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Title: The Woman with a Stone Heart
A Romance of the Philippine War
Author: Oscar William Coursey
Illustrator: W. K. Leigh
Release Date: March 3, 2011 [EBook #24705]
Language: English
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The Woman with a Stone Heart
A Romance of the Philippine War.
By
O. W. Coursey, (U. S. Vols.)
Author of
"History and Geography of the Philippine Islands."
"Who's Who In South Dakota."
"Biography of General Beadle."
"School Law Digest."
All of these books are published and for sale by
THE EDUCATOR SUPPLY COMPANY
Mitchell, South Dakota
Copyrighted 1914
By O. W. Coursey
THE WOMAN WITH A STONE HEART
INTRODUCTION
To those whose love of adventure would cause them to plunge head-long
into an abyss of vain glory, hoping at life's sunset to reap a
harvest contrary to the seed that were sown, let me suggest that
you pause first to read the story of "The Woman With a Stone Heart,"
Marie Sampalit, dare-devil of the Philippines.
Perhaps we might profitably meditate for a few moments on the musings
of Whittier:
"The tissue of the life to be
We weave in colors all our own,
And in the field of destiny
We'll reap as we have sown."
--The Author.
DEDICATION
To Her, who, as a bride of only eighteen months, stood broken-hearted
on the depot platform and bade me a tearful farewell as our train of
soldier boys started to war; who later, while I was Ten Thousand miles
away from home on soldier duty in the Philippine Islands, became a
Mother; and who, unfortunately, three months thereafter, was called
upon to lay our first-born, Oliver D. Coursey, into his snow-lined
baby tomb amid the bleak silence of a cold winter's night, with no
strong arm to bear her up in those awful hours of anguish and despair,
My Soldier Wife, Julia,
this book is most affectionately dedicated.
"Only a baby's grave,
Yet often we go and sit
By the little stone,
And thank God to own,
We are nearer heaven for it."
--O. W. Coursey.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Marie Sampalit 10
Region Around Manila Bay 29
Admiral Dewey 39
Aguinaldo 61
Marie, Her Mother, etc. 82
Filipinos at Breakfast 100
End of the Boat-Battle 113
The Rescue 126
Floating Down The Rapids 129
General Lawton and Staff 139
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapters: Page
I. Love Defeated 9
II. First Shot of A New War 25
III. Avenged Her Lover's Death 41
IV. The Interval 57
V. Filipino Uprising 69
VI. As A Spy 81
VII. Off For Baler 93
VIII. The Gilmore Incident 105
IX. The American Prisoners 113
X. Death of General Lawton 131
XI. North-bound 141
XII. Crossing the Sierra Madres 153
XIII. Compensation 167
CHAPTER I.
LOVE DEFEATED
Marie Sampalit and her fiancee, Rolando Dimiguez, were walking
arm-in-arm along the sandy beach of Manila bay, just opposite old
Fort Malate, talking of their wedding day which had been postponed
because of the Filipino insurrection which was in progress.
The tide was out. A long waved line of sea-shells and drift-wood
marked the place to which it had risen the last time before it began
to recede. They were unconsciously following this line of ocean
debris. Occasionally Marie would stop to pick up a spotted shell
which was more pretty than the rest. Finally, when they had gotten
as far north as the semi-circular drive-way which extends around
the southern and eastern sides of the walled-city, or Old Manila,
as it is called, and had begun to veer toward it, Marie looked back
and repeated a beautiful memory gem taught to her by a good friar
when she was a pupil in one of the parochial schools of Manila:
"E'en as the rise of the tide is told,
By drift-wood on the beach,
So can our pen mark on the page
How high our thoughts can reach."
They turned directly east until they reached the low stone-wall that
prevents Manila bay from overflowing the city during the periods
of high tides. Dimiguez helped Marie to step upon it; then they
strolled eastward past the large stake which marked the place where
the Spaniards had shot Dr. Jose Rizal, the brainiest patriot ever
produced by the Malay race.
When they came to the spot, Marie stopped and told Dimiguez how she
had watched the shooting when it took place, and how bravely Rizal
had met his fate.
"If it hadn't been for this outrage committed by the Spaniards,"
remarked Dimiguez, "this insurrection would not have lasted these two
years, and we would have been married before now; but our people are
determined to seek revenge for his death."
Then they started on, changed their course to the northward, entered
the walled-city by the south gate, walked past the old Spanish arsenal,
and then passed out of the walled-city by the north gate. Here they
crossed the Pasig river on the old "Bridge of Spain" (the large
stone bridge near the mouth of the river, built over 300 years ago)
and entered the Escolta, the main business street of Manila. After
making their way slowly up the Escolta they meandered along San Miguel
street until they finally turned and walked a short distance down a
side street to a typical native shack, built of bamboo and thatched
with Nipa palms, happily tucked away beneath the overhanging limbs
of a large mango tree in a spacious yard,--the home of the Sampalits.
Here Marie had been born just seventeen years before; in fact the next
day, April 7, would be her seventeenth birthday. When she was born,
her father instituted one of the accustomed Filipino dances which last
from three to five days and nights, and at its conclusion she had been
christened "Maria," subsequently changed by force of habit to "Marie."
Late that evening, while they were seated side-by-side on a bamboo
bench beside of her home, tapping the toes of their wooden-soled
slippers on the hard ground, and indulging in a wandering lovers'
conversation, Marie said to him (calling him affectionately by his
first name), "Rolando, when did you first decide to postpone our
wedding day?"
"Well, I'll tell you how it was," answered he, meditatingly. "The
thought of serving my country had been lingering on my mind all
last summer--in fact, ever since the insurrection first broke out in
the spring of 1896. You know I intended coming down to see you last
Christmas, but I couldn't get away. That night I walked the floor
all night in our home at Malolos, debating in my mind whether we
had better get married in March, as we had planned, or if it would
not be wiser and more manly for me to go to war, take chances on
getting back alive and postpone our wedding day until after the war
is over. Toward morning, I decided that it was my duty to become a
soldier; so I called my father and mother, got an early breakfast,
bade them goodby and started for Malabon, which was Aguinaldo's
headquarters, and enlisted. He was glad to see me. You know, he and
I attended school together for one year at Hongkong. Well, Aguinaldo
at once commissioned me a spy and assigned me to very important duty."
"My God!" interrupted Marie, "you are not on that duty now, are you,
Rolando?"
Dimiguez arose. "Marie," said he firmly, "I must be off."
"But won't you tell me where you are going and what task lies before
you?" pleaded Marie, as she threw both arms about his neck and began to
sob, "I'll never tell a living soul, so help me God, but I must know!"
"A spy never tells his plans to anyone, Marie," said Dimiguez
slowly. "He takes his orders from his chief, plays his part; and
if he gets caught, he refuses to speak and dies without a murmur,
like a man. Good night, Marie, I must be off; duty lies before me."
Marie cried herself to sleep.
The next morning she started down town, as usual, for the market place,
with her bamboo basket filled with bananas, sitting on her head,
and a cigarette in her mouth. She had only gone a block when she met
a neighbor girl, one of her chums of equal years to her own, who was
a chamber-maid in the German consul's home on San Miguel Street.
Her friend looked excited. "Have you heard the awful news, Marie?" said
she.
"No!" exclaimed Marie, "What is it?"
"Why, Dimiguez was caught last night by Spanish guards inside the
yard of the governor-general's summer palace up on the Malacanan,
just as he was slipping out of the palace itself. How he got in there,
nobody knows."
Marie dropped her basket. "Heavens!" gasped she, "Did he do anything
wrong?"
"They found in his pocket diagrams of the interior of the palace,
showing the entries to it, the room where the governor-general sleeps,
and many other things; also your picture. See here! the morning paper
gives a full account of it."
Marie glanced at the head lines and then started on a vigorous run for
the building in which the Spanish military court was sitting. Rushing
in, past an armed guard, she began to plead for her lover's life. But
he had already been tried, convicted and sentenced to death by
strangulation in the old chute at Cavite. Dimiguez never moved a
muscle when he saw Marie. Armed guards forced her abruptly out of
the building and ordered her to leave.
Inside of two hours, on the same day, April 7, the anniversary of
Marie's birth, he was taken to the little town of Cavite, seven miles
southwest of Manila, and was there placed in the lower end of a long
chute built out into Manila Bay. This chute was just wide enough for
a man to enter. Its sides, top and bottom were all built of heavy
planks. The side planks lacked a few inches of connecting with the
top, although of course the side posts ran clear up and the top was
firmly bolted to them. The entrance to it was well elevated near the
docks. The lower end protruded into the bay, so that it was visible
about eighteen inches above the water during the period of low tide,
and submerged several feet during high tide.
Tides come in slowly at Cavite, each succeeding wave rising but a
trifle higher than the others, until the usual height is reached. Thus,
a prisoner placed in this chute, forced to the lower end and then
fastened securely during low tide, can look out over the side planks
at the hideous spectators, watch the tide as it begins to rise and
see slow death approaching. It was in this chute that Marie's lover
met his death.
Marie saw the launch that carried him away as it left Manila. She
rushed down to the Pasig river, loosened her little boat from the
tree to which it was tied, jumped in, seized the oars and started in
pursuit. The launch on which he was being carried had for its power
a gasoline engine, and, of course, it soon left her far behind. When
she first started, the swells caused by the launch rocked her little
canoe quite roughly and impeded her progress. As she approached the
mouth of the river, passed the monument of Magellan and came between
the walled-city on the southern bank and the docks on the northern
bank, a crowd of excited natives thronged the shore, and many of them
recognized her. She heard some one cry out, "Vive Marie!" With might
and main she strove forward.
The launch made its seven-mile run to Cavite; the victim was placed
in the chute; the tide had risen to the danger line; her lover,
with his head thrown back, had just begun to gurgle the salt water,
when Marie, in frantic agony, almost exhausted, rowed around the
lower end of the chute and came near enough to the dying hero to
be recognized by him. Straining ever muscle to keep his head above
the water a second longer, he cried out in chocking tones that were
interrupted by the merciless sea which was rapidly filling his mouth,
"Goodby, Marie, God bless you. Avenge my death!"
Hush! At this moment another tidal wave engulfed the apex of the
chute. Not a sound could be heard save the slight flapping of the
waves against the pier, and the dismal chant of three priests, who
stood on the shore near by, and who had not been permitted to attend
the young spy before his death. Marie trembled; she dropped the oars;
her eyes fell; for a moment it seemed that her young heart stood still:
then her face flushed; the tears stopped flowing; anguish gave vent
to determined revenge; pent-up sorrows yielded to out-spoken threats;
and in tones sufficiently audible to be heard ashore, she cried,
"I'll do it."
The Spaniard knows no pity. If Marie were to have stepped ashore
immediately after her lover's strangulation, she might have come
to grief. It is strange that she escaped punishment for having
followed. She, therefore, rowed directly east and landed on the beach
of the bay, about four miles south of Manila, just west of the little
city of Paranaque.
From sheer exhaustion, she needed food; therefore, she walked northward
along the shore until she found a Mango tree heavily laden with
fruit. After eating a few luscious mangoes, she crept into a clump
of bamboo and had a good cry: tears so ease a woman's soul.
From her position on the beach she could readily see the Spaniards
as they took her dead lover from the chute when the tide had lowered
toward evening. She saw them even strike his corpse, and she bit her
finger nails as she watched them place him in a rough wooden box and
haul him up through the streets of the village on an old two-wheeled
cart drawn by a caribou.
With the approach of sunset, things grew strangely quiet. The spring
zephyr that had blown modestly during the day died away. There was no
longer even a dimple in the blue surface of Manila Bay. Not a leaf was
astir. It seemed to Marie that the only sound she could hear was the
the throbbing of her own heart. To her the whole world seemed like an
open sepulcher. Looking down she discovered that she was unconsciously
sitting on a flowery terrace and that all about her was life. She
pulled one of those exquisite white flowers with wide pink veins,
peculiar alone to the Philippines, and pressed it to her lips.
The sun was just setting beyond Corregidor. The island's long shadows
seemed to extend completely across the bay to her feet. As the solar
fires burned themselves out, the orange tint which they left behind
against the reddened sky reminded Marie of the night before, when
she and her lover had strolled along the shore of the bay about three
miles farther north; and as the sun slowly nodded its evening farewell
and buried its face in the pillow of night, she remembered how he, on
the previous night, had called to her attention the lingering glow of
its fading beams. Before her lay the Spanish fleet, it, too, casting
shadows that first grew longer and longer and then dimmer and dimmer
until they in turn had died away in the spectral phenomenon of night.
Marie's thoughts turned toward home. What about her mother? She walked
back to her little boat, pushed it out into the bay, and, stepping
into it, sat down, took hold of the oars and started northward near
the beach. Just opposite Fort Malate, she swung westward, and, passing
outside of the break-water a mile from shore, she entered the Pasig
river and hurried homeward. When she arrived, about nine o'clock,
she found her mother on the verge of prostration; for that very day,
strange to say, Marie's father, who was a colonel in the Filipino
infantry, had been killed at San Francisco del Monte, six miles
north-east of Manila, in a battle with Spanish troops.
"Don't cry, mother," expostulated Marie, "from now on I intend to
kill every foe of ours in these islands!"
CHAPTER II.
