But the madwoman did not yield. Bracing herself with her feet on
the ground, she offered an energetic resistance. Basilio beat the
gate with his fists, with his Mood-stained head, he wept, but in
vain. Painfully he arose and examined the wall, thinking to scale it,
but found no way to do so. He then walked around it and noticed that
a branch of the fateful balete was crossed with one from another
tree. This he climbed and, his filial love working miracles, made
his way from branch to branch to the balete, from which he saw his
mother still holding the gate shut with her head.

The noise made by him among the branches attracted Sisa's
attention. She turned and tried to run, but her son, letting himself
fall from the tree, caught her in his arms and covered her with kisses,
losing consciousness as he did so.

Sisa saw his blood-stained forehead and bent over him. Her eyes seemed
to start from their sockets as she peered into his face. Those pale
features stirred the sleeping cells of her brain, so that something
like a spark of intelligence flashed up in her mind and she recognized
her son. With a terrible cry she fell upon the insensible body of
the boy, embracing and kissing him. Mother and son remained motionless.

When Basilio recovered consciousness he found his mother lifeless. He
called to her with the tenderest names, but she did not awake. Noticing
that she was not even breathing, he arose and went to the neighboring
brook to get some water in a banana leaf, with which to rub the pallid
face of his mother, but the madwoman made not the least movement and
her eyes remained closed.

Basilio gazed at her in terror. He placed his ear over her heart,
but the thin, faded breast was cold, and her heart no longer beat. He
put his lips to hers, but felt no breathing. The miserable boy threw
his arms about the corpse and wept bitterly.

The moon gleamed majestically in the sky, the wandering breezes sighed,
and down in the grass the crickets chirped. The night of light and joy
for so many children, who in the warm bosom of the family celebrate
this feast of sweetest memories--the feast which commemorates the
first look of love that Heaven sent to earth--this night when in all
Christian families they eat, drink, dance, sing, laugh, play, caress,
and kiss one another--this night, which in cold countries holds such
magic for childhood with its traditional pine-tree covered with lights,
dolls, candies, and tinsel, wher