Basilio had scarcely strength to enter and fall into his mother’s arms. A strange cold enveloped Sisa when she saw him come alone. She wished to speak, but found no words; to caress her son, but found no force. Yet at the sight of blood on his forehead, her voice came, and she cried in a tone which seemed to tell of a breaking heartstring:

“My children!”

“Don’t be frightened, mama; Crispin stayed at the convent.”

“At the convent? He stayed at the convent? Living?”

The child raised his eyes to hers.

“Ah!” she cried, passing from the greatest anguish to the utmost joy. She wept, embraced her child, covered with kisses his wounded forehead.

“And why are you hurt, my son? Did you fall?”

Basilio told her he had been challenged by the guard, ran, was shot at, and a ball had grazed his forehead.

“O God! I thank Thee that Thou didst save him!” murmured the mother.

She went for lint and vinegar water, and while she bandaged his wound:

“Why,” she asked, “did Crispin stay at the convent?”

Basilio looked at her, kissed her, then little by little told the story of the lost money; he said nothing of the torture of his little brother. Mother and child mingled their tears.

“Accuse my good Crispin! It’s because we are poor, and the poor must bear everything,” murmured Sisa. Both were silent a moment.

“But you have not eaten,” said the mother. “Here are sardines and rice.”

“I’m not hungry, mama; I only want some water.”

“Yes, eat,” said the mother. “I know you don’t like dry sardines, and I had something else for you; but your father came, my poor child.”

“My father came?” and Basilio instinctively examined his mother’s face and hands.

The question pained the mother; she sighed.

“You won’t eat? Then we must go to bed; it is late.”

Sisa barred the door and covered the fire. Basilio murmured his prayers, and crept on the mat near his mother, who was still on her knees. She was warm, he was cold. He thought of his little brother, who had hoped to sleep this night close to his mother’s side, trembling with fear in some dark corner of the convent. He heard his cries as he had heard them in the tower; but Nature soon confused his ideas and he slept.

In the middle of the night Sisa wakened him.

“What is it, Basilio? Why are you crying?”

“I was dreaming. O mama! it was a dream, wasn’t it? Say it was nothing but a dream!”

“What were you dreaming?”

He did not answer, but sat up to dry his tears.

“Tell me the dream,” said Sisa, when he had lain down again. “I cannot sleep.”

“It is gone now, mama; I don’t remember it all.”

Sisa did not insist: she attached no importance to dreams.

“Mama,” said Basilio after a moment of silence, “I’m not sleepy either. I had a project last evening. I don’t want to be a sacristan.”

“What?”

“Listen, mama. The son of Don Rafael came home from Spain to-day; he should be as kind as his father. Well, to-morrow I find Crispin, get my pay, and say I’m not going to be a sacristan. Then I’ll go see Don CrisÓstomo and ask him to make me a buffalo-keeper. Crispin could go on studying with old Tasio. Tasio’s better than the curate thinks; I’ve often seen him praying in the church when no one else was there. What shall I lose in not being a sacristan? One earns little and loses it all in fines. I’ll be a herdsman, mama, and take good care of the cows and carabaos, and make my master love me; then perhaps he’ll let us have a cow to milk: Crispin loves milk. And I could fish in the rivers and go hunting when I get big. And by and by perhaps I could have a little land and sow sugar-cane. We could all live together, then. And old Tasio says Crispin is very bright. By and by we would send him to study at Manila, and I would work for him. Shall we, mama? He might be a doctor; what do you say?”

“What can I say, except that you are right,” answered Sisa, kissing her son.

Basilio went on with his projects, talking with the confidence of a child. Sisa said yes to everything. But little by little sleep came back to the child’s lids, and this time he did not cry in his dreams: that Ole-Luk-Oie, of whom Andersen tells us, unfurled over his head the umbrella with its lining of gay pictures. But the mother, past the age of careless slumbers, did not sleep.