the firing party asked my husband where he would prefer
to be shot. He replied 'Through the heart.' 'Impossible,' said the
lieutenant. 'Such a favor is granted only to men of rank. You will be
shot in the back.' A moment after my husband was dead. The soldiers
shouted, 'Hurrah for Spain,' and I, 'Hurrah for the Philippines and
death to Spain.' I asked for the body. It was refused me. Then I swore
to avenge his death. I secured a revolver and dagger and joined the
rebels. They gave me a Mauser rifle, and the Philippines will be free."

In his poem, filled with his last thoughts--his exalted dreams that
had faded, his patriotic sentiments that were bloody dust and ashes,
his love for the woman he was allowed to marry a few hours before
he was shot, his woeful love for his troop of devoted friends, who
would have died for him and with him if the sacrifice then and there
had not been hopeless--it will be discovered that he was a true poet,
and we give one of his stories that was hostile to the orders of the
Church, and a satire on Spanish rule, showing why he was a martyr.

The following is a prose translation from the Spanish of the poem
Dr. Rizal wrote the night before he was executed:

_My Last Thoughts._

Farewell! my adored country; region beloved of the sun; pearl of the
Orient sea; our lost Eden! I cheerfully give for thee my saddened life,
and had it been brighter, happier and more rosy, I would as willingly
give it for thy sake.

Unhesitatingly and without regret others give thee their lives in
frenzied fight on the battlefield. But what matter the surroundings! Be
they cypress, laurel or lilies, scaffold or open country, combat
or cruel martyrdom, it is all the same, when for country and home's
redress.

I die while watching the flushing skies announce through dark mantle
the advent of a day. Should it need purple to tint its dawn, here
is my blood; I gladly will shed it if only it be gilded by a ray of
new-born light.

My dreams while only a boy, and when of vigor full, a youth, were
always to see thee, jewel of the Orient sea! thy black eyes dry,
thy frownless face uplifted, and spotless thine honor.

Dream of my life! My fervent anxiety! Shouts the soul that soon is
to depart, Hail! It is glorious to fall to give thee flight; to die
to give thee life; to die under thy Skies, and in thy maternal bosom
eternally to sleep.

Shouldst thou find some day over my grave, a lonesome, humble flower,
b