FIRST SHOT OF A NEW WAR
Three weeks passed by. Marie had gone down town late in April to
do some shopping. While she was standing in the door of the old
postoffice on the Escolta, she heard the shrill voice of a Filipino
lad piping out: "Papers! Papers! All about the war with the United
States. Dewey's comin'!" He had a bundle of newspapers under his right
arm and was waving one in his left hand. Everybody rushed out of the
bazaars and offices along the Escolta where they were transacting
their business, and each one who could get near enough to the boy,
eagerly bought a morning paper.
The lad's papers were all gone but one. Marie Sampalit snatched it from
his hands, and dropped into one of them a small coin. She stepped into
the corridor of the post office, to escape the annoyance of the crowd,
and read the large head lines:
"WAR BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND SPAIN
dewey en route to manila great naval
battle friday or saturday in manila bay
The Stone Wall Around the City will be
Razed to the Ground. Great Loss of Life."
"Then, I'm off for Corregidor Island right away!" exclaimed
Marie. "Dewey can't get into the Bay except by that route. That's
where the fight will begin. Mother doesn't know this. I'll tell her
I am going to take some supplies to the Spanish garrison. I will go
at once!"
She set out from Manila in a small casco, or flat-bottomed native boat,
heavily laden with fresh fish, pine-apples, mangoes, bananas, tobacco
and cigarettes--all intended for the Spanish garrison on Corregidor
Island. Manila is situated on the eastern shore of Manila Bay. From
there to the island it is nearly thirty miles. Her little boat was
driven forward on its journey by an easterly wind that gently swelled
the tiny sails.
She reached the island at five o'clock that afternoon and was given
a royal welcome by the Spanish soldiers. Marie gave them the morning
paper containing the news of Dewey's prospective arrival. She asked
permission to take part in the fight.
Marie was a favorite with the Spanish garrison. Her genial disposition,
added to her almost inconceivable daring, had won for her the
friendship and admiration of all. The gunners had playfully taught
her all about loading, firing and swabbing their cannon. She had also
learned the art of good marksmanship, so that at a target practice
she was an adept.
Impatiently she awaited the arrival of the American fleet. She heard
the Spaniards discuss among themselves the cowardice of the American
soldiers, and saw them wager the Dewey would not come to Manila at all
but that he would sail down around the Malay Peninsula and hasten home
by way of Good Hope to save his vessels from certain destruction. All
this sounded plausible to her and she grew restless and enthusiastic
as the dull hours dragged away.
Dewey was so long in coming from Hongkong and the garrison on the
island had been kept at their guns ready for action for so many hours
without rest that many of them were completely tired out by the last
day of April, and asked for relief. It was hard to give it. Marie's
opportunity had come. Her ability as an expert rifle shot was known
alike to officers and enlisted men. She offered to serve. The Spanish
commandant could not well refuse. He needed her services; besides,
the Spaniards were just then doing all within their power to win the
temporary friendship of the natives. Consequently, he promised to
assign her to duty for the night.
The sunset, as viewed from Corregidor Island on the evening of
April 30, was most glorious. Not a cloud was in the sky; a dead calm
prevailed, so that the sea was unusually smooth. As the sun sank to
rest behind the shimmering horizon it caused the island to cast a
long shadow over Manila bay as far as the eye could reach, but this
soon disappeared.
When the sun had sunk from view, Marie noticed that a comparatively
new moon was visible in the sky, and she remarked to the Sergeant
of the Guard, "It will not be very dark to-night. We can see the
Americanos a long way off."
"Yes," replied the Sergeant, "the only difficulty with the cowards is
that they will not come near enough to be seen at all. They have had
plenty of time to run from Hongkong to Manila and back again; still
they have not been seen or heard of. I'll bet you a peso (Spanish
dollar) that they have gone home and that all of this excitement has
been for nothing. Dewey is getting old, Marie; he doesn't want to go
to a watery grave so far from home. If he were young and ambitious,
it would be different. Old men do not care much about real fighting,
especially on the sea. It is different with old generals commanding
land forces. They can sit away back in the rear of the battle-field,
receive messages that come to them; plan certain movements based upon
these reports; and while they do have considerable responsibility,
still they are not in the actual fight. As for Dewey, nobody has
ever heard of him. He is not a recognized naval commander. Besides,
the old fellow, according to reports, is slow and easy going. If he
should come to make us an unfriendly call tonight, mark my word, Marie,
there will not be a sliver of his entire fleet left floating above the
water yonder inside of thirty minutes after the first shot is fired."
He had scarcely concluded speaking when the Officer of the Guard,
Lieutenant Orlando, called out, "Sergeant of the Guard! Fall in the
First Relief!" The Sergeant threw his arm over Marie's shoulder in an
affectionate manner, smacked a hurried caress against her olive cheek,
jumped up from the little bamboo bench on which they were sitting,
rushed up to the guard house and cried out, "First Relief! Fall in!"
Marie hastened after him. As the relief was forming in line, she seized
a Mauser rifle that stood leaning against a huge rock, grabbed up a
cartridge belt well filled with Mauser ammunition that was lying on
the ground near by, hastily adjusted it to fit her waist measure,
buckled it on and fell into the rear rank.
"Count fours!" ordered the Sergeant. As is usual in military affairs,
the front and rear rank men count in unison; that is, number one in
the front rank and number one in the rear rank both count "one" at the
same time; second file counts "two," etc. When it came to Marie she
piped out simultaneously with the corporal who stood in front of her,
"quatro." (four).
As the guard was marched along the stony pathways on Corregidor Island
and the various sentinels were relieved, Marie soon saw that there was
not going to be a place for her. She tip-toed up to the corporal who
was posting the relief and asked him where he was going to station her.
"Never mind," said the corporal, "we have a place for you." And sure
enough, they had.
Every soldier or civilian who has ever been on this island will readily
recall the rough, hard-beaten, winding path that led from the summit of
the hill, in a south-westerly direction, down over precipices, around
clumps of bamboo, to a beautiful fresh water spring which bubbled
out of the coral rocks at a point just high enough to prevent it from
being inundated or even infiltrated during the season of high tides.
A few feet from this spring and elevated but slightly above it, is a
massive, flat rock. Along the north and west sides of this rock is a
vertical stone precipice some eight feet high, which from its upper
edge inclines back gradually at an angle of about twenty degrees
above a horizontal plane, toward the crest of the island.
On this rock Spain firmly bolted one of her most modern cannon--a
good seven-inch gun. It was so situated on a revolving casement that
its shots could be made to sweep the whole Boca Grande channel, as
the large entrance south of the island is called. Marie had often
operated this gun. She had done splendid work with it on a floating
target two miles distant. Its deadly roar was her delight. Oh! if
she could but use it just once on an actual enemy instead of firing
it at an indicated one!
When the old guard had been relieved and the sentries were marched
back to the guard-house to be dismissed, poor Marie, heavy hearted,
marched along. Just as they approached the guard-house, the sergeant
motioned to her to fall out and to come toward him. This she did.
Into her ear he whispered the information that was to start her on her
eventful military career. "Marie," said he, "the officer of the Guard
informs me that we cannot use you in the infantry service tonight,
but that you will be needed with the artillery."
"Good!" exclaimed Marie, "Where shall I serve?"
"At the new gun on the large rock near the spring," answered the
Sergeant.
"Thank heaven!" said Marie. "Dewey will surely come, and when I put
a solid shot through the 'Olympia' just below the water line--the
battle will be half over. Oh! I'm so anxious! May I go down there
tonight and take charge of the gun at once?"
The Sergeant told her to report to the headquarters of the artillery
department where she would receive instructions.
At last she found herself on actual duty. How her young heart throbbed
as her black eyes peered forth into the darkness. Toward midnight,
small clouds began to drift oceanward. For a few moments at a time
they would obscure the quartered cheek of the young moon. Oh! if
Dewey would but come. The hopes of a life-time were poised on that
painful "if." Before her was the dream of glory; behind her, the
dreary forgetfulness of the past. Hour after hour whiled away. The
tiny lights in the natives' shacks along the opposite shore began to
go out and grow fewer and fewer until the closing day had died safely
away into the solemn night. As usual, "taps" were blown at ten o'clock
and things on the island grew very quiet. Days--yes, weeks--seemed
to crowd themselves into those long hours. Would he ever come?
Presently she heard the sentry's shrill cry on the brow of the hill,
"Twelve o'clock! All's well!" The echo of his repeated call had
scarcely died away when Marie thought she saw something dark on the
water near the center of the channel, perhaps three miles away. She
whispered to a member of the artillery corps, who sat near her watching
the shadow of his pipe on the rock near the base of the cannon. They
both looked. Surely! it's Dewey! The artilleryman sent up a rocket as
a warning. Marie took hurried aim. "Boom!" went her cannon, and from
its mouth a seven-inch shot was hurled over the "Concord," between
its main and mizzen masts. It went a trifle high and did no harm.
"Bang!" went one of the port batteries on the "Raleigh" and before
its flash was gone a shudder shot through every vein, every nerve
and every fiber of Marie's body. Such a crash she had never heard
before. "War is hell" to be sure. She sniffed the smoke from her own
gun, and looked around to see what had happened. The stone precipice
behind her was torn into fragments. A man's hand protruded from the
debris. "My God!" she murmured. Yes, there was the evidence. The
man who had sat by her side and who sent up the rocket, lay cold in
death. His head was torn off and his body was mangled among the pieces
of broken rock. The gunner on the "Raleigh" had done his work well;
and Marie's dream of American cowardice, of their poor marksmanship
and of her ability to sink Dewey's flag ship, were shattered in an
instant. She had fired the FIRST gun of the war, but not the LAST!
CHAPTER III.
AVENGED HER LOVER'S DEATH
After Dewey's fleet had passed the island and entered the bay, proper,
Marie crept up to the top of the cliff and awaited the results. As she
sat there shivering with fright, day began to dawn. Presently she heard
the Spanish batteries on Point Cavite fire a heavy shot--then a second
one; and a few minutes later she saw flames of fire and smoke belching
forth from the starboard sides of Dewey's entire squadron. Then the
Spanish fleet, lying off of Point Cavite, commenced a united and
simultaneous action.
Shells rent the air; the men on both fleets cheered as they beheld
the effect on the enemy of a well-directed shot; smoke-begrimed
gunners, with the perspiration washing light-colored furrows down
their manly cheeks, stood at their guns and worked like demons as they
swabbed their cannon and crowded into them shot after shot. Hissing
projectiles that missed the opposing ships and plunged into the bay,
were throwing volumes of splashing foam into the air. Dewey's vessels
were moving in a figure eight and using alternately the several guns
on their port and on their starboard sides, while the Spanish ships
moved about promiscuously among each other in an awkward fashion,
over a small area, and fired only as an opportunity offered.
"Thank God, I'm out of range of the demons," said Marie to a Spanish
officer who had come to her side.
Just then, there was a lull in the battle. Dewey's ships ceased firing
and withdrew to the middle of the bay. No apparent damage had been
sustained by the vessels of either command.
"The old fellow is going to quit," said Marie to the Spanish officer
who stood erect with his field glasses carefully trained on Dewey's
squadron.
"They're coming this way, Marie," said the officer.
"My God! where will we go, if they come past the island and open
fire on us again?" shouted Marie. "We haven't a mounted gun left to
shoot with."
The officer remained quiet. Presently he said, "They've stopped and
are dividing up their ammunition. Evidently they are going to resume
the fight."
He guessed it right. In thirty minutes Dewey's vessels were heading
straight for the Spanish fleet. His first shot set on fire the
beautiful Spanish flag-ship, the "Reina Christina." Then her magazine
blew up. She was hastily scuttled on the beach near Cavite and deserted
amid great disorder by that portion of her crew which was able to
leave. The dead and the dying were left to their fate. Magazines in
several other Spanish ships soon blew up. In a few minutes most of them
were on fire. Dewey's gunners were doing deadly execution. Hundreds
of Spanish soldiers could be seen jumping from their burning vessels
into the ocean.
"Now what is he going to do?" said Marie, with some excitement, as
she saw one of Dewey's ships, the "Concord," disengage herself from
the rest of the fleet and head straight for a large Spanish gun-boat
that was lying off to herself and whose sole business it seemed was
to keep up a deadly fire on Dewey's flagship, the "Olympia." The
Concord literally disembowled her.
"The heartless wretches!" exclaimed Marie, as she watched another
American ship, the "Petrel," leave the line of battle and make a rapid
run right past the Spanish fleet for the village of Cavite. "I wonder
what the villains are up to now." In a few minutes the Petrel returned,
with six small vessels in tow as prizes. In addition, she was flying
at her mast head this signal, "Have destroyed eight vessels."
Dewey's ships moved over toward the city of Manila, took their
positions in line and remained quiet.
"What time is it?" asked Marie of the Spanish officer who stood
near her.
"Twelve-thirty," answered he, as he looked at his watch.
Marie whiled away the afternoon watching the Spaniards on Corregidor
island burying their dead comrades. She wanted to go home, but she
feared to go past Dewey's fleet.
That evening things became solemnly quiet; and the blazing sun, as its
face reddened into nightly slumber beyond the watery horizon of the
Pacific, bade farewell to a finished deed, which, in the history of
naval warfare, has never been surpassed; while the pale-faced moon,
moving slowly up her appointed path, looked calmly down with her
quartered cheek in silent benediction on the blazing hulls of the
Spanish ships as they slowly cremated their dead and dying.
