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Updated: May 23, 2025
That night the guards at the city gates were replaced with Peninsular artillerymen, and on the following morning as the sun rose, Ben-Zayb, who had ventured to take a morning stroll to examine the condition of the fortifications, found on the glacis near the Luneta the corpse of a native girl, half-naked and abandoned.
Padre Camorra drew back in loathing, Padre Salvi looked at it closely as if he enjoyed sepulchral things, Padre Irene smiled a knowing smile, Don Custodio affected gravity and disdain, while Ben-Zayb hunted for his mirrors there they must be, for it was a question of mirrors. "It smells like a corpse," observed one lady, fanning herself furiously. "Ugh!"
In the dearth of news Ben-Zayb had to comment at length on a cyclone that had destroyed in America whole towns, causing the death of more than two thousand persons.
From an adjoining room issued the click of balls striking together and bursts of laughter, amid which might be heard the sharp, dry voice of Simoun, who was playing billiards with Ben-Zayb. Suddenly Padre Camorra arose. "The devil with this game, puñales!" he exclaimed, throwing his cards at Padre Irene's head. "Puñales, that trick, if not all the others, was assured and we lost by default!
The thinking part of Manila applauded it, and it even got to Madrid, where it was quoted in the Parliament as from a liberal of long residence there. The friars, flattered by the comparison and seeing their prestige enhanced, sent him sacks of chocolate, presents which the incorruptible Don Custodio returned, so that Ben-Zayb immediately compared him to Epaminondas.
Have the secretary make out an order to the lieutenant of the Civil Guard for the old man's release. They sha'n't say that we're not clement and merciful." He looked at Ben-Zayb. The journalist winked. Reluctantly, and almost with tearful eyes, Placido Penitente was going along the Escolta on his way to the University of Santo Tomas.
It hasn't been twenty years since the river washed the very entrance of the cave, but it has gradually been receding, just as the memory of her is dying out among the people." "A beautiful legend!" exclaimed Ben-Zayb. "I'm going to write an article about it. It's sentimental!" Doña Victorina thought of dwelling in such a cave and was about to say so, when Simoun took the floor instead.
Ben-Zayb smiled in pleasant anticipation of the vexation he had prepared for the American. The room, hung entirely in black, was lighted by ancient lamps burning alcohol. A rail wrapped in black velvet divided it into two almost equal parts, one of which was filled with seats for the spectators and the other occupied by a platform covered with a checkered carpet.
As those who knew anything about the events that night in Don Timoteo's house were for the most part military officials and government employees, it was not difficult to suppress the affair in public, for it concerned the integrity of the fatherland. Before this name Ben-Zayb bowed his head heroically, thinking about Abraham, Guzman El Bueno, or at least, Brutus and other heroes of antiquity.
Ben-Zayb remained silent, half smiling, either out of respect or because he really did not know what to reply, and yet his was the only thinking head in the Philippines! Padre Irene nodded his approval as he rubbed his long nose. "The trouble is in the lake "
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