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As if to improve his marksmanship, he shot at birds and fruits, even the butterflies, with such accurate aim that the friar-administrator did not dare to go to Sagpang without an escort of civil-guards, while the friar's hireling, who gazed from afar at the threatening figure of Tales wandering over the fields like a sentinel upon the walls, was terror stricken and refused to take the property away from him.
"Since the town was sacked by Balat, I've never seen another night equal to it," responded Sister Puté. "What a lot of shots! They say that it was old Pablo's band." "Tulisanes? That can't be! They say that it was the cuadrilleros against the civil-guards. That's why Don Filipo has been arrested." "Sanctus Deus! They say that at least fourteen were killed."
The cause of all this uproar was two civil-guards, clubs in hand, chasing the musicians in order to break up the performance. The teniente-mayor, with the aid of the cuadrilleros, who were armed with old sabers, managed at length to arrest them, in spite of their resistance. "Take them to the town hall!" cried Don Filipo. "Take care that they don't get away!"
The Captain-General, who had gone out on foot in company with his two aides, Capitan Tiago, the alcalde, the alferez, and Ibarra, preceded by civil-guards and officials who opened the way and cleared the street, was invited to review the procession from the house of the gobernadorcillo, in front of which a platform had been erected where a loa would be recited in honor of the Blessed Patron.
Instead of the former lively, chattering groups on the sidewalks were to be seen civil-guards making the students move on, and these latter issuing from the University silent, some gloomy, some agitated, to stand off at a distance or make their way home. The first acquaintance he met was Sandoval, but Basilio called to him in vain. He seemed to have been smitten deaf.
It was a very beautiful image, with the same sad expression of all the images that the Filipinos make, and a mien somewhat ashamed, doubtless at the way in which the curate had arranged her. In front came several singers and behind, some musicians with the usual civil-guards.
The civil-guards are not men, they are civil-guards; they do not listen to supplications and they are accustomed to see tears. Sisa instinctively raised her eyes toward the sky, that sky which smiled with brilliance indescribable, and in whose transparent blue floated some little fleecy clouds. She stopped to control the trembling that had seized her whole body.
"To tell the truth, formerly I couldn't endure the friars and the civil-guards, they're so rude," said a corpulent dame, "but now that I see their usefulness and their services, I would almost marry any one of them gladly. I'm a patriot." "That's what I say!" added a thin lady. "What a pity that we haven't our former governor. He would leave the country as clean as a platter."
Joseph on a modest float, with a look of sadness and resignation on his face, carrying his stalk of lilies, as he moved along between two civil-guards as though he were a prisoner.
Nor was reason for this movement lacking, since some twenty paces behind it came another figure, larger and apparently darker than the first, but so lightly did it touch the ground that it vanished as rapidly as though the earth had swallowed it every time the first shadow paused and turned. "They're following me," muttered the first figure. "Can it be the civil-guards?