The stars were still shining in the sapphire heavens, and the birds were sleeping on the branches of the trees, when a jolly little party, by the light from the pitch torches, wandered through the streets of the town toward the lake.
Five young maidens, clinging to each other’s hands or belts, tripped along briskly. Behind them came several elderly women and a number of servants gracefully carrying on their heads baskets filled with provisions and various dishes for the picnic. On seeing their joyful faces, with their youthful smiles, their beautiful black hair as it floated in the breeze, and the wide folds of their pretty dresses, you would have taken them for goddesses of the night and would have thought that they were fleeing from day—if perchance you had not already known that it was Maria Clara and her four friends: jolly Sinang; her cousin, the serious Victoria; beautiful Iday; and the pensive Neneng, pretty, modest and timid.
They were talking with animation; they laughed; pinched each other; whispered in each other’s ears and then burst out in shouts of merriment.
“You girls will wake up everybody in town. Don’t you know that people are still asleep?” said Aunt Isabel, reprimanding them. “When we were young, we didn’t make such a noise.”
“But you didn’t get up as early as we do, nor were the old men such great sleepers in your day,” replied little Sinang.
They were quiet for a moment and were trying to talk in a low voice, but they quickly forgot themselves and were again filling the streets with their youthful laughter and melodious voices.
Several young fellows were coming down the street, lighting their way with large bamboo torches. They were marching along almost noiselessly to the tune of a guitar.
“That guitar sounds as though some beggar were playing it,” said Sinang, laughing. But when the young fellows caught up with the rest of the party, the girls suddenly became as quiet and as serious as though they never had learned how to laugh. The young men, however, chatted away, saluted the ladies, laughed and smiled and asked half a dozen questions without giving the girls time to answer any one of them.
The two large bancas,[1] which had been secured to transport the picnic party to the fishing grounds, were fastened together and picturesquely adorned with wreaths and garlands of flowers and a large number of vari-colored candles. Paper lanterns hung from the improvised covering of the bancas. Alternately with these were roses, pinks and baskets of fruits such as pineapples, kasuys, bananas, guayabas and lanzones. Ibarra had brought his carpets, blankets and rugs and arranged comfortable seats for the ladies. The poles and paddles used to propel the bancas had also been ornamented. In the better banca were a harp, guitars, accordeons, and a buffalo horn; while, in the other boat, a little fire had been lighted in an improvised stove in order that tea, coffee and salabat[2] might be prepared for the light breakfast.
“The women sit here; the men, there,” said the mothers on stepping into the banca. “Sit still and don’t move, or we will be capsized.”