In the midst of a profound silence the American announced in a tone of emotion: "Ladies and gentlemen, with a word I am now going to reanimate the handful of ashes, and you will talk with a being that knows the past, the present, and much of the future!"

Here the prestidigitator uttered a soft cry, first mournful, then lively, a medley of sharp sounds like imprecations and hoa.r.s.e notes like threats, which made Ben-Zayb's hair stand on end.

"_Deremof_!" cried the American.

The curtains on the wall rustled, the lamps burned low, the table creaked. A feeble groan responded from the interior of the box. Pale and uneasy, all stared at one another, while one terrified senora caught hold of Padre Salvi.

The box then opened of its own accord and presented to the eyes of the audience a head of cadaverous aspect, surrounded by long and abundant black hair. It slowly opened its eyes and looked around the whole audience. Those eyes had a vivid radiance, accentuated by their cavernous sockets, and, as if deep were calling unto deep, fixed themselves upon the profound, sunken eyes of the trembling Padre Salvi, who was staring unnaturally, as though he saw a ghost.

"Sphinx," commanded Mr. Leeds, "tell the audience who you are."

A deep silence prevailed, while a chill wind blew through the room and made the blue flames of the sepulchral lamps flicker. The most skeptical shivered.

"I am Imuthis," declared the head in a funereal, but strangely menacing, voice. "I was born in the time of Amasis and died under the Persian domination, when Cambyses was returning from his disastrous expedition into the interior of Libya. I had come to complete my education after extensive travels through Greece, a.s.syria, and Persia, and had returned to my native laud to dwell in it until Thoth should call me before his terrible tribunal. But to my undoing, on pa.s.sing through Babylonia, I discovered an awful secret--the secret of the false Smerdis who usurped the throne, the bold Magian Gaumata who governed as an impostor. Fearing that I would betray him to Cambyses, he determined upon my ruin through the instrumentality of the Egyptian priests, who at that time ruled my native country. They were the owners of two-thirds of the land, the monopolizers of learning, they held the people down in ignorance and tyranny, they brutalized them, thus making them fit to pa.s.s without resistance from one domination to another. The invaders availed themselves of them, and knowing their usefulness, protected and enriched them. The rulers not only depended on their will, but some were reduced to mere instruments of theirs. The Egyptian priests hastened to execute Gaumata's orders, with greater zeal from their fear of me, because they were afraid that I would reveal their impostures to the people. To accomplish their purpose, they made use of a young priest of Abydos, who pa.s.sed for a saint."

A painful silence followed these words. That head was talking of priestly intrigues and impostures, and although referring to another age and other creeds, all the friars present were annoyed, possibly because they could see in the general trend of the speech some a.n.a.logy to the existing situation. Padre Salvi was in the grip of convulsive shivering; he worked his lips and with bulging eyes followed the gaze of the head as though fascinated. Beads of sweat began to break out on his emaciated face, but no one noticed this, so deeply absorbed and affected were they.

"What was the plot concocted by the priests of your country against you?" asked Mr. Leeds.

The head uttered a sorrowful groan, which seemed to come from the bottom of the heart, and the spectators saw its eyes, those fiery eyes, clouded and filled with tears. Many shuddered and felt their hair rise. No, that was not an illusion, it was not a trick: the head was the victim and what it told was its own story.

"Ay!" it moaned, shaking with affliction, "I loved a maiden, the daughter of a priest, pure as light, like the freshly opened lotus! The young priest of Abydos also desired her and planned a rebellion, using my name and some papyri that he had secured from my beloved. The rebellion broke out at the time when Cambyses was returning in rage over the disasters of his unfortunate campaign. I was accused of being a rebel, was made a prisoner, and having effected my escape was killed in the chase on Lake Moeris. From out of eternity I saw the imposture triumph. I saw the priest of Abydos night and day persecuting the maiden, who had taken refuge in a temple of Isis on the island of Philae. I saw him persecute and hara.s.s her, even in the subterranean chambers, I saw him drive her mad with terror and suffering, like a huge bat pursuing a white dove. Ah, priest, priest of Abydos, I have returned to life to expose your infamy, and after so many years of silence, I name thee murderer, hypocrite, liar!"

