Chapter XXXVIII.

The Accursed.

The news that the prisoners were going to depart spread quickly through the town. At first, the news was heard with terror; afterward, came tears and lamentations.

The members of the families of the prisoners were running about madly. They would go from the convent to the cuartel from the cuartel to the tribunal, and not finding consolation anywhere, they filled the air with cries and moans. The curate had shut himself up because he was ill. The alferez had increased his guards, who received the supplicants with the butts of their guns. The gobernadorcillo, a useless being, anyway, seemed more stupid and useless than ever.

The sun was burning hot, but none of the unhappy women who were gathered in front of the cuartel thought of that. Doray, the gay and happy wife of Don Filipo, wandered about, with her tender little child in her arms. Both were crying.

“Get out of the sun,” they said to her. “Your son will catch a fever.”

“What is the use of his living if he has no father to educate him?” replied the dispirited woman.

“Your husband is innocent. Perhaps he will return.”

“Yes, when we are in our graves.”

Capitana Tinay wept and cried for her son, Antonio. The courageous Capitana Maria gazed toward the small grate, behind which were her twins, her only sons.

There, too, was the mother-in-law of the cocoanut tree pruner. She was not crying; she was walking to and fro, gesticulating, with shirt sleeves rolled up, and haranguing the public.

“Have you ever seen anything equal to it?” said she. “They arrest my Andong, wound him, put him in the stocks, and take him to the capital, all because he happened to be in the cuartel yard.”

But few people had any sympathy for the Mussulman mother-in-law.

“Don Crisostomo is to blame for all of this,” sighed a woman.

The school teacher also was wandering about in the crowd. Ñor Juan was no longer rubbing his hands, nor was he carrying his yard stick and plumb line. He had heard the bad news and, faithful to his custom of seeing the future as a thing that had already happened, he was dressed in mourning, mourning for the death of Ibarra.

At two o’clock in the afternoon, an uncovered cart, drawn by two oxen, stopped in front of the tribunal.

The cart was surrounded by the crowd. They wanted to destroy it.

“Don’t do that!” said Capitana Maria. “Do you want them to walk?”

This remark stopped the relatives of the prisoners. Twenty soldiers came out and surrounded the cart. Then came the prisoners.

The first was Don Filipo; he was tied. He greeted his wife with a smile. Doray broke into a bitter lamentation and two soldiers had to work hard to keep her from embracing her husband. Antonio, the son of Captain Tinay, next appeared, crying like a child—a fact which made the family cry all the more. The imbecile, Andong, broke out in a wail when he saw his mother-in-law, the cause of his misfortune. Albino, the former seminary student, came out with his hands tied, as did also the twin sons of Capitana Maria. These three youths were serious and grave. The last who came was Ibarra. The young man was pale. He looked about for the face of Maria Clara.

“That is the one who is to blame!” cried many voices. “He is to blame and he will go free.”

“My son-in-law has done nothing and he is handcuffed.”

Ibarra turned to the guards.

“Tie me, and tie me well, elbow to elbow,” said he.

“We have no orders.”

“Tie me!”

The soldiers obeyed.

The alferez appeared on horse-back, armed to the teeth. Ten or fifteen more soldiers followed him.

Each of the prisoners had there in the crowd his family praying for him, weeping for him, and calling him by the most affectionate names. Ibarra was the only exception. Even Ñor Juan himself and the school-teacher had disappeared.

“What have you done to my husband and my son?” said Doray to Ibarra, crying. “See my poor boy! You have deprived him of a father!”

The grief of the people was changed to wrath against the young man, accused of having provoked the riot. The alferez gave orders to depart.

“You are a coward!” cried the mother-in-law of Andong to Ibarra. “While the others were fighting for you, you were hiding. Coward!”

“Curses upon you!” shouted an old man following him. “Cursed be the gold hoarded up by your family to disturb our peace! Curse him! Curse him!”

“May they hang you, heretic!” cried one of Albino’s relatives. And unable to restrain himself, he picked up a stone and threw it at Ibarra.

The example was quickly imitated, and a shower of dust and stones fell on the unfortunate youth.

Ibarra suffered it all, impassive, without wrath, without a complaint—the unjust vengeance of suffering hearts. This was the leave-taking, the “adios” tendered to him by his town, the center of all his affections. He bowed his head. Perhaps he was thinking of another man, whipped through the streets of Manila, of an old woman falling dead at the sight of the head of her son. Perhaps the history of Elias was passing before his eyes.

The cortége moved slowly on and away.

Of the persons who appeared in a few opened windows, those who showed the most compassion for the unfortunate young man were the indifferent and the curious. All his friends had hidden themselves; yes, even Captain Basilio, who forbade his daughter Sinang to weep.

Ibarra saw the smouldering ruins of his house, of the house of his fathers where he had been born, where he had lived the sweetest days of his infancy and childhood. Tears, for a long time suppressed, burst from his eyes. He bowed his head and wept, wept without the consolation of being able to hide his weeping, tied as he was by the elbows. Nor did that grief awaken compassion in anybody. Now he had neither fatherland, home, love, friends or future.

From a height a man contemplated the funeral-like caravan. He was old, pale, thin, wrapped in a woollen blanket and was leaning with fatigue on a cane. It was old Tasio, who as soon as he heard of what had happened wanted to leave his bed and attend, but his strength would not permit it. The old man followed with his eyes the cart until it disappeared in the distance. He stood for some time, pensive and his head bowed down; then he arose, and laboriously started on the road to his house, resting at every step.

The following day, shepherds found him dead on the very threshold of his solitary retreat.