The Social Cancer, José Rizal [read a book .txt] 📗

Quidquid latet, adparebit, Nil inultum remanebit. [143]

The vesper bells are ringing, and at the holy sound all pause, drop their tasks, and uncover. The laborer returning from the fields ceases the song with which he was pacing his carabao and murmurs a prayer, the women in the street cross themselves and move their lips affectedly so that none may doubt their piety, a man stops caressing his game-cock and recites the angelus to bring better luck, while inside the houses they pray aloud. Every sound but that of the Ave Maria dies away, becomes hushed.

Nevertheless, the curate, without his hat, rushes across the street, to the scandalizing of many old women, and, greater scandal still, directs his steps toward the house of the alferez. The devout women then think it time to cease the movement of their lips in order to kiss the curate’s hand, but Padre Salvi takes no notice of them. This evening he finds no pleasure in placing his bony hand on his Christian nose that he may slip it down dissemblingly (as Doña Consolacion has observed) over the bosom of the attractive young woman who may have bent over to receive his blessing. Some important matter must be engaging his attention when he thus forgets his own interests and those of the Church!

In fact, he rushes headlong up the stairway and knocks impatiently at the alferez’s door. The latter puts in his appearance, scowling, followed by his better half, who smiles like one of the damned.

“Ah, Padre, I was just going over to see you. That old goat of yours—”

“I have a very important matter—”

“I can’t stand for his running about and breaking down the fence. I’ll shoot him if he comes back!”

“That is, if you are alive tomorrow!” exclaimed the panting curate as he made his way toward the sala.

“What, do you think that puny doll will kill me? I’ll bust him with a kick!”

Padre Salvi stepped backward with an involuntary glance toward the alferez’s feet. “Whom are you talking about?” he asked tremblingly.

“About whom would I talk but that simpleton who has challenged me to a duel with revolvers at a hundred paces?”

“Ah!” sighed the curate, then he added, “I’ve come to talk to you about a very urgent matter.”

“Enough of urgent matters! It’ll be like that affair of the two boys.”

Had the light been other than from coconut oil and the lamp globe not so dirty, the alferez would have noticed the curate’s pallor.

“Now this is a serious matter, which concerns the lives of all of us,” declared Padre Salvi in a low voice.

“A serious matter?” echoed the alferez, turning pale. “Can that boy shoot straight?”

“I’m not talking about him.”

“Then, what?”

The friar made a sign toward the door, which the alferez closed in his own way—with a kick, for he had found his hands superfluous and had lost nothing by ceasing to be bimanous.

A curse and a roar sounded outside. “Brute, you’ve split my forehead open!” yelled his wife.

“Now, unburden yourself,” he said calmly to the curate.

The latter stared at him for a space, then asked in the nasal, droning voice of the preacher, “Didn’t you see me come—running?”

“Sure! I thought you’d lost something.”

“Well, now,” continued the curate, without heeding the alferez’s rudeness, “when I fail thus in my duty, it’s because there are grave reasons.”

“Well, what else?” asked the other, tapping the floor with his foot.

“Be calm!”

“Then why did you come in such a hurry?”

The curate drew nearer to him and asked mysteriously, “Haven’t—you—heard—anything?”

The alferez shrugged his shoulders.

“You admit that you know absolutely nothing?”

“Do you want to talk about Elias, who put away your senior sacristan last night?” was the retort.

“No, I’m not talking about those matters,” answered the curate ill-naturedly. “I’m talking about a great danger.”

“Well, damn it, out with it!”

“Come,” said the friar slowly and disdainfully, “you see once more how important we ecclesiastics are. The meanest lay brother is worth as much as a regiment, while a curate—”

Then he added in a low and mysterious tone, “I’ve discovered a big conspiracy!”

The alferez started up and gazed in astonishment at the friar.

“A terrible and well-organized plot, which will be carried out this very night.”

“This very night!” exclaimed the alferez, pushing the curate aside and running to his revolver and sword hanging on the wall.

“Who’ll I arrest? Who’ll I arrest?” he cried.

“Calm yourself! There is still time, thanks to the promptness with which I have acted. We have till eight o’clock.”

“I’ll shoot all of them!”

“Listen_!_ This afternoon a woman whose name I can’t reveal (it’s a secret of the confessional) came to me and told everything. At eight o’clock they will seize the barracks by surprise, plunder the convento, capture the police boat, and murder all of us Spaniards.”

The alferez was stupefied.

“The woman did not tell me any more than this,” added the curate.

“She didn’t tell any more? Then I’ll arrest her!”

“I can’t consent to that. The bar of penitence is the throne of the God of mercies.”

“There’s neither God nor mercies that amount to anything! I’ll arrest her!”

“You’re losing your head! What you must do is to get yourself ready. Muster your soldiers quietly and put them in ambush, send me four guards for the convento, and notify the men in charge of the boat.”

“The boat isn’t here. I’ll ask for help from the other sections.”

“No, for then the plotters would be warned and would not carry out their plans. What we must do is to catch them alive and make them talk—I mean, you’ll make them talk, since I, as a priest, must not meddle in such matters. Listen, here’s where you win crosses and stars. I ask only that you make due acknowledgment that it was I who warned you.”

“It’ll be acknowledged, Padre, it’ll be acknowledged—and perhaps you’ll get a miter!” answered the glowing alferez, glancing at the cuffs of his uniform.

“So, you send me four guards in plain clothes, eh? Be discreet, and tonight at eight o’clock it’ll rain stars and crosses.”

While all this was taking place, a man ran along the road leading to Ibarra’s house and rushed up the stairway.

“Is your master here?” the voice of Elias called to a servant.

“He’s in his study at work.”

Ibarra, to divert the impatience that he felt while waiting for the time when he could make his explanations to Maria Clara, had set himself to work in his laboratory.

“Ah, that you, Elias?” he exclaimed. “I was thinking about you. Yesterday I forgot to ask you the name of that Spaniard in whose house your grandfather lived.”

“Let’s not talk about me, sir—”

“Look,” continued Ibarra, not noticing the youth’s agitation, while he placed a piece of bamboo over a flame, “I’ve made a great discovery. This bamboo is incombustible.”

“It’s not a question of bamboo now, sir, it’s a question of your collecting your papers and fleeing at this very moment.”

Ibarra glanced at him in