"And, in the morning, señor, as the sun rose upon the ruins of the night, there was noise and crying and a moving to and fro among the people of the pueblo. Squads of soldiers tramped about, taos beat the bush, and bloodhounds sniffed the ground. People whispered that the Commandant had left his house in the evening and had not yet returned.
"They found him, señor, in the bamboos by the river, midst the rotting remains of an old hut. One of the big corner posts had fallen upon him, and he lay there dead, stretched across the grass-grown mound that looked like a grave.
"But I had found him first, señor. And in his hand there was a locket, and in the locket there was a wisp of hair. And the hair was not of his wife."
Marietta stopped. Her mouth twisted in a convulsive grimace and two glistening things ran down the lines of her cheek.
And outside, with a long-drawn wail, the baguio at length swooped down upon us. The hut shuddered like a live thing, the trees clashed, the sea pounded and hissed. But in the dark, silent, immovable, squatting in infinite lassitude of posture, Marietta wept, wept over the past, the past with its irrevocable ruins, the past, gone beyond recalling, beyond amendment, but still with her, ever with her, with its double-barbed torture.
Little Carnota Roa was dead, and they were burying him.
The father came first, bearing the coffin on his shoulder. He was a mañangete; that is, for a living he climbed the coconut trees, hanging his buckets till full of tuba sap and then carrying them, balanced at the ends of a bamboo pole, seven miles to the pueblo, on the trot. This occupation had made him very strong, so that now he bore the little box as if it were a feather. It was a pretty coffin. On a frame of bamboo sticks they had stretched a new patadyon, bright red and yellow, and on this they had stuck rosettes of white, pink, and blue tissue paper. It was beautiful. The brother followed the father. He carried a big shovel for the hole that had to be dug over there, in the black ooze of the cemetery, amid bones of men and carabaos. He wore a camisa, but no pantaloons, for they were very poor. Behind the brother came the mother. From her armpits a flaming red patadyon fell to her naked feet, red being the colour that must be worn for children and Carnota being only six. In her left hand she carried a big, black cotton umbrella; in her right hand she carried a tallow candle. The tiny flame sputtered and crackled in the stifling air and a thread of vapour rose from it toward heaven, humble incense praying to the Great God for the little soul ascending to Him.