O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands, How will the future reckon with this man? How answer his brute question in that hour When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world? How will it be with kingdoms and with kings— With those who shaped him to the thing he is— When this dumb terror shall reply to God, After the silence of the centuries? Edwin Markham CONTENTS I. On the Upper Deck II. On the Lower Deck III. Legends IV. Cabesang Tales V. A Cochero’s Christmas Eve VI. Basilio VII. Simoun VIII. Merry Christmas IX. Pilates X. Wealth and Want XI. Los Baños XII. Placido Penitente XIII. The Class in Physics XIV. In the House of the Students XV. Señor Pasta XVI. The Tribulations of a Chinese XVII. The Quiapo Pair XVIII. Legerdemain XIX. The Fuse XX. The Arbiter XXI. Manila Types XXII. The Performance XXIII. A Corpse XXIV. Dreams XXV. Smiles and Tears XXVI. Pasquinades XXVII. The Friar and the Filipino XXVIII. Tatakut XXIX. Exit Capitan Tiago XXX. Juli XXXI. The High Official XXXII. Effect of the Pasquinades XXXIII. La Ultima Razón XXXIV. The Wedding XXXV. The Fiesta XXXVI. Ben-Zayb’s Afflictions XXXVII. The Mystery XXXVIII. Fatality XXXIX. Conclusion CHAPTER I ON THE UPPER DECK Sic itur ad astra. One morning in December the steamer Tabo was laboriously ascending the tortuous course of the Pasig, carrying a large crowd of passengers toward the province of La Laguna. She was a heavily built steamer, almost round, like the tabú from which she derived her name, quite dirty in spite of her pretensions to whiteness, majestic and grave from her leisurely motion. Altogether, she was held in great affection in that region, perhaps from her Tagalog name, or from the fact that she bore the characteristic impress of things in the country, representing something like a triumph over progress, a steamer that was not a steamer at all, an organism, stolid, imperfect yet unimpeachable, which, when it wished to pose as being rankly progressive, proudly contented itself with putting on a fresh coat of paint. Indeed, the happy steamer was genuinely Filipino! If a person were only reasonably considerate, she might even have been taken for the Ship of State, constructed, as she had been, under the inspection of Reverendos and Ilustrísimos....