and offering the grave-digger a cigar. "Tell us where the
grave is and where the cross."

The grave-digger scratched his ear and replied, yawning: "Well,
the cross--I have already burned it up."

"Burned it? and why have you burned it?"

"Because the head priest so ordered."

"Who is the head priest?" asked Ibarra.

"Who? The one who does the whipping."

Ibarra put his hand to his head.

"But you can at least tell us where the grave is? You ought to
remember."

The grave-digger smiled. "The body is no longer there," he replied
tranquilly.

"What do you say?"

"Yes, no longer," the man added in a joking tone. "Only a week ago
I buried a woman in its place."

"Are you crazy?" the servant asked. "Why, it is not yet a year since
we buried him."

"Then that is the one, for it was many months ago that I took up the
body. The head priest of the parish ordered me to do it, in order
to bury it in the Chinese cemetery. But as it was heavy and it was
raining that night----"

The man could not finish. He stepped back, half frightened at the
expression on Crisostomo's face. Ibarra made a rush at him, and,
grabbing him by the arm, shook him.

"And what did you do?" the young man asked, in an indescribable tone.

"Honored sir, do not get angry," he replied, pale and trembling. "I
did not bury the body among the Chinese. In my opinion a person might
better be a suicide than be buried among the Chinese. I threw the
body into the lake."

Ibarra laid both his hands on the man's shoulders and looked at him
for a long time in a terrifying manner. "You are only an unfortunate
fellow," he said, at last, and left the place on a run across bones,
graves, and crosses, like a madman.

The grave-digger felt of his arm and murmured: "What would they do
with the dead! The head priest whips me with his cane for having left
the body in the cemetery when I was sick. Now this fellow comes along
and nearly breaks my arm for having taken it up. That is just like
the Spaniards! I'll lose my place yet."

Ibarra went on in great haste, keeping his eyes fixed in the
distance. The old servant followed him, crying. Already the sun was
hidden; a large, dark cloud hung over the western horizon; and a dry
wind bent the tops of the trees and made the fields of sugar cane
groan. With hat in hand, he went on. Not one tear dropped from his
eye, not one sigh came from his breast. He hurried on as if he were
fleeing from somebody, or something-