An Eagle Flight: A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere

  The good and honorable pontoon bridge, so characteristically Filipino,doing its best to be useful in spite of natural faults, and risingor falling with the caprices of the Pasig,--that brave bridge was nomore. The new Spanish bridge drew Ibarra's attention. Carriages passedcontinuously, drawn by groups of dwarf horses, in splendid harness. Inthese sat at ease government clerks going to their bureaus, officers,Chinese, self-satisfied and ridiculously grave monks, canons. In anelegant victoria, Ibarra thought he recognized Father Damaso, deepin thought. From an open carriage, where his wife and two daughtersaccompanied him, Captain Tinong waved a friendly greeting.

  Then came the Botanical Gardens, then old Manila, still enclosed in itsditches and walls; beyond that the sea; beyond that, Europe, thoughtIbarra. But the little hill of Bagumbayan drove away all fancies. Heremembered the man who had opened the eyes of his intelligence,taught him to find out the true and the just. It was an old priest,and the holy man had died there, on that field of execution!

  To these thoughts he replied by murmuring: "No, after all, firstthe country, first the Philippines, daughters of Spain, first theSpanish home-land!"

  His carriage rolled on. It passed a cart drawn by two horses whosehempen harness told of the back country. Sometimes there sounded theslow and heavy tread of a pensive carabao, drawing a great tumbrel;its conductor, on his buffalo skin, accompanying, with a monotonous andmelancholy chant, the strident creaking of the wheels. Sometimes therewas the dull sound of a native sledge's worn runners. In the fieldsgrazed the herds, and among them white herons gravely promenaded, orsat tranquil on the backs of sleepy oxen beatifically chewing theircuds of prairie grass. Let us leave the young man, wholly occupiednow with his thoughts. The sun which makes the tree-tops burn, andsends the peasants running, when they feel the hot ground throughtheir thick shoes; the sun which halts the countrywoman under a clumpof great reeds, and makes her think of things vague and strange--thatsun has no enchantment for him.

  While the carriage, staggering like a drunken man over the unevenground, passes a bamboo bridge, mounts a rough hillside or descendsits steep slope, let us return to Manila.

  IX.

  AFFAIRS OF THE COUNTRY.

  Ibarra had not been mistaken. It was indeed Father Damaso he had seen,on his way to the house which he himself had just left.

  Maria Clara and Aunt Isabel were entering their carriage when the monkarrived. "Where are you going?" he asked, and in his preoccupationhe gently tapped the young girl's cheek.

  "To the convent to get my things," said she.

  "Ah! ah! well, well! we shall see who is the stronger, we shallsee!" he murmured, as he left the two women somewhat surprised andwent up the steps.

  "He's probably committing his sermon," said Aunt Isabel. "Come,we are late!"

  We cannot say whether Father Damaso was committing a sermon, but hemust have been absorbed in important things, for he did not offerhis hand to Captain Tiago.

  "Santiago," he said, "we must have a serious talk. Come into youroffice."

  Captain Tiago felt uneasy. He answered nothing, but followed thegigantic priest, who closed the door behind them.

  While they talk, let us see what has become of Father Sibyla.

  The learned Dominican, his mass once said, had set out for theconvent of his order, which stands at the entrance to the city,near the gate bearing alternately, according to the family reigningat Madrid, the name of Magellan or Isabella II.

  Brother Sibyla entered, crossed several halls, and knocked at a door.

  "Come in," said a faint voice.

  "God give health to your reverence," said the young Dominican,entering. Seated in a great armchair was an old priest, meagre,jaundiced, like Rivera's saints. His eyes, deep-sunken in theirorbits, were arched with heavy brows, intensifying the flashes oftheir dying light.

  Brother Sibyla was moved. He inclined his head, and seemed to wait.

  "Ah!" gasped the sick man, "they recommend an operation! An operationat my age! Oh, this country, this terrible country! You see what itdoes for all of us, Hernando!"

  "And what has your reverence decided?"

  "To die! Could I do otherwise? I suffer too much, but--I've madeothers suffer. I'm paying my debt. And you? How are you? What do youbring me?"

