ther buildings. The losses were great,
a scapegoat was sought, and the merchant accused my grandfather. In
vain he protested his innocence, but he was poor and unable to pay the
great lawyers, so he was condemned to be flogged publicly and paraded
through the streets of Manila. Not so very long since they still used
the infamous method of punishment which the people call the '_caballo
y vaca_,' [133] and which is a thousand times more dreadful than death
itself. Abandoned by all except his young wife, my grandfather saw
himself tied to a horse, followed by an unfeeling crowd, and whipped
on every street-corner in the sight of men, his brothers, and in the
neighborhood of numerous temples of a God of peace. When the wretch,
now forever disgraced, had satisfied the vengeance of man with his
blood, his tortures, and his cries, he had to be taken off the horse,
for he had become unconscious. Would to God that he had died! But
by one of those refinements of cruelty he was given his liberty. His
wife, pregnant at the time, vainly begged from door to door for work or
alms in order to care for her sick husband and their poor son, but who
would trust the wife of an incendiary and a disgraced man? The wife,
then, had to become a prostitute!"

Ibarra rose in his seat.

"Oh, don't get excited! Prostitution was not now a dishonor for her
or a disgrace to her husband; for them honor and shame no longer
existed. The husband recovered from his wounds and came with his wife
and child to hide himself in the mountains of this province. Here they
lived several months, miserable, alone, hated and shunned by all. The
wife gave birth to a sickly child, which fortunately died. Unable
to endure such misery and being less courageous than his wife, my
grandfather, in despair at seeing his sick wife deprived of all care
and assistance, hanged himself. His corpse rotted in sight of the son,
who was scarcely able to care for his sick mother, and the stench
from it led to their discovery. Her husband's death was attributed
to her, for of what is the wife of a wretch, a woman who has been
a prostitute besides, not believed to be capable? If she swears,
they call her a perjurer; if she weeps, they say that she is acting;
and that she blasphemes when she calls on God. Nevertheless, they
had pity on her condition and waited for the birth of another child
before they flogged her. You know how the friars spread the belief
that the Indians can only be man