“Here, enough of complaints, punales, else I’ll fall to weeping!” cried Padre Camorra gleefully.  “We’re not complaining, and we haven’t either estates or banking-houses.  You know that my Indians are beginning to haggle over the fees and to flash schedules on me!  Just look how they cite schedules to me now, and none other than those of the Archbishop Basilio Sancho, [10] as if from his time up to now prices had not risen.  Ha, ha, ha!  Why should a baptism cost less than a chicken?  But I play the deaf man, collect what I can, and never complain.  We’re not avaricious, are we, Padre Salvi?”

At that moment Simoun’s head appeared above the hatchway.

“Well, where’ve you been keeping yourself?” Don Custodio called to him, having forgotten all about their dispute.  “You’re missing the prettiest part of the trip!”

“Pshaw!” retorted Simoun, as he ascended, “I’ve seen so many rivers and landscapes that I’m only interested in those that call up legends.”

“As for legends, the Pasig has a few,” observed the captain, who did not relish any depreciation of the river where he navigated and earned his livelihood.  “Here you have that of Malapad-na-bato, a rock sacred before the coming of the Spaniards as the abode of spirits.  Afterwards, when the superstition had been dissipated and the rock profaned, it was converted into a nest of tulisanes, since from its crest they easily captured the luckless bankas, which had to contend against both the currents and men.  Later, in our time, in spite of human interference, there are still told stories about wrecked bankas, and if on rounding it I didn’t steer with my six senses, I’d be smashed against its sides.  Then you have another legend, that of Dona Jeronima’s cave, which Padre Florentino can relate to you.”

“Everybody knows that,” remarked Padre Sibyla disdainfully.

But neither Simoun, nor Ben-Zayb, nor Padre Irene, nor Padre Camorra knew it, so they begged for the story, some in jest and others from genuine curiosity.  The priest, adopting the tone of burlesque with which some had made their request, began like an old tutor relating a story to children.

“Once upon a time there was a student who had made a promise of marriage to a young woman in his country, but it seems that he failed to remember her.  She waited for him faithfully year after year, her youth passed, she grew into middle age, and then one day she heard a report that her old sweetheart was the Archbishop of Manila.  Disguising herself as a man, she came round the Cape and presented herself before his grace, demanding the fulfilment of his promise.  What she asked was of course impossible, so the Archbishop ordered the preparation of the cave that you may have noticed with its entrance covered and decorated with a curtain of vines.  There she lived and died and there she is buried.  The legend states that Dona Jeronima was so fat that she had to turn sidewise to get into it.  Her fame