est,
she asked about the strange being.

"It is a leper," replied Iday. "He contracted the disease some four
years ago; some say by taking care of his mother, others by having
been confined in a damp prison. He lives there in the field near the
Chinese cemetery. He does not communicate with any one: everybody
flees from him on account of the fear of contagion. You should see his
fantastic little house! The wind, the rain and the sunshine go in and
out of it as a needle goes through cloth. They have prohibited him
from touching anything belonging to anybody. One day a little child
fell into the canal. The canal was deep, but this man happened to be
passing near and helped to get the little child out. The child's father
learned of it, made a complaint to the gobernadorcillo and the latter
ordered that he be given six stripes in the middle of the street,
the whip to be afterwards burned. That was atrocious! The leper ran
away howling; they pursued him and the gobernadorcillo cried out:
'Catch him! One might better be drowned than have that disease!'"

"That is true," murmured Maria Clara. And then, without noticing what
she was doing, she went up to the basket of the unfortunate wretch and
dropped into it the relic which her father had just presented to her.

"What have you done?" her friends asked her.

"I have nothing else to give him," she replied, concealing the tears
in her eyes by a smile.

"And what is he going to do with the relic?" said Victoria to
her. "One day they gave him money but he pushed it away from him with
his cane. Why would he care for it, if no one would accept anything
coming from him? If he could only eat the relic!"

Maria Clara looked longingly at the women who were selling provisions
and shrugged her shoulders.

But the leper approached the basket, picked up the piece of jewelry
which shone in his hands, knelt down, kissed it, and, after taking
off his hat, buried his face in the dust on which the young girl
had walked.

Maria Clara hid her face behind her fan and raised her handkerchief
to her eyes.

CHAPTER XVI

THE HOISTING CRANE.

While two of the actors were singing the Incarnatus est in the
church at the celebration of mass on the last day of the fiesta,
and all were kneeling and the priests were bowing their heads, a man
whispered in Ibarra's ear: "During the ceremony of the blessing of
the corner stone, do not go near the priest, do not go in the ditch,
do not