e mountain-side and was bounding on in mad career,
far beyond his control.

III

He who of old would rend the oak,
Dream'd not of the rebound;
Chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke
Alone--how look'd he round?

BYRON.

Reason and moderation in the person of Rizal scorned and banished,
the spirit of Jean Paul Marat and John Brown of Ossawatomie rises to
the fore in the shape of one Andres Bonifacio, warehouse porter, who
sits up o' nights copying all the letters and documents that he can lay
hands on; composing grandiloquent manifestoes in Tagalog; drawing up
magnificent appointments in the names of prominent persons who would
later suffer even to the shedding of their life's blood through his
mania for writing history in advance; spelling out Spanish tales of
the French Revolution; babbling of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity;
hinting darkly to his confidants that the President of France had begun
life as a blacksmith. Only a few days after Rizal was so summarily
hustled away, Bonifacio gathered together a crowd of malcontents and
ignorant dupes, some of them composing as choice a gang of cutthroats
as ever slit the gullet of a Chinese or tied mutilated prisoners in
ant hills, and solemnly organized the _Kataastaasang Kagalang-galang
Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan_, "Supreme Select Association of the
Sons of the People," for the extermination of the ruling race and
the restoration of the Golden Age. It was to bring the people into
concerted action for a general revolt on a fixed date, when they
would rise simultaneously, take possession of the city of Manila,
and--the rest were better left to the imagination, for they had been
reared under the Spanish colonial system and imitativeness has ever
been pointed out as a cardinal trait in the Filipino character. No
quarter was to be asked or given, and the most sacred ties, even of
consanguinity, were to be disregarded in the general slaughter. To
the inquiry of a curious neophyte as to how the Spaniards were
to be distinguished from the other Europeans, in order to avoid
international complications, dark Andres replied that in case of
doubt they should proceed with due caution but should take good care
that they made no mistakes about letting any of the _Castilas_ escape
their vengeance. The higher officials of the government were to be
taken alive as hostages, while the friars were to be reserved for a
sp