Armed with words and gestures, with cries, insults, and injuries, the two women hurled at each other all there was in them of soil and shame. All four talked at once, and in the multitude of words numerous verities were paraded in the light. If they did not hear all, the crowd of the curious did not fail to be diverted. They were looking forward to battle, but, unhappily for these amateurs of sport, the curate came by and established peace. "Senoras! senoras! what a scandal! Senor alferez!" "What are you doing here, hypocrite, carlist!" "Don Tiburcio, take away your wife! Senora, restrain your tongue!" Little by little the dictionary of sounding epithets became exhausted. The shameless shrews found nothing left to say to each other, and still threatening, the two couples drew slowly apart, the curate going from one to the other, lavishing himself on both. "We shall leave for Manila this very day and present ourselves to the captain-general!" said the infuriated Dona Victorina to her husband. "You are no man!" "But--but, wife, the guards, and I am lame." "You are to challenge him, with swords or pistols, or else--or else----" And she looked at his teeth. "Woman, I've never handled----" Dona Victorina let him go no farther; with a sublime movement she snatched out his teeth, threw them in the dust, and trampled them under her feet. The doctor almost crying, the doctora pelting him with sarcasms, they arrived at the house of Captain Tiago. Linares, who was talking with Maria Clara, was no little disquieted by the abrupt arrival of his cousins. Maria, amid the pillows of her fauteuil, was not less surprised at the new physiognomy of her doctor. "Cousin," said Dona Victorina, "you are to go and challenge the alferez this instant; if not----" "Why?" demanded the astonished Linares. "You are to go and challenge him this instant; if not, I shall say here, and to everybody, who you are." "Dona Victorina!" The three friends looked at each other. "The alferez has insulted us. The old sorceress came down with a whip to assault us, and this creature did nothing to prevent it! A man!" "Hear that!" said Sinang regretfully. "There was a fight, and we didn't see it!" "The alferez broke the doctor's teeth!" added Dona Victorina. Captain Tiago entered, but he wasn't given time to get his breath. In few words, with an intermingling of spicy language, Dona Victorina narrated what had passed, naturally trying to put herself in a good light. "Linares is going to challenge him, do you hear? Or don't let him marry your daughter. If he isn't courageous, he doesn't merit Clarita." "What! you are going to marry this gentleman?" Sinang asked Maria, her laughing eyes filling with tears. "I know you are discreet, but I didn't think you inconstant." Maria Clara, white as alabaster, looked with great, frightened eyes from her father to Dona Victorina, from Dona Victorina to Linares. The young man reddened; Captain Tiago dropped his head.