"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. XIII THE PREROGATIVE 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. The forlorn procession, man with coffin, boy with shovel, woman with candle, wound through the high grass across the plaza. The passage of a ditch caused some disorder. From the coffin, leaping across on the man's shoulder, a pink-and-blue rosette fell. The woman picked it up and they stopped while she pinned it back with a bamboo thorn. During the operation the candle dropped and went out. The man laid the coffin down, scratched some matches and finally relit it. Meanwhile the boy sat down on the shovel. He was very small and the shovel was very big. At last the man picked up the coffin, the boy picked up the shovel, and they moved on to the church.