ilipino lawyer, young A----,
but he refused to take the case. 'I should lose it,' he told me,
'and my defending him would furnish the motive for another charge
against him and perhaps one against me. Go to Senor M----, who is a
forceful and fluent speaker and a Peninsular of great influence.' I
did so, and the noted lawyer took charge of the case, and conducted it
with mastery and brilliance. But your father's enemies were numerous,
some of them hidden and unknown. False witnesses abounded, and their
calumnies, which under other circumstances would have melted away
before a sarcastic phrase from the defense, here assumed shape and
substance. If the lawyer succeeded in destroying the force of their
testimony by making them contradict each other and even perjure
themselves, new charges were at once preferred. They accused him of
having illegally taken possession of a great deal of land and demanded
damages. They said that he maintained relations with the tulisanes in
order that his crops and animals might not be molested by them. At
last the case became so confused that at the end of a year no one
understood it. The alcalde had to leave and there came in his place
one who had the reputation of being honest, but unfortunately he stayed
only a few months, and his successor was too fond of good horses.

"The sufferings, the worries, the hard life in the prison, or the pain
of seeing so much ingratitude, broke your father's iron constitution
and he fell ill with that malady which only the tomb can cure. When
the case was almost finished and he was about to be acquitted of the
charge of being an enemy of the fatherland and of being the murderer
of the tax-collector, he died in the prison with no one at his side. I
arrived just in time to see him breathe his last."

The old lieutenant became silent, but still Ibarra said nothing. They
had arrived meanwhile at the door of the barracks, so the soldier
stopped and said, as he grasped the youth's hand, "Young man, for
details ask Capitan Tiago. Now, good night, as I must return to duty
and see that all's well."

Silently, but with great feeling, Ibarra shook the lieutenant's bony
hand and followed him with his eyes until he disappeared. Then he
turned slowly and signaled to a passing carriage. "To Lala's Hotel,"
was the direction he gave in a scarcely audible voice.

"This fellow must have just got out of jail," thought the cochero as
he whipped up his horses.

CHAPTER