The cemetery began to fill with men and women in mourning. Someof them came for a moment to the open grave, discussed some matter,seemed not to be agreed, and separated, kneeling here and there. Otherswere lighting candles; all began to pray devoutly. One heard sighingand sobs, and over all a confused murmur of "requiem aeternam."
A little old man, with piercing eyes, entered uncovered. At sightof him some laughed, others frowned. The old man seemed to take noaccount of this. He went to the heap of skulls, knelt, and searchedwith his eyes. Then with the greatest care he lifted the skulls oneby one, wrinkling his brows, shaking his head, and looking on allsides. At length he rose and approached the grave-digger.
"Ho!" said he.
The other raised his eyes.
"Did you see a beautiful skull, white as the inside of a cocoanut?"
The grave-digger shrugged his shoulders.
"Look," said the old man, showing a piece of money; "it's all I have,but I'll give it to you if you find it."
The gleam of silver made the man reflect. He looked toward the heapand said:
"It isn't there? No? Then I don't know where it is."
"You don't know? When those who owe me pay, I'll give you more. 'Twasthe skull of my wife, and if you find it----"
"It isn't there? Then I know nothing about it, but I can give youanother."
"You are like the grave you dig," cried the old man, furious. "Youknow not the value of what you destroy! For whom is this grave?"
"How do I know? For a dead man!" replied the other with temper.
"Like the grave, like the grave," the old man repeated witha dry laugh. "You know neither what you cast out nor what youkeep. Dig! dig!" And he went toward the gate.
Meanwhile the grave-digger had finished his task, and two mounds offresh, reddish earth rose beside the grave. Drawing from his pocketsome buyo, he regarded dully what was going on around him, sat down,and began to chew.
At that moment a carriage, which had apparently made a long journey,stopped at the entrance to the cemetery. Ibarra got out, followed byan old servant, and silently made his way along the path.
"It is there, behind the great cross, senor," said the servant,as they approached the spot where the grave-digger was sitting.
Arrived at the cross, the old servant looked on all sides, and becamegreatly confused. "It was there," he muttered; "no, there, but theground has been broken."
Ibarra looked at him in anguish.
The servant appealed to the grave-digger.
"Where is the grave that was marked with a cross like this?" hedemanded; and stooping, he traced a Byzantine cross on the ground.
"Were there flowers growing on it?"
"Yes, jasmine and pansies."
The grave-digger scratched his ear and said with a yawn:
"Well, the cross I burned."
"Burned! and why?"
"Because the curate ordered it."
Ibarra drew his hand across his forehead.
"But at least you can show us the grave."
"The body's no longer there," said the grave-digger calmly.
"What are you saying!"
"Yes," the man went on, with a smile, "I put a woman in its place,eight days ago."
"Are you mad?" cried the servant; "it isn't a year since he wasburied."
"Father Damaso ordered it; he told me to take the body to the Chinesecemetery; I----"
He got no farther, and started back in terror at sight of Crisostomo'sface. Crisostomo seized his arm. "And you did it?" he demanded,in a terrible voice.
"Don't be angry, senor," replied the grave-digger, pale andtrembling. "I didn't bury him with the Chinese. Better be drownedthan that, I thought to myself, and I threw him into the water."
Ibarra stared at him like a madman. "You're only a poor fool!" hesaid at length, and pushing him away, he rushed headlong for thegate, stumbling over graves and bones, and painfully followed by theold servant.
"That's what the dead bring us," grumbled the gravedigger. "The curateorders me to dig the man up, and this fellow breaks my arm for doingit. That's the way with the Spaniards. I shall lose my place!"
XIII.
THE LITTLE SACRISTANS.
The little old man of the cemetery wandered absent-minded alongthe streets.
He was a character of the pueblo. He had once been a student inphilosophy, but abandoned his course at the demands of his mother. Thegood woman, finding that her son had talent, feared lest he become asavant and forget God; she let him choose, therefore, between studyingfor the priesthood and leaving the college of San Jose. He was in love,took the latter course, and married. Widowed and orphaned within ayear, he found in books a deliverance from sadness, idleness, andthe gallera. Unhappily he studied too much, bought too many books,neglected to care for his fortune, and came to financial ruin. Somepeople called him Don Astasio, or Tasio the philosopher; others,and by far the greater number, Tasio the fool.
The afternoon threatened a tempest. Pale flashes of lightning illuminedthe leaden sky; the atmosphere was heavy and close.
Arrived at the church door, Tasio entered and spoke to two little boys,one ten years old perhaps, the other seven.
"Coming with me?" he asked. "Your mother has ready a dinner fitfor curates."
"The head sacristan won't let us leave yet," said the elder. "We'regoing into the tower to ring the bells."
"Take care! don't go too near the bells in the storm," said Tasio, and,head down, he went off, thinking, toward the outskirts of the town.
Soon the rain came down in torrents, the thunder echoed clap on clap,each detonation preceded by an awful zig-zag of fire. The tempestgrew in fury, and, scarce able to ride on the shifting wind, theplaintive voices of the bells rang out a lamentation.
The boys were in the tower, the younger, timid, in spite of his greatblack eyes, hugging close to his brother. They resembled one another,but the elder had the stronger and more thoughtful face. Their dresswas poor, patched, and darned. The wind beat in the rain a little,where they were, and set the flame of their candle dancing.
"Pull your rope, Crispin," said the elder to his little brother.
Crispin pulled, and heard a feeble plaint, quickly silenced bya thunder crash. "If we were only home with mama," he mourned,"I shouldn't be afraid."
The other did not answer. He watched the candle melt, and seemedthoughtful.
"At least, no one there would call me a thief; mama would not haveit. If she knew they had beaten me----" The elder gave the great corda sharp pull; a deep, sonorous tone trembled out.
"Pay what they say I stole! Pay it, brother!"
"Are you mad, Crispin? Mama would have nothing to eat; they say youstole two onces, and two onces make thirty-two pesos."
The little fellow counted thirty-two on his fingers.
"Six hands and two fingers. And each finger makes a peso, and eachpeso how many cuartos?"
"A hundred sixty."
"And how much is a hundred sixty?"
"Thirty-two hands."
Crispin regarded his little paws.
"Thirty-two hands," he said, "and each finger a cuarto! O mama! howmany cuartos! and with them one could buy shoes, and a hat for the sun,and an umbrella for the rain, and clothes for mama."
Crispin became pensive.
"What I'm afraid of is that mama will be angry with you when shehears about it."
"You think so?" said Crispin, surprised. "But I've never had a cuartoexcept the one they gave me at Easter. Mama won't believe I stole;she won't believe it!"
"But if the curate says so----"
Crispin began to cry, and said through his sobs:
"Then go alone, I won't go. Tell mama I'm sick."
"Crispin, don't cry," said his brother. "If mama seems to believe whatthey say, you'll tell her that the sacristan lies, that the curatebelieves him, that they say we are thieves because our father----"
A head came out of the shadows in the little stairway, and as if ithad been Medusa's, i
t froze the words on the children's lips.
The head was long and lean, with a shock of black hair. Blue glassesconcealed one sightless eye. It was the chief sacristan who had thusstolen upon the children.
"You, Basilio, are fined two reales for not ringing regularly. And you,Crispin, stay to-night till you find what you've stolen."
"We have permission," began Basilio; "our mother expects us at nine."
"You won't go at nine o'clock either; you shall stay till ten."
"But, senor, after nine one can't pass through the streets----"
"Are you trying to dictate to me?" demanded the sacristan, and heseized Crispin's arm.
"Senor, we have not seen our mother for a week," entreated Basilio,taking hold of his brother as if to protect him.
