some money. This was the last year of the course and in two months he
would be a physician; he would come back to the town, he would marry
Juliana, and they would be happy. The granting of his licentiateship
was not only assured, but he expected it to be the crowning act of
his school-days, for he had been designated to deliver the valedictory
at the graduation, and already he saw himself in the rostrum, before
the whole faculty, the object of public attention. All those heads,
leaders of Manila science, half-hidden in their colored capes; all
the women who came there out of curiosity and who years before had
gazed at him, if not with disdain, at least with indifference; all
those men whose carriages had once been about to crush him down in the
mud like a dog: they would listen attentively, and he was going to
say something to them that would not be trivial, something that had
never before resounded in that place, he was going to forget himself
in order to aid the poor students of the future--and he would make
his entrance on his work in the world with that speech.





CHAPTER VII

SIMOUN


Over these matters Basilio was pondering as he visited his mother's
grave. He was about to start back to the town when he thought he saw
a light flickering among the trees and heard the snapping of twigs,
the sound of feet, and rustling of leaves. The light disappeared