ician went out again.

"Prudence, prudence!" cautioned the silversmith in a tearful voice.

"You'll take care of my widow and orphans!" begged the credulous
simpleton in a still more tearful voice, for he already saw himself
riddled with bullets and buried.

That night the guards at the city gates were replaced with Peninsular
artillerymen, and on the following morning as the sun rose, Ben-Zayb,
who had ventured to take a morning stroll to examine the condition of
the fortifications, found on the glacis near the Luneta the corpse
of a native girl, half-naked and abandoned. Ben-Zayb was horrified,
but after touching it with his cane and gazing toward the gates
proceeded on his way, musing over a sentimental tale he might base
upon the incident.

However, no allusion to it appeared in the newspapers on the following
days, engrossed as they were with the falls and slippings caused by
banana-peels. In the dearth of news Ben-Zayb had to comment at length
on a cyclone that had destroyed in America whole towns, causing the
death of more than two thousand persons. Among other beautiful things
he said:

"_The sentiment of charity_, MORE PREVALENT IN CATHOLIC
COUNTRIES THAN IN OTHERS, and the thought of Him who,
influenced by that same feeling, sacrificed himself for
_humanity, moves (sic)_ us to compassion over the misfortunes
of our kind and to render thanks that _in this country_,
so scourged by cyclones, there are not enacted scenes so
desolating as that which the inhabitants of the United States
mus have witnessed!"

_Horatius_ did not miss the opportunity, and, also without mentioning
the dead, or the murdered native girl, or the assaults, answered him
in his _Pirotecnia_:

"After such great charity and such great humanity, Fray
Ibanez--I mean, Ben-Zayb--brings himself to pray for the
Philippines.

But he is understood.

Because he is not Catholic, and the sentiment of charity is
most prevalent," etc. [62]

CHAPTER XXIX

EXIT CAPITAN TIAGO

Talis vita, finis ita

Capitan Tiago had a good end--that is, a quite exceptional
funeral. True it is that the curate of the parish had ventured
the observation to Padre Irene that Capitan Tiago had died without
confession, but the good priest, smiling sardonically, had rubbed
the tip of his nose and answered:

"Why say that to me? If we had to deny the obsequies to all who
die without con