With a stroke on the cheek the sacristan made him let go, and draggedoff Crispin, who commenced to cry, let himself fall, tried to clingto the floor, and besought Basilio to keep him. But the sacristan,dragging the child, disappeared in the shadows.
Basilio stood mute. He heard his little brother's body strikeagainst the stairs; he heard a cry, blows, heart-rending words,growing fainter and fainter, lost at last in the distance.
"When shall I be strong enough?" he murmured, and dashed down thestairs.
He reached the choir and listened. He could still hear his littlebrother's voice; then over the cry, "Mama!--Brother!" a doorshut. Trembling, damp with sweat, holding his mouth with his hand tostifle a cry, he stood a moment looking about in the dim church. Thedoors were closed, the windows barred. He went back to the tower, didnot stop at the second stage, where the bells were rung, but climbedto the third, loosed the ropes that held the tongues of the bells,then went down again, pale, his eyes gleaming, but without tears.
The rain commenced to slacken and the sky to clear. Basilio knottedthe ropes, fastened an end to a beam of the balcony, and, forgettingto blow out the candle, glided down into the darkness.
Some minutes later voices were heard in a street of the pueblo,and two rifle shots rang out; but it raised no alarm, and all againbecame silent.
XIV.
SISA.
Nearly an hour's walk from the pueblo lived the mother of Basilio andCrispin, wife of a man who passed his time in lounging or watchingcock-fights while she struggled to bring up their children. Thehusband and wife saw each other rarely, and their interviews werepainful. To feed his vices, he had robbed her of her few trinkets,and when the unhappy Sisa had nothing more with which to satisfyhis caprices he began to abuse her. Without much strength of will,dowered with more heart than reason, she only knew how to loveand to weep. Her husband was a god, her children were angels. He,who knew how much he was adored and feared, like other false gods,grew more and more arbitrary and cruel.
The stars were glittering in the sky cleared by the tempest. Sisasat on the wooden bench, her chin in her hand, watching some branchessmoulder on her hearth of uncut stones. On these stones was a littlepan where rice was cooking, and among the cinders were three drysardines.
She was still young, and one saw she had been beautiful. Her eyes,which, with her soul, she had given to her sons, were fine, deep,and fringed with dark lashes; her face was regular; her skin pureolive. In spite of her youth, suffering, hunger sometimes, had begunto hollow her cheeks. Her abundant hair, once her glory, was stillcarefully dressed--but from habit, not coquetry.
All day Sisa had been thinking of the pleasure coming at night. Shepicked the finest tomatoes in her garden--favorite dish of littleCrispin; from her neighbor, Tasio, she got a fillet of wild boar anda wild duck's thigh for Basilio, and she chose and cooked the whitestrice on the threshing-floor.
Alas! the father arrived. Good-by to the dinner! He ate the rice,the filet of wild boar, the duck's thigh, and the tomatoes. Sisa saidnothing, happy to see her husband satisfied, and so much happierthat, having eaten, he remembered he had children and asked wherethey were. The poor mother smiled. She had promised herself to eatnothing--there was not enough left for three; but the father hadthought of his sons, that was better than food.
Sisa, left alone, wept a little; but she thought of her children,and dried her tears. She cooked the little rice she had left, andthe three sardines.
Attentive to every sound, she now sat listening: a footfall strongand regular, it was Basilio's; light and unsteady, Crispin's.
But the children did not come.
To pass the time, she hummed a song. Her voice was beautiful, and whenher children heard her sing "Kundiman" they cried, without knowingwhy. To-night her voice trembled, and the notes came tardily.
She went to the door and scanned the road. A black dog was there,searching about. It frightened Sisa, and she threw a stone, sendingthe dog off howling.
Sisa was not superstitious, but she had so often heard of black dogsand presentiments that terror seized her. She shut the door in hasteand sat down by the light. She prayed to the Virgin, to God Himself,to take care of her boys, and most for the little Crispin. Then, drawnaway from prayer by her sole preoccupation, she thought no longerof aught but her children, of all their ways, which seemed to her sopleasing. Then the terror returned. Vision or reality, Crispin stoodby the hearth, where he often sat to chatter to her. He said nothing,but looked at her with great, pensive eyes, and smiled.
