of being

able to hide his grief, tied as he was, nor of having any one in whom

his sorrow awoke compassion. Now he had neither country, nor home,

nor love, nor friends, nor future!

From a slight elevation a man gazed upon the sad procession. He was an

old man, pale and emaciated, wrapped in a woolen blanket, supporting

himself with difficulty on a staff. It was the old Sage, Tasio, who,

on hearing of the event, had left his bed to be present, but his

strength had not been sufficient to carry him to the town hall. The

old man followed the cart with his gaze until it disappeared in the

distance and then remained for some time afterward with his head bowed,

deep in thought. Then he stood up and laboriously made his way toward

his house, pausing to rest at every step. On the following day some

herdsmen found him dead on the very threshold of his solitary home.