Note 69 — Chapter IV

3. He spurred on his horse, which ran until the father perceived that sight was failing him. Then he alighted, stretched himself at the foot of an agoso tree,69 and, amid the outpouring of his blood, begged pardon from God for his sins. An Indian who accompanied him came up to him, and found him unconscious from great loss of blood. The father recovered consciousness, but for so brief a time that he could not tell the Indian what to do. He fainted once more, so completely that the Indian thought that he was yielding up his life. He again recovered consciousness, and sent the servant to Balacbac in order to get people to carry him thence. The Indian went to carry out that instruction. Meanwhile a man and three women arrived, and stayed with the father until the arrival of the men from the village who were very slow. For the Indian who had been sent could find no one who cared to take that charitable office upon himself, either the ministers of justice, the fiscals, or the sacristans. He was able to get three serving-lads in the convent, who made a hammock from a blanket, and carried the wounded religious in it. The latter, charging his messenger to go to Baubuen to advise Father Rois of his mishap, set out on his way to his village, where he arrived at nine o’clock at night. Father Rois, as soon as he received the news, got ready to go to the relief of his associate. After many frights, for everything was in an uproar, and his person ran no less risk [than that of Father Domingo], he reached the village at daybreak. He entered the cell of the wounded father, whom he found embracing a holy crucifix, and bathed in tears. Father Rois asked him “What is this, Father Vicar-prior?” “This means death,” answered the sufferer. “I shall die; there is no relief.” He was confessed, and received the sacred viaticum. He lived three days after that, without having his bed made, for his extreme pains would not permit it. Had they tended him well at the beginning, he would have recovered, for the wound was not mortal, and the Indians have medicines which cure other things more dangerous. But the greatest care was not exercised in this. The third day after nightfall, the pains attacked him much more fiercely, and convulsions and paroxysms followed. He received extreme unction, after which he lost his speech, and remained remarkably quiet; and in that calm he yielded his spirit to the Creator.