of four civil-guards completed his good humor. They came to arrest
Cabesang Tales and not finding him took Tandang Selo away instead.

Three murders had been committed during the night. The
friar-administrator and the new tenant of Cabesang Tales' land had
been found dead, with their heads split open and their mouths full
of earth, on the border of the fields. In the town the wife of the
usurper was found dead at dawn, her mouth also filled with earth and
her throat cut, with a fragment of paper beside her, on which was
the name _Tales_, written in blood as though traced by a finger.

Calm yourselves, peaceful inhabitants of Kalamba! None of you are
named Tales, none of you have committed any crime! You are called
Luis Habaña, Matías Belarmino, Nicasio Eigasani, Cayetano de Jesús,
Mateo Elejorde, Leandro Lopez, Antonino Lopez, Silvestre Ubaldo,
Manuel Hidalgo, Paciano Mercado, your name is the whole village of
Kalamba. [19] You cleared your fields, on them you have spent the
labor of your whole lives, your savings, your vigils and privations,
and you have been despoiled of them, driven from your homes, with the
rest forbidden to show you hospitality! Not content with outraging
justice, they [20] have trampled upon the sacred traditions of your
country! You have served Spain and the King, and when in their name
you have asked for justice, you were banished without trial, torn
from your wives' arms and your children's caresses! Any one of you has
suffered more than Cabesang Tales, and yet none, not one of you, has
received justice! Neither pity nor humanity has been shown you--you
have been persecuted beyond the tomb, as was Mariano Herbosa! [21]
Weep or laugh, there in those lonely isles where you wander vaguely,
uncertain of the future! Spain, the generous Spain, is watching over
you, and sooner or later you will have justice!