out from his precincts, not considering
them worthy of remaining therein, to the great disgust of the one-armed
individual, who had hoped to celebrate the approaching Christmas in
their abundant and opulent company.

Capitan Tinong had returned to his home sick, pale, and swollen; the
excursion had not done him good. He was so changed that he said not
a word, nor even greeted his family, who wept, laughed, chattered,
and almost went mad with joy. The poor man no longer ventured out
of his house for fear of running the risk of saying good-day to a
filibuster. Not even Don Primitivo himself, with all the wisdom of
the ancients, could draw him out of his silence.

"_Crede, prime_," the Latinist told him, "if I hadn't got here to
burn all your papers, they would have squeezed your neck; and if I
had burned the whole house they wouldn't have touched a hair of your
head. But _quod_ _eventum, eventum; gratias agamus Domino Deo quia
non in Marianis Insulis es, camotes seminando_." [167]

Stories similar to Capitan Tinong's were not unknown to Capitan Tiago,
so he bubbled over with gratitude, without knowing exactly to whom he
owed such signal favors. Aunt Isabel attributed the miracle to the
Virgin of Antipolo, to the Virgin of the Rosary, or at least to the
Virgin of Carmen, and at the very, very least that she was willing
to concede, to Our Lady of the Girdle; according to her the miracle
could not get beyond that.

Capitan Tiago did not deny the miracle, but added: "I think so, Isabel,
but the Virgin of Antipolo couldn't have done it alone. My friends
have helped, my future son-in-law, Senor Linares, who, as you know,
joked with Senor Antonio Canovas himself, the premier whose portrait
appears in the _Ilustracion_, he who doesn't condescend to show more
than half his face to the people."

So the good man could not repress a smile of satisfaction every
time that he heard any important news. And there was plenty of news:
it was whispered about in secret that Ibarra would be hanged; that,
while many proofs of his guilt had been lacking, at last some one
had appeared to sustain the accusation; that experts had declared
that in fact the work on the schoolhouse could pass for a bulwark of
fortification, although somewhat defective, as was only to be expected
of ignorant Indians. These rumors calmed him and made him smile.

In the same way that Capitan Tiago and his cousin diverged in
their opinions, the friends of the famil