The hero of the Filipinos The story of José Rizal, poet, patriot and martyr
they should satisfy themselves of his orthodoxy, and a long examination
followed. They demanded a signed statement affirming his belief in
revealed religion. He readily consented to give it; he could have given
it truthfully at any time. Of this affirmation two irreconcilable
versions were subsequently reported, a fact that dealing with a thing
so simple must serve to discredit both. As to one, no other evidence is
needed than its style and content to show that Rizal never wrote it. As
to the other reputed statement, opinions differ; reasonably, one might
say, since there is extant no original copy, and no one now pretends to
have seen such a copy. The style in the second statement is Rizal’s or
an imitation of his; the expressions in it are in line with his general
convictions; [217] and if throughout this phase of the story we met
with less of manifest treachery and lying the probable authenticity of
some such declaration might well be admitted.
On the basis of evidence so untrustworthy the tale was fabricated that
he had retracted his political views. It was brazen impudence that put
out this fable and simple credulity that believed it. Much that
happened in the last scenes of his tragedy is and always will be
uncertain, but the one thing about which is no doubt is that he went to
his death unshaken in his loyalty to the great causes to which he had
dedicated his life and labors, to the rights, emancipation, and
progress of his country.
If from the tangled accounts now available to us we wish to build a
surmise, it is likely that Rizal affirmed his religious faith,
renounced masonry, [218] was reconciled to the church, received the
sacrament, and then had [219] performed the ecclesiastical marriage
rites between him and his wife that he had so desired in vain at
Dapitan. Even as to this there is no record, but the correlative facts
are strong. To his mother and sisters he now said the last farewell;
said it with the calm and gentle resignation that from the first had
marked his conduct. Even in that crux of his sufferings his command
upon himself and all his faculties seems never to have wavered. He knew
well that all his effects would be searched and any papers he might
leave would be seized and destroyed; yet he desired to give to his
countrymen the song of parting he had written for them. At the
interview with his mother and sisters they were kept separated from him
by a space of some feet under the pretended fear that poison might be
passed to him and so might he cheat revenge of blood-drops for which it
thirsted. To transmit the poem, therefore, was difficult, but the
resourceful mind of Rizal did not fail him now. The little alcohol lamp
by which he had written his song and read and studied in his cell had
been the gift of a friend in Europe. In the Islands it was something of
a curiosity. This he managed to bequeath to his sister Trinidad and
when he told her about it he added quickly in English, “There is
something inside.” [220]
Even in these last hours efforts were made by his friends to rescue him
from the jaws that had opened to rend him. Relatives and friends
besieged the governor-general; he would not even admit them to his
presence. In Spain fervent appeals were made to the National
Government. All scientific and sympathetic Europe was horror-stricken
at the impending murder of one of the most learned men of the age.
There is a story that the Spanish prime minister wished to yield to
these demands. It was the queen regent that he found implacable.
Something in one of Rizal’s books had mortally offended her. She, too,
was determined to have his blood.
All the hours of that night Rizal spent in prayer, in reading, and in
cheerful conversation with his guards and the priests. He did not sleep
and had no need of sleep. But his wakefulness was not of his nerves.
None of the watchers could detect a troubled look in his eyes or a
quaver in the smooth, even tones of his voice. [221] Other men so
counting out the last moments of their lives have been mercifully
supplied with drugs and drink. The stimulus that sustained Rizal must
have been from within. So have testified the witnesses.
It was a beautiful morning, men still remember, calm, cool, and bright,
“the bridal of the earth and sky,” typical of the sweet December
weather in the Philippines; the air so clear the mountains on both
sides stood out marvelously brown and rugged; so clear one could even
make out far Corregidor on guard at the entrance of the bay.
As day broke the crowds began to gather in the Luneta. Spaniards of the
ruling caste predominated, come to see the death of their enemy and
gloat over him; but also there were Filipinos with drawn brows and
quivering lips, disquieting to look upon. [222] In many Filipino houses
that last night there had been no sleep. Men and women prayed all night
for the man about to be slaughtered for their sake.
At seven o’clock the troopers came and tightly bound his arms behind
his back. He wore a neat black suit with a sack-coat and a black hat.
Outside, the trumpets sounded and the drums beat. The troopers placed
him in the center of a strong guard. Then they led him forth from the
prison door.
With the drum always beating at the head of the band, thus he was
marched almost a mile through scenes that had been familiar to him in
his boyhood. Thirty-seven years and twenty-eight days before, another
martyr had gone forth to his death with the same clear-souled,
untroubled calm. “This is a beautiful country,” said John Brown,
Osawatomie Brown, as with the sheriff he drove to the execution-place;
“I never noticed it before.” With the same sense of drawing in for the
last time the breath of God’s bounty to men, Rizal looked about him and
spoke of the loveliness of the scene. “I used to walk here with my
sweetheart,” said he, thinking of Leonora. Above the roofs he saw the
Ateneo, where he had spent so many happy days. Since his time the
buildings had been altered. “When were those two towers added?” he
asked and observed the effect with a critical eye. All the way he went
with head erect, unflushed cheek, unruffled mien, as one that goes
forth to meet fair weather in the morning.
