accomplices will
promptly feel all the weight and all the severity of the laws!' You
see, there is no rebellion!"

"That makes no difference, you should present yourself; many did it
in 1872, and so nobody harmed them."

"Yes! it was done also by Father Bug----" But his wife's hands were
over his mouth.

"Say it! Speak that name, so you may be hung to-morrow at
Bagumbayan! Don't you know it is enough to get you executed without
so much as a trial? Go on, say it!"

But though Captain Tinong had wished, he couldn't have done it. His
wife held his mouth with both her hands, squeezing his little head
against the back of the chair. Perhaps the poor man would have died
of asphyxia, had not a new person come on the stage.

It was their cousin, Don Primitivo, who knew Amat by heart; a man of
forty, large and corpulent, and dressed with the utmost care.

"Quid video?" he cried, upon entering; "what is going on?"

"Ah, cousin!" said the wife, weeping, and running to him, "I had
you sent for, for I don't know what will become of us! What do you
advise--you who have studied Latin and understand reasoning----"

"But quid quaeritis? Nihil est in intellectu quod prius non fuerit in
sensu." And he sat down sedately. The Latin phrases seemed to have
a tranquillizing effect; the husband and wife ceased to lament, and
came nearer, awaiting the counsel of their cousin's lips, as once
the Greeks awaited the saving phrase of the oracle.

"Why are you mourning? Ubinam gentium sumus?"

"You know the story of the uprising----"

"Well, what of it? Don Crisostomo owes you?"

"No! but do you know that Tinong invited him to dinner, and that he
bowed to him on the bridge----in the middle of the day? They will
say he was a friend of ours!"

"Friend?" cried the Latin, in alarm, rising; "tell me who your friends
are, and I'll tell you who you are yourself! Malum est negotium et
est timendum rerum istarum horrendissimum resultatum. Hum!"

So many words in um terrified Captain Tinong. He became frightfully
pale. His wife joined her hands in supplication.

"Cousin, you speak to us now in Latin, but you know we haven't
studied philosophy like you. Speak to us in Tagal or Castilian;
give us your advice."

"It is deplorable that you do not know Latin, my cousin: Latin verities
are lies in Tagalo. Contra principi negantem fustibus est arguendum,
is, in Latin, a truth as veritable as Noah's ark. I once put it
in practice in Tagalo, and it