noon
The Spaniard had shot Europa , standing in the door , as I had seen her standing , and the two men had brought the body down the mountain . I think Filipe , and perhaps the other natives , expected nothing less than that the village , if not the whole island , would be destroyed by fire from the sky , that night , or swallowed up in the earth , but the night passed with perfect quiet . Not a sound was heard , nor a thing done to disturb our sleep , or if , as I imagine was the case with some of us who did not sleep , our peace . Only , in the morning , when no one was seen stirring about the tax collector 's house , and then it grew noon and the lattices were not opened or the ladder let down , the Tagalog soldiers brought another ladder and put it against the house , and I climbed up and went in , to find the two men who stayed there , the Spaniard and Juan , dead on the floor . Their swollen faces , black and awful to look at , I have seen in bad dreams since . On the throat of each were the blue marks of long , strong fingers . And the body of Europa was gone .