The next day the Spanish Commandante on Corregidor discovered that
Dewey had blockaded the port of Manila, so he restrained Marie from
starting home for nearly a week.
Finally, she got permission to go. As she passed Dewey's fleet she
was surprised to find everything so peaceful and to see dozens of
native canoes hovering along the port-holes of his vessels, selling
fruit and curios to his men.
Marie reached home in the early evening, and found her old mother
frantic because of her absence and the excitement that had taken place.
During the next few weeks while Dewey was waiting for reinforcements
from home, many strange things occurred on shore. The Filipinos
captured or killed nearly all of the smaller Spanish garrisons
distributed throughout the islands. On May 26, they secretly cut
down the Spanish guards walking their beats along the western side of
the little town of Cavite, and let in a horde of Tagalos well armed
with bolos, who crept up near a large stone cathedral, built in 1643,
in which the Spaniards, as a military necessity after their defeat by
Dewey, were making their headquarters. These Filipinos made a mad rush
through the back door of the building and captured all the Spaniards
being quartered therein. This feat also gave them possession of another
lot of Mauser and Remington rifles and a goodly store of ammunition,
for which they had been yearning.
Dewey had no men whom he could spare to send ashore; therefore, he had
left these surrendered Spaniards to take care of themselves. Evidently
he did not anticipate an attack upon the garrison at Cavite, or
he might have landed enough marines from his battleships to have
prevented it.
When Marie heard about the capture of the Spanish garrison at Cavite
by the Filipinos, she at once rowed over there to see what was going
to be done with the prisoners. This was the first time she had been
at Cavite since the day of her lover's tragic death. She found the
Filipinos jubilant over their new fire-arms. But many of them had
never before used a gun and they were very awkward with them, so
that accidents were constantly occurring. The privileges of target
practice given to Marie by the Spaniards, in times past, now found a
new reward. She organized the Filipinos into squads for this training,
arranged suitable targets for them, supervised the loading and cleaning
of their guns, and by voluntary assent became the leader in a whole
lot of nefarious mischief in the neighborhood.
But what about her lover's dying request and the vow she registered
in her aching soul as she left the scene of his death? By remaining
away from the graves of our loved ones we may check memory and
enthrone reason, thus more rapidly overcoming sorrow. By constantly
resorting to places of grief we keep that grief, whatever may have
been its cause, fresh on the tablets of our memories. The fact that
Marie had not returned to Cavite, the scene of her sorrow, for about
two months, helped her to forget it and to flirt with fate among the
very troops who had caused it. Now that she had returned to Cavite,
old visions began to haunt her. Shooting at wooden targets was not
desperate enough to appease her nature; she longed for bloodshed.
Between herself and a few Filipino leaders she concocted a scheme
that would be hilarious, avenge the death of him whom she had
briefly mourned, as well as the deaths of Rizal and thousands of
other Filipinos who had been shot or strangled by the Spaniards,
and satisfy the longings of her innermost nature. It was this: a
pit twenty feet in diameter and ten feet deep was to be dug on the
higher ground a few miles southwest of Cavite. Each morning twenty
of the captured Spaniards were to be marched out to this pit and
made to slide down a bamboo pole into it. The Filipino soldiers,
armed with their newly-captured rifles, were then to stand around
the brink of this pit and use these half-starved Spaniards for living
targets. Marie gloated over her new enterprise. What sport! How she
enjoyed it! The Filipino's marksmanship was poor and many of their
unfortunate prisoners were shot over a dozen times before they were
stilled in death. This bloody practice was kept up until over two
hundred Spaniards had been slain.
About this time rumors of what was being done reached the ears
of General Anderson. He ordered it stopped, and sent food ashore,
under American escorts, for the Spanish prisoners. These prisoners,
before being led to the slaughter, were housed by the Filipinos
in an unfinished portion of the old convent at Cavite, and in some
large stone buildings without floors and with only a few windows,
heavily barricaded with iron bars, formerly used by the natives for
storage purposes for various cargoes of raw materials, preparatory
to exportation. These buildings were dark, damp and infested with a
multiplicity of insectivora.
The Spaniards, imprisoned therein, were fed by the Filipinos on a
very small ration of uncooked rice. This they had to pound into meal,
and eat it out of their hands. Water, although plentiful, was denied
them, except in small quantities. They had no beds, but slept on
the bare ground. Many of them were practically nude. They had staid
by their guns on the Spanish fleet until their ships began to sink;
then they had jumped overboard and swam ashore, taking off most of
their clothes before making the attempt. The Filipinos had little
clothing to give them and no disposition to share what they did have.
These half-starved wretches, pale, lean and ghostly looking, many
of them sick with fever and other ailments, none of them with a
cent of money, were a sickening sight to the American troops whom
General Anderson sent ashore to investigate their circumstances
and conditions. Of course the healthier ones were marched out and
killed first. Some of them began to cry when the American officers,
pushing the Filipino sentries aside, poked their vigorous manly faces
through the openings of the massive doors to see who and what was on
the inside; but most of them propped themselves up on one elbow and
held out the other hand for something to eat. Others indicated by
motions that they wanted paper and pencils, so as to write letters
home, telling their loved ones in far-off Spain that they were still
alive, and asking for money.
As the Americans began to empty their haversacks and hand hard-tack
and Boston baked beans to them, some of the prisoners seized them by
the fingers and kissed the backs of their hands in grateful homage
for their kindness. A few of the more ignorant ones, who had heard so
much about the cruelty of the American soldiers, and who, upon sight
of our officers, believing the end was near, had sought a kneeling
attitude and begun to pray, gradually sank back into a reclining
posture and held out their hands for a morsel of food.
The Filipino guards sulked when they were displaced by the American
sentries, and some of them had to be forced from their posts of
fiendish duty at the point of the bayonet. They considered these
Spaniards as reprisals, constituting their own private property, with
whom they could do as they pleased without any justifiable interference
on the part of anybody. Marie Sampalit slapped an American private
who had been sent to displace a Filipino sentry whom she had just
stationed at one of the prison doors. He promptly knocked her down with
the butt of his rifle. What she said in reply he could not understand.
CHAPTER IV.
THE INTERVAL
After avenging her lover's death, Marie returned again to Manila
where she remained at home until the Filipino uprising against the
American troops in the spring of 1899. During this interval of nine
months, she daily frequented the places of rendezvous of the American
troops stationed in and around Manila. She also went to the officers'
homes in the city where their wives and children were stopping. She
did their washing, and cared for the children. Her congeniality made
her a favorite. Some of the American ladies offered to bring her back
to America with them for a house-hold servant.
From them she learned to speak the English language nearly as fluently
as Spanish. The American soldiers were kind and polite to her. She
made considerable money by doing washing for them. It was noticeable
that she was gradually improving the old bamboo home in Manila. In a
few months she had come into possession of more money than she thought
there was in the entire world. Most of it was American gold--largely
in five dollar denominations. (This is what the United States used in
paying the soldiers.) These she took to the Spanish bank in Manila
and exchanged them for Mexican silver, which, until the United
States began to issue special coins for the Philippine islands,
was the standard medium of exchange in the archipelago.
Marie began to dress better. Her penia cloth gave way to Chinese silks;
her wooden hair combs to expensive ones inlaid with gold, bought at
the Spanish bazar down town. Many little comforts were bought for her
home. Still the washings kept growing larger. She and her mother could
be seen back of their shack, in the shade, pounding American soldiers'
white uniforms on large boulders from early morning till night.
Aguinaldo, who had previously sold out his country and gone to
Singapore, after commissioning Dimiguez, upon hearing that war
was about to begin between the United States and Spain, made his
way northward to Hongkong. After the battle of Manila Bay, Dewey
despatched the revenue cutter, "McCulloch," to Hongkong to cable
home the news of his splendid victory. On her return to Manila,
she permitted Aguinaldo to come along.
After a brief conversation with Admiral Dewey on board the "Olympia,"
he went ashore at Cavite, his boyhood home, began to organize the
Filipinos into a powerful army, captured 1500 Spanish soldiers who
were holding out-lying posts, and hemmed in the city of Manila.
On August 13, following, Dewey and General Merritt, by a union of
their forces, captured the city of Manila which offered but slight
resistance. Aguinaldo's native troops rushed forward with the Americans
in the charge that was made by the land forces and they insisted on
looting the city. General Merritt refused this and ordered them to
withdraw beyond the city limits. This they did after considerable
wrangling. Then the Americans established out-posts on every road and
pathway leading to and from the city, completely around the town;
and they were given instructions by the commanding officer not to
allow any Filipino troops to enter the city.
Aguinaldo discarded his uniform one evening, completely
disguised himself as a Filipino fruit-vender, and made his way
into Manila. Naturally, he slipped around to the home of his old
friends, the Sampalits. He sat in a semi-darkened room, with all the
hinged-windows to the shack tightly closed and stroked Marie's soft
black hair with his left hand. As he engaged her and her mother in
conversation in subdued tones, he little thought that in so short a
time Marie would be associated with him in a series of bloody tragedies
that would revolutionize the government of the islands forever.
"Marie," said he, "I'm going to force the Americans to acknowledge
the independence of the Philippine islands, or I shall not permit
the rest of their army to land. Dewey tells me he has sent home for
reinforcements. There is no use for us to let these troops land, if
America instead of Spain is going to govern the islands. What we want
is absolute independence with myself as president of the new Filipino
Republic. If the Americans won't concede this to us, let's fight!"
"That's what I say!" declared Marie. "Let's drive the foreign devils
off the islands or slay them all. Here's father dead and--Dimiguez,
too"--Marie's voice trembled--"I tell you it's too much. Let's kill
every one of them!"
"Yes; but say Marie, we must keep quiet about all this," cautioned
Aguinaldo. "I'll tell you what I have in mind. We'll wait about four
weeks and by that time if Dewey hasn't received definite instructions
from Washington, and if he won't give me any satisfaction, I'm going
to go to Malolos, proclaim myself Dictator of the Philippines, appoint
a cabinet and a congress from among some of the bright young Filipinos
here in Manila who have been educated abroad, draw up a Revolutionary
form of government, and begin to administer the affairs of these
islands just as I please.
"We'll keep our present army in the field, and if the Americans do
land we'll shut them up in Manila, so that they will have nothing at
their command but the city to regulate. This won't amount to much as
compared with the rest of the islands which I will dominate."
"Are you sure the Americans won't land a powerful army, cut through
your lines around Manila and drive you out of Malolos, or capture you
and your officials at that place? It seems to me I would go farther
inland--say to San Isidro," said Marie.
Aguinaldo thought a moment, then replied: "That's true, in a sense,
Marie; but I have got to be on or near the railroad where I can have
easy and rapid access to Manila. Malolos is not far from here and
it is situated on the railroad. It has some very large buildings in
which our legislative sessions could be held. I think it the place
for the undertaking.
"To be on the safe side, I believe I will have our troops erect a
series of fortifications between here and there along the railroad
track, so that if the Americans do attempt to advance by that route
I can easily stop them."
"I think that would be a good scheme," said Marie. "Malolos is about
twelve miles from Manila Bay; besides, the bay is shallow in the
north end, so that heavy boats could not go up there. This will make
it impossible for Dewey to shell the place with his fleet. We've got
to watch out for that--no matter what we do. My! but those American
ships can shoot! Did you hear about me shooting at 'em with that
cannon on Corregidor island when they entered the bay? I mighty near
got one of their vessels."
"No," said Aguinaldo, "I have not heard very much about the firing
off Corregidor, but as I came from Hongkong the other day on the
"McCulloch" I noticed that the Spanish fortifications on the island
had all been dismantled."
"Why! they killed a man right at my feet, the very first shot," said
Marie; "and then one of their boats drew nearer and fired several
times more and they killed every Spaniard in the relief guard which
was near by,--seven of them in all."
"And I was terribly worried about Marie," interrupted her mother who
had listened to the conversation with deepest interest. "She had been
gone for a week, and I hadn't heard a word from her."
"Oh! well, I don't pity the Spaniards any for what the Americans did
to them," interjected Aguinaldo, with some emphasis.
"Be careful," said old lady Sampalit, putting her finger on her lips,
"don't speak too loud."
Aguinaldo continued in a lower voice: "They killed your husband. They
shot Rizal. They strangled Dimigeuz. They tortured to death several
hundred of our young fellows in the dungeons. They have left ridges
of dead wherever their armies have moved among us. I tell you they
deserved all they got."
Mrs. Sampalit and Marie had grown heavy hearted. Aguinaldo looked at
his watch. It was after ten P. M.
"I wonder," said Aguinaldo, hesitatingly, "how I shall be able to
get back to our lines tonight."
"Don't go!" said Marie, in an emphatic whisper, "stay over night!"
"Yes, do!" entreated the old lady, "I'm nervous."
"It might be best; it would surely be the safest thing to do," said
Aguinaldo, in a meditating manner.
"We sleep on bamboo beds," said Marie. "There stands mine. You may use
it tonight, and I will sleep on the floor. I don't mind. Mother and
I frequently lie down on the floor near the window, when the nights
are sultry."
