An Eagle Flight
Copyright© 2024 by José Rizal
Heretic and Filibuster.
Ibarra stood outside the house of Captain Tiago. The night wind, which at this season brings a bit of freshness to Manila, seemed to blow away the cloud that had darkened his face. Carriages passed him like streaks of light, hired calashes rolled slowly by, and foot-passengers of all nationalities jostled one another. With the rambling gait of the preoccupied or the idle, he took his way toward the Plaza de Binondo. Nothing was changed. It was the same street, with the same blue and white houses, the same white walls with their slate-colored fresco, poor imitations of granite. The church tower showed the same clock with transparent face. The Chinese shop had the same soiled curtains, the same iron triangles. One day, long ago, imitating the street urchins of Manila, he had twisted one of these triangles: nobody had ever straightened it. “How little progress!” he murmured; and he followed the Calle de la Sacristia, pursued by the cry of sherbet venders.
“Marvellous!” he thought; “one would say my voyage was a dream. Santo Dios! the street is as bad as when I went away.”
While he contemplated this marvel of urban stability in an unstable country, a hand fell lightly on his shoulder. He looked up and recognized the old lieutenant. His face had put off its expression of sternness, and he smiled kindly at Crisóstomo.
“Young man,” he said, “I was your father’s friend: I wish you to consider me yours.”
“You seem to have known my father well,” said Crisóstomo; “perhaps you can tell me something of his death.”
“You do not know about it?”
“Nothing at all, and Don Santiago would not talk with me till to-morrow.”
“You know, of course, where he died.”
“Not even that.”
Lieutenant Guevara hesitated.
“I am an old soldier,” he said at last, in a voice full of compassion, “and only know how to say bluntly what I have to tell. Your father died in prison.”
Ibarra sprang back, his eyes fixed on the lieutenant’s.
“Died in prison? Who died in prison?”
“Your father,” said the lieutenant, his voice still gentler.
“My father—in prison? What are you saying? Do you know who my father was?” and he seized the old man’s arm.
“I think I’m not mistaken: Don Rafael Ibarra.”
“Yes, Don Rafael Ibarra,” Crisóstomo repeated mechanically.
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