Read "An Eagle Flight" by Jose Rizal online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
"It is about sixty years since my grandfather was employed as accountant by a Spanish merchant. Although still young, he was married, and had a son. One night the warehouse took fire, and was burned with the surrounding property. The loss was great, incendiarism was suspected, and my grandfather was accused. He had no money to pay for his defence, and he was convicted and condemned to be publicly flogged in the streets of his pueblo. Attached to a horse, he was beaten as he passed each street corner by men, his brothers. The curates, you know, advocate nothing but blows for the discipline of the Indian. When the unhappy man, marked forever with infamy, was liberated, his poor young wife went about seeking work to keep alive her disabled husband and their little child. Failing in this, she was forced to see them suffer, or to live herself a life of shame."
Ibarra rose to his feet.