go to
Malacanang, the captain-general none the less knew what had happened. A
young officer told the story.

"From whom do you have it?" demanded His Excellency, smiling.

"From De Laruja."

The captain-general smiled again, and added:

"Woman's tongue, monk's tongue doesn't wound. I don't wish to get
entangled with these men in skirts. Besides, the provincial made
light of my orders; to punish this priest I demanded that his parish
be changed. Well, they gave him a better. Monkishness! as we say
in Spain."

Alone, His Excellency ceased to smile.

"Oh! if the people were not so dense, how easy to bridle their
reverences! But every nation merits its lot!"

Meanwhile Captain Tiago finished his conference with Father Damaso.

"And now you are warned," said the Franciscan upon leaving. "This
would have been avoided if you hadn't equivocated when I asked you
how the matter stood. Don't make any more false moves, and trust
her godfather."

Captain Tiago took two or three turns about the room, reflecting
and sighing. Then suddenly, as if a happy thought had struck him,
running to the oratory, he extinguished the two candles lighted for
the safeguard of Ibarra.

X.

THE PUEBLO.

Almost on the banks of the lake, in the midst of meadows and streams,
is the pueblo of San Diego. It exports sugar, rice, coffee, and
fruits, or sells these articles of merchandise at low prices to
Chinese traders.

When, on a clear day, the children climb to the top stage
of the moss-grown and vine-clad church tower, there are joyous
exclamations. Each picks out his own little roof of nipa, tile, zinc,
or palm. Beyond they see the rio, a monstrous crystal serpent asleep
on a carpet of green. Trunks of palm trees, dipping and swaying, join
the two banks, and if, as bridges, they leave much to be desired for
trembling old men and poor women who must cross with heavy baskets
on their heads, on the other hand they make fine gymnastic apparatus
for the young.

But what besides the rio the children never fail to talk about is a
certain wooded peninsula in this sea of cultivated land. Its ancient
trees never die, unless the lightning strikes their high tops. Dust
gathers layer on layer in their hollow trunks, the rain makes soil of
it, the birds bring seeds, a tropical vegetation grows there in wild
freedom: bushes, briers, curtains of netted bind-weed, spring from
the roots, reach from tree to tree, hang swaying from the branch