Macario's Noche Buena

Nobody knew anything about Macario's early life; but everybody knew that he was a robber, the chief of a gang which used to haunt the country about the shores of Laguna De Bay and rob merchants coming from Manila. It was in the days when no railroad line existed in the Philippines, when all trips by water had to be made by bancas, cascos, and small, slow steamboats, and all overland journeys had to be made in carromatas, carts, or on horseback. Macario was known to be the fiercest among the highwaymen. He had foiled all attempts of the guardias civils to capture him. A price was set on his head.

It was nine o'clock on a Christmas eve. The past week macario and his gang had had plenty to do, for it was the week when many merchants went to manila and back to their towns. Macario was alone. He stationed himself in a grove of bamboo trees a little distance from the solitary road some miles from the town of Calamba. The night was dark and a cool wind was blowing across the lonely fields, making the bamboo tops bend and wave. What was there strange NT the sound of the wind as it sighed among the bamboo leaves? nothing! Only that it had a remorseful sound, as of an upbraiding conscience daring to assert itself. That sound was most disquieting to the nerves it made Macario restless.

He wished someone would come up the road, someone that would make him turn that restless into action. He even wished that some guardias civils would come, he wished to drown the voice of that wind in the excitement of a fight. While he was walking back and forth among the bamboo trees, he heard the sound of hoof beats in the distance. "Ah" said he, "I shall have my wish at last". He went nearer the road and stood beside a tree. When the hoof beats sounded nearer, he discerned a dark object, hardly perceptible in the obscurity around. "halt" cried Macario as he rushed toward that moving figure. "Halt or you are dead man!" the hoof beats ceased simultaneously with his cry Macario found himself