CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE ACCURSED.
The news that the prisoners were going to depart spread quickly through
the town. At first, the news was heard with terror; afterward, came
tears and lamentations.
The members of the families of the prisoners were running about
madly. They would go from the convent to the cuartel from the cuartel
to the tribunal, and not finding consolation anywhere, they filled the
air with cries and moans. The curate had shut himself up because he was
ill. The alferez had increased his guards, who received the supplicants
with the butts of their guns. The gobernadorcillo, a useless being,
anyway, seemed more stupid and useless than ever.
The sun was burning hot, but none of the unhappy women who were
gathered in front of the cuartel thought of that. Doray, the gay
and happy wife of Don Filipo, wandered about, with her tender little
child in her arms. Both were crying.
"Get out of the sun," they said to her. "Your son will catch a fever."
"What is the use of his living if he has no father to educate
him?" replied the dispirited woman.
"Your husband is innocent. Perhaps he will return."
"Yes, when we are in our graves."
Capitana Tinay wept and cried for her son, Antonio. The courageous
Capitana Maria gazed toward the small grate, behind which were her
twins, her only sons.
There, too, was the mother-in-law of the cocoanut tree pruner. She
was not crying; she was walking to and fro, gesticulating, with shirt
sleeves rolled up, and haranguing the public.
"Have you ever seen anything equal to it?" said she. "They arrest my
Andong, wound him, put him in the stocks, and take him to the capital,
all because he happened to be in the cuartel yard."
But few people had any sympathy for the Mussulman mother-in-law.
"Don Crisostomo is to blame for all of this," sighed a woman.
The school teacher also was wandering about in the crowd. Ñor Juan
was no longer rubbing his hands, nor was he carrying his yard stick
and plumb line. He had heard the bad news and, faithful to his custom
of seeing the future as a thing that had already happened, he was
dressed in mourning, mourning for the death of Ibarra.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, an uncovered cart, drawn by two oxen,
stopped in front of the tribunal.
The cart was surrounded by the crowd. They wanted to destroy it.
"Don't do that!" said Capitana Maria. "Do you want them to walk?"
This remark stopped the relatives of the prisoners. Twenty soldiers