A dry, hollow laugh accompanied these words, while a choked voice responded, "No! Mercy!"

It was Padre Salvi, who had been overcome with terror and with arms extended was slipping in collapse to the floor.

"What's the matter with your Reverence? Are you ill?" asked Padre Irene.

"The heat of the room--"

"This odor of corpses we're breathing here--"

"Murderer, slanderer, hypocrite!" repeated the head. "I accuse you--murderer, murderer, murderer!"

Again the dry laugh, sepulchral and menacing, resounded, as though that head were so absorbed in contemplation of its wrongs that it did not see the tumult that prevailed in the room.

"Mercy! She still lives!" groaned Padre Salvi, and then lost consciousness. He was as pallid as a corpse. Some of the ladies thought it their duty to faint also, and proceeded to do so.

"He is out of his head! Padre Salvi!"

"I told him not to eat that bird's-nest soup," said Padre Irene. "It has made him sick."

"But he didn't eat anything," rejoined Don Custodio shivering. "As the head has been staring at him fixedly, it has mesmerized him."

So disorder prevailed, the room seemed to be a hospital or a battlefield. Padre Salvi looked like a corpse, and the ladies, seeing that no one was paying them any attention, made the best of it by recovering.

Meanwhile, the head had been reduced to ashes, and Mr. Leeds, having replaced the cloth on the table, bowed his audience out.

"This show must be prohibited," said Don Custodio on leaving. "It's wicked and highly immoral."

"And above all, because it doesn't use mirrors," added Ben-Zayb, who before going out of the room tried to a.s.sure himself finally, so he leaped over the rail, went up to the table, and raised the cloth: nothing, absolutely nothing! [40] On the following day he wrote an article in which he spoke of occult sciences, spiritualism, and the like.

An order came immediately from the ecclesiastical governor prohibiting the show, but Mr. Leeds had already disappeared, carrying his secret with him to Hongkong.

CHAPTER XIX

THE FUSE

Placido Penitente left the cla.s.s with his heart overflowing with bitterness and sullen gloom in his looks. He was worthy of his name when not driven from his usual course, but once irritated he was a veritable torrent, a wild beast that could only be stopped by the death of himself or his foe. So many affronts, so many pinp.r.i.c.ks, day after day, had made his heart quiver, lodging in it to sleep the sleep of lethargic vipers, and they now were awaking to shake and hiss with fury. The hisses resounded in his ears with the jesting epithets of the professor, the phrases in the slang of the markets, and he seemed to hear blows and laughter. A thousand schemes for revenge rushed into his brain, crowding one another, only to fade immediately like phantoms in a dream. His vanity cried out to him with desperate tenacity that he must do something.

"Placido Penitente," said the voice, "show these youths that you have dignity, that you are the son of a valiant and n.o.ble province, where wrongs are washed out with blood. You're a Batangan, Placido Penitente! Avenge yourself, Placido Penitente!"

The youth groaned and gnashed his teeth, stumbling against every one in the street and on the Bridge of Spain, as if he were seeking a quarrel. In the latter place he saw a carriage in which was the Vice-Rector, Padre Sibyla, accompanied by Don Custodio, and he had a great mind to seize the friar and throw him into the river.

He proceeded along the Escolta and was tempted to a.s.sault two Augustinians who were seated in the doorway of Quiroga's bazaar, laughing and joking with other friars who must have been inside in joyous conversation, for their merry voices and sonorous laughter could be heard. Somewhat farther on, two cadets blocked up the sidewalk, talking with the clerk of a warehouse, who was in his shirtsleeves. Penitents moved toward them to force a pa.s.sage and they, perceiving his dark intention, good-humoredly made way for him. Placido was by this time under the influence of the _amok_, as the Malayists say.

As he approached his home--the house of a silversmith where he lived as a boarder--he tried to collect his thoughts and make a plan--to return to his town and avenge himself by showing the friars that they could not with impunity insult a youth or make a joke of him. He decided to write a letter immediately to his mother, Cabesang Andang, to inform her of what had happened and to tell her that the schoolroom had closed forever for him. Although there was the Ateneo of the Jesuits, where he might study that year, yet it was not very likely that the Dominicans would grant him the transfer, and, even though he should secure it, in the following year he would have to return to the University.

