Part 10

"Is it so!"

"Hostilities began yesterday."

"Ah! and how?"

Brother Sibyla briefly recounted what had passed between Brother Dámaso and Crisóstomo.

"Besides," he said in conclusion, "the young man is going to marry the daughter of Captain Tiago, who was educated at the convent of our sisters. He is rich; he would not go about making himself enemies and compromise at once his happiness and his fortune."

The sick man moved his hand in sign of assent.

"Yes, you are right. He should be ours, body and soul. But if he declare himself our enemy, so much the better!"

Brother Sibyla looked at the old man in surprise.

"For the good of our sacred order, you understand," he added, breathing with difficulty; "I prefer attack to the flatteries and adulations of friends; besides, those are bought."

"Your reverence believes that?"

The old man looked at him sadly.

"Remember this well," he went on, catching his breath; "our power lasts as long as it's believed in. If we're attacked, the Government reasons: 'They are assailed because in them is seen an obstacle to liberty: therefore we must support them!'"

"But if the Government should listen to our enemies, if it should come to covet what we have amassed--if there should be a man hardy enough----"

"Ah! then beware!"

Both were silent.

"And too," the sick man continued, "we have need of attack to show us our faults and make us better them. Too much flattery deceives us; we sleep; and more, it makes us ridiculous, and the day we become ridiculous we fall as we have fallen in Europe. Money will no longer come to our churches. No one will buy scapulary, penitential cords, anything; and when we cease to be rich, we can no longer convince the conscience. And the worst is, that we're working our own destruction. For one thing, this immoderate thirst for gain, which I've combated in vain in all our chapters, this thirst will be our ruin. I fear we are already declining. God blinds whom He will destroy."

"We shall always have our lands."

"But every year we raise their price, and force the Indian to buy of others. The people are beginning to murmur. We ought not to increase the burdens we've already laid on their shoulders."

"So your reverence believes that the revenues----"

"Talk no more of money," interrupted the old man with aversion. "You say the lieutenant threatened Father Dámaso?"

"Yes, Father," replied Sibyla, half smiling; "but this morning he told me the sherry had mounted to his head, and he thought it must have been the same with Brother Dámaso. 'And your threat?' I asked jestingly. 'Father,' said he, 'I know how to keep my word when it doesn't smirch my honor; I was never an informer--and that's why I am only a lieutenant.'"

Though the lieutenant had not carried out his threat to go to Malacañang, the captain-general none the less knew what had happened. A young officer told the story.

"From whom do you have it?" demanded His Excellency, smiling.

"From De Laruja."

The captain-general smiled again, and added:

"Woman's tongue, monk's tongue doesn't wound. I don't wish to get entangled with these men in skirts. Besides, the provincial made light of my orders; to punish this priest I demanded that his parish be changed. Well, they gave him a better. Monkishness! as we say in Spain."

Alone, His Excellency ceased to smile.

"Oh! if the people were not so dense, how easy to bridle their reverences! But every nation merits its lot!"