Lineage, Life and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot Part 11

Rizal's arrest had put an end to all hope of progress under Governor-General Despujol. It had left the political field in possession of those countrymen who had not been in sympathy with his campaign of education. It had caused the succession of the revolutionary Katipunan to the economic Liga Filipina, with talk of independence supplanting Rizal's ambition for the return of the Philippines to their former status under the Const.i.tution of Cadiz. But the victim of the arrest was at peace as he had not been in years. The sacrifice for country and for family had been made, but it was not to cost him life, and he was human enough to wish to live. A visitor's room in the Fort and books from the military library made his detention comfortable, for he did not worry about the Spanish sentries without his door who were placed there under orders to shoot anyone who might attempt to signal to him from the plaza.

One night the Governor-General's nephew-aide came again to the Fort and Rizal embarked on the steamer which was to take him to his place of exile, but closely as he was guarded he risked dropping a note which a Filipino found and took, as it directed, to Mrs. Rizal's cousin, Vicenta Leyba, who lived in Calle Jose, Trozo. Thus the family were advised of his departure; this incident shows Rizal's perfect confidence in his countrymen and the extent to which it was justified; he could risk a chance finder to take so dangerous a letter to its address.

On the steamer he occupied an officer's cabin and also found a Filipino quartermaster, of whom he requested a life preserver for his stateroom; evidently he was not entirely confident that there were no hostile designs against him. Accidents had rid the Philippines of troublesome persons before his time, and he was determined that if he sacrificed his life for his country, it should be openly. He realized that the tree of Liberty is often watered with the blood of secret as well as open martyrs.

The same boat carried some soldier prisoners, one of whom was to be executed in Mindanao, and their case was not particularly creditable to Spanish ideas of justice. A Spanish officer had dishonorably interfered with the domestic relations of a sergeant, also Spanish, and the aggrieved party had inflicted punishment upon his superior, with the help of some other soldiers. For allowing himself to be punished, not for his own disgraceful act, the officer was dismissed from the service, but the sergeant was to go to the scene of his alleged "crime," there to suffer death, while his companions who had a.s.sisted him in protecting their homes were to be witnesses of this "justice" and then to be imprisoned.

After an uneventful trip the steamer reached Dapitan, in the northeast of the large island of Mindanao, on a dark and rainy evening. The officer in charge of the expedition took Doctor Rizal ash.o.r.e with some papers relating to him and delivered all to the commandant, Ricardo Carnicero. The receipt taken was briefed "One countryman and two packages." At the same time learned men in Europe were beginning to hear of this outrage worthy of the Dark Ages and were remarking that Spain had stopped the work of the man who was practically her only representative in modern science, for the Castilian language has not been the medium through which any considerable additions have been made to the world's store of scientific knowledge.

Rizal was to reside either with the commandant or with the Jesuit parish priest, if the latter would take him into the convento. But while the exile had learned with pleasure that he was to meet priests who were refined and learned, as well as a.s.sociated with his happier school days, he did not know that these priests were planning to restore him to his childhood faith and had mapped out a plan of action which should first make him feel his loneliness. So he was denied residence with the priest unless he would declare himself genuinely in sympathy with Spain.

On his previous brief visit to the Islands he had been repelled from the Ateneo with the statement that till he ceased to be anti-Catholic and anti-Spanish he would not be welcome. Padre Faura, the famous meteorologist, was his former instructor and Rizal was his favorite pupil; he had tearfully predicted that the young man would come to the scaffold at last unless he mended his ways. But Rizal, confident in the clearness of his own conscience, went out cheerfully, and when the porter tried to bring back the memory of his childhood piety by reminding him of the image of the Sacred Heart which he had carved years before, Rizal answered, "Other times, other customs, Brother. I do not believe that way any more."

So Rizal, a good Catholic, was compelled to board with the commandant instead of with the priest because he was unwilling to make hypocritical professions of admiration for Spain. The commandant and Rizal soon became good friends, but in order to retain his position Carnicero had to write to the Governor-General in a different strain.

The correspondence tells the facts in the main, but of course they are colored throughout to conform to Despujol's character. The commandant is always represented as deceiving his prisoner and gaining his confidence only to betray him, but Rizal seems never to have experienced anything but straightforward dealing.

Rizal's earliest letter from Dapitan speaks almost enthusiastically of the place, describing the climate as exceptional for the tropics, his situation as agreeable, and saying that he could be quite content if his family and his books were there.

Shortly after occurred the anniversary of Carnicero's arrival in the town, and Rizal celebrated the event with a Spanish poem reciting the improvements made since his coming, written in the style of the Malay loa, and as though it were by the children of Dapitan.

