When by dint of blows, pinches, dashes of water, crosses, and the application of sacred palms, the girl recovered and remembered the situation, silent tears sprang from her eyes, drop by drop, without sobs, without laments, without complaints! She thought about Basilio, who had had no other protector than Capitan Tiago, and who now, with the Capitan dead, was left completely unprotected and in prison. In the Philippines it is a well-known fact that patrons are needed for everything, from the time one is christened until one dies, in order to get justice, to secure a passport, or to develop an industry. As it was said that his imprisonment was due to revenge on account of herself and her father, the girl’s sorrow turned to desperation. Now it was her duty to liberate him, as he had done in rescuing her from servitude, and the inner voice which suggested the idea offered to her imagination a horrible means.
“Padre Camorra, the curate,” whispered the voice. Julî gnawed at her lips and became lost in gloomy meditation.
As a result of her father’s crime, her grandfather had been arrested in the hope that by such means the son could be made to appear. The only one who could get him his liberty was Padre Camorra, and Padre Camorra had shown himself to be poorly satisfied with her words of gratitude, having with his usual frankness asked for some sacrifices—since which time Julî had tried to avoid meeting him. But the curate made her kiss his hand, he twitched her nose and patted her cheeks, he joked with her, winking and laughing, and laughing he pinched her. Julî was also the cause of the beating the good curate had administered to some young men who were going about the village serenading the girls. Malicious ones, seeing her pass sad and dejected, would remark so that she might hear: “If she only wished it, Cabesang Tales would be pardoned.”
Julî reached her home, gloomy and with wandering looks. She had changed greatly, having lost her merriment, and no one ever saw her smile again. She scarcely spoke and seemed to be afraid to look at her own face. One day she was seen in the town with a big spot of soot on her forehead, she who used to go so trim and neat. Once she asked Sister Balî if the people who committed suicide went to hell.
“Surely!” replied that woman, and proceeded to describe the place as though she had been there.
Upon Basilio’s imprisonment, the simple and grateful relatives had planned to make all kinds of sacrifices to save the young man, but as they could collect among themselves no more than thirty pesos, Sister Balî, as usual, thought of a better plan.
“What we must do is to get some advice from the town clerk,” she said. To these poor people, the town clerk was what the Delphic oracle was to the ancient Greeks.
“By giving him a real and a cigar,” she continued, “he’ll tell you all the laws so that your head bursts listening to him. If you have a peso, he’ll save you, even though you may be at the foot of the scaffold. When my friend Simon was put in jail and flogged for not being able to give evidence about a robbery perpetrated near his house, abá, for two reales and a half and a string of garlics, the town clerk got him out. And I saw Simon myself when he could scarcely walk and he had to stay in bed at least a month. Ay, his flesh rotted as a result and he died!”
Sister Balî’s advice was accepted and she herself volunteered to interview the town clerk. Julî gave her four reales and added some strips of jerked venison her grandfather had got, for Tandang Selo had again devoted himself to hunting.
But the town clerk could do nothing—the prisoner was in Manila, and his power did not extend that far. “If at least he were at the capital, then—” he ventured, to make a show of his authority, which he knew very well did not extend beyond the boundaries of Tiani, but he had to maintain his prestige and keep the jerked venison. “But I can give you a good piece of advice, and it is that you go with Julî to see the Justice of the Peace. But it’s very necessary that Julî go.”
The Justice of the Peace was a very rough fellow, but if he should see Julî he might conduct himself less rudely—this is wherein lay the wisdom of the advice.
With great gravity the honorable Justice listened to Sister Balî, who did the talking, but not without staring from time to time at the girl, who hung her head with shame. People would say that she was greatly interested in Basilio, people who did not remember her debt of gratitude, nor that his imprisonment, according to report, was on her account.
After belching three or four times, for his Honor had that ugly habit, he said that the only person who could save Basilio was Padre Camorra, in case he should care to do so. Here he stared meaningly at the girl and advised her to deal with the curate in person.
“You know what influence he has—he got your grandfather out of jail. A report from him is enough to deport a newborn babe or save from death a man with the noose about his neck.”
Julî said nothing, but Sister Balî took this advice as though she had read it in a novena, and was ready to accompany the girl to the convento. It so happened that she was just going there to get as alms a scapulary in exchange for four full reales.
But Julî shook her head and was unwilling to go to the convento. Sister Balî thought she could guess the reason—Padre Camorra was reputed to
