Chapter 18:
Legerdemain
(The Summary of “El Filibusterismo”)
Ben Zayb, Padre Camorra, Padre Salvi, and others enter the tent of Mr. Leeds to watch his show. Mr. Leeds presents to them a box containing some ashes that had been found in one of the pyramids of Egypt. Upon shouting a magic word, the ashes come to life and the Sphinx named Imuthis narrates his sad story. A priest, he says, was in love with his sweetheart and in order to eliminate him, he was implicated in a rebellion. Imuthis was then arrested but was killed in a lake while trying to escape. Seeing the parallelism between Imuthis' story and that of Crisostomo Ibarra, Padre Salvi faints when the Sphinx starts calling him murderer, slanderer, and hypocrite.