The next morning Aguinaldo arose very early, made his way to the
edge of the city and stealthily stole out threw the Americans' lines,
never again to return to Manila until General Funston brought him back,
two years later, a captive.
He made his way to Malolos, a few weeks after this conversation,
declared himself "Dictator of the Philippines," appointed a Filipino
congress, set up a government of his own and began to run the general
affairs in the interior of Luzon.
CHAPTER V.
FILIPINO UPRISING
The close of the eventful year of 1898 was near at hand. General Otis
had been made governor-general of the islands. He had received about
15,000 troops from home. These had all been landed and were quartered
in the city of Manila.
Preparations had begun by the American troops for a great day of field
sports to be held on the Luneta--a beautiful narrow park paralleling
Manila bay and extending southward from the walled-city about four
miles--on New Year's day, 1899.
On the afternoon of January I, as planned, the exercises were
begun. The afternoon program consisted of foot races, running high
jumps, wheelbarrow race, fat man's race, running broad jump, high
kicking, fancy club swinging, tumbling, shot-put, sack race, tugs of
war, five boxing contests, base ball, foot ball, and pole vaulting.
Situated on the Luneta, about a mile south of the walled city, and
distant from Manila bay about 100 feet, is a large bandstand. This
served as headquarters for the exercises. The day was perfect--clear,
cool and calm.
About 2:00 P.M. over 40,000 natives, soldiers (including jack-tars
from Dewey's fleet, Spaniards and Americans) and foreign residents
had assembled around this bandstand to hear the Address of Welcome and
to witness the sports. When the speaker arose to deliver the address,
for which he was afterward voted, and presented with, a medal by the
Eight Army Corps, he said in part (verbatim report):
"On behalf of these committeemen who have spared no efforts to make
these Field Day Exercises a success, and this occasion one long to
be remembered by those who have assembled here this afternoon, I bid
you, one and all--officers, soldiers, sailors and civilians of every
nationality--a hearty welcome."
"Again to you, the members of Admiral Dewey's fleet, I feel obligated
to extend a separate and special welcome; for without your chivalrous
devotion to duty last May Day, yon shell-riven wrecks (part of unraised
Spanish fleet visible above the bay) would not bespeak the down-fall
of a sister nation, and we ourselves would not have been permitted
to assemble here this afternoon. There is no braver man on land or
sea than the American marine; and on behalf of the entire American
army of occupation, I bid you a most cordial welcome."
Touching upon the question of territorial expansion, the speaker said:
"This was a war for humanity, not for conquest. But simply because
it suddenly closed and left us in possession of large tracts of
new territory, is no reason why these spoils of war should be given
up. I hold this to be true Americanism: that wherever the old flag
is established through sacrifice of American blood, whether it be on
the barren sands of the desert, at the frigid extremes of the earth,
or on the rich and fertile islands of the sea, there is should remain
triumphant, shedding forth beams of liberty to the oppressed, shouts
of defiance to the oppressor, and furnish protection and enlightenment
to all who come beneath its streaming folds forever!" (applause).
A chubby Filipino maiden, standing near the speaker's stand, and
who had listened intently to every word of the address, because she
now understood the English tongue, quietly elbowed her way through
the dense crowd which was gradually becoming more compressed, until
she reached a car drawn by two Chinese ponies on the old street car
line running south from Manila to Fort Malate and back. Taking the
car she rode up town to the Escolta. Going into the postoffice, she
hastily wrote and mailed to Aguinaldo at Malolos a letter containing
an account of what was said. It follows:
"Manila, P. I., Jan. 1, 1899.
My Dear General:
Those wretched Americans are holding some kind of exercises on the
Luneta this afternoon. I heard one of the speeches. It was awful
bad. The fellow talked loud. He swung his hands in the air and the
crowd seemed to get terribly excited over what he was saying.
He told about that treaty of peace, and he said no power under the
sun would haul down the American flag from over Manila.
It made me angry. I am going right out to the Filipino trenches to
see my Uncle (Colonel Miguel). He'll fix those fellows. I'll bet
he'll haul down their flag before tomorrow morning.
Goodby,
Marie."
The evening program on the Luneta, which followed the afternoon
exercises, was largely literary in its nature. It consisted of music
by the California band, singing by the famous Washington Male Quartet,
fancy dancing, selected recitations, and stump speeches. In addition,
Privates Green and Martin boxed four rounds, much to the satisfaction
of the natives.
The program had just been completed when the Master of Ceremonies
received from the American general in charge a note telling
him to announce the conclusion of the program at once and to
order all soldiers to report immediately at their respective
regimental headquarters;--trouble had been reported at the
out-posts. Reinforcements were hastened to several of the out-post
reserves, and it appeared that the expected insurrection was at hand.
After the out-break by the Filipinos on New Year's night, it was
evident to both sides that it was only a question of a short time when
blood would be spilled in abundance. The Filipinos occupied all of the
block-houses--some seventeen in number--around the city of Manila. This
forced the Americans to stand in the open and do guard duty exposed.
The Filipino troops were saucy. They couldn't understand why men should
be armed with rifles and not be permitted to shoot. They tormented
the American soldiers daily with hideous pranks. They grew bolder,
and pushed their out-posts forward until they stood within a few feet
of the American sentries.
Marie went out and back through the American lines at will. She
secretly kept the Filipino army thoroughly posted on the arrival of
new troops from America. Occasionally she would take the train and
go up to Malolos to see Aguinaldo. She was the best posted person
in the Philippines as to what was going on in each of the hostile
armies. Nobody suspected her. She was respected by the American
troops. Everybody came to know her.
Just before dusk, on the evening of February 4th, 1899, Marie
and her mother left the city of Manila, in a cariole, drawn by a
Chinese pony which they had recently purchased. They had in it all of
their most precious household trinkets. As they passed Colonel John
M. Stotsenberg, commanding the 1st Nebraska volunteers, stationed
on McLeod's hill at the eastern edge of Manila, he recognized them,
and called to Marie, "Where are you going?"
"Out on a little trip," retorted Marie.
"How soon will you be back?" asked he.
"O, I can't tell," responded Marie. "Mother is getting so nervous
that we thought best to go away for awhile."
"Say, Marie," said the colonel, "do you know who the Filipino officer
is in command of all those thousands of troops that are now assembling
in the ravines between the hills along the far side of the river
valley, yonder?"
"No, I do not," she declared with an emphatic swing of her head.
But she was lying. It was Colonel Miguel, her own uncle. She knew about
it. He had secretly informed her that he was preparing to attack the
city and burn it and that he was going to exterminate the American
army of occupation and all foreign residents that fell into the hands
of his mighty army. He told her that he had chosen the east side of
the city as his main point of attack, so that Dewey could not reach
his troops with the shells from his gun boats in case he tried to
assist the American army, without elevating his guns and shooting
completely over the city--a thing wholly impractical within itself,
as Dewey could not determine whether his shells would be falling
among the Filipino or the American troops. It was he who advised her
to take her mother and flee to the hills for refuge.
Colonel Stotsenberg then asked Marie if she knew anything about the
proposed attack on the city by her people. This, she denied also. The
colonel's face flushed. Pulling back the flap of his tent, he said
emphatically: "Do you see that gun, Marie? Tell those fellows over
there when you pass their lines that I said they could have trouble
whenever they want it."
Marie drove on.
Inside the colonel's tent stood a large gun from the Utah battery,
mounted, loaded, ready for action; its threatening nose was
pointed directly at the line of little brown men assembled across
the valley. The Filipinos were smarting for trouble. They wanted it
badly. Wherever and whenever possible they improved every opportunity
to bring it about. The trouble came. Colonel Stotsenberg that night
used the cannon he had pointed out to Marie. A long pile of mangled
forms lying at the base of the river hills on the opposite of the
valley next morning told the results.
CHAPTER VI.
AS A SPY
Marie was well equipped by instinct and experience for a spy. The
tragic nature of such work was exceptionally inviting to her. When
a chance came to undertake it, she lost no time in embracing the
opportunity.
After passing out through the American lines, she drove on down the
slope of the hill and crossed the San Juan River on the old stone
bridge where the fighting was begun that night by young Grayson of
the Nebraska regiment. After reaching the Filipinos' lines she at once
reported to her uncle, Colonel Miguel, and had an extended interview
with him.
Secret plans were agreed upon whereby she was to become the colonel's
chief scout. Two Filipino soldiers were sent to accompany her old
mother to the little town of Angono on the eastern bank of Lake Laguna
de Bay, near its northern end. A native family, quite familiar with
the Sampalits and related to them, lived in this village. Marie stayed
with the troops in the field. Her young brain danced at the thought
of more bloodshed. She must be in the fight.
Just what part Marie took in the attack made upon the Americans by
the Filipinos on the night of February 4th, and in the fighting on
February 5th, the world will never know. The two main figures in
these operations were Colonel Miguel, in command of the main portion
of the Filipino forces, and Colonel Stotsenberg, who commanded the
1st Nebraska volunteers. Before the close of the war these men were
both shot; consequently, there is no one left to tell the story,
and history is silent on the point.
After the fight of February 4 and 5, the entire line of block-houses
and intrenchments circumscribing Manila, were in the hands of the
Americans. From the Pasig river on the east, around the city to the
bay on the north, this line was commanded by Major-General MacArthur;
the corresponding semi-circle on the south, by Major-General Anderson.
During the next seven weeks, fresh troops were constantly
arriving. Each side was preparing for the long, inevitable conflict.
At day break, on March 25, General MacArthur, leaving Hall's brigade
in the trenches and placing those of Otis and Hale on the firing line,
which was over seven miles in length, made a brilliant charge along
the entire front on the Filipinos' breastworks about a mile and a
half distant and constructed parallel to those of the Americans'.
Before night he had cut the Filipino army into hopeless fragments;
had advanced his own army over nine miles; had inflicted a terrible
loss upon Aguinaldo's troops; had demonstrated to them the difference
between a determined American advance and an irresolute Spanish one;
and had taken up in earnest the invasion of Luzon, the capture of
the Filipinos' temporary capital, Malolos, the overthrow of their
provisional government, and the establishment of American sovereignty
throughout the entire archipelago.
That night, about eleven o'clock, a nervous Filipino woman came walking
down along the American out-post reserves which, during actual war,
are usually only from 100 to 200 feet in the rear of the sentries. She
reached Company "G's" reserve of the 1st South Dakota Volunteers,
where she was ordered to halt. She refused, but acted as though she
did not understand. Drawing a large bamboo bonnet down over her face
to conceal her identity, she mumbled something apparently to herself,
and walked rapidly on. In a moment she was seized; her bonnet was
torn off; her identity revealed: it was Marie.
She had been counting the American out-posts and the reserves to see
if the defeated Filipinos, with the reinforcements which they had
received, would be warranted in making a night attack.
She boldly denied her identification; fought, scratched,
scrambled--making it necessary to employ two privates, a corporal
and a sergeant to send her to the rear.
When she was taken before Major William F. Allison, commanding the
3rd battalion of the South Dakotas, who was acting as field-officer
that night, he ordered her restrained until morning. A tired private
was detailed to guard her. He gave her a rubber poncho, and insisted
that she wrap herself up in it and lie down to sleep. Although she
drew the poncho about her to keep herself warm (it grew very chilly
before morning) she refused to sleep, and made repeated efforts to
escape. Her teeth chattered and she seemed distressed--evidently
through fear of what the morning might bring to her.
The next day she was set free, after taking a solemn oath to return
to Manila and not take any further part in the insurrection. She
pleaded earnestly for her liberty, and voluntarily promised that
after her return to Manila she would do washing free of charge for
the American soldiers who were sick in quarters.
After being liberated, Marie walked eastward, following an irregular
sled-road; that is, a road-way used by the Filipinos for sledding
their rice to market. This is done by means of a bamboo sled drawn
over the dry ground by a caribou. She followed this road for over
two miles until she came to the San Mateo river.
Although given a few hardtack by her captors at the time of her
release, she was getting hungry. As she approached the stream she
noticed an old Filipino standing near his bamboo cabin which was neatly
tucked away oh the slope of a deep ravine near by. Turning from her
pathway which had now grown somewhat indistinct she approached the
old gentleman.
When quite close to him she said, "Buenos dias," (Good morning in
Spanish.)
"Magandang umaga," (Good morning, in Tagalo), muttered the old man.
After a brief conversation during which Marie told him that she had
been captured by the Americans, had been terribly misused and he had a
miraculous escape, he invited her into his cabin where his aged wife
gave her something to eat. This breakfast consisted of boiled rice,
some fish which the old man had just brought from his set lines in
the San Mateo river, and some bacon which he had found along the
trail made by the American's pack train the day before.
While the old couple were outside of their home--he breaking up
some bamboo with which to re-kindle the fire, and she, cleaning the
fish--Marie ransacked the house. She stole a large diamond ring which
the old man had taken from the finger of a Spanish officer during
the previous insurrection. She opened an old mahogany chest and took
from it a rosary valued at several hundred dollars; also a gold lined
cup which the old man, himself, had stolen from a Spanish priest,
and some Spanish coins.
After a hearty lunch, she started on.
Crossing the river at the rapids, on the boulders which projected
above the water, she quickened her steps and hurried along. Changing
her course to the southward, she started for the northern end of Lake
Laguna de Bay to see her mother.
