ot deceived in their judgment, for the rebel angered at the lack
of effect produced by his letter, sent an order to Don Juan Durrey,
chief of the hamlet of Agno, to cut off the head of that illustrious
man without fail and to send it to him. That chief went to Bolinao
accompanied by another valiant Indian, and entered the convent for
the feast of the new year. He found the prior praying outside of his
cell, and the good religious imagining that he was come to ask aid,
began to exhort him especially to be loyal and offered him pardon
in the king's name. God giving force to these words, Durrey changed
his intention, and refused to kill the father of his spirit. But
the Indian who accompanied him, shutting his ears, like an asp, to
the voices of health, seeing that his chief would not do the deed,
unsheathed a weapon called igua in those parts, and approached quickly
in order to strike the father. But since the chiefs of the village
who had come to speak with the prior on a matter of moment, entered
at the same time, the Indian was completely embarrassed and both of
them were greatly confused. Thus can God, by so casual happenings,
set a hindrance to even greater fatalities, making use of the very
occurrence of secondary causes in order to free His servants from
the dangers that threaten them.

20. It appears that Malong was not entirely satisfied with the order
that he had despatched to Durrey; for, aroused to anger he also ordered
Sumulay to return to Bolinao in order to cut off the prior's head,
as well as the heads of all the other religious whom he might find
there. Sumulay obeyed instantly, for he was confident that he still
had some well inclined to him in the village. He arrived at night, and
waiting until the morning of January 3, entered the convent at the time
that the venerable minister was about to go out with a rattan staff
in his hand in order to go to confess a sick man. Sumulay attacked
him with a short sword, without any waste of arguments. The poor
religious, seeing himself involved in the worst kind of a conflict,
but infused with valor by the divine hand, beat back the first blows
with his cane, and defending himself with it, just as he might have
done with the best kind of a sword, seeing that no one came to his
aid, passed to the offensive. The cane had a long sharp steel point
and the father gave the aggressor so powerful a blow or thrust in
the breast, that he brought him to the earth grievously wo