CHAPTER XI
THE FISHING PARTY.
The stars were still shining in the sapphire heavens, and the birdswere sleeping on the branches of the trees, when a jolly little party,by the light from the pitch torches, wandered through the streets ofthe town toward the lake.
Five young maidens, clinging to each other's hands or belts, trippedalong briskly. Behind them came several elderly women and a numberof servants gracefully carrying on their heads baskets filled withprovisions and various dishes for the picnic. On seeing their joyfulfaces, with their youthful smiles, their beautiful black hair as itfloated in the breeze, and the wide folds of their pretty dresses,you would have taken them for goddesses of the night and would havethought that they were fleeing from day--if perchance you had notalready known that it was Maria Clara and her four friends: jollySinang; her cousin, the serious Victoria; beautiful Iday; and thepensive Neneng, pretty, modest and timid.
They were talking with animation; they laughed; pinched each other;whispered in each other's ears and then burst out in shouts ofmerriment.
"You girls will wake up everybody in town. Don't you know that peopleare still asleep?" said Aunt Isabel, reprimanding them. "When we wereyoung, we didn't make such a noise."
"But you didn't get up as early as we do, nor were the old men suchgreat sleepers in your day," replied little Sinang.
They were quiet for a moment and were trying to talk in a low voice,but they quickly forgot themselves and were again filling the streetswith their youthful laughter and melodious voices.
Several young fellows were coming down the street, lighting their waywith large bamboo torches. They were marching along almost noiselesslyto the tune of a guitar.
"That guitar sounds as though some beggar were playing it," saidSinang, laughing. But when the young fellows caught up with the rest ofthe party, the girls suddenly became as quiet and as serious as thoughthey never had learned how to laugh. The young men, however, chattedaway, saluted the ladies, laughed and smiled and asked half a dozenquestions without giving the girls time to answer any one of them.
The two large bancas, [7] which had been secured to transport thepicnic party to the fishing grounds, were fastened together andpicturesquely adorned with wreaths and garlands of flowers and alarge number of vari-colored candles. Paper lanterns hung from theimprovised covering of the bancas. Alternately with these were roses,pinks and baskets of fruits such as pineapples, kasuys, bananas,guayabas and lanzones. Ibarra had brought his carpets, blankets andrugs and arranged comfortable seats for the ladies. The poles andpaddles used to propel the bancas had also been ornamented. In thebetter banca were a harp, guitars, accordeons, and a buffalo horn;while, in the other boat, a little fire had been lighted in animprovised stove in order that tea, coffee and salabat [8] might beprepared for the light breakfast.
"The women sit here; the men, there," said the mothers on steppinginto the banca. "Sit still and don't move, or we will be capsized."
"Cross yourselves before we start," said Aunt Isabel, as she tracedthe form of a cross on her breast.
"And are we to be here all by ourselves," asked Sinang, on seeing howthe girls had been separated from the young men, by the assignmentof the seats. Then making a grimace she asked again, "Are we goingto be all alone? Aray!"
This aray was caused by a little pinch which her mother had givenher on the arm in the way of a reprimand for her complaint.
The bancas were now putting off slowly from the shore. The lightfrom the torches and Japanese lanterns was reflected in the water,for the lake was as smooth as a mirror. In the far eastern horizoncould be seen the first rosy tints of the approaching dawn.
Everything was very quiet. The young women, in consequence of theseparation from the young men, seemed to be absorbed in meditation.
As the water was smooth as glass and the bamboo weirs where the fishwere to be found were not far off, and, it was still early, it wasdecided that all should stop paddling and take breakfast. The lightswere put out, for the day had dawned and preparations were made fordesayuno. [9]
The entire party became jolly as they breathed in the light breezethat had come up. Even the women, so full of presentiments a fewmoments ago, were now laughing and joking among themselves.
One young man alone of all the party remained silent. He was the pilot,an athletic-looking fellow, and interesting on account of his large,sad eyes and the severe lines of his lips. His long, black hair fellgracefully over his powerful neck. He wore a shirt of coarse darkcloth, through which his powerful muscles could be plainly seen as hemanipulated with his strong arms the wide, heavy paddle as if it wereonly a pen. This paddle served both to propel and to steer the bancas.
