as though to save himself from
bursting with merriment, then he saw them point toward his house and
laugh again.

A buzz sounded in his ears, he felt the crack of a whip around his
chest, the red mist reappeared before his eyes, he again saw the
corpses of his wife and daughter, and beside them the usurper with
the friar laughing and holding his sides. Forgetting everything else,
he turned aside into the path they had taken, the one leading to
his fields.

Simoun waited in vain for Cabesang Tales to return that night. But
the next morning when he arose he noticed that the leather holster of
his revolver was empty. Opening it he found inside a scrap of paper
wrapped around the locket set with emeralds and diamonds, with these
few lines written on it in Tagalog:

"Pardon, sir, that in my own house I relieve you of what
belongs to you, but necessity drives me to it. In exchange
for your revolver I leave the locket you desired so much. I
need the weapon, for I am going out to join the tulisanes.

"I advise you not to keep on your present road, because if
you fall into our power, not then being my guest, we will
require of you a large ransom.

Telesforo Juan de Dios."

"At last I've found my man!" muttered Simoun with a deep breath. "He's
somewhat scrupulous, but so much the better--he'll keep his promises."

He then ordered a servant to go by boat over the lake to Los Banos with
the larger chest and await him there. He would go on overland, taking
the smaller chest, the one containing his famous jewels. The arrival
of four civil-guards completed his good humor. They came to arrest
Cabesang Tales and not finding him took Tandang Selo away instead.

Three murders had been committed during the night. The
friar-administrator and the new tenant of Cabesang Tales' land had
been found dead, with their heads split open and their mouths full
of earth, on the border of the fields. In the town the wife of the
usurper was found dead at dawn, her mouth also filled with earth and
her throat cut, with a fragment of paper beside her, on which was
the name _Tales_, written in blood as though traced by a finger.

Calm yourselves, peaceful inhabitants of Kalamba! None of you are
named Tales, none of you have committed any crime! You are called
Luis Habana, Matias Belarmino, Nicasio Eigasani, Cayetano de Jesus,
Mateo Elejorde, Leandro Lopez, Antonino Lopez, Silvestre Ubaldo,
Manuel Hidalgo, P