  "I came to talk of the mission you gave me."

  "Ah! and what is there to say?"

  "They've told us fairy tales," answered Brother Sibyla wearily. "YoungIbarra seems a sensible fellow. He is not stupid at all, and thoroughlymanly."

  "Is it so!"

  "Hostilities began yesterday."

  "Ah! and how?"

  Brother Sibyla briefly recounted what had passed between BrotherDamaso and Crisostomo.

  "Besides," he said in conclusion, "the young man is going to marrythe daughter of Captain Tiago, who was educated at the convent ofour sisters. He is rich; he would not go about making himself enemiesand compromise at once his happiness and his fortune."

  The sick man moved his hand in sign of assent.

  "Yes, you are right. He should be ours, body and soul. But if hedeclare himself our enemy, so much the better!"

  Brother Sibyla looked at the old man in surprise.

  "For the good of our sacred order, you understand," he added, breathingwith difficulty; "I prefer attack to the flatteries and adulationsof friends; besides, those are bought."

  "Your reverence believes that?"

  The old man looked at him sadly.

  "Remember this well," he went on, catching his breath; "our power lastsas long as it's believed in. If we're attacked, the Government reasons:'They are assailed because in them is seen an obstacle to liberty:therefore we must support them!'"

  "But if the Government should listen to our enemies, if it shouldcome to covet what we have amassed--if there should be a man hardyenough----"

  "Ah! then beware!"

  Both were silent.

  "And too," the sick man continued, "we have need of attack to showus our faults and make us better them. Too much flattery deceivesus; we sleep; and more, it makes us ridiculous, and the day webecome ridiculous we fall as we have fallen in Europe. Money will nolonger come to our churches. No one will buy scapulary, penitentialcords, anything; and when we cease to be rich, we can no longerconvince the conscience. And the worst is, that we're working our owndestruction. For one thing, this immoderate thirst for gain, which I'vecombated in vain in all our chapters, this thirst will be our ruin. Ifear we are already declining. God blinds whom He will destroy."

  "We shall always have our lands."

  "But every year we raise their price, and force the Indian to buy ofothers. The people are beginning to murmur. We ought not to increasethe burdens we've already laid on their shoulders."

  "So your reverence believes that the revenues----"

  "Talk no more of money," interrupted the old man with aversion. "Yousay the lieutenant threatened Father Damaso?"

  "Yes, Father," replied Sibyla, half smiling; "but this morning hetold me the sherry had mounted to his head, and he thought it musthave been the same with Brother Damaso. 'And your threat?' I askedjestingly. 'Father,' said he, 'I know how to keep my word when itdoesn't smirch my honor; I was never an informer--and that's why Iam only a lieutenant.'"

  Though the lieutenant had not carried out his threat to go toMalacanang, the captain-general none the less knew what had happened. Ayoung officer told the story.

  "From whom do you have it?" demanded His Excellency, smiling.

  "From De Laruja."

  The captain-general smiled again, and added:

  "Woman's tongue, monk's tongue doesn't wound. I don't wish to getentangled with these men in skirts. Besides, the provincial madelight of my orders; to punish this priest I demanded that his parishbe changed. Well, they gave him a better. Monkishness! as we sayin Spain."

  Alone, His Excellency ceased to smile.

  "Oh! if the people were not so dense, how easy to bridle theirreverences! But every nation merits its lot!" r />
  Meanwhile Captain Tiago finished his conference with Father Damaso.

  "And now you are warned," said the Franciscan upon leaving. "Thiswould have been avoided if you hadn't equivocated when I asked youhow the matter stood. Don't make any more false moves, and trusther godfather."

  Captain Tiago took two or three turns about the room, reflectingand sighing. Then suddenly, as if a happy thought had struck him,running to the oratory, he extinguished the two candles lighted forthe safeguard of Ibarra.

  X.

  THE PUEBLO.

  Almost on the banks of the lake, in the midst of meadows and streams,is the pueblo of San Diego. It exports sugar, rice, coffee, andfruits, or sells these articles of merchandise at low prices toChinese traders.

