Noli me tángere. English

  CHAPTER LVIII

  The Accursed

  Soon the news spread through the town that the prisoners were about toset out. At first it was heard with terror; afterward came the weepingand wailing. The families of the prisoners ran about in distraction,going from the convento to the barracks, from the barracks to thetown hall, and finding no consolation anywhere, filled the air withcries and groans. The curate had shut himself up on a plea of illness;the alferez had increased the guards, who received the supplicatingwomen with the butts of their rifles; the gobernadorcillo, at besta useless creature, seemed to be more foolish and more useless thanever. In front of the jail the women who still had strength enoughran to and fro, while those who had not sat down on the ground andcalled upon the names of their beloved.

  Although the sun beat down fiercely, not one of these unfortunatesthought of going away. Doray, the erstwhile merry and happy wife of DonFilipo, wandered about dejectedly, carrying in her arms their infantson, both weeping. To the advice of friends that she go back home toavoid exposing her baby to an attack of fever, the disconsolate womanreplied, "Why should he live, if he isn't going to have a father torear him?"

  "Your husband is innocent. Perhaps he'll come back."

  "Yes, after we're all dead!"

  Capitana Tinay wept and called upon her son Antonio. The courageousCapitana Maria gazed silently toward the small grating behind whichwere her twin-boys, her only sons.

  There was present also the mother-in-law of the pruner ofcoco-palms, but she was not weeping; instead, she paced back andforth, gesticulating with uplifted arms, and haranguing the crowd:"Did you ever see anything like it? To arrest my Andong, to shoot athim, to put him in the stocks, to take him to the capital, and onlybecause--because he had a new pair of pantaloons! This calls forvengeance! The civil-guards are committing abuses! I swear that ifI ever again catch one of them in my garden, as has often happened,I'll chop him up, I'll chop him up, or else--let him try to chop meup!" Few persons, however, joined in the protests of the Mussulmanishmother-in-law.

  "Don Crisostomo is to blame for all this," sighed a woman.

  The schoolmaster was also in the crowd, wandering about bewildered. NorJuan did not rub his hands, nor was he carrying his rule and plumb-bob;he was dressed in black, for he had heard the bad news and, trueto his habit of looking upon the future as already assured, was inmourning for Ibarra's death.

  At two o'clock in the afternoon an open cart drawn by two oxen stoppedin front of the town hall. This was at once set upon by the people,who attempted to unhitch the oxen and destroy it. "Don't do that!" saidCapitana Maria. "Do you want to make them walk?" This considerationacted as a restraint on the prisoners' relatives.

  Twenty soldiers came out and surrounded the cart; then the prisonersappeared. The first was Don Filipo, bound. He greeted his wifesmilingly, but Doray broke out into bitter weeping and two guards haddifficulty in preventing her from embracing her husband. Antonio, theson of Capitana Tinay, appeared crying like a baby, which only added tothe lamentations of his family. The witless Andong broke out into tearsat sight of his mother-in-law, the cause of his misfortune. Albino,the quondam theological student, was also bound, as were CapitanaMaria's twins. All three were grave and serious. The last to comeout was Ibarra, unbound, but conducted between two guards. The pallidyouth looked about him for a friendly face.

  "He's the one that's to blame!" cried many voices. "He's to blameand he goes loose!"

  "My son-in-law hasn't done anything and he's got handcuffs on!" Ibarraturned to the guards. "Bind me, and bind me well, elbow to elbow,"he said.

  "We haven't any order."

  "Bind me!" And the soldiers obeyed.

  The alferez appeared on horseback, armed to the teeth, ten or fifteenmore soldiers following him.

  Each prisoner had his family there to pray for him, to weep for him,to bestow on him the most endearing names--all save Ibarra, who hadno one, even Nor Juan and the schoolmaster having disappeared.

  "Look what you've done to my husband and my son!" Doray cried tohim. "Look at my poor son! You've robbed him of his father!"

  So the sorrow of the families was converted into anger toward theyoung man, who was accused of having started the trouble. The alferezgave the order to set out.

  "You're a coward!" the mother-in-law of Andong cried afterIbarra. "While others were fighting for you, you hid yourself, coward!"

  "May you be accursed!" exclaimed an old man, running along besidehim. "Accursed be the gold amassed by your family to disturb ourpeace! Accursed! Accursed!"

  "May they hang you, heretic!" cried a relative of Albino's. Unableto restrain himself, he caught up a stone and threw it at the youth.

  This example was quickly followed, and a rain of dirt and stones fellon the wretched young man. Without anger or complaint, impassively hebore the righteous vengeance of so many suffering hearts. This was theparting, the farewell, offered to him by the people among whom wereall his affections. With bowed head, he was perhaps thinking of a manwhipped through the streets of Manila, of an old woman falling deadat the sight of her son's head; perhaps Elias's history was passingbefore his eyes.

  The alferez found it necessary to drive the crowd back, but thestone-throwing and the insults did not cease. One mother alone did notwreak vengeance on him for her sorrows, Capitana Maria. Motionless,with lips contracted and eyes full of silent tears, she saw her twosons move away; her firmness, her dumb grief surpassed that of thefabled Niobe.

  So the procession moved on. Of the persons who appeared at thefew open windows those who showed most pity for the youth were theindifferent and the curious. All his friends had hidden themselves,even Capitan Basilio himself, who forbade his daughter Sinang to weep.

  Ibarra saw the smoking ruins of his house--the home of his fathers,where he was born, where clustered the fondest recollections of hischildhood and his youth. Tears long repressed started into his eyes,and he bowed his head and wept without having the consolation of beingable to hide his grief, tied as he was, nor of having any one in whomhis sorrow awoke compassion. Now he had neither country, nor home,nor love, nor friends, nor future!

  From a slight elevation a man gazed upon the sad procession. He was anold man, pale and emaciated, wrapped in a woolen blanket, supportinghimself with difficulty on a staff. It was the old Sage, Tasio, who,on hearing of the event, had left his bed to be present, but hisstrength had not been sufficient to carry him to the town hall. Theold man followed the cart with his gaze until it disappeared in thedistance and then remained for some time afterward with his head bowed,deep in thought. Then he stood up and laboriously made his way towardhis house, pausing to rest at every step. On the following day someherdsmen found him dead on the very threshold of his solitary home.