She had not gone far through a small clump of timber when she came
upon the corpse of a Filipino soldier who had been shot in the previous
day's engagement,--perhaps by a stray ball. Hastily stealing the cross
which hung from a small cord about his neck, and a valueless ring from
one of his fingers, she seized his Mauser rifle and his cartridge belt
which was partly filled with ammunition, and then resumed her journey.
A short distance ahead was a large opening--an old rice field
well cleared. She had scarcely begun to cross it when she heard a
noise. She turned and saw the bow-legged old man whom she had robbed,
with a machete in his hand, coming after her as fast as he could. He
had discovered that the rosary was missing, and upon looking around,
that several other things were gone; therefore he at once started
in pursuit of the fiend who had just enjoyed his hospitality. Marie
was not disturbed. Raising to her shoulder the rifle which she had
just found, she took deliberate aim and at the first shot laid him
low in death.
She reached the small native village of Angono, where her mother was
stopping, about four o'clock in the afternoon of March 26th.
The old lady was wonderfully elated to receive the new jewels which
Marie had stolen. She put on the rosary and danced about in the native
hut like a young child on Christmas morning, when it sees the gorged
stocking fastened to its bed.
CHAPTER VII.
OFF FOR BALER
That night Marie had a good rest. The next morning, fired with ambition
and discontent, she lit her accustomed cigarette and started for
Manila. Instead of going overland, she went in a row boat via the
Pasig river which drains the lake into Manila bay and which flows
through the city of Manila situated at its mouth.
While stealthily prowling around through Manila during the next few
days, Marie accidentally discovered that plans were being carried
out by the Americans to relieve the remnant of the old Spanish
garrison of fifty men stationed at the little town of Baler, near
the eastern coast of Luzon. This garrison was of course surrendered
to the American forces with the remainder of the Spanish army on
August 13, 1898, but as all lines of communication with them had been
destroyed by the Filipinos they had never been officially notified
of the capitulation. Scouting parties brought in the information that
they were being besieged by a horde of blood-thirsty Filipinos which
outnumbered them ten to one, and that it was only a question of time
before all would be exterminated.
Accordingly, Admiral Dewey and General Otis decided that something
must be done at once to relieve them. A rescuing party was formed and
placed aboard the "Yorktown," which carried them around the southern
point of Luzon and then northward to the mouth of the Baler river.
Marie, nerved by the thought of a new exploit, forgot her oath not
to take up arms against the Americans again during the insurrection,
and hastily departed overland for Baler to notify the besieging
Filipinos of what was to take place, and to help them as best she
could to resist the advance of the rescuing party.
Although Baler is situated on the Baler river, near the eastern coast
of Luzon, and Manila is on the west side of the island Baler is,
nevertheless, almost directly north of Manila. This is caused by the
deep indention of Manila bay, on the extreme eastern side of which
Manila is situated, and by the abrupt inclination to the westward of
the eastern coast line of Luzon directly above a point straight east
of Manila.
In starting on her journey Marie left Manila by a little Filipino
foot-path which enters the city in the northeastern part near the
San Sebastian church. She followed it to Block-house No. 4, which is
situated about three miles north and a trifle east of Manila. At that
point she took a road which veered off perceptibly to the east for a
short distance and which was made by the Americans' commissary train
on the morning that the advance was begun toward Malolos, March 25,
preceding.
She had gone but a quarter of a mile when her attention was
attracted to a board used as the head-stone for a grave only a few
feet distant from her pathway. She walked over to in and found these
words inscribed thereon:
"R. I. P. D. O. M.
Wat Erbuf Falo
Born -- (?) Died, February 12, 1899.
To those who bring flowers to this lonely grave,
Some facts on its headstone we wish to engrave;
If this mound could speak no doubt it would tell
Bill Sherman was right when he said, 'War is Hell.'
He charged on two pickets whose names are below;
They took him for niggers,--poor wronged buffalo.
As to the way he met death, everybody knows how;
As to whom he belonged we don't caribou.
Signed: Barney and Barkley, Co. "M," 1st. Col. Vols."
It was now April 2nd, and Marie had ahead of her about ninety miles
overland to be made on foot or else on horse-back; and it was necessary
for her to hurry along, as the rescuing party was scheduled to reach
the mouth of Baler river April 10th, or 12th.
Her course led past the little shack on the bank of the San Mateo
river, where she had robbed the elderly couple who had been so kind
to her and near where she later had shot the old man when he was
pursuing her to regain possession of his stolen property.
She found it deserted; but in a little bamboo corral nearby she found
three Chinese ponies. Evidently they had made their escape from the
scene of battle and had drifted into this yard for refuge. There was
a small stack of rice straw just outside the corral. From this Marie
soon made a stoutly-twisted rope which she hastily arranged in the
form of a bridle. Placing it over the head of the largest pony she
mounted him and rode off.
She got ten miles beyond this last stopping place before sunset. That
night she stopped at a small inland village. As she lay down to sleep
on the bamboo floor in the hut of a Tagalo family whose acquaintance
she had readily formed, recollections of the place which she had
passed during the afternoon where she had previously robbed the old
couple immediately after she was released upon oath by the Americans,
suggested to her the thought that she was violating her oath; that she
was now out in a country where she might be betrayed at any moment by
her own people, or else be captured by a squad of American infantry
or cavalry; therefore, she decided that on the following day she
would destroy her identity.
Upon retiring the previous night Marie coiled up for a pillow her head
of long black hair. "I hate to give it up," thought she, "but what
will the Americans do to me if they capture me another time? Oh! well,
after the war is over it will soon grow out again."
The next morning, after a scanty breakfast of bananas and rice, and
a pineapple which Marie salted heavily before she ate it, she went to
a native barber and had her long hair cut close to the scalp, except
for a little tuft on top which she had him brush up for a pompadour.
Before cutting off her hair the barber tied a piece of hemp very
tightly around it, just back of her neck. After he had detached it,
he held it in front of Marie and asked her what she wished done with
it. She took it in her own hands.
The barber kept on trimming her shortened hair. Marie stopped talking
and seemed to be in deep meditation.
Presently the barber said. "That's all."
Marie arose from the rough mahogany slab on which she had been sitting,
handed him a puesta (twenty cents, Mexican), looked out of the window
and said, "I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll trade you my hair for
that quilas (two-wheeled cart) standing there."
"All right"; said the barber, "My pony is dead, and the war has so
devasted the country, and money has become so scarce, that I can't
afford to buy another one."
"The harness hanging on it goes with the cart," said Marie.
"Oh no!" exclaimed the barber, "my wife borrowed that, and I must
return it."
"It doesn't make any difference to whom it belongs," said Marie,
emphatically, "you traded me the cart, and everything that was in it
goes with the trade. How do you suppose I could hitch my pony into
the cart without a harness?"
Just then she pulled a bolo out from under her apron. The barber said
no more.
Marie hitched her pony into the cart and started on toward Baler.
That day she followed a good road leading toward the mountains near
the eastern coast of Luzon. By night her pony had made twenty miles.
She had already reached the foot-hills. It was impossible for her
to make head-way any longer with the cart. She would soon be across
the mountains and be in the region to be approached by the American
relief party. What was to be done?
A happy thought came to Marie. She clasped her hands and muttered to
herself, "I'll trade the cart for a suit of men's clothes and trade
the harness for a sombrero," (bamboo hat.)
Since the middle of the afternoon she had been driving parallel to a
stream that wound its way, nearby, from the mountains across the plains
to the sea. Villages along the banks were numerous. At night fall she
was still in Tagalo territory. It was her own tribe. She soon found a
place to stay over night. Her pony was turned loose in a vacant yard,
with an old bamboo fence around it, and given some young rice.
That evening while smoking cigarettes, and while inflaming the minds
of the villagers with startling stories about the atrocities, of the
American soldiers, Marie finally succeeded in making the trade which
she had planned during the afternoon.
Next morning, April 5, she rode on. Before her lay sixty miles of
unknown territory to be covered during the next four days, if she
were to reach Baler in time to warn the besieging Filipinos of the
contemplated attack by the Americans.
A half mile out from the village, Marie came to an abrupt turn in the
road. Near by was a dense cluster of banana trees. She dismounted,
and while her pony was nibbling young rice she went into the thicket
and changed her attire. Then she tied a good-sized stone up in her
old clothes and threw them into the river. As she stood on the bank
watching them sink, she saw her shadow in the water. How changed she
looked! The sombrero was such a relief in keeping the hot sun off
her head.
"Now, I'll not be recognized," thought she. "How nice it is to be
dressed like a man. From now on I mean to play a man's part and be
a full-fledged soldier."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE GILMORE INCIDENT
Marie reached her destination late in the evening of April 9th,
and she at once notified the officers commanding the Filipinos who
were besieging Baler, what to expect. Knowing that with so small a
force, if the Americans undertook to relieve the Spanish garrison,
it would necessarily have to be done by way of the Baler river--as
the town of Baler where the Spanish garrison was located is some two
miles up the river from where it empties into the Pacific ocean, and
the American troops were too greatly outnumbered by the Filipinos to
make a land expedition safe,--she suggested to them the advisability
of fortifying the river at specific intervals along either bank and
of taking the precaution to cover the fortifications with freshly-cut
brush so that the Americans could not locate them for the purpose of
bombarding them in case they saw fit to load some of the smaller cannon
on cascoes and make their way up the river for an attack in that way.
The Filipinos took her suggestions, and the entrenchments and places
for the sentries were quickly, yet very wisely, arranged. It was
during the dry season and the river was very low at the time. This
made it possible to dig ditches on the sand bars which extended far
out into the stream; and by throwing into the river the loose sand
taken therefrom, to conceal these entrenchments by strewing over them
some fresh-cut limbs and old under brush which had the appearance of
having drifted to their lodgment.
The Yorktown arrived off the mouth of the Baler river, April 11, as
scheduled. Ensign Stanley went ashore, under a flag of truce, where,
to his surprise, he was cordially received by the Filipino officers;
but their exceptionally good behavior and the twinkle of their eyes
told only too plainly to the ensign that something was wrong. He
therefore returned to the Yorktown without having accomplished anything
in particular.
The next morning, at four o'clock, Lieutenant Gilmore and sixteen
brave associates left the Yorktown in a row boat, and entered the
mouth of the river. Ensign Stanley and Quartermaster Lysac were put
ashore to reconnoiter. In a few minutes daylight broke forth and
those left in the boat were discovered by the Filipino sentry who
was walking his beat along the shore. He gave the alarm. Lieutenant
Gilmore and his party could easily have pulled out to sea and gotten
away, but humanity forbade it. What would become of the two scouts
who went ashore? Their comrades in the boat could not desert them,
so they rowed up the river into the very jaws of impending danger.
Presently out of a concealed trench hundreds of armed Filipinos
opened a deadly fire on Gilmore and his comrades, at only fifty yards
distance. The water at this point was shallow. The boat got stuck in
the mud. There was nothing to do but to fight. In a moment Morrisy
fell dead, having been shot through the head; Dillon followed;
then McDonald, then Nygard;--Marie was doing deadly work with her
Mauser rifle.
The Americans returned the fire as best they could; but what was
the use. They could see nothing to fire at, so perfectly had the
Filipinos screened their trenches; besides, the Filipinos were using
smokeless powder.
Four of Gilmore's men were already dead, two were mortally wounded
and begging their comrades to shoot them before they fell into the
hands of the Filipinos, and two more were slightly wounded. Most
of the oars had been badly shattered by the enemy's rifle balls. In
this moment of desperation, Ellsworth, Woodbury and Edwards jumped
overboard and tried to push the boat out to mid-stream. It was no use;
the tide was coming in and the current was so strong that they could
not compete against it.
Lieutenant Gilmore was firing his revolver. He decided to change and
use one of the dead men's rifles. As he picked it up he noticed the
lock had been struck by a Remington ball and the clip had been jammed
in. He handed it to an apprentice lad, named Venville, to be fixed.
The boy had scarcely begun to examine the gun, when a bullet struck
him in the fleshy part of the neck. He had never been under fire
before. Looking up calmly, he said, "Mr. Gilmore, I'm hit."
In a moment another bullet struck him in the chest and came out of
his arm pit. With his attention riveted on his task, he remarked,
"I'm hit again, Mr. Gilmore."
Only a moment later another ball grazed the side of his head and cut
a painful wound in his scalp. "Mr. Gilmore, they've hit me again,"
he muttered, while he kept on working at the gun, with blood running
down all over him.
In a few minutes a fourth ball passed through the lad's ankle, one of
the most painful parts of the body in which to get shot. This time,
with a slight tremble in his voice, he said, "Mr. Gilmore, I'm hit
once more; but I've fixed your gun, Sir."
Just at this moment the Filipinos saw that the Americans' fire had
practically ceased. Throwing back from off their trench the limbs and
underbrush that had concealed them, the Filipinos, armed with guns,
spears, bolos and clubs, made a bold dash for the boat and captured
the entire crew.
CHAPTER IX.
THE AMERICAN PRISONERS
Those of the Americans who were alive and able to help themselves
were ordered to go ashore on the sand bar, where the Filipinos robbed
them of their personal effects and then lined them up preparatory
to shooting them all down in a body. Gilmore, being an officer,
protested against having his hands tied. He claimed, according to
the accepted rules of warfare, that on account of his rank he had
a right to die honorably with his hands free. The Filipinos have
great superstitions about "rank" in military affairs. Marie knew the
significance of Gilmore's request; she respected it.
