The Social Cancer, by José Rizal - Home

CHAPTER LV 250
"Miserere! The alferez is calling for confession," cried Aunt Isabel. "The alferez is wounded?" asked Linares
hastily. "Ah!!!" Only then did he notice that he had not yet swallowed what he had in his mouth.
"Padre, come here! There's nothing more to fear!" the alferez continued to call out.
The pallid Fray Salvi at last concluded to venture out from his hiding-place, and went down the stairs.
"The outlaws have killed the alferez! Maria, Sinang, go into your room and fasten the door! Kyrie eleyson!"
Ibarra also turned toward the stairway, in spite of Aunt Isabel's cries: "Don't go out, you haven't been shriven,
don't go out!" The good old lady had been a particular friend of his mother's.
But Ibarra left the house. Everything seemed to reel around him, the ground was unstable. His ears buzzed, his
legs moved heavily and irregularly. Waves of blood, lights and shadows chased one another before his eyes,
and in spite of the bright moonlight he stumbled over the stones and blocks of wood in the vacant and
deserted street.
Near the barracks he saw soldiers, with bayonets fixed, who were talking among themselves so excitedly that
he passed them unnoticed. In the town hall were to be heard blows, cries, and curses, with the voice of the
alferez dominating everything: "To the stocks! Handcuff them! Shoot any one who moves! Sergeant, mount
the guard! Today no one shall walk about, not even God! Captain, this is no time to go to sleep!"
Ibarra hastened his steps toward home, where his servants were anxiously awaiting him. "Saddle the best
horse and go to bed!" he ordered them.
Going into his study, he hastily packed a traveling-bag, opened an iron safe, took out what money he found
there and put it into some sacks. Then he collected his jewels, took clown a portrait of Maria Clara, armed
himself with a dagger and two revolvers, and turned toward a closet where he kept his instruments.
At that moment three heavy knocks sounded on the door. "Who's there?" asked Ibarra in a gloomy tone.
"Open, in the King's name, open at once, or we'll break the door down," answered an imperious voice in
Spanish.
Ibarra looked toward the window, his eyes gleamed, and he cocked his revolver. Then changing his mind, he
put the weapons down and went to open the door just as the servant appeared. Three guards instantly seized
him.
"Consider yourself a prisoner in the King's name," said the sergeant.
"For what?"
"They'll tell you over there. We're forbidden to say." The youth reflected a moment and then, perhaps not
wishing that the soldiers should discover his preparations for flight, picked up his hat, saying, "I'm at your
service. I suppose that it will only be for a few hours."
"If you promise not to try to escape, we won't tie you the alferez grants this favor--but if you run--"
Ibarra went with them, leaving his servants in consternation.
Meanwhile, what had become of Elias? Leaving the house of Crisostomo, he had run like one crazed, without
heeding where he was going. He crossed the fields in violent agitation, he reached the woods; he fled from the