In the madness of panic for an hour or a day men may and doubtless will do strange things; the abject terror that shattered the reasoning faculties of the governing class in Manila seemed only to increase with time. There was first fear let loose on its wild charger and then its immediate reaction, the thirst for revenge. A Spanish mob gathered at the gates of Malacañan clamoring for instant and sanguinary reprisals. Rizal in his flight across the American continent had commented sadly on the lynching-parties that disgraced the Southern States of the American Union. If he had been in Manila in those days he would have seen the same spirit displayed by the mob that demanded his own death. It was 1872 come again, but infinitely worse. [203] At the first alarm, Bonifacio and some others had made their escape; he was now in the country proclaiming the republic and raising troops; but of Filipinos that still remained and could be accused of affiliation with his hated society there was naturally no lack, and in a few hours the jails were overflowing and the executioner overworked. With almost the first breath of this midsummer madness, his enemies thought of Rizal. “Noli Me Tangere”! The time had come full cycle for revenge for that flagrant insult. Days passed, and the object of their hatred lay there almost before their eyes, the broad yellow and red of Spain flapping over him, wholly at the mercy of the Government he had opposed. What hindered it that it did not seize him and thrust him into prison with the rest of the conspirators, and so to Bagumbayan and an end with him? After a time the impatient clerical party concluded that the real obstacle was Ramon Blanco. With him the friars had never been content; after the uncovering of the Katipunan they accused him of lack of energy in killing rebels, and a feud sprang up between him and Archbishop Nozaleda. [204] By common report he was now at the crisis of the play giving to the world an illustration of the folly of nationalistic generalizations. All Spaniards were supposed to hate and fear Rizal; Blanco, a Spaniard, would not deliver Rizal to the torturers because he knew the man was innocent, and he was resolved at whatsoever cost to stand between innocence and the lynchers. [205] But if this was a worthy exhibition of virtue in Spanish character it led in the end to only another demonstration of the power of the friars. They worked the cable to Madrid, and in two months they secured the recall of Blanco [206] and the appointment of a man in his place that had no scruples about judicial murder and much thumb-screwing. Polavieja was his name. The Philippines were not likely soon to forget it.