“What! You’re going away?” the little boy asked him. “Down there are soldiers and many robbers. Don’t you want to see my firecrackers? Boom, boom, boom!”
“Don’t you want to play hide-and-seek?” asked the little girl. “Have you ever played it? Surely there’s nothing any more fun than to be chased and hide yourself?”
Basilio smiled, but with tears in his eyes, and caught up his staff. “I’ll come back soon,” he answered. “I’ll bring my little brother, you’ll see him and play with him. He’s just about as big as you are.”
“Does he walk lame, too?” asked the little girl. “Then we’ll make him ‘it’ when we play hide-and-seek.”
“Don’t forget us,” the old man said to him. “Take this dried meat as a present to your mother.”
The children accompanied him to the bamboo bridge swung over the noisy course of the stream. Lucia made him support himself on her arm, and thus they disappeared from the children’s sight, Basilio walking along nimbly in spite of his bandaged leg.
The north wind whistled by, making the inhabitants of San Diego shiver with cold. It was Christmas Eve and yet the town was wrapped in gloom. Not a paper lantern hung from the windows nor did a single sound in the houses indicate the rejoicing of other years.
In the house of Capitan Basilio, he and Don Filipo—for the misfortunes of the latter had made them friendly—were standing by a window-grating and talking, while at another were Sinang, her cousin Victoria, and the beautiful Iday, looking toward the street.
The waning moon began to shine over the horizon, illumining the clouds and making the trees and houses east long, fantastic shadows.
“Yours is not a little good fortune, to get off free in these times!” said Capitan Basilio to Don Filipo. “They’ve burned your books, yes, but others have lost more.”