The Filipinos had loaded their rifles, cocked them, raised the same
to their shoulders, had taken aim, and Marie was about to give the
fatal command, "Fire!", when a shout from the bank stopped her and
for a moment engaged the attention of both the Americans and the
Filipinos. It came from a Filipino officer, running down to the
shore. He ordered them to stop. One second longer would have been
too late.
This Tagalo officer ordered the Americans to get back into their boat
and to row across to the opposite shore. After bailing the water out
of the boat and plugging up the holes in it made by the enemy's rifle
balls, they obeyed his command.
When they went ashore, Lieutenant Gilmore asked permission to bury
his dead comrades. This privilege was emphatically denied. What was
done with their bodies by the Filipinos is hard to tell, but in all
probability, as was customary with the natives, they cut them into
fragments and threw them away.
The ones who were mortally wounded, but who were still alive, were
placed under a tree by Gilmore and his comrades, and left to die. The
Lieutenant asked that a native doctor be summoned to give them aid,
but it was not done. What their fate was Eternity alone will reveal.
Gilmore and his comrades picked up the lesser wounded and carried
them, and together the whole procession was marched inland about a
mile to the Filipino Commandante's headquarters.
Here they were questioned at length. Gilmore asked permission to
write a note to the commander of the Yorktown telling him of their
fate. Permission was granted, but the note was never delivered. The
two scouts who went ashore, returned to the Yorktown in the afternoon
and reported that they had heard heavy firing up the river.
After waiting several days for news of some kind for them, and finally
concluding that they were either captured or killed, the crew of
the Yorktown, heavy-hearted over their failure and their sacrifice,
steamed back to Manila.
During the afternoon of the same day that the battle took place,
the American prisoners were ordered to march to an old bamboo church
in the northern outskirts of the little town of Baler, a mile and
a half farther on. By this time the wounded men were suffering
terribly. Little Venville's ankle had swollen badly. From his four
wounds he had bled so much that he had grown faint. Therefore, he
and several of the others had to be carried.
En route to their new destination, the Americans passed in sight of
the old stone church being used as a fortress by the Spanish garrison
whom they had originally set out to relieve. The Americans had gone
to the Philippines to fight the Spaniards. They were now sacrificing
their lives to save them.
At the bamboo church, an old Filipino with a kindly face and a manner
that elevated him above his fellow tribesmen, came in to see them. He
examined the wounded and then disappeared. Presently he returned with
some large leaves that resembled rhubarb, under his arm. Out of the
big stems of these native herbs he squeezed a milky secretion which he
permitted to drop into the gaping wounds of the Americans. The torture
of the wounded occasioned by this liquid was damnable. The men grew
deathly pale. They rolled and screamed and begged to be shot. But
it did not last long. In ten minutes the torture had ceased, the men
became quiet, the swelling around their wounds was gradually reduced,
and their temperatures soon lowered. The herb doctor evidently knew
his business.
The next day the Filipinos received orders from Aguinaldo, who,
with his appointed congress, was now at San Isidro, to march the
captured Americans to his headquarters. Accordingly, the trip
was undertaken. But the apprentice lad, Venville, was unable to
go along. Obeying the stubborn orders of the rapacious Filipinos
his comrades left him lying on the floor of the old rickety bamboo
church,--wounded--uncared for--suffering--hungry--thirsty--dying. A
year later the assistance of the entire naval organization in the
Philippines was given to the task of trying to ascertain from the
Filipinos in the neighborhood of Baler some information concerning
the lad's whereabouts or his burial place, but no trace of him,
dead or alive, could ever be found.
An aged mother, ill and bowed,
Keeps asking, "Where's my boy?"
But zephyrs from the Orient
Refuse to bring the joy.
Amid great privations the marching column crossed the mountains and
the fertile plains on the opposite side, to the city of San Isidro. It
was heralded in advance that the Americans were coming through the
country. Obeying their greatest national instinct--curiosity--the
natives assembled by thousands in the villages along the road. Every
one of them kept crowding forward to get to touch the Americans to see
what their skins felt like. Others were looking for the long feathers
in their hair, which they had heard so much about. It was all the
Filipino guards could do to restrain their own people. The latter,
like monkeys, jabbered incessantly. Gilmore's men hurled back at them
defiant epithets. They realized that involuntarily they had become
the chief actors in a new moving circus.
Again, when they reached San Isidro, a great throng of curious natives
had come to town to see them. These fellows were very hostile to the
Americans. It was all the native guard could do to keep the Filipinos
from doing violence to them. Gilmore was again questioned at length
and then he was separated from his comrades and all were hurried off
to jail.
In a few days it was rumored that the American army was approaching the
city. Aguinaldo and his associates hurriedly prepared to leave. Orders
were given to march the prisoners overland north and then westward
across another range of high mountains to Arancay, on the western
coast of Luzon,--a distance of 100 miles.
This time the crowd of prisoners was greatly increased. At San
Isidro there were added 600 Spaniards; a small tribe of mountain
Negritos whom Aguinaldo had originally sent to fight the Americans,
but who, being armed only with spears and bolos, soon got tired of
seeing their number decrease so rapidly before American riflemen,
and refused to fight, and who were later imprisoned and terribly
misused by Aguinaldo's selected guards; and eighteen Americans in
addition to Gilmore's party (total twenty-six Americans), who had
been captured in as many different ways around Manila by the crafty,
cunning Filipinos. Among them was Frank Stone, of the U. S. Signal
Corps, captured by some "amigos" (friendly natives) on the railroad
track near Manila, while out strolling one Sunday afternoon; Private
Curran, of the 16th U.S. Infantry who was grabbed within fifty feet
of his own outpost, gagged and dragged into captivity; also a civilian
who had gone to the Philippines to sell liquor.
This fellow was captured by the Filipinos in the outskirts of Manila
while he was searching for a small boatload of stolen beer. He was the
life of the expedition. He took his captivity as a joke, told stories
to keep the prisoners good natured, and painted on ever boulder that
he passed the seemingly sacrilegious words, "Drink Blank's beer on
the road to H----." It was, however, this harmless practice that later
on enabled the American relief party to follow the prisoners' trail.
After reaching the western shore of Luzon, the party was marched
northward along the beach, another 100 miles, to the city of
Vigan. Here they were imprisoned for three months longer. The sudden
presence of an American war-ship in the harbor, off Vigan, caused the
natives to abandon that city and start inland with their prisoners
for some mountain fastness. The Americans were separated from the
rest of the prisoners whom they never saw again.
High up in the mountains of northern Luzon, two of the American boys
were taken sick with fever and fell down, exhausted. The Filipino
lieutenant who had charge of the prisoners, ordered them to go on;
they could not. He threatened to shoot them. Gilmore interceded for
them without avail. The Americans refused to leave their Anglo-Saxon
comrades and prepared to fight. At this moment the Filipino officer
himself was suddenly taken ill, and by the time he was able to advance,
the sick Americans were able to go along.
A few days later they struggled over the crest of the divide and came
upon the headwaters of a beautiful mountain torrent dancing down the
rocky ledges in its onward course to the sea. At a widened place in
the canon, the Filipinos withdrew from the Americans, and with guns
in hand took their positions on the rocks round-about and above them.
"Prepare to die," said Gilmore to his companions; "they are going to
shoot us." Calling the Filipino lieutenant to his side Gilmore asked
him why he did not shoot them on the opposite side of the mountains,
and not have made them make all of that hard climb for nothing.
The native officer said in reply: "My orders were to shoot all of
you when I got you up in the mountains, where, in all probability,
your bodies would be destroyed by wild animals and no trace of them
ever be found by your countrymen; but a few nights ago when you showed
me that crucifix tattooed on your chest while you were a midshipman
in America, I decided not to carry out my order, but to let you all
go free. I may be punished for disobedience of orders; but we are
both bound together by the great Catholic church, and my conscience
forbids that I should kill you."
Gilmore replied: "You might as well shoot us as to set us free away
up here in the mountains in our weakened condition with nothing to
defend ourselves with against the savages whose territory we will have
to cross in order to get to the sea. Can't you spare us at least two
rifles and some ammunition? If you will do this, I will give you a
letter which, should you fall into the hands of the Americans, will
make you safe and bring you ample reward."
The Filipino looked meditatingly at the ground for several moments,
then he calmly said, "I shall not dare to do it. An American relief
party, seeking your liberation, is close on our heels. They will
protect and care for you. Goodby!"
Gilmore did not believe him.
Under cover of the night the Filipinos disappeared. In the morning,
after nine long, tedious months of captivity resulting from Marie
Sampalit's depredations,--sick, nearly starved, practically nude, with
nothing but two battle axes and a bolo for both weapons of defense
and for tools--the Americans at last found themselves free men in
the wilds of northern Luzon, with positive death left behind, and
with possible life and all of its happy associations still before them.
Their first day of liberty was spent in preparing bamboo rafts on
which to float down the tortuous, winding river to the sea. The next
night they all slept well; and on the following morning, just after
they had gotten up and begun to saunter around, everybody present was
suddenly shocked by the shrill yell of a strong American voice. They
all looked up, and while their hearts for a moment seemingly stopped
beating and fairly rose in their throats, the liberated prisoners
beheld the blue shirts and khaki trousers of Colonel Hare's rescue
party that for several weeks had been on their trail.
What rejoicing! The bony, ill-clad prisoners fell on the strong bosoms
of their rescuers and wept.
Colonel Hare's father, Judge Hare, of Washington, D.C., knew Gilmore
personally. He had seen the military reports of his captivity among
the natives. When his son bade him goodby as he started for the
Philippines, Judge Hare said, "My boy, God bless you; find Gilmore
and bring him home!" Colonel Hare had remained true to his trust.
The party could not retrace their steps over the mountains, owing to
the weakened condition of the prisoners and the lack of food. Their
only chance for self-preservation and a possible return to civilization
lay in carrying out Gilmore's designs to build bamboo rafts and float
down the river to the sea. This was done. In going over rapids and
water-falls, many rafts were destroyed and new ones had to be built.
Two of the boys got the measles. The raft on which one of them,
Private Day, was being transported, got smashed on the rocks and he
was thrown into the water. He took cold and died the next day. His
comrades took his body with them and did not bury it until they finally
reached the little town of Ambulug, at the mouth of the stream they
had been following, on the northern coast of Luzon. There, amid a
simple but impressive ceremony, it was buried in the church-yard of
the cathedral to await the resurrection morn.
At Ambulug the Americans secured ox-carts drawn by caribous and drove
along the beach to the city of Aparri, at the mouth of the Cagayan
river. Here they were met by a detachment of American Marines who
took them aboard a war-ship, lying out to sea, which carried them
around the northwest promontory of Luzon to the city of Vigan on the
western coast, at which place they had been imprisoned for so long.
Here they met General Young who shook hands with each of them;
congratulated the rescued and complimented the rescuers.
CHAPTER X.
DEATH OF GENERAL LAWTON.
After the battle of Baler, Marie and a few native soldiers hastened
westward in advance of the prisoners, to San Isidro to notify Aguinaldo
who had moved his headquarters to that place, that the Americans were
advancing northward in great numbers and that nothing could impede
their progress. This information had previously been conveyed to the
Filipino general from other sources, so that Marie found him in his
so-called congress packed up and ready to move,--a thing they were
forced to do a few days after the American prisoners arrived. She
accompanied them for several long, tedious months, acting as cook for
the expedition and serving in other capacities--none of them seeming
to her to be ample reward for all she had done.
Early in the coming fall, Marie, tired of Aguinaldo's game of
hide-and-go-seek, and anxious to find out about her mother and to get
into more fighting, if there be a chance, made her way back to Manila.
But her conscience bothered her. She remembered that broken oath and
many other acts of wanton treachery that would shock the civilized
world. She feared that her own life would soon be sought either by
the Americans or by the Filipinos. Accordingly she suggested to her
mother that they again go to her aunt's in the little town of Angono
at the north end of Lake Laguna de Bay, where she had left her mother
stationed when last they had parted. Her mother, growing old and
nervous through accumulated years, past grievances, hard work and the
strain of the present conflict, favored the plan; and so they departed
on December 2nd, taking the same road over McLeod's Hill and on down
over the Santa Mesa bridge that they had traveled on February 4th.
Before leaving Manila she learned through the private Filipino Junta
which was secretly assisting in the war by accumulating funds for
its prosecution and by distributing among the native troops the
inflammatory literature which was being promiscuously sent out by
the people in the United States who opposed the war, that a secret
reward of $10,000. had been offered for the death of General Lawton.
About the middle of December, 1899, the General had returned to
Manila from another telling campaign northward, when he learned that
the Filipinos were assembling in large numbers under one of their
fearless leaders, General Geronemo, on the San Mateo river, but a
few miles out of Manila, for the purpose of making one more attempt
to break through the American lines guarding that city.
On December 17, Marie heard that another attack was to be made on
Manila, so she left her mother at Angono and made her way to the
Filipinos' camp along the San Mateo river, only a few miles south of
where she had crossed it at the rapids the morning after she had been
liberated under oath by Major Allison.
The next day, she was in secret consultation with Geronemo, and she
disclosed to him all the information she had concerning the defenses
of Manila.
