“To save them from the Macabebes!” Nemecia Victoria reminded. The dreaded name thrown into their thoughts with this argument by one of their own number had deep effect. They stirred and moved under the sun, and thought. An unaccustomed feat!
Julie glancing over the crowd, reading the faces in this moment of stress, held that each brown woman was weighing just how much power she could personally, in an issue like this, exert.
Comments ran down the lines: “The men will be angry!”
“They will be worse than angry, Mother of Jesus, when the Macabebes tear out their hearts.”
“What are we to do, Constancia?”
“What do you think, Celesta?”
“Ah, it is beyond us.”
“And if we don’t dare!”
Thus rippled their breathless fears and uncertainties. A concourse of brown women facing a crucial decision which they could not absolutely consummate, until the Old Maid hurdled them across with a leap. With a daring excitement that for an instant lifted her above her world, she cried, “We will tell the Comandante that we, the women of Nahal, will undertake to bring in the men. We will go before him now!”
The procession started to surge forward, growing, as it drew near Headquarters, more emotional at every step. Against this collective femininity, Mike was powerless. It passed him in an oblivious white heat, in an unassailable mood.