The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER LII 239
Elias lighted match after match. "On the jack!" he said, and to indicate the card placed a vertebra on top of it.
"Play!" called Lucas, as he dealt an ace with the fourth or fifth card. "You've lost," he added. "Now leave me
alone so that I can try to make a raise."
Elias moved away without a word and was soon swallowed up in the darkness.
Several minutes later the church-clock struck eight and the bell announced the hour of the souls, but Lucas
invited no one to play nor did he call on the dead, as the superstition directs; instead, he took off his hat and
muttered a few prayers, crossing and recrossing himself with the same fervor with which, at that same
moment, the leader of the Brotherhood of the Holy Rosary was going through a similar performance.
Throughout the night a drizzling rain continued to fall. By nine o'clock the streets were dark and solitary. The
coconut-oil lanterns, which the inhabitants were required to hang out, scarcely illuminated a small circle
around each, seeming to be lighted only to render the darkness more apparent. Two civil-guards paced back
and forth in the street near the church.
"It's cold!" said one in Tagalog with a Visayan accent. "We haven't caught any sacristan, so there is no one to
repair the alferez's chicken-coop. They're all scared out by the death of that other one. This makes me tired."
"Me, too," answered the other. "No one commits robbery, no one raises a disturbance, but, thank God, they
say that Elias is in town. The alferez says that whoever catches him will be exempt from floggings for three
months."
"Aha! Do you remember his description?" asked the Visayan.
"I should say so! Height: tall, according to the alferez, medium, according to Padre Damaso; color, brown;
eyes, black; nose, ordinary; beard, none; hair, black."
"Aha! But special marks?"
"Black shirt, black pantaloons, wood-cutter."
"Aha, he won't get away from me! I think I see him now."
"I wouldn't mistake him for any one else, even though he might look like him."
Thus the two soldiers continued on their round.
By the light of the lanterns we may again see two shadowy figures moving cautiously along, one behind the
other. An energetic "Quién vive?" stops both, and the first answers, "España!" in a trembling voice.
The soldiers seize him and hustle him toward a lantern to examine him. It is Lucas, but the soldiers seem to be
in doubt, questioning each other with their eyes.
"The alferez didn't say that he had a scar," whispered the Visayan. "Where you going?"
"To order a mass for tomorrow."
"Haven't you seen Elias?"
"I don't know him, sir," answered Lucas.