also for the days when there are no novenas, and washed himself
afterwards in the famous _batis_, or pool, where the sacred Image
herself had bathed. Her votaries can even yet discern the tracks of
her feet and the traces of her locks in the hard rock, where she dried
them, resembling exactly those made by any woman who uses coconut-oil,
and just as if her hair had been steel or diamonds and she had weighed
a thousand tons. We should like to see the terrible Image once shake
her sacred hair in the eyes of those credulous persons and put her
foot upon their tongues or their heads. There at the very edge of the
pool Capitan Tiago made it his duty to eat roast pig, _sinigang_ of
_dalag_ with _alibambang_ leaves, and other more or less appetizing
dishes. The two masses would cost him over four hundred pesos, but
it was cheap, after all, if one considered the glory that the Mother
of the Lord would acquire from the pin-wheels, rockets, bombs, and
mortars, and also the increased profits which, thanks to these masses,
would come to one during the year.

But Antipolo was not the only theater of his ostentatious devotion. In
Binondo, in Pampanga, and in the town of San Diego, when he was about
to put up a fighting-cock with large wagers, he would send gold moneys
to the curate for propitiatory masses and, just as the Romans consulted
the augurs before a battle, giving food to the sacred fowls, so Capitan
Tiago would also consult his augurs, with the modifications befitting
the times and the new truths, tie would watch closely the flame of
the tapers, the smoke from the incense, the voice of the priest,
and from it all attempt to forecast his luck. It was an admitted
fact that he lost very few wagers, and in those cases it was due to
the unlucky circumstance that the officiating priest was hoarse,
or that the altar-candles were few or contained too much tallow,
or that a bad piece of money had slipped in with the rest. The
warden of the Brotherhood would then assure him that such reverses
were tests to which he was subjected by Heaven to receive assurance
of his fidelity and devotion. So, beloved by the priests, respected
by the sacristans, humored by the Chinese chandlers and the dealers
in fireworks, he was a man happy in the religion of this world, and
persons of discernment and great piety even claimed for him great
influence in the celestial court.

That he was at peace with the government cannot be doubted, however
diffic