of telling you this!"

"Why didn't you tell us so at the start?"

"I wanted to tell you, gentlemen, but Capitan Basilio spoke and I
haven't had a chance. The curate must be obeyed."

"He must be obeyed," echoed several old men.

"He must be obeyed or else the alcalde will put us all in jail,"
added several other old men sadly.

"Well then, obey him, and run the fiesta yourselves," exclaimed the
youths, rising. "We withdraw our contributions."

"Everything has already been collected," said the gobernadorcillo.

Don Filipo approached this official and said to him bitterly, "I
sacrificed my pride in favor of a good cause; you are sacrificing your
dignity as a man in favor of a bad one, and you've spoiled everything."

Ibarra turned to the schoolmaster and asked him, "Is there anything
that I can do for you at the capital of the province? I leave for
there immediately."

"Have you some business there?"

"We have business there!" answered Ibarra mysteriously.

On the way home, when Don Filipo was cursing his bad luck, old Tasio
said to him: "The blame is ours! You didn't protest when they gave
you a slave for a chief, and I, fool that I am, had forgotten it!"

CHAPTER XXI

The Story of a Mother

Andaba incierto--volaba errante,
Un solo instante--sin descansar. [70]

ALAEJOS.

Sisa ran in the direction of her home with her thoughts in that
confused whirl which is produced in our being when, in the midst of
misfortunes, protection and hope alike are gone. It is then that
everything seems to grow dark around us, and, if we do see some
faint light shining from afar, we run toward it, we follow it,
even though an abyss yawns in our path. The mother wanted to save
her sons, and mothers do not ask about means when their children
are concerned. Precipitately she ran, pursued by fear and dark
forebodings. Had they already arrested her son Basilio? Whither had
her boy Crispin fled?

As she approached her little hut she made out above the garden fence
the caps of two soldiers. It would be impossible to tell what her heart
felt: she forgot everything. She was not ignorant of the boldness of
those men, who did not lower their gaze before even the richest people
of the town. What would they do now to her and to her sons, accused
of theft! The civil-guards are not men, they are civil-guards; they
do not listen to supplication