coffin gradually
assumed its grim proportions. A group of schoolboys, drawn by
curiosity, looked on indifferently while keeping up a desultory game
of tag. Upstairs, the women, dressed in the black veils of mourning,
shuffling noiselessly around, were burning candles at the "Queen of
Heaven's" shrine. They murmured prayers mechanically--not without a
certain reverence and awe--to usher the departing soul into the land
beyond. A smoky wall-lamp, glimmering near the door, illuminated the
black crucifix above the bed. In the dim candle-light vague shadows
danced on the white walls.

The priest had heard the last confession of Jose Pilar. Not that
Jose had been one of the padre's friends. In fact, he was suspected
during the past year of having been a secret agent of Aglipay, the
self-consecrated Bishop of Manila, and the target of the accusation
and invective that the Church of Rome is so proficient in. The recent
rulings of the order had abolished the confession fee; but the long
road was uncertain and the dangers great. The padre rubbed his hands
as he went out. He had received a "voluntary" contribution for his
services, with the assurance that a series of masses would be ordered
by the widow of Jose Pilar. Through the stiff palms, the cold sea,
gray as steel, washed the far-distant shores of lonely islands,
and the red glow of the setting sun had died away.

The padre thought about the plump goats and the chickens in the new
stockade. The simple people brought their chickens to the convent,
denying themselves all but the fish and rice. The mothers weaned
their puny brats on rice; they stuffed them with it till their swollen
paunches made a grotesque contrast with their skinny legs. Childbirth
is one of the minor incidents of Filipinia. Where is the house that
doesn't swarm with babies, like the celebrated residence of the old
woman in the shoe? When one of these sparrows falls, the little song
that dies is never missed.

How many times had Father Cipriano climbed the rickety ladder to the
_nipa_ dwellings, entering the closed room where the patient lay
upon the floor! A gaping crowd of yokels stood around, while the
old woman faithfully kneaded the abdomen. The native medicaster,
having placed the green leaves on the patient's temples, would be
brewing a concoction of emollient simples. The open shirt disclosed
upon the patient's breast the amulet which had been blessed by Padre
Cipriano, and was stamped with a sm