By his side marched the Jesuit priests, his comforters and supporters,
for he always remembered tenderly his days at the Ateneo.
“We are going to Calvary,” he said to them. “My sufferings are little.
The Savior suffered much. He was nailed to the cross. In an instant the
bullets will end all my pain.” [223]
A crowd lined the street, for the most part silent, but among the
Spaniards were some exclamations of joy. One foreigner, a Scotchman,
watching the scene, was moved to cry aloud a brief good-by. A little
company of Rizal’s former students at Dapitan stood together and wept.
He looked out upon the bay and the ships.
“How beautiful is the morning, Father! How clear is the view of
Corregidor and the Cavite Mountains! I walked here with my sweetheart,
Leonora, on mornings like this.”
“The morning to be is still more beautiful, my son,” answered the
priest.
“Why is that, Father?” asked Rizal, not quite understanding his
confessor’s words.
The officer in charge of the squad stepped between them, and the
father’s reply was not heard.
Thus they moved to the place of execution, the dreadful Bagumbayan
Field, the spot where so many others had been slain for defying
tyranny, where Fathers Gomez, Burgos, and Zamora had given up their
lives. To their memory he had dedicated his protest against the beast
that had torn them. Now in his own turn he was come to be torn.
A great troop of soldiers had formed a square to hold the people back.
Artillery was drawn up as if a rescue were feared, and at one
side—strange and incongruous spectacle!—a band to sound the national
anthem of triumph over this one man. To the governing class the
occasion was all holiday. Hundreds of that class stood there, men and
women, and uttered cries of animal pleasure when they saw their enemy
come bound and helpless to be killed before their eyes.
Neither they nor the engines of death they had evoked seemed to pierce
the serenity that wrapped him around. As they reached the field, he
stopped before the captain in command and said quietly:
“Will you shoot me in the front, please?”
“It cannot be,” said the captain. “I have orders to shoot you in the
back.”
“But I was never traitor to my own country nor to Spain.”
“My duty is to comply with the orders I have received.”
“Very well, then; shoot me as you please.” [224]
He asked that the soldiers be instructed to aim not at his head but his
heart, and that he should not be compelled to kneel but might receive
his death standing. These requests the captain granted.
Into the square he marched, between two batteries of artillery, a
company of cavalry in front, another behind. With him still went the
priests, Fathers Estanislao March and José Villaclara, and behind them
the man that had been his counsel in the mock trial, Luis de Andrade.
Rizal stepped to the place where he was to die and looked out over the
blue sea, bright in the sunlight. And then for the first time the iron
composure seemed shaken. It may have been some thought of his lost
youth, or the terror of the scene that reached out at him like
something coldly palpable. A shiver seemed to go over him; the mortal
man that he had so long suppressed in him reasserted itself; and one
great sigh seemed to burst from his heart.
“O Father, how terrible it is to die! How one suffers! Father, I
forgive every one from the bottom of my heart; I have no resentment
against any one: believe me, your reverence!”
The next instant the spasm had passed. The will with which he had ruled
himself so long came back to its accustomed empire. He was himself
again and stood erect, with no twitching of his lips and no fear in his
eyes.
The executioners marched upon the field.
Rizal shook hands firmly with the priests and with his counsel. Father
March held to him the cross for him to kiss.
He now turned his face to the east and stood with his back to the
firing-squad. Eight native soldiers had been told off to slay their
fellow-countryman. Behind them were eight Spanish soldiers with leveled
rifles. They were to shoot the executioners if these failed to obey
orders.
Rizal stood with his eyes open and turned toward the sky. In his face,
it is said, was neither ecstasy nor fear, but only the calm of a
perfect resignation. Often he had said: “What is death to me? I have
sown the seed; others are left to reap.” [225] The testing of that word
had come. It found him ready and undismayed.
At that instant a military doctor, amazed by such a show of fortitude,
ran out from the line of officers.
“Colleague,” he cried, “may I feel your pulse?”
Rizal said nothing but thrust his right hand as far as he could from
the bands that held it.
The pulse was hardly a beat above normal.
“You are well, colleague,” said the doctor, “very well!” and stepped
back to his place.
Rizal made no response and resumed his former attitude. He now twisted
his right hand and indicated the spot in his back at which the soldiers
should aim.
The captain gave the signal. The eight soldiers fired together.
The body of Rizal was seen to waver and fall. With a last effort of his
indomitable will, even in falling he turned so that he should lie with
face upward. [226]
In the thirty-sixth year of his age and the twenty-fourth year of his
service—poet, patriot, and martyr.
Cheers and laughter arose from the crowd as his blood was seen to be
pouring upon the field. Women waved their handkerchiefs and clapped
their hands; men shouted with delight. This was the end of him that had