In the evening, the Maestro, his heart sweet with content, stood at the window. These were moonlight nights; in the grassy lanes the young girls played graceful Spanish games, winding like garlands to a gentle song; from the shadows of the huts came the tinkle-tinkle of serenading guitars and yearning notes of violins wailing despairing love. And Isidro, seated on the bamboo ladder of his house, went through an independent performance. He sang "Good-night, Ladies," the last song given to the school, sang it in soft falsetto, with languorous drawls, and never-ending organ points, over and over again, till it changed character gradually, dropping into a wailing minor, an endless croon full of obscure melancholy of a race that dies. "Goo-oo-oo nigh-igh-igh loidies-ies-ies; goo-oo-oo nigh-igh-igh loidies-ies-ies; goo-oo-oo-oo nigh-igh-igh loidies-ies-ies-ies," he repeated and repeated, over and over again, till the Maestro's soul tumbled down and down abysses of maudlin tenderness, and Isidro's chin fell upon his chest in a last drawling, sleepy note. At which he shook himself together and began the next exercise, a recitation, all of one piece from first to last syllable, in one high, monotonous note, like a mechanical doll saying "papa-mama." "Oh-look-et-de-moon-she-ees-shinin-up-theyre-oh-mudder-she look-like-a-lom-in-de-ayre-lost-night-she-was-smalleyre-on-joos like-a-bow-boot-now-she-ees-biggerr-on-rrraon-like-an-O." Then a big gulp of air and again: "Oh-look-et-de-moon-she-ees-shinin-up-theyre,----" etc. An hour of this, and he skipped from the lyric to the patriotic, and then it was: "I-loof-dde-name-off-Wash-ing-ton, I-loof-my-coontrrree-tow, I-loof-dde-fleg-dde-dear-owl-fleg, Off-rridd-on-whit-on-bloo-oo-oo!" By this time the Maestro was ready to go to bed, and long in the torpor of the tropic night there came to him, above the hum of the mosquitoes fighting at the net, the soft, wailing croon of Isidro, back at his "Goo-oo-oo nigh-igh-igh loidies-ies-ies." These were days of ease and beauty to the Maestro, and he enjoyed them the more when a new problem came to give action to his resourceful brain. The thing was this: For three days there had not been one funeral in Balangilang. In other climes, in other towns, this might have been a source of congratulation, perhaps, but not in Balangilang. There were rumors of cholera in the towns to the north, and the Maestro, as president of the Board of Health, was on the watch for it. Five deaths a day, experience had taught him, was the healthy average for the town; and this sudden cessation of public burials--he could not believe that dying had stopped--was something to make him suspicious. It was over this puzzling situation that he was pondering at the morning recess, when his attention was taken from it by a singular scene.