ts were steady and showed neither excitement nor fear, was the
report made later.

His request to be allowed to face his executioners was denied as being
out of the power of the commanding officer to grant, though Rizal
declared that he did not deserve such a death, for he was no traitor
to Spain. It was promised, however, that his head should be respected,
and as unblindfolded and erect Rizal turned his back to receive their
bullets, he twisted a hand to indicate under the shoulder where the
soldiers should aim so as to reach his heart. Then as the volley came,
with a last supreme effort of will power, he turned and fell face
upwards, thus receiving the subsequent "shots of grace" which ended his
life, so that in form as well as fact he did not die a traitor's death.

The Spanish national air was played, that march of Cadiz which should
have recalled a violated constitution, for by the laws of Spain itself
Rizal was illegally executed.

Vivas, laughter and applause were heard, for it had been the social
event of the day, with breakfasting parties on the walls and on
the carriages, full of interested onlookers of both sexes, lined up
conveniently near for the sightseeing.

The troops defiled past the dead body, as though reviewed by it,
for the most commanding figure of all was that which lay lifeless,
but the center of all eyes. An officer, realizing the decency due to
death, drew his handkerchief from the dead man's pocket and spread
the silk over the calm face. A crimson stain soon marked the whiteness
emblematic of the pure life that had just ended, and with the glorious
blue overhead, the tricolor of Liberty, which had just claimed another
martyr, was revealed in its richest beauty.

Sir Hugh Clifford (now Governor of Ceylon), in Blackwood's Magazine,
"The Story of Jose Rizal, the Filipino; A Fragment of Recent Asiatic
History," comments as follows on the disgraceful doing of that day:

"It was," he writes, "early morning, December 30, 1896, and the bright
sunshine of the tropics streamed down upon the open space, casting
hard fantastic shadows, and drenching with its splendor two crowds
of sightseers. The one was composed of Filipinos, cowed, melancholy,
sullen, gazing through hopeless eyes at the final scene in the life of
their great countryman--the man who had dared to champion their cause,
and to tell the world the story of their miseries; the other was blithe
of air, gay with the uniforms of officers an