and before
dawn sent it to the printing-office, of course with the censor's
permit. Then he went to sleep like Napoleon, after he had arranged
the plan for the battle of Jena.

But at dawn he was awakened to have the sheets of copy returned with
a note from the editor saying that his Excellency had positively
and severely forbidden any mention of the affair, and had further
ordered the denial of any versions and comments that might get abroad,
discrediting them as exaggerated rumors.

To Ben-Zayb this blow was the murder of a beautiful and sturdy child,
born and nurtured with such great pain and fatigue. Where now hurl the
Catilinarian pride, the splendid exhibition of warlike crime-avenging
materials? And to think that within a month or two he was going to
leave the Philippines, and the article could not be published in Spain,
since how could he say those things about the criminals of Madrid,
where other ideas prevailed, where extenuating circumstances were
sought, where facts were weighed, where there were juries, and so
on? Articles such as his were like certain poisonous rums that are
manufactured in Europe, good enough to be sold among the negroes,
_good for negroes_, [74] with the difference that if the negroes did
not drink them they would not be destroyed, while Ben-Zayb's articles,
whether the Filipinos read them or not, had their effect.

"If only some other crime might be committed today or tomorrow,"
he mused.

With the thought of that child dead before seeing the light, those
frozen buds, and feeling his eyes fill with tears, he dressed himself
to call upon the editor. But the editor shrugged his shoulders; his
Excellency had forbidden it because if it should be divulged that seven
of the greater gods had let themselves be surprised and robbed by a
nobody, while they brandished knives and forks, that would endanger
the integrity of the fatherland! So he had ordered that no search be
made for the lamp or the thief, and had recommended to his successors
that they should not run the risk of dining in any private house,
without being surrounded by halberdiers and guards. As those who knew
anything about the events that night in Don Timoteo's house were for
the most part military officials and government employees, it was
not difficult to suppress the affair in public, for it concerned the
integrity of the fatherland. Before this name Ben-Zayb bowed his head
heroically, thinking about Abraham, Guzman El Bue