"Mother, open! Open the door, mother!" said Basilio's voice outside.
Sisa shuddered, and the vision disappeared.
XV.
BASILIO.
Life is a Dream.
Basilio had scarcely strength to enter and fall into his mother'sarms. A strange cold enveloped Sisa when she saw him come alone. Shewished to speak, but found no words; to caress her son, but foundno force. Yet at the sight of blood on his forehead, her voice came,and she cried in a tone which seemed to tell of a breaking heartstring:
"My children!"
"Don't be frightened, mama; Crispin stayed at the convent."
"At the convent? He stayed at the convent? Living?"
The child raised his eyes to hers.
"Ah!" she cried, passing from the greatest anguish to the utmostjoy. She wept, embraced her child, covered with kisses his woundedforehead.
"And why are you hurt, my son? Did you fall?"
Basilio told her he had been challenged by the guard, ran, was shotat, and a ball had grazed his forehead.
"O God! I thank Thee that Thou didst save him!" murmured the mother.
She went for lint and vinegar water, and while she bandaged his wound:
"Why," she asked, "did Crispin stay at the convent?"
Basilio looked at her, kissed her, then little by little told thestory of the lost money; he said nothing of the torture of his littlebrother. Mother and child mingled their tears.
"Accuse my good Crispin! It's because we are poor, and the poor mustbear everything," murmured Sisa. Both were silent a moment.
"But you have not eaten," said the mother. "Here are sardines andrice."
"I'm not hungry, mama; I only want some water."
"Yes, eat," said the mother. "I know you don't like dry sardines,and I had something else for you; but your father came, my poor child."
"My father came?" and Basilio instinctively examined his mother'sface and hands.
The question pained the mother; she sighed.
"You won't eat? Then we must go to bed; it is late."
Sisa barred the door and covered the fire. Basilio murmured hisprayers, and crept on the mat near his mother, who was still on herknees. She was warm, he was cold. He thought of his little brother,who had hoped to sleep this night close to his mother's side, tremblingwith fear in some dark corner of the convent. He heard his cries ashe had heard them in the tower; but Nature soon confused his ideasand he slept.
In the middle of the night Sisa wakened him.
"What is it, Basilio? Why are you crying?"
"I was dreaming. O mama! it was a dream, wasn't it? Say it was nothingbut a dream!"
"What were you dreaming?"
r /> He did not answer, but sat up to dry his tears.
"Tell me the dream," said Sisa, when he had lain down again. "Icannot sleep."
"It is gone now, mama; I don't remember it all."
Sisa did not insist: she attached no importance to dreams.
"Mama," said Basilio after a moment of silence, "I'm not sleepyeither. I had a project last evening. I don't want to be a sacristan."
"What?"
"Listen, mama. The son of Don Rafael came home from Spain to-day;he should be as kind as his father. Well, to-morrow I find Crispin,get my pay, and say I'm not going to be a sacristan. Then I'll gosee Don Crisostomo and ask him to make me a buffalo-keeper. Crispincould go on studying with old Tasio. Tasio's better than the curatethinks; I've often seen him praying in the church when no one else wasthere. What shall I lose in not being a sacristan? One earns little andloses it all in fines. I'll be a herdsman, mama, and take good care ofthe cows and carabaos, and make my master love me; then perhaps he'lllet us have a cow to milk: Crispin loves milk. And I could fish in therivers and go hunting when I get big. And by and by perhaps I couldhave a little land and sow sugar-cane. We could all live together,then. And old Tasio says Crispin is very bright. By and by we wouldsend him to study at Manila, and I would work for him. Shall we,mama? He might be a doctor; what do you say?"
"What can I say, except that you are right," answered Sisa, kissingher son.