An Eagle Flight Part 24

"Do not come near us!" he cried again in the same threatening voice. "What? You fear I shall stain my hand in impure blood? Did I not tell you that my heart beats true? Away from us, and listen, priests, believing yourselves different from other men, giving yourselves other rights! My father was an honorable man. Ask the country which venerates his memory. My father was a good citizen, who sacrificed himself for me and for his country's good. His house was open, his table set for the stranger or the exile who should turn to him! He was a Christian; always doing good, never pressing the weak, nor forcing tears from the wretched. As to this man, he opened his door to him, made him sit down at his table, and called him friend. And how did the man respond? He falsely accused him; he pursued him; he armed ignorance against him! Confiding in the sanct.i.ty of his office, he outraged his tomb, dishonored his memory; his hate troubled even the rest of the dead. And not yet satisfied, he now pursues the son. I fled from him, avoided his presence. You heard him this morning profane the chair, point me out to the people's fanaticism; but I said nothing. Now, he comes here to seek a quarrel; I suffer in silence, until he again insults a memory sacred to all sons.

"You who are here, priests, magistrates, have you seen your old father give himself for you, part from you for your good, die of grief in a prison, looking for your embrace, looking for consolation from any one who would bring it, sick, alone; while you in a foreign land? Then have you heard his name dishonored, found his tomb empty when you went there to pray? No? You are silent; then you condemn him!"

He raised his arm. But a girl, rapid as light, threw herself between him and the priest, and with her fragile hands held the avenging arm. It was Maria Clara. Ibarra looked at her with eyes like a madman's. Then, little by little, his tense fingers relaxed; he let fall the knife, and, covering his face with his hands, he fled.

XXIX.

OPINIONS.

The noise of the affair spread rapidly. At first no one believed it, but when there was no longer room for doubt, each made his comments, according to the degree of his moral elevation.

"Father Damaso is dead," said some. "When he was carried away, his face was congested with blood, and he no longer breathed."

"May he rest in peace, but he has only paid his debt!" said a young stranger.

"Why do you say that?"

"One of us students who came from Manila for the fete left the church when the sermon in Tagalo began, saying it was Greek to him. Father Damaso sent for him afterward, and they came to blows."

"Are we returning to the times of Nero?" asked another student.

"You mistake," replied the first. "Nero was an artist, and Father Damaso is a jolly poor preacher!"

The men of more years talked otherwise.

"To say which was wrong and which right is not easy," said the gobernadorcillo, "and yet, if Senor Ibarra had been more moderate----"

"You probably mean, if Father Damaso had shown half the moderation of Senor Ibarra," interrupted Don Filipo. "The pity is that the roles were interchanged: the youth conducted himself like an old man, and the old man like a youth."

"And you say n.o.body but the daughter of Captain Tiago came between them? Not a monk, nor the alcalde?" asked Captain Martin. "I wouldn't like to be in the young man's shoes. None of those who were afraid of him will ever forgive him. Hah, that's the worst of it!"

"You think so?" demanded Captain Basilio, with interest.

"I hope," said Don Filipo, exchanging glances with Captain Basilio, "that the pueblo isn't going to desert him. His friends at least----"

"But, senores," interrupted the gobernadorcillo, "what can we do? What can the pueblo? Whatever happens, the monks are always in the right----"

"They are always in the right, because we always say they're in the right. Let us say we are in the right for once, and then we shall have something to talk about!"

The gobernadorcillo shook his head.

"Ah, the young blood!" he said. "You don't seem to know what country you live in; you don't know your compatriots. The monks are rich; they are united; we are poor and divided. Try to defend him and you will see how you are left to compromise yourself alone!"

"Yes," cried Don Filipo bitterly, "and it will be so as long as fear and prudence are supposed to be synonymous. Each thinks of himself, n.o.body of any one else; that is why we are weak!"

"Very well! Think of others and see how soon the others will let you hang!"

"I've had enough of it!" cried the exasperated lieutenant. "I shall give my resignation to the alcalde to-day."

The women had still other thoughts.

"Aye!" said one of them. "Young people are always the same. If his good mother were living, what would she say? When I think that my son, who is a young hothead, too, might have done the same thing----"

"I'm not with you," said another woman. "I should have nothing against my two sons if they did as Don Crisostomo."

"What are you saying, Capitana Maria?" cried the first woman, clasping her hands.

"I'm a poor stupid," said a third, the Capitana Tinay, "but I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell my son not to study any more. They say men of learning all die on the gallows. Holy Mary, and my son wants to go to Europe!"

"If I were rich as you, my children should travel," said the Capitana Maria. "Our sons ought to aspire to be more than their fathers. I have not long to live, and we shall meet again in the other world."

"Your ideas, Capitana Maria, are little Christian," said Sister Rufa severely. "Make yourself a sister of the Sacred Rosary, or of St. Francis."

"Sister Rufa, when I'm a worthy sister of men, I will think about being a sister of the saints," said the capitana, smiling.

Under the booth where the children had their feast the father of the one who was to be a doctor was talking.

"What troubles me most," said he, "is that the school will not be finished; my son will not be a doctor, but a carter."

"Who said there wouldn't be a school?"

"I say so. The White Fathers have called Don Crisostomo plibastiero. There won't be any school."

The peasants questioned each other's faces. The word was new to them.

"And is that a bad name?" one at last ventured to ask.

"It's the worst one Christian can give another."

"Worse than tarantado and saragate?"

"If it weren't, it wouldn't amount to much."

"Come now. It can't be worse than indio, as the alferez says."

He whose son was to be a carter looked gloomy. The other shook his head and reflected.

"Then is it as bad as betalapora, that the old woman of the alferez says?"

"You remember the word ispichoso (suspect), which had only to be said of a man to have the guards lead him off to prison? Well, plibastiero is worse yet; if any one calls you plibastiero, you can confess and pay your debts, for there's nothing else left to do but get yourself hanged. That's what the telegrapher and the sub-director say, and you know whether the telegrapher and the sub-director ought to know: one talks with iron wires, and the other knows Spanish, and handles nothing but the pen."

The last hope fled.