o Christmas gift for anybody, while his granddaughter
had gone without hers, without wishing him a merry Christinas. Was
it delicacy on Juli's part or pure forgetfulness?

When he tried to greet the relatives who called on him, bringing their
children, he found to his great surprise that he could not articulate
a word. Vainly he tried, but no sound could he utter. He placed his
hands on his throat, shook his head, but without effect. When he tried
to laugh, his lips trembled convulsively and the only noise produced
was a hoarse wheeze like the blowing of bellows.

The women gazed at him in consternation. "He's dumb, he's dumb!" they
cried in astonishment, raising at once a literal pandemonium.

CHAPTER IX

PILATES

When the news of this misfortune became known in the town, some
lamented it and others shrugged their shoulders. No one was to blame,
and no one need lay it on his conscience.

The lieutenant of the Civil Guard gave no sign: he had received an
order to take up all the arms and he had performed his duty. He had
chased the tulisanes whenever he could, and when they captured Cabesang
Tales he had organized an expedition and brought into the town,
with their arms bound behind them, five or six rustics who looked
suspicious, so if Cabesang Tales did not show up it was because he
was not in the pockets or under the skins of the prisoners, who were
thoroughly shaken out.

The friar-administrator shrugged his shoulders: he had nothing to
do with it, it was a matter of tulisanes and he had merely done his
duty. True it was that if he had not entered the complaint, perhaps the
arms would not have been taken up, and poor Tales would not have been
captured; but he, Fray Clemente, had to look after his own safety,
and that Tales had a way of staring at him as if picking out a good
target in some part of his body. Self-defense is natural. If there
are tulisanes, the fault is not his, it is not his duty to run them
down--that belongs to the Civil Guard. If Cabesang Tales, instead
of wandering about his fields, had stayed at home, he would not have
been captured. In short, that was a punishment from heaven upon those
who resisted the demands of his corporation.

When Sister Penchang, the pious old woman in whose service Juli
had entered, learned of it, she ejaculated several _'Susmarioseps_,
crossed herself, and remarked, "Often God sends these trials because
we are sinners or have sinning relatives, to w