More than once he was embarrassed when he caught Maria Clara looking athim. Then he would turn his eyes quickly to some other direction andlook far off toward the mountain, or the shore of the lake. The youngmaiden pitied him in his solitude and offered him some biscuits. Thepilot looked at her with surprise, but only for a moment. He tookthe biscuits, thanked her very briefly and in a voice scarcely audible.
No one else took any notice of him. The happy laughter and jollyconversation of the young men did not cause him to relax a singlemuscle of his face. Not even Sinang, with all her jollity, had anyeffect on him.
"Wait a minute!" said Aunt Isabel to the boatman's son, who had madeready his net and was just about to go up on the baklad to take outthe fish from the little enclosure at the end of the weir. "We musthave everything ready, so that the fish may pass directly from thewater to the pot."
Andeng, the pretty foster sister of Maria Clara, despite her clearcomplexion and laughing face, had the reputation of being a goodcook. She prepared the rice, tomatoes, and camias, [10] while someof the young men tried to aid or bother her, perhaps in order to winher good will. The other girls were busy cleaning and making readythe lettuce, cabbage and peas, and cutting up paayap in pieces aboutthe size of a cigarette.
Finally Andeng announced that the kettle was ready to receive itsguests--the fish.
The fisherman's son went up on top of the rack at the end of theweir. He took a position at the narrow entrance, over which might havebeen written: "All who enter here leave hope behind," if indeed theunfortunate fish would know how to read and understand it, for a fishwho enters never gets out except to die. The rack is almost circular inform and about a meter in diameter, and is so arranged that a man canstand on top of one end of it and thus take out the fish with his net.
"There, it wouldn't tire me a bit to fish that way," said Sinang,quite joyful.
All were watching attentively. Already some of them in their vividimaginations thought they could see the fish wiggling their tailsand trying to get out of the little net, their scales shining in thebright sun. However, the young man failed to catch a single fish inhis first attempt.
"It ought to be full of fish," said Albino, in a low voice. "It ismore than five days since we visited the place last."
The fisherman drew out his net a second time, but not a fish was therein it. The water, as it trickled through the meshes of the net incountless drops which reflected the rays of the sun, seemed to laughin silvery tones. An "Ah" of surprise, disgust, and disappointmentescaped from the lips of all.
The young fellow repeated the same operation, but with a similarresult.
"You don't understand your business!" said Albino to him as he steppedup on the rack and took the net from the hands of the youngster. "Nowyou will see! Andeng, open up the kettle!"
But Albino did not understand his business, either. The net came upempty as before. All began to laugh.
"Don't make any noise," he said, "or the fish will hear it and willkeep from being caught. This net must have a hole in it somewhere."
But every mesh in the net was perfect.
"Let me take it!" said Leon, Iday's lover, to Albino.
Leon first made sure that the enclosure was in good condition andthen examined the net carefully and satisfied himself that
there wasnothing wrong with it. He then asked: "Are you sure that no one hasbeen out here for five days?"
"We are sure! The last time any one was out here was on All Saints'Day."
"Well, then, I am going to bring out something this time, unless thelake is bewitched."
Leon lowered the net by its bamboo handle into the water, but a lookof surprise was painted on his face. In silence he looked toward theneighboring mountain and continued moving the handle of the net fromone side to the other. Finally, without taking the net out of thewater, he murmured in a low voice: "An alligator."
"An alligator!" exclaimed half a dozen voices, and the word wasrepeated again while all stood frightened and stupefied.
"What did you say?" they asked.
"I say that there is an alligator caught in the rack," said Leon,and sticking the handle of the net into the water again he continued:"Do you hear that sound? That is not sand, it is hard skin, the backof the alligator. Do you see how he wiggles the bamboo pickets inthe rack? He is struggling hard but he cannot do anything. Wait. Heis a large fellow; his body measures a palm or more in width."
"What shall be done?" was the question.
"Catch him," said one.
"Jesus! And who will catch him?"
Nobody offered to dive down to the bottom of the rack. The water wasvery deep.
"We ought to tie him to our banca and drag him along in triumph,"said Sinang. "The idea of his eating the fish which we ought to have!"
"I have never seen to this day a live alligator," said Maria Clara.
The pilot rose to his feet, took a long rope and went up cautiously tothe platform on the top of the rack. Leon gave up his position to him.
With the exception of Maria Clara, none up till now had paid anyattention to him. Now every one was admiring his fine stature.
To the great surprise of all and in spite of all their cries, thepilot leaped into the enclosure.
"Take this knife!" shouted Crisostomo, drawing out a wide-bladedToledo knife.
