is work that he did not notice the presence of the
youth until the latter, not wishing to disturb him, tried to retire.

"Ah, you here?" he asked, gazing at Ibarra with a strange
expression. "Excuse me," answered the youth, "I see that you're
very busy--"

"True, I was writing a little, but it's not urgent, and I want to
rest. Can I do anything for you?"

"A great deal," answered Ibarra, drawing nearer, "but--"

A glance at the book on the table caused him to exclaim in surprise,
"What, are you given to deciphering hieroglyphics?"

"No," replied the old man, as he offered his visitor a chair. "I don't
understand Egyptian or Coptic either, but I know something about the
system of writing, so I write in hieroglyphics."

"You write in hieroglyphics! Why?" exclaimed the youth, doubting what
he saw and heard.

"So that I cannot be read now."

Ibarra gazed at him fixedly, wondering to himself if the old man were
not indeed crazy. He examined the book rapidly to learn if he was
telling the truth and saw neatly drawn figures of animals, circles,
semicircles, flowers, feet, hands, arms, and such things.

"But why do you write if you don't want to be read?"

"Because I'm not writing for this generation, but for other ages. If
this generation could read, it would burn my books, the labor of
my whole life. But the generation that deciphers these characters
will be an intelligent generation, it will understand and say,
'Not all were asleep in the night of our ancestors!' The mystery of
these curious characters will save my work from the ignorance of men,
just as the mystery of strange rites has saved many truths from the
destructive priestly classes."

"In what language do you write?" asked Ibarra after a pause.

"In our own, Tagalog."

"Are the hieroglyphical signs suitable?"

"If it were not for the difficulty of drawing them, which takes time
and patience, I would almost say that they are more suitable than the
Latin alphabet. The ancient Egyptian had our vowels; our _o_, which
is only final and is not like that of the Spanish, which is a vowel
between _o_ and _u_. Like us, the Egyptians lacked the true sound of
_e_, and in their language are found our _ha_ and _kha_, which we
do not have in the Latin alphabet such as is used in Spanish. For
example, in this word _mukha_," he went on, pointing to the book,
"I transcribe the syllable _ha_ more correctly with the figure of
a fish than with the Latin _h_, which in