Next Rizal acquired a piece of property at Talisay, a little bay close to Dapitan, and at once became interested in his farm. Soon he built a house and moved into it, gathering a number of boy a.s.sistants about him, and before long he had a school. A hospital also was put up for his patients and these in time became a source of revenue, as people from a distance came to the oculist for treatment and paid liberally.

One five-hundred-peso fee from a rich Englishman was devoted by Rizal to lighting the town, and the community benefited in this way by his charity in addition to the free treatment given its poor.

The little settlement at Talisay kept growing and those who lived there were constantly improving it. When Father Obach, the Jesuit priest, fell through the bamboo stairway in the princ.i.p.al house, Rizal and his boys burned sh.e.l.ls, made mortar, and soon built a fine stone stairway. They also did another piece of masonry work in the shape of a dam for storing water that was piped to the houses and poultry yard; the overflow from the dam was made to fill a swimming tank.

The school, including the house servants, numbered about twenty and was taught without books by Rizal, who conducted his recitations from a hammock. Considerable importance was given to mathematics, and in languages English was taught as well as Spanish, the entire waking period being devoted to the language allotted for the day, and whoever so far forgot as to utter a word in any other tongue was punished by having to wear a rattan handcuff. The use and meaning of this modern police device had to be explained to the boys, for Spain still tied her prisoners with rope.

Nature study consisted in helping the Doctor gather specimens of flowers, sh.e.l.ls, insects and reptiles which were prepared and shipped to German museums. Rizal was paid for these specimens by scientific books and material. The director of the Royal Zoological and Anthropological Museum in Dresden, Saxony, Doctor Karl von h.e.l.ler, was a great friend and admirer of Doctor Rizal. Doctor h.e.l.ler's father was tutor to the late King Alfonso XII and had many friends at the Court of Spain. Evidently Doctor h.e.l.ler and other of his European friends did not consider Rizal a Spanish insurrectionary, but treated him rather as a reformer seeking progress by peaceful means.

Doctor Rizal remunerated his pupils' work with gifts of clothing, books and other useful remembrances. Sometimes the rewards were cartidges, and those who had acc.u.mulated enough were permitted to accompany him in his hunting expeditions. The dignity of labor was practically inculcated by requiring everyone to make himself useful, and this was really the first school of the type, combining the use of English, nature study and industrial instruction.

On one occasion in the year 1894 some of his schoolboys secretly went into the town in a banca; a puppy which tried to follow them was eaten by a crocodile. Rizal tired to impress the evil effects of disobedience upon the youngsters by pointing out to them the sorrow which the mother-dog felt at the loss of her young one, and emphasized the lesson by modeling a statuette called "The Mother's Revenge,"

wherein she is represented, in revenge, as devouring the cayman. It is said to be a good likeness of the animal which was Doctor Rizal's favorite companion in his many pedestrian excursions around Dapitan.

Father Francisco Sanchez, Rizal's instructor in rhetoric in the Ateneo, made a long visit to Dapitan and brought with him some surveyor's instruments, which his former pupil was delighted to a.s.sist him in using. Together they ran the levels for a water system for the the town, which was later, with the aid of the lay Jesuit, Brother Tildot, carried to completion. This same water system is now being restored and enlarged with artesian wells by the present insular, provincial and munic.i.p.al governments jointly, as part of the memorial to Rizal in this place of his exile.

A visit to a not distant mountain and some digging in a spot supposed by the people of the region to be haunted brought to light curious relics of the first Christian converts among the early Moros.

The state of his mind at about this period of his career is indicated by the verses written in his home in Talisay, ent.i.tled "My Retreat,"

of which the following translation has been made by Mr. Charles Derbyshire. The scene that inspired this poem has been converted by the government into a public park to the memory of Rizal.

My Retreat

By the spreading beach where the sands are soft and fine, At the foot of the mount in its mantle of green, I have built my hut in the pleasant grove's confine; From the forest seeking peace and a calmness divine, Rest for the weary brain and silence to my sorrow keen.

Its roof the frail palm-leaf and its floor the cane, Its beams and posts of the unhewn wood; Little there is of value in this hut so plain, And better by far in the lap of the mount to have lain, By the song and the murmur of the high sea's flood.

A purling brook from the woodland glade Drops down o'er the stones and around it sweeps, Whence a fresh stream is drawn by the rough cane's aid; That in the still night its murmur has made, And in the day's heat a crystal fountain leaps.

When the sky is serene how gently it flows, And its zither unseen ceaselessly plays; But when the rains fall a torrent it goes Boiling and foaming through the rocky close, Roaring uncheck'd to the sea's wide ways.

The howl of the dog and the song of the bird, And only the kalao's hoa.r.s.e call resound; Nor is the voice of vain man to be heard, My mind to hara.s.s or my steps to begird; The woodlands alone and the sea wrap me round.