"They say that we don't know how to avenge ourselves!" he muttered. "Let the lightning strike and we'll see!"

But Placido was not reckoning upon what awaited him in the house of the silversmith. Cabesang Andang had just arrived from Batangas, having come to do some shopping, to visit her son, and to bring him money, jerked venison, and silk handkerchiefs.

The first greetings over, the poor woman, who had at once noticed her son's gloomy look, could no longer restrain her curiosity and began to ask questions. His first explanations Cabesang Andang regarded as some subterfuge, so she smiled and soothed her son, reminding him of their sacrifices and privations. She spoke of Capitana Simona's son, who, having entered the seminary, now carried himself in the town like a bishop, and Capitana Simona already considered herself a Mother of G.o.d, clearly so, for her son was going to be another Christ.

"If the son becomes a priest," said she, "the mother won't have to pay us what she owes us. Who will collect from her then?"

But on seeing that Placido was speaking seriously and reading in his eyes the storm that raged within him, she realized that what he was telling her was unfortunately the strict truth. She remained silent for a while and then broke out into lamentations.

"Ay!" she exclaimed. "I promised your father that I would care for you, educate you, and make a lawyer of you! I've deprived myself of everything so that you might go to school! Instead of joining the _panguingui_ where the stake is a half peso, I Ve gone only where it's a half real, enduring the bad smells and the dirty cards. Look at my patched camisa; for instead of buying new ones I've spent the money in ma.s.ses and presents to St. Sebastian, even though I don't have great confidence in his power, because the curate recites the ma.s.ses fast and hurriedly, he's an entirely new saint and doesn't yet know how to perform miracles, and isn't made of _batikulin_ but of _lanete._ Ay, what will your father say to me when I die and see him again!"

So the poor woman lamented and wept, while Placido became gloomier and let stifled sighs escape from his breast.

"What would I get out of being a lawyer?" was his response.

"What will become of you?" asked his mother, clasping her hands. "They'll call you a filibuster and garrote you. I've told you that you must have patience, that you must be humble. I don't tell you that you must kiss the hands of the curates, for I know that you have a delicate sense of smell, like your father, who couldn't endure European cheese. [41] But we have to suffer, to be silent, to say yes to everything. What are we going to do? The friars own everything, and if they are unwilling, no one will become a lawyer or a doctor. Have patience, my son, have patience!"

"But I've had a great deal, mother, I've suffered for months and months."

Cabesang Andang then resumed her lamentations. She did not ask that he declare himself a partizan of the friars, she was not one herself--it was enough to know that for one good friar there were ten bad, who took the money from the poor and deported the rich. But one must be silent, suffer, and endure--there was no other course. She cited this man and that one, who by being _patient_ and humble, even though in the bottom of his heart he hated his masters, had risen from servant of the friars to high office; and such another who was rich and could commit abuses, secure of having patrons who would protect him from the law, yet who had been nothing more than a poor sacristan, humble and obedient, and who had married a pretty girl whose son had the curate for a G.o.dfather. So Cabesang Andang continued her litany of humble and _patient_ Filipinos, as she called them, and was about to cite others who by not being so had found themselves persecuted and exiled, when Placido on some trifling pretext left the house to wander about the streets.

He pa.s.sed through Sibakong, [42] Tondo, San Nicolas, and Santo Cristo, absorbed in his ill-humor, without taking note of the sun or the hour, and only when he began to feel hungry and discovered that he had no money, having given it all for celebrations and contributions, did he return to the house. He had expected that he would not meet his mother there, as she was in the habit, when in Manila, of going out at that hour to a neighboring house where _panguingui_ was played, but Cabesang Andang was waiting to propose her plan. She would avail herself of the procurator of the Augustinians to restore her son to the good graces of the Dominicans.

Placido stopped her with a gesture. "I'll throw myself into the sea first," he declared. "I'll become a tulisan before I'll go back to the University."