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Isagani listened attentively, but said nothing. "So, last night " ventured Momoy. "Last night?" echoed Sensia, between curiosity and fear. Momoy hesitated, but the face Sensia put on banished his fear. "Last night, while we were eating, there was a disturbance, the light in the General's dining-room went out. They say that some unknown person stole the lamp that was presented by Simoun."
Simoun, the evil genius of the Captain-General, the rich trader to whose house they had gone to buy unset gems, Simoun, who had received the Orenda girls with great courtesy and had paid them fine compliments! For the very reason that the story seemed absurd it was believed. "Credo quia absurdum," said St. Augustine. "But wasn't Simoun at the fiesta last night?" asked Sensia. "Yes," said Momoy.
Momoy, the betrothed of Sensia, the eldest of the daughters a pretty and vivacious girl, rather given to joking had left the window where he was accustomed to spend his evenings in amorous discourse, and this action seemed to be very annoying to the lory whose cage hung from the eaves there, the lory endeared to the house from its ability to greet everybody in the morning with marvelous phrases of love.
"Nakú!" he exclaimed, "sacks and sacks of powder, sacks of powder under the floor, in the roof, under the table, under the chairs, everywhere! It's lucky none of the workmen were smoking." "Who put those sacks of powder there?" asked Capitana Loleng, who was brave and did not turn pale, as did the enamored Momoy.
The house was thrown into an uproar, the lieutenant of the guard came, and after enjoining secrecy upon everybody, they sent me away. But " "But but " stammered the trembling Momoy. "Nakú!" ejaculated Sensia, gazing at her fiancé and trembling sympathetically to remember that he had been at the fiesta.
Momoy turned to Isagani, who observed with an enigmatic smile: "It's always wicked to take what doesn't belong to you. If that thief had known what it was all about and had been able to reflect, surely he wouldn't have done as he did." Then, after a pause, he added, "For nothing in the world would I want to be in his place!"
But Momoy had attended the wedding, so his posthumous emotion can be appreciated: he had been near the kiosk. "That's what no one can explain," replied Chichoy. "Who would have any interest in breaking up the fiesta? There couldn't have been more than one, as the celebrated lawyer Señor Pasta who was there on a visit declared either an enemy of Don Timoteo's or a rival of Juanito's."
Momoy again shuddered but noticing that Sensia was watching him tried to control himself. "What a pity!" he exclaimed with an effort. "How wickedly the thief acted. Everybody would have been killed." Sensia stared at him in fright, the women crossed themselves, while Capitan Toringoy, who was afraid of politics, made a move to go away.
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