t instant a man appeared upon a rock, making signs with his
rifle.

"Shoot him!" ordered the corporal with a foul oath.

Three guards obeyed the order, but the man continued standing there,
calling out at the top of his voice something unintelligible.

Carolino paused, thinking that he recognized something familiar about
that figure, which stood out plainly in the sunlight. But the corporal
threatened to tie him up if he did not fire, so Carolino took aim and
the report of his rifle was heard. The man on the rock spun around
and disappeared with a cry that left Carolino horror-stricken.

Then followed a rustling in the bushes, indicating that those within
were scattering in all directions, so the soldiers boldly advanced,
now that there was no more resistance. Another man appeared upon the
rock, waving a spear, and they fired at him. He sank down slowly,
catching at the branch of a tree, but with another volley fell face
downwards on the rock.

The guards climbed on nimbly, with bayonets fixed ready for a
hand-to-hand fight. Carolino alone moved forward reluctantly, with
a wandering, gloomy look, the cry of the man struck by his bullet
still ringing in his ears. The first to reach the spot found an old
man dying, stretched out on the rock. He plunged his bayonet into
the body, but the old man did not even wink, his eyes being fixed
on Carolino with an indescribable gaze, while with his bony hand he
pointed to something behind the rock.

The soldiers turned to see Caroline frightfully pale, his mouth
hanging open, with a look in which glimmered the last spark of reason,
for Carolino, who was no other than Tano, Cabesang Tales' son, and
who had just returned from the Carolines, recognized in the dying
man his grandfather, Tandang Selo. No longer able to speak, the old
man's dying eyes uttered a whole poem of grief--and then a corpse,
he still continued to point to something behind the rock.

CHAPTER XXXIX

CONCLUSION

In his solitary retreat on the shore of the sea, whose mobile surface
was visible through the open, windows, extending outward until it
mingled with the horizon, Padre Florentino was relieving the monotony
by playing on his harmonium sad and melancholy tunes, to which the
sonorous roar of the surf and the sighing of the treetops of the
neighboring wood served as accompaniments. Notes long, full, mournful
as a prayer, yet still vigorous, escaped from the old instrument. Padre
Florentino,