Our father rector-provincial, as the matter devolved on him, divided the fathers among the four provinces of Tagalos, Pampanga, Ilocos, and Bisayas.  He had ordered that father Fray Alonso Baraona, at that time definitor of the province, should take the religious who fell to its share to the Pintados; and that he should come to the province to govern it, since he was his vicar-provincial and visitor.  The religious embarked, therefore, and with them, the father prior of Sugbu, Fray Luis de Brito, [41] and the prior of Panay, Fray Miguel de Suaren. [42] As the winds were adverse, because the vendavals were raging obstinately, they were unable to get away from the island of Manila for a long time.

Two ships were sent to Nueva Espana.  One put back and the other, which was a Portuguese caravel, went to India and was wrecked.  The ships for Castilla were being prepared, and were to sail by the first of August.  Our father provincial tried to have father Fray Juan de Ocadiz sail in them, as he considered his return to Espana necessary for his own quiet; and since he was able to do so, he ordered that Fray Juan should go immediately to Cavite, for he suspected that, if anything evil was to occur, it would be perpetrated by that man.  Finally, the religious left, after putting off his departure as long as possible.  He said “goodby,” in order to go to embark in the morning, and permission was given him.  That night, the first of August, 1617, one of the most tragic events that has ever happened in these islands occurred in our province—­namely, that that same night our father rector-provincial, Fray Vicente de Sepulveda, was choked to death, and was found dead in his bed at two o’clock in the morning, with clear signs of a violent death.  In that most horrible crime were implicated three religious—­one a priest, one a chorister, and one a lay-brother, namely, the creole who gave the poison to the father, and whom his relatives hid; and, as he had money, they helped him to escape out of these islands.  The lay-brother was a European, and the father priest, Fray Juan de Ocadiz, an American.  They [i.e., the last two] were hanged near the atrium of our church, in front of the well, after we had first unfrocked, expelled, and disgraced them.  The two said men were buried beneath the cloister of our convent, near the porter’s lodge, before the altar of St. Nicolas de Tolentino. [43]

In the interval from the death of our father provincial, Fray Jeronimo de Salas, which occurred on May 17, until our father rector-provincial Sepulveda was killed, a singular case happened in our convent, which was apparently a presage of the said fatality.  It happened that in the fine infirmary of the said convent, which looks toward the sea, a white cat was found which was rearing three rats at its breasts, feeding them as if they were its own kind of offspring, and giving a complete truce to the natural antipathy of such animals.  But after it had reared and fattened them well, it ate them, ceasing the unwonted truces in its natural opposition.  Almost all the people of the community of Manila and its environs came to see such a thing, for scarcely would they credit the truth of it, and all affirmed that it must be the presage of some great fatality.