The sea, ah, the sea! for me it is all, As it ma.s.sively sweeps from the worlds apart; Its smile in the morn to my soul is a call, And when in the even my fath seems to pall, It breathes with its sadness an echo to my heart.

By night an arcanum; when translucent it glows, All spangled over with its millions of lights, And the bright sky above resplendent shows; While the waves with their sighs tell of their woes-- Tales that are lost as they roll to the heights.

They tell of the world when the first dawn broke, And the sunlight over their surface played; When thousands of beings from nothingness woke, To people the depths and the heights to cloak, Wherever its life-giving kiss was laid.

But when in the night the wild winds awake, And the waves in their fury begin to leap, Through the air rush the cries that my mind shake; Voices that pray, songs and moans that partake Of laments from the souls sunk down in the deep.

Then from their heights the mountains groan, And the trees shiver tremulous from great unto least; The groves rustle plaintive and the herds utter moan, For they say that the ghosts of the folk that are gone Are calling them down to their death's merry feast.

In terror and confusion whispers the night, While blue and green flames flit over the deep; But calm reigns again with the morning's light, And soon the bold fisherman comes into sight, As his bark rushes on and the waves sink to sleep.

So onward glide the days in my lonely abode; Driven forth from the world where once I was known, I muse o'er the fate upon me bestow'd; A fragment forgotten that the moss will corrode, To hide from mankind the world in me shown.

I live in the thought of the lov'd ones left, And oft their names to my mind are borne; Some have forsaken me and some by death are reft; But now 'tis all one, as through the past I drift, That past which from me can never be torn.

For it is the friend that is with me always, That ever in sorrow keeps the faith in my soul; While through the still night it watches and prays, As here in my exile in my lone hut it stays, To strengthen my faith when doubts o'er me roll.

That faith I keep and I hope to see shine The day when the Idea prevails over might; When after the fray and death's slow decline, Some other voice sounds, far happier than mine, To raise the glad song of the triumph of right.

I see the sky glow, refulgent and clear, As when it forced on me my first dear illusion; I feel the same wind kiss my forehead sere, And the fire is the same that is burning here To stir up youth's blood in boiling confusion.

I breathe here the winds that perchance have pa.s.s'd O'er the fields and the rivers of my own natal sh.o.r.e; And mayhap they will bring on the returning blast The sighs that lov'd being upon them has cast-- Messages sweet from the love I first bore.

To see the same moon, all silver'd as of yore, I feel the sad thoughts within me arise; The fond recollections of the troth we swore, Of the field and the bower and the wide seash.o.r.e, The blushes of joy, with the silence and sighs.

A b.u.t.terfly seeking the flowers and the light, Of other lands dreaming, of vaster extent; Scarce a youth, from home and love I took flight, To wander unheeding, free from doubt or affright-- So in foreign lands were my brightest days spent.

And when like a languishing bird I was fain To the home of my fathers and my love to return, Of a sudden the fierce tempest roar'd amain; So I saw my wings shatter'd and no home remain, My trust sold to others and wrecks round me burn.

Hurl'd out into exile from the land I adore, My future all dark and no refuge to seek; My roseate dreams hover round me once more, Sole treasures of all that life to me bore; The faiths of youth that with sincerity speak.

But not as of old, full of life and of grace, Do you hold out hopes of undying reward; Sadder I find you; on your lov'd face, Though still sincere, the pale lines trace The marks of the faith it is yours to guard.

You offer now, dreams, my gloom to appease, And the years of my youth again to disclose; So I thank you, O storm, and heaven-born breeze, That you knew of the hour my wild flight to ease, To cast me back down to the soil whence I rose.

By the spreading beach where the sands are soft and fine, At the foot of the mount in its mantle of green; I have found a home in the pleasant grove's confine, In the shady woods, that peace and calmness divine, Rest for the weary brain and silence to my sorrow keen.

The Church benefited by the presence of the exile, for he drew the design for an elaborate curtain to adorn the sanctuary at Easter time, and an artist Sister of Charity of the school there did the oil painting under his direction. In this line he must have been proficient, for once in Spain, where he traveled out of his way to Saragossa to visit one of his former teachers of the Ateneo, who he had heard was there, Rizal offered his a.s.sistance in making some altar paintings, and the Jesuit says that his skill and taste were much appreciated.

The home of the Sisters had a private chapel, for which the teachers were preparing an image of the Virgin. For the sake of economy the head only was procured from abroad, the vestments concealing all the rest of the figure except the feet, which rested upon a globe encircled by a snake in whose mouth is an apple. The beauty of the countenance, a real work of art, appealed to Rizal, and he modeled the more prominent right foot, the apple and the serpent's head, while the artist Sister a.s.sisted by doing the minor work. Both curtain and image, twenty years after their making, are still in use.