Chapter 59: - Page 10 of 11

Do you know what I’ve heard? asked a military official.

What’s that?

Let’s hear it!

What do they say?

Reputable persons, replied the officer in the midst of a profound silence, state that this agitation for building a schoolhouse was a pure fairy tale.

Jesús! Just see that! the señoras exclaimed, already believing in the trick.

The school was a pretext.  What he wanted to build was a fort from which he could safely defend himself when we should come to attack him.

What infamy! Only an Indian is capable of such cowardly thoughts, exclaimed the fat lady.  If I were the Captain-General they would soon seem they would soon see—

That’s what I say! exclaimed the thin lady, turning to the one-armed man.  Arrest all the little lawyers, priestlings, merchants, and without trial banish or deport them! Tear out the evil by the roots!

But it’s said that this filibuster is the descendant of Spaniards, observed the one-armed man, without looking at any one in particular.

Oh, yes! exclaimed the fat lady, unterrified.  It’s always the creoles! No Indian knows anything about revolution! Rear crows, rear crows! ^[22]

Do you know what I’ve heard? asked a creole lady, to change the topic of conversation.  The wife of Capitan Tinong, you remember her, the woman in whose house we danced and dined during the fiesta of Tondo—