"After Don Augusto was dead, all that part of the province was good, so they sent us to another part. Barang was the name of the town where we went. It was a better town; the people were good; we had nothing to do but drill. And after drill, often, my teniente took me to shoot with him. I would hold an empty bottle for beer in my hand, like that, and my teniente would shoot it from twenty paces with his revolver. Hoy, he was a devil at everything, my teniente! Hundreds and hundreds we broke, and he never hurt me. And he took me to be his servant in his quarters, and I was very happy, there in Barang."
Fermin Majusay gazed into the fire again, and his keen animal face was wonderfully softened in the flickering light.
"Diós," he sighed, "I was happy, there in Barang! Only one thing I did not like,—that was Isidro Abelarde. He was the leader of the town, the son of a very rich haciendero, young and handsome. And he became the friend of my teniente. They would laugh and talk together for hours, and ride together, and I did not like it. We Macabebes have many enemies—all the Filipinos are our enemies—and we have to be suspicious always. I began to wonder why Isidro Abelarde wanted to be with my lieutenant. 'Mi teniente,' I said to him, 'I do not like it that Don Isidro comes here. It is not good that he can pass the guard at any time, as if he were a white man. If he means harm—'
"My teniente laughed. 'You are more bother than a wife, Fermin,' he said. 'Why should he mean harm to me?'
"'He is the pariente—the relative—of Don Augusto,' I said. My teniente looked at me, and I saw that he did not like to hear the name of Don Augusto. For a minute I was frightened—he had terrible eyes when he was angry. 'How do you know that?' he asked me.
"I would not tell him—we have ways of knowing things—and he got angrier, and struck me. It made my eye black, but I did not care. He was my teniente, any way, and he had been drinking. Next day I was glad of it, for Don Isidro came to dinner, and he looked at my eye. Often, when he thought no one saw him, he looked at it. Then I had an idea. My teniente was very short with me, because he was sorry, and Don Isidro was so young it was not hard to make him think that I was angry with my teniente. I scowled at him all the time behind his back; you know how.
"After a few days Don Isidro met me in the plaza and said: 'Fermin, I am very sorry that the teniente struck you.'
"'Why are you sorry, Señor?' I asked him.
"'Because,' he said, 'the teniente is a friend of mine, and I hope that no harm will come to him. I have heard that a Macabebe never forgives a blow, but I hope you will be patient.'
"What a fool that young Isidro was! I looked very hard in his eyes, and I said, 'If a Macabebe forgives a blow as easily as a Bisayan forgets the death of his pariente, there is no danger for your friend—from me.'