  When, on a clear day, the children climb to the top stageof the moss-grown and vine-clad church tower, there are joyousexclamations. Each picks out his own little roof of nipa, tile, zinc,or palm. Beyond they see the rio, a monstrous crystal serpent asleepon a carpet of green. Trunks of palm trees, dipping and swaying, jointhe two banks, and if, as bridges, they leave much to be desired fortrembling old men and poor women who must cross with heavy basketson their heads, on the other hand they make fine gymnastic apparatusfor the young.

  But what besides the rio the children never fail to talk about is acertain wooded peninsula in this sea of cultivated land. Its ancienttrees never die, unless the lightning strikes their high tops. Dustgathers layer on layer in their hollow trunks, the rain makes soil ofit, the birds bring seeds, a tropical vegetation grows there in wildfreedom: bushes, briers, curtains of netted bind-weed, spring fromthe roots, reach from tree to tree, hang swaying from the branches,and Flora, as if yet unsatisfied, sows on the trees themselves; mossesand fungi live on the creased bark, and graceful aerial guests piercewith their tendrils the hospitable branches.

  This wood is the subject of a legend.

  When the pueblo was but a group of poor cabins, there arrived oneday a strange old Spaniard with marvellous eyes, who scarcely spokethe Tagal. He wished to buy lands having thermal springs, and didso, paying in money, dress, and jewelry. Suddenly he disappeared,leaving no trace. The people of the pueblo had begun to think of himas a magician, when one day his body was found hanging high to thebranch of a giant fig tree. After it had been buried at the foot ofthe tree, no one cared much to venture in that quarter.

  A few months later there arrived a young Spanish halfbreed, whoclaimed to be the old man's son. He settled, and gave himself toagriculture. Don Saturnino was taciturn and of violent temper,but very industrious. Late in life he married a woman of Manila,who bore him Don Rafael, the father of Crisostomo.

  Don Rafael, from his youth, was much beloved. He rapidly developedhis father's lands, the population multiplied, the Chinese came, thehamlet grew to a pueblo, the native curate died and was replaced byFather Damaso. And all this time the people respected the sepulchreof the old Spaniard, and held it in superstitious awe. Sometimes,armed with sticks and stones, the children dared run near it to gatherwild fruits; but while they were busy at this, or stood gazing atthe bit of rope still dangling from the limb, a stone or two wouldfall from no one knew where. Then with cries of "The old man! theold man!" they threw down sticks and fruit, ran in all directions,between the rocks and bushes, and did not stop till they were out ofthe woods, all pale and breathless, some crying, few daring to laugh.

  XI.

  THE SOVEREIGNS.

  Who was the ruler of the pueblo? Not Don Rafael during his lifetime,though he possessed the most land, and nearly every one owed him. Ashe was modest, and gave little value to his deeds, no party formedaround him, and we have seen how he was deserted and attacked whenhis fortunes fell.

  Was it Captain Tiago? It is true his arrival was always heralded withmusic, he was given banquets by his debtors, and loaded with presents;but he was laughed at in secret, and called Sacristan Tiago.

  Was it by chance the town mayor, the gobernadorcillo? Alas! he wasan unfortunate, who governed not, but obeyed; did not dispose, butwas disposed of. And yet he had to answer to the alcalde for allthese dispositions, as if they emanated from his own brain. Be itsaid in his favor that he had neither stolen nor usurped his honors,but that they cost him five thousand pesos and much humiliation.

  Perhaps then it was God? But to most of these good people, God seemedone of those poor kings surrounded by favorites to whom their subjectsalways take their supplications, never to them.

  No, San Diego was a sort of modern Rome. The curate was the popeat the Vatican; the alferez of the civil guard, the King in theQuirinal. Here as there, difficulties arose from the situation.

