here was passed from hand to hand
a piece of parchment on which were written in red ink these fateful
words:

_Mene, Tekel, Phares_ [72]
_Juan Crisostomo Ibarra_

"Juan Crisostomo Ibarra? Who is he?" asked his Excellency, handing
the paper to his neighbor.

"A joke in very bad taste!" exclaimed Don Custodio. "To sign the name
of a filibuster dead more than ten years!"

"A filibuster!"

"It's a seditious joke!"

"There being ladies present--"

Padre Irene looked around for the joker and saw Padre Salvi, who was
seated at the right of the Countess, turn as white as his napkin,
while he stared at the mysterious words with bulging eyes. The scene
of the sphinx recurred to him.

"What's the matter, Padre Salvi?" he asked. "Do you recognize your
friend's signature?"

Padre Salvi did not reply. He made an effort to speak and without being
conscious of what he was doing wiped his forehead with his napkin.

"What has happened to your Reverence?"

"It is his very handwriting!" was the whispered reply in a scarcely
perceptible voice. "It's the very handwriting of Ibarra." Leaning
against the back of his chair, he let his arms fall as though all
strength had deserted him.

Uneasiness became converted into fright, they all stared at one another
without uttering a single word. His Excellency started to rise, but
apprehending that such a move would be ascribed to fear, controlled
himself and looked about him. There were no soldiers present, even
the waiters were unknown to him.

"Let's go on eating, gentlemen," he exclaimed, "and pay no attention
to the joke." But his voice, instead of reassuring, increased the
general uneasiness, for it trembled.

"I don't suppose that that _Mene, Tekel, Phares_, means that we're
to be assassinated tonight?" speculated Don Custodio.

All remained motionless, but when he added, "Yet they might poison us,"
they leaped up from their chairs.

The light, meanwhile, had begun slowly to fade. "The lamp is going
out," observed the General uneasily. "Will you turn up the wick,
Padre Irene?"

But at that instant, with the swiftness of a flash of lightning,
a figure rushed in, overturning a chair and knocking a servant down,
and in the midst of the general surprise seized the lamp, rushed to
the azotea, and threw it into the river. The whole thing happened in
a second and the dining-kiosk was left in darkness.

The lamp had already struck the water before the servants could