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Page:James Hopper--Caybigan.djvu/86

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70
CAYBIGAN

bled on his shoulders, empty as a sleighbell, and a great weariness was in his limbs. Slowly he retraced the long course of the night through the indifferent crowds. He met only one white man that he knew, in a narrow, disreputable alley. The man stopped him, astonished.

"'What are you doing in a place like this?' he asked. 'You forget you're on the Katipunan. You're liable to get hurt.'

"'Hurt?' Morton laughed in his face and left him standing there bewildered. At last he entered the patio of his house. Everything was as usual. The cocheros were washing down their carromatas preparatory to going out; the muchachos were galloping back, their ponies' flanks gleaming with salt water. No one gave him a glance as he went upstairs to his room.

"He entered it without a tremor and looked stupidly about him. The place reeked with the sordid disorder of every morning; of the sudden horror of the night there was only one sign—a blanket had been thrown carelessly over a certain spot in the centre of the room. He turned to his clothes-chest and began to dress. He worked slowly, losing time on unimportant details. It took him a long time to choose the white suit that he would wear amid the dozen that he spread on the bed, and then he was still