was the same locket that Maria
Clara had worn during the fiesta in San Diego and which she had in
a moment of compassion given to a leper.

"I like the design," said Simoun. "How much do you want for it?"

Cabesang Tales scratched his head in perplexity, then his ear, then
looked at the women.

"I've taken a fancy to this locket," Simoun went on. "Will you take a
hundred, five hundred pesos? Do you want to exchange it for something
else? Take your choice here!"

Tales stared foolishly at Simoun, as if in doubt of what he
heard. "Five hundred pesos?" he murmured.

"Five hundred," repeated the jeweler in a voice shaking with emotion.

Cabesang Tales took the locket and made several turns about the room,
with his heart beating violently and his hands trembling. Dared he ask
more? That locket could save him, this was an excellent opportunity,
such as might not again present itself.

The women winked at him to encourage him to make the sale, excepting
Penchang, who, fearing that Juli would be ransomed, observed piously:
"I would keep it as a relic. Those who have seen Maria Clara in the
nunnery say she has got so thin and weak that she can scarcely talk
and it's thought that she'll die a saint. Padre Salvi speaks very
highly of her and he's her confessor. That's why Juli didn't want
ito give it up, but rather preferred to pawn herself."

This speech had its effect--the thought of his daughter restrained
Tales. "If you will allow me," he said, "I'll go to the town to
consult my daughter. I'll be back before night."

This was agreed upon and Tales set out at once. But when he found
himself outside of the village, he made out at a distance, on a path,
that entered the woods, the friar-administrator and a man whom he
recognized as the usurper of his land. A husband seeing his wife
enter a private room with another man could not feel more wrath or
jealousy than Cabesang Tales experienced when he saw them moving
over his fields, the fields cleared by him, which he had thought to
leave to his children. It seemed to him that they were mocking him,
laughing at his powerlessness. There flashed into his memory what he
had said about never giving up his fields except to him who irrigated
them with his own blood and buried in them his wife and daughter.

He stopped, rubbed his hand over his forehead, and shut his eyes. When
he again opened them, he saw that the man had turned to laugh and
that the friar had caught his sides