That evening, Filipino scouts, dressed in female attire, brought to
General Geronemo the news that the Americans, under General Lawton,
who was supposed to be away up in the northern part of Luzon, had
anticipated his movements and were assembling in the woods on the
opposite side of the valley in large numbers, possibly for a night
attack.
Marie told Geronemo what she had learned while in Manila concerning
the reward that had been secretly offered for the killing of General
Lawton. He knew all about it and confirmed the offer. She told him all
about her training as a marksman with the Spanish on Corregidor island
and of her subsequent experience, and said she knew General Lawton
well; that she could single him out, and in case he led his troops,
as he usually did in battle, she was sure she could capture the prize.
A place of unusual safety and concealment was selected along the
Filipinos' lines, directly in front of the center of the probable point
of attack by the Americans, for Marie, and for a Filipino lieutenant
and a corporal, both of whom were also good shots.
Geronemo had instructed them that Marie was to have the first three
shots at the general, in case he appeared on the scene of battle. If
she failed to hit him, the lieutenant was then to try it. After he
had taken three shots, if he, too, failed, the corporal was to be
given a chance.
The next morning, December 19, the American line of battle came out
of the woods on the opposite side of the valley, ready to charge on
the Filipinos' position. The morning was bright and clear, so that
General Lawton, with his tall figure, resplendent uniform and large
white helmet, could easily be discerned by the entire Filipino command.
"I'll fix him," whispered Marie, "just wait till the firing begins,
so that I can shoot without attracting attention to our position."
In a moment, the Filipinos opened fire on the Americans all along
the line. The latter sought cover. General Lawton remained erect. He
made an ideal target. Marie took careful aim. "Bang!" went her rifle,
and at that very moment this peerless leader of men, this hero of
several wars, was shot through the heart and fell dead in the arms
of his aide. His only words were, "I'm shot."
"See that! What did I tell you?" snapped out Marie, "I told you I'd
get him! Now for my dinero." (money).
The Americans were so angered because of the sudden death of their
beloved commander that they made a mad rush forward, without orders,
and swept the Filipino army from the field.
Marie returned to Manila where she claimed the reward for having shot
the general. The lieutenant who was with her claimed that he did it,
and by promising half of the bounty to the corporal for swearing to
the lie, he proved it. Meager reports of the affair state that only
$7000 of the money was actually paid over. Like Aguinaldo who crept
into a cave northwest of Manila and sold out his country during the
insurrection of 1896, and then could not collect his fee, so Marie,
too, found herself deprived of the compensation for her bloody deed.
CHAPTER XI.
NORTH-BOUND
The controversy over the distribution of the fund in Manila for the
death in any form of General Lawton permitted the unholy scheme to
simmer its way into publicity. The United States authorities employed
secret detectives to investigate the matter and if possible to locate
the persons who claimed to be responsible for the act. Marie soon
found herself under surveillance and she quickly left the city.
Making her way north on horse back along the same route she had taken
when on her way to Baler about a year before, she came to the city
of San Miguel where one of the hardest battles of the war had been
fought. The troops engaged in this fight had become so disorganized
that all formation by regiments, companies, etc., had been broken
up. Unfortunately, one of the Americans' dead privates could not be
identified. He was buried where he fell, and a board tombstone was
placed at the head of his grave, on which was carved this lonely word,
"UNKNOWN".
As Marie passed over the old field, she saw this grave and read the
solemn word on its headstone. "Alas!" she muttered, "I wonder if the
same sad fate will some day overtake me."
The body of this "unknown" soldier was exhumed by the government a few
months later and brought back to the United States for burial. Upon
its arrival the following pathetic poem appeared in "Leslie's Weekly";
JUST AN "UNKNOWN"
After the fight was over,
They found him stark and dead,
Where all the bamboo thicket
Was splashed and stained and red.
No name was missed at roll call,
Not one among them knew
The slender, boyish figure
Arrayed in army blue.
Among our fallen soldiers
They brought him o'er the deep,
And with the nation's heroes
They laid him down to sleep.
A starry flag above him,
And on the simple stone
That marked his final bivouac,
The single word, "Unknown."
Perchance a mother watches,
Her eyes with weeping dim,
Or sweetheart waits the postman
In vain for news of him.
While snow of winter freezes,
And April violets thrust
Sweet blossoms through the grasses
Above his nameless dust.
But when the last great trumpet
Shall sound the reveille,
And all the blue battalions
March up from land and sea,
He shall awake to glory--
Who sleeps unknown to fame,
And with Columbia's bravest
Will answer to his name.
Her personal safety demanded that she continue her journey northward,
without delay; also her inclination to rejoin Aguinaldo and his
troops--although his exact whereabouts were unknown--invited her in
this direction.
At San Isidro, from which place Aguinaldo had been driven, she
saw some American soldiers administering the water cure to some
Filipinos in order to make them reveal the whereabouts of their wily
general. Marie was angry. She yearned to shoot, but she was no longer
on the aggressive; she was now a fugitive from justice. At this
place she inspected the old Filipino prison and on its walls found
the names of Gilmore and his party, whom she had helped to capture at
Baler, who had been imprisoned there, and who were still alive when
Aguinaldo was driven from the city of San Isidro by the approach of
the Americans. She determined to take her revenge on them for this
water cure punishment, if she ever found them. But the opportunity
never came. So journeying on toward the northern part of Luzon she had
many experiences, and she came in contact with tribes whom she had
never seen before and whose dialect was foreign to her. Many things
combined to retard her progress. Often she grew very weary and would
have turned back, except for fear.
Following up the valley of the Pampanga river and thence on northward
along the Barat, she passed through the province of Nueva Ecija,
crossed the Caraballo mountains which form its northern boundary,
and then entered the province of Nueva Vizcaya, where she came upon
the head-waters of the Rio Magat river.
In crossing the Caraballo mountains she made her way through a deep
gorge at night. It was now about the middle of February. A full moon
shone at its best. The weather was ideal. Journeying was abnormally
pleasant. Under favorable conditions, during times of peace, the trip
she was taking would have been a delightful outing. Just now things
were different. Small garrisons of American soldiers had crowded
forward and were occupying the largest cities along her route. As yet
she had not gotten beyond them. "A guilty conscience needs no accuser";
everywhere that she went she imagined herself to be under suspicion.
Far up in the Caraballos she came across a little mountain torrent
which leaped down over the mountain side from one rocky ledge to
another at quite regular intervals in a series of waterfalls until it
beat itself into a turbulent spray in the bed of the chasm below. The
laughing moon filtered its beaming rays through the thin sheet of
shimmering water as it danced down its course from precipice to
precipice, and seemingly converted it into a great silvery stair-way
connecting earth with heaven. Marie's heart throbbed with emotion. The
dashing of the falling water on the rocks below in the bed of the canon
made a hollow sound as its echoes reverberated through the gorge above.
A half mile farther up, the valley widened somewhat; and finding here
some grass for her pony to forage on, she stopped for the night. The
flimsy saddle was removed from her horse and converted into a crude
pillow, in true cowboy style. Marie was uneasy. This was the first
night in all her adventures that she had been absolutely alone,
separated from both friends and foes, with no house to shelter her
weary head, with the cloudless canopy of the silent heavens arched
above her, the silvery moonbeams dancing in her face, and with
no voice, save the echoes of her own, to answer back the whispers
of night.
It is often only in such a silent nook as this, with no one present
but God and self, that humanity asserts itself and the tenderest
portions of the human soul become paramount and give rise to
sacred thoughts. Even the savage cannot escape it, for he, too,
feels his responsibility to something outside of self. No doubt the
self-conscious criminal would be the most susceptible to it.
What a night for Marie! Solitude gave rise to fear; fear, to conscious
criminality; a sense of wrong-doing, to grief. Would morning never
come? Every time she fell into a doze her sleep was disturbed by dreams
of the past. Recollections of her dying benefactor in the woods by
the San Mateo river, of Gilmore's comrades bleeding by his side, and
of Lawton in the arms of his aide, filled her soul with remorse and
suggested to her with an unspeakable vividness that in all probability
she would pay the penalty on both sides of the grave. Awakening from
one awful dream, she would, after listening to the stillness of the
night for a time, lapse into another. Again she would suddenly awake
and begin to fumble her rosary and repeat selections from a Catholic
prayer book. Would she dare to turn back? Behind her was certain death;
before her, the possibility of life. She resolved to go on.
The night whiled away. Her pony ate his fill and lay down to
rest. Beaded dew drops collected themselves in close proximity upon
the grasses and foliage about her feet. The cool mountain air from
without and fear from within caused her to shiver a great deal. Day
finally came; Marie rode on.
Following the Magat river she finally reached the city of Bayombong
with a population of 20,000 people. Here she learned from the natives
that Aguinaldo and a loyal remnant of his appointed congress had
passed through the city ahead of her, en route northward.
At Bayombong she was advised to follow down the Magat river for
twenty miles, then to bear to the northeast along the pathway made by
Aguinaldo and his followers in their recent retreat. This she did,
crossing another range of mountains near Fort Del Pilar, which had
been erected by the Filipinos to circumvent as well as to prevent the
progress of the Americans, should they attempt to follow them. On
the farther side of this slope she came upon the headwaters of the
Rio Grande de Cagayan river, which she followed on to the north for
several weeks, enjoying the hospitality of the natives along the
course, until at last she came upon the beautiful city of Ilagan at
the confluence of the Cagayan and Pinacanalan rivers.
It was now late in April. Marie was tired and needed rest. At Ilagan
she was cordially received by the curious natives who were eager to
learn some news concerning the war which was being conducted several
hundred miles further south. Marie grew cheerful. There were no
Americans in the city, and nobody knew of any within the valley. She
felt that at last she had successfully eluded her supposed pursuers and
that she was safe. Ilagan is the capital of Isabella province. It has
a population of approximately 60,000 people. Marie's natural ability,
information gathered in the school of experience, knowledge of the
details of the war, and her willingness to talk (quite a number at
Ilagan could speak Spanish) made of her a sort of responsive idol
for the entire populace.
CHAPTER XII.
CROSSING THE SIERRA MADRES.
She remained at Ilagan until the middle of June, when it began to be
rumored that the Americans were preparing to invade the Cagayan valley,
not only soldiers from the south but with the "mosquito fleet" coming
up the river from its mouth at the extreme northern end of the island
of Luzon. Nobody in the city seemed to know just where Aguinaldo had
gone. Part of his advance guard had arrived in the city some three
months before, but he had not come, and his soldiers had soon departed
for the southeast, following the valley of the Pinacanalan river.
Tired of her surroundings and impatient to join Aguinaldo, Marie
departed by the same route that his soldiers had taken. From an
old native living all alone in a bamboo shack on the bank of the Rio
Masagan river, which empties into the Pinacanalan about eighteen miles
southeast of Ilagan, she learned that Aguinaldo and his troops had
started up the valley of the Masagan. This stream rises high up near
the summit of the Sierra Madre mountains which parallel the eastern
coast of northern Luzon for nearly five hundred miles, and are inland
from the coast from ten to thirty miles.
Marie had with her three trusted natives from Ilagan. She did not want
to spend another night alone in the mountains. After proceeding up
the Masagan for thirty-five miles to a place where its valley narrows
itself to a gorge, its bed was so strewn with huge boulders that it
became impossible to travel any longer on horseback; therefore, one
of the natives was sent back with the horses, and Marie and the two
others continued the ascent on foot, taking with them such equipment
and provisions as they could conveniently carry.
After many hardships they succeeded in crossing the range in safety
and soon found themselves descending the other side. A Filipino
scouting party was met at the evening of the first day's tramp down
the Pacific slope. They were well supplied with food--thing Marie and
her companions greatly needed. From them it was learned that Aguinaldo
and his body guard and quite a complement of Filipino soldiers were
secreted at the little town of Palanan on a small stream by the same
name, about ten miles back from the coast and lying directly east
of them on the journey which they were pursuing. This party escorted
them to Filipino headquarters, which they reached July 10, 1900.
Marie was cordially welcomed by Aguinaldo, who restored her to a
position on his staff and secured from her the identical information
which he desired relative to the movement of the American troops, and
the very information, strange to say, which led to his own discovery
and capture by General Funston of the American forces in March of
the following year.
Aguinaldo learned from Marie that from the Filipinos' standpoint, the
war around Manila had been a dismal failure. He decided, therefore,
to send one of his trusted generals south by practically the same
route over which Marie had come, with information to the Filipino
troops east and south of Manila to move all their available forces
north with the quickest possible despatch and to place them under his
immediate command so that he might not only render himself immune from
capture, but take the initiative and oppose the American campaign in
the valley of the Cagayan river.
In December, 1900, about three months before his capture by General
Funston, Aguinaldo, having learned that the Americans were making their
way in great numbers into the valley of the Cagayan, asked Marie to
take up duty as a spy again; to recross the Sierra Madre mountains;
visit the American lines; ascertain their number of soldiers on duty
in the valley on the opposite side of the mountains and then to bring
this information to him, so that when reinforcements should arrive
he would know better how to undertake the campaign.
