The church, by refusing to degrade you, has placed in doubt the crime that has been imputed to you; the Government, by surrounding your trials with mystery and shadows, causes the belief that there was some error, committed in fatal moments; and all the Philippines, by worshiping your memory and calling you martyrs, in no sense recognizes your culpability. In so far, therefore, as your complicity in the Cavite mutiny is not clearly proved, as you may or may not have been patriots, and as you may or may not have cherished sentiments for justice and for liberty, I have the right to dedicate my work to you as victims of the evil that I undertake to combat. And while we await expectantly under Spain some day to restore your good name and cease to be answerable for your death, let these pages serve as a tardy wreath of dried leaves over your unknown tombs, and let it be understood that every one that without clear proof attacks your memory, stains his hands in your blood! Here is a foretaste of the strange, new, and passionate bitterness that was coming upon him, not heretofore discernible in his writings nor in his life, the nettle smart of a growing disillusion. Something there is, too, that in another man would surely savor of cynicism. “You may or may not have been patriots,” “You may or may not have cherished sentiments for justice and for liberty,” are phrases not of a piece with his old-time faith. The wormwood that flavors these few lines is perceptible throughout the book. In “Noli Me Tangere” the stern arraignment of the friars and the Spanish officers is modulated with many good-natured pictures of Philippine life, with descriptions of the beautiful Philippine country-side, and with gentle fun-making of popular follies. In the sequel [118] there are no relieving touches. It is hot metal always overflowing and burning whatever it touches. CHAPTER IX PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENCE