Christmas Eve at the tomb of your grandfather. Save yourself.”
“And you?”
“God has carried me safely through greater perils.”
As Elias took off his camisa a bullet tore it from his hands and two loud reports were heard. Calmly he clasped the hand of Ibarra, who was still stretched out in the bottom of the banka. Then he arose and leaped into the water, at the same time pushing the little craft away from him with his foot.
Cries resounded, and soon some distance away the youth’s head appeared, as if for breathing, then instantly disappeared.
“There, there he is!” cried several voices, and again the bullets whistled.
The police boat and the boat from the Pasig now started in pursuit of him. A light track indicated his passage through the water as he drew farther and farther away from Ibarra’s banka, which floated about as if abandoned. Every time the swimmer lifted his head above the water to breathe, the guards in both boats shot at him.
So the chase continued. Ibarra’s little banka was now far away and the swimmer was approaching the shore, distant some thirty yards. The rowers were tired, but Elias was in the same condition, for he showed his head oftener, and each time in a different direction, as if to disconcert his pursuers. No longer did the treacherous track indicate the position of the diver. They saw him for the last time when he was some ten yards from the shore, and fired. Then minute after minute passed, but nothing again appeared above the still and solitary surface of the lake.
Half an hour afterwards one of the rowers claimed that he could distinguish in the water near the shore traces of blood, but his companions shook their heads dubiously.
1 The “wide rock” that formerly jutted out into the river just below the place where the streams from the Lake of Bay join the Mariquina to form the Pasig proper. This spot was celebrated in the demonology of the primitive Tagalogs and later, after the tutelar devils had been duly exorcised by the Spanish padres,
converted into a revenue station. The name is preserved in that of the little barrio on the river bank near Fort McKinley.—TR.
Chapter LXII
Padre Damaso Explains
Vainly were the rich wedding presents heaped upon a table; neither the diamonds in their cases of blue velvet, nor the piña embroideries, nor the rolls of silk, drew the gaze of Maria Clara. Without reading or even seeing it the maiden sat staring at the newspaper which gave an account of the death of Ibarra, drowned in the lake.
Suddenly she felt two hands placed over her eyes to hold her fast and heard Padre Damaso’s voice ask merrily, “Who am I? Who am I?”
Maria Clara sprang from her seat and gazed at him in terror.
“Foolish little girl, you’re not afraid, are you? You weren’t expecting me, eh?
Well, I’ve come in from the provinces to attend your wedding.”
He smiled with satisfaction as he drew nearer to her and held out his hand for her to kiss. Maria Clara approached him tremblingly and touched his hand respectfully to her lips.
“What’s the matter with you, Maria?” asked the Franciscan, losing his merry smile and becoming uneasy. “Your hand is cold, you’re pale. Are you ill, little girl?”
Padre Damaso drew her toward himself with a tenderness that one would hardly have thought him capable of, and catching both her hands in his questioned her with his gaze.
“Don’t you have confidence in your godfather any more?” he asked reproachfully. “Come, sit down and tell me your little troubles as you used to do when you were a child, when you wanted tapers to make wax dolls, You know
that I’ve always loved you, I’ve never been cross with you.”
His voice was now no longer brusque, and even became tenderly modulated.
Maria Clara began to weep.
“You’re crying, little girl? Why do you cry? Have you quarreled with Linares?”
Maria Clara covered her ears. “Don’t speak of him not now!” she cried.
Padre Damaso gazed at her in startled wonder.
“Won’t you trust me with your secrets? Haven’t I always tried to satisfy your lightest whim?”
The maiden raised eyes filled with tears and stared at him for a long time, then again fell to weeping bitterly.
“Don’t cry so, little girl. Your tears hurt me. Tell me your troubles, and you’ll see how your godfather loves you!”
Maria Clara approached him slowly, fell upon her knees, and raising her tear-stained face toward his asked in a low, scarcely audible tone, “Do you still love me?”
“Child!”
“Then, protect my father and break off my marriage!” Here the maiden told of her last interview with Ibarra, concealing only her knowledge of the secret of her birth. Padre Damaso could scarcely credit his ears.
“While he lived,” the girl continued, “I thought of struggling, I was hoping, trusting! I wanted to live so that I might hear of him, but now that they have killed him, now there is no reason why I should live and suffer.” She spoke in low, measured tones, calmly, tearlessly.
“But, foolish girl, isn’t Linares a thousand times better than—”
“While he lived, I could have married—I thought of running away afterwards—
my father wants only the relationship! But now that he is dead, no other man
shall call me wife! While he was alive I could debase myself, for there would have remained the consolation that he lived and perhaps thought of me, but now that he is dead—the nunnery or the tomb!”
The girl’s voice had a ring of firmness in it such that Padre Damaso lost his merry air and became very thoughtful.