To this, Marie willingly assented, but she insisted that she could
not make the trip alone over the rugged Sierra Madre mountains;
that she had nearly famished crossing them the first time. Aguinaldo
therefor fitted out a little expedition consisting of eight Filipinos,
in addition to Marie, and a pack-train of fourteen ponies to accompany
her over the divide. Nine of the animals were for riding purposes;
the other five were to pack the supplies,--three of them for the
outward trip, two for the incoming. In addition to the rice which
they took along, they were instructed to forage as much as possible.
On December 9, the party started out on their perilous undertaking. A
point far up on the mountain slope, near a refreshing mineral spring,
having been reached on December 17, the party halted and established
a sub-base for their return trip. It was evident to them that they
had struck the wrong trail and were going to be compelled to send
Marie back through a different gorge from the one by which she and
her associates had come over a few months before.
Here the party divided into two relays--one to accompany Marie close
to the top of the mountains, the other to remain where it was until
her guides returned. At this temporary base three Filipinos and two
pack-horses were left. The Filipinos thus left behind were instructed
to hunt and trap all they could till their comrades returned.
The on-going squad, consisting of Marie and five native soldiers, took
with them their six riding ponies and three of the pack-horses. They
departed from their comrades early in the morning, December 18. By
night of the second day they had gotten so near the crest they could
plainly discern that in one long march Marie could cross the divide
and get a safe distance down the slope on the opposite side. Coming to
an old stone church they dismounted and established themselves for the
night. It was December 19,--the anniversary of Lawton's death. Marie
remarked about it.
This old church had partly fallen down. Vines and mosses had so
interlaced themselves in climbing over its rocky walls and across its
openings that they had to be cut away by the unwelcome intruders before
they could gain an entrance. The stone cross on the front gable was
still in place; but the old mahogany door had long since been torn
from its hinges by the mountain storms, and it lay in a state of
decay on the ground. An earthquake had destroyed part of the roof,
and had caused the west wall to become inclined and to crumble.
Within, one end of the old altar was still found to be intact. The
priest's pulpit chair had become ivy-mantled, and one handle had rotted
from its fastenings and had fallen to the floor. Statues of the Saints
had pitched from their moorings in the alcoves along the walls and were
lying face-downward or standing on their heads amid the debris below.
What hands had built this old church, none could tell. It seemed
certain that no human being had entered it for over a century. The
mountain tribes who had lifted into place the huge chalk stones
that composed its massive walls, under the devout leadership of some
pious monk, for a place of worship, had long since perished from the
earth. The mountain game which rendered possible their habitation in
this altitude had vanished. Everything and everybody had evidently
given way before some fierce invasion of one of their southern tribes.
Marie was busy cleaning off the trash from the massive rock that lay
at the entrance to the door-way. "1765," said she; "come, see the
date chiseled in the rock! I wonder what has become of the tribe that
built it?"
A soldier who had made his entrance by one of the window openings,
was busily engaged in prying up a huge flat stone just back of the
altar. He had it loosened; he called for help to remove it. When the
stone had been overturned and had fallen back onto its aged neighbors,
some soft damp earth beneath it was slowly scraped away.
"Listen!" said the native who on bended knees was doing the
sacrilegious work, "Did you hear that grating noise?"
He scraped again with his bolo turned edgewise, and gripping the back
of it firmly with both hands. "Do you hear it?" said he. "It's here!"
In a few minutes a metallic box was pried out of the earth wherein
it had lain unmolested for many years.
"Can you read the inscription on it?" asked Marie.
Carefully the sediment and rust shales were removed. The grooves in
the letters and figures of the inscription were carefully cleaned
out with a knife. It read
FATHER
JUADANEZ
1768.
"The old father has been dead a long time," said the fellow who was
doing the details of the work.
"I wonder," said Marie, "if we really ought to disturb his bones."
"Do you suppose they put any valuables in the little chest when they
sealed it up?" asked another.
"It has always been customary to put in the sacred urn," said Marie.
"Cut it open!" commanded a corporal.
"I can't," said the robber; "we'll have to build a fire and melt
it open."
This they did; and in it they found the dust of his bones and a number
of valuables including the Patricia's gold-lined cup which Marie took
and hung on her belt.
That night a terrible storm swept over the mountains. Marie and her
companions crept into the old church for refuge. The ponies had been
given some rice and then set free to forage as best they could. They
were stampeded by the violence of the wind and rain.
The morning broke cool and clear. Everybody was astir at day-break. The
ponies were gone, but plenty of rice remained. Marie soon saw a way
out of the difficulty. She left three of her men at the old church to
await the return of the two who were to accompany her until she reached
some plan for speedy descent on the opposite side of the mountains.
The advance party started out early on foot, taking with them such
a supply of rice and bananas as they could carry. Only three miles
farther up they entered a canon whose rocky walls, at places almost
perpendicular and seeming to form pillars for the sky, were so close
together at their base that it would have been impossible to have used
the ponies for travel, even though they had not retreated in the storm.
Good progress was made, and by sun-down, December 20, they had reached
the upper rivulets of what afterwards proved to be the north fork of
the Rio Masagan, instead of the south fork which she had previously
followed. The beautiful valleys below them were plainly visible as
the sun sank to rest over the distant hills. A small native village
could be seen on the bank of the stream a few miles ahead. The party
bivouacked for the night.
Early the next morning, after a light lunch of cold rice, Marie was
off on her important mission.
Her two escorts made their way back to the old church, where after
another night's rest, the five undertook their return journey to
the sub-base at the spring far down the mountain side. When they
reached this camp they found their ponies all returned to it; and
their comrades, thinking they had all been captured or slain by the
Americans, were hastily preparing to retreat. The entire party, except
Marie, got back to Aguinaldo's camp at Palanan, on Christmas Day.
Marie, was therefore, left to arrange for her own return, after her
spy work had been completed. She contemplated securing help from
the natives at Ilagan, among whom she had previously lived for a
few months.
CHAPTER XIII.
COMPENSATION
On the evening of December 24, 1900,--one of those dark nights in
the Philippines when the air seems so dense that you can almost
take hold of it with your hands--when the heavy clouds blanket the
earth so closely that the terrible thunders seem to shake the earth
in its orbit, with the deep-toned diapason of their melody--when
the lightening bugs flutter from twig to twig, revealing their
lanterned wings--when the human heart beats with a conscious thump
in anticipation of something awful--when those who are out alone
whistle to give themselves courage--when the zigzag openings rent
through the clouds by the vicious lightning flashes almost reveal
Eternity;--Christmas Eve, that sacred occasion which we all celebrate
and shall continue to celebrate till the end of time, to commemorate
the birth of our Christ,--a sharp-eyed, dare-devil Filipino crept
slowly out of the city of Ilagan along a foot-path toward the
Americans' camp about a mile north of that city.
When so near to the Americans that their out-posts were plainly visible
during the flashes of lightning, the Filipino spy crept into a bamboo
thicket not over fifty feet from an American sentry. After lying there
for a half hour, waiting for the storm to come, the native grew a
trifle bolder and arose to his knees. That moment the sharp eyes of
the sentry caught him.
"Corporal of the Guard!" called the sentry in a loud voice.
The corporal, being suspicious that something unusual was taking place,
in responding to the call took with him two armed privates.
Approaching the sentry, with light steps and in a crouching attitude,
the corporal said in a heavy whisper, "What's the matter, Jack?"
The sentry was standing with gun in hand, loaded, cocked, and with
bayonet fixed. Keeping his eye centered on the exact spot where he had
last seen the slowly gravitating figure before him, the guard said
in an undertone that denoted grave alarm, "Do you see that thicket
just to the left of that big mango tree?"
"Yes;" said the corporal in a whisper, "What's the trouble?"
"There's a man in there," said the sentry. "I saw him quite plainly at
first--and I think he's got a gun in his hand. You better watch out,
boys. He's still there."
The corporal and the two privates fixed the bayonets on their
Krag-Jorgensons, filled the magazines, slipped a shell into the
barrel of each rifle, cocked them, crouched close to the ground,
some ten feet apart, and began to move forward, a step at a time,
between the flashes of lightening. Each time it would flash, they
would peer into the thicket. Each step brought them nearer.
"There he lies!," said one of the privates in a quick out-spoken voice.
"Amigo," (a friend) said the stretched-out form, as three guns were
raised in unison with the anxious muzzles pointing directly at him.
"Este no quere combate" (you don't desire to fight), said the corporal,
in crude Spanish.
"Mucho amigo" (very friendly), came the reply.
"Vamose aque!" (come here), commanded the corporal.
With his eyes fixed in theirs, the Filipino raised himself slowly up
and came toward the three Americans who stood but twelve feet away.
"Take him by the arms," said the corporal to the two privates who were
with him, "while I look behind that rice-dyke to see if he had a gun."
"Here's what the rascal was up to," said the corporal, holding a
Mauser above his head. "Good thing you saw him when you did, Jack."
The storm was coming nearer; the first gust of wind had just struck
them. It blew back the Filipino's little checkered frock. The corporal
saw a glitter.
"Watch out! boys, he's got a machete under his coat," said the
corporal.
He was searched for more weapons and then marched inside the American
lines and taken directly to headquarters. A drum-head court was
convened at once and the prisoner led in.
With hands clinched, muscles taut, eyes piercing at the court, he
listened to the reading of the charge:
"Caught acting as a spy for the enemy in violation of the Articles
of War; armed, with intent to take the life of an American sentry
on guard!"
After the testimony had been taken, the prisoner was given a chance
to speak, but he absolutely refused to do so, even though addressed
in several different languages and dialects.
"He spoke Spanish to us as we captured him," interjected the corporal.
"GUILTY!"
said the lieutenant-colonel who was presiding, in a firm military
tone. "The court fixes the penalty at death, and sentences the prisoner
to be shot at sun-rise."
"Remove him, Sergeant, and detail a firing squad to execute the order
of the court!"
As the prisoner was led away, the lieutenant-colonel dropped his
chin in the palms of his hands as he rested his elbows on his knees,
and muttered in a semi-regretful way: "I hate to do it; but in the
past we have always been so chicken-hearted about punishing these
blood-thirsty natives that they have now come to regard our kindness
as cowardice. I can't help but feel that it will bring the war to a
close quicker if we deal with them hereafter with a good firm hand."
"I wonder what province the young fellow came from," said a major
who was sitting near.
"I really don't know," replied the lieutenant-colonel: "his face shows
him to be a Tagalo. Certain it is that he didn't come from Isabella
province in which we are now campaigning. I wouldn't be surprised if
Aguinaldo were near here and if he had sent this young dare-devil to
cut down our sentry, so as to make an attack upon us tonight during
the storm."
Toward morning the storm subsided. At day-break a comparatively shallow
grave was hastily dug near the edge of a little bamboo thicket on
a slightly elevated piece of ground. As the flickering rays of the
tropical sun began to shoot above the pale, ashen-gray hue of the
eastern horizon, the prisoner was led to the foot of his prospective
tomb. The firing squad took its place in line.
The guns had been carefully loaded in advance for their deadly work;
all but one contained blank cartridges. As usual, after loading, the
guns were intermixed, so that no man might know which one contained
the deadly bullet.
"Ready!" commanded the sergeant who had charge of the squad,--the
corporal having taken his usual place in line with his men.
"Click," went the hammers of the rifles in unison, as they were
brought to a full cock.
"Aim!" came the next command in a firmer tone. The soldiers brought
their rifles to their shoulders. Every barrel was pointed at the
chest of the prisoner, who now for the first time, began to tremble
and turn a sickly yellow.
"Fire!" commanded the sergeant.
"Bang!" went the united roar of the guns; and as the light powder smoke
cleared away and the echoes reverberated through the woods of northern
Luzon, the firing squad stepped forward to view their heroic dead.
A private jumped into the grave and turned the corpse over onto
its back.
That night Frank W. Pugh, of the regular army, a member of this
unfortunate firing squad, who died later at Fort Worth, Texas, of
fever contracted in the Philippines, sitting in his little dog-tent,
meditating, wrote in his diary, which is now preserved in the archives
at Washington with other relics of the war, the following appropriate
poem:
A CHRISTMAS COURT-MARTIAL
"The night was dark and threatening rain,
No stars were in the sky;
We caught him hiding in the pines--
A Filipino spy.
A slender youth with coal black eyes,
Brim full of frightened tears;
We turned him over to the guard,
I fear with callous jeers.
Next morning it was Christmas day,
The sun was shining hot,
A drum-head court had said, "The spy,
Is sentenced to be shot."
Erect before the officers,
He still disdained to speak,
Although a single crystal drop,
Empearled his olive cheek.
Upon a long and hurried march,
In light array, you see,
We could not take the boy along,
So stood him near a tree;
Told off the little firing squad,
And ordered it in line.
One gun was loaded in the lot--
I hope it was not mine.
Birds in the branches overhead
Sang softly in the heat.
The grave, a trench of steaming sand,
Gaped yellow at his feet;
He faced us with a dauntless air,
Although his lips were white;--
Our grim old Sergeant turned away,
He could not stand the sight.
A flash, a roar, a cloud of smoke,
And headlong to the ground
He fell face downward in the grave,
And died without a sound.
We turned him over on his back,
And DEATH the TRUTH confessed,
For through his open jacket peeped
A Woman's tender breast."
Marie Sampalit had earned her doom. After her grave had been filled,
the soldier boys placed at its head a cartridge-box lid on which they
inscribed the pitiful word,
"UNKNOWN."
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