So saying, he drew away in the banka, rowing toward a thicket on the shore. As he covered the long distance he remained silent, apparently intent upon nothing but the thousands of phosphorescent diamonds that the oar caught up and dropped back into the lake, where they disappeared mysteriously into the blue waves.
When he had reached the shadow of the thicket a man came out of it and approached the banka. “What shall I tell the capitan?” he asked.
“Tell him that Elias, if he lives, will keep his word,” was the sad answer.
“When will you join us, then?”
“When your capitan thinks that the hour of danger has come.”
“Very well. Good-by!”
“If I don’t die first,” added Elias in a low voice.
[1] Horse and cow.
[2] Fray Gaspar de San Agustin, O.S.A., who came to the Philippines in 1668 and died in Manila in 1724, was the author of a history of the conquest, but his chief claim to immortality comes from a letter written in 1720 on the character and habits of “the Indian inhabitants of these islands,” a letter which was widely circulated and which has been extensively used by other writers. In it the writer with senile querulousness harped up and down the whole gamut of abuse in describing and commenting upon the vices of the natives, very artlessly revealing the fact in many places, however, that his observations were drawn principally from the conduct of the servants in the conventos and homes of Spaniards. To him in this letter is due the credit of giving its wide popularity to the specious couplet: