FIRST FILIPINO

"Viva Espana!" screamed Dona Victoria in her elegant carriage.

"Viva Espana!" shouted Father Damaso, and added, shaking his fist.

"Y mueran los traidores!"

"Long live Spain and death to traitors!" But as the last Spaniards gave their ragged cheer, and the band of battalion of volunteers struck up, with unconsciously irony, that hymn to human rights and constitutional liberties, the Marcha de Cadiz, the quiet crowd of Filipinos broke through the square, to make sure, said the Spanish correspondent, that the mythical, the god-like Rizal was really dead, or according to others, to snatch away a relic and keepsake and dip their handkerchiefs in a hero's blood.

If he had seen them, the first Filipino would have known that he was not the last.