“Can you tell me which is the grave there that had a cross over it?” asked the servant.
The gravedigger looked toward the place and reflected. “A big cross?”
“Yes, a big one!” affirmed the servant eagerly, with a significant look at Ibarra, whose face lighted up.
“A carved cross tied up with rattan?” continued the gravedigger.
“That’s it, that’s it, like this!” exclaimed the servant in answer as he drew on the ground the figure of a Byzantine cross.
“Were there flowers scattered on the grave?”
“Oleanders and tuberoses and forget-me-nots, yes!” the servant added joyfully, offering the gravedigger a cigar.
“Tell us which is the grave and where the cross is.”
The gravedigger scratched his ear and answered with a yawn: “Well, as for the cross, I burned it.”
“Burned it? Why did you burn it?”
“Because the fat curate ordered me to do so.”
“Who is the fat curate?” asked Ibarra.
“Who? Why, the one that beats people with a big cane.”
Ibarra drew his hand across his forehead. “But at least you can tell us where the grave is. You must remember that.”
The gravedigger smiled as he answered quietly, “But the corpse is no longer there.”
“What’s that you’re saying?”
“Yes,” continued the gravedigger in a half-jesting tone. “I buried a woman in that place a week ago.”
“Are you crazy?” cried the servant. “It hasn’t been a year since we buried him.”
“That’s very true, but a good many months ago I dug the body up. The fat curate ordered me to do so and to take it to the cemetery of the Chinamen. But as it was heavy and there was rain that night—”
He was stopped by the threatening attitude of Ibarra, who had caught him by the arm and was shaking him. “Did you do that?” demanded the youth in an indescribable tone.
“Don’t be angry, sir,” stammered the pale and trembling gravedigger. “I didn’t bury him among the Chinamen. Better be drowned than lie among Chinamen, I said to myself, so I threw the body into the lake.”
Ibarra placed both his hands on the gravedigger’s shoulders and stared at him for a long time with an indefinable expression. Then, with the ejaculation, “You are only a miserable slave!” he turned away hurriedly, stepping upon bones, graves, and crosses, like one beside himself.
The gravedigger patted his arm and muttered, “All the trouble dead men cause! The fat padre caned me for allowing it to be buried while I was sick, and this fellow almost tore my arm off for having dug it up. That’s what these Spaniards are! I’ll lose my job yet!”
Ibarra walked rapidly with a faraway look in his eyes, while the aged servant followed him weeping. The sun was setting, and over the eastern sky was flung a heavy curtain of clouds. A dry wind shook the treetops and made the bamboo clumps creak. Ibarra went bareheaded, but no tear wet his eyes nor did any sigh escape from his breast. He moved as if fleeing from something, perhaps the shade of his father, perhaps the approaching storm. He crossed through the town to the outskirts on the opposite side and turned toward the old house which he had not entered for so many years. Surrounded by a cactus-covered wall it seemed to beckon to him with its open windows, while the ilang-ilang waved its flower-laden branches joyfully and the doves circled about the conical roof of their cote in the middle of the garden.
But the youth gave no heed to these signs of welcome back to his old home, his eyes being fixed on the figure of a priest approaching from the opposite direction. It was the curate of San Diego, the pensive Franciscan whom we have seen before, the rival of the alferez. The breeze folded back the brim of his wide hat and blew his guingón habit closely about him, revealing the outlines of his body and his thin, curved thighs. In his right hand he carried an ivory-headed palasan cane.
This was the first time that he and Ibarra had met. When they drew near each other Ibarra stopped and gazed at him from head to foot; Fray Salví avoided the look and tried to appear unconcerned. After a moment of hesitation Ibarra went up to him quickly and dropping a heavy hand on his shoulder, asked in a husky voice, “What did you do with my father?”
Fray Salví, pale and trembling as he read the deep feelings that flushed the youth’s face, could not answer; he seemed paralyzed.
“What did you do with my father?” again demanded the youth in a choking voice.
The priest, who was gradually being forced to his knees by the heavy hand that pressed upon his shoulder, made a great effort and answered, “You are mistaken, I did nothing to your father.”
“You didn’t?” went on the youth, forcing him down upon his knees.
“No, I assure you! It was my predecessor, it was Padre Dámaso!”
“Ah!” exclaimed the youth, releasing his hold, and clapping his hand desperately to his brow; then, leaving poor Fray Salví, he turned away and hurried toward his house. The old servant came up and helped the friar to his feet.
XIV
Tasio: Lunatic or Sage
The peculiar old man wandered about the streets aimlessly. A former student of philosophy, he had given up his career in obedience to his mother’s wishes and not from any lack of means or ability. Quite the contrary, it was because his mother was rich and he was said to possess talent. The good woman feared that her son would become learned and forget God, so she had given him his choice of entering the priesthood or leaving college. Being in love, he chose the latter course and married. Then having lost both his wife and his mother within a year, he sought consolation in his books in order to free himself from sorrow, the cockpit, and
