Part 70

"I have never had any communication with Don Crisóstomo."

"Don't attempt to deny it: what other reason had you for joining the conspiracy?"

"You had killed our father, we wished to avenge him, nothing more. Go find two of your guards. They're at the foot of the precipice, where we threw them. You may kill me now, you will learn nothing more."

There was silence and general surprise.

"You will name your accomplices," cried the alférez, brandishing his cane.

The accused man smiled disdainfully. The alférez talked apart with the curate.

"Take him where the bodies are," he ordered.

In a corner of the patio, on an old cart, five bodies were heaped under a piece of soiled matting.

"Do you know them?" asked the alférez, lifting the covering. Társilo did not reply. He saw the body of Sisa's husband, and that of his brother, pierced through with bayonet strokes. His face grew darker, and a great sigh escaped him; but he was mute.

"Beat him till he confesses or dies!" cried the exasperated alférez.

They led him back where the other prisoner, with chattering teeth, was invoking the saints.

"Do you know this man?" demanded Father Salvi.

"I never saw him before," replied Társilo, looking at the poor wretch with faint compassion.

"Fasten him to the bench; gag him!" ordered the alférez, trembling with rage. When this was done, a guard began his sad task.

Father Salvi, pale and haggard, rose trembling, and left the tribunal. In the street he saw a girl, leaning against the wall, rigid, motionless, her eyes far away. The sun shone full down on her. She seemed not to breathe but to count, one after another, the muffled blows inside. It was Társilo's sister.

The torture continued until the soldier, breathless, let his arm fall, and the alférez ordered his victim released. But Társilo still refused to speak. Then Doña Consolacion whispered in her husband's ear; he nodded.

"To the well with him!" he said.

The Filipinos know what that means. In Tagalo it is called timbaîn. We do not know who invented this judiciary process, but it must belong to antiquity. Truth coming out of a well is perhaps a sarcastic interpretation.

In the middle of the patio of the tribunal was a picturesque well curb of uncut stones. It had a rustic crank of bamboo; its water was slimy and putrid. All sorts of refuse had been thrown around it and in it.

Toward this Társilo was led. He was very pale, and his lips trembled, if he was not praying. The pride he had shown appeared now to be crushed out; he seemed resigned to suffer. The poor wretch looked enviously at the pile of bodies, and sighed heavily.

"Speak then!" said the directorcillo. "You will be hung anyway. Why not die without so much suffering?" But Társilo remained mute.

When the well was reached, they bound his feet. He was to be let down head foremost. He was fastened to the curb; the crank turned, and his body disappeared. The alférez noted the seconds with his watch. At the signal the body was drawn up, too pitiable to describe; but Társilo was still mute. Again he was let down, again he refused to speak; when he was drawn up the third time, he no longer breathed.

His torturers looked at each other in consternation. The alférez ordered the body taken down, and they all examined it for signs of life; but there were none.

"See," said a cuadrillero, at last, "he has strangled himself with his tongue!"

"Put the body with the others," ordered the alférez nervously. "We must examine the other unknown prisoner."

ACCURST.

The news spread that the prisoners were to be taken to the capital, and members of their families ran wildly from convent to barracks, from barracks to tribunal, but found no consolation anywhere. The curate was said to be ill. The guards dealt roughly with the supplicating women, and the gobernadorcillo was more useless than ever. The friends of the accused, therefore, had collected near the prison, waiting for them to be brought out. Doray, Don Filipo's young wife, wandered back and forth, her child in her arms, both crying. The Capitana Tinay called on her son Antonio, and brave Capitana Maria watched the grating behind which were her twins, her only children.

At two in the afternoon, an uncovered cart drawn by two oxen stopped in front of the tribunal. It was surrounded, and there were loud threats of breaking it.