are too daring," answered Ibarra. "Don't tempt fate again."

"If you had not come up again--" murmured the still pale and trembling
Maria Clara.

"If I had not come up and you had followed me," replied Ibarra,
completing the thought in his own way, "in the bottom of the lake,
_I should still have been with my family!_" He had not forgotten that
there lay the bones of his father.

The old women did not want to visit the other corral but wished to
return, saying that the day had begun inauspiciously and that many more
accidents might occur. "All because we didn't hear mass," sighed one.

"But what accident has befallen us, ladies?" asked Ibarra. "The cayman
seems to have been the only unlucky one."

"All of which proves," concluded the ex-student of theology, "that
in all its sinful life this unfortunate reptile has never attended
mass--at least, I've never seen him among the many other caymans that
frequent the church."

So the boats were turned in the direction of the other corral and
Andeng had to get her _sinigang_ ready again. The day was now well
advanced, with a fresh breeze blowing. The waves curled up behind the
body of the cayman, raising "mountains of foam whereon the smooth,
rich sunlight glitters," as the poet says. The music again resounded;
Iday played on the harp, while the men handled the accordions and
guitars with greater or less skill. The prize-winner was Albino, who
actually scratched the instruments, getting out of tune and losing
the time every moment or else forgetting it and changing to another
tune entirely different.

The second corral was visited with some misgivings, as many expected to
find there the mate of the dead cayman, but nature is ever a jester,
and the nets came up full at each haul. Aunt Isabel superintended
the sorting of the fish and ordered that some be left in the trap for
decoys. "It's not lucky to empty the corral completely," she concluded.

Then they made their way toward the shore near the forest of old trees
that belonged to Ibarra. There in the shade by the clear waters of the
brook, among the flowers, they ate their breakfast under improvised
canopies. The space was filled with music while the smoke from the
fires curled up in slender wreaths. The water bubbled cheerfully in
the hot dishes as though uttering sounds of consolation, or perchance
of sarcasm and irony, to the dead fishes. The body of the cayman
writhed about, sometimes showing its torn white belly