The Orenda girls turned instinctively toward Isagani, who smiled silently.

“Hide yourself,” Capitana Loleng advised him.  “They may accuse you.  Hide!”

Again Isagani smiled but said nothing.

“Don Timoteo,” continued Chichoy, “did not know to whom to attribute the deed.  He himself superintended the work, he and his friend Simoun, and nobody else.  The house was thrown into an uproar, the lieutenant of the guard came, and after enjoining secrecy upon everybody, they sent me away.  But—­”

“But—­but—­” stammered the trembling Momoy.

“Naku!” ejaculated Sensia, gazing at her fiance and trembling sympathetically to remember that he had been at the fiesta.  “This young man—­If the house had blown up—­” She stared at her sweetheart passionately and admired his courage.

“If it had blown up—­”

“No one in the whole of Calle Anloague would have been left alive,” concluded Capitan Toringoy, feigning valor and indifference in the presence of his family.

“I left in consternation,” resumed Chichoy, “thinking about how, if a mere spark, a cigarette had fallen, if a lamp had been overturned, at the present moment we should have neither a General, nor an Archbishop, nor any one, not even a government clerk!  All who were at the fiesta last night—­annihilated!”

“Virgen Santisima! This young man—­”

“’Susmariosep!” exclaimed Capitana Loleng.  “All our debtors were there, ’Susmariosep! And we have a house near there!  Who could it have been?”

“Now you may know about it,” added Chichoy in a whisper, “but you must keep it a secret.  This afternoon I met a friend, a clerk in an office, and in talking about the affair, he gave me the clue to the mystery—­he had it from some government employees.  Who do you suppose put the sacks of powder there?”

Many shrugged their shoulders, while Capitan Toringoy merely looked askance at Isagani.

“The friars?”

“Quiroga the Chinaman?”

“Some student?”

“Makaraig?”

Capitan Toringoy coughed and glanced at Isagani, while Chichoy shook his head and smiled.

“The jeweler Simoun.”

“Simoun!!”

The profound silence of amazement followed these words.  Simoun, the evil genius of the Captain-General, the rich trader to whose house they had gone to buy unset gems, Simoun, who had received the Orenda girls with great courtesy and had paid them fine compliments!  For the very reason that the story seemed absurd it was believed. “Credo quia absurdum,” said St. Augustine.

“But wasn’t Simoun at the fiesta last night?” asked Sensia.

“Yes,” said Momoy.  “But now I remember!  He left the house just as we were sitting down to the dinner.  He went to get his wedding-gift.”

“But wasn’t he a friend of the General’s?  Wasn’t he a partner of Don Timoteo’s?”