But already a thousand little bubbles were rising to the surface ofthe water, and all that was going on in the depths below was wrappedin mystery.
"Jesus, Maria y Jose!" exclaimed the women. "We are going to have amisfortune. Jesus, Maria y Jose!"
"Don't be alarmed, senoras," said the old boatman. "If there is anyone in this province who can do it, it is that fellow who has justgone down."
"What is his name?" they asked.
"We call him 'The Pilot'; he is the best I have ever seen, only hedoes not like his profession."
The water was being stirred violently, and it seemed that a fiercefight was being waged in the depths of the lake. The sides of theenclosure swayed to and fro, while the water seemed to be swirled bya dozen currents. All held their breath. Ibarra grasped tightly thehandle of his sharp knife.
The fight seemed to be at an end. The head of the young man rose tothe surface of the water, and the sight was greeted by joyful shoutsfrom all. The eyes of the women were full of tears.
The pilot crawled up on the platform carrying in his hand the end ofthe rope, and as soon as he was able pulled on it.
The monster appeared on top of the water. He had the rope tied twicearound his neck, and once behind his forelegs. He was a large fellow,as Leon had already announced. He was beautifully colored and greenmoss was growing on his back. He bellowed like an ox, struck his tailagainst the sides of the enclosure, snapped at them, and opened hisblack, frightful-looking mouth, showing his long teeth.
The pilot, unassisted, raised him up out of the water. No one offeredto help him. Just as soon as the animal was out of the water andplaced on the platform, the pilot put his foot on his back. Then,closing the animal's massive jaws, he tried to tie his big snout tightwith the rope. The reptile made a last effort, doubled up his body,struck the floor of the platform with his powerful tail and, breakingloose, made a leap into the water of the lake, on the other side ofthe weir, at the same time dragging with him his captor. It seemedthat the pilot would be a dead man. A cry of horror went up from all.
Like a flash of lightning, another body leaped into the water. Soquickly was it done that they had scarcely time to see that it wasIbarra. Maria Clara did not faint, simply because the Filipinos donot know how to faint.
They all saw the water become colored, and tinged with blood. Theyoung fisherman leaped to the bottom with his bolo in his hand; hisfather followed him. But, scarcely had they disappeared, when theysaw Crisostomo and the pilot reappear, clinging to the body of thereptile. The monster's white belly was slashed, while in his throatthe knife still stuck like a nail.
It is impossible to describe the joy that came over the party atthe sight; all arms were extended to help them out of the water. Theold women were half crazed with joy, and laughed and prayed. Andengforgot that her kettle had been boiling three different times; nowit was leaking and had put out the fire. The only one who could notspeak was Maria Clara.
Ibarra was unhurt. The pilot had a slight scratch on his arm.
"I owe you my life!" said he to Ibarra as the latter wrapped himselfup in the shawls and blankets. The voice of the pilot had a ringof sincerity.
"You are too bold," replied Ibarra. "Another time you must nottempt God."
"If you had never come back!" exclaimed Maria, pale and trembling.
"If I had never come back and you had followed after me," repliedthe young man, "I would have been with all my family in the bottom ofthe lake." Ibarra was thinking that in those depths lay the remainsof his father.
The mothers of the girls did not want to go to the other baklador weir. They preferred to go back home happy, for the day hadcommenced with a bad omen and they feared that they would suffermany misfortunes.
"It is all because we have not heard mass," sighed one of them.
"But what misfortune have we had, senoras?" asked Ibarra. "Thealligator was the unfortunate one."
"That goes to show," concluded Albino, "that, in all his fishing life,this reptile has never heard mass. I never saw him, I am sure, amongthe other reptiles who frequent the church."
The bancas were turned toward the other fish rack, and it was necessaryfor Andeng to get the water boiling again.
The day was advancing; a breeze was blowing; little waves were stirredup on the water, and rippled around the alligator. The music beganagain. Iday was playing the harp, while the young men were playingthe accordeons and guitars with more or less skill. But the one whoplayed best was Albino.
The other weir was visited with an entire lack of confidence. Manyof the party expected to find there the mate to the alligator, butNature fooled them and every time that the net was lowered it wasbrought up full of fish.
They then headed for the shore of the lake, where is situated theforest of trees centuries old, owned by Ibarra. There in the shadeand near the crystal brook the party were to take their breakfastamong the flowers or under improvised tents.