  The present curate, Brother Bernardo Salvi, was the young and silentFranciscan we have already seen. In mode of life and in appearancehe was very unlike his predecessor, Brother Damaso. He seemed ill,was always thoughtful, accomplished strictly his religious duties,and was careful of his reputation. Through his zeal, almost allhis parishioners had speedily become members of the Third Order ofSt. Francis, to the great dismay of the rival order, that of the HolyRosary. Four or five scapularies were suspended around every neck,knotted cords encircled all the waists, and the innumerable processionsof the order were a joy to see. The head sacristan took in a smallfortune, selling--or giving as alms, to put it more correctly--allthe paraphernalia necessary to save the soul and combat the devil. Itis well known that this evil spirit, who once dared attack God faceto face, and accuse His divine word, as the book of Job tells us,is now so cowardly and feeble that he flees at sight of a bit ofpainted cloth, and fears a knotted cord.

  Brother Salvi again greatly differed from Brother Damaso--who seteverything right with fists or ferrule, believing it the only way toreach the Indian--in that he punished with fines the faults of hissubordinates, rarely striking them.

  From his struggles with the curate, the alferez had a bad reputationamong the devout, which he deserved, and shared with his wife,a hideous and vile old Filipino woman named Dona Consolacion. Thehusband avenged his conjugal woes on himself by drinking like a fish;on his subordinates, by making them exercise in the sun; and mostfrequently on his wife, by kicks and drubbings. The two fought famouslybetween themselves, but were of one mind when it was a question ofthe curate. Inspired by his wife, the officer ordered that no onebe abroad in the streets after nine at night. The priest, who didnot like this restriction, retorted in lengthy sermons, wheneverthe alferez went to church. Like all impenitents, the alferez didnot mend his ways for that, but went out swearing under his breath,arrested the first sacristan he met, and made him clean the yard ofthe barracks. So the war went on. All this, however, did not preventthe alferez and the curate chatting courteously enough when they met.

  And they were the rulers of the pueblo of San Diego.

  XII.

  ALL SAINTS' DAY.

  The cemetery of San Diego is in the midst of rice-fields. It isapproached by a narrow path, powdery on sunny days, navigable onrainy. A wooden gate and a wall half stone, half bamboo stalks,succeed in keeping out men, but not the curate's goats, nor thepigs of his neighbors. In the middle of the enclosure is a stonepedestal supporting a great wooden cross. Storms have bent the stripof tin on which were the I. N. R. I., and the rain has washed offthe letters. At the foot of the cross is a confused heap of bonesand skulls thrown out by the grave-digger. Everywhere grow in alltheir vigor the bitter-sweet and rose-bay. Some tiny flowerets, too,tint the ground--blossoms which, like the mounded bones, are known totheir Creator only. They are like little pale smiles, and their odorscents of the tomb. Grass and climbing plants fill the corners, coverthe walls, adorning this otherwise bare ugliness; they even penetratethe tombs, through earthquake fissures, and fill their yawning gaps.

  At this hour two men are digging near the crumbling wall. One, thegrave-digger, works with the utmost indifference, throwing asidea skull as a gardener would a stone. The other is preoccupied; heperspires, he breathes hard.

  "Oh!" he says at length in Tagalo. "Had
n't we better dig in someother place? This grave is too recent."

  "All the graves are the same, one is as recent as another."

  "I can't endure this!"

  "What a woman! You should go and be a clerk! If you had dug up,as I did, a boy of twenty days, at night, in the rain----"

  "Uh-h-h! And why did you do that?"

  The grave-digger seemed surprised.

  "Why? How do I know, I was ordered to."

  "Who ordered you?"

  At this question the grave-digger straightened himself, and examinedthe rash young man from head to foot.

  "Come! come! You're curious as a Spaniard. A Spaniard asked me thesame question, but in secret. I'm going to say to you what I said tohim: the curate ordered it."

  "Oh! and what did you do with the body?"

  "The devil! if I didn't know you, I should take you for the police. Thecurate told me to bury it in the Chinese cemetery, but it's a long waythere, and the body was heavy. 'Better be drowned,' I said to myself,'than lie with the Chinese,' and I threw it into the lake."

  "No, no, stop digging!" interrupted the younger man, with a cry ofhorror, and throwing down his spade he sprang out of the grave.

  The grave-digger watched him run off signing himself, laughed, andwent to work again.