n, if I were a man!"

Seeing that her husband bowed his head, she again fell to sobbing,
but still repeating, "Ay, if I were a man, if I were a man!"

"Well, if you were a man," the provoked husband at length asked,
"what would you do?"

"What would I do? Well--well--well, this very minute I'd go to the
Captain-General and offer to fight against the rebels, this very
minute!"

"But haven't you seen what the _Diario_ says? Read it: 'The vile
and infamous treason has been suppressed with energy, strength, and
vigor, and soon the rebellious enemies of the Fatherland and their
accomplices will feel all the weight and severity of the law.' Don't
you see it? There isn't any more rebellion."

"That doesn't matter! You ought to offer yourself as they did in '72;
[151] they saved themselves."

"Yes, that's what was done by Padre Burg--"

But he was unable to finish this name, for his wife ran to him and
slapped her hand over his mouth. "Shut up! Are you saying that name
so that they may garrote you tomorrow on Bagumbayan? Don't you know
that to pronounce it is enough to get yourself condemned without
trial? Keep quiet!"

However Capitan Tinong may have felt about obeying her, he could
hardly have done otherwise, for she had his mouth covered with both
her hands, pressing his little head against the back of the chair,
so that the poor fellow might have been smothered to death had not
a new personage appeared on the scene. This was their cousin, Don
Primitivo, who had memorized the "Amat," a man of some forty years,
plump, big-paunched, and elegantly dressed.

"_Quid video?_" he exclaimed as he entered. "What's
happening? _Quare?_" [152]

"Ay, cousin!" cried the woman, running toward him in tears, "I've
sent for you because I don't know what's going to become of us. What
do you advise? Speak, you've studied Latin and know how to argue."

"But first, _quid quaeritis? Nihil est in intellectu quod prius non
fuerit in sensu; nihil volitum quin praecognitum_." [153]

He sat down gravely and, just as if the Latin phrases had possessed
a soothing virtue, the couple ceased weeping and drew nearer to him
to hang upon the advice from his lips, as at one time the Greeks did
before the words of salvation from the oracle that was to free them
from the Persian invaders.

"Why do you weep? _Ubinam gentium sumus?_" [154]

"You've already heard of the uprising?"

"_Alzamentum Ibarrae ab alferesio Guardiae Civilis destructum? Et