“In this room, last night. He came alone, by canoe, and walked straight in. He wanted me to see you said nothing foolish, and he wanted to prove you had been wrong when you said he would never come back.”
For a full minute they sat in silence, then the corporal broke out. “He is a strong man, Senor.”
Don José nodded.
“He is a gentleman, Senor, even if he did kill a priest;” there was almost a note of defiance in the corporal’s voice.
Again Don José nodded.
There was another spell of silence, which was broken by the merchant saying: “You will do as he wishes? You will hear all, and say nothing? Then you will go back to Spain with your pension. Why not? You tried your best; you held up the ladrones—you, single-handed—and gave Felizardo his chance. It was your victory, after all.”
They took the corporal’s reticence and his rather muddled statements as the results of the wound he had received, coupled with his modesty. How could one doubt when one had been to Igut and seen the released prisoners, and the restored loot, and the heads of the ladrones stuck on posts along the beach?
Don José came to Manila to see him start on his journey to Spain.
“Will you see the Holy Father—now?” the merchant asked.
The corporal’s eyes brightened. “Why, yes, if I can. Why should I have changed—I, who have had thirty-five years in which to learn the truth?”